REIGN OF HENRY IV.
His Coronation--The Insecurity of his Position--He courts the
Clergy and the People--Sends an Embassy to France--Conspiracy
to assassinate him--Death of King Richard--Rumours of his
Escape to Scotland--Expedition into Scotland--Revolt of
Owen Glendower--Battle of Homildon Hill--The Conspiracy
of the Percies--The Battle of Shrewsbury, where they are
Defeated--Northumberland Pardoned--Accumulating Dangers--Second
Rebellion of the Percies with the Archbishop of York--The
North reduced--The War in Wales--Earl of Northumberland flies
thither--The Plague--Battle of Bramham Moor--Reduction of the
Welsh--Expedition into France--Death of Henry.
The reign of Henry IV. dates from the 30th of September, 1399, when he
was placed on the throne of England by the Archbishops of Canterbury and
York, in the presence of the assembled Parliament. Having, as we have
stated, made his claim to the throne in a speech as remarkable for its
disdaining to base his pretensions on the choice of the people as for its
being delivered in the English of the day, in which we have given it--a
proof that the language of the country was now recognised as that of all
classes--he adjourned the Parliament till the 6th of October. On that day
he was crowned in Westminster by Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
with a careful observance of all the ancient ceremonies, and some new
ones introduced, to give additional effect to the title of a conscious
usurper. He had the sword which he wore on landing at Ravenspur borne
naked and erect before him by the Earl of Northumberland, thus again
asserting his title as of the sword; and he conferred the Isle of Man,
which had belonged to Sir William Scrope, the Earl of Wiltshire, on the
earl, in fee "for himself and his heirs, for the service of carrying this
sword at the present and all future coronations."
All the great barons who held by patent hereditary offices on the
occasion performed their several services with apparent alacrity, and
everything wore an outward air of smoothness and prosperity. Within three
months Henry of Lancaster, an exile from the realm, had landed on its
shores, deposed and imprisoned his rightful sovereign, and sat there the
anointed king.
But he was well aware that he sat there by no single right, except that
which he had so determinedly rejected--the election of the people--and
that he was surrounded by a thousand elements of danger. Richard, the
true king, was still alive, and, though at present unpopular with the
people, had many partisans, who had rather been surprised into silence
than permanently satisfied. The rightful and acknowledged heir to the
throne was the young Earl of March, who, though yet only a boy of seven
years of age, had powerful connections in the Percies, the Mortimers, and
other great houses. This young nobleman was the direct descendant from
Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of John of Gaunt, the father
of Henry of Lancaster. Not only was the Earl of March the true lineal
heir to the throne, but his father, Roger Mortimer, had been so declared
by Richard II. by Act of Parliament. This youth, thus unceremoniously set
aside, Henry had taken care to secure the possession of, and kept him and
his younger brother in a sort of honourable confinement at Windsor.
Besides the direct claim of the young Earl of March, Richard, Earl of
Cambridge, himself a son of Edmund, Duke of York, and married to the
sister of the Earl of March, regarded himself as injured by the invasion
of the throne by Henry. The claims of the Earl of March were not at
this crisis ever mentioned by any party, and therefore Henry took care
to keep silence on them. He did not so much as attempt to procure from
Parliament, when it met, an act of settlement of the crown in his family,
as that would have implied a doubt of his legal right; but he elected his
eldest son Prince of Wales, Duke of Guienne, Lancaster, and Cornwall, and
he was named in Parliament heir apparent to the throne.
These steps were necessary to secure his hold of the throne at home. In
France he had created a determined enemy in Charles VI., whose son-in-law
he had deposed, and whose daughter he, in a manner, held captive, after
having deprived her of her share of the crown of England. France,
accordingly, threatened vengeance, and might be expected to incite the
Scots to annoyance; and, besides being under the necessity of arousing
the hostility of the friends and partisans of those nobles whom he
resolved to punish for past offences to his family, he knew that he had
laid himself under such obligations to those who had aided his designs as
would be difficult to discharge to the height of their expectations.
Henry, therefore, went craftily to work. On dismissing the Parliament, he
had instantly ordered the issue of writs for the assembling of a new one,
returnable in six days. This necessitated the return of the very same
men, for the time was far too short for a fresh election. He was certain
of their obsequiousness, and would not risk a delay which might give time
for the people to think, and to send up members who might at least raise
difficulties. He declared that he did this for the profit of the kingdom,
to spare the expenses of an election, and for the more prompt redress
of grievances; but he took care to add that he did not mean this to be
drawn into a precedent, to the prejudice of future Parliaments and of the
kingdom.
It must have been on the tried compliancy of the Commons that Henry
chiefly relied, for in the Lords he had much disagreeable and dangerous
work to do; and he found the Commons as obedient as he could desire. He
immediately moved the repeal of all the acts which had been levelled at
his family and partisans during the late reign, and had the attainders
of the Earls of Arundel and Warwick reversed. But now came into play the
powerful passions of the aristocracy--the terror of some, the hopes of
others, the jealousies and animosities of all. It was at once seen how
needful to Henry was the support of a devoted Commons. He summoned the
lords who had appealed to the Duke of Gloucester and his associates to
justify their proceedings. This was raising a storm of the most furious
description. The noblemen concerned put forward the same plea as the
judges had done in the late reign--namely, that they had only acted
under compulsion; that they had neither framed nor advised the appeal,
but were compelled to sign it under terror of the threats of Richard.
They asserted that they were no more guilty than the rest of the lords
who had joined in condemning the appellants. This was touching the sore
spot of the whole assembly, and the most terrible altercation arose. When
Lord Fitzwalter made the charge against the Duke of Albemarle, twenty
other lords joined in it, for Albemarle had been a notorious traitor to
both sides, and forty hoods were flung down on the floor of the House as
pledges of battle in support of their assertions. The accused flung down
his hood in acceptance of the challenge, and all were taken up and given
into the custody of the constable and Earl Marshal. When the Lord Morley
charged the Earl of Salisbury with falsehood to the Duke of Gloucester,
and with betraying the secrets of Gloucester to the late king, Salisbury
met his accusation with a direct denial, and both cast down their gloves
in pledge of battle.
Nothing but the most settled purpose of vengeance on his enemies would
have induced the cautious Henry to rouse such a tempest at this moment.
But he was sure of the popular branch of the Legislature, and, probably,
he felt that division amongst the haughty barons was strength to his own
hands; and that only while they were in violent repulsion from each other
could he safely humiliate those whom he had in view.
When the storm was at its height, Henry interposed, and, while the
conflicting peers were in fiery antagonism with each other, he let fall
his intended blow on the party which had supported Richard against his
uncle Gloucester and himself. The lords appellant were stripped of the
honours and estates which they had obtained from Richard as the rewards
of their appeal; and the Dukes of Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter, the
Marquis of Dorset, and the Earl of Gloucester, descended again to their
former ranks of Earls of Rutland, Kent, Huntingdon, Somerset, and Lord le
Despenser.
To prevent the repetition of such scenes in future, appeals of treason
to Parliament were prohibited, and such appeals were directed to be
carried to the established courts of law. Treason itself was again
limited to the offences named in the celebrated Act of Edward III. The
abuse introduced by Richard of delegating all the powers of Parliament to
a mere committee of both Houses was declared unconstitutional and utterly
inadmissible; and the heaviest penalties were enacted against any person
but the king giving liveries to his retainers.
[Illustration: HENRY IV.]
Henry proceeded to reward his friends. As he had punished his enemies
by deprivation of honours and estates, he now restored the Earls of
Warwick and Arundel to their former ranks and properties. He constituted
the Earl of Northumberland constable, and Ralph Neville, Earl of
Westmoreland, marshal of England; and, as he had bestowed the Isle of Man
on Northumberland, he now gave the earldom of Richmond to Westmoreland.
Besides these, he conferred many other honours, grants, and offices.
Before dismissing Parliament, he submitted to the lords spiritual
and temporal, through the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of
Northumberland, an especial matter for their advice, and they were
charged to keep the subject an inviolable secret. This was no other than
the disposal of the deposed king. Henry declared, as we have already
stated, that at all events he was resolved on the preservation of his
life. The lords gave it as their advice that he should be placed under
the custody of trusty officers, who should convey him secretly to some
castle, where no concourse of people could assemble, and where he should
be strictly excluded from all approach of those who had formerly been in
his service. Four days after this the king went to the house, expressed
his approval of the advice of the lords for the secure detention of
Richard, and ordered it to be carried into instant and permanent effect.
Henry appeared now firmly seated on the throne of his unhappy cousin.
There can be no doubt that it had been the dream and object of his life's
ambition. His father before him, and his uncle Gloucester, had shown
no equivocal signs of a desire to seize the crown of that unfortunate
prince, and one after another they had usurped the actual power into
their own hands. But Henry, more crafty and calculating, watched his
opportunity, and did not make a decided grasp at it till he felt sure of
the favour of the people. Though he had now reached the height of his
ambition, he still as carefully courted the favour of the people and the
Church, in order to consolidate his new power. To give the people an idea
of the auspicious change they had made in their sovereign, he issued a
proclamation commanding all the blank bonds which had been extorted from
them by Richard and his courtiers to be made null, and committed to the
flames. To ensure the continued favour of the clergy, he now took a very
different course to that which both he and his father, John of Gaunt,
had done formerly. Then they were the great champions of Wycliffe; now
he withdrew his countenance from the Reformers, and paid the most marked
attention to the interests and ceremonies of the Church, and to the
persons and wishes of the clergy.
But no precautions, no subtlety of policy, could give peace and security
to a throne raised so palpably on injustice and treachery as that of
Henry of Lancaster. From within and from without he found himself menaced
by danger. France rejected his alliance and threatened war. The Scots,
expecting the French to make a descent on England in favour of Richard,
burst into Northumberland in one of their favourite excursions of
plunder, took and destroyed the castle of Wark, and committed extensive
devastations. Henry sent the Earl of Westmoreland to negotiate with these
troublesome neighbours, and the Scots, finding no French army arrive,
accepted the offered terms, and retreated to their own country.
But a conspiracy was forming at this very time in his immediate
neighbourhood. The lords appellants, who had been stripped of the honours
and wealth heaped upon them by Richard, though they had probably escaped,
to their own surprise, with their lives, incapable of sitting down
satisfied, entered into a conspiracy to assassinate the usurper. During
the Christmas holidays they met frequently at the lodgings of the Abbot
of Westminster to plan his destruction, and the following scheme was
the result of their deliberations. They agreed to celebrate a splendid
tournament, to be held at Oxford, on the 3rd of January, 1400. Henry was
to be invited to preside, and while intent on the spectacle, a number of
picked men were to kill him and his sons.
The king was keeping his Christmas at Windsor, whither the Earl of
Huntingdon, the notorious John Holland, who had a particular proclivity
towards murder, presented himself, and gave him the invitation. Henry
accepted it, Huntingdon, notwithstanding his partisanship with Richard,
and his recent disgrace, being still the king's brother-in-law.
On the 2nd of January, the day previous to the tournament, the Earl
of Rutland went secretly to Windsor and betrayed the whole plot to
the king. It is said that Rutland had received a letter from one of
the conspirators while at dinner, which his father, the Duke of York,
would insist on reading, and the fatal secret thus coming out, York had
compelled his son to reveal the whole to Henry at once. But it must be
recollected that Rutland had as fatal a tendency to treachery as Holland
had to murder. He had betrayed Richard while in Ireland, and on his
return in Wales, had gone over at the critical moment to Lancaster. He
now again entered into a murderous plot against the new king, and then,
with equal facility, he betrayed his fellow-conspirators. It was an
ominous mark of want of caution in the conspirators admitting him as one
of their members to their secret. Henry was so well acquainted with the
false nature of the man who had thus sacrificed every party that he had
been connected with, that he hesitated to give credit to this story. At
length, having convinced himself of the reality of the plot, he remained
quiet during the day at Windsor, and in the dusk of the evening set out
secretly to London.
The conspirators, who had with them the staunch friends of Richard, the
Earl of Salisbury and Lord Lumley, assembled on the day appointed at
Oxford, but were surprised to find that neither the king nor their own
accomplice, Rutland, had arrived. Suspecting treachery, they resolved to
lose no time, but to surprise Henry at Windsor, where they knew he had
but a slender guard. With a body of 500 horse they made a rapid ride that
evening to Windsor, but arrived only to find that the intended victim
had escaped. They were greatly disconcerted, but their partisans having
joined them from Oxford, they determined to raise the standard of revolt,
and to give out that Richard was at large, and at their head in assertion
of his crown and dignity.
In order to give credit to their story of King Richard's escape, they
dressed up Richard's chaplain, Maudelin, to represent him. Maudelin was
said to be so like Richard in person and features that every one who saw
him declared that he was the king without doubt. Maudelin was supposed to
be an illegitimate son of one of the royal family. He had been implicated
in the illegal execution of the Duke of Gloucester at Calais, had adhered
to Richard through all his fortunes, and was taken with him at Flint.
The army of the insurgents increased, but it is evident that their
enterprise was ill-concerted, and their counsels were now distracted.
Hearing that Henry was already at Kingston-on-Thames at the head of
20,000 men, they resolved to retire into the west. They went on,
proclaiming Richard in all the towns and villages in their route, and the
next evening they took up their quarters in Cirencester.
The young queen, according to several authorities, took a warm interest
in this attempt. The Earls of Kent and Salisbury, it is said, went to
Sunninghill, where she was staying, and told her that they had driven
Bolingbroke from the throne; that her husband was at liberty, and was
then on the march to meet her, at the head of 100,000 men. Overjoyed
at this news, says Sir John Haywood, the queen put herself at their
disposal, and took an extraordinary pleasure in ordering the badges of
Henry IV. to be torn from her household and replaced by those of her
husband.
The deception was a cruel one; but the murderer Huntingdon was not likely
to be very considerate of the queen's personal feelings. It would be
enough for him that drowning men catch at straws, and that the presence
of the real queen might be more effectual even than a sham king. The poor
queen set out with the Earls of Kent and Salisbury on their march towards
Wallingford and Abingdon. She was with the barons when they entered
Cirencester. But there a terrible fate awaited them. The mayor had
received the king's writ to oppose and seize the traitors. He summoned
the burghers and the people, and at midnight they made an attack on the
quarters of Kent and Salisbury. On attempting to escape, the wretched
noblemen found archers posted in every street; and, after a resistance
of six hours, they were compelled to surrender, and were conducted into
the abbey. In the middle of the following night, however, a fire breaking
out in the abbey, which was attributed to their party, they were brought
out and beheaded on the spot by the populace. The women, it appears, were
as zealous in seizing the insurgents as the men, and that they did not
exceed the king's orders is very clear, from the fact that Henry made a
grant of four does and a hogshead of wine annually to the men, and of six
bucks and a hogshead of wine to the women of that town.
The unfortunate Isabella was reconducted, strictly guarded, from
Cirencester to the palace of Havering-at-Bower; and this continued her
place of residence during the tragical transactions which followed this
abortive insurrection.
The fate of the other leaders of the revolt was summary and sanguinary.
The Earl of Gloucester and Lord Lumley went into the west of England,
as was proposed, but were seized and put to death by the populace at
Bristol. As for Huntingdon, the accounts of his end vary. One relation
says that he was seized in Essex and committed to the Tower on the 10th
of January, and five days afterwards beheaded, with circumstances of
great cruelty. But others, and apparently the more probable, are that he
was taken in Essex, and conveyed to Pleshy, the seat of the late Duke of
Gloucester, and, as one of those who had been associated with the late
king in the treacherous arrest and murder of the duke, was put to death
at the suggestion of the Duchess of Hereford, the eldest of Gloucester's
daughters. Such was the sanguinary termination of this ill-advised and
ill-conducted insurrection--a proper prelude, as Henry the historian has
justly observed, "to those scenes of blood and cruelty which followed in
the long contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, occasioned by
the fatal ambition of Henry IV."
A movement was now made by the Royal Council, undoubtedly originated
by Henry, for ascertaining the fate of the deposed king. The late
insurrection had shown the perils resulting to the usurper from the
presence of the true king--though in strict concealment. So long as
Richard remained alive would attempts be made by his partisans to restore
him; and, however popular Henry might be for a time, he was too well
versed in human nature not to be aware that any cause of offence on his
part, any heavy imposition or restriction of liberty, however necessary,
would immediately turn the public mind to the dethroned monarch, and
operate in the latter's favour. These considerations, there is reason to
believe, had led to his immediate destruction. From the day that he had
been left in the Tower after his formal abdication, the most profound
mystery had covered his existence. There were many stories of his being,
like Edward II., conveyed secretly from one castle to another by his
keepers. It was said that he had been kept some time in Leeds Castle in
Kent, and thence removed to Pontefract. But no one really knew where
he was, or how he was treated. But now news had reached the court of
France that Richard was really dead, and the council of Henry, as if of
their own accord, placed a minute on their book to this effect:--"It
seemeth expedient to the council to speak to the king, that in case
Richard, lately king, &c., be still alive, he be put in safe keeping,
in conformity with the advice of the lords; but if he be departed this
life, that then he be _shown openly to the people_, that they may have
the knowledge of it."
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF HENRY IV.]
The answer to this, as intended, was the showing openly the body, which
was brought up from Pontefract Castle with considerable funeral pomp,
namely, in a carriage drawn by two horses, one placed before the other.
A peculiar arrangement was adopted, the face from the eyes to the chin
being left uncovered, the rest of the body being carefully concealed. The
carriage was covered with black cloth, having four banners emblazoned
with the arms of St. George and St. Edward. It was attended by 100 men
all clad in black, and was met on its approach to the city by thirty
Londoners dressed in white and bearing torches. King Henry himself walked
in procession, bearing a corner of the pall.
But this public exposition, so far from having satisfied the public mind
of Richard's death, was the fruitful source of continued rumours of his
existence, and perpetuated the very effects which Henry intended it to
dispel--repeated revolts for his restoration. Very strong was the belief
that Richard was still alive and even at liberty, and that this was a
mere mock funeral, and the corpse that of some other person, probably the
priest Maudelin.
The accounts of Richard's death, given by contemporary writers, are
chiefly three. Walsingham asserts that he died in Pontefract Castle on
the 14th of February, 1400, from voluntary starvation, having fallen into
a profound melancholy on hearing of the failure of the insurrection on
his behalf, and the execution of his half-brother, John Holland, and the
rest of his friends. Thomas of Otterburn confirms this account, except
that he adds that Richard being persuaded at length to take food by his
keepers, found the orifice of his stomach closed from long abstinence,
and perished in consequence. The chronicle of Kenilworth, the chronicle
of Peter de Ockham in the Harleian collection, and Hardyng, assert that
he was starved to death by his keepers.
The story of his assassination by Sir Piers Exton and his eight ruffians
is found in a French manuscript work in the Royal Library at Paris, and
is repeated by Fabyan, Hall, and Haywood. The account of Fabyan is that
followed by Shakespeare, which has given it a firm and world-wide hold on
the public mind. All these accounts agree in the fact that the murder of
Richard, in whatever shape it took place, occurred in Pontefract Castle.
Tradition has had but one constant voice, also fixing it there, and in
1643 three gentlemen of Norfolk visiting that castle record that they
were shown the highest of seven towers, called "the round tower," as the
one in which Richard fled round a post in combat with his butchers; and
they add, "Upon that post the cruel hackings and fierce blows do still
remain."
[Illustration: ARREST OF THE CONSPIRATORS AT CIRENCESTER. (_See p._ 519.)]
It can hardly be doubted that Richard really died at this time;
nevertheless, some mystery hung over his death, and it was not long
before a false Richard appeared in Scotland, having, it was said, escaped
from Pontefract. He was positively declared by the former jester of
King Richard to be that king, and also by the sister-in-law of the Lord
of the Isles, who declared she had seen him in Ireland. This supposed
Richard is declared by Wyntoun "to have seemed half-mad or wild, from
the manner in which he conducted himself," and therefore it was supposed
that he had lost his understanding through his misfortunes. Though we
are told that Lord Percy and other noblemen came to him, we are also
informed that he would not see them. Yet for seventeen years at least,
was this mysterious personage maintained at the court of Scotland as the
veritable King Richard. But it appears that he was kept in the closest
seclusion. Now, had the King of Scotland been confident that he had the
real King Richard, nothing could have strengthened him so much against
his enemy of England, as to have let all those English noblemen and
gentlemen who were familiar with Richard have the fullest opportunity of
verifying him. As such was not the case, we may fairly infer that there
were sufficient reasons for avoiding this test, and that the pretended
Richard was what he was called by Henry of England in his proclamations,
the _mawmet_, or puppet, which it was convenient for Scotland to play
off against England, whenever it was useful to stir up an insurrection.
He was identified by some with one Thomas Ward, a man of weak intellect.
Still, there is sufficient semblance of a fact in the case to make it one
of those which will always stimulate curiosity.
The King of Scotland lost no time in putting into play this story of the
flight of King Richard to his court. The news of it was spread amongst
the disaffected in various quarters of England, and the Scots prepared to
make a descent on the country under advantage of the internal dissension
produced. There were other motives which added piquancy to the enmity of
the Scots and English. Robert III. was becoming old and feeble, and the
Duke of Albany, his brother, one of the most ambitious and unprincipled
men that ever lived, possessed the chief power, and gave every possible
encouragement to the English adherents of Richard. On the other hand,
Henry, recollecting the taunts of degeneracy which had been cast upon
his predecessor because he was of a pacific turn, determined to gratify
the taste of the nation for military fame. It suited him in every way,
except in a pecuniary point, for he was destitute of funds; but it was
calculated to divert men's minds from dwelling on the means by which
he had risen to the throne, and gave them one great object of interest
and union. The condition of Scotland, torn by powerful factions, and
ruled by a weak and ailing king, was favourable to his plans, and an
expedition thither was the more grateful to his feelings, as it afforded
him a hope of punishing the country which gave refuge to his enemies.
He announced his intention to Parliament, but it did not encourage
the idea of imposing new taxes. He then called a great council of the
peers, spiritual and temporal, and these consented to a partial resort
to the ancient feudal system, which had for some time been falling into
desuetude, that the barons should assemble their retainers and follow
the royal standard at their own cost; while the prelates and dignitaries
of the Church should give the king a tenth of their incomes. Henry next
summoned all persons possessed of fees, wages, or annuities, granted by
Edward III., the Black Prince, Richard II., or the Duke of Lancaster, to
meet him at York, under the penalty of forfeiture: and, from the banks
of the Tyne, where he arrived in the beginning of August, he dispatched
heralds to King Robert and the barons of Scotland, as his vassals, to
meet him on the 23rd of that month at Edinburgh, there to do homage and
swear fealty to him as the paramount lord of Scotland.
He marched to Leith without opposition, but the castle of Edinburgh was
in the hands of David, Duke of Rothesay, the king's eldest son, who sent
Henry a contemptuous defiance, offering to do battle with him, with
one, two, or three hundred Scottish knights against the same number
of English. Henry received the proposal with an equal affectation of
contempt, and waited some days for the approach of an army under the Duke
of Albany. But he waited in vain, for that astute nobleman took care not
to engage a force which famine was fast defeating for him. Provisions
became unattainable, and Henry was compelled to retreat to the borders.
The expedition was far from equalling the prestige of those of his
predecessors, especially the first and third Edwards, but at the same
time it must be allowed that it exceeded them in humanity. Whether
the real motive were humanity or policy, it was in effect both. His
protection was instantly afforded to all who sought it, and the royal
banner displayed from tower or steeple was a signal that no violence or
plunder of the inhabitants was permitted. Thus he mitigated the terrors
of war, and set an example of moderation to both friend and enemy, such
as had hitherto been unknown in European warfare.
Henry was hastily recalled from the borders of Scotland by a formidable
revolt in Wales. There a new enemy, and a most troublesome one, had been
needlessly provoked by the injustice of a nobleman, Lord Grey de Ruthin.
Lord Grey, who had large estates in the marshes of Wales, appropriated
a part of the demesne of a Welsh gentleman, Owen ap Griffith Vaughan,
commonly called Owen Glendower, or Owen of Glendowerdy. In his youth Owen
had studied the law in the inns of court; was called to the bar, but
afterwards became an esquire to the Earl of Arundel; and then, during
the campaign in Ireland, to Richard II., to whom he was much attached.
When Richard was deposed Owen retired to his paternal estate in Wales,
where the aggression of Lord Grey took place. Lord Grey was closely
connected with the new king; Owen was an adherent of the old one; and
this probably encouraged Lord Grey to attempt the injustice. But Owen
Vaughan was possessed of the high spirit and quick blood of the Welsh. He
disdained to submit to this arrogant oppressor. He petitioned the king in
Parliament for redress, but met with the fate which was only too probable
from a poor partisan of the fallen king in opposition to the powerful
one of the reigning dynasty. Though his cause was ably pleaded by the
Bishop of St. Asaph, his petition was rejected, and Owen, who boasted
that he was descended from Llewelyn, the last of the ancient Princes of
Wales, boldly took his cause into his own hands, and drove Lord Grey by
force of arms from his lands. The indignant nobleman appealed to Henry,
who embraced his cause, and issued a proclamation at Northampton on the
19th of September, 1400, commanding all men of the nine neighbouring
counties to repair instantly to his standard, to march into Wales, and
reduce Glendower, who was declared a rebel. The fiery patriot, burning
with indignation at this gross injustice, the very day that the news
of it reached him, rushed forth, burnt Lord Grey's town of Ruthin,
declared himself Prince of Wales, and called on his countrymen to follow
him and assert the liberty of their country. The spark was thrown into
the magazine of combustible material of which Wales was full, for it
was crushed but not contented. The people flocked from all quarters to
Owen's standard. They admitted his claims to the princedom of the country
without much inquiry, for they saw in him a companion and a deliverer
from the English yoke. Owen's superior education in London inspired them
with profound respect, and hence their opinion that he was a potent
magician, possessing dominion over the elements. Henry marched against
him, but Owen retired into the mountains, and the king was compelled to
return.
In the next year Henry marched once more against the Welsh, who continued
to assemble in still greater bodies under the banner of Owen Glendower,
and make inroads into England, plundering and killing wherever they came.
Twice in this year Henry took the field against them, but on his approach
they retired into their mountains and eluded his pursuit. As regularly
as he returned, they again rushed down into the champaign country, and
in one of these incursions in Pembrokeshire, Owen gained a considerable
victory, thus raising his reputation and augmenting his force.
Wearied by these fruitless attempts to subdue the insurgent Welsh, Henry
returned towards the end of the year to London, but found as little
repose or satisfaction there. Secret enemies were around him, treason
dogged his steps into his very chamber, and he came near to losing his
life by means of a sharp instrument of steel, having three long points,
which was concealed in his bed.
Meantime the revolt of Owen Glendower had been acquiring strength. Not
only did the Welsh, amid their native mountains, flock to his standard,
but such of them as were in England left their various employments and
hastened back to join in the great efforts for the independence of
their country. Not only labourers and artisans, but the apprentices in
London and other cities caught the contagion, and went streaming back.
The students left the universities, and the Commons at length presented
themselves before the king, representing to him how all these various
classes of men were hastening to Wales laden with armour, arrows, bows,
and swords. Owen took the field early, engaged his original adversary,
Lord Grey, defeated and made him prisoner on the banks of the Vurnway.
Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the young Earl of March, collected all the
friends and vassals of the family to prevent the devastation of their
lands. They mustered 12,000, with whom they attacked Glendower near
Knighton, in Radnorshire, but were defeated, and Sir Edmund was made
prisoner, with a loss of 1,100 of his men. At the same time the young
earl himself, who had been allowed by Henry to retire to his castle of
Wigmore, though a mere boy, took the field, but was also captured by
Glendower, and carried into the mountains.
Henry, who had the strongest reasons for wishing the Mortimers out of
his way, we may suppose was by no means displeased at their seizure by
Glendower; and this was sufficiently evident, for he refused to allow
the Earl of Northumberland, who was closely allied to the Mortimers, to
treat for their ransom with Glendower. Still, Henry put forth all his
vigour to reduce the Welsh chieftain. He entered Wales at three different
points; his son, the Prince of Wales, leading one division of the army,
the Earl of Arundel the second, and himself the third. The Prince of
Wales pushed into the heart of the mountains with a bravery which was
the herald of Agincourt. He reached the very estate of Glendower and
burnt down his house, and laid waste his property; but Glendower kept
aloof on the hills till he saw young Henry retire, when he poured down
like one of his native torrents, and carried desolation in his rear. The
English armies found it impossible to come to close quarters with these
enemies, and equally impossible to procure provisions. The weather was
insupportable. The rains descended in incessant deluges, the tempest tore
away the king's tent, and everything appeared to confirm the ideas of the
people, and indeed of contemporary historians, that Owen Glendower, by
the power of necromancy, could "call spirits from the vasty deep," and
bring the elements in league against his foes. Henry was compelled to
return baffled from the contest.
The news which reached the king from Scotland was equally extraordinary.
It was that King Richard was alive and residing at the Scottish court,
and about to invade England at the head of a large army. The king issued
repeated proclamations against the propagation of these rumours, and it
was now that he put to death Sir Roger Clarendon, the natural son of the
Black Prince, nine Franciscan friars, and several other persons, for
disseminating this account.
Border warfare was begun on a large scale by Henry's supporters the
Percies, and the Scottish nobles retaliated. On one of these occasions,
the command being in the hands of Sir Patrick Hepburn of Hailes, the
Scots broke into England and laid waste the country with great fury; but
going too far, they were intercepted by Percy and the Earl of March, a
Scottish refugee, and no connection of Mortimer's, on Nesbit Moor in the
Merse. The Scots were only 400 in number, but they were well armed and
mounted, and consisted of the flower of the Lothians. The battle was long
doubtful, but March, who had not arrived before, coming up with 200 men
from the garrison at Berwick, decided the fortune of the day. Hepburn
himself was killed, and such was the destruction of his best knights and
his followers that the spot still retains the name of Slaughter Hill.
Henry was delighted with the news of this victory. He complimented the
Percies and March on their prompt bravery, and commanded them to call out
and assemble the feudal levies of the northern counties, as the Scots
were menacing the borders on the west, and ravaging the neighbourhood
of Carlisle. Henry's information was correct. To revenge the defeat of
Nesbit Moor, Lord Archibald Douglas took the field with 10,000 picked
men, and the Earl of Albany, who now wielded unlimited power in Scotland,
sent his son Murdoch, Earl of Fife, to join him with a strong body of
archers and spearmen. The most distinguished knights and barons of
Scotland followed the Douglas banner. A nobler army for its numbers never
left Scotland under a Douglas. But the present Earl of Douglas was as
noted for his lack of caution, and for his numerous consequent defeats,
as his ancestors had been for their care and success, so that he had
acquired the by-name of "the tine-man," the losing man. He rushed on
across the Tweed with his accustomed impetuosity, and never stayed his
course till he arrived before the gates of Newcastle. Everywhere the
country people, unsupported by any armed force, had fled before him, and
he and his followers now found themselves so loaded with booty that it
was necessary to return.
Secure in their numbers and in the flight of the inhabitants, the Scots
pursued their homeward way leisurely, till they arrived near Milfield,
not far from Wooler, in Northumberland. But here they found themselves
confronted by a strong force under the Earl of Northumberland, his son
Hotspur, and the Earl of March. Douglas seized on an excellent position,
a hill called Homildon, had he only had cavalry and men-at-arms to
contend with; but the forces of the Percies consisted chiefly of archers,
and there were many eminences round Homildon which completely commanded
it, and whence the English bowmen could shoot down the Scots at pleasure.
The English occupied a strong pass; but perceiving their advantage, and
that the Scots had not even taken possession of the eminence opposed to
them, they advanced and secured that important ground. Had the Scots
taken care to pre-occupy that, they could have charged down on the
English archers, if they ventured to leave the pass, and the battle must
speedily have been brought to a hand fight, where the Scots, from their
vantage ground, could have committed great havoc.
The English, having posted themselves, to their own surprise, on the
eminence opposite to the Scots, saw that Douglas had crowded his whole
force into one dense column, exposing them to the enemy, and impeding,
by their closeness, their own action. Hotspur, at the head of the
men-at-arms, proposed to charge the Scots, but March instantly seized
his bridle rein, and showed him that he would, by his advance, lose the
grand advantage offered them by the oversight of Douglas. He made him
aware that the bowmen could speedily level the serried ranks of the
Scots without any danger to themselves. The truth of this was at once
perceived; the English archers advanced, pouring their arrows in showers
upon the Scots, who were so thickly wedged together, and so scantily
furnished with armour, having little more on them than a steel cap and
a slender jack or breast-plate, or a quilted coat, that the clothyard
arrows of the English made deadly work amongst them. As the English
continued to advance, the best armour of the knights was found incapable
of resisting their arrows, while the Scottish archers drew feebler and
more uncertain bows, and produced little effect. The confusion among the
forces of Douglas became terrible; the bravest knights and barons fell
mortally wounded; the horses struck with the arrows reared and plunged,
and trod down the riders of their own party. The Galwegians, only half
clad, presented, according to the accounts of the time, the appearance of
huge hedgehogs, so thickly were they bristled over with the shafts of the
enemy.
[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE SCOTS AT HOMILDON HILL. (_See p._ 525.)]
In this mortal dilemma a brave knight, Sir John Swinton exclaimed, "My
friends, why stand we here to be marked down by the enemy, and that like
deer in a park? Where is our ancient valour? Shall we stand still, and
have our hands nailed to our lances. Follow me, in the name of God; let
us break yonder ranks, or die like men."
On hearing this, Sir Adam Gordon, who had long been at deadly feud
with Swinton, threw himself from his horse, entreated his forgiveness,
and kneeling, begged the honour of being knighted by his hand. Swinton
instantly complied, and the two knights, tenderly embracing each other,
mounted and charged down on the enemy, followed by a hundred horsemen.
Had the whole body of the Scots followed they might have retrieved the
day; but such was the confusion in the Scottish lines, that before
Douglas could advance to support them, Swinton and Gordon were slain, and
their little band slaughtered or dispersed. When at length Douglas was
able to move on, the English archers, keeping perfect order, fell back
upon their cavalry, but poured, Parthian-like, showers of arrows behind
them on the Scots. The carnage was awful. No defence could withstand the
English arrows; and the Earl of Douglas himself, who wore on this fatal
day a suit of armour of the most tried temper and exquisite workmanship,
which had required three years to manufacture, was wounded in five
places, and taken prisoner, together with Murdoch, and the Earls of Moray
and Angus. The Scottish army was utterly routed; 1,500 men are said to
have perished in attempting to escape across the Tweed; and amongst the
slain, besides the chivalric knights Swinton and Gordon, were Sir John
Livingston of Callandar, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, Sir Roger
Gordon, Sir Walter Scott, and Sir William Sinclair.
Such was the bloody battle of Homildon Hill, another of those great
victories which the English owed entirely to the matchless superiority of
their bows and bowmen; for Walsingham declares that neither earl, knight,
nor squire handled their weapons, or came into action; though, when the
Scots were broken, they joined in the pursuit.
When Henry received the news of this great victory, achieved on the day
of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14th, 1402, he instantly
dispatched a messenger with letters of congratulation to the Percies and
the Earl of March, but commanded them not on any account to admit to
ransom any of their prisoners, of any rank whatever, or to suffer them
to be upon parole until they received further instructions. The object
of this order was plainly to keep Scotland quiet by retaining so many of
her bravest leaders in his power; but the peremptory tone of the command,
coming in the hour of victory, gave great offence to the commanders.
It was a settled and ancient right of the conqueror to ransom his
prisoners, and it came with a more sensible effect on the fiery spirit
of Hotspur from the recent refusal of Henry to permit him to ransom his
brother-in-law, the Earl of March, from Owen Glendower. Henry took care
to assure the victors that it was not his intention to deprive ultimately
any of his liege subjects of their undoubted rights in regard to their
captives; but Henry was not famous for keeping his word in opposition
to his interests. The reader will recollect the indignant language
put by Shakespeare into the mouth of Hotspur on this occasion, and,
notwithstanding the assertion of some writers that the offence really
taken by the Percies was not from this cause, we see no reason to doubt
the relations of Rymer and other authorities. This second interference
of Henry was the deciding cause of that revolt of the Percies, to which
they were already disposed, and which immediately followed Homildon Hill
fight.
They had been the means of placing Henry on the throne, as it would
seem, without intending it, for he had sworn to them on the Gospels at
Doncaster that he aimed at nothing more than asserting his own invaded
rights. Henry had rewarded them with large grants of land, including
those of their prisoner Douglas, which lay in Eskdale, Liddesdale, with
Ettrick Forest, and the lordship of Selkirk. The Percies, indeed, might
regard these last as scarcely more than nominal gifts, for they would
require a powerful force to keep possession of them, and they were almost
immediately retaken by the Scots. The Percies, in fact, were ill-pleased
with the haughty tone of Henry, who owed them so much, and they were
now in close alliance with the Mortimers, who had the real claim to
the throne. That Henry received their desire to liberate their royal
relative with fear and suspicion was clear from the fact that he made no
resistance to the ransom of Lord Grey de Ruthin. Henry did not hesitate
to say in reply to Hotspur's pertinacious demands of March's liberty,
that he and his uncle Mortimer had gone to Glendower of their own accord,
and that no loyal subject would, therefore, wish them back again.
This was pointed language to a mind like Hotspur's. But there were still
other causes at work. The Earl of Northumberland attended at Westminster
with his prisoner, Murdoch Stewart, the son of Albany, and six other
captives. They were presented to Henry, who, though he invited them to
dine with him, received them rather coldly, and used severe language to
Sir Adam Forster, one of them. The earl pressed Henry for the payment of
large sums of money due to him for the custody of the Marches and the
costs of the Scottish war. This of all subjects was the most distasteful
to Henry, who was always short of money, and reluctant to part with it
when he had it. To balance this account, he now gave Northumberland,
instead of hard cash, the lands of Douglas, which would require for their
defence still more hard blows. Northumberland returned home in no good
humour, and the work of revolt now went rapidly on.
The Earl of Worcester, Northumberland's brother, entered into the quarrel
regarding the Mortimers. Scrope, the Archbishop of York, the brother of
William Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, who had been put to death by Henry at
Bristol, and who, therefore, hated Henry, advised these nobles to depose
the usurper, and place the Earl of March, the rightful prince, on the
throne. The first open evidence of the insurrection was furnished by
Edmund Mortimer, who, to free himself from captivity, gave his daughter
in marriage to Owen Glendower, and on his part agreed to join the
confederacy for the overthrow of Henry of Lancaster, with 12,000 men.
Meantime, the Percies and the Earl of March had agreed to liberate
Douglas, their prisoner, on condition that he should join the enterprise
with a certain number of Scottish knights. Accordingly the Percies and
March made a foray into Teviotdale, and challenged the chivalry of
Scotland, by way of concealing their real enterprise from the eyes of the
English king, to meet them in battle on the 1st of August. Keeping up
the appearance of an attack on Scotland, they invested an insignificant
fortress on the borders, called the Tower of Cocklaws, commanded by a
simple esquire, one John Greenlaw. This petty border hold was besieged
with all the forms of war by this powerful army. It was assaulted by the
archers, and battered by the trebuchets and mangonels, but still it stood
firm, and its commander at length entered into a treaty with Hotspur,
promising to surrender it in six weeks, that is, on the aforesaid 1st
of August, if not sooner relieved by the King of Scotland, or Albany,
the governor. This made it necessary to send a courier to Edinburgh,
ostensibly to communicate this agreement to the Government, but really
under cover of it to open a negotiation with Albany for his adhesion to
the enterprise. The utmost publicity was given by the Percies to the
expected _rencontre_ between the nations on the 1st of August. They
applied in all directions for aid and troops from their friends, and
carried the deception so far as to even solicit Henry for arrears of
money due to them, amounting to £20,000, in order to enable them to
maintain the honour of the nation.
Henry must have lost much of his usual sagacity if he had not for some
time seen through this solemn farce. The black clouds of the coming
tempest had been drawing together from various quarters for some time,
and dull must have been the vision of the Government had they not
attracted their notice. Henry sent no money, but ominously avowed his
intention of joining his faithful Percies in person, and sharing their
dangers for their common country. This appears to have startled the
covert insurgents. They at once altered the tone of their pretensions.
They abruptly abandoned the anticipated glories of their Scottish
campaign, and directing their course towards Wales, gave out that they
were about to make war on Owen Glendower, in defence of King Henry.
Henry of Lancaster was by no means deceived. He knew that Mortimer had
allied himself to Glendower, and publicly proclaimed his intention to
maintain the cause of his nephew, the Earl of March against Henry.
Still more, the Scottish Earl of March, refusing to participate in the
treasonable designs of the Percies, from his mortal hatred to Douglas,
whom they had made an associate, hastened to Henry, and fully apprised
him of the real situation of affairs. Henry, therefore, lost no time in
marching northward; but this movement quickened that of Hotspur.
It has been said that if this conspiracy had been executed with as much
prudence as it was planned, it would have cost Henry his crown; and the
cause of failure has been laid on the precipitancy of Hotspur and the
timidity of his father. But it must be borne in mind that Henry was a
suspicious and vigilant monarch, constantly in danger, and, therefore,
constantly on the alert to detect it. Fortune, Providence, or his
singular circumspection, served him uniformly in all these conspiracies,
and enabled him to defeat his adversaries. It must also be borne in mind
that to arrange a sufficient military force to overturn the throne of a
monarch like Henry, it required extended ramifications of conspiracy;
and this involved the imminent danger of bringing into the field of
operation some individuals hostile or traitorous to the enterprise. On
this occasion the Percies had announced their object to the Governments
of France and Scotland, and the defiances arriving from the Duke of
Orleans and the Count of St. Pol seem to have originated from this cause.
But if they did not awake suspicion in the breast of Henry, there was the
Scottish Earl of March, as there had been the traitorous Earl of Rutland
before, to prove a stumbling-block to the conspirators. It was almost
impossible to avoid making him a confidant, and if made, he was pretty
sure to damage them through his hatred to Douglas.
At the critical moment when Henry had clearly obtained intelligence
of what was going forward, Albany, who was raising all Scotland, and
proposing to bring down 50,000 men to join them, had not had time to
complete his muster. The old Earl of Northumberland fell ill, or, as
some historians will have it, grew afraid, and could not march. It was,
therefore, no precipitancy, but an inexorable necessity, which compelled
Hotspur to use all diligence to effect a junction with Owen Glendower,
before overtaken by Henry. He was accompanied by Douglas and his Scottish
knights; and by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, the lieutenant of South
Wales, with what forces he could get together. The men of Chester always
devoted to King Richard, joined them on the march to support his cause,
for they heard that he was still alive. The whole insurgent army amounted
to 14,000 men, and even though disappointed of the contingents of the
Scottish regent and the old Earl of Northumberland, if they could reach
the army of Glendower they would present a most formidable force.
But in this Henry was too quick for them. He himself, knowing the valour
of the troops and the leaders who came against him, was desirous to delay
awhile an actual conflict with them; but the Scottish Earl of March, who
seems to have been an admirable tactician, as he had seen the true mode
of action at Homildon, saw it in this case, and urged vehemently on Henry
the necessity of checking the Percies before they could form a junction
with Glendower. Henry saw the wisdom of the advice; he had now reached
Burton-upon-Trent, and turning west, he pushed forward by forced marches,
and entered Shrewsbury at the same moment that the advanced guard of
Percy and Douglas was seen in all haste endeavouring to gain that city.
Hotspur and Douglas, failing in their intent to secure entrance into the
town, drew off their forces to Hateley Field, within a short distance of
the city, where they pitched their camp. From this camp the confederates
sent to the king a defiance, which has been preserved by Hardyng, who
was in the service of Hotspur, and the next day accompanied him to the
battle. In this they accused Henry of being false and perjured, inasmuch
as he had sworn at Doncaster on the holy Gospels that he would claim
nothing but the property of himself and his wife; yet he had deposed,
imprisoned, and murdered Richard the king. Moreover, not only had he
destroyed Richard, but he had usurped the right of the Earl of March,
and had violated the laws and constitution in various ways; for which
reason they pronounced him a perjured traitor, and were determined to
assert the cause of the rightful heir. Henry replied that he had no time
to waste in writing; but the next morning the 21st of July, the vigil
of St. Mary Magdalene, drew his forces out of the city, and put them in
order of battle. When this was accomplished he appeared struck with some
doubts of the result of the battle, for the forces were equal in number,
and the opponents tried and strong warriors. He therefore sent the Abbot
of Shrewsbury to the hostile camp with offers of peace, which, after long
deliberation, were rejected by the advice of the Earl of Worcester, who
bade them not hope to escape the vengeance of Henry if they consented to
put themselves again into his power.
On receiving this answer Henry cried, "Then, banners, advance!" and the
cries of "St. George!" and "Espérance, Percy;" rent the air. It was a
pitiful sight to see so fine an army of Englishmen drawn up against
each other for mutual destruction; and at the very first discharge the
archers on both sides made a fearful slaughter. Every passion and motive
was called into action which could lead to a desperate conflict. Never
were there two more equally balanced armies. Each was about 14,000
strong. Hardyng, who, as we have said, was present, states Hotspur's
force at 9,000 knights, yeomen, and archers, "withouten raskaldry,"
that is, common hired soldiers. The leaders on both sides were the
bravest men and most distinguished captains of the age, tried in many a
hard-fought field. Their followers were the flower of the English and
Scottish armies. Here were not the renowned English archers on one, but
on both sides; and these supported by such a body of gentlemen and the
substantial yeomanry of the country as had rarely been assembled in so
moderately-sized a host. On the one side, the king and his son fought for
crown, life, and reputation. If they were conquered, there was nothing
for them short of loss of the crown, of existence, and of reputation;
for they must go down to posterity as usurpers who had deluged their
country with blood for their criminal ambition. For Hotspur, on the other
hand, it was either victory and the establishment of a close alliance
with the old hereditary line, in the person of the new King of England,
or execution, if taken; or, if he escaped, eternal banishment, and the
ruin of his noble house and of all his kindred and adherents. Therefore
every man and pre-eminently the leaders, put forth all their force, and
fought with the most lion-like desperation. According to Walsingham, the
insurgents gave out that Richard himself was alive, and with them in the
field to assist in avenging his own injuries.
[Illustration: WARKWORTH CASTLE.]
Percy and Douglas, who had so often fought in opposition, now rushed on
side by side, like two young lions, beating and bearing down all before
them. Everywhere they sought out the king, determined to take him, alive
or dead. But again the cunning Scottish Earl of March, who seemed to
think of everything, had advised the king to take the armour of a simple
captain, and to dress up several captains in the royal garb. The ruse
succeeded admirably for the king, but fatally for his representatives.
Douglas and Hotspur raged everywhere. They broke through the English
ranks with thirty picked followers, and wherever they saw a royally
dressed and mounted champion they attacked and slew him. Douglas, who as
well as Hotspur is described as performing prodigies of valour, is said
to have killed three of the sham kings with his own hand. When at length
they approached the real king, he exclaimed in astonishment, "Where the
devil do all these kings come from?" The two brave generals attacked
Henry himself with the same fury with which they had assaulted those who
resembled him. They came so near to him that they slew Sir Walter Blount,
the standard-bearer, threw down the standard, killed the Earl of Stafford
and two other knights, and were within a few yards of Henry, when his
good genius, the Scottish Earl of March, rushed forward and entreated
him, if he valued his life, to keep somewhat more aback.
The battle now raged here portentously, and knights and gentlemen fell
promiscuously on all sides. For three hours the struggle and carnage
went on, every one fighting, Scot against Scot, Englishman against
Englishman, with the fury of demons; the archers all the while pouring in
their showers of arrows on their opponents, so that, as Walsingham says,
"the dead lay thick as leaves in autumn;" and so encumbered were the
ranks, that there was scarcely any advancing over them. Still, everywhere
the forces of Percy and Douglas were carrying the day; yet, at length,
Henry's fortune once more prevailed. He had fought everywhere with a
gallantry not surpassed by any man in the field. When unhorsed he was
rescued by the Prince of Wales, who, though wounded early in the battle
with an arrow in the face, fought through it with the most distinguished
bravery, giving full promise of his future martial fame. But Hotspur and
Douglas, finding that the ranks of the royal army through which they had
broken had closed after them, endeavoured at length to cut their way back
to their own troops. In this, however, they were not easily successful.
The battle was in its full fury, every man fought like a hero, and they
found themselves assailed on all sides by the points of spears, swords,
and flights of arrows. In the heat of the _mêlée_, Hotspur, nearly
suffocated in his armour from his prodigious exertions, for an instant
raised his visor for air. That instant an arrow struck him in the face,
passed through his brain, and he fell dead on the field.
At this sight, which was beheld by both armies, the royal ranks set up
the jubilant shout of "St. George and Victory!" The Scots and Percy's
forces gave way, and the flight and pursuing massacre became general. The
Scots were almost entirely cut to pieces. Douglas, in endeavouring to
escape, fell over a precipice; or, as others say, his horse stumbled in
ascending a hill, he was thrown, severely injured, and taken.
The numbers of killed and wounded in this terrific action are said to
have been 5,000 on the side of the king, and a much greater number on
that of the insurgents. Otterburne says that nearly 2,300 gentlemen fell,
and about 6,000 private men, of whom two-thirds were of the insurgent
army. The most distinguished persons who perished on the royal side
were the Earl of Stafford, Sir Walter Blount, Sir Hugh Shirley, Sir
Hugh Mortimer, Sir John Massey, and Sir John Calverley. Besides Hotspur
and Sir Robert Stuart being killed, the uncle of Hotspur, the Earl of
Worcester, the Baron of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon were taken
prisoners. Douglas was treated by Henry with the courtesy due to his rank
and reputation, and as a foreign enemy, not as a rebel; but Worcester,
Kinderton, and Vernon were immediately beheaded.
The rapidity with which Henry had broken in upon the plans of the
insurgents had prevented one of the most formidable coalitions
imaginable. The Duke of Albany in Scotland had assembled 50,000 men, and
advanced to join Hotspur at the tower of Cocklaws; but on arriving there
he found Percy and his army gone thence; and, soon after hearing that he
was defeated and slain at Shrewsbury, he gave out that his expedition had
only been intended to drive that nobleman from Scotland, and returned
quietly to Edinburgh.
The Earl of Northumberland, recovering from his illness, was far advanced
in his march with a considerable body of men to join the main army,
when he was met by the intelligence of the defeat and death of his son,
and his brother, the Earl of Worcester. Completely dejected by this
calamitous news, he disbanded his little army, and retired to his castle
of Warkworth. Owen Glendower, from some cause, never appeared.
No sooner was this destructive battle over than Henry marched northward
to disperse any remains of disaffection or armed force. He acted with
consummate policy, prohibiting his troops from plundering, and offering
pardon to all concerned in the late rebellion who laid down their arms.
The Earl of Northumberland hastened to avail himself of this lenity, and
presented himself before Henry at York, who received him as might be
expected, with evident displeasure and reproaches for the perfidy of his
conduct. It is said that the old earl was mean enough to declare that he
never intended any disloyalty, but was marching his troops to join the
royal army--a circumstance which, if true, would induce us to believe
all that writers of the time have insinuated of the dubious character of
the indisposition which prevented him from appearing at the moment of
action. Henry seems to have received his miserable plea with deserved
contempt, and he retained him in honourable custody for judgment by the
approaching Parliament. He then proceeded to issue orders for the arrest
of the Lady Elizabeth, the widow of Hotspur, and compelled the knights of
Northumberland to swear fealty to him.
When Parliament assembled, Northumberland presented his petition to the
king, acknowledging his assembling his retainers, but pleading Henry's
promise of pardon at York, on condition of his surrender. The king
referred the decision of his case to the judges, but the lords claimed it
as their right to try their brother peer; and many of them having been
more or less involved in the recent league with him, they pronounced him
not guilty of treason or felony, but only of trespasses, for which they
adjudged him bound to pay a fine at the king's pleasure. He then swore
fealty to Henry, to the Prince of Wales, and to the other sons of the
king and their issue, whereupon Henry granted him his pardon, and in a
few months restored him to his lands and honours, with the exception of
the Isle of Man, the governorship of Berwick, and some other fortresses.
Henry had thus quelled this dangerous rebellion with great spirit and
address, but he was still surrounded by dangers; he still found himself
pursued by all the evils and annoyances of a usurper. The French friends
and families of the slain insurgents were full of animosity; the country
complained of the weight of taxes imposed to put down these continual
disturbances, the direct consequences of Henry's arbitrary seizure of the
crown; and his enemies abroad were insulting the country, and plundering
its coasts in revenge of his offences.
The French attacked Guienne, and plundered every English ship and every
part of the English coasts that they could approach. They captured a
whole fleet of merchantmen; they attacked and took Jersey and Guernsey;
they made a descent on Plymouth, burnt it, and laid waste the whole
neighbourhood. The Count of St. Pol cruised along our coasts with a
squadron of ships, landed on the Isle of Wight, and inflicted severe
injuries on the inhabitants before he was repulsed. The admiral of
Brittany scoured our coasts and the narrow seas, and carried off no less
than fifty prizes, and nearly 2,000 prisoners. No less than three princes
of the House of Bourbon were engaged in thus discharging on the people of
England their vengeance for the crimes of their king.
Henry granted letters of marque to make reprisals, and the inhabitants
of the English seaports associated and carried on a vigorous maritime
warfare. They retaliated on the French, ravaged their coasts, burnt their
towns, and often even penetrated into the interior. The Flemings and men
of Ostend, instigated by the Duke of Orleans and St. Pol, joined with
the French in this piratical persecution of the English; and Henry sent
out his second son, Thomas, afterwards Duke of Clarence, with a fleet,
who committed great havoc on their coasts, destroying ships, people, and
towns, without mercy.
To relieve the pressure of his wants, he made an attempt, through the
Commons, to resume the grants of the Crown, and to appropriate some of
the property of the Church; which resulted in nothing but exasperation of
the minds of both laity and clergy. The widow of the Lord Spenser, who
had been executed at Bristol, formed a scheme to liberate from Henry's
custody the young Earl of March and his brother. She reached their
apartments at Windsor by means of false keys, succeeded in getting them
safely out of the castle, and was on her way with them towards Wales,
where their uncle Mortimer was in close alliance with Glendower. But the
vigilance of Henry was quickly aroused; the fugitives were pursued and
captured. Lady Spenser, on being interrogated by the council, avowed
that her brother, the Duke of York, the notorious Rutland, who betrayed
everybody, and who had now succeeded his father in his title and estates,
was at the bottom of the scheme. York was immediately arrested; but he
protested his entire innocence, and, after a few months' confinement
in the castle of Pevensey, he was released and restored to the full
enjoyment of his rank and property.
In the meanwhile Robert, King of Scotland--crushed by the murder of his
eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, who had been starved to death by the
orders of the Earl of Albany, and trembling for the fate of his second
son, James, Earl of Carrick, a boy of only fourteen years--was too
enfeebled by age and adversity to be able to contend with the wicked
Albany, or find any means of security for his son at home, where that
nobleman held unlimited sway. He therefore agreed to place him in charge
of the King of France, and the young prince, accompanied by the Earl of
Orkney, and a strong body of the barons of the Lothians, proceeded to
North Berwick, and embarked in a ship which awaited him at the Bass.
The Earl of Orkney and a small personal suite alone accompanied him on
the voyage, and as the truce was still existing with England, they had
no apprehensions from that quarter. But they were already watched by
the sleepless eyes of Henry of Lancaster, and when the vessel was off
Flamborough Head, they were captured by an armed merchantman of Wye, and
carried to London.
[Illustration: SHILLING OF HENRY IV.]
The Earl of Orkney presented a letter to Henry, written by Robert of
Scotland, entreating him, should his son be compelled by stress of
weather to put into an English port, to show him kindness. The earl
added, that the young prince was on his way to France for the purpose
of his education, and prayed that they might be permitted to pursue
their way in peace and security. But Henry had not planned their capture
on trivial grounds, and was not, therefore, to be persuaded to give up
his prize by mere words. His interest was his paramount principle, and
with that he rarely suffered feelings of justice or a sense of honour
to interfere. The seizure of the son of a neighbouring king, at entire
peace with him, was as gross a breach of the laws of nations as could be
conceived; but then Henry had by it obtained a pledge of good behaviour
on the part of Scotland. He had now the heir-apparent in his hands, and
could employ that advantage in counteraction of the use made by Scotland
of the pretended King Richard. Henry, therefore, merely replied to the
entreaties of the attendants of the Scottish prince, that he would be
perfectly safe with him; and that as to his education, he spoke French as
well as the King of France or the Duke of Orleans; and that his father,
in fact, could not have sent him to a better master. James and his suite
were consigned to the safe keeping of the Tower. That nothing could
be more agreeable to the Duke of Albany than to have the heir to the
throne safely secured at a distance, was apparent to all the world, as
it would leave him, in case of the king's death, regent, and king in all
but name. So much was this felt, that many did not hesitate to declare
the whole affair to have been planned between Albany and Henry; and the
feeble public remonstrances of Albany confirmed this belief. Douglas, on
the other hand, who would fain have had the young prince in his hands
as a means of gratifying his own lust of power, and of curbing that of
Albany, was so enraged at the conveyance of the Earl of Carrick out of
the kingdom, that his son, James Douglas of Abercorn, attacked the party
of nobles who had accompanied the prince, on their return from North
Berwick, and at the moor of Lang-Hermandston slew Sir David Fleming, and
took most of the other nobles prisoners. This disastrous termination
of the scheme which Robert of Scotland had devised for the safety of
his son, hastened his death, which took place in 1406, and Albany was
appointed regent during the absence of the young prince, which he was
not, therefore, likely to cut short by any strenuous exertions of his own.
It might have been expected that Henry's decisive suppression of the
Percy insurrection would have procured him some considerable interval of
peace; but this was by no means the case. The Percies were on fire with
resentment, and resolved to take revenge for their humiliation and the
deaths of Hotspur and Worcester on the very first opportunity. The Earl
of Nottingham, son of the Duke of Norfolk, and Scrope, the Archbishop
of York, though they had remained passive while Hotspur was in the
field, now did their best to fan the flame of revolt in the heart of the
old earl, who had been compelled at the time of his pardon to sign an
obligation to surrender into the hands of the king the castles of Berwick
and Jedburgh, and was deprived of the offices of constable and warden of
the marches.
Henry had called a Parliament at St. Albans, but found in it a spirit
very uncompliant with his demands. Foremost in opposition and in
denouncing the measures of the king was Lord Bardolf. He soon found it
safest to absent himself from court, and he therefore hastened north
to the Earl of Northumberland, and added his overflowing discontent to
that which was already effervescing in the bosoms of the earl and of his
partisans. The insurgents took the field, but, as in all their attempts
during this reign, without any concert. First appeared in arms Sir John
Falconberg and three other knights in Cleveland, in May of 1405. They
were immediately assaulted and dispersed by Prince John, the third son
of King Henry, and the Earl of Westmoreland. Then the Archbishop of
York and the Earl of Nottingham, more commonly called the Earl Mowbray
(who also was Earl Marshal) with unexampled rashness appeared in arms
without waiting for the forces of the Earl of Northumberland. They
fixed on the doors of the churches in York and other places a defiance
of the king, charging him with the same crimes and misdemeanours
which were contained in the proclamation of Shrewsbury--perjury,
usurpation, murder, extortion, and the like. They assembled 8,000 men at
Skipton-on-the-Moor. The Prince and Earl of Westmoreland having defeated
Falconberg's force, marched against them, and came up with them in the
forest of Galtres on the 29th of May.
[Illustration: THE FRENCH FLEET ARRIVING AT MILFORD HAVEN. (_See p._
535.)]
Finding that the forces of the insurgents exceeded their own, the Earl
of Westmoreland proposed a friendly conference, which was acceded to.
There the earl acted with an art not more remarkable than the simplicity
of those on whom it was practised. The archbishop presented a list
of grievances, which Westmoreland read and declared to be perfectly
reasonable, and presenting, in his opinion, no difficulties but such
as might readily be got over. The matters in dispute were discussed.
Westmoreland astutely approved of all that they suggested, conceded all
their demands, and solemnly swore to procure the royal ratification of
every condition.
Having thus amicably terminated their differences, the earl called for
wine, which the negotiators partook of in sight of both armies. While
they were thus drinking and embracing, the earl pleasantly suggested
that, as they were now friends, there could be no necessity for keeping
their armies assembled, and proposed that they should disband them all on
the spot, let them know that peace was concluded, and allow every man to
go home.
To this the Earl Mowbray made some objection; but the archbishop, who
was sincerity and simplicity embodied, overruled his caution, and gave
orders for the dismissal of their troops. No sooner was this done, and
the army of the insurgents dispersing on all sides in confusion, than it
was seen that the soldiers of the Crown remained stationary, having been
duly instructed beforehand; and Westmoreland, throwing off the mask,
arrested the archbishop, the Earl Marshal, and the other leaders who had
come to the conference. This news reaching the insurgents, every one made
the best of his way in flight for his own safety.
Henry was already on his way to support his son and Westmoreland. He
had already arrived at Pontefract, and at that spot, so suggestive of
his unrelenting disposition, the insurgent leaders, thus perfidiously
entrapped, were brought before him. He ordered them to follow him to
Bishopthorpe, the palace of the primate, near York; as if, with a
refinement of cruelty, he would make the fate which he designed for him
the more bitter by inflicting it on the spot of his past greatness and
authority. There he commanded the chief justice, Gascoigne, to pronounce
on them sentence of death; but that upright and inflexible judge refused,
declaring that he had no jurisdiction over either archbishop or earl, who
must be tried by their peers. Sir William Fulthorpe was appointed on the
spot Chief Justice of the King's Bench for the occasion; and this pliant
tool, no doubt selected with full knowledge of his obsequious nature,
called them at once before him, and, without any form of law, indictment,
trial, or jury, condemned them to be beheaded as traitors; and the
sentence was carried instantly into execution, with many circumstances of
wanton and unworthy cruelty.
This was the first time that a prelate had suffered capital punishment
in England. Prelates had been imprisoned and punished by forfeiture and
banishment, but no king had yet dared to put to death a bishop; and the
circumstance did not pass without the Pope launching the thunders of
excommunication against all persons concerned in this ominous innovation,
though without specially naming the king. The archbishop, on hearing his
sentence, protested that he never intended any evil to the person of
Henry, and merely sought redress of grievances; but after having twice
incited the insurgents to arms, and being believed to have written the
last proclamation, if not that also at Shrewsbury, he was not likely to
obtain credence. When afterwards the king called upon the House of Lords
to record a judgment of high treason against the archbishop and the Earl
Marshal, they demurred, and required the question to lie over till the
next Parliament--a significant hint of their disapproval, which Henry was
wise enough to take. The matter was never mentioned again.
Henry punished the city of York for its disposition to support the views
of the archbishop, by depriving it of its franchises, and then, at the
head of 37,000 men, marched in pursuit of the Earl of Northumberland
and Bardolf. Northumberland had delayed his demonstration this time to
secure the assistance of Albany, the regent of Scotland, and aid from
France. He had readily formed an alliance with Albany, but failed in
procuring any support from the French court. As Henry advanced north,
Northumberland retired. Henry took successive possession of the duke's
castles of Prudhoe, Warkworth, and Alnwick; and as he drew near Berwick,
Northumberland, who never showed much courage, surrendered it into the
hands of the Scots, and fell back still farther on his Scottish allies.
The Scots themselves, not thinking the town tenable against Henry's
forces, set it on fire and deserted it. The castle alone appeared
disposed to make resistance; but the shot of an enormous cannon having
shattered one of the towers, it opened its gates, and the son of the
Baron of Graystock, with the six principal officers, was immediately
executed. Henry turned southward victorious, and at Pontefract--which no
thoughts of the murder he was charged with committing prevented him from
visiting--he conferred upon his queen the several great estates of the
Earl of Northumberland and Bardolf.
Henry now marched to Wales, whither he had sent his son, Prince Henry,
in the spring. This gallant young prince, who had acquired such renown
on the field of Shrewsbury, had pursued Glendower into his fortresses,
with all the ardour and impetuosity of youth. For some time that artful
general eluded his attacks, and set him at defiance by a variety of
stratagems, but in the month of March he had obtained a signal victory
over the Welsh at Grosmont, in Monmouthshire, and taken Griffith, the son
of Glendower, who commanded, prisoner. He next laid siege to Lampeter
Castle, in Cardiganshire, and after a long siege reduced it. But now the
French appeared upon the scene with a force of 12,000 men, if we are to
credit Otterburne.
Glendower, finding his power gradually undermined by the efforts of Henry
and his valiant son, had applied to the French, or, as some writers
assert, had gone in person to solicit the aid of France. That country
at the time was in a deplorable state of misgovernment. The malady of
Charles VI. had reduced him to a condition of absolute imbecility. The
powerful Duke of Burgundy was dead, and the dissolute Orleans, living in
open adultery with the queen, had usurped the whole powers of the state.
As Albany was in Scotland, so was Orleans in France. Hating Henry with
an inveterate hatred, he readily promised Glendower his assistance. A
fleet was fitted out and entrusted to the Count of La Marche, a gay young
prince of the royal family, but engrossed in pleasures and gaieties. It
was so late in the year when this courtly admiral reached his fleet at
Brest, that his most sensible followers refused to venture to sea; and
with a fragment of his force La Marche made an abortive descent on the
English coast at Falmouth.
In the spring of 1405, however, a fresh fleet, assembled by the
resolute Orleans, reached Wales, and debarked at Milford Haven. The
fleet consisted of 120 ships, and had taken on board a great number of
cavalry horses, which, however, had nearly all perished during the stormy
passage; and no sooner was the fleet moored than the squadron of the
Cinque Ports sailed in after it, and burnt fifteen ships. It, moreover,
cut off all supplies by sea, and soon after succeeded in capturing a
portion of the French transports bringing ammunition and provisions.
The French army was commanded by the Count Montmorency, Marshal de
Rieux, and the Sire de Hugueville, grand master of the arbalisters (or
crossbowmen). They marched to Haverfordwest, and burnt the town, but
suffered great loss in attempting to take the castle, and were repulsed.
They next advanced to Carmarthen, laying the country waste as they went;
they took Carmarthen, and there were joined by Owen Glendower with a
force of 10,000 men. This united force took its way towards England, and
Prince Henry, being in possession of an inferior force, was compelled to
avoid an engagement.
It was this which had made Henry hasten his march from the north.
Before setting out, he granted the Isle of Man, forfeited by the Earl
of Northumberland, to Sir John Stanley, in whose family it continued
till the reign of Elizabeth. On reaching Hereford the king was compelled
to issue a proclamation representing that the kingdom was in great
danger from the junction of the French and the Welsh; that his finances
were totally exhausted; and that the tenths and fifteenths granted by
Parliament could not be levied till Martinmas. He, therefore, commanded
the sheriffs of all the neighbouring counties to summon before them the
richest men of their several shires, and prevail upon them to advance
money on the credit of the taxes already voted.
To such extremity was Henry IV. reduced, in one of the most critical
epochs of his troubled reign; and this total want of means for paying and
feeding his army delayed him so long, that it was not till late in the
year that he came face to face with the invaders. They had now reached
the very gates of Worcester, and menaced that town. Henry having united
his forces with those of his son, now advanced upon the enemy, who were
posted on a considerable hill, and took up his position on an opposite
height. For eight days the two armies lay with a deep valley between
them, neither of them willing to risk the loss of its vantage ground,
and give battle under the unequal circumstances. There were occasional
skirmishes, and three of the French lords were slain, including the
brother of the marshal.
At length the Welsh and French beat a retreat into Wales, and Henry
pursued them; but having reached their marshes and mountains, they
turned upon the king's forces when they had, in their ardour, advanced
incautiously amongst them, and inflicted great loss upon them, taking or
destroying fifty of his wagons, containing the most valuable portion of
his baggage. It was now the middle of October; the season was such as all
the world then believed to be at the command of Glendower--tempestuous
and incessantly raining. The roads became impassable, provisions were
unattainable, and the king was heartily glad to draw off his army.
Nor were the French less delighted to quit the country of the great
necromancer, where they reaped more labours than laurels; and soon after
they embarked and sailed back to France.
Northumberland and Bardolf were soon compelled by the manoeuvres
of Henry to escape from Scotland. The Scottish noblemen who had been
kept prisoners in England ever since the battles of Homildon Hill and
Shrewsbury, were offered by Henry their liberty if they would persuade
their friends in Scotland to seize and deliver up these noblemen. This
disgraceful scheme was readily adopted by the Scottish prisoners and
their friends, and would have been carried speedily into execution;
but the news of it reached the ears of the brave Sir David Fleming, a
staunch friend of the Percies. It must be remembered that not only was
the Earl of Douglas, but Murdoch, the son of the regent Albany, still
amongst the prisoners of war in England; and, therefore, both Albany and
the friends of Douglas, combining the most powerful party in Scotland,
were engaged in this most dishonourable conspiracy for the betrayal of
Northumberland, his young grandson, Henry Lord Percy, and Lord Bardolf.
Sir David Fleming, disdaining to connive at so base a treason against
the honour and hospitality of Scotland, gave the English noblemen timely
warning. They escaped; but Sir David, as we have related, returning from
conducting Prince James to North Berwick on his way to France, was set
upon by the son of Douglas and the connections of the other prisoners
in England, and lost his life for his noble conduct. Northumberland and
Bardolf made their escape to Glendower in Wales.
The situation of Henry at this epoch was far from enviable. His
usurpation had involved himself and the nation in constant feuds,
battles, treasons, and bloodshed. The best and ablest men, instead of
being able to unite their counsels and their efforts for the common
good of the country, were inflamed by violent antipathies against
each other. The lives of many of the noblest were sacrificed, and the
resources of the country consumed in mutual destruction. Henry, indeed,
by his skill, address, and courage, had defeated all the schemes formed
for his dethronement, and dispersed his assailants, but he was still
surrounded by malcontents and general dissatisfaction. All his efforts
had not been able to extinguish the reports of the existence of King
Richard. As often as these reports were exposed and made ridiculous, as
certainly did they revive and renew their strength. The remonstrances of
Parliament were severe to an extraordinary degree against his exactions
and maladministration. According to the Parliamentary history, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Tivetot, in a speech addressed
to the king, declared that the country was impoverished by excessive
impositions, and that nothing was done for its benefit; that in Guienne
ninety-six towns and castles were lost, though it had cost this nation
great expenditure to defend it; and that the whole of our Continental
possessions were in danger; that the marches, _i.e._, the Scottish
borders were in the worst condition; that the rebellion in Wales,
notwithstanding every effort, was still unsuppressed; that Ireland was
nearly lost, though the charges for its government continued; that at sea
our trade was destroyed, and the vessels of our merchants intercepted;
and that the expenses of the royal household were excessive, and the
court filled with "a set of worthless rascals."
Henry had left his son to continue the campaign in Wales, and he himself
endeavoured to manage the domestic concerns of the kingdom; but in
addition to the calamities of war, and the difficulties just enumerated,
which were chiefly the consequence of them, there now appeared the
plague, which ravaged both town and country for several years. In London
alone it carried off no less than 30,000 people; and in other places it
extirpated whole families, and left entire houses and almost villages
empty.
Encouraged by Henry's domestic difficulties, and the strong opposition
manifested by Parliament, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolf,
having vainly waited for any decisive support from Owen Glendower, who
indeed was now gradually sinking beneath the vigorous efforts of Prince
Henry, determined to make one more descent on England. Northumberland
had tried in vain to induce Albany to embrace his cause. He had then
gone over to France, and thence to Flanders with equally little success.
His last hope was placed on the co-operation of the exiled nobles
and knights in Scotland, and the disaffected on the Borders and in
Northumberland. Correspondence was opened with Sir Thomas Rokeby, sheriff
of Yorkshire, and that gentleman is said, by Buchanan, to have lured them
on in order to make their defeat certain. They advanced from Scotland
into Northumberland, surprised several castles, and raised the Percy
tenantry, who were attached to the old chief. Hence they marched on into
Yorkshire, and having reached Knaresborough, were joined by Sir Nicholas
Tempest. They crossed the Wharfe at Wetherby, and Sir Thomas Rokeby,
who appears to have allowed them uninterrupted progress hitherto, that
he might effectually cut off their retreat, now following them closely,
overtook them on Bramham Moor, near Tadcaster, and brought them to an
engagement. The Earl of Northumberland was killed in the battle, Lord
Bardolf was taken prisoner, but died in a few days of his wounds. Thus
did the old Percy of Northumberland, after a long and hard contest to
put down the man he had helped to set up, close his stormy career on the
28th of February, 1408, as his son Hotspur had done five years before
at Shrewsbury. The bodies of the earl and of Lord Bardolf were cut in
quarters, and sent to London and other towns, where they were exposed.
[Illustration: THE DUKES OF ORLEANS AND BURGUNDY AT THE CHURCH OF THE
AUGUSTINES. (_See p._ 539.)]
Henry was in full march to encounter the insurgents when he was met by
the pleasing intelligence of their defeat and death. He proceeded to
Pontefract, where he continued for a month, busily employed in punishing
and fining the prisoners of rank or substance who had been taken at the
battle. He was in pressing need of money, and he coined as much out of
ransoms as possible. The Abbot of Hayles, having taken arms, was executed
like a layman, as the Archbishop of York had been before.
There remained now, of all Henry's enemies within the kingdom, only the
Welsh to subdue. The contest between Owen Glendower and Prince Henry had
now been going on for upwards of four years, with every demonstration of
art, activity, and bravery with which two such commanders could conduct
a difficult contest amongst mountains and marshes. Glendower, one of the
most devoted patriots and most spirited and able generals that are to be
found in history, had disputed every inch of ground with unconquerable
pugnacity, and never-exhausted stratagem. He may be said to have taught
Henry of Monmouth that discipline and military science which afterwards
enabled him to win the battle of Agincourt, and achieve such brilliant
triumphs in France. But Henry, full of youth and martial ardour, and
supported from England by troops and provisions, was an antagonist who
was sure, in time, to bear down the limited means of Glendower. During
nearly five years he had completely reduced South Wales, and was slowly
but steadily advancing in the north.
In the summer of 1409, Glendower, finding his indefatigable young enemy
steadily advancing upon him, and the support of the disheartened and
plundered people growing weaker, determined to make one desperate effort
to supply himself with provisions, and to inflict a severe punishment,
even if it were the last, upon the foe. He therefore sent all the forces
he could muster, under the command of his two bravest officers, to make
a grand foray in Shropshire. These commanders executed their commission
with great bravery and ferocity; but they were at length defeated, their
troops cut to pieces, and themselves taken prisoners, carried to London,
and there executed.
This was the last expiring effort of the Welsh in that glorious struggle
which they had maintained for ten years under their illustrious
countryman, Owen ap Griffith Vaughan, better known as the unconquerable
Owen Glendower. We say unconquerable, for though Wales--a small
country, engaged in an unequal contest with a far greater and wealthier
nation, and with two of the most renowned generals of the age, Henry
of Lancaster and his son--was compelled to yield, it is very clear,
from abundant historic facts, that Owen himself never retired from the
struggle, never was subdued. In the Rolls of Parliament, and in Rymer's
"Foedera," we find that in 1411 he was excepted by Henry in a general
amnesty; in 1412 he was on foot, and made prisoner; in 1415, just before
the battle of Agincourt, Henry V., his old antagonist, who seems to
have respected him as he deserved, commissioned Sir Gilbert Talbot to
treat with Meredith, the son of Glendower, for a pacification of his
father, and his still unconquered associates; and again, shortly after
the great triumph of Agincourt, Henry renewed the honourable overture.
But Glendower was resolved to live and die free, a prince, without
subjects or country, rather than the subject of the conqueror of Wales.
He still continued to haunt the wilds and mountains of Snowdon; and, if
we may believe one tradition, died peaceably at his daughter's house at
Monington, in 1415, while another shows us his burial-place beneath the
great window of the south aisle in Bangor Cathedral. Both accounts may
very well be true; but, wherever Owen Glendower rests, there rests the
dust of a man who only wanted a wider field and a more numerous people to
have become the saviour, as he was the true hero, of his country.
The nine years which Henry had now been on the throne had been years of
constant insurrections, bloodshed in battle, and bloodshed on the block.
He had put down all his internal enemies, and, save some occasional
struggles with the remaining power of Glendower in the marshes of Wales,
the kingdom was at peace with itself, and continued so during the few
remaining years of this reign.
At sea there were still attacks from the French, though that Government
disclaimed them, and pretended to maintain the truce between the two
countries. That truce, however, had been badly preserved in regard to
the English provinces in France. In 1406 the Constable of France and the
Count of Armagnac had made extensive inroads on Guienne and Saintonge.
According to the complaint of Sir John Tivetot, the Speaker of the House
of Commons, they had taken ninety-six towns and castles there. Nothing,
indeed, but the miserable and distracted condition of France could have
prevented them from taking the whole and driving the English totally out
of that kingdom; for Henry, perpetually occupied in battling with his
own insurgent subjects, had neither money, men, nor time to devote to
his French provinces. The most pitiable entreaties were sent over from
time to time for aid, but in vain; Henry was engaged in a life or death
struggle at home.
In 1406 there were great efforts made on the part of the French court
to seize the tempting opportunity to gain possession of all Henry's
Continental territories. The two most powerful nobles of the realm were
commissioned to execute this vast enterprise. The Duke of Orleans, the
king's brother, was to lead the forces against Guienne, whilst the Duke
of Burgundy, called "John Sanspeur," or the Fearless, was to expel the
English from Calais. He cut down a whole forest to construct machines
which should batter down the walls, and burst in the gates of that
strongly-fortified town, and reduce the houses to heaps of ruins by
flinging in entire rocks. He was provided with two hundred pieces of
cannon, and the most complete success was anticipated from his efforts.
They resulted in nothing, and, like the Duke of Orleans, he returned to
Paris, complaining of not having been supplied with sufficient funds,
and demanding not only the cost of his useless machinery, but immense
sums which he asserted had been due to his father. These he was not
very likely to obtain, for France, Paris, and the court were in the
most wretched condition of anarchy and exhaustion. The malady of the
king--recurring fits of insanity--had left the Government in the hands of
the contending princes, especially of Orleans and Burgundy. The queen and
Orleans, united in a guilty alliance, managed to keep the main power in
their hands. The king was a cipher and the country a ruin. At this time
the royal household had not even food, except such as it took by force
from the bakers, butchers, and dealers, in which they were imitated by
the great nobles.
To this unhappy condition of things were now added the fierce disputes
and recriminations of the rival dukes; but Orleans, supported by the
queen's interest, maintained his stand, and Burgundy, in high dudgeon and
disgust, retired to his own dominions, vowing vengeance against his chief
opponent.
The Duke of Berri, uncle to both the contending princes, exerted himself
to effect a reconciliation between them, and prevent the menaced civil
strife, in addition to the already crushing calamities of France. In this
he at length appeared successful; but the success was only apparent,
the result was really tragical. Burgundy returned to Paris, visited the
Duke of Orleans, who was somewhat indisposed, and there appeared the
most cordial reconciliation. The Duke of Berri, enchanted with the happy
effect of his good offices, on the 20th of November, 1407, accompanied
his two nephews to the Church of the Augustines to hear mass, and there
these seemingly amicable relatives took the sacrament together in token
of their perfectly reconciled minds. In three days after, Orleans was
murdered in the Rue Barbette, by eighteen assassins in the pay of his
dear friend, the newly reconciled and forgiving Burgundy. What was worse,
it came out that both these thoroughly depraved princes had entertained
the same design of dispatching his rival, and that Burgundy had only got
the start with his assassins. Burgundy absented himself from Paris for a
short time, when he returned again, and boldly justified his deed. The
king, who was at the moment in one of his more lucid intervals, wept
over the fate of his brother, and vowed to avenge it; but the power of
Burgundy was beyond that of the feeble monarch.
The Orleans family, finding that no justice was to be obtained from the
feeble and corrupt government, but, on the contrary, that the people
of Paris hailed John of Burgundy as a second Brutus, who had freed his
country of a tyrant aiming at the crown, and that the very lawyers and
clergy justified the murder on the same pleas, declaring that Orleans had
produced the king's insanity through sorcery and drugs, determined to
take arms and enforce it for themselves.
Burgundy, to strengthen himself with the Parisians, promised to reduce
the monstrous weight of taxation under which they groaned, and they
applauded him as their saviour. Revolt amongst Burgundy's subjects in
Flanders withdrew him for a time from Paris, during which the queen,
in the name of her son, the dauphin, declared Burgundy an enemy of the
state, and threw all her energies into the interests of the Orleanists.
But Burgundy returned victorious from his contest with his subjects, and
in November entered Paris at the head of 6,000 men.
Once more, in the following March, the farce of a reconciliation took
place between Burgundy and the young Duke of Orleans, at Chartres, where
the children of Orleans embraced their father's murderer. But this base
unnatural union was as hollow as the former one; the old animosity burst
forth anew; and the young Duke of Orleans, who had married a daughter
of the Count of Armagnac, was supported by that able and energetic
nobleman in his opposition to Burgundy. From this day the whole of France
was divided into the great hostile factions--the Orleanists and the
Armagnacs--so called from the Count of Armagnac assuming the lead in his
son-in-law's quarrel by his superior vigour and experience. The Dukes
of Berri and Brittany, and the Count d'Alençon, embraced the cause of
Orleans, and Burgundy was compelled to retire from Paris.
Henry IV., relieved from his own domestic foes, had watched this contest
from the commencement with the deepest interest. His calculating soul
saw that now the time was coming for him to take vengeance on France for
its insults and injuries during the whole period of his struggles with
his rebellious nobles. He foresaw that the first failing combatant would
turn to him for aid, and he determined that it should be granted, because
it would damage France. What he knew must come came now; and it was the
more agreeable, because it enabled him to pay to the son of Orleans the
debt of hate which he owed to the father for his haughty defiance and his
taunts of murder.
Burgundy solicited his aid, and it was immediately granted in the
shape of 1,000 archers and 800 men-at-arms. Burgundy, with this force,
formidable though small--for the fame of the English bowmen in France was
not forgotten--drove the Orleanists from Paris and took their place in
October of 1411, amid the acclamations of the people. Burgundy had now
secured the persons of the king and the dauphin, and with this semblance
of being the royal party he marched against the Orleanists, and besieged
them in Bourges. In their retreat from Paris they had plundered the Abbey
of St. Denis, and carried off a treasure of the queen deposited there,
which naturally alienated the mind of that lady.
In their distress the Orleanists now in their turn sought aid from Henry
of England, and it was granted with equal alacrity. Henry had satisfied
his resentment against the Orleans family by punishing and humbling
them; and he was rendered placable by still more powerful motives. The
Orleanists offered very tempting terms. They offered to acknowledge
him as the rightful Duke of Aquitaine, and to assist him to recover
all the ancient rights and lands of that duchy. They agreed to hold of
him, as their feudal lord, whatever they possessed there; to restore to
him twenty towns which had been severed from it; and to give security
that, on the deaths of the present lords, the counties of Angoulême and
Ponthieu should revert to him and his successors. Henry, on his part,
agreed to assist them as his faithful vassals in all their just quarrels;
to enter into no treaty with the Duke of Burgundy or his family without
their consent; and to send at once to their assistance 3,000 archers and
1,000 men-at-arms, to serve for three months at the proper wages, which
are stated to be, men-at-arms one shilling and sixpence, and archers
ninepence per day.
The news of this convention altered greatly the position of the
contending parties. The Armagnacs received the Duke of Burgundy with
an unusual display of spirit. The Duke of Berri threw himself, with
800 men-at-arms into Bourges, and threatened to defend it while a man
was left. But there was a large party in France who beheld with alarm
and sorrow their common country thus torn by her own children, and
the English, who had aforetime perpetrated such horrors there, thus
introduced by them. Their utmost exertions were used to reconcile the
hostile factions; and happily they succeeded. Burgundy met his uncle, the
Duke of Berri, at an appointed place outside the walls of Bourges, where
an accommodation was agreed upon; and as a means of making the peace
permanent, the Duke of Burgundy agreed to give one of his daughters to
a younger brother of Orleans. The two leaders took a very extraordinary
mode of convincing the people of the sincerity of their alliance. They
rode into the city both mounted on one horse; and the spectators,
transported with joy at the sight, shouted with all their might, and sang
_Gloria in excelsis_.
In the midst of this exultation, the news arrived that Thomas Duke of
Clarence, the second son of King Henry, had landed in Normandy, with
4,000 men, and was joined by the Counts of Alençon and Richemont. A
deputation was immediately dispatched to inform the English leader of
the peace, and to beg him to retire, as his aid was no longer needed.
But Clarence naturally demanded the payment of the expenses of the
expedition; and as they were not forthcoming, he advanced through
Normandy into Maine, laying waste the country as he proceeded; while
another body of English from Calais occupied great part of Artois. Six
hundred men-at-arms hastened to the standard of the duke, who overran and
plundered Maine and Anjou. Attempts were made, by promises of payment,
to gain time for the assembling of troops; but Clarence was deaf to
any such decoys. He had a very simple course laid down for him by his
deeply calculating father: to do all the mischief he could in repayment
of the various descents of the French on the English coasts, and their
destruction of the English merchant ships; and by this very mischief to
compel the Government to liberal terms for his withdrawal.
[Illustration: PRINCE HENRY BEFORE JUDGE GASCOIGNE. (_See p._ 543.)
(_After the Picture by H. G. Glindoni._)]
As there was no money in the national exchequer, there was a loud cry to
arms, but it was feebly responded to. In the meantime, Clarence having
overrun Maine and Anjou, prepared to invade the duchy of Orleans; this
had the effect of bringing the young duke to the English camp with all
the money he could muster, and having arranged with the invader for the
payment of the whole cost of the expedition--209,000 crowns--he left his
brother, the Duke of Angoulême, as hostage in Clarence's hands for its
payment.
On this, the Duke of Clarence did not quit the country, as was hoped,
but marched on into Guienne, forbidding his troops to commit further
devastations by the way, but allowing them to inform the inhabitants as
they went along that they should not be long before they came again in
the name of their own King Henry to carry on the war; words which were
afterwards fulfilled to a terrible extent.
This was the last great operation of the reign of Henry IV. By a
singular combination of tact, cool calculation, vigilant watchings of
every movement around him, and a purpose which was delayed through no
conscientious scruples, nor weakened by a single tender feeling, he had
put down all his foes. He was at peace at home and abroad. Not a man
was left alive who dared to tell him that he was a usurper, except the
undaunted Glendower, who was too far off amid his mountains to be heard.
He was the most sagacious and successful monarch in Europe, and perhaps
its most miserable man.
Though by nature not peculiarly sanguinary or ferocious, the ambition
of mounting a throne had led him into the deepest crimes and through
torrents of blood. Had his title been good and his throne unassailed,
he might have won the character of a mild and even excellent monarch,
though it is not probable that he could under any circumstances have
won the character of a generous or magnanimous one. But stung by the
taunts and nerved by the determined hostility of his enemies, he defended
himself with the vigour of a giant, and punished his fallen opponents
with the deadly cruelty of the tiger. While youth remained, and rapid
and incessant action engrossed him, he seemed to soar above all the
feelings and fears of an ordinary man. He boldly replied to those who
upbraided him with his criminal seizure of his cousin's crown and realm,
that the successful issue announced the approbation of the Almighty.
But his health decayed prematurely. His body had been overworked, his
mind had been overtasked, his conscience had been overburdened. As his
strength gave way, his stoicism gave way with it. In his youth he has
been described as gay and agreeable, and in his most active years, even
when overwhelmed with business and menaced by the greatest dangers, he
was cheerful, affable, ready to converse with the people whom he came
amongst. As disease and debility announced a not distant end, he grew
gloomy, retiring, ascetic in his devotions, and suspicious even of his
own son.
His false position had forced on him every species of false conduct, and
deeds which brought their certain punishment. There is every reason to
believe that he sacrificed his sincere conviction of the truth of the
Wycliffite doctrines, in order to purchase the powerful sanction of the
Church for his unrighteous title; for before his usurpation he went along
with his father in the protection of Wycliffe and the Lollards. To please
the hierarchy he persecuted the Lollards, and was the first to give his
sanction to the death of religious dissentients by the terrible means
of fire. Yet, as if Providence would punish his apostasy by a striking
antithesis, he was compelled, by the rebellion of an archbishop, to be
the first in England to visit with capital punishment a prelate of the
Established Church.
It is curious that soon after his execution of the Archbishop of York,
he was attacked by the most loathsome eruptions on the face, or, as it
appears to have been, an inveterate leprosy. This the people naturally
believed to be a judgment from Heaven upon him for that sacrilegious
act, and probably some such conviction might haunt his own mind. Though
in stature somewhat below the middle size, he was vigorously and finely
formed. His features were regularly beautiful in his youth, and in some
of his penitential communications he confessed to having been greatly
proud of them. But, by the ravages of this repulsive complaint, they
became so hideous that he was compelled at length to avoid appearing in
public. To this disease were added attacks of epilepsy, which became more
and more violent, so that he would lie in death-like trances for hours.
As Henry declined in health, he seems to have grown increasingly jealous
of the popularity of his son, the Prince of Wales. The young prince
had acquired great glory by his conduct at the battle of Shrewsbury,
and in his warfare against Owen Glendower. He was free, jocund, fond
of pleasure, and of mixing with all classes of the people. Shakespeare
has made his life and character the most living and familiar of things.
He has surrounded him by a set of jolly companions, the fat and witty
Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, "mine ancient Pistol," and the whole band
of roysterers who haunted the "Boar's Head," Eastcheap. He has drawn
his inimitable portraiture of the merry Prince Hal from the chroniclers
of the time, who describe him as the idol of the people. He was as
dissipated as an heir-apparent generally is, but with his follies he
displayed what his father never possessed--a generous temperament. No
sooner was he on the throne than he offered terms of pacification to
his most persevering enemy, Owen Glendower. The anecdote of his conduct
before Judge Gascoigne, has been represented as doubtful by some of our
modern historians, and does not rest on contemporary authority; we give
it, however, as it is so familiar.
One of the prince's associates had been arraigned for felony before Chief
Justice Gascoigne, the upright magistrate whom we have seen refusing to
execute his father's illegal acts at York. The prince appeared before the
magistrate, and peremptorily demanded the release of his boon companion.
The Chief Justice refused, when Henry drew his sword upon him, and swore
that he would have the man liberated. The judge calmly ordered the prince
to be committed to prison himself as a greater offender, since he was, by
his position, bound expressly to be a maintainer of the laws. Henry at
once, in the innate nobility of his nature, felt and admired the lofty
virtue of the magistrate. He submitted to his order, and it is related
that when the fact was mentioned to his father, he said, "Happy is the
monarch who possesses a judge so resolute in the discharge of his duty,
and a son so willing to yield to the authority of the law."
Henry passed the last Christmas of his life at his favourite palace of
Eltham. So complete was his seclusion, owing both to his illness and
the awful disfigurement of his person, that he scarcely saw any one but
the queen; lying frequently for hours without any sign of life. After
Candlemas, he was so much better as to be able to keep his birthday, and
he then returned to his palace at Westminster. He was at his devotions
in the abbey, at the shrine of St. Edward, when his last fatal fit seized
him. The well-known story of his last moments is also very doubtful.
According to it, the king was removed into the apartments of the abbot,
and laid in the celebrated Jerusalem Chamber. The fit lasted so long that
Prince Henry, who was present, knowing the plunder which often takes
place at the death-beds of kings, and which was remarkably the case at
that of Edward III., ordered the crown to be removed to another and
securer apartment.
On coming to himself Henry asked where he was, and being told in the
Jerusalem Chamber, he regarded his last hour as come, for it had been
predicted to him that he should finish his days in Jerusalem; and he
had vowed, in expiation of his crimes, to make a pilgrimage thither.
The days of the Crusades were over, but a remarkable visit made to him
soon after he ascended the throne, by Manuel Palæologus, the Emperor of
Constantinople, when seeking aid against the Saracens, probably impressed
his mind with this idea. He then requested that the _Miserere_ should
be read to him, which contains an especial prayer for forgiveness of
"blood-guiltiness." Then looking round he missed the crown from its
place, and demanded to know where it was. The scenes which followed have
been faithfully and beautifully copied by Shakespeare.
"Ah! fair son," said the dying king; "what right have you to the crown,
when you know that your father had none?"
"My liege," answered young Henry; "with the sword you won it, and with
the sword I will keep it."
"Well," replied the king, faintly, "do as you think best. I leave the
issue to God, and may He have mercy on my soul." And then followed that
beautiful address so finely rendered in Shakespeare--
"Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my bed," etc.
Henry IV. was in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth
year of his reign, when he died. It is curious that as he usurped the
throne of Richard II., he also usurped, as far as in him lay, his
tomb. The body of Richard he sent to be buried at Langley, instead of
permitting it to rest with the ashes of his father, the Black Prince; but
there his own body was ordered to be conveyed, for he had expressed a
superstitious desire that he might lie near the shrine of Thomas Becket.
Henry IV. was twice married. His first wife was Mary de Bohun, daughter
and co-heir of the Earl of Hereford. By her he had four sons and two
daughters. Henry was his successor to the throne; Thomas was Duke of
Clarence; John, Duke of Bedford; and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. His
eldest daughter, Blanche, was married to the Duke of Bavaria, and the
second to the King of Denmark.
Conscious of the defect of his title, Henry was careful to avoid, on
ascending the throne, asking for any act of settlement. He contented
himself with receiving the oath of allegiance from Parliament to himself,
and after himself to his eldest son or heir-apparent. But after the
battle of Shrewsbury he introduced a bill resting the succession on his
four sons, but excluding his daughters. But on being reminded that to
exclude his daughters annihilated all his claim to the throne of France,
he reluctantly consented to the passing of an act admitting the general
issue of his sons, but still passing over that of his daughters, as if
fearful to bring in some foreign aspirant.
By his second wife, Joanna of Navarre, daughter of Charles the Bad, he
had no children. Joanna made a much better queen than might have been
expected from her parentage. Her worst faults appear to have been great
fondness for money, and for a numerous train of French attendants, which
obliged Parliament frequently to interfere, as did that of Charles I.,
and insist on their being sent home. She was handsome in person, but had
the reputation of being addicted to the arts of necromancy, no doubt
arising from the evil reputation of her father. We shall hear of her
again in the next reign.
The defect of Henry's title was a circumstance favourable to the
progress of the constitution, though prolific of much controversy and
bloodshed. Compelled to court the goodwill of the people, and to come
to them often for money, the House of Commons availed themselves of
this circumstance to increase their demands of privilege and liberty.
In his very first year they passed a law depriving the Crown of the
power of protecting an unjust judge. In the second, they insisted on the
removal of obnoxious persons from his household, and prevailed; in the
sixth, they appointed treasurers to superintend the expenditure of the
supplies; in the eighth, they enacted thirty articles for the regulation
of the royal household, and compelled the judges, the council, and all
the officers of the household to swear to the observance of them. The
practice of the Crown corrupting Parliament had shown itself in the reign
of Richard II., and was now rife, through means of the sheriffs. The
Commons obtained an act to compel them to make just returns. They even
went so far, when pressed by the king for money, as to recommend him to
seize the surplus temporalities of the Church, which they represented as
containing 18,400 ploughs of land, producing 485,000 marks a year, equal
to £4,750,745 of our present money.
Here, however, the king stood firm against the recommendation of the
Commons; and even, to oblige the Church, he consented to the passing of
the first law for the burning of heretics (_De heretico comburendo_),
that is, of persons who dared to differ in opinion from the religion of
the State; and in accordance with this barbarous act, William Sawtrey,
rector of Lynn in Norfolk, and afterwards curate of St. Osith's in
London, the first English martyr, was burnt at the stake on the 10th of
March, 1401.
[Illustration: KING AT TABLE (FOURTEENTH CENTURY).
[_From Royal MS._, 2 _B_7, _fol._ 57.]]
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF HENRY V.]