(1399-1422).

HENRY IV. (1399-1413), surnamed BOLINGBROKE, from the town in Lincolnshire at which he was born, in 1366, was the only son of John of Gaunt. He was distinguished for warlike skill and personal courage, which he had proved in wars against the Moors of Barbary. His accession was hailed with joy by the common people, but his title was not recognised by foreign states, and he had to defend it at home against formidable rebellions. The first conspiracy, formed by several of the nobles, was betrayed by the earl of Rutland and easily crushed (Jan. 1400); but it was followed by an insurrection in Wales, under Owen Glendower, who claimed descent from the ancient princes. Glendower captured lord Grey and sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle of the earl of March. Henry, who had the earl of March in his own hands, was not sorry to be rid of Mortimer, and even refused permission to his kinsman Percy, earl of Northum

berland, to ransom him. He offended Perey still further by forbidding him to receive ransom for earl Douglas and other Scotch nobles whom he had taken prisoners (1402). Urged on by his brother the earl of Worcester, and his fiery son Hotspur, Northumberland made a league with Douglas and Glendower, and raised the standard of rebellion. Hotspur, marching at the head of 12,000 men to effect a junction with Owen Glendower, had advanced as far as Shrewsbury when he was encountered by the king (July 23, 1403). A most obstinate and bloody battle followed, in which the prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V., proved himself the heir to the fame of Edward the Black Prince. The fortune of the day was decided by the death of Hotspur, whose fate was shared by many nobles on both sides. Worcester and Douglas were among the prisoners; and the former was beheaded at Shrewsbury.

Northumberland himself, who had been prevented by illness from taking the field, was only sentenced by his peers to pay a fine, and even this the king remitted. Conscious, perhaps, that this clemency showed a fear of his vast power, he renewed his rebellion two years later. But, before he could draw his forces to a head, his confederates, Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, and Richard Scrope, archbishop of York, were seized by Ralph Neville, earl of Westmoreland, and executed (1405). Northumberland, who escaped to Scotland, was slain in a third attempt at Bramham in Yorkshire (1407). Meanwhile the prince of Wales carried on the war against Owen Glendower; but that chieftain held his ground till Henry's death.

Scotland might have played an important part in the troubles of Henry's reign; but the dissensions in her own royal family not only crippled her, but resulted in an accident which placed her in Henry's power. The duke of Albany, not content with ruling his weak brother Robert III., contrived the murder of his eldest son David duke of Rothesay, as a step towards the throne. To save his younger son James, Robert caused him to sail for France; but the ship was taken by the English (1405), and Henry detained the young prince long after his father's death had made him king James I. of Scotland. But, like Henry's other royal captive, the earl of March, James received an education suited to his rank, and he beguiled his imprisonment at Windsor with some of those poems which have secured for him an honourable place in Anglo-Scottish literature. He was only released under Henry VI., in 1424.

On the whole, the reign of Henry IV., though illustrated by no great achievements, bears witness to the ability of a sovereign who could maintain his questionable title and reduce the disturbed state

to order. This was done, however, by a system of terror which caused the king to outlive his popularity, early as was the age at which he died. One great blot upon his administration was his persecution of the Lollards to secure the favour of the church. The year 1401 was the first in which our statute-book was sullied by an act for the burning of heretics; and several executions took place in this and the following reign. The Commons gained an increase of power, both in freedom of debate and in the granting of supplies, and they began to use the right of punishing public officers for offences against their privileges. It also deserves notice that twice during this reign the Commons proposed to confiscate the temporalities of the church, which were only preserved by the king's refusal to sanction the spoliation.

Henry died at Westminster on the 20th of March, 1413, in the 46th year of his age and the 14th of his reign.

HENRY V. (1413-1422), of MONMOUTH, was born on the 9th of August, 1388. His early exploits in the wars against the Percies and Glendower had been succeeded by an inactivity forced upon him by the jealous state of mind into which his father fell towards the end of his reign. How the prince's restless spirit is said to have found vent in disorders with debauched companions; how he atoned for these excesses by his graceful submission to the judge whom he had insulted on the bench; and how he was at last reconciled to his father; all these are traditions better known through the fancy of our great poet than in the actual facts of history. But these faults were all thrown aside when he mounted the throne, and he retained about him his father's wisest councillors.

The beginning of his reign was disgraced by a new persecution of the Lollards. The diffusion of doctrines such as Wickliffe's through Europe alarmed the church, and led to the assembling of the council of Constance, where John Huss was burnt (1414). In England Henry may have been the more ready to gratify the zeal of the clergy through being persuaded that the Lollards were disloyal subjects. He suffered the bishops to condemn to the flames the leader of the Lollards, sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, who had acquired distinction in his father's service and his own. Cobham escaped from the Tower, gathered his followers, and tried to seize the king's person (1414); but, being taken four years later, he was hanged as a traitor and burned as a heretic.

But Henry's whole energies were soon thrown into a new effort to subdue France. During the last reign the war had languished, but the French had more than once attacked the southern coasts of England. Now, however, the internal state of France offered an opportunity which Henry was not the man to lose. King

Charles VI., the grandson of John II., had lost his reason; and the regency was disputed between his brother the duke of Orleans, and his cousin the duke of Burgundy, son of the younger son of John. The dispute had broken out into open war, and Burgundy had secretly solicited aid from the king of England. Having strengthened himself by alliances with the emperor Sigismund and with Ferdinand king of Arragon, Henry openly laid claim to the crown of France, and assembled his forces at Portsmouth in the spring of 1415. He was detained a short time by a conspiracy formed in favour of the earl of March by the earl of Cambridge, younger son of Edmund duke of York, lord Scrope, and sir Thomas Grey, who were hastily tried and executed.

On the 11th of August, 1415, Henry sailed from Southampton, with 1500 ships, conveying 6000 men-at-arms and 24,000 infantry, chiefly archers. Landing on the 13th, he formed the siege of Harfleur, which capitulated on the 22nd of September. But the delay and the heat of the season had been so fatal to Henry's little army that he could proceed no further. Resisting, however, all entreaties to return to England, he resolved to retreat to Calais. By slow stages he reached the Somme, on the banks of which the French army, four times as numerous as his own, were now assembled under the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon. Both armies crossed the river; Henry by an adroit surprise, and the French with a view of barring his progress. Their manoeuvre succeeded, though to their ultimate ruin, and Henry found them posted in front of him on the plains of AZINCOUR, or AGINCOURT (Oct. 24, 1415). On the following day the scenes of Crécy and Poitiers were repeated, but with a result even more decisive. Standing on the defensive, with their front secured by palisades against the enemy's cavalry, the English archers poured their deadly volleys upon the dense masses of the French, and then charged their disordered ranks. Ten thousand of the French were slain, and 14,000 were made prisoners, amongst whom were the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, and many of the highest of the French nobility. The loss of the English was so small, that it is stated at only forty!

The duke of Burgundy now openly declared for Henry, who resumed the campaign in 1417 by landing again in Normandy and marching almost unopposed to Rouen, which yielded after a resolute defence (1418). The sense of common danger now led the dauphin to form a secret treaty with the duke of Burgundy, whose treacherous assassination, however, in a conference with the dauphin at Montereau, broke up the compact again. His son Philip, bent on avenging his father's death, at once made a league with Henry, on terms which placed France at his feet. The treaty was ratified at

Troyes, May 21, 1420. The nominal sovereignty of France was left to Charles VI., but the whole government was committed to Henry, who was to succeed to the crown on the death of Charles. The treaty was cemented by the marriage of Henry to Catherine, the daughter of the French king. Henry at once assumed the government at Paris, where the parliament and the estates of the realm confirmed the treaty of Troyes.

After keeping his Christmas in great state at Paris, and receiving at Rouen the homage of his nobles as regent of France, Henry visited England, where his queen was crowned (Feb. 24, 1421). An incident occurred during this visit which illustrates his want of generosity and conscience where his ambition was concerned. The intimate relations long since established between France and Scotland had led a large body of the flower of the Scottish nation to enter the service of the French king. These Scots, to the number of 7000, had adhered to the dauphin, and had defeated Henry's brother, the duke of Clarence, at Baugé. Henry now obtained from the captive king of Scotland his consent to the engagement of the earl of Douglas and other Scottish nobles in the English army. James himself even served as a volunteer, and, under the colour of his support, Henry treated the Scots whom he took prisoners as rebels and traitors. No wonder that the feud between Scotland and England grew bitterer in each age!

Returning to France in June, Henry drove the dauphin behind the Loire, and formed the siege of Orleans; but scarcity of provisions compelled him to return to Paris, where his Christmas festivities were gladdened by the news of the birth of a son and heir, at Windsor, on the 6th of December, 1421. He took the field again next year; but an illness, which was beyond the medical skill of the age, brought his career to an untimely end, on the 31st of August, 1422, in the 35th year of his age and the 10th of his reign. He was buried in the chapel of St. Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, where his effigy is still shown, robbed of the silver head with which it was adorned,-a stroke of irony emblematic of the fate which awaited not only his conquests, but even his character; for, after conceding to him every quality, whether personal or intellectual, which can win the admiration of the world for a career of martial glory and successful ambition, it remains to be recorded that he was unscrupulous and cruel to all who crossed his path.

The privileges of parliament were further advanced in the reign of Henry V. by the king's consent to abstain from altering the terms of laws which he had consented to enact upon their petition. On the other hand, the king received enlarged powers of taxation,