Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

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"The King fell sick then, each day more and more;
Wherefore the Prince _he_ made (as it was seen)
Chief of Council, to ease him of his sore;
Who to the Duke of Burgoyne sent, I ween;"

whilst the petitions presented to him, and some subsequent events
which must hereafter be noticed, make us suspect that the behaviour of
the Commons might have hastened his resolution.

At the close of the year, (from recounting the transactions of which
this serious charge against Henry's character induced us to digress,)
the parliament met in the first week in November. It was to have been
opened on the morrow of All Souls, (November 3, 1411,) but the peers
and commoners were so tardy in their arrival, that the King postponed
his meeting the parliament till the next day. In those times, the
monarch seems to have been in the habit of attending the (p. 290)
parliamentary deliberations, and receiving the petitions, and taking
part generally in the proceedings in person. Through this session
Henry IV. was repeatedly present; and the Prince alone, of all his
sons, appears to have attended also. Towards the close of this
parliament, (the very parliament in which the alleged unfilial conduct
of the Prince is represented to have occurred,) proceedings are
recorded, which, though referred to in the Appendix for the sake of
the argument, seem to require notice here also in the way of
narration.

"Also, on Monday the last day of November, the said Speaker, in the
name of the Commons, prayed the King to thank my lord the Prince, the
Bishops of Winchester, of Durham, and others, who were assigned by the
King to be of his council in the last parliament, for their great
labour and diligence. For, as it appears to the said Commons, my lord
the Prince, and the other lords, have well and loyally done their duty
according to their promise in that parliament.[282] And upon that, my
lord the Prince, kneeling, with the other lords, declared by the mouth
of my lord the Prince how they had taken pains and diligence and labours,
according to their promise, and the charge given them in parliament,
to their skill and knowledge. This the King remembered well, and (p. 291)
thanked them most graciously. And he said besides, that 'he was well
assured, if they had possessed larger means than they had, in the
manner it had been spoken by the mouth of my lord the Prince at the
time the King charged them to be of his council in the said parliament,
they would have done their duty to effect more good than was done, in
divers parts, for the defence, honour, good, and profit of him and his
kingdom.' And our lord the King also said, that he felt very contented
with their good and loyal diligence, counsel, and duty, for the time
they had been of his council." This took place about a month after the
Parliament had first met, and within less than three weeks of its
termination. On the very last day of this same parliament, "the
Speaker recommending the persons of the Queen, of the Prince, and of
other the King's sons, prayeth the advancement of their estates. For
which the King giveth hearty thanks." The question unavoidably forces
itself upon the mind of every one.--Could such a transaction as that,
by which the fair fame of the Prince is attempted to be destroyed for
ever, have taken place in this parliament? It may be deemed
superfluous to add, that, though the records of this parliament are
very full and minute, not the most distant allusion occurs to any such
conduct of the Prince.

[Footnote 282: Sir Robert Cotton, in his
Abridgement of the Rolls of Parliament, seems to
think (though without assigning any reason) that
the "thanks were for well employing the treasure
granted in the last parliament."]

But whilst, as we have seen, there had arisen much discontent (p. 292)
among the people with regard to the royal expenditure and the government
of the King's household, the King in his turn had entertained feelings
of dissatisfaction towards his parliament; in consequence, no doubt,
of the plain and unreserved manner in which they had given utterance
to their sentiments. When two parties are thus on the eve of a rupture,
there never are wanting spirits of a temper (from the mere love of
evil, or in the hope of benefiting themselves,) to foment the rising
discord, and fan the smoking fuel into a flame. Such was the case in
this instance, and such (as we shall soon see) was the case also in a
course of proceedings far more closely united with the immediate
subject of these Memoirs. On the same day, the last of the parliament,
the Lords and Commons, addressing the King by petition, express their
grief at the circulation of a report that he was offended on account
of some matters done in this and the last parliament; and they pray
him "to declare that he considers each and every of those in the
estates of parliament to be loyal and faithful subjects," which
petition the King of his especial grace in full parliament granted.
This submission on the part of the parliament, and its gracious
acceptance by the King, seem to have allayed, at least for a time, all
hostile feeling between them.

The prayer of the parliament to the King, that he would express his
own and the nation's thanks to the Prince and the other members of his
council, has been thought to imply some suspicion on their part (p. 293)
that the royal favour was withdrawn from the Prince, that the King was
jealous of his influence, and was therefore backward in publicly
acknowledging his obligations to his son. Be this as it may, two
points seem to press themselves on our notice here:--first, that up to
the May of the following year, 1412, no appearance is discoverable of
any coolness or alienation of regard and confidence between the Prince
and the King;--the second point is, that it is scarcely possible to
read the disjointed records of the intervening months between the
spring of that year and the next winter, without a strong suspicion
suggesting itself, that the cordial harmony with which the royal
father and his son had lived was unhappily interrupted for a time, and
that misunderstandings and jealousies had been fostered to separate
them. The subject is one of lively interest, and, though involved in
much mystery, must not be disposed of without investigation; and,
whilst we claim at the hands of others to "set down nought in malice,"
we must "nothing extenuate," nor allow any apprehension of
consequences to suppress or soften the very truth. The Author feels
himself bound to state not only the mere details of facts from which
inferences might be drawn, but to offer unreservedly his own opinion,
formed upon a patient research, and an honest weighing of whatever
evidence he may have found. The results of his inquiries, after (p. 294)
looking at the point in all the bearings in which his own reflections
or the suggestions of others have placed it, is this:

Henry of Monmouth was assigned on the 12th of May 1407, with the
consent of the council, to remain about the person of the King, that
he might devote himself more constantly to the public service; probably
the declining health of the King even then made such a measure
desirable. From the hour when the Prince became president of the
council, his influence through every rank of society naturally grew
very rapidly, and extended to every branch of the executive government.
Petitions were presented to him by name, not only by inferior applicants,
but even by his brothers. Letters of recommendation were addressed to
him by foreigners; and, in more than one instance, his interest was
sought even by the Pope himself. When the King was personally present
in the council, the record states, that the business was conducted "in
the presence of the King, and of his son the Prince." The father
retained the name, the son exercised the powers of sovereign. Such
pre-eminence, as long as human nature remains the same, will give
offence to some, and will engender envyings and jealousies and
oppositions: nor was the Prince suffered long to enjoy his high station
unmolested. Who were the persons more especially engaged in the unkind
office of severing the father from his son, is matter of conjecture;
so is also the immediate cause and occasion of their disunion. One of
the oldest chroniclers[283] would induce us to believe that a (p. 295)
temporary estrangement was effected in consequence of some malicious
detractors having misrepresented the Prince's conduct with reference
to the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans. Some may suspect that the
appointment of his brother Thomas to take the command of the troops in
the expedition to Guienne, when their father's increasing malady
prevented him from putting into execution his design of conducting
that campaign in person, might have given umbrage to the Prince, and
led to an open rupture. And undoubtedly it would have been only
natural, had the Prince felt that, in return for all his labours and
his devoted exertions in the field and at the council-board, the
honourable post of commanding the armament to Guienne should have been
assigned to him as the representative of his diseased parent.[284]
But, perhaps, this was not in his thoughts at all. Certainly no (p. 296)
trace in our histories or public documents is discoverable of any
coolness or distance[285] prevailing afterwards between himself and
his brother Thomas, as though he regarded him as a rival and
supplanter. Hardyng (the two editions of whose poem, brought out at
distant times, and under different auspices, in many cases give a very
different colouring to the same transaction,) represents the time of
the Prince's dismissal from the council, and the temporary quarrel
between him and his father, to have followed soon after the return of
the English soldiers sent to aid the Duke of Burgundy. His second
edition, however, paints in more unfavourable colours the opposition
of the Prince to his father, and sinks that voluntary return to filial
obedience and regard which his first edition had described in
expressions implying praise. In the Lansdowne manuscript, or first
edition, an original marginal note directs the reader to observe "How
the King and the Prince fell at great discord, and soon accorded."

[Footnote 283: Elmham.]

[Footnote 284: It may, moreover, be very fairly
conjectured that the presence of the Prince at home
was regarded by the people as far too important at
this time to admit of his leaving the kingdom on
such an expedition. It will be remembered that one
of the first requests made by the parliament on the
accession of his father was, that the Prince's
life, and the welfare of the nation, might not be
hazarded by his departure out of the kingdom; and
subsequently, on his own accession, one of the
first recommendations of his council was that he
would remain in or near London. It is very probable
that a similar wish might have interposed, had he,
and not his brother, been commissioned to conduct
the expedition to Guienne. Calais was so identified
with the kingdom of England that his residence
there is no exception to the rule.]

[Footnote 285: In the Sloane manuscript, indeed,
we are told that on a pecuniary dispute arising
between Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and
Thomas Duke of Clarence, with reference to the will
of the late Duke of Exeter, brother of the Bishop,
who was his executor, and whose widow the Duke of
Clarence had married, the Prince took part with the
Bishop, and so the Duke of Clarence failed of
obtaining his full demand.]

"Then came they home with great thanks and reward, (p. 297)
So, of the Duke of Burgoyne without fail.
Soon after then (befel it afterward)
The Prince was then discharged of counsaile.
His brother Thomas then, for the King's availe,
Was in his stead then set by ordinance,
For which the _Prince_ and _he_ fell at distance.
With whom the King took part, in great sickness,
Again[st] the Prince with all his excellence.
But with a rety of lords and soberness
The Prince came into his magnificence
Obey, and hole with all benevolence
Unto the King, and fully were accord
Of all matters of which they were discord."

In his later publication, the same writer gives a very different
colouring to the whole proceeding on the part of the Prince; robbing
him of his hearty good-will towards reconciliation, and representing
his return to a right understanding with his father as the result
rather of defeat and compulsion; but this was at a time when the star
of the house of Lancaster had set, and when the house of York was in
the ascendant.

"The King discharged the Prince from his counsail,
And set my lord Sir Thomas in his stead
Chief of council, for the King's more avail.
For which the Prince, of wrath and wilful head,
Again[st] him made debate and froward head;
With whom the King took part, and held the field
To time the Prince unto the King him yield."

Either of these representations of Hardyng will fully account for
Shakspeare's

"Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost, (p. 298)
Which by thy younger brother is supplied:"[286]

though the poet, by fixing the interview between Henry and his father
before the battle of Shrewsbury, has made the expulsion of the Prince
from the council precede his original admission into it by four years,
and his withdrawal from it by at least eight or nine years. It must
here be remarked, that no historical document records the presence of
Thomas Duke of Clarence as a member of the council-board: though, at
the same time, the records in which we might have expected to find his
presence registered, by observing a similar silence with regard to the
Prince, seem to leave little doubt that Henry had ceased to attend the
board a year before his father's death. Some strong though obscure
passages, moreover, in the Chronicles of the time, would go far to
suggest the probability of a demonstration of his power and (p. 299)
influence through the country having actually taken place on the part
of the Prince. Thus the Chronicle of London records, that "on the last
day of June the Prince came to London with much people and gentles,
and remained in the Bishop of Durham's house till July 11th. And the
King, who was then at St. John's house, removed to the Bishop of
London's palace, and thence to his house at Rotherhithe."[287] But the
Chronicle suggests no reason for these movements and ambiguous
proceedings. Thus, too, on the 23rd of September, the mere fact is
stated that "Prince Henry came to the council with a huge people,"
supplying no clue as to the meaning and intention of the concourse. It
cannot, moreover, escape observation, that, though the King held a
council at Rotherhithe on the 8th and on the 10th of July, the Prince
was not present: on the 9th, also, when his brother Thomas was (p. 300)
created Duke of Clarence and Earl of Albemarle, though the Bishop
of Durham, at whose house the Prince was staying, witnessed the
creation, the Prince was not himself one of the witnesses. This
circumstance, indeed may be so interpreted as to remove all idea of
open hostility prevailing at that time between the King and the
Prince. The prelate, it may fairly be supposed, would scarcely have
been a welcome attendant at Rotherhithe, if he were showing all kind
and free hospitality to a rebellious son, who was acting at that very
time in menacing defiance of his father, and evincing by the
demonstration of his numerous and powerful friends the fixed purpose
of avenging himself for whatever insults he might believe himself to
have received from the court party.

[Footnote 286: A passage which the Author has
lately discovered in the Pell Roll, 18th February
1412, will not admit of any other interpretation
than that the Prince, at the date of payment, had
ceased to be of the King's especial council.
Members of that board (as appears by various
entries) were paid for their attendance. In the
Easter Roll, for example, of the previous year,
payment on that ground "to the King's brother, the
Bishop of Winchester," is recorded. The payment to
the Prince is thus registered: "To Henry Prince of
Wales 1000 marks,--666_l._ 13_s._ _4d._--ordered by
the King to be paid in consideration of the
labours, costs, and charges sustained by him at the
time when he _was_ of the council of our lord
himself the King,"--"tempore quo fuit de consilio
ipsius Domini Regis."]

[Footnote 287: Perhaps more importance than the
reality would warrant has been attached to the
circumstance that the King on this occasion went to
Rotherhithe, as though he withdrew from his son for
safety to so unwonted and retired a place. It was
not unusual for Henry IV. to hold his council at
Rotherhithe. A year before this muster of the
Prince's friends, the instructions given to the
Earl of Arundel and others on their embassy to
treat with the Duke of Burgundy for a marriage
between his daughter and the Prince were signed by
the King at Rotherhithe. In these instructions the
Prince is mentioned throughout as though he and his
father were inseparably united in the issue of the
proceeding. "Till the report be made to the King
_and_ his very dear son the Prince." "Our lord the
King is well disposed, _and_ his very dear son my
lord the Prince, to send aid." And Hugh Mortimer,
one of the ambassadors, was chamberlain to the
Prince.]

Equally in the dark do our records leave us as to the persons who were
the fomentors of this breach between father and son. The oldest
historians intimate that there were mischief-makers, whose malicious
designs were for a time successful. Subsequent events (referred to
hereafter in these volumes) compel us to entertain a strong suspicion
that the Queen (Johanna) was at the head of a party resolved, if
possible, to check the growing and absorbing interest of her
son-in-law in the national council, to diminish his power, and tarnish
his honour.[288] Be this as it may, there are, to be placed in the (p. 301)
opposite scale, facts at which we have already slightly glanced,
seeming to imply that things were going on smoothly between Henry and
his father, even through that brief interval of time about which alone
any doubts can be reasonably entertained. A Minute of the Council,
apparently between the July and September of this year (1412), records
that "it is the King's pleasure for my lord the Prince[289] to have
payment on an assignment for the wages of his men still in his pay in
Wales:" and on the 21st of October, in a council at Merton, "the (p. 302)
King wills that the treasurer of Calais shall not interfere with any
receipt or payments henceforward till otherwise advised; and that the
treasurer of England shall receive all the monies arising from the
third part of the subsidy on wools, to be paid by him from time to
time at his discretion to the treasurer of Calais, with such intent
that my lord the Prince, Captain of the town of Calais, might the more
readily receive payment of what is in arrear to him and his soldiers
living with him, according to the agreement; and also for the increase
of his soldiers by the ordinance of the King beyond the number
comprised in that agreement."

[Footnote 288: Who were the inferior agents in this
ungracious and mischievous proceeding we have not
discovered. Perhaps, however, the Author would not
be justified in suppressing a suspicion which has
forced itself on his mind, that, among those who
entertained no kind feeling towards the Prince, was
Richard Kyngeston, then late Archdeacon of
Hereford, for a long time employed in the King's
household, and through whose administration the
expenses seem to have swollen very much; to control
which was one of the principal causes for the
appointment of the Prince, the Bishop of
Winchester, and others, to be members of the
especial council of the King. This suspicion was
first suggested by the absence of all allusion to
the Prince in the Archdeacon's letters to the King
from Hereford in the early years of the Welsh
rebellion, though Henry was close at hand; and the
very ambiguous expression, "Trust ye nought to no
lieutenant," when the Prince himself was virtually,
if not already by indenture, Lieutenant of Wales.]

[Footnote 289: We have already seen that in the
month of May the Prince in his own person (with his
brothers) ratifies the league entered into between
the King and the Dukes of Orleans, Berry, and
Bourbon. Jean le Fevre dates it May 8th, 1412.]

On the whole of this extraordinary and mysterious passage of Henry of
Monmouth's life, the Author must confess that it will be no surprise
to him to find (with a mass of other matter more voluminous and
important than we may now anticipate) new evidence affecting Henry's
character, probably to his utter exculpation, possibly to his
disadvantage, yet forthcoming from the countless treasures of
unpublished records. Meanwhile, he can now, after a patient
examination of all the books and manuscripts, original documents and
subsequent histories, with which it has been his lot to meet, only
return a verdict upon the evidence before him. And the inferences in
which alone he has been able satisfactorily to acquiesce, are
these:--First, that, after the Prince had for some time been most (p. 303)
active and indefatigable President of the Council; he ceased to
retain that office in consequence of a misunderstanding between
himself and his father, fostered by some persons whose interest or
malicious pleasure instigated them to so unworthy an expedient:
Secondly, that after a demonstration of his strength in the affections
and devotedness of the people, for the purpose (not of acting with
violence or intimidation towards the King,[290] but) of convincing his
enemies that the machinations of jealousy and detraction would (p. 304)
have no power permanently to blast his reputation, and crush his
influence, the alienation was soon happily terminated by the frank and
filial conduct of the Prince, who as anxiously sought a full
reconciliation as his father willingly conceded it: Thirdly, that,
through the last months of his life, the King was free from all
uneasiness and disquietude on that ground; and that the illness which
terminated his earthly career, instead of being aggravated by the
Prince's undutiful demeanour, was lightened by his affectionate
attendance; and the dying monarch was comforted by the tender offices
of his son.

[Footnote 290: Among the conjectures which may
suggest themselves as to the possible origin of the
manuscripts' charge, that the Prince sought to
obtain from his father a resignation of his crown,
it might not be unreasonably surmised, nor would
the supposition reflect unfavourably at all on
Henry's character, that, finding his father to be
in the hands of unworthy persons, preying upon his
fortune, misdirecting his counsels, rendering the
monarch personally unpopular, and bringing the
monarchy itself into disrepute, (of all which evils
there is strong evidence,) the Prince might have
urged on his father the necessity of again
intrusting the management of the public weal (which
disease had incapacitated him from conducting
himself) to the hands of the same counsellors who
had before served him and the realm to the
acknowledged profit and honour of both. The Prince
might, influenced only by the most honest, and
upright, and affectionate motives, have professed
his willingness to undertake the duties again from
which he had (with his colleagues) been as it
should seem causelessly discharged. And such a
proceeding on his part might easily have been so
misrepresented as to constitute the charge
contained in the manuscript. The representations of
Elmham, to which we have already briefly referred,
and which are confirmed by other early writers, are
so express with reference to these points, that
they seem to require something more than a mere
reference in this place. "When his father was
suffering under the torture of a grievous sickness,
the Prince endeavoured with filial devotedness to
meet his wishes in every possible way; and
notwithstanding the biting detraction and manifold
accusations of some, which (according to the
prevalence of common opinion) made efforts to
diminish the kind feeling of the father towards his
son, the Prince himself, by means of his own most
affectionate kindness, succeeded finally in
securing with his father favour, grace, and
blessing, though those envious persons still
resisted it."--Cum idem pater gravissimis
aegritudinis incommodis torqueretur, eidem juxta
omnem possibilitatem, totis conatibus, filiali
obsequio obedivit, et non obstante quorundam
detractatione mordaci et accusatione multiplici quae
(prout vulgaris opinio cecinit) paterni favoris in
filium moliebantur decrementa, ipse invidis
renitentibus, suae piissimae benignitatis mediis,
apud patrem, favorem, gratiam et benedictionem
finaliter consequi merebatur.]

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