Chapter XII (2)

The rumor that King Richard was still living had come once more to be circulated in Scotland and in the North of England, restoring a certain amount of courage to the malcontents. In vain had King Henry severely punished the fomenters of this news; Richard was expected with the Scottish army, when it entered into England in the spring of 1402. At the head of the English opposition was a Scotchman, George, Earl of March. The Duke of Rothsay was to have married his daughter, but he had rejected her, to unite himself with the family of the Earl of Douglas, the hereditary enemy of the Earls of March. The Earl of March had thereupon renounced his allegiance to the King of Scotland, and had allied himself with the Percies, all powerful in the county of Northumberland. It was with his assistance that the Scots were defeated and repulsed at Nesbit Moor, in June, 1402. Internal rancors soon brought forward a second army; the Earl of Douglas, furious at the success of his rival, solicited the assistance of the Duke of Albany, and, at the head of a considerable force, he soon overran the two banks of Tyne. Having advanced as far as Newcastle, he was falling back, loaded with booty, when the Earls of Northumberland and March cut off his road on the 14th of September. The Scots covered Homildon Hill, and the English were stationed opposite upon another elevation. Hotspur Percy had already commanded the charge of his men-at-arms, when the Earl of March restrained him by the arm. "Let your archers commence," he said; "the turn of your horsemen will soon come." Arrows rained down upon the Scots deployed upon the flank of the hill: Douglas did not stir; his men were falling in their ranks, when a Scottish baron, Fordun Swinton, at length cried, "Ah! my brave comrades, who restrains you to-day, that you should remain there, like deer or stags, to allow yourselves to be killed, instead of displaying your former valor by fighting man to man! Let us descend from here in the name of God!" {367} And the Scottish men-at-arms, thereupon moving, caused the English archers to fall back. The latter, however, continued to shoot, and Douglas received five wounds; he fell from his horse, and was made a prisoner. Disorder set in in the Scottish ranks; the flower of their chivalry had been decimated by the arrows or had surrendered without striking a blow.

The son of the Duke of Albany, Murdoch Stewart, was among the number of the prisoners. The English knights had not raised their lances or drawn their swords; the battle had been won by the archers of old England. The Earl of Northumberland arrived on the 20th of October at the Parliament convoked at Westminister, gloriously accompanied by all his prisoners.

The Percies had recently gained a victory for King Henry IV., whom they had so powerfully assisted in gaining his throne. They were about to turn their arms against him. Shakspeare attributes their discontent to the prohibition which the king put upon their setting ransoms upon their prisoners, a measure which deprived them of all the pecuniary advantage of the capture; but this interdiction had been frequent under the preceding reigns, particularly under Edward III., and King Henry IV. indemnified the Earl of Northumberland by granting vast domains to him. Another cause for anger had recently sprung up. During the lucky campaigns of Owen Glendwyr the latter had captured his old enemy, Lord Grey de Ruthyn, and Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle of the young Earl of March, the legitimate heir to the throne. The relatives of Lord Grey had been authorized to redeem him; but the king had refused the same favor to the family of Sir Edmund. {368} Hotspur Percy had married his sister, and, acutely wounded by this refusal, he began to set on foot a conspiracy to overthrow the king and place the crown upon the head of the little Earl of March. He was confirmed in this resolution by the Archbishop of York, Scrope, brother of the favorite of Richard II.; and the conspirators did not hesitate to call Owen Glendwyr to their aid. He gave his daughter in marriage to Mortimer, and promised to invade England with twelve thousand Welshmen. The Earl of Douglas was liberated without any ransom, on condition of recrossing the frontier with a Scottish army. It is even said that Hotspur wrote to the Duke of Orleans, from whom King Henry had recently received a warlike challenge on account of the insults offered to Queen Isabel.

So many movements had not escaped the vigilant eye of King Henry. Hotspur was marching forward, commanding the rebels in place of his father, who was ill; and supported by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester. Henry planted his army corps between the earls and Owen Glendwyr, with whom they were endeavoring to effect a junction. The Welshman had made no haste, and when, on arriving at Shrewsbury, Henry received the challenge of his enemies, it was conceived only in the name of the Percies. They reproached the king with his usurpation, the death of Richard, the captivity of the little Earl of March, his manœuvres in the election of Parliament, the levying of taxes which had not been voted by the Commons, &c. At the end appeared the real subject of the quarrel, the denial of the negotiations relating to Sir Edmund Mortimer. Henry IV. smiled bitterly and disdained to reply. "The sword shall decide," he said, "and I am assured that God will give me victory over perjured traitors." It was on the 20th of July, 1403; on the morrow the two armies found themselves face to face on Shrewsbury Plain.

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The insurgents numbered about fourteen thousand men; the king had no more. Before fighting, he despatched the Abbot of Shrewsbury to his adversaries, with proposals for peace. Hotspur, less impetuous than Shakespeare has depicted him, hesitated: but the Earl of Worcester persuaded him to reject the royal overtures. "Banners to the front, then!" cried Henry, The combat began. "St. George!" was the cry around the king. "Hope! Percy!" responded the rebels. The archers were drawing on both sides, and the knights did not abandon to them, as at Homildon Hill, all the honor of the combat. Percy and Douglas, rivals in glory, had precipitated themselves together into the midst of the enemy with a small following; everything gave way before them; the Prince of Wales had been wounded in the face. They sought for the king; but, upon the advice of the Scottish refugee, the Earl of March, he had laid aside, for that day, all the royal insignia, and he fought valiantly, without having been recognized. At the moment when the two chiefs of the insurgents endeavored to retrace their steps, opening up a way through the crowd of the enemies, Percy was struck by an arrow in the head, and fell dead. Disorder immediately set in among his partisans. Douglas had been made a prisoner; the Earl of Worcester shortly afterwards suffered the same fate, as well as the Lord of Kinderton and Sir Richard Vernon. The traitors' punishment awaited the three Englishmen. Douglas was honorably treated. The field of battle was covered with dead and dying. The insurgents had fled; they went and carried to the old Earl of Northumberland the news of the defeat and death of his son. {370} He was marching forward to join him, and he thereupon shut himself up in his castle at Warkworth. Being summoned to appear before the king at York, he was detained there in honorable captivity until the Parliament should have decided upon his fate. He had not taken part personally in the insurrection, and he declared that his son had acted without his approval. The Lords treated him with indulgence; he retired after having sworn fidelity to the king and the Prince of Wales. Eighteen months had not elapsed before he was again in arms against Henry.

The conspiracies had not ceased in this interval. A former chamberlain of King Richard, named Serle, had again spread the rumor that that monarch was living. He led about with him a poor idiot who resembled Richard, and a certain number of partisans had rallied round him. Three princes of the House of Bourbon had attacked the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and burnt down the town of Plymouth; the French vessels had brought reinforcements to Owen Glendwyr, against whom the young Prince of Wales was at war; and a woman, Lady Le Despencer, had carried off the young Earl of March and his brother. She was already approaching the frontiers of Wales when she was seized, and the prisoners were brought back to Windsor. She exculpated herself by throwing the responsibility of the undertaking upon her brother, the Duke of York, formerly Earl of Rutland. He was arrested, and languished for several years in prison.

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King Henry had always avoided asking large subsidies of the Parliament; he was not sufficiently assured of the affection of his people to ask any sacrifices of them. In 1404, however, he had come to an end of his resources, and in a Parliament which has preserved the name of unlearned, because the king had, it was said, dismissed from it all the lawyers, he made a proposal which was ardently sustained by the Commons: it forbade the king to alienate the property of the crown without the authorization of Parliament, but permitted him to take back all the gifts of land and the pensions granted by his predecessors; he was even allowed to seize a certain portion of the property of the clergy. The Church uttered a cry of terror and rage, which arrested the zeal of the king and the Commons. Henry hastened to renounce his project, assuring the Archbishop of Canterbury that it was his intention to leave the Church in a better position than he had found it in; but he accomplished his resolutions upon the lands and pensions given by Edward III. and Richard II. The disaffection of the barons was great, and the uneasiness of the clergy was not dispelled.

In 1405, two great councils were convoked by the king: in London and at St. Alban's. There the bad state of feeling was manifested; all the demands of the king were rejected, and more than one baron quitted St. Alban's to join the insurgents, who were again beginning to form in groups round the Earl of Northumberland. The Archbishop of York had this time taken up arms; he was made a prisoner, as well as the Earl of Nottingham, by Prince John, the second son of the king. In vain did the archbishop claim ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the earl that of his peers; in vain did Chief Justice Gascoyne refuse to preside at their trial: the king had resolved to make an example. He found some more complaisant magistrates; the archbishop and the Earl of Nottingham were beheaded; a fine was imposed upon the city of York, temporarily deprived of its charters, and the king marched against Berwick, where the Earl of Northumberland had taken refuge. {372} On the way he caused Lord Hastings and Lord Falconbridge to be tried, and they were beheaded. Berwick surrendered; but the old Percy had fled to Edinburgh, and the king did not penetrate into Scotland; he contented himself with ravaging Northumberland, taking possession of all the castles which belonged to the rebels. He then turned his arms in the direction of Wales, where Prince Henry had valiantly sustained the struggle for nearly two years. He had triumphed over the Welsh at Grosmont, in Monmouthshire, in the month of March, 1405; one of the sons of Owen Glendwyr had been made a prisoner, and the prince had only been arrested in the course of his successes by the arrival of a French reinforcement sent by the Duke of Orleans, in defiance of the truce which still reigned between the two nations. The young Prince Henry had been compelled to withdraw to Worcester; but the king soon drove the French into the mountains of Wales, whither he pursued them. The Welsh arrested his march; but the French were weary of their reverses, of the poverty of their allies, of the rough life which they led; they retreated into their vessels again. The king withdrew in his turn; Prince Henry continued the war with alternations of successes and reverses, always holding his ground with a skill and perseverance worthy of his adversary, and which finally wearied the population. Glendwyr found himself gradually abandoned, and an invasion attempted in 1409 by his son-in-law, Scudamore, in Shropshire, completed the ruin of his cause; the Welsh were repulsed, and the chiefs put to death. The independent character of Owen Glendwyr allowed him neither to submit not to despair; he no longer appeared in the regions occupied by the English, but he still maintained himself in the mountains, resuming his arms when his enemies pressed him closely in his haunts; his name, published several times in the amnesty acts, proves that he was neither dead nor subjugated, even after the battle of Agincourt. {373} The period of his death and the place of his burial are unknown; the end of his life remains enveloped in mystery, as though he had really possessed the magic power which his friends and enemies attributed to him in his lifetime.

King Henry had not been under the necessity of prosecuting his campaigns in Scotland; he held in his hands the heir to the throne of that kingdom. The Duke of Rothsay, imprudent and bold, had entered into a contention with his uncle, the Duke of Albany. Being accused of rebellion and imprisoned in Falkland Castle, he had there died of hunger, it was said. The unhappy King Robert had become alarmed for the life of James, the only son who remained to him, and he had embarked him upon a ship which was to take him to France, but the vessel had fallen into the hands of some English cruisers, who brought the prince in triumph to King Henry. "I speak French as well as my brother Charles," the king had said laughingly, "and I am as well adapted as he to bring up a King of Scotland." The young Prince James therefore remained at the court of England, closely guarded, but educated with care, kindly treated, and at liberty to devote himself to his passion for poetry. The old king Robert had died of grief in 1406, and the Duke of Albany, who continued to govern Scotland, servilely submitted to the wishes of the King of England, who, at the least appearance of insubordination, threatened him with the release of his nephew. This state of affairs was destined to be prolonged for a considerable time.

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The most irreconcilable adversary of the king had at length succumbed. The old Earl of Northumberland, homeless, childless, and without riches, had wandered for more than two years from kingdom to kingdom, endeavoring to raise up embarrassments and enemies against King Henry. At the beginning of 1408, he appeared in Northumberland with Lord Bardolf, the friend and companion of his whole life. Rallying a certain number of his old vassals, he overran the country, took possession of several castles, and had gathered together a small body of troops, when he was defeated on the 28th of February, by Sir Thomas Rokeby, upon Branham Heath, near Tadcaster. He was killed in the combat; Lord Bardolf, grievously wounded, died shortly afterwards, and their bodies, cut in pieces, were sent to the towns of Northumberland, where they had found adherents. It was all over with the Percies.

The commotions in France continued to increase. The poor king, Charles VI., would pass from furious madness to docile melancholy; his kingdom, rent asunder by factions, was the scene of the crimes, debaucheries, and exactions of all parties. The Duke of Orleans had recently been assassinated in the Rue Barbette (23rd of November, 1407), by the servants of his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, a circumstance which had not prevented the latter from reappearing at court, without fearing the punishment of the king for the death of his brother, which he caused to be publicly justified at the Sorbonne, by Maître Jean Petit, doctor in theology. From treason to treason, from reconciliation to reconciliation, the Duke of Burgundy was all powerful in 1409, when the young Duke of Orleans, who had lost his wife, Isabel of France, widow of King Richard II., was married for a second time, to Bonne, the daughter of the wealthy Count of Armagnac. {375} The time had at length arrived for prosecuting revenge: supported by the experience and military talents of the count, the partisans of the House of Orleans assumed the name of Armagnacs; the red scarf was put on by the Duke of Berry, the Duke of Brittany, and the Duke of Alencon; John Sans Peur was driven from Paris, and the Duke of Orleans, sword in hand, demanded justice for the death of his father.

Then, for the first time, amidst the factions which had desolated France for ten years, England was called upon to play a part. John Sans Peur asked assistance of Henry IV. The latter sent in the month of October, 1411, a small body of a thousand archers and eight hundred men-at-arms, with whom the duke marched against Paris. He re-entered there in force on the 23rd, and drove out the Armagnacs, who had already begun to make themselves detested. John Sans Peur followed up his advantages, and hoped to crush his enemies; but they, in their turn, had negotiated with the King of England, promising to recognize him as Duke of Aquitaine, and to assure to him after the death of the present possessors, the counties of Poitou and Angoulême. As the price of these concessions, the English army was preparing to invade France, under the orders of the third son of the king, the Duke of Clarence, when the Duke of Berry, uncle of Charles VI., filled with horror at the prospect of the evils which the foreigners were about to bring down upon France, once more interposed between the belligerents, and effected one of those reconciliations which prepared the way for fresh acts of perfidy. The Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy entered Paris mounted upon the same horse, and repaired thus to church. {376} The people cried "Noël," and thanked God for this hope of peace. But the Duke of Clarence had landed in Normandy; the news of the pacification had been powerless to arrest him. Maine and Anjou had already been ravaged. The Duke of Orleans contrived to purchase the retreat of the allies whom he himself had summoned; the English, laden with gold and booty, took the road to Guienne, traversing France without any obstacle. "We will return hither," they said as they passed, "to fight with our King Henry." Eight thousand Englishmen embarked at Bordeaux towards the close of the year 1412. King Henry had nearly arrived at the end of his career. He was ill and sad. His throne had always appeared to him to be tottering; conspiracies had been so often repeated around him, that he had ended by suspecting them where they did not exist. A keen jealousy towards his eldest son troubled him. The Prince of Wales had given proofs of rare courage; when yet young, he had been wounded at the battle of Shrewsbury; being afterwards despatched by his father into Wales, he had there constantly held in check Owen Glendwyr, over whom he had finally triumphed. It is related--and, in his admirable tragedy of _Henry IV._, Shakespeare made use of these accounts, of which the authenticity is not well proved--that the young prince, besides his budding greatness, had given other causes for anxiety to his father; it is said that his debauches and coarse amusements had caused alarm for the fate of the State which he was one day to govern, so that a judge before whom he had been brought, without knowing him, thought it his duty to condemn him like a simple private person. {377} Perhaps the jealousy of the father and the restraint which he claimed to impose upon the son, to whom he left neither power nor resources, had contributed to plunge a sanguine, energetic young man, full of life and strength, into those excesses with which he was reproached. It is affirmed that the king had one day swooned, in consequence of one of the attacks of his distemper; he was believed to be dead. The Prince of Wales, entering the apartment, had carried off the crown, which lay upon a cushion. When Henry IV. came to himself again, he asked for the crown. The prince was sent for, "You have no right to it," cried the king. "You know that your father had none." "Your sword gave it to you, sire, and my sword will be able to defend it," replied the prince, exonerating himself as well as he could against the suspicions of his father. He demanded the punishment of those who accused him of prematurely claiming the throne, and the king referred him to the next session of the Parliament. He was weary of reigning and of living. "You shall do as you please," he said; "I have done with all these matters. May the Lord have mercy upon my soul!" But the young Prince Henry suffered in mind from the alienation of his father; he presented himself before him clad in a blue satin robe, covered with button-holes, a tag still hanging from each opening, and, in this strange costume, he threw himself at the feet of the king, drew a dagger from his bosom, and begged him to take his life if he had deprived him of his favor. The father and son became reconciled, it is said, after this scene.

The torments of jealousy, added to the troubles of his conscience and the cares of power, overwhelmed the monarch. He was not yet forty-seven years of age, and the proud Bolingbroke, formerly so handsome, so bold, so adventurous, was bowed down like an old man. {378} He was praying, on the 20th of March, 1413, before the shrine of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, when he fell into a swoon. He was carried into the apartment of the abbot, and as he recovered his senses, he asked where he was. "In the Jerusalem Chamber," was the reply; for such was the name of the chamber to which he had been carried. He closed his eyes. "I was always told that I should die at Jerusalem," he muttered, and he expired. He was interred in Canterbury Cathedral, beside his first wife, Lady Mary de Bohun, the mother of all his children. His second wife. Queen Joan of Navarre, had not presented any to him.

Ambitious and inflexible, harsh towards his enemies, skilful and cunning as well as enterprising, Henry IV. had always contrived to treat the Parliament with respect, and had never made any attempt against its authority. The House of Commons, especially, had seen its privileges confirmed under his reign, and its influence had been constantly growing. Thus the liberties of England, formerly conquered by the barons at the price of so much bloodshed, were gradually developing, profiting by the weakness as well as the temerity of the sovereigns, until the day when the religious reform was to raise them to their highest pitch.

Absorbed in the internal struggles consequent upon usurpation, for ever dreading real or supposed conspiracies, Henry IV. had not had leisure to think of foreign wars. The wish, however, had not been wanting; he had everywhere plunged himself into the intrigues and divisions which desolated France under the unhappy Charles VI., and he had thus prepared the return of the great English ambitions, which were destined, for awhile, to raise so high the glory of Henry V., his son, at the price of so much bloodshed and so many sorrows for the two nations.