Henry IV (of England)

King of England (r. 1399-1413)

• Born: April 3, 1367
• Birthplace: Bolingbroke Castle, near Spilsby, Lincolnshire, England
• Died: March 20, 1413
• Place of death: London, England

The circumstances of Henry's reign invested the English Parliament with new authority regarding royal power: Kings would rule by parliamentary title.

Early Life

Henry of Lancaster or Henry Bolingbroke, as he came to be known was the only surviving son of John of Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster. Henry's parentage in large part determined his destiny as England's future king, for John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was the third of five surviving sons of King Edward III, while Henry's mother was descended from King Henry III. John was in possession of several earldoms, including Derby; from about the age of ten, his son Henry was known as the earl of Derby, as well as being the nominal head of the Lancastrian estates. (John would secure other assurances for his son's future as well, including a marriage, in 1380 or 1381, to the second wealthiest heiress in England, Mary of Bohun, when she was still a child.)

On the death of King Edward's son, Edward the Black Prince , in 1376, and the death of the king himself a year later, the son of the Black Prince, Richard II, ascended the throne. Henry's cousin was only ten or eleven years old about the same age as Henry and it fell on John of Gaunt, the young king's uncle, to lead the kingdom in function if not in title. John's government was not a popular one; he was blamed for trying to secure the succession for himself and for unpopular policies such as poll taxes, and consequently, in 1381, while he was away in the north, the Peasants’ Revolt erupted in London. Henry and Richard took refuge in the Tower.

It was in this setting that Henry was reared and in which he received the training that would lead him to stake his claim to the throne against Richard twenty years later. As a young nobleman, he led the itinerant life typical of those in his position overseeing his lands and tenants, as well as his own, growing, household: Between 1387 and 1394, four sons and two daughters were born to him and Mary; Mary died, however, giving birth to their last child. Henry also accompanied his father on expeditions abroad: to Flanders in 1383-1384 and to Scotland in 1385. In contrast to the physically weaker, if more imaginative and creative, Richard, Henry continued the Lancastrian tradition of physical prowess in knightly sport, gaining for himself a reputation as a Crusader as well as a warrior. In 1390, he attended a great tournament held near Calais and, with an English contingent of three hundred knights, accompanied the duke of Bourbon on the expedition that captured Tunis. Henry twice joined the Teutonic Knights on their military expeditions eastward along the Baltic coast. In 1392-1393, he visited the Holy Land, but he returned disappointed in his inability to visit the Holy Sepulchre. In September of 1396, he would command English knights against the Turks at the disastrous battle of Nicopolis along the lower Danube.

Henry's entrance into politics came in 1386, when, along with his close associate Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, he joined with three other lords who opposed the king: the dukes of Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick. Together, the five men, who came to be known as the five lords appellants, joined their forces and took London in late 1387 (the year of the future Henry V's birth). Richard was effectively deposed, but he was allowed to keep the throne on relenting to the five lords’ demand that Simon Burley, his tutor and confidant, be executed. Nevertheless, the lords dominated rule of the kingdom until 1389, when Richard, now a young man, rebelled against the officials who had been placed in power by the five lords and insisted on his right as king to rule. Henry's aristocratic combine floundered, and over the next few years, troubles in the north that required the attention of the duke of Gloucester and John of Gaunt, as well as internal jealousies and suspicions, effectively defused the opposition as Richard took more personal control over his kingdom. His hold on the throne would remain a weak one, however, ensured primarily by the iron hand of John of Gaunt; in 1394, Richard's last friend, his wife, Queen Anne, died. John of Gaunt was often out of the country conducting foreign negotiations, and Richard himself went to Ireland to quell unrest there. Henry remained in London, attending Parliament and sitting on the council that ruled the country.

In 1397, the duke of Gloucester initiated a scheme to seize the throne and the power behind it: the dukes of Lancaster (John of Gaunt) and York. Henry, it is believed, was invited to join the conspiracy, but it came to nothing: Richard discovered the plan. The outcome was the deaths of Gloucester and Arundel, and the banishment of Warwick. Henry's part in the affair remains uncertain, as the plot would have involved his going against his own father. It appears, however, that he was reconciled with Richard, for, in a sweep of housecleaning, the king replaced his old enemies with a host of new dukes, among them Henry, as duke of Hereford.

Life's Work

The events that led to Henry's conspiracy against Richard II began in 1398. Henry brought an accusation against a royal favorite, his old colleague Thomas Mowbray, now the duke of Norfolk. The aristocratic quarrel ended when the king banished both dukes. Henry chose Paris for his exile. John of Gaunt, the power behind Richard's throne, died in the following year. Richard, in the face of both law and a special promise to his cousin, declared the vast Lancastrian estates forfeit. The seizure of his lands gave Henry an excuse to return to England. When he landed in Yorkshire in June of 1399, he protested that his return was occasioned only by his wish to restore his family holdings. However sincere Henry may have been, his return marked the beginning of a rebellion. England was rife with the discontent that had plagued Richard's entire reign: The nation had been overtaxed, the aristocracy was afraid of the Richardian absolutism, complaints had arisen about the king's counselors, and the king had been out of the country for several weeks.

Once in England, Henry's strength grew; most of the great nobles rallied to his side: They feared a king who could attack the estates of the most powerful family of the realm. By the time the king returned from Ireland, royal support had almost completely evaporated and Henry's rallying forces had become a flood tide. Richard surrendered and placed himself at his cousin's mercy. From his prison in the Tower of London, the king was perhaps hopeful that time would, as it had in 1388, provide an opening for him to regain power. Richard approved an abdication statement on September 29, 1399. That “pure and free resignation” was presented to Parliament the next day, and Parliament acted effectively to depose the king.

The following events were to prove extremely consequential for England. Having determined to seize the throne, Henry had to struggle with plausible arguments for his right to do so. The only attempt to prove his legitimate rights was tortured, fantastical, and unacceptable. His thought of claiming the throne by conquest, which was how he had achieved his control, was disturbing. A conqueror could erase existing laws and reshape the kingdom to his desires, but Henry's supporters did not want to destroy the legal traditions that benefited them. In the end, Henry simply claimed the vacant throne before the parliamentary session that had deposed the king. He held his coronation on October 13, 1399. The former King Richard was kept alive until a rebellion in his name proved too much of a threat to the new king, and he was murdered in his prison at the Lancastrian castle of Pontefract, in Yorkshire.

The circumstances of Henry IV's usurpation offered excuses for rebellion against him and caused him to be cautious and conciliatory toward both his opponents and his parliaments. His throne was insecure and Parliament as well as his political enemies, among whom at times would be his eldest son, Henry would take advantage of the inherent difficulties of his claim to the crown.

The Crown's inability to finance its governmental needs placed Henry IV at the mercy of the House of Commons. Forced to rely on monies raised through taxation, Henry had to make concessions that allowed the Commons to demand that he curtail governmental expenses, to appoint councils designed to supervise his administration, and to criticize his military policies. If Parliament could create a king, it was better able to control his reign: Parliament eagerly took advantage of a weakened royalty.

Henry was faced with constant warfare and rebellion. The Scots had taken advantage of the northern English earls’ involvement in internal politics to wreak havoc on the border areas. The Scottish invasion was finally stopped by the Percy family, the leading aristocratic family of the north. The king, however, was unable to reward the great northern family adequately, either for their aid in his rebellion or for their defending of the border. The elder Percy, the duke of Northumberland, angrily renounced his oath of allegiance to Henry. The family revolted and launched an armed uprising against the king. Almost simultaneously, Owen Glendower, a northern Welsh landowner, became the leader of Welsh discontent. The Welsh felt exploited by the government of the English marcher lords. Glendower sparked a revolt throughout Wales. The rebellion fused with anti-Henrician English factions. It was joined by Sir Edmund Mortimer, who had been captured by Glendower but was not ransomed by the king, and then by the Percys as the duke of Northumberland's son Henry Percy (the “Hotspur” of William Shakespeare's plays), Mortimer's brother-in-law, sided with the rebels. The king defeated the Percys: Henry Percy was killed in battle in 1403, and the duke of Northumberland was finally captured and executed in 1408. It was not until 1410, however, that the Glendower rebellion was effectively ended.

Adding to Henry IV's military complications were England's relations with France. Following the death of Richard II, the French had demanded the return of his widow, Isabella, the daughter of the French king, and her dowry. Denied his chance to continue peaceful relations with France by marrying his son to Isabella, and denied her use in negotiations once she and her dowry were returned to her homeland, Henry discovered his relations with France worsening. The French began to send military assistance to the Glendower rebellion, raided the southern coast of England, and troubled English merchants in the Channel. Popular English hostility toward France increased. The merchants wanted reprisals, and the magnates longed for a renewal of the plundering expeditions into France. Henry, however, had no plans to become involved in a war against France. His policy of siding with first one and then another French faction unfortunately appeared to be a policy of vacillation and pleased no English faction.

Difficulties within the royal family also hampered Henry's effectiveness toward the end of his reign. His ambitious, dashing, pushy, and impatient son Henry of Monmouth, prince of Wales (the famous Prince Hal of Shakespeare's Henry V), for a time in 1411 became king in all but name. Before that, the prince had quarreled with his father over governmental policy, supported his father's political opponents in France and led an unauthorized invasion of France, resisted an attempt to inquire into the Lollard heresy, and opposed the king's ministers. The prince twice moved troops to London as if he intended to overthrow the government. There were also indications that the Beaufort branch of the royal family, the king's half brothers descended from the marriage of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, were allied with Prince Hal.

Henry IV spent his last years in dismal disillusionment. His health, never good, was now broken, as was his spirit. Feeble, trembling, itchy with a skin disease rumored to be leprosy, and hardly able to walk, he may well have wondered what had gone wrong with his life. In his youth, he had been accustomed to riches and magnificence; as king, he had scarcely enough money to provide for his government. As a young aristocrat, he was known for his martial skills and his earned military glory; as king, he was eventually able to achieve domestic military success but it apparently resolved little and bestowed no fame. His refusal to engage in military expeditions against France cost him valuable public opinion. He began his reign as a successful usurper of a throne; he ended it troubled by those who wished that his son would usurp the father. He had been well liked as Henry Bolingbroke; as Henry IV, he was unpopular. Shakespeare wrote the line “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” for Henry IV Shakespeare's interpretation was insightful.

Henry's last thoughts were of plans that might have been successfully conceived and carried out in his aristocratic youth. A bewildered old man old before his time, even in the fifteenth century the king spoke of invading France, of leading a new crusade to recapture the Holy Land, of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Instead, he suffered a seizure in 1413 while praying in Westminster Abbey. He was carried into the Jerusalem Chamber, where he died. His trip to Jerusalem was appropriately ironic: Not much of his life was as he thought it would be.

Significance

Henry IV had usurped the throne of Richard II and placed his family, the Lancastrians, in power, initiating the dynastic struggle between the great aristocratic families of Lancaster and York known as the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485). The manner in which Parliament was allowed to depose Richard and accept Henry as the royal successor provided the opportunity for Parliament to gain more power than it had ever held before: The Lancastrian kings would rule by parliamentary title, and in the fifteenth century political theories would place great stress on the legal limitations of royal power.

Kings of England:

House of Lancaster

Reign

• Monarch

1327-1377

• Edward III

1377-1399

• Richard II

1399-1413

• Henry IV

1413-1422

• Henry V

1422-1461

• Henry VI

1470-1471

• Henry VI, Lancaster

Kings of England: House of York

Reign

• Monarch

1461-1470

• Edward IV

1471-1483

• Edward IV, restored

1483

• Edward V

1483-1485

• Richard III Hunchback

1485

• Tudor ascendancy: Henry VII

Bibliography

Brown, A. L. “The Commons and the Council in the Reign of Henry IV.” English Historical Review 79 (January, 1964): 1-30. Attributes the actions of the Commons in the reign of Henry to a desire for good and economical government. Argues against any constitutional program established by the first of the Lancastrian kings.

Dodd, Gwilyn, and Douglas Biggs, eds. Henry IV: The Establishment of the Regime, 1399-1406. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press, 2003. A biography of Henry, with discussion of his seizure of power.

Jacob, E. F. The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1961. Chapters 1-3 present chronological accounts of Henry IV’s reign dominated by political history. A good introduction to the political problems of the reign.

Kirby, J. L. Henry IV of England. London: Archon Books, 1971. A scholarly political biography that adequately covers Henry and his problems a rather conventional account.

Pollard, A. J. The Wars of the Roses. 2d ed. New York: Palgrave, 2001. A brief introduction to the wars. Includes genealogical tables and maps.

Wilkinson, Bertie. “The Deposition of Richard II and the Accession of Henry IV.” English Historical Review 54 (April, 1939): 215-239. Sets forth an argument that Parliament did not grant Henry Bolingbroke a parliamentary title. His failure to obtain such a title revealed one of his major political weaknesses.

Wylie, James H. History of England Under Henry the Fourth. 4 vols. 1884-1898. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1968. Still of value for its coverage of the politics of Henry’s reign and, more important, for the sources it contains.