1400 A CONSERVATIVE ALLIANCE 291 2. Death of Richard II. 1400. A few weeks after the suppression of this conspiracy it was rumoured that Richard had died in prison at Pontefract. According to Henry's account of the matter he had voluntarily starved himself to death. Few, however, doubted that he had been put to death by Henry's orders. To prove the untruth of this story, Henry had the body brought to St. Paul's, where he showed to the people only the face of the corpse, as if this could be any evidence whatever. After Richard's death, if hereditary succession had been regarded, the person having a claim to the crown in prefer- tury (see p. 191) the Church had produced no new orders of monks or friars. In the thirteenth and fourteenth she produced the schoolmen, a succession of great thinkers who systematised her moral and religious teaching. Imagining that she had no more to learn, she now attempted to strengthen herself by persecuting those who disbelieved her teaching, and after the suppression of the revolt of the peasants, made common cause with the landlords, who feared pecuniary loss from the emancipation of the villeins. This conservative alliance against social and religious change was the more easily inade because many of the bishops were now members of noble families, instead of springing, as had usually been the case in the better days of the medieval Church, from poor or middle Thomas Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, 1397-1417: from his brass at New College, Oxford. Showing the archiepiscopal mass-vestments and the cross and pall. Date, about 1400. class parentage. In the reign of Richard II. a Courtenay, a kinsman 4. The Statute for the Burning of Heretics. 1401.-In 1401 the clergy cried aloud for new powers. The ecclesiastical courts could condemn men as heretics, but had no power to burn them. Bishops and abbots formed the majority of the House of Lords, and though the Commons had not lost that craving for the wealth of the Church which had distin guished John of Gaunt's party, they had no sympathy with heresy. Accordingly the statute for the burning of heretics (De hæretico comburendo), the first English law for the suppression of religious opinion, was passed with the ready consent of the king and both Houses. The first victim was William Sawtre, a priest who held, amongst other things, "that after the words of consecration in the Eucharist the bread remains bread, and nothing more." He was burnt by a special order from the king and council even before the new law had been enacted. 5. Henry IV. and Owen Glendower. 1400-1402.-If Henry found it difficult to maintain order in England, he found it still more difficult to keep the peace on the 1400-1403 TROUBLES IN WALES AND THE NORTH 293 borders of Wales. In 1400 an English nobleman, Lord Grey of Ruthyn, seized on an estate belonging to Owen Glendower, a powerful Welsh gentleman. Owen Glendower called the Welsh to arms, ravaged Lord Grey's lands, and proclaimed himself Prince of Wales. For some years Wales was practically independent. English townsmen and yeomen were ready to support Henry against any sudden attempt of the nobility to crush him with their retainers, but they were unwilling to bear the burden of taxation needed for the steady performance of a national task. In the meanwhile Henry was constantly exposed to secret plots. In 1401 he found an iron with four spikes in his bed. In the autumn of 1402 he led an expedition into Wales, but storms of rain and snow forced him back. His English followers attributed the disaster to the evil spirits which, as they fully believed, were at the command of the wizard Glendower. 6. The Rebellion of the Percies. 1402-1404.-The Scots were not forgetful of the advantages to be derived from the divisions of England. They had amongst them some one-whoever he may have been-whom they gave out to be King Richard, and when Henry marched against Wales in 1402 they invaded England. They were met by the Percies and defeated at Homildon Hill. The Percies had still something of the enormous power of the feudal barons of the eleventh century. Their family estates stretched over a great part of Northumberland, and as they were expected to shield England against Scottish invasions they were obliged to keep up a military retinue which might be employed against the king as well as in his service. It was mainly through their aid that Henry had seated himself on the throne. Their chief, the Earl of Northumberland, and his brother, the Earl of Worcester, were aged men, but Northumberland's son, Henry Percy-Harry Hotspur as he was usually called-was of a fiery temper, and disinclined to submit to insult. Hotspur's wife was a Mortimer, and her brother, Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the young Earl of March, had been taken prisoner by Glendower. It was noticed that Henry, who had ransomed other prisoners, took no steps to ransom Mortimer, and it was believed that he was in no hurry to set free one whose hereditary claim to the crown, like that of the Earl of March, came before his own. Other causes contributed to irritate the Percies, and in 1403, bringing with them as allies the Scottish prisoners whom they had taken at Homildon Hill, they marched southwards against Henry. Southern England might not be ready adequately to support Henry in an invasion of Wales, but it was in no mood to allow him to be dethroned by the Percies. It rallied to his side, and enabled him signally to defeat the Percies at Shrewsbury. Hotspur was killed in the fight, and his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, being captured, was beheaded without delay. Northum The battle of Shrewsbury: from the "Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick;" drawn by John Rous about 1485. berland, who was not present at the battle, was committed to prison in 1404, but was pardoned on promise of submission. 7. The Commons and the Church. 1404.-After such a deliverance the Commons could not but grant some supplies. In the autumn of 1404, however, they pleaded for the confiscation of the revenues of the higher clergy, which were sufficient, as they alleged, to support 15 earls, 1,500 knights, 6,200 esquires, and 100 hospitals as well. The king refused to listen to the proposal, and money was voted in the ordinary way. It was the first deliberate attempt to meet the growing expenditure of the Crown by the confiscation of ecclesiastical revenue. 1405 FRANCE AND SCOTLAND 295 8. The Capture of the Scottish Prince. 1405. -Early in 1405 Henry was threatened with a fresh attack. Charles VI. of France was now a confirmed lunatic, and his authority had mainly fallen into the hands of his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, a profligate and unscrupulous man who was regarded by the feudal nobility of France as their leader. The Duke of Orleans refused to consider himself bound to Henry by the truce which had been made with Richard, and, forming an alliance with Owen Glendower, prepared to send a fleet to his aid. When there was war between England and France the Scots seldom remained quiet, but this time Henry was freed from that danger by an unexpected occurrence. The reigning King of Scotland was Robert III., whose father, Robert II., had been the first king of the House of Stuart, and had ascended the throne after the death of David Bruce, as being the son of his sister Margaret.' Robert III., weakly in mind and body, had committed to the custody of his brother, the Duke of Albany, his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay, who had gained an evil name by his scandalous debauchery. Rothesay died in the prison in which his uncle had confined him, and popular rumour alleged that Albany had murdered him to clear the way to the throne. Robert now sent young James, his only surviving son, to be educated in France in order to save him from Albany's machinations. On his way the prince was captured by an English ship, and delivered to Henry, who kept him under guard as a hostage for the peaceful behaviour of his countrymen. The prince, he said, should have been sent to him to be educated, as he could talk French as well as the king of France. When Robert died soon afterwards the 1 Genealogy of the kings of Scotland from Robert Bruce to James I. :— |