Henry V and the Proposal for an Irish Crusade

Abstract

In the spring of 1421 a parliament of the English lordship of Ireland proposed that King Henry V should ask the pope to authorise a crusade in Ireland against the native, Gaelic Irish. The proposal was abortive — there is no evidence that Ireland saw any resulting crusading action — and although there is no reason to doubt that the proposal was sent to England, no details have come to light of discussion of it, or reaction to it, there. 1 It has aroused relatively little interest amongst historians of medieval Ireland, and apparently none amongst crusading specialists, who, of course, have a wealth of more promising, better-documented topics to research elsewhere. Yet, abortive as it was, this proposal for an Irish crusade does raise some interesting questions. The context seems unexpected, even improbable. Henry V, although outstandingly impressive as a soldier king, has little reputation as a crusader. He is probably better known for the report of his deathbed regret that he had not led a crusade to Jerusalem, than for the interesting initiative that he launched in May 1421 with Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy to sound out the diplomatic and military prospects for a new crusade to the East through the two-year mission of Ghillebert de Lannoy to Russia, Constantinople, Rhodes, Jerusalem, Cairo, Crete and Venice. 2 Ireland was to attract some post-Reformation crusading activity in the late sixteenth century, but none of the obvious crusading targets — infidels, pagans or heretics — were present there in 1421, and although some historians have drawn parallels between the initial assertion of English royal lordship with papal approval in the late twelfth century and crusading activity elsewhere, Ireland had never previously been an arena for warfare of an explicitly crusading nature. 3 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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