CHAPTER XVIII. HENRY IV. (BOLINGBROKE.) Born at Bolingbroke. Buried at Canterbury. Reigned 14 From A.D. 1399 to A.D. 1413. years. Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas Arundel, A.D. 1396—1413. THE dethronement of a prince has generally been followed by his murder; and it is to be feared that the case of Richard is no exception to this statement. A conspiracy was formed in his favour, and its explosion was rapidly followed by his death at Pontefract castle. The most probable account of this deed of darkness is, that Sir Piers of Exton was sent with seven attendants to murder him; from one of whom Richard snatched a battleaxe, and killed some of the others, but was overpowered by numbers. His remains were interred at Langley, in Hertfordshire, and followed by Henry himself; who detained Edmund, the young earl of March in confinement, as being the descendant of Lionel, duke of Clarence, and thus the rightful heir to the crown. This young prince was the son of Roger, earl of March, who had once been destined by Richard to be his successor; and on his father's death his claims also had been recognized by Parliament. The reign of Henry is little but a succession of conspiracies. He was soon called to meet Northumberland and Hotspur in the field, who had been so forward in helping him to mount the throne. They formed an alliance with Earl Douglas, whom they had taken prisoner in a battle with the Scots at Homildon-hill, A.D. 1402; and also with Owen Glendower, a Welsh chieftain, who maintained a lawless independence among the mountains of Wales. The king defeated these conspirators in the battle of Shrewsbury, A.D. 1403; but this rebellion was only the prelude to others, which continually disturbed him in the possession of his usurped authority. It has also been said that he had great anxiety from the character of his eldest son, who gave indeed indications at times of the high qualities which he afterwards showed, but addicted himself to low companions and plea sures. This opinion has perhaps been the less questioned from the use which our great dramatist Shakspeare has made of it; but it has been combated with many weighty objections. It should, however, be mentioned, that the prince is said on one occasion, to have drawn his sword on Chief Justice Gascoyne, when that magistrate refused to release one of Henry's riotous companions. The judge committed the prince to prison, who submitted meekly to the sentence. It is added, that when the king heard of the affair, he exclaimed, "Happy the king who has a judge so resolute in executing the law, and a son so willing to submit to it!" In this reign was passed a law to authorize the burning of heretics. It seems probable that Henry, who felt the weakness of his title, consented to this law in the hope of enlisting on his side the clergy, who lost no time in carrying out the statute. Archbishop Arundel was especially active in violent measures against the Lollards. His successor, Archbishop Chicheley, the founder of All Souls' college, Oxford, was equally averse to them; but he distinguished himself honourably on several occasions by the firmness with which he resisted the exorbitant claims of the pope to jurisdiction in England. Henry made an ungenerous use of an accident which put the young prince of Scotland (afterwards James I.) in his power. He had been sent abroad by his father, to be safe from the plots of an uncle, and was taken by an English cruiser. Henry detained him as his prisoner, but saw that he was well educated. The cares inseparable from royalty were in Henry's case embittered by remorse of conscience, and undermined his health. He died in the forty-sixth year of his life, A.D. 1413, and was succeeded by his eldest son. 7 See Memoirs of Henry V. by Rev. J. E. Tyler, B.D. CHAPTER XIX. HENRY V. (OF MONMOUTH.) Born at Monmouth. Buried at Westminster. Reigned 9 years. Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry Chicheley, A.D. 1414-1442. THE accession of Henry V. was hailed by the whole nation with feelings of hope and joy. He removed the remains of Richard to Westminster, and himself attended as chief mourner. He set at liberty the young Earl of March, and restored the Percy family to their estates and honours. Whatever be thought of his conduct in early life, it seems certain that from this period he showed himself a sincere Christian; and though severe measures were taken against the Lollards early in his reign, through the mistaken zeal of the clergy, there is reason to think that Henry was averse to put in force the law that had been passed against those reformers. The principal victim of this false zeal was Sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham. He was condemned, after a noble defence of his opinions before the primate Arundel and other bishops; but made his escape from the Tower, and his friends seem even to have attempted to seize the king at Eltham. The attempt failed, and led to many executions. Cobham himself was at length taken, and with great cruelty was hung as a rebel and burnt as a heretic. But Henry was himself then in France. The king was eager to reconquer the possessions of his ancestors in France, which, notwithstanding the victories of Edward, had gradually been wrested from the English. His eagerness was shared by his subjects, and the distracted state of France, under Charles VI. (who was subject to fits of mental derangement), favoured his design. An army was assembled at Southampton; but some check was occasioned by the discovery of a conspiracy, ostensibly in favour of the Earl of March, but really formed by that prince's brother-in-law, Richard, earl of Cambridge, to forward his own ambitious views. The conspirators were condemned and executed; but, to the king's honour, the Earl of March, though the rightful heir to the crown, being found guiltless of this conspiracy, was unmolested; and Henry sailed to the mouth of the Seine, where he took the town of Harfleur, and divided a vast treasure among the soldiers. His army, however, being reduced by sickness to little more than 12,000 men, he determined to withdraw to Calais, and on his way was met by the French army, amounting to 100,000 men, near the castle of Agincourt. His defeat seemed inevitable, and the French made so sure of it that they passed the night in revels, and even fixed the ransom of Henry and his barons. The English employed the time in devotional exercises, and Henry went from post to post, cheering and inspiriting his men. Hearing an officer say that he wished for more men from England, he declared that he wished not for one man more. If God gave them the victory, the glory would be the greater; and if not, the loss to England would be the less. The result of the battle was one of the most astonishing victories on record. The onset was made by the English, who, after using their arrows, rushed on the French with swords and battle-axes, and routed them with great slaughter. The Duke of Alençon had sworn to take or slay the king, and in personal combat with him clove his helmet; but was struck down by Henry and slain. The flower of the French nobility fell in this fatal field. It is computed that 8000 gentlemen were slain, while the loss of the English is said to have been not more than eighty. The following year (A.D. 1416) Henry crossed again to France, and recovered great part of Normandy: but at last agreed to a truce: and his hopes of conquering the kingdom would perhaps have ended here, had not a general horror been excited against the dauphin, for having occasioned the murder of the Duke of Burgundy. The son of that prince devoted himself to the English cause; and Henry marched to Troyes, where a treaty was concluded, by which Henry was declared Regent of France during the life of Charles VI., whose daughter (the Princess Katharine) he was to marry. He was also declared heir to the crown at the death of Charles. The young queen was brought to England, and the joy of the nation was at its height when she gave birth to a son at Windsor. Henry was then in France, where he was not long afterwards joined by his wife and child; and the magnificence of his court at Paris was far beyond what appeared about the person of the reigning king. A fatal disease now attacked him; under which he died, after a brilliant reign of less than ten years, commending his soul to the mercy of God, and the care of his infant son, who was not a year old, to his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. The queen-dowager afterwards married Owen Tudor, a gentleman of Wales, by whom she had Edmund, earl of Richmond, and Jasper, earl of Pembroke. The descendants of this marriage were destined to sit on the throne of England. CHAPTER XX. HENRY VI. (OF windsor.) Born at Windsor. Buried at Chertsey, but removed to Windsor. Reigned 39 years. From A.D. 1422 to A.D. 1461. Archbishops of Canterbury. Henry Chicheley, A.D. 1414-1442. Thomas Bourchier, A.D. 1454— 1486. THE English interest in France was managed after Henry's death, by the Duke of Bedford; in whose absence the Duke of Gloucester was regarded as protector of the infant king in England. Gloucester was a favourite with the people, and long remembered as "good Duke Humphrey;" but was bitterly opposed by Cardinal Beaufort, a son of John of Gaunt by Katharine Swynford, whom John married at a later period, and whose children by that prince, before her marriage to him, were made legitimate by Richard II. In France, the English were for a short time successful against the dauphin, who became Charles VII. by the death of his father. They had laid siege to Orleans, with a view to complete the conquest of the kingdom, when the face of things was changed by the appearance of one of the most remarkable persons recorded in history. This was Joan of Arc, a maiden of humble birth, who believed herself commissioned by God to expel the English. Charles |