On the night of 21 July 1403, a 16-year-old soldier was carried into the candlelit sanctuary of Shrewsbury Abbey with a bloodied rag pressed against his face. Shortly before, he’d been evacuated from a nearby battlefield when an arrow had hit him just a little below his right eye.
Ordinarily, the young man would have been left to die. After all, this was medieval Britain, hundreds of years before the advent of anaesthetics, military surgeons or combat medics. The wounded teenager, however, was no ordinary soldier. He was Prince Hal, eldest son of King Henry IV and heir to the throne of England.
The origins of the Battle of Shrewsbury, in which Hal had just fought, could be traced back to the reign of the previous monarch, Richard II. His 22-year grip on power had been characterised by revolts, tyranny and treason and was eventually cut short in 1399 after his cousin Henry Bolingbroke staged a coup d’état. Richard was then locked away in Pontefract Castle, where he was starved to death, while Bolingbroke had himself crowned King Henry IV in his place.
Although Bolingbroke led the powerful House of Lancaster, he could never have pulled off this act of treason without some heavyweight help. Among those who’d backed
