society, the monks, the judges, the taxers, the nobility, the
ladies, the logicians of the university, and even the doctors meet
with their share of abuse. The democratic spirit which is visible
in them found a more complete and worthy expression in the poem
known by the name of the Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman. It
is supposed to be the work of a poet of the name of Langland. The
form is allegorical, a form which the great celebrity of the French
“Romance of the Rose” made permanent both in France and England for
many years. A pilgrim of quite the lowest rank sees in a vision
virtues and vices pass before him, and also representatives of
all the various classes of society. Each in turn is criticised;
none can lead him in the path of virtue, till Peter the Ploughman
appears, who, in a religious conversation, shows him the right way.
His character is one of typical perfection, and becomes confused
towards the end of the poem with that of Christ. The poem is
written in alliterative verse, and in English by no means so much
like our present English as some of the songs that preceded it.
But at length the time was come for the complete nationalization
of the language. French was in decay, the popular songs were in
rude English, and when the union of all classes in Parliament
had completed the real nationality, any further division of the
languages was impossible. The junction was effected by Chaucer. He
set himself intentionally to work to make a compound and national
tongue. He took for its basis the English; and on it he grafted,
sometimes in their own form, sometimes in an altered form, vast
numbers of French words. It is a curious instance of an intentional
formation of a language. Many words he admitted apparently upon
trial, and they have been rejected. Others have been somewhat
changed in form, but in his works we have a language which a
very little trouble will enable any Englishman to read, and the
grammar and structure of which, with few exceptions, is like our
own English. The great work for which he employed this language,
the “Canterbury Tales,” was well fitted to establish it. While
the prologue describes every class of English society, each drawn
with an incomparable delicacy and humour, the tales which form the
bulk of the work are of every description. Love romances for the
knights; coarse or farcical incidents for the commonalty; sober
religious prose for the serious. Compared with this poem, there
is nothing for more than a century worthy of mention. Gower, who
wrote at the same time with Chaucer, and in the three languages,
is wholly deficient in humour, and heavy and prosaic to the last
degree. His followers in the next century, Lydgate and Occleve,
were poets by profession and not by inspiration, always ready to
turn out a poem upon demand. Chaucer was not only the founder of
the English language, but, before the appearance of Spenser, the
only great poet whom England produced.
HENRY IV.
1399-1413.
Born 1366 = 1. Mary of Bohun.
| = 2. Joan of Navarre.
|
+------+------+----------+----+---+------------------+
| | | | | |
Henry V. | John, Duke | Blanche = Duke |
| of Bedford. | of Bavaria. |
| | |
Thomas, Duke Humphrey, Philippa = King of
of Clarence. Duke of Denmark.
Gloucester.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain (Castile)._
| | |
Robert III., 1390. | Charles VI., | Wenceslaus, 1378. | Henry III., 1390.
James I., 1405. | 1380. | Robert, 1400 | John II., 1406.
| | Sigismund, 1410. |
POPES.--Boniface IX., 1389. Innocent VII., 1404. Gregory XII., 1406.
Alexander V., 1409. John XXII., 1410.
_Archbishop._ | _Chancellors._
|
Thomas Arundel, | John Searle, 1399. Thomas Arundel, 1407.
1397. | Edmund Stafford, 1401. Sir Thomas Beaufort, 1409.
| Cardinal Beaufort, 1403. Thomas Arundel, 1412.
| Thomas Longley, 1405.
[Sidenote: Henry’s position in English history. 1399.]
The reign of Richard II., with its strange and rapid revolutions,
had been the beginning of that great faction fight which was
concluded a century afterwards by the accession of Henry VII. After
pursuing during that reign a policy of inconsistent, and even
treacherous, self-seeking, the Duke of Lancaster now came forward
as the champion of order. The _coup d’état_ by which he put himself
on the throne is another of those instances which history has so
abundantly furnished, of the willing acceptance by a nation, after
a period of long discomfort, of any one who would bring it rest.
There are thus two points of view from which to regard his reign.
It is the reign of a usurper bent upon establishing a dynasty, the
reign of a conservative who bases his position on the maintenance
of the existing state of society, and therefore for a time checks
the natural progress of the nation. The necessity which a usurper
feels for popularity will explain the improved constitutional
position of the Commons during the earlier years of his reign;
his position as a reactionary that attachment to the Church which
produced the famous statute, “De Hæretico comburendo.”
[Sidenote: Reversal of the acts of the late King.]
[Sidenote: Tumultuous scene in the first Parliament.]
[Sidenote: The King’s insecure position for nine years. 1400.]
The arbitrary character of the government at the close of the
late King’s reign, and the acts of vengeance which had marked it,
were the evils which were most prominent at the moment. Henry’s
first step was of necessity the reversal of these acts, and the
restoration of the state of things which had existed in 1388. The
Parliament was therefore induced to declare all the acts of the
last Parliament null, while those nobles whose adhesion to the late
King had procured them fresh rank fell back to their old titles.
Thus, the Dukes of Albemarle, of Surrey, and of Exeter, appear
again as the Earls of Rutland, Kent, and Huntingdon, the Marquis of
Dorset as Earl of Somerset. The scene in the House of Lords in the
first Parliament marks the pitch to which passion had risen, and
the preparation already made for future civil war. Rutland, the son
of the Duke of York, was challenged by Lord Fitz-Walter, and when
Lord Morley, the friend of the new King, challenged Lord Salisbury,
no less than forty lords threw down their hoods as gages of battle
on one side or the other. This point is further illustrated by the
petition of the Commons, that all liveries except those of the King
should be forbidden. The nobles had been gathering paid retainers
around them, and getting themselves ready for the threatening
quarrel. Meanwhile, the King had been crowned, supported by his two
great partisans--whose names show the great influence of the North
in the late change of government--Percy, Earl of Northumberland,
now made Constable of England, and Neville, Earl of Westmoreland,
with the rank of Marshall. It by no means suited Henry to excite
remark as to his right. He therefore stepped as quietly as he
could into the position of his predecessor, and his son Henry
was declared Prince of Wales and heir-apparent, entirely without
mention of the young Earl of March, the real heir, who was then a
child in the custody of the King at Windsor. A grant of a tax on
wool and leather for three years closed the session, and enabled
Henry to take measures to secure his position; for it was not to be
supposed that the party which had lost its influence would calmly
acknowledge the new King. He was scarcely crowned when plots began
to be formed against him, nor was it till he had been nine years
upon the throne that the dangers which assaulted him both from
his own kingdom and from foreign countries were finally overcome.
It was during this period of weakness and uncertainty that he had
to rest principally upon the Commons, who supported him as the
champion of order against baronial disorder, but did not fail to
take advantage of his weakness.
[Sidenote: Insurrection of the late Lords Appellant.]
The first of these difficulties arose from those lords who had been
the appellants against Gloucester, and whose loss of rank has been
already mentioned. A week before Christmas, 1399, several others
of the depressed party met at Westminster, and there the Earls of
Huntingdon, Rutland, Kent, and Salisbury entered into a conspiracy
for the restoration of Richard. Their plan was to seize the King
at Windsor, but Rutland, a never-failing traitor, disclosed the
project to his cousin; the King hastily betook himself to London,
and the insurgent lords, finding that their plans were discovered,
fell back towards the West. The King was rapidly pursuing them;
but at Cirencester, the inhabitants, under their Mayor, surrounded
their lodgings, took them prisoners, and afterwards beheaded Kent
and Salisbury. Several escaped for the time, but the same fate at
length overtook Despenser at Bristol, and Huntingdon at Pleshy in
Essex. Subsequently, Sir Thomas Blunt and eighteen others were
executed at Oxford. Among them was a priest, Maudelin by name, who
had been chosen for his strong personal resemblance to represent
the late King in the insurrection. That the leaders of this
conspiracy should have all fallen victims to popular vengeance
sufficiently shows the feelings of the bulk of the nation with
regard to King Henry and his rival.
[Sidenote: Imprisonment and secret death of Richard.]
Meanwhile, Richard had been imprisoned in Pontefract Castle. In
February a report was spread that he was dead. On this the Privy
Council begged that, if still alive, he might be carefully secured.
The answer was given that he was already dead, and a corpse was
exhibited in London, the face of which, from the eyes to the chin,
was left uncovered, the rest of the body being carefully clothed.
This peculiar arrangement excited suspicions, which were probably
groundless, but were further supported by the complete mystery
which hung over the manner of the King’s death. Hunger and violence
were both alleged; while some asserted that the corpse exhibited
was not that of Richard, but of the priest Maudelin.[84]
[Sidenote: Hostile attitude of France and Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Useless and impolitic march into Scotland.]
His domestic enemies for the present silenced, Henry could look
abroad. He made advances towards friendship with France, but it
soon became plain that that kingdom was inclined to support the
cause of the late King, whose young widow, Isabella, was the
daughter of Charles VI. The title of King of England was refused
to Henry, Isabella and her dowry demanded, and hostility thus kept
continually alive. In Scotland, also, the same feeling showed
itself. The King, Robert III., was confined by weakness of body
and mind almost exclusively to the Isle of Bute; his brother, the
Duke of Albany, was the real ruler of the country. Henry, who had a
party in the country, and at whose court Dunbar, the Earl of March,
the chief enemy of the Douglas family, was resident, thought it
desirable to show his power. He therefore marched as far as Leith,
demanding homage from the Scotch King similar to that claimed by
his predecessors, but the Duke of Rothesay, heir-apparent, held
firm in the Castle of Edinburgh, and want of provisions speedily
obliged the English to beat a somewhat hasty retreat. As in the
case of France, this transaction with Scotland established a
constant hostility.
[Sidenote: Insurrection in Wales. Owen Glendower. 1400.]
In the other dependency of England affairs were still worse. Owen
Glendower, a Welsh gentleman of good family educated in England,
incensed at the rejection of a suit about a certain property
of Lord Grey of Ruthyn, had roused the national animosity, and
claimed for himself the title of Prince of Wales. For the present
Henry could do nothing effective against him. The war assumed a
national character; the Welsh were expelled from the towns in the
Marches. Edward I.’s statutes against the Welsh were re-enacted,
even including that which ordered the destruction of the bards.
The conduct of the war was placed nominally in the hands of Henry,
Prince of Wales, a lad of thirteen. But the whole of the following
year Glendower’s successes continued. Grey of Ruthyn and Edward
Mortimer, uncle of the imprisoned Prince, the Earl of March,
were taken prisoners, and an expedition undertaken by Henry in
person towards the close of the year was forced to retire from the
mountainous strongholds of the Welsh. The storms and snowdrifts
seemed to fight against them in that wild district, and gave rise
to the belief that Glendower was a magician.
[Sidenote: Quarrel with the Percies. 1402.]
[Sidenote: The pretended Richard.]
[Sidenote: Causes of the quarrel with Northumberland.]
Could these various enemies but find some powerful adherents in
England, it was plain that Henry’s position would be precarious. A
quarrel with those who had hitherto been his chief supporters, the
Percies of Northumberland, supplied this element of danger; while
a strange report, that the late King was still alive in Scotland,
gave a central point round which all Henry’s enemies might gather.
About Whitsuntide, in 1402, the rumour reached England that Richard
had escaped from Pontefract, and had made his appearance at the
house of the Lord of the Isles, by whom he was handed over to the
Court, and there kept so strictly that no man could get sight of
him. The existence of such a pretender was certain. It was in vain
that Henry attempted to suppress the rumour by executions; in
vain that he even proceeded to execute certain Franciscan monks
who had been engaged in spreading it. The secrecy which covered
Richard’s death, and which for some reason Henry could not break,
prevented any clear proof of the imposture. The false Richard is
believed to have been a man of weak intellect, called Thomas Ward
of Trumpington. The reason of the King’s quarrel with the Percies
is by no means clear, but various causes of discontent can be
shown. The Duke of Albany, after much fighting on the borders, had
made an expedition on a large scale against Carlisle. On its return
home, the army, heavily laden with booty, was met by the Percies,
and defeated at Homildon Hill. The defeat was complete; many Scotch
nobles fell into the hands of the English, among them Murdoch,
Earl of Fife, the son and heir of the Earl of Albany, and Douglas,
Earl of Angus. For such prisoners the Percies expected a large
ransom. Their anger and disappointment was great when the King took
Murdoch from them and claimed the ransom of the rest. A somewhat
similar affair took place in Wales. Of Glendower’s great prisoners,
Grey of Ruthyn was allowed to ransom himself, a privilege refused
to Mortimer; when the younger Percy, Hotspur, who had married
Mortimer’s sister, urged his claim, he met with a rebuff. The King
also owed the Percies large sums of money; £20,000 was due to
them, which the entanglement of the finances made it impossible
to pay. The general feeling that they had been badly rewarded for
the invaluable assistance they had afforded Henry, acting upon the
unusually hot temper of the younger Percy, drove them into a change
of policy.
[Sidenote: The Percies combine with Glendower.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Shrewsbury. July 23, 1403.]
[Sidenote: Submission of Northumberland. 1404.]
Before the end of the year 1402, they entered into negotiations
with Glendower; and Mortimer, instead of attempting to gain
his liberty, married the daughter of the insurgent chief, and
recognized him as Prince of Wales. The Percies at the same time
gained the assistance of their prisoner Douglas, and the conspiracy
was completed by the support given to Glendower by France. On
all sides the King’s difficulties seemed to increase. The Earl of
Worcester joined the Percies; Richard’s old followers crowded to
their standard, and an army, insidiously collected as though for
an attack on Scotland, rapidly marched on Shrewsbury to make a
junction with the Welsh. Thither Henry, with his son the Prince of
Wales, hastened, and the decisive battle of Shrewsbury was fought,
in which, after a keen struggle, Hotspur was killed, and most of
the other leaders, including Worcester and Douglas, captured.
Worcester and the other English leaders were beheaded; Douglas was
retained in prison. The King had still to destroy the insurrection
of the elder Percies in the North, where all the inhabitants of the
country had taken the crescent--the livery of Northumberland. The
royal army was, however, obviously too strong for opposition, and
the Earl made his submission, and met the King at York. The House
of Peers claimed as a right the trial of their fellow, and he was
found guilty, not of high treason, but only of misdemeanour, and
let off with a fine.
[Sidenote: Widespread conspiracy.]
[Sidenote: Flight of the young Earl of March. 1405.]
The great conspiracy was thus but half broken. Wales, Scotland,
France, and the English malcontents were still in communication.
From France, indeed, serious difficulties seemed to threaten. In
presence of the weakness of Charles VI., the King of that country,
the real power was disputed by his brother Louis of Orleans and
his uncle the Duke of Burgundy. Louis had at this time the upper
hand. He took in great dudgeon the events which had taken place in
England; and rumours were abroad, strengthened by the distribution
among the malcontents of Richard’s crest by the old Countess of
Oxford, the mother of De Vere, the late King’s favourite. These
rumours pointed to a great conspiracy, coupled with an invasion of
Essex by France, in favour of the spurious Richard in Scotland. For
a time the threat of invasion compelled the King to remain quiet;
but after the French fleet, which had attacked the Isle of Wight
and Plymouth, had been defeated at Portland, he was able to turn
his attention to the North, and again to compel Northumberland
to come to an explanation. But that explanation he found himself
obliged to accept. Almost at the same time a fresh alarm met him.
Lady Constance Spenser had contrived to withdraw the young Earl of
March from Windsor, and to fly with him. She was shortly captured,
and the young Prince brought back, but it was plain that the danger
was great.
[Sidenote: Renewed activity of Northumberland, Scrope and Mowbray.]
In April the King went against Wales. His absence in that
direction was at once taken advantage of by his northern enemies.
The difficulty with which he could secure supplies was one of
Henry’s main obstacles to success, and in the last Parliament the
opposition had been headed by Sir Thomas Bardolph. That gentleman
now appeared in close conjunction with Northumberland, assisting
him to garrison his fortresses. At the same time Mowbray, the son
of that Duke of Norfolk with whom Henry had quarrelled at the
time of his banishment, and Scrope, the Archbishop of York, the
brother of that Lord Scrope who had been Richard’s chancellor at
the beginning of his reign, and whom that King had been forced to
remove, joined the insurrection. The Earl of Westmoreland, who
remained constantly faithful to Henry, was sent against them while
Henry was engaged in Wales. Again, the royal army was too strong
for the insurgents. Scrope and Mowbray were induced to disband
their forces, and were then immediately apprehended. Gascoigne,
the chief justice, was called upon to try them and convict them
summarily. He was one of those constitutional lawyers who were
gradually rising in England, and he refused to do so, pointing
out that he should infringe the liberties both of the Church and
the House of Lords. Henry found in Sir William Fulthorpe a more
complacent judge. They were both beheaded, not without arousing, as
Gascoigne had foreseen, the anger of the Lords. Upon the capture of
his confederates, Northumberland fled with Bardolph to Scotland,
but being refused an interview with the impostor, and mistrusting
the honesty of Albany, he subsequently withdrew to Wales. It was
there alone that the war continued, nor was it finally suppressed
during the reign.
[Sidenote: Events which secured Henry’s triumph. 1406.]
[Sidenote: Capture of James of Scotland.]
[Sidenote: Murder of Orleans. 1407.]
[Sidenote: Final defeat and death of Northumberland.]
[Sidenote: Henry’s improved position.]
But, in the next two years, events occurred which at length
placed Henry in a position of security. The friends of the Scotch
King, fearing the ambition of Albany, which had already induced
him to take the life of the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent,
determined to withdraw James, the King’s second son and
heir-apparent, from danger. He therefore took ship for France, but
on the way was captured by English cruisers, and brought a prisoner
to Henry, who grimly remarked that they might as well have sent him
direct to him, as he could have taught him French quite well. He
justified this boast; for though he kept the young Prince prisoner,
he gave him an education which, upon his subsequent release, well
fitted him for the throne he occupied. Henry had now in his hands
pledges of safety from all his enemies. The Earl of March was
still with him; Murdoch of Fife, Albany’s son, served as a hostage
for his father; while James served as security from all attacks
from the royalist party in Scotland. The following year (1407)
was still more fortunate. The overweening vanity of Orleans, his
licentiousness, which, it is said, did not even spare the young
Duchess of Burgundy, excited the anger of the Duke of Burgundy,
the King’s cousin, to such a degree, that he caused the Duke of
Orleans to be murdered in the streets of Paris. Henry’s chief
enemy in France was thus removed. With Burgundy, who had lately
inherited Flanders, and thus become the Prince of a trading nation
and the champion of the city populations, he had much in common;
and though he did not espouse his cause in any active manner, he
felt secure from any immediate danger. Without his French allies,
Owen Glendower was gradually driven back to the mountains of North
Wales, and in despair, Northumberland and Bardolph again appeared
in the North, took arms, and were defeated and killed at Bramham.
Thus safe on the side of France, with Scotland pledged to peace by
the captivity of its princes, the Percies finally defeated, and
Owen Glendower confined to the limits of the purely Celtic part of
Wales, Henry was at length triumphant.
[Sidenote: His enforced respect for the Commons.]
[Sidenote: Climax of their power. 1407.]
During the whole of these years of difficulty, the King had found
it necessary to keep the Commons in good temper. Although he
suffered from constant want of money, and in vain tried to induce
his frequent Parliaments to act liberally towards him, he seems
on no occasion to have employed illegal means for improving his
position. It had become an accepted axiom, that consent of all the
estates of the realm was necessary for the levying of taxes; and
the Commons had made their position so good, that, in the very year
of his final triumph, they ventured upon a quarrel with the Lords,
claiming for themselves the exclusive right of originating grants,
and insisting on the absence of the King while they were discussed.
More than that, they had attempted, though unsuccessfully, to
oblige the King to answer their petition of grievances before
they made their grant, and succeeded in establishing the custom
of appropriating their grants to special objects, and of paying
them into the hands of treasurers of their own appointment. But
their increase of power was chiefly visible in their interference
with the royal expenditure and administration. In the fifth
year of his reign, the King had been obliged to displace four
of his ministers at the request of the Commons, to declare his
intention of governing economically according to law, and to name
his Privy Council in Parliament. And in the eighth year of his
reign, when already he seemed upon the point of triumphing over
his enemies, he was compelled to grant his assent to a petition
of the Commons, which put as strict limitations upon his power as
any to which Richard, even at the time of his greatest depression,
had submitted. He had to name sixteen counsellors, by whose advice
solely he was to be guided. His ordinary revenue was to be wholly
appropriated to his household and the payment of his debts. No
officer of the household was to hold his place for life or for a
fixed term. The council was to determine nothing which the common
law was capable of determining; and the elections of knights were
regulated. At the head of this council was put the Prince of Wales.
[Sidenote: Explained by the King’s failing health.]
[Sidenote: Renewed vigour at end of reign.]