Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

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

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[Footnote 48: Fuller, in his Church History, thus
speaks of him, mingling with his description,
however, the verification of the proverb, "An ill
youth may make a good man," a maxim far less true
(though far more popular) than one of at least
equally remote origin, "Like sapling, like oak." He
was "one of a strong and active body, neither
shrinking in cold nor slothful in heat, going
commonly with his head uncovered; the wearing of
armour was no more cumbersome to him than a cloak.
He never shrunk at a wound, nor turned away his
nose for ill savour, nor closed his eyes for smoke
or dust; in diet, none less dainty or more
moderate; his sleep very short, but sound;
fortunate in fight, and commendable in all his
actions."]

With regard to his habits of social intercourse, his powers of
conversation, the disposition and bent of his mind when he mingled (p. 043)
with others, whether in the seasons of public business, or the more
private hours of retirement and relaxation, (whilst the never-ending
tales of his dissipation among his unthrifty reckless playmates are
reserved for a separate inquiry,) a few words only will suffice in
this place. In addition to the testimony of later authors, the records
of contemporaneous antiquity, sometimes by direct allusion to him,
sometimes incidentally and as it were undesignedly, lead us to infer
that he was a distinguished example of affability and courteousness;
still not usually a man of many words; clear in his own conception of
the subject of conversation or debate, and ready in conveying it to
others, yet peculiarly modest and unassuming in maintaining his
opinion, listening with so natural an ease and deference, and kindness
to the sentiments and remarks and arguments of others, as to draw into
a close and warm personal attachment to himself those who had the
happiness to be on terms of familiarity with him. Certainly the
unanimous voice of Parliament ascribed to him, when engaged in the
deeper and graver discussions involving the interests and welfare of
the state, qualities corresponding in every particular with these
representations of individual chroniclers. The glowing, living
language of Shakspeare seems only to have recommended by becoming and
graceful ornament, what had its existence really and substantially in
truth.

Hear him but reason in divinity, (p. 044)
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the King were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse in war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.

Soon after Richard reached Dublin, the Duke of Albemarle, Constable of
England, arrived with a large fleet, and with forces all ready for a
campaign: but he came too late for any good purpose, and better had it
been for Richard had he never come at all. His advice was the king's
ruin. Richard with his army passed full six weeks in Dublin, in the
free enjoyment of ease and pleasure, altogether ignorant of the
terrible reverse which awaited him. In consequence of the
uninterrupted prevalence of adverse winds, his self-indulgence was
undisturbed by the news which the first change of weather was destined
to bring. Through the whole of this momentous crisis the weather was
so boisterous that no vessel dared to brave the tempest. On the return
of a quiet sea, a barge arrived at Dublin upon a Saturday, laden with
the appalling tidings that Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had returned from
exile and was carrying all before him; supported by Richard's (p. 045)
most powerful subjects, now in open rebellion against his authority;
and encouraged by the Archbishop, who in the Pope's name preached
plenary absolution and a place in paradise to all who would assist the
duke to recover his just rights from his unjust sovereign. The King
grew pale at this news, and instantly resolved to return to England on
the Monday following. But the Duke of Albemarle advised that unhappy
monarch, fatally for his interests, to remain in Ireland till his
whole navy could be gathered; and in the mean time[49] to send over
the Earl of Salisbury. That nobleman departed forthwith, (Richard
solemnly promising to put to sea in six days,) and landed at Conway,
"the strongest and fairest town in Wales."

[Footnote 49: M. Creton, the author of the Metrical
History, acceded to the earnest request of the Earl
of Salisbury to accompany him, for the sake of his
minstrelsy and song. From the day of his departure
from Dublin his knowledge of public affairs, as far
as they are immediately connected with Henry of
Monmouth, ceases almost, if not altogether. He must
no longer be followed implicitly; whatever he
relates of the intervening circumstances till
Richard himself came to Conway, he must have
derived from hearsay. In one circumstance too
afterwards he must have been mistaken, when he says
the Duke of Lancaster committed Richard at Chester
to the safe keeping of _the son of the Duke of
Gloucester_ and the son of the Earl of Arundel, at
least if Humfrey be the young man he means. Stow
and others follow him here, but, as it should seem,
unadvisedly.]

Either before the Earl of Salisbury's departure, or as is the more
probable, towards the last of those eighteen days through which (p. 046)
afterwards, to the ruin of his cause, Richard wasted his time (the
only time left him) in Ireland, he sent for Henry of Monmouth, and
upbraided him with his father's treason. Otterbourne minutely records
the conversation which is said then to have passed between them.
"Henry, my child," said the King, "see what your father has done to
me. He has actually invaded my land as an enemy, and, as if in regular
warfare, has taken captive and put to death my liege subjects without
mercy and pity. Indeed, child, for you individually I am very sorry,
because for this unhappy proceeding of your father you must perhaps be
deprived of your inheritance." 'To whom Henry, though a boy, replied
in no boyish manner,' "In truth, my gracious king and lord, I am
sincerely grieved by these tidings; and, as I conceive, you are fully
assured of my innocence in this proceeding of my father."--"I know,"
replied the King, "that the crime which your father has perpetrated
does not attach at all to you; and therefore I hold you excused of it
altogether."

Soon after this interview the unfortunate Richard set off from Dublin
to return to his kingdom, which was now passing rapidly into other
hands: but his two youthful captives, Henry of Monmouth, and Humfrey,
son of the late Duke of Gloucester, he caused to be shut up in the
safe keeping of the castle of Trym.[50] From that day, which must have
been somewhere about the 20th of August, till the following (p. 047)
October,[51] when he was created Prince of Wales in a full assembly of
the nobles and commons of England, we have no direct mention made of
Henry of Monmouth. That much of the intervening time was a season of
doubt and anxiety and distress to him, we have every reason to
believe. Though he had been previously detained as a hostage, yet he
had been treated with great kindness; and Richard, probably inspiring
him with feelings of confidence and attachment towards himself, had
led him to forget his father's enemy and oppressor in his own personal
benefactor and friend. Richard had now left him and his cousin (a
youth doubly related to him) as prisoners in a solitary castle far
from their friends, and in the custody of men at whose hands they
could not anticipate what treatment they might receive. How long they
remained in this state of close and, as they might well deem it,
perilous confinement, we do not learn. Probably the Duke of Lancaster,
on hearing of Richard's departure from Dublin, sent off immediately to
release the two captive youths; or at the latest, as soon as he had
the unhappy king within his power. On the one hand it may be (p. 048)
argued that had Henry of Monmouth joined his father before the
cavalcade reached London, so remarkable a circumstance would have been
noticed by the French author, who accompanied them the whole way. On
the other hand we learn from the Pell Rolls that a ship was sent from
Chester to conduct him to London, though the payment of a debt does
not fix the date at which it was incurred.[52] We may be assured no
time was lost by the Duke, by those whom he employed, or by his son;
at all events that Henry was restored to his father at Chester (a
circumstance which would be implied had Richard there been consigned
to the custody of young Humphrey), is not at all in evidence. The far
more reasonable inference from what is recorded is, that Humphrey, his
young fellow-prisoner and companion, and near relative and friend, was
snatched from him by sudden death at the very time when Providence
seemed to have opened to him a joyous return to liberty and to his
widowed mother. There is no reason to doubt that the news of Richard's
captivity, and the Duke of Lancaster's success, reached the two
friends whilst prisoners in Trym Castle; nor that they were both
released, and embarked together for England. Where they were when (p. 049)
the hand of death separated them is not certainly known. The general
tradition is, that poor Humphrey had no sooner left the Irish coast
than he was seized by a fever, or by the plague, which carried him off
before the ship could reach England. But whether he landed or not,
whether he had joined the Duke or not before the fatal malady attacked
him, there is no doubt that his death followed hard upon his release.
His mother, the widowed duchess of his murdered father, who had
moreover never been allowed the solace of her child's company, now
bereft of husband and son, could bear up against her affliction no
longer. On hearing of her desolate state, excessive grief overwhelmed
her; and she fell sick and died.[53]

[Footnote 50: The castle of Trym, though described
by Walsingham as a strong fort, was in so
dilapidated a state, that, in 1402, the council, in
taking the King's pleasure about its repairs,
represent it as on the point of falling into
ruins.]

[Footnote 51: M. Creton expressly states that Henry
IV. made Henry of Monmouth Prince of Wales on the
day of his election to the throne, the first
Wednesday in October; but in this he is not borne
out by authority.]

[Footnote 52: 1401, March 5, "To Henry Dryhurst of
West Chester, payment for the freightage of a ship
to Dublin: also for sailing to the same place and
back again, to conduct the lord the Prince, the
King's son, from Ireland to England; together with
the furniture of a chapel and ornaments of the
same, which belonged to King Richard."]

[Footnote 53: Her death took place on the 3rd
October 1399, four days after the accession of
Henry IV. On the 6th of the preceding May the Pell
Rolls record payment of the residue of 155_l._
11_s._ 8_d._ to Alianore de Bohun, Duchess of
Gloucester, for the maintenance of a master, twelve
chaplains, and eight clerks, appointed to perform
divine service in the College of Plecy.]

It is impossible to contemplate these two youthful relatives setting
out from the prison doors full of joy, and happy auguries, and mutual
congratulations, in health and spirits, panting for their dearest
friends,--one going to a princedom, and a throne, and a brilliant
career of victories, the other to disease and death,--without being
impressed with the wonderful acts of an inscrutable Providence, with
the ignorance and weakness of man, and with the resistless will (p. 050)
of the merciful Ruler of man's destinies. Even had young Humphrey
foreseen his dissolution, then so nigh at hand, as the gates of Trym
Castle opened for their release, he might well have addressed his
companion in words once used by the prince of Grecian philosophers at
the close of his defence before the court who condemned him. "And now
we are going, I indeed to death, you to life; to which of the two is
the better fate assigned is known only to God!"[54]

[Footnote 54: Socrates, in his Defence before his
Judges.]

Since this page was first written, the Author has been led to examine
the Pell Rolls;[55] and he is induced to confess that, independently
of the full confirmation afforded by those original documents to
numberless facts referred to in these Memoirs, many an interesting
train of thought is suggested by the inspection of them. The bare and
dry entries of one single roll at the period now under consideration,
bring with them to his mind associations of a truly affecting,
serious, and solemn character. The very last roll of Richard II. by
the merest details of expenditure records the payment of sums made by
that unhappy monarch to Bolinbroke, then in exile, expatriated by his
unjust and wanton decree; to Humphrey, the orphan son of the late (p. 051)
murdered Duke of Gloucester; to Henry of Monmouth his cousin, both
then in Richard's safe keeping; and to Eleanor, the widowed mother of
Humphrey, and maternal aunt of Henry. Can any event paint in deeper
and stronger colouring the vicissitudes and reverses of mortality,
"the changes and chances" of our life on earth? Before the scribe had
filled the next half-year's roll, (now lying with it side by side, and
speaking like a monitor from the grave to high and low, rich and poor,
prince and peasant alike,)--of those five persons, Richard had lost
both his crown and his life; Bolinbroke had mounted the throne from
which Richard had fallen; Henry of Monmouth had been created Prince of
Wales, and was hailed as heir apparent to that throne; his cousin
Humphrey, once the companion of his imprisonment, and the sharer of
his anticipations of good or ill, had been carried off from this world
by death at the very time of his release; and the broken-hearted
Eleanor, (the root and the branch of her happiness now gone for ever,)
unable to bear up against her sorrows, had sunk under their weight
into her grave![56]

[Footnote 55: May 2nd & 6th, 1399, payments are
recorded to both these boys of different sums to
purchase dresses, and coat-armour, &c. preparatory
to their voyage to Ireland in company with the
King.]

[Footnote 56: Perhaps the sentiments of this
afflicted noble lady's will may be little more than
words of course; but, coming from her as they did a
few days only before the news of her son's death
paralyzed her whole frame, they appear peculiarly
appropriate: "Observing and considering the
mischances and uncertainties of this changeable and
transitory world." The will bears date August 9,
1399.]

CHAPTER III. (p. 052)

PROCEEDINGS OF BOLINBROKE FROM HIS INTERVIEW WITH ARCHBISHOP ARUNDEL,
IN PARIS, TO HIS MAKING KING RICHARD HIS PRISONER. -- CONDUCT OF
RICHARD FROM THE NEWS OF BOLINBROKE'S LANDING. -- TREACHERY OF
NORTHUMBERLAND. -- RICHARD TAKEN BY BOLINBROKE TO LONDON.

1398-1399.

Whether Henry of Monmouth met his father and the cavalcade at Chester,
or joined them on their road to London, or followed them thither;
whether he witnessed on the way the humiliation and melancholy of his
friend, and the triumphant exaltation of his father, or not; every
step taken by either of those two chieftains through the eventful
weeks which intervened between King Richard making the youth a knight
in the wilds of Ireland, and King Henry creating him Prince of Wales
in the face of the nation at Westminster, bears immediately upon his
destinies. And the whole complicated tissue of circumstances then in
progress is so inseparably connected with him both individually and as
the future monarch of England, that a brief review of the proceedings
as well of the falling as of the rising antagonist seems (p. 053)
indispensable in this place.

* * * * *

Henry Bolinbroke (having now, by the death of John of Gaunt,[57]
succeeded to the dukedom of Lancaster,) found himself, during his
exile, far from being the only victim of Richard's rash despotism; nor
the only one determined to try, if necessary, and when occasion should
offer, by strength of hand to recover their lost country, together
with their property and their homes. Indeed, others proved to have (p. 054)
been far more forward in that bold measure than himself. Whilst he was
in Paris[58], he received by the hands of Arundel, Archbishop of
Canterbury, an invitation to return, and set up his standard in their
native land. Arundel,[59] himself one of Richard's victims, had been
banished two years before the Duke, by a sentence which confiscated[60]
all his property. He made his way, we are told, to Valenciennes in the
disguise of a pilgrim, and, proceeding to Paris, obtained an interview
with Henry; whom he found at first less sanguine perhaps, and less (p. 055)
ready for so desperate an undertaking, than he expected. The Duke for
some time remained, apparently, absorbed in deep thought, as he leaned
on a window overlooking a garden; and at length replied that he would
consult his friends. Their advice, seconding the appeal of the Archbishop,
prevailed upon Henry to prepare for the hazardous enterprise; in which
success might indeed be rewarded with the crown of England, over and
above the recovery of his own vast possessions, but in which defeat
must lead inevitably to ruin. He left Paris for Brittany; and sailing
from one of its ports with three ships, having in his company only
fifteen lances or knights, he made for the English coast.[61] About
the 4th of July he came to shore at the spot where of old time had (p. 056)
stood the decayed town of Ravenspur. Landing boldly though with such a
handful of men, he was soon joined by the Percies, and other powerful
leaders; and so eagerly did the people flock to him as their deliverer
from a headstrong reckless despot, that in a short time he numbered as
his followers sixty thousand men, who had staked their property, their
liberty, and their lives, on the same die. The most probable account
of his proceedings up to his return to Chester, immediately before the
unfortunate Richard fell into his hands, is the following, for which
we are chiefly indebted to the translator of the "Metrical
History."[62]

[Footnote 57: Froissart relates, in a very lively
manner, how the English nobility amused themselves
in devising the probable schemes by which
Bolinbroke might dispose of himself during his
exile. "He is young, said they, and he has already
travelled enough, in Prussia, and to the Holy
Sepulchre, and St. Katharine: he will now take
other journeys to cheat the time. Go where he will,
he will be at home; he has friends in every
country."

The same author tells us that forty thousand
persons accompanied him on his exile, not with
music and song, but with sighs and tears and
lamentations; and that on Gaunt's death the people
of England "spoke much and loudly of Derby's
return,--especially the Londoners, who loved him a
hundred times more than they did the King. The
Earl, he says, heard of the death of his father,
even before the King of France, though Richard had
posted off the event to that monarch as joyful
tidings. He put himself and his household in deep
mourning, and caused the funeral obsequies to be
solemnized with much grandeur. The King, the Duke
of Orleans, and very many nobles and prelates were
present at the solemnity, for the Earl was much
beloved by them all, and they deeply sympathized
with his grief, for he was an agreeable knight,
well-bred, courteous, and gentle to every one."]

[Footnote 58: Froissart gives also a very animated
description of the manner in which Bolinbroke was
received by the King of France on his first
arrival, and by the Dukes of Orleans, Brittany,
Burgundy, and Bourbon. The meeting, he says, was
joyous on both sides, and they entered Paris in
brilliant array: but Henry was nevertheless very
melancholy, being separated from his family,--four
sons and two daughters.

The author translated by Laboureur, states that
Richard no sooner heard of the welcome which
Bolinbroke met with in France than he sent over a
messenger, praying that court not to countenance
his traitors. He adds, that as soon as Lancaster
was dead, Richard regarded his written engagements
with no greater scruple than he had before observed
his promises by word of mouth.]

[Footnote 59: Leland says that the Archbishop
sojourned, during his exile, at Utrecht (Trajecti).
Froissart is certainly mistaken in relating that
the Londoners sent the Archbishop in a boat down
the Thames with a message to Bolinbroke. It is very
probable that they sent a messenger to the
Archbishop, and through him communicated with their
favourite.]

[Footnote 60: Officers were appointed, 16th October
1397, to seize all lands of Thomas Archbishop of
Canterbury, Thomas Duke of Gloucester, and other
lords.--Pell Rolls. Pat. 1 Hen. IV. m. 8, the
Archbishop's property is restored.]

[Footnote 61: Froissart, who seems to have obtained
very correct information of Bolinbroke's
proceedings up to the time of his embarking on the
French coast for England, but from that hour to
have been altogether misled as to his plans and
circumstances, relates that he left Paris under
colour of paying a visit to the Duke of Brittany;
that he went by the way of D'Estamps (one Guy de
Baigneux acting as his guide); that he stayed at
Blois eight days, where he received a most kind
answer in reply to his message to the Duke, who
gave him a cordial meeting at Nantes. The Duke
promised him a supply of vessels and men to protect
him in crossing the seas, and forwarded him with
all kind sympathy from one of his ports: "and,"
continues Froissart, "I have heard that it was
Vennes." It might have been, perhaps, during this
visit that Henry formed, or renewed, an
acquaintance with the Duchess, to whom, after the
Duke's death, in 1402, he made an offer of his
hand, and was accepted.]

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