On this, the Duke of Clarence did not quit the country, as was hoped, but marched on into Guienne, forbidding his troops to commit further devastations by the way, but allowing them to inform the inhabitants as they went along that they should not be long before they came again in the name of their own King Henry to carry on the war; words which were afterwards fulfilled to a terrible extent.
This was the last great operation of the reign of Henry IV. By a singular combination of tact, cool calculation, vigilant watchings of every movement around him, and a purpose which was delayed through no conscientious scruples, nor weakened by a single tender feeling, he had put down all his foes. He was at peace at home and abroad. Not a man was left alive who dared to tell him that he was a usurper, except the undaunted Glendower, who was too far off amid his mountains to be heard. He was the most sagacious and successful monarch in Europe, and perhaps its most miserable man.
Though by nature not peculiarly sanguinary or ferocious, the ambition of mounting a throne had led him into the deepest crimes and through torrents of blood. Had his title been good and his throne unassailed, he might have won the character of a mild and even excellent monarch, though it is not probable that he could under any circumstances have won the character of a generous or magnanimous one. But stung by the taunts and nerved by the determined hostility of his enemies, he defended himself with the vigour of a giant, and punished his fallen opponents with the deadly cruelty of the tiger. While youth remained, and rapid and incessant action engrossed him, he seemed to soar above all the feelings and fears of an ordinary man. He boldly replied to those who upbraided him with his criminal seizure of his cousin's crown and realm, that the successful issue announced the approbation of the Almighty. But his health decayed prematurely. His body had been overworked, his mind had been overtasked, his conscience had been overburdened. As his strength gave way, his stoicism gave way with it. In his youth he has been described as gay and agreeable, and in his most active years, even when overwhelmed with business and menaced by the greatest dangers, he was cheerful, affable, ready to converse with the people whom he came amongst. As disease and debility announced a not distant end, he grew gloomy, retiring, ascetic in his devotions, and suspicious even of his own son.
His false position had forced on him every species of false conduct, and deeds which brought their certain punishment. There is every reason to believe that he sacrificed his sincere conviction of the truth of the Wycliffite doctrines, in order to purchase the powerful sanction of the Church for his unrighteous title; for before his usurpation he went along with his father in the protection of Wycliffe and the Lollards. To please the hierarchy he persecuted the Lollards, and was the first to give his sanction to the death of religious dissentients by the terrible means of fire. Yet, as if Providence would punish his apostasy by a striking antithesis, he was compelled, by the rebellion of an archbishop, to be the first in England to visit with capital punishment a prelate of the Established Church.
It is curious that soon after his execution of the Archbishop of York, he was attacked by the most loathsome eruptions on the face, or, as it appears to have been, an inveterate leprosy. This the people naturally believed to be a judgment from Heaven upon him for that sacrilegious act, and probably some such conviction might haunt his own mind. Though in stature somewhat below the middle size, he was vigorously and finely formed. His features were regularly beautiful in his youth, and in some of his penitential communications he confessed to having been greatly proud of them. But, by the ravages of this repulsive complaint, they became so hideous that he was compelled at length to avoid appearing in public. To this disease were added attacks of epilepsy, which became more and more violent, so that he would lie in death-like trances for hours.
As Henry declined in health, he seems to have grown increasingly jealous of the popularity of his son, the Prince of Wales. The young prince had acquired great glory by his conduct at the battle of Shrewsbury, and in his warfare against Owen Glendower. He was free, jocund, fond of pleasure, and of mixing with all classes of the people. Shakespeare has made his life and character the most living and familiar of things. He has surrounded him by a set of jolly companions, the fat and witty Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, "mine ancient Pistol," and the whole band of roysterers who haunted the "Boar's Head," Eastcheap. He has drawn his inimitable portraiture of the merry Prince Hal from the chroniclers of the time, who describe him as the idol of the people. He was as dissipated as an heir-apparent generally is, but with his follies he displayed what his father never possessed—a generous temperament. No sooner was he on the throne than he offered terms of pacification to his most persevering enemy, Owen Glendower. The anecdote of his conduct before Judge Gascoigne, has been represented as doubtful by some of our modern historians, and does not rest on contemporary authority; we give it, however, as it is so familiar.
One of the prince's associates had been arraigned for felony before Chief Justice Gascoigne, the upright magistrate whom we have seen refusing to execute his father's illegal acts at York. The prince appeared before the magistrate, and peremptorily demanded the release of his boon companion. The Chief Justice refused, when Henry drew his sword upon him, and swore that he would have the man liberated. The judge calmly ordered the prince to be committed to prison himself as a greater offender, since he was, by his position, bound expressly to be a maintainer of the laws. Henry at once, in the innate nobility of his nature, felt and admired the lofty virtue of the magistrate. He submitted to his order, and it is related that when the fact was mentioned to his father, he said, "Happy is the monarch who possesses a judge so resolute in the discharge of his duty, and a son so willing to yield to the authority of the law."
Henry passed the last Christmas of his life at his favourite palace of Eltham. So complete was his seclusion, owing both to his illness and the awful disfigurement of his person, that he scarcely saw any one but the queen; lying frequently for hours without any sign of life. After Candlemas, he was so much better as to be able to keep his birthday, and he then returned to his palace at Westminster. He was at his devotions in the abbey, at the shrine of St. Edward, when his last fatal fit seized him. The well-known story of his last moments is also very doubtful. According to it, the king was removed into the apartments of the abbot, and laid in the celebrated Jerusalem Chamber. The fit lasted so long that Prince Henry, who was present, knowing the plunder which often takes place at the death-beds of kings, and which was remarkably the case at that of Edward III., ordered the crown to be removed to another and securer apartment.
On coming to himself Henry asked where he was, and being told in the Jerusalem Chamber, he regarded his last hour as come, for it had been predicted to him that he should finish his days in Jerusalem; and he had vowed, in expiation of his crimes, to make a pilgrimage thither. The days of the Crusades were over, but a remarkable visit made to him soon after he ascended the throne, by Manuel Palæologus, the Emperor of Constantinople, when seeking aid against the Saracens, probably impressed his mind with this idea. He then requested that the Miserere should be read to him, which contains an especial prayer for forgiveness of "blood-guiltiness." Then looking round he missed the crown from its place, and demanded to know where it was. The scenes which followed have been faithfully and beautifully copied by Shakespeare.