folk denied the charge, and offered to establish his innocence by single combat. Hereford accepted the challenge, and the wager of battle was appointed by the king to take place at Coventry. But when the day arrived and the two champions appeared in the lists, Richard suddenly changed his mind, forbade the duel, and banished both the accuser and accused—the former for life, the latter for ten years, afterwards shortened to four. Three months after this transaction the duke of Lancaster died, and his immense estates were inherited by his exiled son Hereford. Before his departure from England Richard had granted him letters patent empowering him to take immediate possession of any inheritance that might fall to him during his exile. But the fickle monarch now revoked his letters patent, and by a most arbitrary stretch of authority seized the estates of the deceased duke. This unjust and impolitic act, combined with other illegal proceedings, excited great discontent both among the barons and people, and was deeply resented by Hereford. A favourable opportunity of taking vengeance for this wrong soon after presented itself. Roger, earl of March, the king's cousin and heir-presumptive to the crown, had lately fallen in a skirmish with the native Irish; and Richard, either ignorant or regardless of the precarious state of his affairs at home, embarked for Ireland, May, 1399, with a considerable body of troops, for the purpose of avenging his kinsman's death. Hereford, now duke of Lancaster, lost no time in taking advantage of the king's absence, and landed (4th July) with a small retinue at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. He was immediately joined by the powerful earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; and having solemnly declared on oath that his sole object was to recover his inheritance unjustly detained from him, the people flocked to him in great numbers, and he soon found himself at the head of sixty thousand men. Several weeks elapsed before tidings of this rebellion reached the king, and when at length he succeeded in crossing the channel and landed at Milford Haven, his army was so much inferior to the enemy that his soldiers, losing heart, deserted his standard almost to a man. The unhappy monarch soon after fell into the hands of Northumberland, was brought to London, and solemnly deposed by the parliament, 30th September.—(See Richard II.) The throne being now declared vacant, it was publicly claimed by the duke of Lancaster on the ground of his being a descendant of Henry III. He was certainly not the rightful heir to the throne, and had indeed no claim to it but that arising out of successful rebellion. But notwithstanding the manifest invalidity of Henry's title, it was unanimously acknowledged by both houses, and he was crowned a few days after the deposition of his predecessor. Our great English dramatist has most appropriately put into the mouth of Henry the oft-quoted words—"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," for his reign was little else than a continued series of plots and insurrections. He was scarcely seated upon the throne when the earls of Kent, Huntingdon, and Salisbury, entered into a conspiracy for the restoration of the deposed monarch. But the secret was betrayed, the conspirators were put to death, and the cruel murder of Richard himself, which soon followed, freed the usurper from all apprehensions of a rival who, in the hands of the discontented nobles, might have become a dangerous enemy. In the following year, 1401, Henry resolved to divert the attention of the people from the discussion of his right to the crown by undertaking an expedition against Scotland; and at the head of a powerful army he marched northwards as far as Edinburgh, of which he made himself master without opposition, though he was completely foiled in his attempt to take the castle. But after lingering there for some weeks he was compelled by famine to make a hasty retreat without having accomplished anything of importance. During his absence in the north an insurrection broke out among the Welsh (see Glendwr, Owen) which led indirectly to a combination between the Welsh chieftain and the earls of Northumberland, Worcester, and Douglas, and had very nearly hurled the new king from his unstable throne. Henry had roused the indignation of the powerful family of the Percys by refusing to allow them to ransom Hotspur's brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the young earl of March, the lawful heir to the crown; and he had increased their resentment by an order forbidding them to set at liberty or put to ransom the prisoners taken in the battle of Homildon Hill. They immediately formed a close league with Glendwr and the captive earl of Douglas; and at the head of an army of fourteen thousand men. Harry Percy marched towards the Welsh frontiers for the purpose of forming a junction with Glendwr. Henry, however, by a forced march, succeeded in preventing their junction, and gave battle to the insurgents at Shrewsbury, 21st July, 1403, where he obtained a signal victory, which at once broke up the confederacy, and secured a brief season of peace, though it did not establish Henry firmly in the possession of his usurped dignities. Two years later a new insurrection broke out headed by the earl of Nottingham, and Scroop, archbishop of York; but through their own simplicity and the base treachery of the earl of Westmoreland, they were persuaded to disband their forces, on the solemn assurance that the king would grant them all their demands. In spite of this compact the leaders of the insurgents were seized by the earl and carried to the king, who caused the archbishop and Nottingham to be immediately executed without any indictment, trial, or defence. This was the first instance in England of the infliction of capital punishment upon a prelate. The earl of Northumberland, who was deeply implicated in this conspiracy, took refuge in Scotland, and his castles and estates were immediately seized by the king. In the same year in which Henry triumphed over this insurrection, he obtained possession in a very dishonourable way of the person of James, son of King Robert III., heir-apparent to the Scottish throne, and deaf to all remonstrances and considerations of justice and honour, refused to restore him to liberty. Although Henry was ambitious and not very scrupulous, his position compelled him to respect the wishes of his parliament, and the cause of constitutional liberty made great advances during his reign. He was required to govern by the advice of a permanent council; and the parliament exacted an oath of this council, and of all the judges and the officers of the royal household, that they would observe and defend the amended institutions. The commons firmly adhered to the practice of obtaining a redress of grievances before granting any supply. At the close of 1407, however, the discussions between the king and the commons assumed a rather stormy aspect, and great discontent was awakened by the demand of fresh subsidies. The old earl of Northumberland, who had been labouring in his exile with indomitable energy to raise up enemies against Henry, availed himself of this favourable juncture to appear in the North, along with Lord Bardolf, at the head of a considerable force, mainly composed of Scottish borderers. He was joined by many of his own vassals, but having penetrated into Yorkshire, was defeated by Sir Thomas Rokeby at Bramham Moor, near Tadcaster, February 28, 1408, and fell in the battle. His friend Bardolf was taken prisoner, but died of his wounds. With the exception of occasional insurrections in the Welsh marches, England now enjoyed for some years domestic tranquillity; and Henry, who had been annoyed by the assistance which the court of France had given to Owen Glendwr, turned his attention to the affairs of that kingdom, and endeavoured to promote his own interests by fomenting the dissensions which then prevailed between the two rival factions of the Bourguignons and the Orleanists or Armagnacs; but his selfish policy became so manifest that the French factions were induced to make up their quarrels and to unite against the common enemy. The closing years of Henry's reign, though prosperous and tranquil, were far from happy. The continual anxiety which had harassed him throughout his career, and his overexertion of both mind and body, had impaired his constitution while he was yet in his prime. The wild and dissolute conduct of his eldest son, too, must have caused him great uneasiness, and he is said to have been continually haunted by remorse for those crimes which had elevated him to that dignity whose insecurity and hollowness he had fully proved. He grew prematurely old, became gloomy, solitary, and suspicious, and tried to pacify his conscience by making a vow to visit the Holy Land. He had been for some time subject to eruptions on the face and to attacks of epilepsy, and one of these carried him off on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh year of his age and the fourteenth of his reign, leaving by his first wife, Lady Mary de Bohun, four sons and two daughters. His second wife, Jane, daughter of the king of Navarre, brought him no issue. Henry was an able sovereign, and was possessed of great prudence, firmness, vigilance, and foresight, remarkable command of his temper, and distinguished courage, both physical and moral. But he was ambitious, selfish, unrelenting, and unscrupulous. One of the deepest stains upon his character was his cruel persecution of the Lollards. Before his accession to the throne
