Not far from Shrewsbury is its Battlefield Enterprise
Park, where Shakespeare Comic Books are warehoused and distributed. And not far
from Battlefield Enterprise Park are a few pleasantly undulating but
nondescript fields dotted with woodland. Six hundred years ago this was the
site of one of the bloodiest battles fought on English soil.
The Battle of Shrewsbury took place in a field of peas on
July 21, 1403. It saw Henry IV defeat a rebel army led by Harry Hotspur and
thus helped secure his monarchy - viewed by many as a usurpation following
Richard II’s overthrow and possible murder. It also closes Henry IV Part 1, having shown Hal move from dissipated companion of
whores and drunks to heroic prince.
The play depicts a kingdom in turmoil in which the disorderliness
represented by Hal’s fat friend, Falstaff, reflects a more dangerous political
instability. For while Henry IV is threatened by numerous insurrections,
Falstaff is in rebellion against any kind of order. He is supreme Lord of
Misrule; drunken, lecherous, false, cowardly and greedy, yet full of wit, charm
and gusto. As such he is the counterpart to Henry’s constrained and inflexible
character.
Henry probably wasn’t the man you needed if you were after a roistering
night out, but in fairness he had other things on his mind. Having previously
fought against both the Welsh and Scots on his king’s behalf, Hotspur had
turned against Henry and allied himself with both Owen Glendower and Archibald
Douglas. These plots and manoeuvrings are in part mirrored by Hal’s scheme to
expose Falstaff’s blustering falsehoods with the attack at Gadshill. The play
is thus both history and comedy, culminating with the Battle of Shrewsbury, but
the depiction of it is sketchy and disposed of in only a few hundred lines.
This isn’t too surprising. Even a stage crowded with extras could never
replicate full scale conflict. Instead it is represented by a series of combat
encounters between Blunt and Douglas, Douglas and the King, Prince Hal and
Hotspur and flurries of conversation between Douglas and Hotspur, the King and
Hal amongst others, all building a sense of the speed and movement of battle –
though any sense of chivalrous enterprise undercut by Falstaff’s cowardice and
comic subterfuge.
As in the play, the actual battle was preceded by a parley between the
two camps and fighting didn’t begin until around 4pm. When it finally
commenced, it did so with volleys of arrows fired from either side – the Battle
of Shrewsbury the first in which both armies were equipped with English longbow
men. Tens of thousands of arrows would have twanged into the air within minutes
and huge numbers of men killed even before they had entered the fray.
Medieval clashes tended to be intensely brutal but short in duration
since fighting in full armour on a hot day was simply too exhausting. Four
hours after it had begun, the battle was over. It was decided by the death of
Hotspur, shot in the head by an arrow. For while Shakespeare was following
historical sources in portraying the fight between Scottish rebel Douglas and
Sir Walter Blount, who was carrying the royal standard, there was no recorded
duel between the two Harrys.
It’s easy to see why Shakespeare should have paired them together,
since just as Henry IV and Falstaff represent Hal’s opposing father figures,
the two Harrys stand as opposites throughout the play – not least in Henry’s
estimation. While he sees Hotspur as the ‘very straightest plant’ and
‘Fortune’s minion and her pride’ he considers his son stained with ‘riot and
dishonour’ and hopes it could be proved ‘That some night-tripping fairy had
exchanged/In cradle-clothes our children where they lay.’
In the play the Good Harry becomes Bad Harry while the old Bad Harry
kills the new Bad Harry, so becoming the new Good Harry. Literature can do this
sort of thing. In real life there was more than a twenty year age gap between
them, Hal only sixteen in 1403 while Hotspur was a veteran of wars against the
French, Scots, Irish and Welsh.
There was, though, a grimmer symmetry since both Harrys were struck
down by arrows at Shrewsbury. In Hal’s case, the teenager was hit in the cheek
and since the barbed tip meant it could not be simply withdrawn, desperate
measures were needed. This involved a metal tube being inserted six inches into
the wound around the arrow head, which could then be pulled out without tearing
the flesh. The injured area was afterwards bathed with white wine and dressed
by the Physician General with a mixture of honey, barley, flour and flax
fibres. Harry survived, though horribly scarred.
It is not entirely co-incidence that both Harry’s were shot in the
head, as knights were occasionally obliged to lift their visors to refresh
themselves. Encased in full armour weighing up to sixty pounds after several
hours of fighting on a hot day, the occupant must have been sweltering. Yet
removing the helmet or lifting its visor would have exposed them to extreme
danger and it is said archers positioned in trees were trained to take
advantage of such vulnerability – though even randomly fired arrows would have
been a threat.
The problems of armour on a hot day were alluded to by Prince Harry in Henry IV Part II when he is at his dying
father’s bedside. Contemplating the two-sided nature of kingship, he says that
majesty is like ‘a rich armour worn in heat of day/That scalds with safety’.
The image is typical Shakespeare – brilliantly observed, concise, vivid and yet
almost casual -‘Scalds with safety’ an extraordinary reminder that wearing a
suit of metal in the height of summer may have been a form of torture, however also
protecting.
Although at about 12,000 men, Hotspur’s army was slightly smaller than
Henry’s of 14,000 it appeared to be winning at the time of his death. Once it
became known that the rebel leader had been killed, however, the battle rapidly
came to end. Six thousand men had lost their lives, almost a quarter of all
those who had taken to the field. The bodies of knights would have been
retrieved and returned to their families for burial. Those of the commoner sort
were thrown into hastily dug pits, the ground consecrated and they left to rot.
Hotspur’s corpse was buried by his nephew, Thomas Nevill, in nearby
Whitchurch – but once rumours began to circulate he was still alive, Henry
ordered it to be exhumed and moved to Shrewsbury. It was then displayed in the
market place at the top of Pride Hill and later dismembered.
At the same time, the Earl of Worcester, Sir Richard Venables, Sir
Richard Vernon and Sir Henry Boynton, all captured rebels, were hanged, drawn
and quartered. This means that while hanging, they were emasculated and their
stomachs were ripped open, their entrails thrust into their faces. They were
then taken from the gallows, beheaded, their limbs hacked off and their heads
placed on public view – the earl’s on London Bridge.
The object was clearly terror. Henry wished all who plotted against him
to know what fate would befall them. Had he had access to social media, he
doubtless would have posted footage on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Lacking
the technology, he instead had Hotspur’s body parts sent to Chester, Bristol,
London and Newcastle and his head placed on a spike on the North Gate in York.
Today, Pride Hill is a busy pedestrianized shopping area with arcades,
fast food outlets, Big Issue sellers and the occasional busker. It’s hard to
imagine that only six long lifetimes separate us from the gruesome scenes of
July 23 1403, or that rebels fleeing the battle were hunted down in the
surrounding villages and slaughtered.
The events are commemorated by a plaque on a cross at the top of Pride
Hill and Harry Hotspur’s name has been given to a pub which specialises in
Chinese cuisine in Harlescott Lane. The Battlefield Enterprise Park where
Shakespeare Comic Books are warehoused by NRG Direct Mail Ltd is a large place
with buildings occupied by upholsterers, accountants, garages, beauticians and
surveyors amongst others. It is to be found at 7 Knight’s Park, Hussey Road –
the latter named after Richard Hussey, owner of Harlescott Manor on whose land
the battle was fought.
Should the Shakespeare Comic Book Company thrive, I hope one day to add
Henry IV Part I to its list of
titles, that it might be despatched from near the field its final action
portrays. If so, the book would be dedicated to my old tutor, Dr Alan Charity.
Having read the passage in which the Boar’s Head is raided by the Sheriff and
his ‘monstrous watch’ he paused in our tutorial to draw from this scene the
moral ‘that one should always be polite to policeman’. Doubtless he felt I
needed the advice. Clearly there is much to be learned from the study of Eng.
Lit.
PS. Photo taken in 2003 at six hundredth anniversary re-enactment
of battle.
