RICHAR

ARD II. was indeed the author, not only of his own troubles, but also, indirectly, of the misfortunes which befell England during the earlier part of the fifteenth century. Dark as loomed the political horizon at his accession, so soon as the Peasant Revolt was quelled there was a strong disposition on the part of the people for peace, a feeling which a wise ruler would have availed himself of. But Richard, though on some occasions he had evinced great personal bravery, was naturally weak and irresolute; more than that he was fond of flattery, show and parade. He was vain and frivolous. His extravagance was excessive. Never be fore his day had the Kings of England lived in such magnificence and splendour. Ten thousand persons formed his household; three hundred being in his kitchen alone. At a Christmas which he spent at Lichfield two hundred tuns of wine and two thousand

oxen

were consumed. Provoked as the people were at such reckless expenditure and at his frequent outbursts of temper, he managed to retain their good opinion up to about 1394, when the death of his queen, Ann of Bohemia, took place. The marriage, two years later, with Isabella, daughter of Charles the Sixth of France, a mere child, was the turning point in his life, and formed an important factor in the causes that led to his loss of the crown.

The formal deposition of a king by his subjects, though an extreme measure, and only to be resorted to in the last instance, is, nevertheless, their

inalienable right. The people do not exist for the king, but the king for the people. The king, as the etymology of the word itself shows, is most emphatically the cynning,' the son or creation of the tribe. The early English, as a rule, elected their kings, and even in times when the principle of hereditary succession was followed the form of election was invariably gone through with. through with. Up to the reign of Edward the Sixth, no sovereign of England was crowned, not even the Conqueror, until the consent of the people had been asked for and obtained; nor has the fact that the king reigns by the will of the people lost any of its force, though the form of election is now omitted. The right of deposition necessarily follows from the right of choice. Moreover, the king, at his coronation, promises to govern according to the laws and customs of the realm. He is a conditional ruler. If he violate the covenant made between him and his subjects, then he is no longer entitled to their allegiance. They may proceed to eject them. This has actually been done five times within the last eight hundred years. Edward the Second, Richard the Second, Henry the Sixth, Charles the First and James the Second were, by the will of the people, deprived and dethroned. In each case there was no alternative but the ruin of the country.

From the very moment of his marriage with Isabella, Richard changed. The veil he had cast over himself for the past eight years was thrown aside, and men saw him grasping with all his might for imperial and autocra

tic powers. The influx of French manners increased his extravagance. He filled his court with bishops and ladies. He governed with utter indifference to the wishes of the parliament. When remonstrated with and asked to reform his household he claimed the absolute right to do as he pleased. In 1397 he planned and successfully carried out the abduction and murder of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. Others suffered either. death or imprisonment. In the course of one short year Richard lost forever the affection of the people, and if they kept silence it was the silence of as tonishment and consternation, the silence that immediately precedes the tornado. John of Gaunt died in January, 1399, and only one of the king's uncles, the Duke of York, remained. The Earl of March, grandson of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward the Third, was, in default of royal issue, the heir to the throne, but Henry of Lancaster was the darling and hope of the Londoners, as well as of the advocates of reform. The king had disinherited and ban ished him, and confiscated his paternal estates, and this was the ostensible cause of the revolution of 1399. On the fourth of July in that year Henry landed in Yorkshire, and immediately many lords threw in their lot with him. The king was in Ireland at the time, and when he returned it was to find that his regent, the Duke of York, had gone over to Henry and Archbishop Arundel was acting as chancellor. The whole country was for the invader. All was lost, and Richard, after an interview with the Earl of Northumberland at Conway, offered to resign the crown. He accompanied Henry from Flint to London, where he was placed in the Tower, and in a few days signed the deed of resignation. The parliament was not content with merely accepting this, but proceeded to formulate their charges against him, and to solemnly depose him from all royal dignity and honour.

Then, before the assembled barons of England, Henry rose and, signing himself with the cross on his forehead and breast, claimed the kingdom and He based his right upon the

crown.

three grounds of conquest, of Richard's resignation, and of the alleged fact that his ancestor Edmund, son of Henry the Third, was the elder brother of Edward the First and therefore should of right have been king. His mother, Bianche, was indeed the descendant of Edmund, but that Edmund was the heir to the crown had been refuted by the council only a week before. The claim of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, now about eight years old, was said to be false because his mother Phillipa, daughter of the Duke of Clarence, was illegitimate. The claims of the Duke of York and his two sons Edward and Richard, were also set aside. The assembly with one voice at once declared that Henry of Lancaster should be king. Then the Archbishops of Canterbury and York led him to the throne, and the choice of England received the homage of the lords and commons. Nor were signs wanting to show that Henry was the choice of heaven. Men remembered old prophecies which declared that the descendants of John of Gaunt should some day be Kings of England. They called him the Judas Maccabeus. The golden eagle and cruse of oil which the Blessed Virgin had confided to the care of St. Thomas of Canterbury at Sens, and which had long lain concealed at Poictiers until delivered by divine revelation to the grandfather of the new king, were to give to the House of Lancaster that miraculous unction which the House of Clovis had received from the holy dove. The sword which he had drawn on landing was to be placed beside the sceptre of the Confessor, one of the most sacred of relics. The coronation was performed on the festival of the saintly and royal Edward with fitting pomp and magnificence. Richard lay a prisoner in the Tower, but within

the Abbey of Westminster all was joy and gladness. The mass was sung, the vows were taken, the royal diadem was set upon the brow of the prince, and the acclamations of the populace greeted the freshly anointed sovereign as the saviour of his country. The Order of the Bath was founded and forty-six candidates for the honours of chivalry were knighted. And thus the dynasty of the Plantagenets came to an end, and the line of Lancaster reigned in its stead.

The character of Henry the Fourth was naturally influenced by the circumstances which surrounded him. The fear of losing the crown for which both he and his father had so long striven, made him suspicious and crafty. At times he became unscrupulous and cruel, removing without hesitation anyone or anything that threatened to endanger his position. Apart from this unhappy dread, he was a resolute, fair-dealing and merciful ruler, truly anxious to further the welfare of his people and to bring in the best constitutional mode of government. His skill in all military exercises was perfect; his political foresight great. The throne, however, upon which he sat was hedged about with difficulties. The old peasant troubles were far from settled. The effects of Richard's misgovernment, the debt he had inherited and enlarged, the concessions he had made to the French as the price of peace, irritated and disturbed the people. Scotland and Wales were as ever hostile and anxious for war. Charles the Sixth, of France, father of Isabella, the wife of the deposed Richard, refused to recognise him as king, and therefore peace was not to be expected from that quarter. The conflict of the Church and Lollardy was also alarming. Many of the lords were his bitter enemies. Nor had he been king more than a month before the peace was broken. Four earls who had been degraded by Henry, formed a plot to seize the king on Twelfth Night and

The

replace Richard on the throne. plot was discovered. The earls lost their lives at the hands of the people; and the fate of Richard was sealed. What became of him, whether he was murdered or starved to death, or whether he escaped to live in Scotland an idiot and a prisoner is hard to say, but from this time he disappears from the stage of history. A solemn funeral was celebrated for him at Langley, on St. Valentine's day, and in the reign of Henry the Fifth, his body was laid in Westminster Abbey.

War along the Welsh border and with Scotland soon broke out. Robert the Third refused to render homage for his kingdom, and Owen Glendower sought to strengthen and enrich himself out of England's weakness and poverty. The marches of both countries were in the charge of the brave Percies. The king was not successful in his expedition against Wales, but the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur, defeated the Scotch in the battle of Homildon Hill, September 14th, 1402. Many of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, including the Earl of Douglas and the Earl of Fife, nephew of Robert, were taken prisoners. From some cause or other the Percies, who had apparently been the most faithful of Henry's adherents, and had been richly rewarded by him, now revolted, and joined their forces to those of the Welsh prince, with the avowed intention of setting the boy Mortimer on the throne, or restoring Richard, who was reported to be still alive. Hotspur and his uncle the Earl of Worcester, raised the standard of rebellion in Shropshire, in the summer of 1403. With fourteen thousand men they laid siege to Shrewsbury. Henry advanced with a large army, and on the twenty-first of July, the battle of Hateley-field near that place, was fought, in which Hotspur was slain, and after a most desperate struggle the insurgents were defeated. The Earl of Worcester was beheaded and Northumberland submitted. The king acted

most generously towards the conquered. He built a little church on the spot, in memory of those who had died in battle, a memorial still in existence. It was on this day that his son Henry began his career of military glory.

But even these victories over revolt did not bring peace to Henry. His administration was held to be defective. The people had lost all confidence in the stability of the government. The French were threatening the southern coast, and the Welsh were gaining strength. The friars were preaching against him throughout the kingdom, and parties, similar to those which had so previously troubled Richard, were strong and active. Laws had been passed against the Lollards, and the royal household had been reduced, but dissatisfaction remained. In 1405, another rebellion broke out. Around the-Earl of Northumberland, a strong party of disaffected lords, including Scrope, Archbishop of York, assembled. They issued their charges against the king, and assumed arms in May. After a parley with the royal forces at Shepton-moor, the insurgents dispersed leaving the archbishop and Mowbray, the earl marshal, in the king's hands. Against the advice of Arundel and Sir William Gascoigne, the chief justice, Henry determined to put them to death, and, on the eighth of June, they were beheaded. The archbishop's body began at once to work miracles. People considered him a martyr, equal to Thomas of Canterbury, and made pilgrimages to his shrine in York. The king's illness during the latter part of the year, they looked upon as a divinely-sent punishment for having murdered a sacred person, and one who was standing up for the nation's rights. Henry secured his position on the throne, but he lost the respect of the people. The death of thirty thousand of his subjects in 1407, by the plague, and the terrible poverty and destitution of the country, made them still more disaffected towards him. But no fur

ther attempts at rebellion on so large a scale were made during his reign.

But

The king was, however, from this time on a broken-down, unhappy man. Both mind and body were weakened. Civil war in Scotland, and the dissentions of the Burgundian and Armagnac parties in France made the foreign relations of England easier. The Earl of Northumberland, who had fled after the last revolt, returned in 1408, and tried once more to disturb the peace, but was defeated and slain by Sir Thomas Rokeby, at Bramham, in Yorkshire, in the February of that year. Whatever treason there was outside, there was none within the House of Commons. Arundel made a true and wise minister of state, and for the last few years of Henry's life, the constitutional harmony which had been sought and struggled for through so many years was fairly realized. the king grew more and more an invalid. Domestic discord came in to embitter his days. His four sons, Henry, Thomas, John and Humfrey, and his three half-brothers, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset; Henry, Bishop of Winchester; and Sir Thomas Beaufort, Knight; were clever, accomplished and ambitious. All held important state offices; Henry taking the lead in the council, and also being very popular in parliament. He had shown his prowess in war, not only when with his father at Shrewsbury, but in 1408, when he forced Glendower to retreat to Snowdon. The stories of his wild, youthful extravagance, perpetuated by Shakespeare, are unfounded, and most improbable. But with his father he was not on the best of terms. Rivalry and jealousy seems to have pervaded the whole royal family. The king, however, was fast approaching the state when these things could be no longer be a trouble to him. A prophecy that he was to die at Jerusalem seems to have given him hope that he would live until he had seen the Holy Land; but when recovery was hopeless, he had himself conveyed to the

Jerusalem Chamber, in Westminster Abbey. At night he is said to have slept with the crown by his side, and tradition tells how Prince Henry, thinking his father was dead, once took it away. To his father's remonstrances, at his taking what did not belong to either of them, he replied, 'My liege, with your sword you won it, and with my sword I will keep it.' The end came on the twentieth of March, 1413. Soon after the dead

monarch was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, near the tomb of his uncle, the Black Prince. His short reign of eleven years had been full of sorrow. His path to the throne and his seat upon it had been secured by blood. But he had been the people's choice, and he had, so far as lay in his power, sought to rule according to equity and constitutional right.

Henry was crowned in Westminster on April 16th. He was brilliant, religious, pure, temperate, truthful, and honourable. The people loved him. The parliament were one with him. His skill as a warrior, diplomatist and organizer was great. He restored glory to the English army and re established the navy. But the difficulties that had tried his father descended to him, and new ones arose. The day after his father's death he removed Archbishop Arundel and Lord le Scrope, the treasurer, from their offices, and a week later the aged Sir William Gascoigne from the chief justiceship. Bishop Beaufort became the chief minis ter. The young Earl of March was received into the king's closest confidence. Then negotiations with France were begun, and two lords were sent to Charles the Sixth to arrange an alliance between his daughter, the Princess Catherine, and Henry, and to demand the restoration of the lands in that kingdom which belonged of right to the kings of England. The negotiations were unsuccessful in both instances, and in April 1415 war was proclaimed. Before Henry left the country a formidable conspiracy to

place the Earl of March on the throne was discovered. Lord le Scrope and the Earl of Cambridge, the brother-inlaw of Mortimer, were the chief spirits of the movement. These two lords and a knight were tried and executed, the only blood Henry shed to maintain the rights of his House. In August, leaving his brother John, Duke of Bedford, lieutenant of the realm, he crossed the Channel and landed at Havre on the 14th. Within five weeks Harfleur, about six miles distant, was taken, but the English suffered such losses from the enemy and from dysentery that Henry thought it prudent to retreat to Calais without advancing further towards the interior. On his way thither he was met at Agincourt by the united Chivalry of France. His army numbered but 9,000 men, weak, sickly and halfstarved, while on the other side were 60,000 warriors, fresh and ready for battle. If, however, the odds were so great, and if the Dauphin of France thought Henry so much better fitted for sport than war-he had sent him in derision when at Harfleur a ton of tennis balls,--St. Crispin's day, October 25th, saw one of the greatest and most glorious victories that have ever attended the arms of England. story is one of the best known in our annals. Henry may have painted his pennons with the blood of Harfleur ;. now he painted them with the blood of the noblest of France. Through the long, weary night-a cold and rainy night-both armies waited anxiously for the day-break; the French sure of victory, the English doubtful but determined to fight hard for dear life. In early twilight the battle began. A shower of arrows from the English army heralded Henry's onslaught. The French rushed from their vantage ground to meet them, plunging heavily into the miry ground that lay between the two hosts. Their men-at-arms charged valiantly, but the English archers poured their floods of arrows into their midst, doing terrible carnage. Henry, wearing the royal crown,

The