Chapter XX - England Under Henry the Fourth, Called Bolingbroke

by Charles Dickens

　　During the last reign, the preaching of Wickliffe against the prideand cunning of the Pope and all his men, had made a great noise inEngland. Whether the new King wished to be in favour with thepriests, or whether he hoped, by pretending to be very religious,to cheat Heaven itself into the belief that he was not a usurper, Idon't know. Both suppositions are likely enough. It is certainthat he began his reign by making a strong show against thefollowers of Wickliffe, who were called Lollards, or heretics -although his father, John of Gaunt, had been of that way ofthinking, as he himself had been more than suspected of being. Itis no less certain that he first established in England thedetestable and atrocious custom, brought from abroad, of burningthose people as a punishment for their opinions. It was theimportation into England of one of the practices of what was calledthe Holy Inquisition: which was the most unholy and the mostinfamous tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men morelike demons than followers of Our Saviour.

　　No real right to the crown, as you know, was in this King. EdwardMortimer, the young Earl of March - who was only eight or nineyears old, and who was descended from the Duke of Clarence, theelder brother of Henry's father - was, by succession, the real heirto the throne. However, the King got his son declared Prince ofWales; and, obtaining possession of the young Earl of March and hislittle brother, kept them in confinement (but not severely) inWindsor Castle. He then required the Parliament to decide what wasto be done with the deposed King, who was quiet enough, and whoonly said that he hoped his cousin Henry would be 'a good lord' tohim. The Parliament replied that they would recommend his beingkept in some secret place where the people could not resort, andwhere his friends could not be admitted to see him. Henryaccordingly passed this sentence upon him, and it now began to bepretty clear to the nation that Richard the Second would not livevery long.

　　It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an unprincipled one, and theLords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to which of themhad been loyal and which disloyal, and which consistent and whichinconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said to have been thrownupon the floor at one time as challenges to as many battles: thetruth being that they were all false and base together, and hadbeen, at one time with the old King, and at another time with thenew one, and seldom true for any length of time to any one. Theysoon began to plot again. A conspiracy was formed to invite theKing to a tournament at Oxford, and then to take him by surpriseand kill him. This murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon atsecret meetings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, wasbetrayed by the Earl of Rutland - one of the conspirators. TheKing, instead of going to the tournament or staying at Windsor(where the conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselvesdiscovered, with the hope of seizing him), retired to London,proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a greatforce. They retired into the west of England, proclaiming RichardKing; but, the people rose against them, and they were all slain.Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. Whetherhe was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was starved todeath, or whether he refused food on hearing of his brothers beingkilled (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his deathsomehow; and his body was publicly shown at St. Paul's Cathedralwith only the lower part of the face uncovered. I can scarcelydoubt that he was killed by the King's orders.

　　The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only ten yearsold; and, when her father, Charles of France, heard of hermisfortunes and of her lonely condition in England, he went mad:as he had several times done before, during the last five or sixyears. The French Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon took up the poorgirl's cause, without caring much about it, but on the chance ofgetting something out of England. The people of Bordeaux, who hada sort of superstitious attachment to the memory of Richard,because he was born there, swore by the Lord that he had been thebest man in all his kingdom - which was going rather far - andpromised to do great things against the English. Nevertheless,when they came to consider that they, and the whole people ofFrance, were ruined by their own nobles, and that the English rulewas much the better of the two, they cooled down again; and the twodukes, although they were very great men, could do nothing withoutthem. Then, began negotiations between France and England for thesending home to Paris of the poor little Queen with all her jewelsand her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in gold. The Kingwas quite willing to restore the young lady, and even the jewels;but he said he really could not part with the money. So, at lastshe was safely deposited at Paris without her fortune, and then theDuke of Burgundy (who was cousin to the French King) began toquarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was brother to the FrenchKing) about the whole matter; and those two dukes made France evenmore wretched than ever.

　　As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at home, theKing marched to the river Tyne and demanded homage of the King ofthat country. This being refused, he advanced to Edinburgh, butdid little there; for, his army being in want of provisions, andthe Scotch being very careful to hold him in check without givingbattle, he was obliged to retire. It is to his immortal honourthat in this sally he burnt no villages and slaughtered no people,but was particularly careful that his army should be merciful andharmless. It was a great example in those ruthless times.

　　A war among the border people of England and Scotland went on fortwelve months, and then the Earl of Northumberland, the noblemanwho had helped Henry to the crown, began to rebel against him -probably because nothing that Henry could do for him would satisfyhis extravagant expectations. There was a certain Welsh gentleman,named Owen Glendower, who had been a student in one of the Inns ofCourt, and had afterwards been in the service of the late King,whose Welsh property was taken from him by a powerful lord relatedto the present King, who was his neighbour. Appealing for redress,and getting none, he took up arms, was made an outlaw, and declaredhimself sovereign of Wales. He pretended to be a magician; and notonly were the Welsh people stupid enough to believe him, but, evenHenry believed him too; for, making three expeditions into Wales,and being three times driven back by the wildness of the country,the bad weather, and the skill of Glendower, he thought he wasdefeated by the Welshman's magic arts. However, he took Lord Greyand Sir Edmund Mortimer, prisoners, and allowed the relatives ofLord Grey to ransom him, but would not extend such favour to SirEdmund Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, son of the Earlof Northumberland, who was married to Mortimer's sister, issupposed to have taken offence at this; and, therefore, inconjunction with his father and some others, to have joined OwenGlendower, and risen against Henry. It is by no means clear thatthis was the real cause of the conspiracy; but perhaps it was madethe pretext. It was formed, and was very powerful; includingScroop, Archbishop of York, and the Earl of Douglas, a powerful andbrave Scottish nobleman. The King was prompt and active, and thetwo armies met at Shrewsbury.

　　There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old Earl ofNorthumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led by his son.The King wore plain armour to deceive the enemy; and four noblemen,with the same object, wore the royal arms. The rebel charge was sofurious, that every one of those gentlemen was killed, the royalstandard was beaten down, and the young Prince of Wales wasseverely wounded in the face. But he was one of the bravest andbest soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so well, and theKing's troops were so encouraged by his bold example, that theyrallied immediately, and cut the enemy's forces all to pieces.Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain, and the rout was socomplete that the whole rebellion was struck down by this one blow.The Earl of Northumberland surrendered himself soon after hearingof the death of his son, and received a pardon for all hisoffences.

　　There were some lingerings of rebellion yet: Owen Glendower beingretired to Wales, and a preposterous story being spread among theignorant people that King Richard was still alive. How they couldhave believed such nonsense it is difficult to imagine; but theycertainly did suppose that the Court fool of the late King, who wassomething like him, was he, himself; so that it seemed as if, aftergiving so much trouble to the country in his life, he was still totrouble it after his death. This was not the worst. The youngEarl of March and his brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle.Being retaken, and being found to have been spirited away by oneLady Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl of Rutland whowas in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of York, of being inthe plot. For this he was ruined in fortune, though not put todeath; and then another plot arose among the old Earl ofNorthumberland, some other lords, and that same Scroop, Archbishopof York, who was with the rebels before. These conspirators causeda writing to be posted on the church doors, accusing the King of avariety of crimes; but, the King being eager and vigilant to opposethem, they were all taken, and the Archbishop was executed. Thiswas the first time that a great churchman had been slain by the lawin England; but the King was resolved that it should be done, anddone it was.

　　The next most remarkable event of this time was the seizure, byHenry, of the heir to the Scottish throne - James, a boy of nineyears old. He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the ScottishKing Robert, to save him from the designs of his uncle, when, onhis way to France, he was accidentally taken by some Englishcruisers. He remained a prisoner in England for nineteen years,and became in his prison a student and a famous poet.

　　With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh and withthe French, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet enough. But,the King was far from happy, and probably was troubled in hisconscience by knowing that he had usurped the crown, and hadoccasioned the death of his miserable cousin. The Prince of Wales,though brave and generous, is said to have been wild anddissipated, and even to have drawn his sword on Gascoigne, theChief Justice of the King's Bench, because he was firm in dealingimpartially with one of his dissolute companions. Upon this theChief Justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison;the Prince of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace;and the King is said to have exclaimed, 'Happy is the monarch whohas so just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws.' Thisis all very doubtful, and so is another story (of which Shakespearehas made beautiful use), that the Prince once took the crown out ofhis father's chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it on his ownhead.

　　The King's health sank more and more, and he became subject toviolent eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and hisspirits sank every day. At last, as he was praying before theshrine of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey, he was seized with aterrible fit, and was carried into the Abbot's chamber, where hepresently died. It had been foretold that he would die atJerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was, Westminster.But, as the Abbot's room had long been called the Jerusalemchamber, people said it was all the same thing, and were quitesatisfied with the prediction.

　　The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh yearof his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried inCanterbury Cathedral. He had been twice married, and had, by hisfirst wife, a family of four sons and two daughters. Consideringhis duplicity before he came to the throne, his unjust seizure ofit, and above all, his making that monstrous law for the burning ofwhat the priests called heretics, he was a reasonably good king, askings went.