A history of England

by Charles Oman

Battle of Homildon Hill.

The Scotch war came to a head in 1402, at the battle of Homildon Hill. There Murdoch of Albany, the son of the Scotch regent, was completely defeated by Percy of Northumberland and his son Harry Percy, whom the Borderers nicknamed Hotspur for his speed and energy. But the victory of Homildon was fated to do England more harm than any defeat, since it was to cause a renewal of the civil war. The Percies had taken many prisoners, including Murdoch himself, and three other Scots Earls, Douglas, Moray, and Orkney. From the ransoms of these peers they trusted to get great profit; but King Henry, who was at his wits' end to scrape money together without troubling Parliament, took the prisoners out of the Percies' hands and claimed the ransoms for himself. This mortally offended Northumberland, a proud and greedy chief, who had been Henry's main support at the time of his usurpation, and thought that in return the king ought to refuse nothing to him.

Rebellion of the Percies.

In sheer lawless wrath at the king's refusal to hear him, Northumberland resolved to dethrone Henry. He secretly concerted measures with Owen Glendower for a joint attack on the king, and released his captive, the Earl of Douglas, who in return brought him a band of Scottish auxiliaries. By Owen's counsel, aid was sought from France also, and it was settled that the young Earl of March should be proclaimed king, if Richard II. proved to be really dead.

Battle of Shrewsbury.—Death of Hotspur.

In July, 1403, the Percies rose, and were joined by their kinsman the Earl of Worcester, and many more. Hotspur rapidly led his army towards Shrewsbury, where Glendower had promised to join him with a Welsh host. But King Henry was too quick for his foes; he threw himself between them, and caught the young Percy before the Welsh came up. The desperately fought battle of Shrewsbury (July 23, 1403) ended in the victory of the royal host. Hotspur was slain by an arrow, while Douglas and Worcester were taken, and the latter executed for treason. It was at this field that the king's eldest son, Henry of Monmouth, destined in later years to be the conqueror of France, first looked upon the face of war.

Second Rebellion.—Execution of Scrope.

The Earl of Northumberland, who had not been present at Shrewsbury, but had kept at home in the north, was allowed to make his peace with the king on the payment of a great fine. But Henry was wrong in thinking that the crafty and resentful old earl was no longer dangerous. Though his brave son was dead, Percy stirred up a second rebellion two years later, by the aid of Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, son of Henry's old opponent in the lists of Coventry, [26] and of Scrope, Archbishop of York, brother of that Scrope, Earl of Wilts, whom the Lancastrians had hung in 1399. But Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, who commanded for the king in the North, induced Scrope and Mowbray to lay down their arms and come to a conference, and there he seized them as traitors. They were at once put on trial, not before their peers as they claimed, but before two of the king's justices, who condemned them to death. Scrope's execution sent a thrill of horror throughout England, for no archbishop had ever before been slain by a king, save Thomas Becket, and many men counted him a martyr even as Becket. So Henry lost as much love of the clergy by this act as he had gained by his assent to the statute De Heretico Comburendo.

Northumberland escaped to Scotland in 1405, and lurked there for two years; but in 1407 he crossed the Tweed, raised his vassals, and made a dash for York. But he was intercepted at Bramham Moor, and there slain, fighting hard in spite of his seventy years.

After this King Henry was no more vexed with civil war in England, but his Welsh troubles showed no sign of ending. Owen Glendower eluded Henry, Prince of Wales, and all the other leaders who came against him, with complete success, and the English armies suffered so severely from storms among the Welsh hills that they swore that Owen was a magician and had conjured the elements against them.