Catalogue description Henry V: 'Second Will'

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Details of E 23/2
Reference: E 23/2
Description:

Henry V: 'Second Will'

Date: 1417 July 21
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description
Publication note:

Edition: J Nichols, Royal Wills, pp 236-243; for the final will see P and F Strong, 'The last will and codicils of Henry V', English Historical Review, xcvi, 79-102; for a further discussion of Henry's three wills, and the way in which they were executed, R Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, i, (London, 1953), pp 199-206.

Administrative / biographical background:

The text of the final will of Henry V remained elusive until a near contemporary copy was found in the Eton College archives in 1978; although the incipit and explicet were known because their text had been preserved by their contemporary enrolment on the parliament rolls. (C 65/87 m 3; Rotuli Parliamentorum, iv, 299).

The original was drawn up on 10 June 1421, immediately before Henry set sail from Dover to France, for what would prove to be his last expedition; and codicils to this will were added by the dying King in France 26 August 1422.

After the King's death the will and a codicil dated 9 June 1421 were entrusted for safe keeping to Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham, the King's chancellor, and several times produced by him for conciliar inspection. It seems probable that the codicil of 9 June, made in England and ante-dating the final will itself, was the certificate promised by Henry to the feoffees named in his so-called 'second will' of 1417.

The complete text of this codicil of 9 June has not survived but it can be reconstructed with some confidence. In essence it is likely to have been an authorisation to the feoffees materially to assist the executors in the payment of the King's debts and the execution of his last will, should his moveable goods prove insufficient for those purposes.

In 1417 Henry had promised his feoffees a letter signed and sealed by him; if this codicil is the promised certificate, then, on 9 June 1421, it was indeed signed and sealed with the King's private signet of the eagle. It was also 'writen ... in hast with myn owen hande, thus enterlynet and blotted as hit is...'. (Rotuli Parliamentorum, iv, 299-300; cited Strong, 'The last will', p 82).

In 1426 custody of both the final will and the earlier codicil was transferred to William Alnwick, keeper of the privy seal. Thereafter they effectively disappear from view, and references to the will dating from the 1440s may be either to the original or to copies. (Strong, 'The last will', 79-83).

The final will of 1421 was the third, and last, in a series of wills made by Henry V. Each had been occasioned by an impending military campaign in France. The first, dated 24 July 1415, made provision for the distribution of £10,000 among the King's household, and for the payment of his and his father's debts; and has a colophon in the King's own hand. The provisions of the will were secured by a feoffment of certain lands of his inheritance of the duchy of Lancaster, and of the Bohun inheritance. (Strong, 'The last will', p 80; text in T Rymer, Foedera Conventiones, etc (17 vols, London, 1704-17), ix, 289-293.

The second will, dated 21 July 1417, is not, strictly speaking, a will at all, but a declaration of the King's wishes for the administration of the enfeoffed lands. (Strong, 'The last will', pp 80-81; Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, pp 151, 200: the account of sealing, derived from the text in Nichols without reference to the document, is garbled.). It provides for payment of the King's debts, and for the performance of his last will, which would be made known to the feoffees by a certificate under the King's hand and seal: a plausible explanation of the codicil of 9 June 1421, which ante-dates the last will itself.

After payment of the King's debts most of the enfeoffed lands were to pass to the King's right heirs, but he made provision also for specific lands to pass to his brothers, John, duke of Bedford and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, with remainder for lack of heirs male to successive Kings of England.

The testament, engrossed on parchment in the form of an indenture, is in English, as was the King's earlier addition to his testament of 1415. A postscript to the 1417 will is also in Henry's hand 'This is my ful wille god knoweth'.

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