Henry V and the Chivalric Revival | Flower of chivalry
Flower of chivalry
Henry V is chiefly remembered for his extraordinary victory at Agincourt. But hardened at an early age to the rigours of border conflict, he showed a passion for war and a contempt for "the cursyd vice of slouthe and ydlenesse"4 even before he became king. Shortly before his accession he commissioned a translation of the greatest war story of the ancient world. The result was John Lydgate's Troy Book, a translation of Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae. Like Shakespeare, Lydgate begins his story with an invocation to Mars, patron of chivalry and the "causer [ . . . ] Of werre and stryf":
O myghty Mars, that wyth thy sterne lyght
In armys hast the power & pe my3t,
And named art from est til occident
The myghty lorde, the god armypotent,
That, wyth schynyng of the stremes rede,
By influence dost the brydel led
Of cheualry, as souereyn and patrown . . .
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