Chapter XII.

Bolingbroke. Richard II. (1377-1398). Henry IV. (1398-1413).

The little King Richard was much fatigued on the 16th of July, 1377; it was found necessary to place him in a litter to bring him back to the palace, after his coronation. All the former popularity of his grandfather Edward III., all the affection which his father the Black Prince had inspired, appeared to have accumulated upon his head, by reason of the fear and aversion which were felt towards John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. The prelates and barons assembled on the morrow of the coronation, and selected a council of regency of twelve members. The uncles of the king did not form part of this body, and John of Gaunt retired to his castle of Kenilworth; but several members of the council remained devoted to him, and his influence soon began to be complained of.

The King of France, Charles V., had lost no time in taking advantage of the weakness of the English government: his fleets overran the Channel, fettering commerce and seizing the British vessels; a descent was even made upon the Isle of Wight. The Parliament was convoked, and the Earl of Buckingham, the uncle of the king, was placed at the head of the naval forces; his expedition against the French fleet miscarried, and his defeat increased the discontent of the nation. The Parliament was composed chiefly of the enemies of the Duke of Lancaster, and when a kind of reconciliation had been effected between the latter and the House of Commons, that assembly demanded that two citizens of London should be entrusted to receive the money voted for the defence of the country. John of Gaunt started for France with a large army (1378).

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The King of Navarre, still at war with Charles V., held a portion of Normandy; he had surrendered Cherbourg to the English. The Duke of Brittany, John de Montfort, being reduced to the last extremity by the successes of Bertrand du Guesclin, had consigned Brest to them; but these acquisitions were due to the freewill of the allies of England, and not to its arms. John of Gaunt was defeated before St. Malo; and, being pursued by Du Guesclin, was compelled to return to England, while the Scots, at the instigation of France, invaded the northern counties and took possession of Berwick Castle. A Scottish pirate, named John Mercer, devastated the coast as far as Scarborough. A London merchant, named John Philpot, on the other hand, armed a small fleet, and hastening to the encounter of Mercer, recaptured from him all the vessels which the latter had seized; captured, besides, fifteen Spanish ships, and returned triumphantly into the Thames, amid the plaudits of his fellow-citizens, and to the indignation of the council, which reprimanded the alderman for the boldness of his undertaking.

The Parliament had assembled at Gloucester, disaffected and exacting. The Commons asked to examine the accounts, which was granted to them as a favor. John de Montfort had recently taken refuge in England, banished from his dominions by King Charles V., who committed the imprudent act of officially annexing the duchy of Brittany to France. This declaration immediately rallied all the different factions against him. {339} John de Montfort was recalled; the States-general of Brittany wrote to the King of France, asking him to authorize them to retain their independent ruler. At the same time an English army, under the command of the Earl of Buckingham, landed at Calais and ravaged the provinces of Artois, Picardy, and Champagne without ever encountering the necessity of a serious combat. The English were arriving in Brittany when King Charles V. died (1378), and the Bretons, reassured by the weakness of the young King Charles VI., began to look coldly upon their English allies. De Montfort negotiated with the French council of regency, and Buckingham was only indebted for his safety to the valor of his troops and to the provisions which he had brought. He retired in the spring of 1379. Great events were in preparation in England.

For some years a double movement, religious and social, had begun secretly to agitate the English people. A priest, John Wycliffe, born towards 1324, in Yorkshire, had attracted attention at the university of Oxford by his rare faculties, and had commenced, in the year 1356, to denounce the abuses of the papal authority; he had then attacked the mendicant monks, accusing the Church in general of greed and corruption. Summoned to appear before the Bishop of London, in the last year of the reign of Edward III., to answer for his opinions, he had been supported by the Duke of Lancaster and his friend Lord Percy; both had even insulted the bishop, which had brought about an insurrection in the city. Wycliffe had retracted some of his ideas, he had explained others; and, thanks to his powerful protectors, he had obtained the living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where he spent the remainder of his life, surrounded by priests, whom he brought up in truly apostolic poverty, and who subsequently spread his opinions among the people. {340} Wycliffe is the first of the Reformers, or rather, their precursor. His doctrines acted more powerfully abroad than in his own country; it is to his books that were due the first germs of the Reformation in Bohemia; for England, his greatest work was the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. The most important of his ideas was the appeal to the private judgment of the faithful upon the very text of the Holy Scriptures. Wycliffe had shaken the traditions of submission to the clergy; he had at the same time preached a dangerous doctrine. "All possessions," he said, "come of grace, and may be forfeited by sin." The poor serfs, who possessed nothing, might be anxious to profit in their turn by the grace which insured estates. Wycliffe died peacefully at Lutterworth in 1384.

Already, for two years past, his illustrious friend, Geoffrey Chaucer, the first creator of English poetry, had been compelled to quit England, compromised by his attachment to the new ideas; he had retired into Hainault, where he lived in peace, protected by the friendship of the Duke of Lancaster. The first works of Chaucer, _The Court of Love_, the poem of _Troilus and Cresseide, The Temple of Fame_, had been published several years before, and had assured to him a reputation which had largely contributed to his fortune. The English language at this time, still largely intermixed with French, and difficult to understand at the present time, assumed, under the pen of Chaucer, a native grace to which sometimes succeeds an energy which prepared the way for Spenser and Shakespeare. {341} Chaucer again established himself in England when John of Gaunt returned from his expedition to Castile; he lived to an advanced age, and composed in his retreat of Dumington his _Canterbury Tales_, written in the style of the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, and the only one of his books which is still read at the present day. He died in 1400, the year following the accession of Henry Bolingbroke, the son of his protector. Like Wycliffe, he had seen the commencement of the popular agitations. The poll-tax voted by the Parliament in 1379 was their first opportunity.

A general movement towards the enfranchisement of the lower classes manifested itself everywhere in Europe. The insurrection of the Jacquerie in France; the resistance of the Flemish citizens and artisans, first, to the conduct of Jacques van Arteveldt and afterwards to that of Philip, his son, had testified to the awakening of the serfs, the peasants, and the artisans, so long reduced to the condition of beasts of burden. The kings had been in need of money, and the taxes weighing upon all their subjects, it had been necessary to conciliate them. The soldiery had acquired a new importance; the English archers, in particular, nearly all peasants by origin, had played an important part in the wars. When the tax-collectors began in 1380 to demand payment of the poll-tax, of a people already impoverished by a long series of exactions, they met with a resistance which increased with the oppression. The tax, at first collected with leniency, was let out to some courtiers; they borrowed in advance of the Lombards and Flemings; repayment became necessary, and the revenue was exacted with great severity. The peasants became exasperated; they began to assemble and confer together; the insurrection broke out in Essex. {342} The "Commons of England," as the insurgents styled themselves, broke into several dwelling-houses in the neighborhood; they obeyed a seditious priest who assumed the name of Jack Straw. The contagion rapidly spread into the counties of Kent, Suffolk, and Norfolk. The tax was payable only in the case of persons above fourteen years of age. A Kentish collector maintained that the daughter of a tiler had attained the specified age; her mother maintained the contrary; the collector insulted the young girl, and was brained with a hammer by the father. A knight had reclaimed a serf who thought he was entitled to enfranchisement, and had imprisoned him in Rochester Castle; the peasants attacked the castle and compelled the garrison to surrender the prisoner. The Kentish insurgents marched under the command of a chief named Wat Tyler (Wat the tiler). On the Monday of Trinity week, in 1381, they entered Canterbury, threatening death to the archbishop, who was absent. The monks of the chapter-house were compelled to swear fidelity to King Richard and the commons of England. Three wealthy burgesses were beheaded, and the crowd proceeded towards London. It is related that one hundred thousand men followed close upon the steps of Wat Tyler, when he arrived on the 11th of June at Blackheath.

The Princess of Wales, the mother of the young king, was returning from a pilgrimage. The crowd of insurgents surrounded her retinue. She was popular by reason of her husband's memory and her ransom cost her only some kisses bestowed on the more audacious of the leaders, who had not forgotten that she had formerly been called "the fair maid of Kent;" she passed by without further difficulty. {343} The malcontents thronged round an itinerant preacher whom they had brought with them, and who displayed to them this text, now famous:--

"When Adam delved and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?"

The doctrine of equality was received with enthusiasm by these poor people, hitherto trodden under foot. The outskirts of London were laid waste when the king proceeded down the Thames, on the 12th of June, to receive the petition of the insurgents. Ten thousand men awaited his arrival at Rotherhithe; but at the sight of the royal barge they uttered "such cries," says Froissart, "that one would have thought that all the demons of hell were in their midst." The noblemen who accompanied Richard became alarmed, and dragged him with them as far as the Tower. "The Commons of England," in a state of fury, advanced along the right bank of the river as far as Lambeth, burnt down the prisons, and plundered the palace of the Archbishop. On the other side of the Thames the insurgents marched along the course of the river, and at length obtaining a passage over London Bridge, they joined their brothers of Kent. The whole city was in their power; the population of London had joined them, and the rich citizens, to please them, had thrown open their cellars to them. Hitherto, the multitude had behaved with a certain amount of order, but intoxication being once added to the joy of triumph, they could no longer be restrained; the palace of the Duke of Lancaster was invaded and burnt down; plunder was strictly forbidden; the gold was reduced to powder, and the precious stones were broken. A peasant had taken a bowl of money; he was thrown into the river with his booty. The prisons being opened and destroyed brought fresh reinforcements to the insurgents. {344} The Temple was burnt, with all the valuable books which had been collected by the knights. The priory of St. John of Jerusalem, recently constructed by Sir Thomas Hales, a prior of the order and Chancellor of the Kingdom, was also delivered up to the flames. A thirst for blood began to take possession of the populace. Every passer-by was challenged. "For whom are you?" was asked. If the answer was not "For King Richard and the true commons," the person answering was immediately slaughtered. All the Flemings fell by the knife or the hatchet; the popular hatred sought them out even in the churches. Wine and blood flowed in the streets; the counsellors of the king resolved to try concessions.

On the morning of the 14th of June a proclamation was spread throughout London, recommending the crowd which surrounded the Tower and demanded the heads of the chancellor and treasurer, to retreat towards Mile End. The king promised there to come to them and to grant their requests. A portion of the mob obeyed; when Richard arrived with a weak retinue at the meeting-place (his brothers, the Earl of Kent and Lord John Holland, had quitted him on the road), he saw himself surrounded by sixty thousand peasants. Their tone was respectful, and their requests, which then appeared monstrous, do not create the same impression at the present day. They demanded the definitive abolition of servitude; the power to sell and purchase in all markets; and a general amnesty for the past. To this they added a strange claim to fix the amount of rental on lands. The king promised all that they wished, and immediately caused to be made a large number of copies of the charter which he had thus granted. {345} These were distributed among the insurgents; the men of Essex and Hertford retired in a body; but the malcontents of Kent had remained in the capital, and had not appeared at the meeting-place in Mile End. Scarcely had the king retired when these dangerous foes attacked the Tower, beheading the councillors who had taken refuge therein, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the treasurer, Sir Thomas Hale, and several others. The Princess of Wales, while yet in bed, saw a furious mob spring into her chamber. No injury was done to her, and her attendants were enabled to throw her, fainting with fright, into a little boat; she was conveyed to a house in the city belonging to the king, who there came and joined her when he had learnt the sad news of the massacre at the Tower.

In the morning, Richard issued forth with a small escort, and advanced fearlessly towards Smithfield. The multitude thronged the streets and squares. The king drew up at St. Bartholomew's Priory. "I will go no further," he said, "without having pacified the insurgents." Wat Tyler had perceived him, and urging his horse towards him, "There is the king: I go to speak to him," he cried to his supporters; "do not move a hand or foot unless I give you the signal." The horse of the popular chief touched heads with that of the king. "Sir king," said Wat Tyler, "do you see those men yonder?" "Yes," replied the young prince without stirring. "They are at my disposal, and ready to do as I bid them." And he toyed with his dagger, holding the bridle of the royal courser; then, perceiving behind Richard an esquire who had displeased him, "Ah, you here?" he said, "give me your sword." The esquire refused; Wat Tyler made a motion to take possession of it; the followers of the king were roused. {346} The Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth, urged forward his horse, and advancing towards the rebel, struck him a blow with a dagger; the horse reared. Tyler endeavored to return to his followers; an esquire of the king thrust his sword through his body; he fell, beating the air with his hands. The mob became agitated. "Our captain is slain," was the cry, and the bowstrings began to vibrate. Richard advanced alone towards the crowd. "What do you, my friends?" he exclaimed. "Tyler was a traitor; it is I who am your captain and your guide." And he drew after him this irresolute mob, deprived of their chief, and who marched without knowing whither they were bound. They arrived in the fields near Islington. The friends of the king had rallied round him. One of the chiefs of his free bands, Sir Robert Knowles, brought a body of men-at-arms. The insurgents took alarm, threw down their bows, and cried "Mercy!" The king would not suffer them to be slaughtered in a mass, to the great exasperation of Sir Robert Knowles. "He said that he would be even with them on another occasion," says Froissart; "in which he did not fail."

The insurrections subsided everywhere. The Bishop of Norwich had armed his household and his friends, and hastening to throw himself upon the peasants, he had easily defeated these confused masses, little accustomed to arms. He had himself drawn up their indictment and pronounced their sentence; then resuming his clerical costume, he had exhorted them, received their confession, absolved them, and finally accompanied them to the gallows. The king was at the head of a small army, and had marched against the remainder of the insurgents of Essex. It was no longer a question of charters; the courts of commission were everywhere assembling to try the guilty.

[Image] Death of Wat Tyler.

{347} The two priests, Jack Straw and John Ball, were hanged. Lester and Wistbroom, who had assumed the title of "Kings of the Commons" in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, suffered the same fate. About fifteen hundred rioters were executed. It was found necessary to fix them to the gibbet with iron chains; their friends came by night to carry off their bodies.

The Parliament had assembled, publicly approving of the abolition of the concessions granted to the villeins during the struggle. "We would never have consented to them," said the barons, "even had we all been compelled to perish on the same day." For the moment, there was some talk of abolishing servitude; but the opposition was so strenuous, the proprietors of fiefs declared so loudly that their serfs belonged to them by right, and that they could not be deprived of them without their consent, that the idea was immediately abandoned, and the high treason law was voted, condemning "riots, disturbances, and other analogous things," in terms as dangerous as they were vague. The king demanded money, the commons claimed a complete amnesty; neither would begin to make concessions. The Parliament at length yielded; the tax upon wool and leather was prolonged for five years, and the king proclaimed the amnesty; he was about to wed Anne of Bohemia, soon known throughout the whole of her kingdom as "the good queen." The Bishop of Norwich was fighting in Flanders, in support of the citizens of Ghent hard pressed by their count, recently a victor at the battle of Rosebecque, where Philip van Arteveldt had been killed; and the uncles of the king contended with each other for the authority in England. The Earl of Cambridge had been made Duke of York, and the Earl of Buckingham Duke of Gloucester. {348} Henry Bolingbroke, son of the Duke of Lancaster, had become Earl of Derby; at the same time, the king had made Earl of Suffolk and Duke of Ireland, his favorites Michael de la Pole and Robert de Vere, obscure persons, whom the Princess of Wales had placed beside her son, by reason of her jealousy towards his uncles; and who contributed, by their influence, to the struggles and disputes of the government. The princess had recently died, having succumbed beneath the weight of the anxieties caused by one of her sons, Lord John Holland; he had recently assassinated one of the servants of the king, and was unable to quit the church in which he had taken refuge. Plot succeeded plot--denunciation to denunciation. At length, the Duke of Lancaster started out for Spain, in order to sustain the pretensions of his wife to the throne of Castile; and he contrived, after two campaigns, to marry his eldest daughter to the heir of Henry of Transtamare, thus assuring the crown to her children. The Scots had crossed the frontier, and King Richard entered Scotland. France was preparing a great armament.

Amidst these external preoccupations, the Duke of Gloucester had seized the reins of government; and, when the young king threatened to dissolve a Parliament devoted to his uncle, the Commons brought forward the Act which had deposed Edward II. A council of barons for a while governed the kingdom, under the presidency of Gloucester. Blood flowed everywhere; the duke avenged himself upon the favorites of the king, who were as odious to him as to the English people. He had impeached them before the Parliament: the innocent were involved in the ruin of the guilty. {349} Gloucester did not even spare Sir Simon Burley, formerly the tutor of the king, the friend of Edward III. and the Black Prince, and who had conducted the negotiations for the marriage of Richard. The queen in vain threw herself at his feet asking for mercy; in vain did Henry Bolingbroke, who had seconded his uncle in all his undertakings, claim as a right the pardon of the condemned man: Burley was executed, and Bolingbroke became definitively at variance with Gloucester.

The disorder which prevailed in England did not prevent constant hostilities upon the frontiers of Scotland; it was on August 15th, 1388, that there took place at Otterbourn, the famous battle celebrated in the ballads under the name of Chevy Chase, between the Earl of Douglas and Lord Henry Percy, the Hotspur of Shakespeare. Douglas was slain, but the English ended by being repulsed from the battle-field. Hotspur and his brother were prisoners. The king was beginning to weary of the yoke which he had so long borne. He was subject to gleams of resolution and courage, which soon disappeared in a long spell of indolence, and which took by surprise those who calculated upon his habitual apathy. A council was being held in the month of May, 1389; the king suddenly addressed the Duke of Gloucester. "How old do you suppose I am, uncle?" he asked. "Your highness is in your twenty-second year," replied the duke, much surprised. "Then," replied the king, "I am at an age when I should govern my own affairs. Nobody in my kingdom has been so long held under tutelage. I thank you for your services, my lord, but I no longer require them." And he immediately caused the great seal and the keys of the treasury to be given up to himself, compelling the Duke of Gloucester to leave the council, and announcing publicly to the nation that he had henceforth assumed the direction of the government. But his fleeting energy had already abandoned him. The Duke of York and Henry Bolingbroke were his masters, instead of the Duke of Gloucester.

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John of Gaunt had returned from Castile; he had become reconciled with his brothers. Concord appeared re-established in the royal family; a truce had been concluded with France and Scotland. The King of Scotland, Robert II., had died on the 19th of April, 1390, and his eldest son had assumed the title of Robert III. Queen Anne had also died, in 1394, and King Richard, who had no children, married two years later, much against the wishes of his subjects, the Princess Isabel, daughter of Charles VI., king of France. She was but seven years old; but the king conceived the liveliest affection for her, and conducted her everywhere with him upon his travels. An expedition in Ireland against the insurgent chiefs had been very successful; but the Duke of Gloucester protested with all his might against the alliance with France. "Our Edwards," he said, "caused Paris to tremble even in its entrails; but, under Richard, we court the French, who make us tremble within London." The duke had his reasons for trembling: the king had not forgotten the execution of his favorites, nor the men who had signed their indictment. The Earl of Warwick, one of the accomplices of Gloucester, was already arrested; the Earl of Arundel soon followed. The Duke of Gloucester had retired to Pleshy Castle, in Essex; his nephew repaired there in gay company: all the family came forward to meet the king; but, while the duchess was conversing with him, Gloucester was arrested by the marshal of England, dragged as far as the river, thrown into a boat, and from thence a vessel bore him towards Calais. {351} A rumor was thereupon spread that he had been assassinated; the king published a proclamation declaring that the arrests had been made with the approval of his uncles of Lancaster and York, as well as of his cousin, the Earl of Derby. He had even obtained, by a ruse, their signatures to the impeachment. Lord Arundel was condemned by the Parliament, and immediately executed; his brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was not even admitted to plead his cause, for the king dreaded his eloquence; he was banished for life, and the Earl of Warwick, at first condemned to death, was imprisoned in the Isle of Man. The House of Lords then called the Duke of Gloucester for judgment; but the marshal replied that he could not bring the Lord Duke, who had for several days been dead at Calais. He was condemned, however, and all his goods were confiscated; it was said that he had been suffocated between two mattresses. The judges were not without uneasiness concerning the application which they had just made of the high treason law: nearly all had been, at different periods, compromised in plots or insurrections. They obtained of the king an amnesty for the past; and, as a reward for present services, Richard made his cousin the Earl of Derby, Duke of Hereford; the Earl of Nottingham became Duke of Norfolk, and John Holland, the murderer, was made Duke of Exeter. The Parliament completed its work of complaisance by granting to the king, for life, a subsidy upon woollens, and by forming a commission, entrusted to watch affairs. King Richard was no longer in a hurry to appeal to his people, or to convoke the Parliament.

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The conduct of the king towards his uncle the Duke of Gloucester and his friends, the vengeance which had overtaken, after so many years, the enemies of the favorites, revealed the character of the sovereign in a light which caused uneasiness in the country. Indolent and prodigal, habitually engrossed in the pleasures of luxury and magnificence, Richard was not only capable of momentary energy, but he maintained in the bottom of his heart projects which he shaped to his purposes with patient perseverance. Once delivered of the Parliament and of the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Lancaster aged and in retirement in his castle, Richard gave himself up to all his whims, certain, as he thought, of encountering no serious opposition. "At that time," says Froissart, "no one was great enough in England to dare to speak against the will of the king. He had a council obedient to his wishes, who begged him to do as he pleased; and he had in his pay ten thousand archers, who guarded him day and night." The extravagances of the court were insensate, and the people began to complain, looking back regretfully upon the government of the king's uncles, who had shown some consideration, they said, for the nation, and consulted it in its own affairs.

Two great noblemen alone remained of those who had, in 1386, seconded the efforts of the Duke of Gloucester against the favorites of the king; and, notwithstanding the favor shown to them by Richard, they did not feel secure in their positions. The Duke of Norfolk, galloping upon the road to Windsor, in the month of December, 1397, encountered the Duke of Hereford. "We are ruined," said he to his friend. "Wherefore?" asked Bolingbroke. "For that affair at Radcot Bridge." [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: The Duke of Ireland (Robert de Vere) had been defeated by Gloucester and his companions, at Radcot Bridge.]

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"What! after so many pardons and declarations by the Parliament?" rejoined Bolingbroke. "He will annul all that, and we shall pass through the ordeal like the others; the world in which we live is strangely perfidious." The Duke of Norfolk soon had reason to be convinced of this. Either through thoughtlessness or through treachery, the conversation was reported to the king; he convoked the Parliament, and his first care in the month of January, 1398, was to summon Henry Bolingbroke to render an account of the words of the Duke of Norfolk. The latter was not present, but upon the summons of the Parliament, he came to throw down his glove at the feet of the Duke of Hereford, declaring him a traitor and a perjurer: the combat was authorized between the two noblemen. "I shall then at length have peace," muttered the king, while proceeding to Coventry, on the 16th of September, to be present at the tournament. But having once confronted the two antagonists, he became fearful of a victory for one of them, and, forbidding the ordeal, he submitted the question to a Parliamentary commission chosen by himself. The Duke of Hereford was condemned to an exile of ten years. The Duke of Norfolk was banished forever. He thereupon started for the Holy Land, and died of grief at Venice. But Henry Bolingbroke did not go far away; he remained in France, watching the movements of his cousin Richard, who lavished the riches of England with so thoughtless a hand, that his treasury was constantly empty. His favorites would then help him to replenish it by exactions of every kind. The Duke of Lancaster had died three months after the departure of his son; his immense property was confiscated, notwithstanding the protests of Bolingbroke. A decree outlawed seventeen counties of England, as having been favorable to the enemies of the king; they were compelled to buy back their rights with enormous fines. {354} The disaffection increased, but the king took no heed whatever of it. He embarked towards the end of May, 1390, for Ireland, where his cousin and heir-apparent, the Earl of March, had recently been assassinated. He had just taken the field against the rebels, when Henry Bolingbroke landed, on the 4th of July, at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, having escaped from France under the pretext of paying a visit to the Duke of Brittany.

Bolingbroke had brought with him a feeble following, the exiled Archbishop of Canterbury, and his nephew, the Earl of Arundel, fifteen knights and men-at-arms, and a few servants; but scarcely had he touched the English soil, when the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland joined him, bringing with them considerable forces. Henry did not disclose his ulterior projects to anybody; he came, he said, to claim his right, the inheritance of his father, which the king had wrongly confiscated, and moreover the public feeling was so favorable to him, the nation was so weary of seeing itself ill-governed, that the malcontents rose in all parts to place themselves under his standard. He was, it is said, at the head of an army of sixty thousand men when he advanced towards London. The Duke of York, regent of the kingdom in the absence of Richard, did not rely upon the burgesses of the City; he had quitted the capital, and displayed the royal standard at St. Alban's. Terror began to seize the creatures of the king: instead of marching against the rebels, they cowardly shut themselves up in fortified castles. The Duke of York had taken the western road, pending the return of King Richard; but Bolingbroke had used diligence, and he arrived at the Severn on the same day as the regent. {355} The latter placed little confidence in his troops; he was aware of the general discontent, and he retained in the bottom of his heart a bitter resentment for the murder of his brother Gloucester. He granted an interview to his nephew Bolingbroke: the firm, bold and cunning mind of Henry triumphed easily over the feeble will of the Duke of York; the two armies were amalgamated, and the regent helped the usurper to take Bristol Castle. There the members of the commission which had formerly condemned Bolingbroke had taken refuge; they were executed without any form of trial, and the Duke of Lancaster marched upon Chester, leaving his uncle at Bristol.

For three weeks Richard had remained in ignorance of what was taking place in his kingdom. When he at length learnt the news of the landing of Henry and his formidable progresses, he exclaimed bitterly, "Ah! my good uncle of Lancaster, the Lord have mercy on your soul! If I had believed you, although this man might be your son, he would never have harmed me. Three times I have forgiven him; this is his fourth offence." The Earl of Salisbury immediately set sail to assemble together some troops in England; he had raised pretty considerable forces in Wales; but the king delayed, the soldiers murmured and dispersed by degrees; a large number went and joined the rebels. The king at length disembarked with his cousin, the Duke of Albemarle, and his two brothers, the Dukes of Exeter and Surrey. The little army which he had taken to Ireland followed him: but at the second halting-place, when the king, having risen very early, looked through the window towards the camp, where on the previous evening, six thousand soldiers had slept, he no longer saw but a handful of archers and men-at-arms: all had deserted during the night. {356} The king was advised to take refuge at Bordeaux. "That would be to abdicate," said his brother, the Duke of Exeter. It was resolved that they should join the Earl of Salisbury, and the king, disguised as a priest, took the road to Conway, with his brothers and a few servants, while the Duke of Albemarle, following the example of his father, the Duke of York, fled by night to join the army of he usurper.

The Earl of Salisbury had not a hundred men with him when the king arrived at Conway. In this deplorable situation, the brothers of King Richard proposed to go to Henry at Chester, in order to ascertain his pretensions. The two dukes did not return; their cousin Bolingbroke received them kindly, but he positively refused to release them: all his efforts were directed towards seizing the king in person. The Earl of Northumberland was entrusted with this mission. By false promises he enticed the king out of Conway, proposing an interview with Bolingbroke at Flint. Richard was almost alone, abandoned; he followed the earl with the friends who remained to him. They galloped along slowly, when suddenly the king cried, "I am betrayed! Lord in Heaven, help me! Do you not see banners and pennants flying in the valley?" Northumberland advanced at the same time. "My lord," the unhappy monarch said to him abruptly, "if I thought you capable of betraying me, I could yet retreat." "No," replied the Earl, who had laid hold of his bridle; "I have promised to conduct you to the Duke of Lancaster." The soldiers of Northumberland began to appear; the king yielded to necessity. "Our Saviour was sold and delivered into the hands of His enemies," he murmured.

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They arrived at Flint. Henry Bolingbroke, in all his armor, came forward to meet his royal cousin, and bent his knee on approaching. "Good cousin of Lancaster," said Richard courteously, "you are welcome." "My lord," replied Henry, "I have come before my time, but I will tell you the reason: your people complain that you have governed them harshly for twenty-two years; if it please God, I will help you rule them better." "Since it pleases you, it pleases me also," meekly replied the fallen monarch; and, seated upon a wretched courser, like a prisoner, King Richard took the road to Chester, side by side with Henry Bolingbroke. Froissart relates that his very dog abandoned him to lick the hand of the usurper.

At Lichfield Richard attempted to escape; but he was seized as he had just issued forth through a window, and thereafter was narrowly guarded. The people of London received him with yells and insults. The usurper repaired to St. Paul's, prayed upon the tomb of his father, and then took possession of the palace. The king had been led to the Tower.

The Parliament was convoked, and ready to depose Richard II., as it had formerly deposed his great-grand-father; but Henry Bolingbroke, with a bitter foresight of the mutability of human things, wished to secure the personal consent and the voluntary abdication of the king. He held him narrowly confined within the Tower. "Why do you cause me to be thus guarded?" Richard angrily exclaimed one day; "Am I your king or your prisoner?" "You are my king," replied the duke; "but the council of your kingdom have seen fit to place a guard beside your person." On the eve of the opening of Parliament, a deputation of prelates and barons paid a visit to the unhappy king in the Tower, and asked him to abdicate. Richard felt himself powerless in the hands of his enemies; he yielded, "willingly and joyfully," say the acts of Parliament; and, releasing his subjects from their oath, he consigned his royal ring to his cousin of Lancaster, saying that he would choose him for his successor, if he had the right to designate him. {358} These details are open to doubt, but the Parliament held them good, and on the 30th of September, before the empty throne, in Westminster Hall, the abdication of Richard was read aloud, all the members giving their consent to it. The people uttered cries of joy. The coronation oath was then brought, and, at each article, proclaimed aloud, the impeachment of King Richard was drawn up. He was accused of the murder of his uncle Gloucester; of having revoked the amnesties, and of having squandered the public money. Nobody raised his voice for the dethroned monarch until the Bishop of Carlisle, Thomas Merks, rose and publicly denied the right of the Parliament to depose the king and to change the order of succession, at the same time defending Richard against his accusers. Scarcely had he finished his discourse, when he was arrested. While he was being conducted to St. Alban's, the Parliament pronounced the deposition of Richard, and the Lord Chief Justice was instructed to announce his fall to him. "I care not to court the regal authority," said the deposed king; "I only hope that my good cousin will be a good master to me."

His good cousin was not yet legally king; the descendants of Lionel, the third son of Edward III., were the legitimate heirs to the throne; no one, however, thought of them. The Duke of Lancaster had remained in his seat; his surrounders waited in profound silence. He rose, and, solemnly making the sign of the cross, said in a very loud voice, "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, lay claim to this kingdom of England and to the crown, as a descendant of the good King Henry III., and by the right which God has given me, by granting to me the favor, through the support of my friends, to come to the assistance of this country, which was about to perish under bad laws and for want of government."

{359}

This mixture of hereditary pretensions with popular rights was skilful. The Parliament responded to the appeal of Henry Bolingbroke; acclamations broke out in all parts; the duke showed the ring which Richard had consigned to him; the Archbishop of Canterbury took him by the hand and led him to the foot of the throne. Henry knelt there for a moment; he then ascended the steps and seated himself resolutely. The plaudits recommenced during the discourse of the archbishop. "I thank you, my lord," said the new monarch; "and I wish everybody to know that, by right of conquest, I will disinherit nobody of his rights, but wish that all may be governed by the good laws of the kingdom, and may hold what he has by right." The officers of the crown and the great noblemen also vowed fealty and homage: Henry IV. was king of England.

In the first days of his reign, the new sovereign was enabled to believe that public opinion fully confirmed his usurpation. All the great noblemen were eager to fulfil at his coronation their hereditary offices; the Earl of Northumberland alone, who had rendered eminent services to him, marched beside him in the procession, holding aloft in sight of all the sword worn by Bolingbroke on landing at Ravenspur. The House of Commons responded to the slightest wishes of the king, and the greater number of the unpopular measures of the last reign were withdrawn by common consent. {360} A great uproar arose in the House of Lords: the peers who had appealed against the Duke of Gloucester were summoned to exculpate themselves; all took their stand upon the wish of King Richard, upon the fear which he inspired, and upon the unanimous vote of the House. Recriminations poured down in every part; forty gauntlets were thrown upon the ground as challenges to combat. A weak and timid monarch would have taken alarm in the midst of this violent confusion: Henry IV. was enabled to calm the agitation. He divested the "lords appellant," as they were styled, of the titles which Richard had given to them as rewards; the Dukes of Albemarle, Surrey and Exeter, the Marquis of Dorset and the Earl of Gloucester, became once more the Earls of Rutland, Kent, Huntingdon, and Somerset, and Lord Le Despencer; but the new king wreaked no other vengeance upon them. The high treason law was restored to more limited and less vague formulae; appeals to the Houses in cases of treason were abolished, and the Parliament was forbidden to delegate its authority to a commission. The eldest son of the king was declared Prince of Wales, Duke of Guienne, Lancaster, and Cornwall, as well as heir presumptive to the throne. Henry was too prudent to again raise the question of the law of succession which he had so boldly disregarded: he did not wish his hereditary right to the throne to be discussed; he well knew that the little Earl of March, so carefully installed in Windsor Castle, was the real heir to the throne, as great-grand-son of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of John of Gaunt. The child was not nine years of age; the king caused him to be well brought up, as well as his brother, and neither was destined to recover his liberty during his lifetime; but their sister, soon afterwards married to the Earl of Cambridge, had transmitted to the House of York those rights or those pretensions which condemned England to half a century of civil war.

{361}

Difficulties abound in the path of usurpers. King Richard had not protested, he had asked for nothing, but he still lived in the Tower. Before dissolving the Parliament, King Henry IV. despatched the Earl of Northumberland to the House of Lords. The latter asked that the message with which he was entrusted should be kept secret; he then consulted the House upon the manner in which the dispossessed king was to be treated; "for my master Henry," he added, "has resolved, at any cost, to preserve the life of Richard." The Lords all replied that King Richard should be secretly led away to some castle, and placed in the hands of faithful custodians, who should prevent all communication with his friends. This was the sanction which Henry IV. wished for; the dispossessed monarch was conducted to Leeds Castle, in Kent, and then transferred by night from castle to castle, as had been his great-grandfather, Edward II. In the month of January, Richard had arrived in Pontefract Castle, in Yorkshire.

The removal of the dethroned king could not suffice to strengthen the power; conspiracies were already beginning. The lords appellant had scarcely been punished, but their fears as well as their resentment urged them to revenge. They had formed the project of assassinating Henry and of replacing Richard upon the throne. A tournament was announced at Oxford for the 3rd of January, and the Earl of Huntingdon, the brother-in-law of the king, invited the latter to be present thereat. The invitation was accepted. {362} The murder was to be accomplished during the jousts; the king and his son were to succumb beneath numbers. The day came; the king had not arrived, and the Earl of Rutland was absent from the place of meeting. The conspirators saw themselves betrayed; but a bold stroke might yet save them; they galloped to Windsor, and took possession of the castle. The king was no longer there: warned in time, he had taken refuge in London. The arrest warrants were already issued against the traitors, and, on the morrow, Henry marched against them, at the head of a considerable force. They did not await him, and fled to arm their vassals. Civil war appeared imminent; but public opinion was with King Henry: it administered justice to the conspirators, without the king being obliged to interfere. The citizens of the Cirencester seized the Earls of Kent and Salisbury, and struck off their heads; Lord Le Despencer was beheaded by the citizens of Bristol; the Earl of Huntingdon was dismembered at Pleshy by the servants of the late Duke of Gloucester. The King had only to cause the trial of a few accomplices of low degree, but the attempt of the lords appellant probably cost the life of King Richard; it was learnt, towards the end of January, that he had died at Pontefract. It was related that he had refused to take any food since the death of his brothers, the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon; distrustful people asserted that he had been starved to death. Others maintained that he had been attacked in his prison by some assassins, and that, after having valiantly defended himself, he had been killed by a blow behind the head. When the body of the unhappy monarch was brought to London, before being interred at Langley, a portion only of the face was uncovered. The details of his death were forever unknown, and many people were resolute in denying it.

{363}

The little Queen Isabel had remained in England during the lifetime of her husband, notwithstanding her father's wish to see her return to his side. The death of his son-in-law caused one of the dreaded attacks of insanity to poor King Charles VI.; but his uncles were anxious to profit by the indignation which was manifested at Bordeaux, the birthplace of the deposed monarch; the Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon advanced towards Guienne, and the first movement of the population was favorable to their wish. "Richard was the best man in his kingdom," it was said at Bordeaux, "and the people of London have treacherously abandoned him." But as the French army advanced, the ardor of the Gascons abated. The French were poor, and annoyed by subsidies and taxes, which were sometimes reproduced upon two or three occasions during the year. "We are not accustomed to be treated thus," said the English subjects, "and it would be too hard upon us. We have still a king, and he will send his ministers to us to explain himself. Meanwhile, we have a large commerce with England, in wine, in wool, and in cloth." The uncles of the king were compelled to retire without having accomplished anything. Henry IV. was in no hurry to renew the war with France; he caused a proposal to be made to marry the little Queen to the Prince of Wales; but the father and the daughter rejected this alliance. Charles VI. claimed with Isabel his jewels and the two hundred thousand livres in gold which King Richard had received upon her dowry. Henry was poor and the sum considerable; when the young Queen was at length consigned to her family, in the month of August, 1401, the ambassadors of England replied to the claims of the French by a demand for a hundred and fifty thousand crowns of gold which remained due upon the ransom of King John the Good. {364} The question of the dowry of Isabel was no longer mooted, and peace subsisted between the two countries during the greater part of the reign of Henry IV., notwithstanding the challenges of the Duke of Orleans and Wallerand of Luxemboug, Count of Ligny and St. Pol, which gave rise to slight hostilities upon the coasts. Good warrior as he was, the King of England had too much to do at home, and too much trouble to consolidate his throne to seek afar for hazardous adventures.

At the very outset of his reign, however, and on the morrow of the conspiracy of the lords appellant, Henry had attempted an expedition into Scotland. Not daring to ask subsidies of the Parliament, the king had had recourse to the military service of the feudal system, and, convoking under his banners all holders of fiefs, and furnished with the tithe voted by the clergy, he had advanced as far as Edinburgh, to summon King Robert, the Duke of Rothsay, his son, and all the great Scottish noblemen to come and render homage to him. Robert III. was aged, feeble, and infirm; he had abandoned the power to his brother, the Duke of Albany, constantly at contention with the heir to the throne, the Duke of Rothsay, sanguine, thoughtless, and venturesome. The young duke hastened to Edinburgh, to defend it. Henry was repulsed; his provisions failed him: he was compelled to withdraw from Scotland, having reaped no other glory in this campaign than the humanity towards the peasants, of which he had given proofs, and the discipline which he had been enabled to maintain in his army.

{365}

While the King of England was fighting and suffering failure in Scotland, an unexpected insurrection broke out in Wales. A lawyer, who had afterwards served as esquire in the house of the Earl of Arundel, a Welshman,--descending, it was said, from Llewellyn, the last Welsh prince,--Owen Glendower or Glendwyr, had seen his little estate encroached upon through the avidity of a powerful neighbor, Lord Grey de Ruthyn. Owen had appealed to the Parliament; his complaint had been rejected. The Welshman resolved to avenge himself by force of arms, and drove from his lands the servants of Lord Grey. He was thereupon outlawed. His pretensions grew with his anger; it was no longer a question of a little field or of a cluster of trees; Owen Glendwyr publicly proclaimed his illustrious origin, laying claim to the independent sovereignty of Wales. Fire smouldered under the ashes among these people, subjected for so many years; the love of national liberty was not extinguished. From all parts the Welsh hastened round Owen; students quitted their universities, laborers their ploughshares, at the call of independence. At the beginning of the year 1401, King Henry IV. found himself compelled to proceed to Wales with an army. But Owen was too shrewd to hazard a pitched battle; he left to the climate and to famine the task of fighting for him. From the mountains in which he had taken refuge, he soon saw King Henry compelled to retire. A second campaign, attempted in 1402, was not more fortunate: the rain fell in torrents; the rivers became swollen at the approach of the English soldiers, who left Wales convinced that Glendwyr was a sorcerer in league with the elements.

{366}

The rumor that King Richard was still living had come once more to be circulated in Scotland and in the North of England, restoring a certain amount of courage to the malcontents. In vain had King Henry severely punished the fomenters of this news; Richard was expected with the Scottish army, when it entered into England in the spring of 1402. At the head of the English opposition was a Scotchman, George, Earl of March. The Duke of Rothsay was to have married his daughter, but he had rejected her, to unite himself with the family of the Earl of Douglas, the hereditary enemy of the Earls of March. The Earl of March had thereupon renounced his allegiance to the King of Scotland, and had allied himself with the Percies, all powerful in the county of Northumberland. It was with his assistance that the Scots were defeated and repulsed at Nesbit Moor, in June, 1402. Internal rancors soon brought forward a second army; the Earl of Douglas, furious at the success of his rival, solicited the assistance of the Duke of Albany, and, at the head of a considerable force, he soon overran the two banks of Tyne. Having advanced as far as Newcastle, he was falling back, loaded with booty, when the Earls of Northumberland and March cut off his road on the 14th of September. The Scots covered Homildon Hill, and the English were stationed opposite upon another elevation. Hotspur Percy had already commanded the charge of his men-at-arms, when the Earl of March restrained him by the arm. "Let your archers commence," he said; "the turn of your horsemen will soon come." Arrows rained down upon the Scots deployed upon the flank of the hill: Douglas did not stir; his men were falling in their ranks, when a Scottish baron, Fordun Swinton, at length cried, "Ah! my brave comrades, who restrains you to-day, that you should remain there, like deer or stags, to allow yourselves to be killed, instead of displaying your former valor by fighting man to man! Let us descend from here in the name of God!" {367} And the Scottish men-at-arms, thereupon moving, caused the English archers to fall back. The latter, however, continued to shoot, and Douglas received five wounds; he fell from his horse, and was made a prisoner. Disorder set in in the Scottish ranks; the flower of their chivalry had been decimated by the arrows or had surrendered without striking a blow.

The son of the Duke of Albany, Murdoch Stewart, was among the number of the prisoners. The English knights had not raised their lances or drawn their swords; the battle had been won by the archers of old England. The Earl of Northumberland arrived on the 20th of October at the Parliament convoked at Westminister, gloriously accompanied by all his prisoners.

The Percies had recently gained a victory for King Henry IV., whom they had so powerfully assisted in gaining his throne. They were about to turn their arms against him. Shakspeare attributes their discontent to the prohibition which the king put upon their setting ransoms upon their prisoners, a measure which deprived them of all the pecuniary advantage of the capture; but this interdiction had been frequent under the preceding reigns, particularly under Edward III., and King Henry IV. indemnified the Earl of Northumberland by granting vast domains to him. Another cause for anger had recently sprung up. During the lucky campaigns of Owen Glendwyr the latter had captured his old enemy, Lord Grey de Ruthyn, and Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle of the young Earl of March, the legitimate heir to the throne. The relatives of Lord Grey had been authorized to redeem him; but the king had refused the same favor to the family of Sir Edmund. {368} Hotspur Percy had married his sister, and, acutely wounded by this refusal, he began to set on foot a conspiracy to overthrow the king and place the crown upon the head of the little Earl of March. He was confirmed in this resolution by the Archbishop of York, Scrope, brother of the favorite of Richard II.; and the conspirators did not hesitate to call Owen Glendwyr to their aid. He gave his daughter in marriage to Mortimer, and promised to invade England with twelve thousand Welshmen. The Earl of Douglas was liberated without any ransom, on condition of recrossing the frontier with a Scottish army. It is even said that Hotspur wrote to the Duke of Orleans, from whom King Henry had recently received a warlike challenge on account of the insults offered to Queen Isabel.

So many movements had not escaped the vigilant eye of King Henry. Hotspur was marching forward, commanding the rebels in place of his father, who was ill; and supported by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester. Henry planted his army corps between the earls and Owen Glendwyr, with whom they were endeavoring to effect a junction. The Welshman had made no haste, and when, on arriving at Shrewsbury, Henry received the challenge of his enemies, it was conceived only in the name of the Percies. They reproached the king with his usurpation, the death of Richard, the captivity of the little Earl of March, his manœuvres in the election of Parliament, the levying of taxes which had not been voted by the Commons, &c. At the end appeared the real subject of the quarrel, the denial of the negotiations relating to Sir Edmund Mortimer. Henry IV. smiled bitterly and disdained to reply. "The sword shall decide," he said, "and I am assured that God will give me victory over perjured traitors." It was on the 20th of July, 1403; on the morrow the two armies found themselves face to face on Shrewsbury Plain.

{369}

The insurgents numbered about fourteen thousand men; the king had no more. Before fighting, he despatched the Abbot of Shrewsbury to his adversaries, with proposals for peace. Hotspur, less impetuous than Shakespeare has depicted him, hesitated: but the Earl of Worcester persuaded him to reject the royal overtures. "Banners to the front, then!" cried Henry, The combat began. "St. George!" was the cry around the king. "Hope! Percy!" responded the rebels. The archers were drawing on both sides, and the knights did not abandon to them, as at Homildon Hill, all the honor of the combat. Percy and Douglas, rivals in glory, had precipitated themselves together into the midst of the enemy with a small following; everything gave way before them; the Prince of Wales had been wounded in the face. They sought for the king; but, upon the advice of the Scottish refugee, the Earl of March, he had laid aside, for that day, all the royal insignia, and he fought valiantly, without having been recognized. At the moment when the two chiefs of the insurgents endeavored to retrace their steps, opening up a way through the crowd of the enemies, Percy was struck by an arrow in the head, and fell dead. Disorder immediately set in among his partisans. Douglas had been made a prisoner; the Earl of Worcester shortly afterwards suffered the same fate, as well as the Lord of Kinderton and Sir Richard Vernon. The traitors' punishment awaited the three Englishmen. Douglas was honorably treated. The field of battle was covered with dead and dying. The insurgents had fled; they went and carried to the old Earl of Northumberland the news of the defeat and death of his son. {370} He was marching forward to join him, and he thereupon shut himself up in his castle at Warkworth. Being summoned to appear before the king at York, he was detained there in honorable captivity until the Parliament should have decided upon his fate. He had not taken part personally in the insurrection, and he declared that his son had acted without his approval. The Lords treated him with indulgence; he retired after having sworn fidelity to the king and the Prince of Wales. Eighteen months had not elapsed before he was again in arms against Henry.

The conspiracies had not ceased in this interval. A former chamberlain of King Richard, named Serle, had again spread the rumor that that monarch was living. He led about with him a poor idiot who resembled Richard, and a certain number of partisans had rallied round him. Three princes of the House of Bourbon had attacked the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and burnt down the town of Plymouth; the French vessels had brought reinforcements to Owen Glendwyr, against whom the young Prince of Wales was at war; and a woman, Lady Le Despencer, had carried off the young Earl of March and his brother. She was already approaching the frontiers of Wales when she was seized, and the prisoners were brought back to Windsor. She exculpated herself by throwing the responsibility of the undertaking upon her brother, the Duke of York, formerly Earl of Rutland. He was arrested, and languished for several years in prison.

{371}

King Henry had always avoided asking large subsidies of the Parliament; he was not sufficiently assured of the affection of his people to ask any sacrifices of them. In 1404, however, he had come to an end of his resources, and in a Parliament which has preserved the name of unlearned, because the king had, it was said, dismissed from it all the lawyers, he made a proposal which was ardently sustained by the Commons: it forbade the king to alienate the property of the crown without the authorization of Parliament, but permitted him to take back all the gifts of land and the pensions granted by his predecessors; he was even allowed to seize a certain portion of the property of the clergy. The Church uttered a cry of terror and rage, which arrested the zeal of the king and the Commons. Henry hastened to renounce his project, assuring the Archbishop of Canterbury that it was his intention to leave the Church in a better position than he had found it in; but he accomplished his resolutions upon the lands and pensions given by Edward III. and Richard II. The disaffection of the barons was great, and the uneasiness of the clergy was not dispelled.

In 1405, two great councils were convoked by the king: in London and at St. Alban's. There the bad state of feeling was manifested; all the demands of the king were rejected, and more than one baron quitted St. Alban's to join the insurgents, who were again beginning to form in groups round the Earl of Northumberland. The Archbishop of York had this time taken up arms; he was made a prisoner, as well as the Earl of Nottingham, by Prince John, the second son of the king. In vain did the archbishop claim ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the earl that of his peers; in vain did Chief Justice Gascoyne refuse to preside at their trial: the king had resolved to make an example. He found some more complaisant magistrates; the archbishop and the Earl of Nottingham were beheaded; a fine was imposed upon the city of York, temporarily deprived of its charters, and the king marched against Berwick, where the Earl of Northumberland had taken refuge. {372} On the way he caused Lord Hastings and Lord Falconbridge to be tried, and they were beheaded. Berwick surrendered; but the old Percy had fled to Edinburgh, and the king did not penetrate into Scotland; he contented himself with ravaging Northumberland, taking possession of all the castles which belonged to the rebels. He then turned his arms in the direction of Wales, where Prince Henry had valiantly sustained the struggle for nearly two years. He had triumphed over the Welsh at Grosmont, in Monmouthshire, in the month of March, 1405; one of the sons of Owen Glendwyr had been made a prisoner, and the prince had only been arrested in the course of his successes by the arrival of a French reinforcement sent by the Duke of Orleans, in defiance of the truce which still reigned between the two nations. The young Prince Henry had been compelled to withdraw to Worcester; but the king soon drove the French into the mountains of Wales, whither he pursued them. The Welsh arrested his march; but the French were weary of their reverses, of the poverty of their allies, of the rough life which they led; they retreated into their vessels again. The king withdrew in his turn; Prince Henry continued the war with alternations of successes and reverses, always holding his ground with a skill and perseverance worthy of his adversary, and which finally wearied the population. Glendwyr found himself gradually abandoned, and an invasion attempted in 1409 by his son-in-law, Scudamore, in Shropshire, completed the ruin of his cause; the Welsh were repulsed, and the chiefs put to death. The independent character of Owen Glendwyr allowed him neither to submit not to despair; he no longer appeared in the regions occupied by the English, but he still maintained himself in the mountains, resuming his arms when his enemies pressed him closely in his haunts; his name, published several times in the amnesty acts, proves that he was neither dead nor subjugated, even after the battle of Agincourt. {373} The period of his death and the place of his burial are unknown; the end of his life remains enveloped in mystery, as though he had really possessed the magic power which his friends and enemies attributed to him in his lifetime.

King Henry had not been under the necessity of prosecuting his campaigns in Scotland; he held in his hands the heir to the throne of that kingdom. The Duke of Rothsay, imprudent and bold, had entered into a contention with his uncle, the Duke of Albany. Being accused of rebellion and imprisoned in Falkland Castle, he had there died of hunger, it was said. The unhappy King Robert had become alarmed for the life of James, the only son who remained to him, and he had embarked him upon a ship which was to take him to France, but the vessel had fallen into the hands of some English cruisers, who brought the prince in triumph to King Henry. "I speak French as well as my brother Charles," the king had said laughingly, "and I am as well adapted as he to bring up a King of Scotland." The young Prince James therefore remained at the court of England, closely guarded, but educated with care, kindly treated, and at liberty to devote himself to his passion for poetry. The old king Robert had died of grief in 1406, and the Duke of Albany, who continued to govern Scotland, servilely submitted to the wishes of the King of England, who, at the least appearance of insubordination, threatened him with the release of his nephew. This state of affairs was destined to be prolonged for a considerable time.

{374}

The most irreconcilable adversary of the king had at length succumbed. The old Earl of Northumberland, homeless, childless, and without riches, had wandered for more than two years from kingdom to kingdom, endeavoring to raise up embarrassments and enemies against King Henry. At the beginning of 1408, he appeared in Northumberland with Lord Bardolf, the friend and companion of his whole life. Rallying a certain number of his old vassals, he overran the country, took possession of several castles, and had gathered together a small body of troops, when he was defeated on the 28th of February, by Sir Thomas Rokeby, upon Branham Heath, near Tadcaster. He was killed in the combat; Lord Bardolf, grievously wounded, died shortly afterwards, and their bodies, cut in pieces, were sent to the towns of Northumberland, where they had found adherents. It was all over with the Percies.

The commotions in France continued to increase. The poor king, Charles VI., would pass from furious madness to docile melancholy; his kingdom, rent asunder by factions, was the scene of the crimes, debaucheries, and exactions of all parties. The Duke of Orleans had recently been assassinated in the Rue Barbette (23rd of November, 1407), by the servants of his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, a circumstance which had not prevented the latter from reappearing at court, without fearing the punishment of the king for the death of his brother, which he caused to be publicly justified at the Sorbonne, by Maître Jean Petit, doctor in theology. From treason to treason, from reconciliation to reconciliation, the Duke of Burgundy was all powerful in 1409, when the young Duke of Orleans, who had lost his wife, Isabel of France, widow of King Richard II., was married for a second time, to Bonne, the daughter of the wealthy Count of Armagnac. {375} The time had at length arrived for prosecuting revenge: supported by the experience and military talents of the count, the partisans of the House of Orleans assumed the name of Armagnacs; the red scarf was put on by the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Brittany, and the Duke of Alencon; John Sans Peur was driven from Paris, and the Duke of Orleans, sword in hand, demanded justice for the death of his father.

Then, for the first time, amidst the factions which had desolated France for ten years, England was called upon to play a part. John Sans Peur asked assistance of Henry IV. The latter sent in the month of October, 1411, a small body of a thousand archers and eight hundred men-at-arms, with whom the duke marched against Paris. He re-entered there in force on the 23rd, and drove out the Armagnacs, who had already begun to make themselves detested. John Sans Peur followed up his advantages, and hoped to crush his enemies; but they, in their turn, had negotiated with the King of England, promising to recognize him as Duke of Aquitaine, and to assure to him after the death of the present possessors, the counties of Poitou and Angoulême. As the price of these concessions, the English army was preparing to invade France, under the orders of the third son of the king, the Duke of Clarence, when the Duke of Berry, uncle of Charles VI., filled with horror at the prospect of the evils which the foreigners were about to bring down upon France, once more interposed between the belligerents, and effected one of those reconciliations which prepared the way for fresh acts of perfidy. The Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy entered Paris mounted upon the same horse, and repaired thus to church. {376} The people cried "Noël," and thanked God for this hope of peace. But the Duke of Clarence had landed in Normandy; the news of the pacification had been powerless to arrest him. Maine and Anjou had already been ravaged. The Duke of Orleans contrived to purchase the retreat of the allies whom he himself had summoned; the English, laden with gold and booty, took the road to Guienne, traversing France without any obstacle. "We will return hither," they said as they passed, "to fight with our King Henry." Eight thousand Englishmen embarked at Bordeaux towards the close of the year 1412. King Henry had nearly arrived at the end of his career. He was ill and sad. His throne had always appeared to him to be tottering; conspiracies had been so often repeated around him, that he had ended by suspecting them where they did not exist. A keen jealousy towards his eldest son troubled him. The Prince of Wales had given proofs of rare courage; when yet young, he had been wounded at the battle of Shrewsbury; being afterwards despatched by his father into Wales, he had there constantly held in check Owen Glendwyr, over whom he had finally triumphed. It is related--and, in his admirable tragedy of _Henry IV._, Shakespeare made use of these accounts, of which the authenticity is not well proved--that the young prince, besides his budding greatness, had given other causes for anxiety to his father; it is said that his debauches and coarse amusements had caused alarm for the fate of the State which he was one day to govern, so that a judge before whom he had been brought, without knowing him, thought it his duty to condemn him like a simple private person. {377} Perhaps the jealousy of the father and the restraint which he claimed to impose upon the son, to whom he left neither power nor resources, had contributed to plunge a sanguine, energetic young man, full of life and strength, into those excesses with which he was reproached. It is affirmed that the king had one day swooned, in consequence of one of the attacks of his distemper; he was believed to be dead. The Prince of Wales, entering the apartment, had carried off the crown, which lay upon a cushion. When Henry IV. came to himself again, he asked for the crown. The prince was sent for, "You have no right to it," cried the king. "You know that your father had none." "Your sword gave it to you, sire, and my sword will be able to defend it," replied the prince, exonerating himself as well as he could against the suspicions of his father. He demanded the punishment of those who accused him of prematurely claiming the throne, and the king referred him to the next session of the Parliament. He was weary of reigning and of living. "You shall do as you please," he said; "I have done with all these matters. May the Lord have mercy upon my soul!" But the young Prince Henry suffered in mind from the alienation of his father; he presented himself before him clad in a blue satin robe, covered with button-holes, a tag still hanging from each opening, and, in this strange costume, he threw himself at the feet of the king, drew a dagger from his bosom, and begged him to take his life if he had deprived him of his favor. The father and son became reconciled, it is said, after this scene.

The torments of jealousy, added to the troubles of his conscience and the cares of power, overwhelmed the monarch. He was not yet forty-seven years of age, and the proud Bolingbroke, formerly so handsome, so bold, so adventurous, was bowed down like an old man. {378} He was praying, on the 20th of March, 1413, before the shrine of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, when he fell into a swoon. He was carried into the apartment of the abbot, and as he recovered his senses, he asked where he was. "In the Jerusalem Chamber," was the reply; for such was the name of the chamber to which he had been carried. He closed his eyes. "I was always told that I should die at Jerusalem," he muttered, and he expired. He was interred in Canterbury Cathedral, beside his first wife, Lady Mary de Bohun, the mother of all his children. His second wife. Queen Joan of Navarre, had not presented any to him.

Ambitious and inflexible, harsh towards his enemies, skilful and cunning as well as enterprising, Henry IV. had always contrived to treat the Parliament with respect, and had never made any attempt against its authority. The House of Commons, especially, had seen its privileges confirmed under his reign, and its influence had been constantly growing. Thus the liberties of England, formerly conquered by the barons at the price of so much bloodshed, were gradually developing, profiting by the weakness as well as the temerity of the sovereigns, until the day when the religious reform was to raise them to their highest pitch.

Absorbed in the internal struggles consequent upon usurpation, for ever dreading real or supposed conspiracies, Henry IV. had not had leisure to think of foreign wars. The wish, however, had not been wanting; he had everywhere plunged himself into the intrigues and divisions which desolated France under the unhappy Charles VI., and he had thus prepared the return of the great English ambitions, which were destined, for awhile, to raise so high the glory of Henry V., his son, at the price of so much bloodshed and so many sorrows for the two nations.