During the last reign, the preaching
of Wickliffe against the pride and cunning of the
Pope and all his men, had made a great noise in England.
Whether the new King wished to be in favour with the
priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be
very religious, to cheat Heaven itself into the belief
that he was not a usurper, I don’t know.
Both suppositions are likely enough. It is
certain that he began his reign by making a strong
show against the followers of Wickliffe, who were called
Lollards, or heretics although his father,
John of Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as
he himself had been more than suspected of being.
It is no less certain that he first established in
England the detestable and atrocious custom, brought
from abroad, of burning those people as a punishment
for their opinions. It was the importation into
England of one of the practices of what was called
the Holy Inquisition: which was the most unholy
and the most infamous tribunal that ever disgraced
mankind, and made men more like demons than followers
of Our Saviour.
No real right to the crown, as you
know, was in this King. Edward Mortimer, the
young Earl of March who was only eight or
nine years old, and who was descended from the Duke
of Clarence, the elder brother of Henry’s father was,
by succession, the real heir to the throne. However,
the King got his son declared Prince of Wales; and,
obtaining possession of the young Earl of March and
his little brother, kept them in confinement (but
not severely) in Windsor Castle. He then required
the Parliament to decide what was to be done with
the deposed King, who was quiet enough, and who only
said that he hoped his cousin Henry would be ‘a
good lord’ to him. The Parliament replied
that they would recommend his being kept in some secret
place where the people could not resort, and where
his friends could not be admitted to see him.
Henry accordingly passed this sentence upon him,
and it now began to be pretty clear to the nation
that Richard the Second would not live very long.
It was a noisy Parliament, as it was
an unprincipled one, and the Lords quarrelled so violently
among themselves as to which of them had been loyal
and which disloyal, and which consistent and which
inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have
been thrown upon the floor at one time as challenges
to as many battles: the truth being that they
were all false and base together, and had been, at
one time with the old King, and at another time with
the new one, and seldom true for any length of time
to any one. They soon began to plot again.
A conspiracy was formed to invite the King to a tournament
at Oxford, and then to take him by surprise and kill
him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed
upon at secret meetings in the house of the Abbot
of Westminster, was betrayed by the Earl of Rutland one
of the conspirators. The King, instead of going
to the tournament or staying at Windsor (where the
conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves
discovered, with the hope of seizing him), retired
to London, proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced
upon them with a great force. They retired into
the west of England, proclaiming Richard King; but,
the people rose against them, and they were all slain.
Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch.
Whether he was killed by hired assassins, or whether
he was starved to death, or whether he refused food
on hearing of his brothers being killed (who were
in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his death
somehow; and his body was publicly shown at St. Paul’s
Cathedral with only the lower part of the face uncovered.
I can scarcely doubt that he was killed by the King’s
orders.
The French wife of the miserable Richard
was now only ten years old; and, when her father,
Charles of France, heard of her misfortunes and of
her lonely condition in England, he went mad:
as he had several times done before, during the last
five or six years. The French Dukes of Burgundy
and Bourbon took up the poor girl’s cause, without
caring much about it, but on the chance of getting
something out of England. The people of Bordeaux,
who had a sort of superstitious attachment to the memory
of Richard, because he was born there, swore by the
Lord that he had been the best man in all his kingdom which
was going rather far and promised to do
great things against the English. Nevertheless,
when they came to consider that they, and the whole
people of France, were ruined by their own nobles,
and that the English rule was much the better of the
two, they cooled down again; and the two dukes, although
they were very great men, could do nothing without
them. Then, began negotiations between France
and England for the sending home to Paris of the poor
little Queen with all her jewels and her fortune of
two hundred thousand francs in gold. The King
was quite willing to restore the young lady, and even
the jewels; but he said he really could not part with
the money. So, at last she was safely deposited
at Paris without her fortune, and then the Duke of
Burgundy (who was cousin to the French King) began
to quarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was brother
to the French King) about the whole matter; and those
two dukes made France even more wretched than ever.
As the idea of conquering Scotland
was still popular at home, the King marched to the
river Tyne and demanded homage of the King of that
country. This being refused, he advanced to Edinburgh,
but did little there; for, his army being in want
of provisions, and the Scotch being very careful to
hold him in check without giving battle, he was obliged
to retire. It is to his immortal honour that
in this sally he burnt no villages and slaughtered
no people, but was particularly careful that his army
should be merciful and harmless. It was a great
example in those ruthless times.
A war among the border people of England
and Scotland went on for twelve months, and then the
Earl of Northumberland, the nobleman who had helped
Henry to the crown, began to rebel against him probably
because nothing that Henry could do for him would
satisfy his extravagant expectations. There was
a certain Welsh gentleman, named OWEN GLENDOWER, who
had been a student in one of the Inns of Court, and
had afterwards been in the service of the late King,
whose Welsh property was taken from him by a powerful
lord related to the present King, who was his neighbour.
Appealing for redress, and getting none, he took up
arms, was made an outlaw, and declared himself sovereign
of Wales. He pretended to be a magician; and
not only were the Welsh people stupid enough to believe
him, but, even Henry believed him too; for, making
three expeditions into Wales, and being three times
driven back by the wildness of the country, the bad
weather, and the skill of Glendower, he thought he
was defeated by the Welshman’s magic arts.
However, he took Lord Grey and Sir Edmund Mortimer,
prisoners, and allowed the relatives of Lord Grey to
ransom him, but would not extend such favour to Sir
Edmund Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called HOTSPUR,
son of the Earl of Northumberland, who was married
to Mortimer’s sister, is supposed to have taken
offence at this; and, therefore, in conjunction with
his father and some others, to have joined Owen Glendower,
and risen against Henry. It is by no means clear
that this was the real cause of the conspiracy; but
perhaps it was made the pretext. It was formed,
and was very powerful; including SCROOP, Archbishop
of York, and the EARL OF DOUGLAS, a powerful and brave
Scottish nobleman. The King was prompt and active,
and the two armies met at Shrewsbury.
There were about fourteen thousand
men in each. The old Earl of Northumberland
being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son.
The King wore plain armour to deceive the enemy;
and four noblemen, with the same object, wore the
royal arms. The rebel charge was so furious,
that every one of those gentlemen was killed, the
royal standard was beaten down, and the young Prince
of Wales was severely wounded in the face. But
he was one of the bravest and best soldiers that ever
lived, and he fought so well, and the King’s
troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that
they rallied immediately, and cut the enemy’s
forces all to pieces. Hotspur was killed by
an arrow in the brain, and the rout was so complete
that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one
blow. The Earl of Northumberland surrendered
himself soon after hearing of the death of his son,
and received a pardon for all his offences.
There were some lingerings of rebellion
yet: Owen Glendower being retired to Wales, and
a preposterous story being spread among the ignorant
people that King Richard was still alive. How
they could have believed such nonsense it is difficult
to imagine; but they certainly did suppose that the
Court fool of the late King, who was something like
him, was he, himself; so that it seemed as if, after
giving so much trouble to the country in his life,
he was still to trouble it after his death. This
was not the worst. The young Earl of March and
his brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle.
Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited
away by one Lady Spencer, she accused her own brother,
that Earl of Rutland who was in the former conspiracy
and was now Duke of York, of being in the plot.
For this he was ruined in fortune, though not put
to death; and then another plot arose among the old
Earl of Northumberland, some other lords, and that
same Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was with the
rebels before. These conspirators caused a writing
to be posted on the church doors, accusing the King
of a variety of crimes; but, the King being eager
and vigilant to oppose them, they were all taken, and
the Archbishop was executed. This was the first
time that a great churchman had been slain by the
law in England; but the King was resolved that it
should be done, and done it was.
The next most remarkable event of
this time was the seizure, by Henry, of the heir to
the Scottish throne James, a boy of nine
years old. He had been put aboard-ship by his
father, the Scottish King Robert, to save him from
the designs of his uncle, when, on his way to France,
he was accidentally taken by some English cruisers.
He remained a prisoner in England for nineteen years,
and became in his prison a student and a famous poet.
With the exception of occasional troubles
with the Welsh and with the French, the rest of King
Henry’s reign was quiet enough. But, the
King was far from happy, and probably was troubled
in his conscience by knowing that he had usurped the
crown, and had occasioned the death of his miserable
cousin. The Prince of Wales, though brave and
generous, is said to have been wild and dissipated,
and even to have drawn his sword on GASCOIGNE, the
Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, because he
was firm in dealing impartially with one of his dissolute
companions. Upon this the Chief Justice is said
to have ordered him immediately to prison; the Prince
of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace;
and the King is said to have exclaimed, ’Happy
is the monarch who has so just a judge, and a son
so willing to obey the laws.’ This is all
very doubtful, and so is another story (of which Shakespeare
has made beautiful use), that the Prince once took
the crown out of his father’s chamber as he was
sleeping, and tried it on his own head.
The King’s health sank more
and more, and he became subject to violent eruptions
on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his spirits
sank every day. At last, as he was praying before
the shrine of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey, he
was seized with a terrible fit, and was carried into
the Abbot’s chamber, where he presently died.
It had been foretold that he would die at Jerusalem,
which certainly is not, and never was, Westminster.
But, as the Abbot’s room had long been called
the Jerusalem chamber, people said it was all the
same thing, and were quite satisfied with the prediction.
The King died on the 20th of March,
1413, in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the
fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in Canterbury
Cathedral. He had been twice married, and had,
by his first wife, a family of four sons and two daughters.
Considering his duplicity before he came to the throne,
his unjust seizure of it, and above all, his making
that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests
called heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as
kings went.