REIGNED FROM A.D. 1377 TO A.D. 1399.

R

ICHARD THE SECOND mounts the throne 1

'His grandsire's death now made his own :

Wat Tyler's mob, in clam'rous strain,

Disturb'd this monarch's op'ning reign,

Till Walworth 3 knock'd the rebel down:
But cruel acts disgrace the Crown!

4

Percy and Lancaster 6 rebel,

With force which RICHARD could not quell;

And soon entangled in their chains,

His blood the tower of Pomfret stains!

In the eleventh year of his age.

2 He was the son of Edward the Black Prince.

3 William Walworth, Mayor of London.

4 Richard ordered his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, to be put to death, and banished the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Hereford.

" Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur.

"Hereford, on the death of his father, John of Gaunt, became Duke of Lancaster, and usurped the Crown, A.D. 1399. Richard was murdered by Sir Pierce Exton, in the thirtyyear of his age, at Pontefract Castle.

fourth

REIGNED FROM A.D. 1399 TO A.D. 1413.

HILE thus unhappy Richard bleeds,

WHILE

HENRY THE FOURTH, his foe, succeeds,

Of Lancaster's1 imperious race.

This proud usurper hurl'd disgrace
On Percy, who procur'd him power;
But Percy, leaguing with Glendower,
Defy'd the King on Shrewsb'ry's plain,
And there the Percy bold was slain.
This King with sorrow sees his son
A course of dissipation run;
For fourteen years the sceptre sways,
A leprosy then ends his days.*

3

1 Formerly Earl of Hereford.

2 A descendant of the Welsh Princes.

3 Prince Henry, a libertine in his youth, but afterwards reformed. He is represented by Shakspeare as Falstaff's companion.

4

He died in the Jerusalem Chamber, at Westminster, of leprosy, in the forty-sixth year of his age.

REIGNED FROM A.D. 1413 TO A.D. 1422.

ENRY THE FIFTH succeeds his sire,

HE

And though a youth of wanton fire,
He strives his honour to redeem,1
And gains the national esteem ;
On Agincourt's decisive field
He won the lilies for his shield,
And made the conquer'd French declare,
Him to their Crown undoubted heir;
Receiv'd their Princess for his bride,
And in the midst of glory died.3

1 In his father's lifetime he had been remarkable for his idle and disorderly conduct.

2 This battle was fought A.D. 1415. The French had one hundred thousand healthy troops, the English about nine thousand, enfeebled by disease; but the French were defeated, with the loss of ten thousand killed, and fourteen thousand prisoners, while the English loss was below one hundred men. In the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of his

reign.