chapter 2._

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As for Henry's pretensions through his mother, they were founded upon what Mr. Gairdner calls an "idle story," that "the eldest son of Henry III. was not king Edward, but his brother Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, who was commonly reputed the second son; and that this Edmund had been purposely set aside on account of his personal deformity. The plain fact of the matter was that Edmund Crouchback was six years younger than his brother Edward I.; and that his surname Crouchback had not the smallest reference to personal deformity, but only implied that he wore the cross upon his back as a crusader." Mr. Wylie (History of England under Henry IV., volume 1, chapter 1) represents that this latter claim was put forward under the advice of the leading jurists of the time, to give the appearance of a legitimate succession; whereas Henry took his real title from the will and assent of the nation. Henry IV. was succeeded by his vigorous son, Henry V. and he in turn by a feeble son, Henry VI., during whose reign England was torn by intrigues and factions, ending in the lamentable civil wars known as the "Wars of the Roses," the deposition of Henry VI. and the acquisition of the throne by the "House of York," in the persons of Edward IV. and Richard III. It was a branch of the House of Lancaster that reappeared, after the death of Richard III. in the royal family better known as the Tudors.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1400-1436. Relations with Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1402-1413. Owen Glendower's Rebellion in Wales.

See WALES: A. D.1402-1413.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1403. Hotspur's Rebellion.

The earl of Northumberland and his son, Henry Percy, called "Hotspur," had performed great services for Henry IV., in establishing and maintaining him upon the throne. "At the outset of his reign their opposition would have been fatal to him; their adhesion ensured his victory. He had rewarded them with territory and high offices of trust, and they had by faithful services ever since increased their claims to gratitude and consideration. ... Both father and son were high-spirited, passionate, suspicious men, who entertained an exalted sense of their own services and could not endure the shadow of a slight. Up to this time [early in 1403] not a doubt had been cast on their fidelity. Northumberland was still the king's chief agent in Parliament, his most valued commander in the field, his Mattathias. It has been thought that Hotspur's grudge against the king began with the notion that the release of his brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer [taken prisoner, the year before, by the Welsh], had been neglected by the king, or was caused by Henry's claim to deal with the prisoners taken at Homildon; the defenders of the Percies alleged that they had been deceived by Henry in the first instance, and only needed to be persuaded that Richard lived in order to desert the king. It is more probable that they suspected Henry's friendship, and were exasperated by his compulsory economies. ... Yet Henry seems to have conceived no suspicion. ... Northumberland and Hotspur were writing for increased forces [for the war with Scotland]. ... On the 10th of July Henry had reached Northamptonshire on his way northwards; on the 17th he heard that Hotspur with his uncle the earl of Worcester were in arms in Shropshire. They raised no cry of private wrongs, but proclaimed themselves the vindicators of national right: their object was to correct the evils of the administration, to enforce the employment of wise counsellors, and the proper expenditure of public money. ... The report ran like wildfire through the west that Richard was alive, and at Chester. Hotspur's army rose to 14,000 men, and not suspecting the strength and promptness of the king, he sat down with his uncle and his prisoner, the earl of Douglas, before Shrewsbury. Henry showed himself equal to the need. From Burton-on-Trent, where on July 17 he summoned the forces of the shires to join him, he marched into Shropshire, and offered to parley with the insurgents. The earl of Worcester went between the camps, but he was either an impolitic or a treacherous envoy, and the negotiations ended in mutual exasperation. On the 21st the battle of Shrewsbury was fought; Hotspur was slain; Worcester was taken and beheaded two days after. The old earl, who may or may not have been cognizant of his son's intentions from the first, was now marching to his succour. The earl of Westmoreland, his brother-in-law, met him and drove him back to Warkworth. But all danger was over. On the 11th of August he met the king at York, and submitted to him."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 18, section 632._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV., volume 1, chapter 25._

_W. Shakespeare, King Henry IV., part 1._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1413. Accession of King Henry V.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1413-1422. Parliamentary gains under Henry V.

"What the sword had won the sword should keep, said Henry V. on his accession; but what was meant by the saying has its comment in the fact that, in the year which witnessed his victory at Agincourt, he yielded to the House of Commons the most liberal measure of legislation which until then it had obtained. The dazzling splendour of his conquests in France had for the time cast into the shade every doubt or question of his title, but the very extent of those gains upon the French soil established more decisively the worse than uselessness of such acquisitions to the English throne. The distinction of Henry's reign in constitutional history will always be, that from it dates that power, indispensable to a free and limited monarchy, called Privilege of Parliament; the shield and buckler under which all the battles of liberty and good government were fought in the after time. Not only were its leading safeguards now obtained, but at once so firmly established, that against the shock of incessant resistance in later years they stood perfectly unmoved. Of the awful right of impeachment, too, the same is to be said. It was won in the same reign, and was never afterwards lost."

_J. Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays, volume 1, page 207._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1415-1422. Conquests of Henry V. in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415; and 1417-1422.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1422. Accession of King Henry VI.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1431-1453. Loss of English conquests and possessions in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1431-1453, and AQUITAINE: A. D. 1360-1453.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1450. Cade's Rebellion.

A formidable rebellion broke out in Kent, under the leadership of one Jack Cade, A. D. 1450. Overtaxation, the bad management of the council, the extortion of the subordinate officers, the injustice of the king's bench, the abuse of the right of purveyance, the "enquestes" and amercements, and the illegitimate control of elections were the chief causes of the rising of 1450. "The rising was mainly political, only one complaint was economical, not a single one was religious. We find not a single demand for new legislation. ... The movement was by no means of a distinctly plebeian or disorderly character, but was a general and organized rising of the people at large. It was a political upheaval. We find no trace of socialism or of democracy. ... The commons in 1450 arose against Lancaster and in favor of York. Their rising was the first great struggle in the Wars of the Roses."

_Kriehn, Rising in 1450,