Then Lancaster stepped forward. "In the name," he said, "of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England, and the crown with all its members and appurtenances, as I am descended by right line of the blood coming from the good lord King Henry the Third,' and through that right God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my kin and of my friends, to recover it, the which realm was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of the good laws." The assent of Parliament was given, and Lancaster took his seat in Richard's throne as King Henry IV. 16. Nature of the Claim of Henry IV. The claim which Henry put forward would certainly not bear investigation. It laid stress on right of descent, and it has since been thought that Henry intended to refer to a popular belief that his ancestor Edmund, the second son of Henry III., was in reality the eldest son, but had been set aside in favour of his younger brother, Edward I., on account of a supposed physical deformity from which he was known as Edmund Crouchback. As a matter of fact the whole story was a fable, and the name Crouchback had been given to Edmund not because his back was crooked, but because he had worn a cross on his back as a crusader (see p. 197). That Henry 1 Genealogy of the claimants of the throne in 1399: 1 1399 A PARLIAMENTARY REVOLUTION 287 should have thought it necessary to allude to this story, if such was really his meaning, shows the hold which the idea of hereditary succession had taken on the minds of Englishmen. In no other way could he claim hereditary right as a descendant of Henry III. Richard had selected as his heir Roger Mortimer, the son of the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the next son of Edward III., after the Black Prince, who lived to be old enough to have children. Roger Mortimer, indeed, had recently been killed in Ireland, but he had left a boy, Edmund Mortimer, who, on hereditary principles, was heir to the kingdom, unless the doctrine announced by Edward III. that a claim to the crown descended through females was to be set aside. In fact the real importance of the change of kings lay not in what Henry said, but in what he avoided saying. It was a reversion to the old right of election, and to the precedent set in the deposition of Edward II. Henry tacitly announced that in critical times, when the wearer of the crown was hopelessly incompetent, the nation, represented by Parliament, might step in and change the order of succession. The question at issue was not merely a personal one between Richard and Henry. It was a question between hereditary succession leading to despotism on the one side, and to parliamentary choice, perhaps to anarchy, on the other. That there were dangers attending the latter solution of the constitutional problem would not be long in appearing. Books recommended for further study of Part III. GREEN, J. R. History of the English People. Vol. i. pp. 189-520. The Early Plantagenets, 129–276. NORGATE, Miss K. England under the Angevin Kings. Vol. ii. p. 390. MICHELET, J. History of France (Middle Ages). Translated by G. H. Smith. + LONGMAN, W. The History of the Life and Times of Edward III. GAIRDNER, James. The Houses of Lancaster and York, pp. 1-64. ROGERS, James E. Thorold. A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. Vols. i. and ii. CUNNINGHAM, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce in the Early and Middle Ages, pp. 172-365. WAKEMAN, H. O. and HASSALL, A. (Editors). Essays Introductory to the Study of English Constitutional History. ASHLEY, W. J. An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory. Vol. i. JUSSERAND, J. J. English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. Translated by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Miss). BROWNE, M. JESSOPP, A., Dr. Chaucer's England. OMAN, C. W. C. The Coming of the Friars, and other Historic Essays. 1. Henry's First Difficulties. 1399-1400.-Henry IV. fully understood that his only chance of maintaining himself on the throne was to rule with due consideration for the wishes of Parliament. His main difficulty, like that of his predecessor, was that the great lords preferred to hold their own against him individually with the help of their armies of retainers, instead of exercising political power in Parliament. In his first Parliament an angry brawl arose. The lords who in the last reign had taken the side of Gloucester flung their gloves on the floor of the House as a challenge to those who had supported Richard when he compassed Gloucester's death; and though Henry succeeded in keeping the peace for the time, a rebellion broke out early in 1400 in the name of Richard. Henry, like the kings before him, found his support against the turbulent nobles in the townsmen and the yeomen, and he was thus able to suppress the rebellion. Some of the noblemen who were caught by the excited defenders of the throne were butchered without mercy and without law. U |