THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF ENGLAND
Henry the Fourth
HENRY IV. was crowned within a fortnight of his predecessor’s deposition, and on the anniversary of the day which saw his own banishment. The parliament, new in name, but the same in reality that had sate six days before, entered with readiness into his views, repealing the vindictive acts of the twenty-first year of the late reign, calling again into force the proceedings of the eleventh year against Richard’s favourites, and reversing the attainders of Arundel and Warwick. No act of settlement was made, for that would have been supposing a doubt of the king’s title to the throne. But his eldest son was created Prince of Wales, Duke of Guienne, Lancaster, and Cornwall, as well as Earl of Chester, and declared in parliament, heir apparent to the throne. The Earl of March, then in his seventh year, and in truth the real claimant, was never mentioned; but it says much in favour of Henry’s humanity or of his wisdom, that he contented himself with holding the young earl and his brother in an honourable confinement in Windsor castle, when he would have been only acting in the spirit of his barbarous age had he adopted more questionable measures.
The parliament next called upon those lords to justify them selves, who had appealed the Duke of Gloucester and his friends of treason. The defence of all, was, that they had acted under compulsion, being obliged to do so by the threats of Richard, and were no more guilty than the lords who from similar influence had condemned the appellees. This question stirred up again the same fierce animosities, that the subject had done in the preceding reign; liar and traitor were bandied about on all sides ; no less than forty gauntlets were hurled in defiance upon the floor; and but for the prudence as well as the authority of the king, this tempest might have ended in a general commotion. The result, however, was so far favourable to the appellants, that they only forfeited the honours and estates they had obtained in reward of their appeal. Several useful statutes, too, were enacted to prevent the recurrence of those vindictive proceedings which twice disgraced the last reign, and which, from their present temper, the lords seemed very willing to imitate. By one, the guilt of treason was limited to the offences specified in the celebrated act of Edward III. ; a second abolished appeals of treason in parliament, and confined the accuser in such cases to the common courts of law; a third declared it illegal for a committee to supersede the parliament in its functions; and a fourth made it highly penal for any, except the king, to give liveries to their retainers. This last custom had been a fruitful source of disorder. Every one that wore such a badge was bound to adopt the quarrels of the donor, and as many accepted them by way of honour, or in the hope of contingent advantages without receiving fees, or being actually engaged in service, the multitude of these adherents was constantly endangering the public peace.
It had now become high time to adopt some final measure in regard to Richard. The king, with his usual sagacity, was anxious to divide the responsibility, whatever it might be, with others; and this was the method he took to lend something like the colour of law to his proceedings. Towards the end of the session, the primate, at the royal request, charged the lords spiritual and temporal, to keep inviolably secret any resolution they might make upon. a matter presently to be submitted to them. Then Northumberland delivered a message to them from the king, requesting their advice how to dispose of Richard, but with a warning that his life must at all events be spared. In reply, their counsel was to conduct him secretly to some castle, where, under trusty officers, he might be excluded from all converse with those attached to him. Acting upon this advice, Henry came down to the house four days later, and adjudged his predecessor to imprisonment for life, in the manner they had recommended.
Prosperous as he was to outward seeming, Henry was not long in discovering that the bed of royalty was not a bed of roses. Foreign princes were, naturally enough, hostile to a violation of hereditary rights, since the example might be imitated to the danger of their own power; at home, disaffection, from one cause or another, could never be quieted for long together. For nine years was he harassed by these struggles of the disaffected to shake off a yoke, which, to many, was no better than an usurpation; and his reign will, perhaps, be best understood if we arrange them under distinct heads, so as to grapple more readily with the details.
I. The parliament had scarcely been dissolved a month, when the lords appellants, forgetful of the lenity they had experienced, agreed to hold a tournament at Oxford, as an opportunity of seizing the king, and proclaiming Richard. According to the tradition of the time, the Earl of Rutland, while at dinner, received a letter from one of his associates in this plot, which his father, the Duke of York, either from mere curiosity or from suspicion, insisted upon seeing, whereupon the earl thought it best to anticipate discovery by confession, and him self revealed the whole to Henry. Whether true or not in the details, there must have been some foundation for this romantic story; for on the appointed evening, Windsor castle was surprised by the conspirators, at the head of five hundred horse. The king, however, with a previous knowledge of their intentions, had betaken himself to London ; and having issued writs for their apprehension as traitors, lost no time in levying troops for his defence. Upon this they retired to Cirencester, proclaiming Richard on their way; but the mayor, forewarned by Henry’s writ, gathered together the burghers and the neighbouring inhabitants, and, at midnight, beat up the quarters of the Earls of Kent and Salisbury, who after a six hour’s defence surrendered, escape being hopeless from the archers in the street. Unluckily for the earls, a fire broke out in the town the next evening, which was attributed to their friends, and, in consequence, the populace dragged them forth at midnight, from the abbey where they had been confined, and beheaded both of them. The citizens of Bristol acted in the same way with the Lords Lumley and Despenser. The Earl of Huntingdon was put to death at Pleshy, by the tenants of the late Duke of Gloucester, in revenge for the death of a master to whose memory they were attached. Condemned in the regular course of law, Feriby and Maudlin, two of Richard’s chaplains, were executed at London; while Sir Thomas Blount and Sir Bennet Sely, suffered under a like legal process at Oxford. These examples seeming to Henry sufficient for his security, he checked the angry zeal of his subjects by a proclamation forbidding all executions by private authority, and to Roger Walden and Thomas Merks, two distinguished ecclesiastics who had been implicated in the conspiracy, he granted the royal pardon.
In less than a month from this insurrection, Richard died or was murdered in Pontefract castle. According to one story, he refused to take any food from the time when he heard that his brothers of Kent and Huntingdon had been executed; according to another, promulgated by the king’s enemies, he was starved to death by the orders of Henry; a third report had it, that he was murdered by Sir Robert Exton, and the tale has been chronicled with suspicious minuteness. If we are to believe this story, Sir Robert came to Pontefract, accompanied by seven murderers, on the eighth day after Henry quitted Windsor. On seeing them enter his cell, Richard, too well assured of their purpose, rushed into the middle of the party, seized a battle-axe from one of them, and slew the most forward, when Exton brought him to the ground with a stroke on the back part of his head, and with a second killed him. If any of these relations be true, Henry must have evinced a singular degree of boldness; to prove that Richard was really dead to the satisfaction of those, who had known him in life, he caused the body to be conveyed to London, and there publicly exposed to view, with the lower part of the face uncovered. It was then buried at Langley, after Henry had assisted at the obsequies in St. Paul’s, but his son and successor afterwards deposited it among the royal remains at Westminster.
II. The want of military enterprise had been objected to the late king as a grievous failing. To escape the like reproach, Henry meditated an expedition against Scotland; but the parliament, when informed of it, feared to risk the popular discontent by new taxes. In a great council, however, of the temporal and spiritual peers, the former agreed to contribute a tenth of their incomes, and the latter promised to serve with a specified number of retainers, for a limited period, at their own cost. In addition to these aids, Henry summoned to his banner all that were liable to do him service by their respective tenures, and then, from the banks of the Tyne, by his heralds commanded King Robert and the Scotch barons to appear before him in the castle of Edinburgh, and do him homage. The result little answered this vigorous commencement. The castle of Edinburgh, in the hands of Rothsay, the king’s eldest son, defied all his efforts to take it, and, the Scots prudently declining a battle, he was obliged at last to retire from want of provisions. Still in this defeat, if defeat it can be called, he earned more glory in the eye of reason, than he could have done by the most brilliant victory. Instead of the usual system of fire and ravage, he softened the horrors of war to the utmost of his power, giving protection to all who asked it, and wherever the royal banner was displayed, from steeple or castle-turret, it was a signal of security to the people.
As usual, the want of success stirred up all the enemies to the throne. These rest1ess spirits gave out that Richard was still alive in Scotland, whence he would soon return at the head of a Scotch force, and associations were formed, in the real or pretended belief of this report. The king endeavoured to put down such fables, by punishing the inventors of them; Sir Roger Clarendon, a natural son of the black prince, and many others were executed for the offence. In the midst of this civil ferment, war raged as fiercely as ever, upon the borders. Under the direction of the Scottish Earl of March, who had abjured his own sovereign, and done homage to Henry, the Percies invaded Scotland, and Douglas, exhorting the lords of the Lothians to retaliate, the latter fell upon Northumberland. On their return, they were intercepted on Nesbit Moor; in the battle that ensued, their commander, Hepburn of Hales, fell, with many of his adherents; the flower of the Lothian chivalry were made prisoners, and Douglas in revenge, bursting into the marches, at the head of ten thousand men, spread havoc along either side of the Tyne. In the meanwhile, the Earl of Northumberland, his son, the celebrated Hotspur, and March, assembled an army in their rear, at Milfield, near Wooller. On Holyrood day, was fought the decisive battle of Homildon hill, in which the Scots were again utterly defeated. Eight hundred men were left dead upon the field; the rest fled or were taken prisoners. Amongst the latter were the regent’s son, the Earls of Moray and Angus, two barons, a multitude of knights and gentlemen, and Douglas himself, who had fallen from his horse, pierced with six wounds. This victory was achieved by the archers alone. The men at arms had never drawn a sword.
III. In the next years, the Percies, who had helped so much to raise Henry to the throne, now took up arms against him; alleging, as a reason, from the king’s refusal to allow the redemption of Sir Edmund Mortimer, who in the war with Owen Glendour, had fallen into the hands of the Welshmen. This had irritated Hotspur, the brother-in-law of Edmund, by marriage with his sister Elizabeth; Northumberland and Worcester participated in his discontent, and this was encouraged by the archbishop of York. A confederacy was formed, which Douglas engaged to join with all his retainers; and Owen, giving his daughter in marriage to Mortimer, promised an aid of twelve thousand men. No sooner had Douglas appeared as he had promised, than Hotspur marched towards Wales, though his father was prevented from joining him by sickness; on his way he received an accession of strength, by the arrival of his uncle with a strong body of Cheshire archers. They then published a manifesto against the king, to which Henry replied, offering them a safe conduct to his court in order to expose their grievances, and return home. It was not, however, till he reached Burton-upon-Trent in pursuit, that he heard of their route, when he hastened to prevent their junction with the Welsh, and entered Shrewsbury just as they came in sight of the walls.
The confederates now sent the king their defiance, according to the laws of chivalry. Apprehensive of the result, for the two armies were nearly equal, Henry offered them terms through the abbot of Shrewsbury, but this attempt at peace was frustrated by the advice of ‘Worcester, and the consequence was one of the most bloody battles in the English records. On either side the archers did their wonted execution; Percy and Douglas rushed into the thickest of the royalists; Sir Walter Blount, and the Earl of Stafford, who had worn the royal arms to deceive the enemy, were slain; and the Prince of Wales was wounded in the face. The object of the insurgent leaders had been to secure the person of Henry, but he, having changed his armour by the advice of March, was fighting gallantly in another part of the field. Foiled in their purpose, the two leaders would have cut their way back through the closing mass behind them, and had well nigh succeeded, when Percy fell pierced by an arrow in the brain. This decided the fate of the day. His followers were scattered on all sides, after a battle of three hours’ continuance, leaving more than five thousand dead, besides a multitude of prisoners, amongst whom were Douglas, Worcester, the Baron of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon. The three last were executed. The king sent the Earl of Westmoreland and Robert Waterton to oppose Northumberland, who had recovered sufficiently from his illness to march through the county of Durham. But the latter, on hearing of the death of his son and brother, disbanded his forces, and repaired to the king at York ;— protesting that be had armed for the royal service. He was detained in honourable custody to answer for his conduct before the next parliament. The lords, however, taking the affair into their own hands, declared him guilty only of trespasses, and liable, therefore, to a fine at the king’s pleasure. The same spirit of lenity prevailed in the cases of other offenders, and before the end of the session, an act of amnesty was passed, from which three persons alone were excepted,—Serle, Ward, and Donet, who had engaged in a conspiracy to palm a fictitious Richard upon the people.
IV. If the defeated were for a time kept under by fear, they were not the more reconciled. And the taxes, which necessity compelled Henry to demand, exasperated the laity as well as clergy. The widow of Lord Spenser had well nigh effected the escape of the Earl of March and his brother. By means of false keys, she got access to their apartment in Windsor castle, and was hurrying them to Wales, when the party was pursued and retaken. On her examination, she accused her brother, the Duke of York, with having been privy to this and many other conspiracies, and, if we may credit the royal writs, be confessed his guilt. Be this as it may, his estates were forfeited to the king, and himself detained in prison till Henry was too firmly established on the throne to fear any attempt from him.
Northumberland, who had so narrowly escaped by the lenity of his judges, again began to plot against the king, principally incited thereto by Lord Bardolf. At the same time, Scroop and the earl mareschal, son of the late Duke of Norfolk, appeared in arms for a similar purpose, at Shipton-on-the-Moor, a few miles from York. Prince John, with the Earl of Westmoreland, met them at Galtres, where by some artifice, he persuaded the archbishop and the earl to disband their forces, and then made them prisoners. A short time after they were executed.
Thus successful, Henry advanced against Northumberland, who, at his approach, fled into Scotland, and perished about two years after in a foray he made upon the north. The king next retook the town of Berwick, put to death the baron of Greystock, with his principal officers, and having made himself master of three other castles, returned in triumph to the south. With the Pope he was no less fortunate; Gregory had published a provisionary sentence of excommunication against all concerned in the late archbishop’s death, but upon the king’s remonstrance’s, he ordered the sentence to be removed from all who avowed their penitence for any share in it.
V. More dangerous than any of these opponents was Owen Glendour. He traced his descent from the last of the native Welsh princes, and being wronged, as he thought, in a private suit before the parliament, flung aside the profession of law, to which he had been bred, and boldly laid claim to be king of Wales. The people of the country flocked in multitudes to his standard, and by wisely retreating to the mountains when threatened by superior three, he baffled every effort to subdue him. in vain Henry in person, attempted to dislodge him from his stronghold. While seeking a foe that was nowhere to be seen, the elements joined against the English, and they were compelled to an inglorious retreat. But when the king had subjected his intestine enemies, he found means and leisure for a more steady plan of operations, the fulfillment of which he entrusted to his eldest son. During four years the prince advanced slowly but surely in his operations, and by the end of that time had entirely subjugated the southern part of Wales. Disheartened, too, by misfortunes, the natives of the north gradually abandoned Glendour, who, after a useless irruption into Shropshire, passed the remainder of his days, according to popular rumour, at his daughter’s house in Herefordshire. It appears, however, from writs still extant, that in fact he spun out the contest among the wilds of Snowdun, till long after the succession of his conqueror.
VI. It was fortunate for Henry, that the government of France was divided and embarrassed by the rival factions of Burgundy and Orleans; for Charles, then king of that country, had been the warm friend of the deposed Richard, and bore little goodwill to his successor. For a time the French monarch concealed his feelings, for the sake of recovering his daughter Isabella, her jewels, and two hundred thousand francs of gold that had been paid into the English treasury, and which, by agreement, were to be returned if she became a widow before her twelfth year. Henry’s first expedient was to propose a match between Isabella and his own son. This was rejected, and as he could not spare so much gold from his treasury, and dared not ask it from his subjects, Charles was forced to content himself with his daughter and her jewels, leaving the money-part of the question to future discussion. Subsequently the claim was met and silenced by a counter-demand of one million five hundred thousand crowns, remaining due for the ransom of King John, who had been made a prisoner at the battle of Poitiers.
No sooner had Charles got all he could, than, throwing off the mask, he encouraged his chief nobles to insult Henry, plunder his subjects, and ravage the more exposed part of his dominions. Without war being actually declared between the two countries, Walleran de St. Pol, who had married a sister of Richard, plundered the Isle of Wight and the southern coast; three princes of the house of Bourbon united to burn Plymouth; and the admiral of Bretagne, sweeping the narrow seas, made a multitude of prizes. Yet even now when affairs wore so doubtful an aspect, fortune was still mindful of her favourite, and brought about two events, which relieved him of all fear from France or Scotland. Robert, the king of the latter country, in fear of danger to his son from the ambition of his brother, Albany, resolved, for better safety, to send him to the French court. In his passage, the young prince was met and taken, off Flamborough head, by an English cruiser, and being presented to Henry, was by him committed to the castle of Pevensey. Shortly after Robert died, and Albany, sensible how much his power depended upon England, became the obsequious servant of her monarch. Events in France were no less favourable to Henry. The murder of the Duke of Orleans, by the Duke of Burgundy, divided the whole kingdom into parties of Bourgignons and Armagnacs, of which the English monarch did not hesitate to take advantage. At first he lent his aid to the Burgundians, and turned the scale in their favour. The next year he was bought over by large offers to the opposite party. But in both the armies were many who dreaded the arrival of the English, as more perilous than any private feuds; and as the feeling spread it became no difficult matter to effect an accommodation between the two opponents. In the meanwhile, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Henry’s second son, landed in Normandy, and paying no attention to this friendly compact among themselves, plundered and overran both Maine and Anjou, nor would he desist till the Duke of Orleans promised to pay him two hundred and nine thousand crowns, and gave his brother, the Count of Angouleme, in pledge for the due performance of his promise.
VII. In the first part of his reign, we have seen that Henry abstained from introducing an act of settlement, lest it should seem to hint the possibility of a doubt as to his own regal rights. But when time and continued success had given solidity to his power, he hesitated no longer, and an act was passed, declaring that the right of succession was vested in the sons of the king and their general issue. In this singular enactment Henry’s own daughters were not mentioned, though the female descendants of his sons were distinctly allowed to inherit; an anomaly which arose out of the double difficulty of doing nothing that should countenance the rights of the Earl of March, who claimed by the female line, or that should impeach his own claims to the French throne derived from Isabella, the mother of Edward III.
But now that his enemies were subdued at home and abroad, the king found fresh causes for disquiet in the character of his eldest son Henry. The young prince had, indeed, shown valour and judgment in the field, as well as many virtues in private life, but they were sadly alloyed by his wild and dissolute habits. Ill health, too, the result of many cares and anxieties, began to weigh heavily upon himself, and it was plain that a succession of epileptic fits was hurrying him to the grave. It was in one of these fits that the prince found him lying to all appearance dead, and conveyed into the next room the crown, which, according to custom was placed on a cushion by the bed-side. On recovering, and learning from his guards by whom it had been taken, the king commanded his son’s return, and bitterly rebuked his unfilial conduct. Pacified at length by his protestations of duty and affection, he exclaimed, “ Alas, fair son, what right have you to the crown, when you know your father had none ?“ “My liege,” answered the prince, “with the sword you won it, and with the sword I will keep it.” To this it is said that Henry, after a pause, replied, “Well, do as you think best. I leave the issue to God, and hope he will have mercy upon my soul.”
The fate that had so long been evident, at length overtook him while praying in St. Edward’s chapel at Westminster. His shattered constitution could no longer bear up against the fit with which he was seized, and being carried into the abbot’s chamber, he soon expired, on the 20th of March, 1413, and in the fourteenth year of his reign.