Chapter XXXIV: Reign of Henry IV (1)

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 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."

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."

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.

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.