Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

J >> J. Endell Tyler >> Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

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CHAPTER IX. (p. xxii)

1403-1404.

The Prince commissioned to receive the Rebels into allegiance. -- The
King summons Northumberland. -- Hotspur's Corpse disinterred. -- The
Reason. -- Glyndowr's French Auxiliaries. -- He styles himself "Prince
of Wales." -- Devastation of the Border Counties. -- Henry's Letters
to the King, and to the Council. -- Testimony of him by the County of
Hereford. -- His famous Letter from Hereford. -- Battle of Grosmont.
Page 178

CHAPTER X.

1405-1406.

Rebellion of Northumberland and Bardolf. -- Execution of the
Archbishop of York. -- Wonderful Activity and Resolution of the King.
-- Deplorable state of the Revenue. -- Testimony borne by Parliament
to the Prince's Character. -- The Prince present at the Council-board.
-- He is only occasionally in Wales, and remains for the most part in
London. Page 207

CHAPTER XI.

1407-1409.

Prince Henry's Expedition to Scotland, and Success. -- Thanks
presented to him by Parliament. -- His generous Testimony to the Duke
of York. -- Is first named as President of the Council. -- Returns to
Wales. -- Is appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of
Dover. -- Welsh Rebellion dwindles and dies. -- Owyn Glyndowr's
Character and Circumstances; his Reverses and Trials. -- His Bright
Points undervalued. -- The unfavourable side of his Conduct unjustly
darkened by Historians. -- Reflections on his Last Days. -- Fac-simile
of his Seals as Prince of Wales. Page 232

CHAPTER XII. (p. xxiii)

1409-1412.

Reputed Differences between Henry and his Father examined. -- He is
made Captain of Calais. -- His Residence at Coldharbour. -- Presides
at the Council-board. -- Cordiality still visible between him and his
Father. -- Affray in East-Cheap. -- No mention of Henry's presence.
--Projected Marriage between Henry and a Daughter of Burgundy. --
Charge against Henry for acting in opposition to his Father in the
Quarrel of the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans unfounded. Page 252

CHAPTER XIII.

1412-1413.

Unfounded Charge against Henry of Peculation. -- Still more serious
Accusation of a cruel attempt to dethrone his diseased Father. -- The
Question fully examined. -- Probably a serious though temporary
Misunderstanding at this time between the King and his Son. -- Henry's
Conduct filial, open, and merciful. -- The "Chamber" or the "Crown
Scene." -- Death of Henry the Fourth. Page 278

CHAPTER XIV.

Henry of Monmouth's Character. -- Unfairness of Modern Writers. --
Walsingham examined. -- Testimony of his Father, -- of Hotspur, -- of
the Parliament, -- of the English and Welsh Counties, -- of
Contemporary Chroniclers. -- No one single act of Immorality alleged
against him. -- No intimation of his Extravagance, or Injustice, or
Riot, or Licentiousness, in Wales, London, or Calais. -- Direct
Testimony to the opposite Virtues. -- Lydgate. -- Occleve. Page 313

CHAPTER XV. (p. xxiv)

Shakspeare. -- The Author's reluctance to test the Scenes of the
Poet's Dramas by Matters of Fact. -- Necessity of so doing. -- Hotspur
in Shakspeare the first to bear evidence to Henry's reckless
Profligacy; -- The Hotspur of History the first who testifies to his
Character for Valour, and Mercy, and Faithfulness in his Duties. --
Anachronisms of Shakspeare. -- Hotspur's Age. -- The Capture of
Mortimer. -- Battle of Homildon. -- Field of Shrewsbury. -- Archbishop
Scrope's Death. Page 337

CHAPTER XVI.

Story of Prince Henry and the Chief Justice, first found in the Work
of Sir Thomas Elyot, published nearly a century and a half
subsequently to the supposed transaction. -- Sir John Hawkins -- Hall
-- Hume. -- No allusion to the circumstance in the Early Chroniclers.
-- Dispute as to the Judge. -- Various Claimants of the distinction.
-- Gascoyne -- Hankford -- Hody -- Markham. -- Some interesting
particulars with regard to Gascoyne, lately discovered and verified.
-- Improbability of the entire Story. Page 358

APPENDIX.

No. 1. Owyn Glyndowr 385
2. Lydgate 394
3. Occleve 401

MEMOIRS OF HENRY OF MONMOUTH. (p. 001)

CHAPTER I.

HENRY OF MONMOUTH'S PARENTS. -- TIME AND PLACE OF HIS BIRTH. -- JOHN
OF GAUNT AND BLANCHE OF LANCASTER. -- HENRY BOLINBROKE. -- MONMOUTH
CASTLE. -- HENRY'S INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD. -- HIS EDUCATION. --
RESIDENCE IN OXFORD. -- BOLINBROKE'S BANISHMENT.

1387-1398.

Henry the Fifth was the son of Henry of Bolinbroke and Mary daughter
of Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. No direct and positive evidence
has yet been discovered to fix with unerring accuracy the day or the
place of his birth. If however we assume the statement of the
chroniclers[2] to be true, that he was born at Monmouth on the ninth
day of August in the year 1387,[3] history supplies many ascertained
facts not only consistent with that hypothesis, but in (p. 002)
confirmation of it; whilst none are found to throw upon it the faintest
shade of improbability. At first sight it might perhaps appear strange
that the exact time of the birth as well of Henry of Monmouth, as of
his father, two successive kings of England, should even yet remain
the subject of conjecture, tradition, and inference; whilst the day
and place of the birth of Henry VI. is matter of historical record. A
single reflection, however, on the circumstances of their respective
births, renders the absence of all precise testimony in the one case
natural; whilst it would have been altogether unintelligible in the
other. When Henry of Bolinbroke and Henry of Monmouth were born, their
fathers were subjects, and nothing of national interest was at the
time associated with their appearance in the world; at Henry of
Windsor's birth he was the acknowledged heir to the throne both of
England and of France.

[Footnote 2: Monomothi in Wallia natus v. Id.
Aug.--Pauli Jov. Ang. Reg. Chron.; William of
Worcester, &c.]

[Footnote 3: At the foot of the Wardrobe Account of
Henry Earl of Derby from 30th September 1387 to
30th September 1388, (and unfortunately no account
of the Duke of Lancaster's expenses is as yet found
extant before that very year,) an item occurs of
341_l._ 12_s._ 5_d._, paid 24th September 1386, for
the household expenses of the Earl and his family
at Monmouth. This proves that his father made the
castle of Monmouth his residence within less than a
year of the date assigned for Henry's birth.]

To what extent Henry of Monmouth's future character and conduct were,
under Providence, affected by the circumstances of his family and its
several members, it would perhaps be less philosophical than
presumptuous to define. But, that those circumstances were (p. 003)
peculiarly calculated to influence him in his principles and views and
actions, will be acknowledged by every one who becomes acquainted with
them, and who is at the same time in the least degree conversant with
the growth and workings of the human mind. It must, therefore, fall
within the province of the inquiry instituted in these pages, to take
a brief review of the domestic history of Henry's family through the
years of his childhood and early youth.

John, surnamed "of Gaunt," from Ghent or Gand in Flanders, the place
of his birth, was the fourth son of King Edward the Third. At a very
early age he married Blanche, daughter and heiress of Henry
Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster, great-grandson of Henry the Third.[4]
The time of his marriage with Blanche,[5] though recorded with
sufficient precision, is indeed comparatively of little consequence;
whilst the date of their son Henry's birth, from the influence which
the age of a father may have on the destinies of his child, becomes
matter of much importance to those who take any interest in the (p. 004)
history of their grandson, Henry of Monmouth. On this point it has
been already intimated that no conclusive evidence is directly upon
record. The principal facts, however, which enable us to draw an
inference of high probability, are associated with so pleasing and so
exemplary a custom, though now indeed fallen into great desuetude
among us, that to review them compensates for any disappointment which
might be felt from the want of absolute certainty in the issue of our
research. It was Henry of Bolinbroke's custom[6] every year on the
Feast of the Lord's Supper, that is, on the Thursday before Easter, to
clothe as many poor persons as equalled the number of years which he
had completed on the preceding birthday; and by examining the accounts
still preserved in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, the details
of which would be altogether uninteresting in this place, we are led
to infer that Henry Bolinbroke was born on the 4th of April 1366.
Blanche, his mother, survived the birth of Bolinbroke probably not
more than three years. Whether this lady found in John of Gaunt a
faithful and loving husband, or whether his libertinism caused her to
pass her short life in disappointment and sorrow, no authentic
document enables us to pronounce. It is, however, impossible to close
our eyes against the painful fact, that Catherine Swynford, who (p. 005)
was the partner of his guilt during the life of his second wife,
Constance, had been an inmate of his family, as the confidential
attendant on his wife Blanche, and the governess of her daughters,
Philippa and Elizabeth of Lancaster. That he afterwards, by a life of
abandoned profligacy, disgraced the religion which he professed, is,
unhappily, put beyond conjecture or vague rumour. Though we cannot
infer from any expenses about her funeral and her memory, that Blanche
was the sole object of his affections, (the most lavish costliness at
the tomb of the departed too often being only in proportion to the
unkindness shown to the living,) yet it may be worth observing, that
in 1372 we find an entry in the account, of 20_l._ paid to two
chaplains (together with the expenses of the altar) to say masses for
her soul. He was then already[7] married to his second wife,
Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile. By this lady,
whom he often calls "the Queen," he appears to have had only one
child, married, it is said, to Henry III. King of Castile.[8]
Constance, the mother, is represented to have been one of the most (p. 006)
amiable and exemplary persons of the age, "above other women innocent
and devout;" and from her husband she deserved treatment far different
from what it was her unhappy lot to experience. But however severe
were her sufferings, she probably concealed them within her own
breast: and she neither left her husband nor abandoned her duties in
disgust. It is indeed possible, though in the highest degree
improbable, that whilst his unprincipled conduct was too notorious to
be concealed from others, she was not herself made fully acquainted
with his infidelity towards her. At all events we may indulge in the
belief that she proved to her husband's only legitimate son, Henry (p. 007)
of Bolinbroke, a kind and watchful mother.

[Footnote 4: His wife's sister, Matilda, married to
William, Duke of Holland and Zealand, dying without
issue, John of Gaunt succeeded to the undivided
estates and honours of the late duke.]

[Footnote 5: Froissart reports that Henry
Bolinbroke was a handsome young man; and declares
that he never saw two such noble dames, nor ever
should were he to live a thousand years, so good,
liberal, and courteous, as his mother the Lady
Blanche, and "the late Queen of England," Philippa
of Hainault, wife of Edward the Third. These were
the mother, and the consort of John of Gaunt.]

[Footnote 6: For this fact and the several items by
which it is substantiated, the Author is indebted
to the kindness and antiquarian researches of
William Hardy, Esq. of the Duchy of Lancaster
office. These accounts begin to date from September
30th 1381.]

[Footnote 7: In 1387 the Duke of Lancaster,
accompanied by Constance and a numerous retinue,
went to Spain to claim his wife's rights; and he
succeeded in obtaining from the King of Spain very
large sums in hand, and hostages for the payment of
10,000_l._ annually to himself and his duchess for
life. Wals. Neust. 544.]

[Footnote 8: There is an order, dated June 6th,
1372, to lodge two pipes of good wine in Kenilworth
Priory, and to hasten with all speed Dame Ilote,
the midwife, to the Queen Constance at Hertford on
horse or in carriage as should be best for her
ease. The same person attended the late Duchess
Blanche.

The Author has lately discovered on the Pell Rolls
a payment, dated 21st February 1373, which refers
to the birth of a daughter, and at the same time
informs us that his future wife was then probably a
member of his household. "To Catherine Swynford
twenty marks for announcing to the King (Richard
the Second) the birth of a daughter of the Queen of
Spain, consort of John, King of Castile and Leon,
and Duke of Lancaster."

The marriage of John of Gaunt with Catherine
Swynford took place only the second year after the
death of Constance, and seems to have excited among
the nobility equal surprise and disgust. "The great
ladies of England, (as Stowe reports,) as the
Duchess of Gloucester, &c. disdained that she
should be matched with the Duke of Lancaster, and
by that means accounted second person in the realm,
and be preferred in room before them."

King Richard however made her a handsome present of
a ring, at the same time that he presented one to
Henry, Earl of Derby, (Henry IV.) and another to
Lady Beauchamp. Pell Rolls.]

At that period of our history, persons married at a much earlier age
than is usually the case among us now; and the espousals of young
people often preceded for some years the period of quitting their
parents' home, and living together, as man and wife. In the year 1381
Henry, at that time only fifteen years of age, was espoused[9] to his
future wife, Mary Bohun, daughter of the Earl of Hereford, who had (p. 008)
then not reached her twelfth year. These espousals were in those days
accompanied by the religious service of matrimony, and the bride
assumed the title of her espoused husband.[10]

[Footnote 9: In this same year Bolinbroke's life
was put into imminent peril during the insurrection
headed by Wat Tiler. The rebels broke into the
Tower of London, though it was defended by some
brave knights and soldiers; seized and murdered the
Archbishop and others; and, carrying the heads of
their victims on pikes, proceeded in a state of
fury to John of Gaunt's palace at the Savoy, which
they utterly destroyed and burnt to the ground.
Gaunt himself was in the North: but his son
Bolinbroke was in the Tower of London, and owed his
life to the interposition of one John Ferrour of
Southwark. This is a fact not generally known to
historians; and since the document which records
it, bears testimony to Bolinbroke's spirit of
gratitude, it will not be thought out of place to
allude to it here. This same John Ferrour, with Sir
Thomas Blount and others, was tried in the Castle
of Oxford for high treason, in the first year of
Henry IV. Blount and the others were condemned and
executed; but to John Ferrour a free pardon, dated
Monday after the Epiphany, was given, "our Lord the
King remembering that in the reign of Richard the
Second, during the insurrection of the Counties of
Essex and Kent, the said John saved the King's life
in the midst of that commonalty, in a wonderful and
kind manner, whence the King happily remains alive
unto this day. For since every good whatever
naturally and of right requires another good in
return, the King of his especial grace freely
pardons the said John." Plac. Cor. in Cast. Oxon.]

[Footnote 10: Thus, in a warrant, dated 6th March
1381, an order is given by the Duke for payment to
a Goldsmith in London, of 10_l._ 18_s._ for a
present made by our dear daughter Philippa, to our
very dear daughter Mary, Countess of Derby, on the
day of her marriage; and also "40 shillings for as
many pence put upon the book on the day of the
espousals of our much beloved son, the Earl of
Derby." Eight marks are ordered to be paid for "a
ruby given by us to our very dear daughter Mary:"
13_s._ 4_d._ for the offering at the mass. Ten
marks from us to the King's minstrels being there
on the same day; and ten marks to four minstrels of
our brother the Earl of Cambridge being there; and
fifty marks to the officers of our cousin, the
Countess of Hereford! On the 31st of January
following, the Duke lays himself under a bond to
pay to "Dame Bohun, Countess of Hereford, her
mother, the sum of one hundred marks annually, for
the charge and cost of his daughter-in-law, Mary,
Countess of Derby, until the said Mary shall attain
the full age of fourteen years."]

We shall probably not be in error, if we fix the period of the
Countess of Derby leaving her mother's for her husband's roof
somewhere in the year 1386, when he was twenty, and she sixteen years
old; and we are not without reason for believing that they made
Monmouth Castle their home.

Some modern writers affirm that this was the favourite residence of
John of Gaunt's family: but it is very questionable whether from
having themselves experienced the beauty and loveliness of the spot,
they have not been unconsciously tempted to venture this assertion (p. 009)
without historical evidence. Monmouth is indeed situated in one of the
fairest and loveliest valleys within the four seas of Britain. Near
its centre, on a rising ground between the river Monnow (from which
the town derives its name) and the Wye and not far from their
confluence, the ruins of the Castle are still visible. The poet Gray
looked over it from the side of the Kymin Hill, when he described the
scene before him as "the delight of his eyes, and the very seat of
pleasure." With his testimony, unbiassed as it was by local
attachment, it would be unwise to mingle the feelings of affection
entertained by one whose earliest associations, "redolent of joy and
youth," can scarcely rescue his judgment from the suspicion of
partiality. At that time John of Gaunt's estates and princely mansions
studded, at various distances, the whole land of England from its
northern border to the southern coast. And whether he allowed Henry of
Bolinbroke to select for himself from the ample pages of his rent-roll
the spot to which he would take his bride, or whether he assigned it
of his own choice to his son as the fairest of his possessions; or
whether any other cause determined the place of Henry the Fifth's
birth, we have no reasonable ground for doubting that he was born in
the Castle of Monmouth, on the 9th of August 1387.

Of Monmouth Castle, the dwindling ruins are now very scanty, and in
point of architecture present nothing worthy of an antiquary's (p. 010)
research. They are washed by the streams of the Monnow, and are
embosomed in gardens and orchards, clothing the knoll on which they
stand; the aspect of the southern walls, and the rocky character of
the soil admirably adapting them for the growth of the vine, and the
ripening of its fruits. In the memory of some old inhabitants, who
were not gathered to their fathers when the Author could first take an
interest in such things, and who often amused his childhood with tales
of former days, the remains of the Hall of Justice were still
traceable within the narrowed pile; and the crumbling bench on which
the Justices of the Circuit once sate, was often usurped by the boys
in their mock trials of judge and jury. Somewhat more than half a
century ago, a gentleman whose garden reached to one of the last
remaining towers, had reason to be thankful for a marked interposition
in his behalf of the protecting hand of Providence. He was enjoying
himself on a summer's evening in an alcove built under the shelter and
shade of the castle, when a gust of wind blew out the candle by his
side, just at the time when he felt disposed to replenish and rekindle
his pipe. He went consequently with the lantern in his hand towards
his house, intending to renew his evening's recreation; but he had
scarcely reached the door when the wall fell, burying his retreat, and
the entire slope, with its shrubs and flowers and fruits, under one
mass of ruin.

From this castle, tradition says, that being a sickly child, Henry (p. 011)
was taken to Courtfield, at the distance of six or seven miles from
Monmouth, to be nursed there. That tradition is doubtless very ancient;
and the cradle itself in which Henry is said to have been rocked, was
shown there till within these few years, when it was sold, and taken
from the house. It has since changed hands, if it be any longer in
existence. The local traditions, indeed, in the neighbourhood of
Courtfield and Goodrich are almost universally mingled with the very
natural mistake that, when Henry of Monmouth was born, his father was
king; and so far a shade of improbability may be supposed to invest
them all alike; yet the variety of them in that one district, and the
total absence of any stories relative to the same event on every other
side of Monmouth, should seem to countenance a belief that some real
foundation existed for the broad and general features of these
traditionary tales. Thus, though the account acquiesced in by some
writers, that the Marchioness of Salisbury was Henry of Monmouth's
nurse at Courtfield, may have originated in an officious anxiety to
supply an infant prince with a nurse suitable to his royal birth;
still, probably, that appendage would not have been annexed to a story
utterly without foundation, and consequently throws no incredibility
on the fact that the eldest son of the young Earl of Derby was nursed
at Courtfield. Thus, too, though the recorded salutation of the
ferryman of Goodrich congratulates his Majesty on the birth of a (p. 012)
noble prince, as the King was hastening from his court and palace of
Windsor to his castle of Monmouth; yet the unstationary habits of
Bolingbroke, his love of journeyings and travels, and his restlessness
at home, render it very probable that he was absent from Monmouth even
when the hour of perilous anxiety was approaching; and thus on his
return homeward (perhaps too from Richard's court at Windsor) the
first tidings of the safety of his Countess and the birth of the young
lord may have saluted him as he crossed the Wye at Goodrich Ferry. So
again in the little village of Cruse, lying between the church and the
castle of Goodrich, the cottagers still tell, from father to son, as
they have told for centuries over their winter's hearth, how the
herald, hurrying from Monmouth to Goodrich fast as whip and spur could
urge his steed onward, with the tidings of the Prince of Wales' birth,
fell headlong, (the horse dropping under him in the short, steep, and
rugged lane leading to the ravine, beyond which the castle stands,)
and was killed on the spot. No doubt the idea of its being the news of
a prince's birth, that was thus posted on, has added, in the
imagination of the villagers, to the horse's fleetness and the
breathless impetuosity of the messenger; but it is very probable that
the news of the young lord's birth, heir to the dukedom of Lancaster,
should have been hastened from the castle of Monmouth to Goodrich;
and there is no solid reason for discrediting the story. (p. 013)

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