Henry IV (37 page)
Authors: Chris Given-Wilson
10
PROME
, viii.30, 62–4; see below, pp. 175–6.
11
SAC II
, 276–9.
12
For a summary of the events of the rising see A. Rogers, ‘Henry IV and the Revolt of the Earls’,
History Today
(1968), 277–83. The main contemporary accounts are in
SAC II
, 284–98;
Traïson et Mort
, 229–51; there are extracts from these and other sources in
CR
, 47–50, 224–39. For Rutland's and Beaufort's role in the suppression, see E 403/564, 20 March.
13
SAC II
, 283;
Giles
, 7, says that the mayor of London heard about the plot from some indiscreet Londoners and hurried to Windsor to advise the king to come to London at once.
14
Henry was still at Windsor on 3 January (DL 42/15, fo. 69r).
15
CR
, 236–7; E 403/565, 4 February (Knolles's reward).
16
Usk
, 88–9;
SAC II
, 290–7; BL Add MS 35, 295, 262r.
17
CR
, 238–9;
Giles
, 9, said the mayor was forced by the townspeople to hand him over for execution.
18
The Black Book of Winchester
, ed. W. Bird (Winchester, 1925), 6–7.
19
E 37/28.
20
Usk
, 89.
21
P. McNiven, ‘The Cheshire Rising of 1400’,
BJRL
52 (1969–70), 375–96; D. Crook, ‘Central England and the Revolt of the Earls’,
HR
(1991), 403–10.
22
Wylie,
Henry the Fourth
, i.107.
23
Sir Bernard Brocas and Sir Thomas Shelley were also executed on 5 Feb.; for Carlisle, see below, pp. 349–50.
24
CE
, 387.
25
His gaolers were Robert Waterton, constable of Pontefract castle, and Thomas Swynford, now a royal chamber knight (DL 42/15, fo. 70v; E 403/564, 20 March).
26
POPC
, i.107, 111–12; E 403/564, 17 February (the esquire was William Pampilion).
27
D. W. Dillon, ‘Remarks on the Manner of the Death of King Richard II’,
Archaeologia
(1840), 75–95. The simplest way to kill him would probably have been poison, but this is not mentioned by any writer. The story told in the
Traïson et Mort
that Richard was hacked to death at Gravesend castle by eight henchmen of Henry's led by Sir Peter Exton is clearly false (
CR
, 233–4).
28
SAC II
, 298–9. Richard had built a tomb for himself next to Anne of Bohemia in Westminster abbey; when Henry V came to the throne in 1413, he had Richard's body exhumed and moved there (below, p. 521).
29
POPC
, i.107–10.
30
CPR 1399–1401
, 385; E 403/565, 21 Feb.
31
C. Taylor, ‘Weep Thou for Me in France. French Views of the Deposition of Richard II’,
Fourteenth Century England III
, ed. W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 2004), 207–22, at pp. 214–19; see below, p. 236.
32
Foedera
, viii.123–4; Henry also confirmed the truce at this time (
Saint-Denys
, ii.744–6);
POPC
, i.102–4;
Usk
, 94; S. Pistono, ‘The Diplomatic Mission of Jean de Hangest, Lord of Hugueville, October 1400’,
Canadian Journal of History
13 (1978), 193–207; S. Pistono, ‘Henry IV and Charles VI: The Confirmation of the Twenty-eight-year Truce’,
Journal of Medieval History
(1977), 353–65.
33
Saint-Denys
, ii.730–2. He also restored the English lands of alien priories dependent on French houses (
Foedera
, viii.101–9).
34
Calendar of State Papers Venice I
, 39 (4 October);
Foedera
, viii.112–13; E 28/7, no. 17 (15 November).
35
Chronicles of London
, 61;
SAC II
, 278–9.
36
A. Tuck, ‘Henry IV and Europe: A Dynasty's Search for Recognition’, in
The McFarlane Legacy. Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society
, ed. R. Britnell and A. Pollard (Stroud, 1995), 107–25.
37
A. Macdonald,
Border Bloodshed. Scotland, England and France at War, 1369–1403
(East Linton, 2000), 5–8 and the maps on pp. 12 and 16.
38
S. Boardman,
The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III, 1371–1406
(East Linton, 1996), 214–15.
39
Macdonald,
Border Bloodshed
, 133–6.
40
RHL I
, 4, 8 (the truce had expired on 29 September; the letters were dated 6 October and 2 November); E 403/565, 17 December;
SAC II
, 278–80; Boardman,
The Early Stewart Kings
, 226. Edward III's coronation day (1 February 1327) had also been marked by a cross-border raid: Ormrod,
Edward III
, 64–5.
41
PROME
, viii.36–7.
42
A. Macdonald, ‘George Dunbar, Ninth Earl of Dunbar or March’,
ODNB
, 17.207–10; R. Nicholson,
Scotland: The Later Middle Ages
(Edinburgh, 1974), 218.
43
E 404/15, no. 107;
Foedera
, viii.131–3; Boardman,
The Early Stewart Kings
, 226–7; Walter Bower,
Scotichronicon
, ed. D. Watt, viii (Aberdeen, 1987), 30–3.
44
Foedera
, viii.144;
RHL I
, 25–7. Having ratified the Anglo-French truce in May, Henry was confident that the French would not aid the Scots, and he made sure the Scots knew this; on 18 June he ordered that French shipping was not to be molested, although Scottish shipping might be (
Foedera
, viii.144, 147).
45
E 403/567, 4 June.
46
Foedera
, viii.153–7; Wylie,
Henry the Fourth
, i.133–4. For the campaign, see A. Brown, ‘The English Campaign in Scotland’, in
British Government and Administration: Studies Presented to S. B. Chrimes
, ed. H. Hearder and H. Loyn (Cardiff, 1974), 40–54; and A. Curry, A. Bell, A. King and D. Simpkin, ‘New Regime, New Army? Henry IV's Scottish Expedition of 1400’,
EHR
125 (2010), 1382–1413.
47
C. Neville, ‘Scotland, the Percies, and the Law in 1400’, in
Establishment
, 73–94.
48
P. Crooks, ‘State of the Union: Perspectives on English Imperialism in the Late Middle Ages’,
Past and Present
212 (2011), 3–42.
49
Bower,
Scotichronicon
, viii.34–7; Given-Wilson,
Chronicles
, 65–9; for ‘muniments concerning the subjection of the king of Scots along with a bag of various chronicles’ taken north in the summer, see
Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty's Exchequer
, ed. F. Palgrave (3 vols, London, 1836), ii.62–3.
50
Boardman,
The Early Stewart Kings
, 230; R. Cox, ‘A Law of War? English Protection and Destruction of Ecclesiastical Property during the Fourteenth Century’,
EHR
128 (2013), 1381–417.
51
Curry, Bell, King and Simpkin, ‘New Regime, New Army’,
passim
; documents bearing on the claim to overlordship, plus provisions and £5,780 in coin were taken north: (E 403/567, 13 July, 25 Sept.)
52
Foedera
, viii.157–8 (21 August).
53
POPC
, i.169;
PROME
, viii.163; see below, p. 214.
54
Vita
, 167; Usk (p. 100) said the Scots inflicted more harm on the English than vice versa; cf. Curry, Bell, King and Simpkin, ‘New Regime, New Army’, 1413.
55
The battle of Reidswire was on 29 September (
Usk
, 101 and n.4). Archibald the Grim died around Christmas 1400, but his son and heir Archibald was equally hostile to Dunbar. For the West March, see H. Summerson,
Medieval Carlisle. The City and the Borders from the Late Eleventh to the Mid-Sixteenth Century
(Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 2 vols, Kendal, 1993), 395–7.
56
PROME
, viii.93. The writs to meet at York were issued on 9 September, although Henry also seems to have considered holding the parliament at Westminster (Wylie,
Henry the Fourth
, i.146).
57
Vita
, 167–8;
Giles
, 20–1; Walsingham attributed their enmity to a land dispute (
SAC II
, 304–5). See R. Davies,
The Revolt of Owain Glyndŵr
(Oxford, 1995), 102–3, for the outbreak of the revolt.
58
Llinos Smith, ‘Owain Glyn Dŵr’,
ODNB
, 22.516–22. Henry was between Northampton and Leicester when he heard of the rising. The response to his new summons for service was impressive: John Warwick, the sheriff of Northamptonshire, claimed to have raised 40 men-at-arms and 600 archers from the knights, esquires and valets of the county to accompany the king to Shrewsbury (E 28/23, no. 9).
59
E 403/569, 4 December; E 404/16, nos. 370, 452 (a garrison of 100 at Caernarfon, 30 at Criccieth).
60
Davies,
Revolt
, 102.
61
Usk
, 100–1.
62
Vita
, 108–9 (Henry was at Evesham from 19 to 21 October).
63
POPC
, i.118.
64
E 28/8, no. 9;
Usk
, 100–15, includes the questions to which as a crown lawyer he had to respond before 29 September; Oxford University was asked for its response on 12 November (
Foedera
, viii.164).
65
Pistono, ‘The Diplomatic Mission of Jean de Hangest’; if possible, he was also to travel to Scotland to reassure Robert III of continuing French goodwill.
66
Her jewels, gold and silver were valued at £9,364, and she had much else of value besides; these were returned, though not the gifts she had received in England since 1396, which included a greyhound made of gold set with a balas ruby and a large pearl given to her by Henry (Stratford,
Richard II and the English Royal Treasure
, 65, 117). For an inventory used by the French, see
Choix de Pièces Inédites Relatives au Règne de Charles VI
, ed. L. Douët d'Arcq (2 vols, Paris, 1863), ii.273–9; their acquittance was lodged in the treasury (
Antient Kalendars
, ii.64).
67
Usk
, 133, who added that she burned with desire to avenge Richard's death.
68
C. Phillpotts, ‘The Fate of the Truce of Paris, 1396–1415’,
Journal of Medieval History
, 24, 61–80. For the ceremony on 31 July,
Saint-Denys,
iii.3–5;
POPC
, i.130–6, 143–4.
Chapter 12
THE PARLIAMENT OF 1401
Fifteen months into his reign, Henry's need for money was acute. Having laid such stress on the ‘insupportable burdens’ Richard had needlessly imposed upon his subjects, he had forborne from requesting either a direct subsidy or tunnage and poundage in October 1399.
1
Perhaps as a result of this, or perhaps in consequence of assurances it was later claimed he had given during the revolution, there had arisen a popular belief that he had undertaken not to raise taxation. In fact, he had promised no more than to avoid raising taxes unless it proved necessary to do so, in which case he would seek the consent of parliament, which was little different from what had happened hitherto.
2
There was certainly no undertaking to ‘live of his own’, or to refrain entirely from demanding direct taxation, despite the popular appeal of such notions.
3
Nevertheless, Henry had raised expectations. When he asked Londoners for a loan in 1400, they replied that he had promised to ‘abstain from loans and tallages of this sort’; early in 1401, the citizens of Bristol refused to pay money overdue from Richard's reign ‘because of the king's pardon, so they claimed, at his first arrival in the kingdom’. Around the same time an unlucky collector of ulnage (cloth tax) was beaten to death by drapers at Norton St Philip (Somerset) because his demands were ‘contrary to the promise excusing them from such payments which the king had made to them at the time of his happy return’; another tax-collector barely escaped the same fate at Dartmouth (Devon).
4
The fact that Henry had inherited the duchy of Lancaster which, together with his own Bohun inheritance, was worth between £12,500 and £14,000 a year, also served to frame the terms in which debate over the king's financial needs was conducted.
5
Might not the income from the duchy help to alleviate the king's needs? Henry made it clear from the start that the answer was no. The day after his coronation, a charter was drawn up declaring the duchy to be entirely separated from the crown, ‘as if we had never assumed the ensign of royal dignity’, and the creation of Prince Henry as duke of Lancaster a month later theoretically sealed this separation by excluding the duchy's resources from the king's direct control.
6
In practice this made it more amenable to the king's will, and the duchy did make a small contribution to crown income, but no more than about £1,120 a year on average. The majority of its revenue was used to pay the annuities assigned on its lands (£8,000–9,000 a year) and the wages and other administrative costs of the estate.
7
There were good reasons for Henry to insist on this detachment of duchy from crown. It was a way of emphasizing the distinction between his private lordship and his public governance, and a guarantee to the duchy's annuitants, who included many Lancastrian stalwarts, that its revenues would continue to be used to reward them rather than being swallowed up by the greedy maw of the state – and, conversely, that the situation would not arise whereby the duchy might be suspected of being a charge on the exchequer. It was also (though Henry would not have said so) an attempt to ensure that, should he suffer the same fate as Richard, the duchy would remain with his children rather than fall to his supplanter.
