"The King fell sick then, each day more and more;
Wherefore the Prince he made (as it was seen)
Chief of Council, to ease him of his sore;
Who to the Duke of Burgoyne sent, I ween;"
whilst the petitions presented to him, and some subsequent events which must hereafter be noticed, make us suspect that the behaviour of the Commons might have hastened his resolution.
At the close of the year, (from recounting the transactions of which this serious charge against Henry's character induced us to digress,) the parliament met in the first week in November. It was to have been opened on the morrow of All Souls, (November 3, 1411,) but the peers and commoners were so tardy in their arrival, that the King postponed his meeting the parliament till the next day. In those times, the monarch seems to have been in the habit of attending the parliamentary deliberations, and receiving the petitions, and taking part generally in the proceedings in person. Through this session Henry IV. was repeatedly present; and the Prince alone, of all his sons, appears to have attended also. Towards the close of this parliament, (the very parliament in which the alleged unfilial conduct of the Prince is represented to have occurred,) proceedings are recorded, which, though referred to in the Appendix for the sake of the argument, seem to require notice here also in the way of narration.
"Also, on Monday the last day of November, the said Speaker, in the name of the Commons, prayed the King to thank my lord the Prince, the Bishops of Winchester, of Durham, and others, who were assigned by the King to be of his council in the last parliament, for their great labour and diligence. For, as it appears to the said Commons, my lord the Prince, and the other lords, have well and loyally done their duty according to their promise in that parliament.[282] And upon that, my lord the Prince, kneeling, with the other lords, declared by the mouth of my lord the Prince how they had taken pains and diligence and labours, according to their promise, and the charge given them in parliament, to their skill and knowledge. This the King remembered well, and thanked them most graciously. And he said besides, that 'he was well assured, if they had possessed larger means than they had, in the manner it had been spoken by the mouth of my lord the Prince at the time the King charged them to be of his council in the said parliament, they would have done their duty to effect more good than was done, in divers parts, for the defence, honour, good, and profit of him and his kingdom.' And our lord the King also said, that he felt very contented with their good and loyal diligence, counsel, and duty, for the time they had been of his council." This took place about a month after the Parliament had first met, and within less than three weeks of its termination. On the very last day of this same parliament, "the Speaker recommending the persons of the Queen, of the Prince, and of other the King's sons, prayeth the advancement of their estates. For which the King giveth hearty thanks." The question unavoidably forces itself upon the mind of every one.—Could such a transaction as that, by which the fair fame of the Prince is attempted to be destroyed for ever, have taken place in this parliament? It may be deemed superfluous to add, that, though the records of this parliament are very full and minute, not the most distant allusion occurs to any such conduct of the Prince.
But whilst, as we have seen, there had arisen much discontent among the people with regard to the royal expenditure and the government of the King's household, the King in his turn had entertained feelings of dissatisfaction towards his parliament; in consequence, no doubt, of the plain and unreserved manner in which they had given utterance to their sentiments. When two parties are thus on the eve of a rupture, there never are wanting spirits of a temper (from the mere love of evil, or in the hope of benefiting themselves,) to foment the rising discord, and fan the smoking fuel into a flame. Such was the case in this instance, and such (as we shall soon see) was the case also in a course of proceedings far more closely united with the immediate subject of these Memoirs. On the same day, the last of the parliament, the Lords and Commons, addressing the King by petition, express their grief at the circulation of a report that he was offended on account of some matters done in this and the last parliament; and they pray him "to declare that he considers each and every of those in the estates of parliament to be loyal and faithful subjects," which petition the King of his especial grace in full parliament granted. This submission on the part of the parliament, and its gracious acceptance by the King, seem to have allayed, at least for a time, all hostile feeling between them.
The prayer of the parliament to the King, that he would express his own and the nation's thanks to the Prince and the other members of his council, has been thought to imply some suspicion on their part that the royal favour was withdrawn from the Prince, that the King was jealous of his influence, and was therefore backward in publicly acknowledging his obligations to his son. Be this as it may, two points seem to press themselves on our notice here:—first, that up to the May of the following year, 1412, no appearance is discoverable of any coolness or alienation of regard and confidence between the Prince and the King;—the second point is, that it is scarcely possible to read the disjointed records of the intervening months between the spring of that year and the next winter, without a strong suspicion suggesting itself, that the cordial harmony with which the royal father and his son had lived was unhappily interrupted for a time, and that misunderstandings and jealousies had been fostered to separate them. The subject is one of lively interest, and, though involved in much mystery, must not be disposed of without investigation; and, whilst we claim at the hands of others to "set down nought in malice," we must "nothing extenuate," nor allow any apprehension of consequences to suppress or soften the very truth. The Author feels himself bound to state not only the mere details of facts from which inferences might be drawn, but to offer unreservedly his own opinion, formed upon a patient research, and an honest weighing of whatever evidence he may have found. The results of his inquiries, after looking at the point in all the bearings in which his own reflections or the suggestions of others have placed it, is this:
Henry of Monmouth was assigned on the 12th of May 1407, with the consent of the council, to remain about the person of the King, that he might devote himself more constantly to the public service; probably the declining health of the King even then made such a measure desirable. From the hour when the Prince became president of the council, his influence through every rank of society naturally grew very rapidly, and extended to every branch of the executive government. Petitions were presented to him by name, not only by inferior applicants, but even by his brothers. Letters of recommendation were addressed to him by foreigners; and, in more than one instance, his interest was sought even by the Pope himself. When the King was personally present in the council, the record states, that the business was conducted "in the presence of the King, and of his son the Prince." The father retained the name, the son exercised the powers of sovereign. Such pre-eminence, as long as human nature remains the same, will give offence to some, and will engender envyings and jealousies and oppositions: nor was the Prince suffered long to enjoy his high station unmolested. Who were the persons more especially engaged in the unkind office of severing the father from his son, is matter of conjecture; so is also the immediate cause and occasion of their disunion. One of the oldest chroniclers[283] would induce us to believe that a temporary estrangement was effected in consequence of some malicious detractors having misrepresented the Prince's conduct with reference to the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans. Some may suspect that the appointment of his brother Thomas to take the command of the troops in the expedition to Guienne, when their father's increasing malady prevented him from putting into execution his design of conducting that campaign in person, might have given umbrage to the Prince, and led to an open rupture. And undoubtedly it would have been only natural, had the Prince felt that, in return for all his labours and his devoted exertions in the field and at the council-board, the honourable post of commanding the armament to Guienne should have been assigned to him as the representative of his diseased parent.[284] But, perhaps, this was not in his thoughts at all. Certainly no trace in our histories or public documents is discoverable of any coolness or distance[285] prevailing afterwards between himself and his brother Thomas, as though he regarded him as a rival and supplanter. Hardyng (the two editions of whose poem, brought out at distant times, and under different auspices, in many cases give a very different colouring to the same transaction,) represents the time of the Prince's dismissal from the council, and the temporary quarrel between him and his father, to have followed soon after the return of the English soldiers sent to aid the Duke of Burgundy. His second edition, however, paints in more unfavourable colours the opposition of the Prince to his father, and sinks that voluntary return to filial obedience and regard which his first edition had described in expressions implying praise. In the Lansdowne manuscript, or first edition, an original marginal note directs the reader to observe "How the King and the Prince fell at great discord, and soon accorded."
"Then came they home with great thanks and reward,
So, of the Duke of Burgoyne without fail.
Soon after then (befel it afterward)
The Prince was then discharged of counsaile.
His brother Thomas then, for the King's availe,
Was in his stead then set by ordinance,
For which the Prince and he fell at distance.
With whom the King took part, in great sickness,
Again[st] the Prince with all his excellence.
But with a rety of lords and soberness
The Prince came into his magnificence
Obey, and hole with all benevolence
Unto the King, and fully were accord
Of all matters of which they were discord."
In his later publication, the same writer gives a very different colouring to the whole proceeding on the part of the Prince; robbing him of his hearty good-will towards reconciliation, and representing his return to a right understanding with his father as the result rather of defeat and compulsion; but this was at a time when the star of the house of Lancaster had set, and when the house of York was in the ascendant.
"The King discharged the Prince from his counsail,
And set my lord Sir Thomas in his stead
Chief of council, for the King's more avail.
For which the Prince, of wrath and wilful head,
Again[st] him made debate and froward head;
With whom the King took part, and held the field
To time the Prince unto the King him yield."