Anonymous

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.

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."

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."

ARREST OF THE CONSPIRATORS AT CIRENCESTER. (See p. 519.)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THE DUKES OF ORLEANS AND BURGUNDY AT THE CHURCH OF THE AUGUSTINES. (See p. 539.)