A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Henry’s improved position.

But, in the next two years, events occurred which at length placed Henry in a position of security. The friends of the Scotch King, fearing the ambition of Albany, which had already induced him to take the life of the Duke of Rothesay, the heir-apparent, determined to withdraw James, the King’s second son and heir-apparent, from danger. He therefore took ship for France, but on the way was captured by English cruisers, and brought a prisoner to Henry, who grimly remarked that they might as well have sent him direct to him, as he could have taught him French quite well. He justified this boast; for though he kept the young Prince prisoner, he gave him an education which, upon his subsequent release, well fitted him for the throne he occupied. Henry had now in his hands pledges of safety from all his enemies. The Earl of March was still with him; Murdoch of Fife, Albany’s son, served as a hostage for his father; while James served as security from all attacks from the royalist party in Scotland. The following year (1407) was still more fortunate. The overweening vanity of Orleans, his licentiousness, which, it is said, did not even spare the young Duchess of Burgundy, excited the anger of the Duke of Burgundy, the King’s cousin, to such a degree, that he caused the Duke of Orleans to be murdered in the streets of Paris. Henry’s chief enemy in France was thus removed. With Burgundy, who had lately inherited Flanders, and thus become the Prince of a trading nation and the champion of the city populations, he had much in common; and though he did not espouse his cause in any active manner, he felt secure from any immediate danger. Without his French allies, Owen Glendower was gradually driven back to the mountains of North Wales, and in despair, Northumberland and Bardolph again appeared in the North, took arms, and were defeated and killed at Bramham. Thus safe on the side of France, with Scotland pledged to peace by the captivity of its princes, the Percies finally defeated, and Owen Glendower confined to the limits of the purely Celtic part of Wales, Henry was at length triumphant.

His enforced respect for the Commons.

Climax of their power. 1407.

During the whole of these years of difficulty, the King had found it necessary to keep the Commons in good temper. Although he suffered from constant want of money, and in vain tried to induce his frequent Parliaments to act liberally towards him, he seems on no occasion to have employed illegal means for improving his position. It had become an accepted axiom, that consent of all the estates of the realm was necessary for the levying of taxes; and the Commons had made their position so good, that, in the very year of his final triumph, they ventured upon a quarrel with the Lords, claiming for themselves the exclusive right of originating grants, and insisting on the absence of the King while they were discussed. More than that, they had attempted, though unsuccessfully, to oblige the King to answer their petition of grievances before they made their grant, and succeeded in establishing the custom of appropriating their grants to special objects, and of paying them into the hands of treasurers of their own appointment. But their increase of power was chiefly visible in their interference with the royal expenditure and administration. In the fifth year of his reign, the King had been obliged to displace four of his ministers at the request of the Commons, to declare his intention of governing economically according to law, and to name his Privy Council in Parliament. And in the eighth year of his reign, when already he seemed upon the point of triumphing over his enemies, he was compelled to grant his assent to a petition of the Commons, which put as strict limitations upon his power as any to which Richard, even at the time of his greatest depression, had submitted. He had to name sixteen counsellors, by whose advice solely he was to be guided. His ordinary revenue was to be wholly appropriated to his household and the payment of his debts. No officer of the household was to hold his place for life or for a fixed term. The council was to determine nothing which the common law was capable of determining; and the elections of knights were regulated. At the head of this council was put the Prince of Wales.

Explained by the King’s failing health.

Renewed vigour at end of reign.

It is difficult to understand how the King should submit to this arrangement, which virtually established a strictly limited monarchy, just at the moment of his success. It is perhaps explained by his failing health. A disease had attacked his face, which changed into a form of leprosy, and during the remainder of his life he was subject to attacks of epilepsy. It was not unnatural that he should wish to withdraw somewhat from public affairs. Under these circumstances, it is not quite clear how far he is to be credited with the remaining events of his reign. But the prudence and state-craft exhibited in them, which could hardly have been expected from so young a man as Prince Henry, and the more vigorous opposition which he subsequently made to the demands of the Commons, would seem to show that he was still practically ruler. This restoration of vigour is marked by his refusal, towards the close of his reign, to grant any extension of the right of liberty of speech, and by the humble tone adopted by the Parliament in the thirteenth year of his reign, when he was entreated to declare that he was not offended, and that he regarded them as his loyal subjects.

Henry’s foreign policy. Marriages.

Having secured his position at home, though not, as has been seen, without some sacrifices, the King’s attention was chiefly directed towards securing the permanence of his dynasty by foreign matrimonial alliances, and to obtaining a strong position abroad by interfering in French politics. His two sisters were already respectively Queens of Castile and Portugal. He had himself married, in 1403, a Princess of Navarre. As a husband for his eldest daughter he procured Louis, Count Palatine, the son and heir of Rupert, King of the Romans; while his younger daughter married Eric, who had consolidated a great Scandinavian monarchy in the North.