The most enduring element in the mythology which surrounded the man who has been regarded as the greatest of English kings has been the story of his wild and scandalous behaviour as Prince – behaviour which was banished for ever by a sudden and total reformation when he became king. Historians have speculated for centuries upon whether the 'charges' against the Prince were true; whether they were supported by objective evidence as against popular legend, and whether his known record of public service was compatible with the discreditable tales of debauchery and riotous indiscipline. This traditional approach may be a little naive. There is no serious doubt that anyone, especially a young man as dynamic and enterprising as the Prince, could have found time amidst his official responsibilities to indulge in disreputable or frivolous activities. There is likewise no real doubt that two such diverse facets of personality could be combined in one person. The question which ought to be asked is whether conduct which in itself would surely have been regarded as basically 'normal' in a young prince or lord would have been of sufficient consequence or interest to merit the emergence of a very positive legend; especially as it seems that any dubious pursuits were not allowed to interfere with his public duties and political aspirations. The existence and perseverance of the story is surely evidence not merely of its popular appeal, but of its importance; and it may be reasonable to assume that this importance lay not in the precise nature of the Prince's alleged misconduct, but in his conversion at his accession. Was this momentous conversion really only from sexual indulgence and practical jokes? Or was there something more serious in his years as Prince which the chroniclers wished to emphasise that he had put behind him irrevocably? Had he changed in some profound way which was better recorded for posterity in simple and non-controversial terms? In one sense the Prince did indeed abandon, at his accession, one form of unconventional and questionable behaviour. He put behind him personal and political conduct which had led to charges that he had departed from the standard of honesty, loyalty and duty which were considered proper in the dealings of a son with his father and a subject, however exalted, with his king. His father's death meant that the Prince did not actually have to do anything to change this aspect of his image, and his literary admirers might well have felt a need to express this change in a way which was more creditable to his memory.
Another possibility is more directly relevant to the events of the foregoing narrative. It is fairly common knowledge that the original of the Falstaff character in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays was Sir John Oldcastle, and there is little doubt that there was a tradition linking the Prince with the real Oldcastle in some form of reprehensible conduct. Only the sternest of puritans, however, would have been likely to have censured the carousing of Prince and knight in hostelries in London or on their Welsh border campaigns. There would have been more cause for concern if there had ever been a suggestion that the Prince had shared or sympathised with Oldcastle's Lollard convictions. The fact that the Prince had been associated with Oldcastle at all, given the latter's heretical professions in 1413 and his treason in 1414, might need to be explained away. Association with Oldcastle was not proof of Lollard sentiments; yet there were obviously anti-clerical or Lollard elements in the parliament of 1410 who hoped for the support of the new ministry which was coming into being under the Prince's leadership. If the chroniclers' stories of 'reformation' were inspired by misgivings about the Prince's attitude towards the Church and the heresies of Oldcastle and his allies, it might indeed seem appropriate to date it from the first year of his reign as Henry V, when Oldcastle was called to account for his beliefs and Henry supported his old opponent Archbishop Arundel in condemning the heretical opinions of a man who had once been a loyal servant and personal friend of the Prince. Here, too, can be seen an analogy with Shakespeare's account of Henry V's rejection of Falstaff.' Yet it was surely more than three years earlier that the critical decision was made; when the Prince's initially ambiguous conduct ended in his decision to be personally responsible for committing Badby to the flames. If anyone was looking for the Prince's conversion on a religious issue by 1413, it was not the orthodox, but any remaining optimists among the Lollards.
Peter McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV: The Burning of John Badby (The Boydell Press 1987)
