a proclamation, calling a Parliament. From
Chester he was taken on towards London. At
Lichfield he tried to escape by getting out of a
window and letting himself down into a garden ;
it was all in vain, however, and he was carried
on and shut up in the Tower, where no one
pitied him, and where the whole people, whose
patience he had quite tired out, reproached him
without mercy. Before he got there, it is re-
lated, that his very dog left him and departed
from his side to lick the hand of Henry.
The day before the Parliament met, a depu-
tation went to this wrecked King, and told him
that he had promised the Earl of Northumber-
land at Conway Castle to resign the crown. He
said he was quite ready to do it, and signed a
paper in which he renounced his authority and
absolved his people from their allegiance to him.
He had so little spirit left that he gave his royal
ring to his triumphant cousin Henry with his
own hand, and said, that if he could have had
leave to appoint a successor, that same Henry
was the man of all others whom he would have
named. Next day, the Parliament assembled in
Westminster Hall, where Henry sat at the side
of the throne, which was empty and covered
with a cloth of gold. The paper just signed by
the King was read to the multitude amid shouts
of joy, which were echoed through all the streets ;
when some of the noise had died away, the King
was formally deposed. Then Henry arose, and,
making the sign of the cross on his forehead and
breast, challenged the realm of England as his
right ; the archbishops of Canterbury and York
seated him on the throne.
The multitude shouted again, and the shouts
349
82
A CHILD 'S HISTOR Y OF ENGLAND.
re-echoed throughout all the streets. No one
remembered, now, that Richard the Second had
ever been the most beautiful, the wisest, and the
best of princes ; and he now made living (to my
thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the Tower
of London, than Wat Tyler had made, lying
dead, among the hoofs of the royal horses in
Smithheld.
The Poll-tax died with Wat. The Smiths to
the King and Royal Family, could make no
chains in which the King could hang the peo-
ple's recollection of him ; so the Poll-tax was
never collected.
CHAPTER XX.
ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED
BOLINGBROKE.
» [JRING the last reign, the preaching
of Wickliffe against the pride and
cunning of the Pope and all his
men, had made a great noise in
fejsS'ra ' England. Whether the new King
wished to be in favour with the priests,
or whether he hoped, by pretending to
be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself
into the belief that he was not an usurper, I
don't know. Both suppositions are likely
enough. It is certain that he began his reign
by making a strong show against the followers
of Wickliffe, who were called Lollards, or here-
tics — although his father, John of Gaunt, had
been of that way of thinking, as he himself had
been more than suspected of being. It is no
less certain that he first established in England
the detestable and atrocious custom, brought
from abroad, of burning those people as a
punishment for their opinions. It was the
importation into England of one of the prac-
tices of what was called the Holy Inquisition :
which was the most unholy and the most in-
famous tribunal that ever disgraced mankind,
and made men more like demons than followers
of Our Saviour.
No real right to the crown, as you know, was
in this King. Edward Mortimer, the young
Earl of March — who was only eight or nine
years old, and who was descended from the
Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of Henry's
father — was, by succession, the real heir to the
throne. However, the King got his son de-
clared Prince of Wales ; and, obtaining posses-
sion of the young Earl of March and his little
brother, kept them in confinement (but not
severely) in Windsor Castle. He then required
the Parliament to decide what was to be done
with the deposed King, who was quiet enough,
and who only said that he hoped his cousin
Henry would be " a good lord " to him. The
Parliament replied that they would recommend
his being kept in some secret place where the
people could not resort, and where his friends
could not be admitted to see him. Henry
accordingly passed this sentence upon him, and
it now began to be pretty clear to the nation
that Richard the Second would not live very
long.
It was a noisy Parliament, as it was an un-
principled one, and the Lords quarrelled so
violently among themselves as to which of
them had been loyal and which disloyal, and
which consistent and which inconsistent, that
forty gauntlets are said to have been thrown
upon the floor at one time as challenges to as
many battles : the truth being that they were all
false and base together, and had been, at one
time with the old King, and at another time
with the new one, and seldom true for any
length of time to any one. They soon began
to plot again. A conspiracy was formed to
invite the King to a tournament at Oxford, and
then to take him by surprise and kill him.
This murderous enterprise, which was agreed
upon at secret meetings in the house of the
Abbot of Westminster, was betrayed by the
Earl of Rutland — one of the conspirators. The
King, instead of going to the tournament or
staying at Windsor (where the conspirators sud-
denly went, on finding themselves discovered,
with the hope of seizing him), retired to Lon-
don, proclaimed them all traitors, and advanced
upon them with a great force. They retired
into the west of England, proclaiming Richard
King ; but, the people rose against them, and
they were all slain. Their treason hastened the
death of the deposed monarch. Whether he
was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was
starved to death, or whether he refused food on
hearing of his brothers being killed (who were
in that plot), is very doubtful. He met his
death somehow ; and his body was publicly
shown at St. Paul's Cathedral with only the
lower part of the face uncovered. I can
scarcely doubt that he was killed by the King's
orders.
The French wife of the miserable Richard
was now only ten years old ; and, when her
father, Charles of France, heard of her misfor-
tunes and of her lonely condition in England,
he went mad : as he had several times done
before, during the last five or six years. The
French Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon took
HENRY THE FOURTH
8.1
up the poor girl's cause, without caring much
about it, but on the chance of getting some-
thing out of England. The people of Bor-
deaux, who had a sort of superstitious attach-
ment to the memory of Richard, because he
was born there, swore by the Lord that he had
been the best man in all his kingdom — which
was going rather far — and promised to do great
things against the English. Nevertheless, when
they came to consider that they, and the whole
people of France, were ruined by their own
nobles, and that the English rule was much the
better of the two, they cooled down again ; and
the two dukes, although they were very great
men, could do nothing without them. Then,
began negotiations between France and Eng-
land for the sending home to Paris of the poor
little Queen with all her jewels and her fortune
of two hundred thousand francs in gold. The
King was quite willing to restore the young
lady, and even the jewels ; but he said he
really could not part with the money. So, at
last she was safely deposited at Paris without
her fortune, and then the Duke of Burgundy
(who was cousin to the French King) began to
quarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was
brother to the French King) about the whole
matter; and those two dukes made France
even more wretched than ever.
As the idea of conquering Scotland was still
popular at home, the King marched to the
river Tyne and demanded homage of the King
of that country. This being refused, he ad-
vanced to Edinburgh, but did little there ; for,
his army being in want of provisions, and the
Scotch being very careful to hold him in check
without giving battle, he was obliged to retire.
It is to his immortal honour that in this sally he
burnt no villages and slaughtered no people, but
was particularly careful that his army should be
merciful and harmless. It was a great example
in those ruthless times.
A war among the border people of England
and Scotland went on for twelve months, and
then the Earl of Northumberland, the nobleman
Avho had helped Henry to the crown, began to
rebel against him — probably because nothing
that Henry could do for him would satisfy his
extravagant expectations. There was a certain
Welsh gentleman, named Owen Glendower,
who had been a student in one of the Inns of
Court, and had afterwards been in the service
of the late King, whose Welsh property was
taken from him by a powerful lord related to
the present King, who was his neighbour. Ap-
pealing for redress, and getting none, he took
up arms, was made an outlaw, and declared
himself sovereign of Wales. He pretended to
be a magician ; and not only were the Welsh
people stupid enough to believe him, but, even
Henry 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 was defeated by the Welshman's
magic arts. However, he took Lord Grey and
Sir Edmund Mortimer, prisoners, and allowed
the relatives of Lord Grey to ransom him, but
would not extend such favour to Sir Edmund
Mortimer. Now, Henry Percy, called Hotspur,
son of the Earl of Northumberland, who was
married to Mortimer's sister, is supposed to have
taken offence at this ; and, therefore, in con-
junction with his father and some others, to
have joined Owen Glendower, and risen against
Henry. It is by no means clear that this was
the real cause of the conspiracy ; but perhaps it
was made the pretext. It was formed, and was
very powerful ; including Scroop, Archbishop
of York, and the Earl of Douglas, a powerful
and brave Scottish nobleman. The King was
prompt and active, and the two armies met at
Shrewsbury.
There were about fourteen thousand men in
each. The old Earl of Northumberland 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 re*bel charge was so furious,
that every one of those gentlemen was killed,
the royal standard was beaten down, and the
young Prince of Wales was severely wounded in
the face. But he was one of the bravest and
best soldiers that ever lived, and he fought so
well, and the King's troops were so encouraged
by his bold example, that they rallied imme-
diately, and cut the enemy's forces all to pieces.
Hotspur was killed by an arrow in the brain,
and the rout was so complete that the whole
rebellion was struck down by this one blow.
The Earl of Northumberland surrendered him-
self soon after hearing of the death of his son,
and received a pardon for all his offences.
There were some lingerings of rebellion yet :
Owen Glendower being retired to Wales, and
a preposterous story being spread among the
ignorant people that King Richard was still
alive. How they could have believed such
nonsense it is difficult to imagine; but they cer-
tainly did suppose that the Court fool of the late
King, who was something like him, was he,
himself; so that it seemed as if, after giving so
much trouble to the country in his life, he was
still to trouble it after his death. This was not
34
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
the worst. The young Earl of March and his
brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle.
Being retaken, and being found to have been
spirited away by one Lady Spencer, she accused
her own brother, that Earl of Rutland who was
in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of
York, of being in the plot. For this he was
ruined in fortune, though not put to death ; and
then another plot arose among the old Earl of
Northumberland, some other lords, and that
same Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was with
the rebels before. These conspirators caused a
writing to be posted on the church doors, accus-
ing the King of a variety of crimes ; but, the
King being eager and vigilant to oppose them,
they were all taken, and the Archbishop was
executed. This was the first time that a great
churchman had been slain by the law in Eng-
land ; but the King was resolved that it should
be done, and done it was.
The next most remarkable event of this time
was the seizure, by Henry, of the heir to the
Scottish throne — James, a boy of nine years old.
He had been put aboard-ship by his father, the
Scottish King Robert, to save him from the
designs of his uncle, when, on his way to France,
he was accidentally taken by some English
cruisers. 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 with the French, the rest of King
Henry's reign was quiet enough. But, the
King was far from happy, and probably was
troubled in his conscience by knowing that he
had usurped the crown, and had occasioned
the death of his miserable cousin. The Prince
of Wales, though brave and generous, is said to
have been wild and dissipated, and even to have
drawn his sword on Gascoigne, the Chief Jus-
tice of the King's Bench, because he was firm
in dealing impartially with one of his dissolute
companions. Upon this the Chief 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 ex-
claimed, " Happy is the monarch who has so
just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the
laws." • This is all very doubtful, and so is
anothei story (of which Shakespeare has made
beautiful use), that the Prince once took the
crown out of his father's chamber as he was
sleeping, and tried it on his own head.
The King's health sank more and more, and
he became subject to violent eruptions on the
face and to bad epileptic fits, and his spirits sank
every day. At last, as he was praying before
the shrine of St. Edward at Westminster Abbey,
he was seized with a terrible fit, and was carried
into the Abbot's chamber, where he presently
died. It had been foretold that he would die
at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never
was, Westminster. But, as the Abbot's room
had long been called the Jerusalem chamber,
people said it was all the same thing, and were
quite satisfied with the prediction.
The King died on the 20th of March, 1413,
in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the
fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in Can-
terbury Cathedral. He had been twice married,
and had, by his first wife, a family of four sons
and two daughters. Considering his duplicity
before he came to the throne, his unjust seizure
of it, and, above all, his making that monstrous
law for the burning of what the priests called
heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as
kings went.
CHAPTER XXL
england under henry the fifth.
First Part.
^ HE Prince of Wales began his reign
like a generous and honest man.
He set the young Earl of March
free ; he restored their estates and
their honours to the Percy family,
had lost them by their rebellion
against his father ; he ordered the imbecile
$ and unfortunate Richard to be honourably
buried among the Kings of England ; and he
dismissed all his wild companions, with assur-
ances that they should not want, if they would
resolve to be steady, faithful, and true.
It is much easier to burn men than to burn
their opinions ; and those of the Lollards were
spreading every day. The Lollards were repre-
sented by the priests — probably falsely for the
most part — to entertain treasonable designs
against the new King ; and Henry, suffering
himself to be worked upon by these representa-
tions, sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle,
the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain
to convert him by arguments. He was de-
clared guilty, as the head of the sect, and sen-
tenced to the flames ; but he escaped from the
Tower before the day of execution (postponed
for fifty days by the King himself), and sum-
moned the Lollards to meet him near London
on a certain day. So the priests told the King,
at least. I doubt whether there was any con-
HENRY THE FIFTH.
»5
spiracy beyond such as was got up by their
agents. On the day appointed, instead of five-
and-twenty thousand men, under the command
of Sir John Oldcastle, in the meadows of St.
Giles, the King found only eighty men, and no
Sir John at all. There was, in another place,
an addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings
to his horses, and a pair of gilt spurs in his
breast — expecting to be made a knight next day
by Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear
them — but there was no Sir John, nor did any-
body give information respecting him, though
the King offered great rewards for such intelli-
gence. Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards
were hanged and drawn immediately, and were
then burnt, gallows and all ; and the various
prisons in and around London were crammed
full of others. Some of these unfortunate men
made various confessions of treasonable designs ;
but, such confessions were easily got, under tor-
ture and the fear of fire, and are very little to
be trusted. To finish the sad story of Sir John
Oldcastle at once, I may mention that he escaped
into Wales, and remained there safely, for four
years. When discovered by Lord Powis, it is
very doubtful if he would have been taken alive
— so great was the old soldier's bravery — if a
miserable old woman had not come behind him
and broken his legs with a stool. He was
carried to London in a horse-litter, was fastened
by an iron chain to a gibbet, and so roasted to
death.
To make the state of France as plain as I
can in a few words, I should tell you that the
Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Burgundy,
commonly called " John without fear," had had
a grand reconciliation of their quarrel in the last
reign, and had appeared to be quite in a heavenly
state of mind. Immediately after which, on a
Sunday, in the public streets of Paris, the Duke
of Orleans was murdered by a party of twenty
men, set on by the Duke of Burgundy — accord-
ing to his own deliberate confession. The widow
of King Richard had been married in France to
the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The
poor mad King was quite powerless to help
her, and the Duke of Burgundy became the real
master of France. Isabella dying, her husband
(Duke of Orleans since the de^th of his father)
married the daughter of the Count of Armagnac,
who, being a much abler man than his young
son-in-law, headed his party ; thence called after
him Armagnacs. Thus, France was now in this
terrible condition, that it had in it the party of
the King's son, the Dauphin Louis ; the party of
the Duke of Burgundy, who was the father of
the Dauphin's ill-used wife ; and the party of the
Armagnacs; all hating each other; all fighting
together ; all composed of the most depraved
nobles that the earth has ever known ; and all
tearing unhappy France to pieces.
The late King had watched these dissensions
from England, sensible (like the French people)
that no enemy of France could injure her more
than her own nobility. The present King now
advanced a claim to the French throne. His
demand being, of course, refused, he reduced
his proposal to a certain large amount of French
territory, and to demanding the French princess,
Catherine, in marriage, with a fortune of two
millions of golden crowns. He was offered less
territory and fewer crowns, and no princess;
but he called his ambassadors home and pre-
pared for war. Then, he proposed to take the
princess with one million of crowns. The French
Court replied that he should have the princess
with two hundred thousand crowns less ; he
said this would not do (he had never seen the
princess in his life), and assembled his army at
Southampton. There was a short plot at home
just at that time, for deposing him, and making
the Earl of March king; but the conspirators
were all speedily condemned and executed, and
the King embarked for France.
It is dreadful to observe how long a bad
example will be followed ; but, it is encourag-
ing to know that a good example is never
thrown away. The King's first act on dis-
embarking at the mouth of the river Seine, three
miles from Harneur, was to imitate his father,
and to proclaim his solemn orders that the lives
and property of the peaceable inhabitants should
be respected on pain of death. It is agreed by
French writers, to his lasting renown, that even
while his soldiers were suffering the greatest dis-
tress from want of food, these commands were
rigidly obeyed.
With an army in all of thirty thousand men,
he besieged the town of Harfleur both by sea
and land for five weeks ; at the end of which
time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants
were allowed to depart with only fivepence
each, and a part of their clothes. All the rest
of their possessions was divided amongst the
English army. But, that army suffered so
much, in spite of its successes, from disease and
privation, that it was already reduced one half.
Still, the King was determined not to retire
until he had struck a greater blow. Therefore,
against the advice of all his counsellors, he
moved on with his little force towards Calais.
When he came up to the river Somme he was
unable to cross, in consequence of the ford
being fortified ; and, as the English moved up
86
A CHILD 'S HISTOR Y OF ENGLAND.
the left bank of the river looking for a crossing,
the French, who had broken all the bridges,
moved up the right bank, watching them, and
waiting to attack them when they should try to
pass it. At last the English found a crossing
and got safely over. The French held a council
of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English
battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know
by which road he was going. " By the road
that will take me straight to Calais ! " said the
King, and sent them away with a present of a
hundred crowns.
The English moved on, until they beheld the
French, and then the King gave orders to form
m line of battle. The French not coming on,
the army broke up after remaining in battle
array till night, and got good rest and refresh-
ment at a neighbouring village. The French
were now all lying in another village, through
which they knew the English must pass. They
were resolved that the English should begin the
battle. The English had no means of retreat, if
their King had any such intention ; and so the
two armies passed the night, close together.
To understand these armies well, you must
bear in mind that the immense French army
had, among its notable persons, almost the
whole of that wicked nobility, whose debauchery
had made France a desert ; and so besotted
were they by pride, and by contempt for the
common people, that they had scarcely any
bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in their
whole enormous number : which, compared
with the English army, was at least as six to
one. For these proud fools had said that the
bow was not a fit weapon for knightly hands,
and that France must be defended by gentlemen
only. We shall see, presently, what hand the
gentlemen made of it.
Now, on the English side, among the little
force, there was a good proportion of men who
were not gentlemen by any means, but who
were good stout archers for all that. Among
them, in the morning — having slept little at
night, while the French were carousing and
making sure of victory — the King rode, on a
grey horse ; wearing on his head a helmet of
shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold,
sparkling with precious stones; and bearing-
over his armour, embroidered together, the arms
of England and the arms of France. The archers
looked at the shining helmet and the crown of
gold and the sparkling jewels, and admired
them all ; but, what they admired most was the
King's cheerful face, and his bright blue eye, as
he told them that, for himself, he had made up
his mind to conquer there or to die there, and
that England should never have a ransom to pay
for him. There was one brave knight who
chanced to say that he wished some of the
many gallant gentlemen and good soldiers, who
were then idle at home in England, were there
to increase their numbers. But the King told
him that, for his part, he did not wish for one