A Short History of England, Ireland and Scotland

by Mary Platt Parmele

The new king did not inherit the throne; he was elected to it. He was an arbitrary creation of Parliament. The Duke of Lancaster, Henry's father (John of Gaunt), was only a younger son of Edward III. According to the strict rules of hereditary succession, there were two others with claims superior to Henry's. Richard Duke of York, his cousin, claimed a double descent from the Duke Clarence and also from the Duke of York, both sons of Edward III.

This led later to the dreariest chapter in English history, "the Wars of the Roses."

It is an indication of the enormous increase in the strength of Parliament, that such an exercise of power, the creating of a king, was possible. Haughty, arrogant kings bowed submissively to its will. Henry could not make laws nor impose taxes without first summoning Parliament and obtaining his subjects' consent. But corrupting influences were at work which were destined to cheat England out of her liberties for many a year.

The impoverishment of the country to pay for war and royal extravagances, had awakened a troublesome spirit in the House of Commons. Cruelty to heretics also, and oppressive enactments were fought and defeated in this body. The King, clergy, and nobles, were drawing closer together and farther away from the people, and were devising ways of stifling their will.

If the King might not resist the will of Parliament, he could fill it with men who would not resist his; so, by a system of bribery and force in the boroughs, the House of Commons had injected into it enough of the right sort to carry obnoxious measures. This was only one of the ways in which the dearly bought liberties were being defeated.

Henry IV., the first Lancastrian king, lighted the fires of persecution in England. The infamous "Statute of Heresy" was passed 1401. Its first victim was a priest who was thrown to the flames for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Wickliffe had left to the people not a party, but a sentiment. The "Lollards," as they were called, were not an organization, but rather a pervading atmosphere of revolt, which naturally combined with the social discontent of the time, and there came to be more of hate than love in the movement, which was at its foundation a revolt against inequality of condition. As in all such movements, much that was vicious and unwise in time mingled with it, tending to give some excuse for its repression. The discarding of an old faith, unless at once replaced by a new one, is a time fraught with many dangers to Society and State.

Such were some of the forces at work for fourteen brief years while Henry IV. wore the coveted crown, and while his son, the roystering "Prince Hal," in the new character of King (Henry V.) lived out his brief nine years of glory and conquest.

France, with an insane King, vicious Queen Regent, and torn by the dissensions of ambitious Dukes, had reached her hour of greatest weakness, when Henry V. swept down upon her with his archers, and broke her spirit by his splendid victory at Agincourt; then married her Princess Katharine, and was proclaimed Regent of France, The rough wooing of his French bride, immortalized by Shakespeare, throws a glamour of romance over the time.

But an all-subduing King cut short Henry's triumphs. He was stricken and died (1422), leaving an infant son nine months old, who bore the weight of the new title, "King of England and France," while Henry's brother, the Duke of Bedford, reigned as Regent.