of his indignation. At last, however, his death, from an unknown hand, decided the victory; and the fortune of Henry once more prevailed. On that bloody day, it is said that no less than two thousand three hundred gentlemen were slain, and about six thousand private men, of whom two thirds were of Hotspur's army.

While this furious transaction was going forward, Northumberland, who was lately recovered from his indisposition, was advancing with a body of troops to re-enforce the army of the malcontents, and take upon him the command. But hearing by the way of his son's misfortune, he dismissed his troops, not daring to take the field with so small a force, before an army superior in number, and flushed with recent victory. The earl for a while attempted to find safety in flight; but at last being pressed by his pursuers, and finding himself totally without resource, he chose rather to throw himself upon the king's mercy than lead a precarious and indigent life in exile. Upon his appearing before Henry, at York, he pretended that his sole intention in arming was to mediate between the two parties; and this, though a very weak apology, seemed to satisfy the king. Northumberland therefore received a pardon; Henry probably thinking that he was sufficiently punished by the loss of his army, and the death of his favourite son.

A. D.

But the extinction of one rebellion only seemed to give rise to another. The archbishop of York, who had been promoted during the late reign, entered into a confederacy with the earl of Nottingham, and the earl of Northumberland who had been 1405. so lately pardoned, to dethrone the king, and set young Mortimer in his place. Had the forces of these insurgents co-operated with those that were so lately overthrown, it is possible they might have overpowered any body of men which the king could bring into the field; but they began their operations just when their confederates were defeated. This powerful combination, however, took the field, and published a manifesto, in which they reproached Henry with usurpation, tyranny, and murder; they required that the right line should be restored, and all grievances redressed. The earl of Westmoreland, who had been sent against them with a very inferior force, demanded a conference, to which they readily consented. The chiefs, on each side, met at Skipton, in Yorkshire, and, in the presence of both armies entered upon the subject of their grievances and complaints. The archbishop loudly deplored the nation's injuries and his own; the earl of Westmoreland not only allowed the justice of his remonstrances, but requested him to propose the remedies. The archbishop entered upon many stipulations, and the earl granted them all. He now therefore entreated, that, since they had nothing more to ask or to fear, they would dismiss their forces, and trust to his honour for the rest. His specious promises and plausible manners led them to their ruin. The insurgents immediately disbanded their troops, while he gave private orders that his own army should not disperse till farther notice; and thus having disqualified them for defence, instantly seizing upon

the archbishop and the earl of Nottingham, he carried them to the king. The form of a trial was a very unnecessary ceremony to men whose fate was pre-determined; the archbishop of York was the first prelate who was capitally punished in England; the earl of Nottingham shared the same fate, and the earl of Northumberland found safety by flying into Scotland; but he was slain about three years after, in an incursion, by sir Thomas Rokeby, sheriff of Yorkshire.

Such advantages seemed to promise the country, long torn with factions, and threatened with invasions, some degree of repose; but a new calamity now began to appear, which, though small in the beginning, was attended, in the course of ages, with most dreadful effects. Since Wickliffe had published his opinions, in the last reign, his doctrines met with so many partisans, that the clergy began to tremble for their influence over the minds of the people. They therefore used all their interest to bring the king over to their party; who had more than once, in former times, declared himself in favour of the new doctrines. But at present, as he was conscious of the weakness of his title to the crown, he was resolved to make use of every support to confirm his pretensions; and, among others, that offered him by the clergy was by no means to be thought slightly of. He seemed to listen with great earnestness to their complaints; and took an occasion to direct his parliament to attend to the conservation of the church, which he asserted was then in danger. How reluctant soever the house of commons might be to prosecute a sect whose crime at any rate was but error, the credit of the court and the cabals of the clergy at last obtained an act for burning obstinate lreretics. This statute was no sooner passed than the clergy resolved to show that it was not hung up as an empty terror, but that it would be urged with all the force of which it was capable. William Sawtre, a follower of Wickliffe, and rector of St. Osithe's London, had been condemned by the convocation of Canterbury, and was soon after burned alive, by virtue of the king's writ delivered to the lord-mayor of London. This was the first man who suffered death in England for the sake of religion; but the fires once kindled were not likely to be soon extinguished, as the clergy had the power of continuing the flame. They easily perceived, that a power of burning their enemies would revive that share of temporal power which they had possessed some centuries before; and in this they were not mistaken. They thus renewed their pristine authority, but upon very different grounds; for, as in the Saxon times they fixed their power upon the affections, they now founded it upon the terrors, of the people.

By these means Henry seemed to surmount all his troubles; and the calm, which was thus produced, was employed by him in endeavours to acquire popularity, which he had lost by the severities exercised during the preceding part of his reign. For that reason, he often permitted the house of commons to assume powers which had not been usually exercised by their predecessors. In the sixth

year of his reign, when they voted him the supplies, they appointed treasurers of their own, to see the money disbursed for the purposes intended; and required them to deliver in their accounts to the house. They proposed thirty very important articles for the government of the king's household, and, on the whole, preserved their privileges and freedom more entire during his reign than in that of any of his predecessors. But while the king thus laboured, not without success, to retrieve the reputation he had lost, his son Henry, prince of Wales, seemed equally bent on incurring the public aversion. He became notorious for all kinds of debauchery; and ever chose to be surrounded by a set of wretches, who took pride in committing the most illegal acts, with the prince at their head. The king was not a little mortified at this degeneracy in his eldest son, who seemed entirely forgetful of his station, although he had already exhibited repeated proofs of his valour, conduct, and generosity. Such were the excesses into which he ran, that one of his dissolute companions having been brought to trial before sir William Gascoigne, chief-justice of the king's bench, for some misdemeanor, the prince was so exasperated at the issue of the trial, that he struck the judge in open court. The venerable magistrate, who knew the reverence that was due to his station, behaved with a dignity that became his office, and immediately ordered the prince to be committed to prison. When this transaction was reported to the king, who was an excellent judge of mankind, he could not help exclaiming in a transport, "Happy is the king that has a magistrate endowed with courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; still more happy, in having a son willing to submit to such a chastisement." This, in fact, is one of the first great instances we read in the English history, of a magistrate doing justice in opposition to power; since, upon many former occasions, we find the judges only ministers of royal caprice.

A. D.

Henry, whose health had for some time been declining, did not long outlive this transaction. He was subject to fits, which bereaved him, for the time, of his senses; and which, at last, brought on the near approach of death, at Westminster. As his constitution decayed, his fears of losing the crown redoubled even 1413. to a childish anxiety. He could not be persuaded to sleep, unless the royal diadem were laid upon his pillow. He resolved to take the cross, and fight the cause of the pilgrims to Jerusalem, and even imparted his designs to a great council, demanding their opinions relative to his intended journey: but his disorder increasing to a violent degree, he was obliged to lay aside his scheme, and to prepare for a journey of much greater importance. In this situation, as he was one day in a violent paroxysm, the prince of Wales took up the crown and carried it away; but the king soon after recovering his senses, and missing the crown, demanded what was become of it. Being informed that the prince of Wales had carried it off: "What!" said the king, "would he rob me of my right before my death ?" But the prince, just then entering the room, assured his

father that he had no such motives in what he had done, went and replaced the crown where he had found it, and, having received his father's blessing, dutifully retired. The king was taken with his last fit while he was at his devotions before the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey; and thence he was carried to the Jerusalem Chamber. When he had recovered from his swoon, perceiving himself in a strange place, he desired to know where he was, and if the apartment had any particular name: being informed that it was called the Jerusalem Chamber, he said, that he then perceived a prophecy was fulfilled, which declared that he should die in Jerusalem. Thus saying, and recommending his soul to his Maker, he soon after expired, in the forty-seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign.

If we consider this monarch on one side of his character, he will appear an object worthy of the highest applause; if on the other, of our warmest indignation. As a man, he was valiant, prudent, cool, and sagacious. These virtues adorned him in his private character; nor did his vices appear till ambition brought him within sight of a throne: it was then that he was discovered to be unjust, cruel, gloomy, and tyrannical; and though his reign contributed to the happiness of his subjects, yet it was entirely destructive of his own. He was twice married: by his first wife, Mary de Bohun, he had four sons-Henry, his successor; Thomas, duke of Clarence; John, duke of Bedford; Humphry, duke of Gloucester: and two daughters. By his second wife he had no issue.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HENRY V.

A. D. 1413-1422.

THE death of Henry IV. gave the people very little concern, as he had always governed them rather by their fears than their affections. But the rejoicings made for the succession of his son, notwithstanding his extravagancies, were manifest and sincere. In the very height and madness of the revel, he would often give instances of the noblest disposition; and, though he did not practise the virtues of temperance, he always showed that he esteemed them. But it was his courage which, in that martial age, chiefly won the people's affection and applause. Courage and superstition then made up the whole system of human duty; nor had the age any other idea of heroism, but what was the result of this combination.

The first steps taken by the young king confirmed all the prepossessions entertained in his favour. He called together his former companions, acquainted them with his intended reformation, exhorted them to follow his example, and thus dismissed them from his pre

sence, allowing them a competency to subsist upon, till he saw them worthy of higher promotion. The faithful ministers of his father, at first, indeed, began to tremble for their former justice in the administration of their duty; but he soon eased them of their fears, by taking them into his friendship and confidence. Sir William Gascoigne, who thought himself the most obnoxious, met with praise instead of reproaches, and was exhorted to persevere in the same rigorous and impartial execution of justice.

But Henry did not stop here; he showed himself willing to correct not only his own private errors but those of the former reign. He expressed the deepest sorrow for the fate of the unhappy Richard, and ordered his funeral obsequies to be performed with royal solemnity. He seemed ambitious to bury all party distinctions in oblivion: the good men only of each party were dear to him; and the bad vainly alleged their loyalty as an extenuation of their vices. The exhortations as well as the example of the prince gave encouragement to virtue; all parties were equally attached to so just a prince, and the defects of his title were forgotten amidst the lustre of his admirable qualities.

In this manner, the people seemed happy in their new king; but it is not in the power of man to raise himself entirely above the prejudices of the age in which he lives, or to correct those abuses which often employ the sagacity of whole centuries to discover. The vices of the clergy had drawn upon them the contempt and detestation of the people; but they were resolved to continue their ancient power, not by reforming themselves, but by persecuting those who opposed them. The heresy of Wickliffe, or Lollardism as it was called, began to spread every day more and more, while it received a new lustre from the protection and preaching of sir John Oldcastle, baron of Cobham, who had been one of the king's domestics, and stood high in his favour. His character, both for civil and military excellence, pointed him out to Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, as the proper victim of ecclesiastical vengeance; and he applied to the king for permission to indict lord Cobham, as a miscreant guilty of the most atrocious heresy. But the generous nature of the prince was averse to such sanguinary methods of conversion; and he resolved first to try what effects the arts of reason and persuasion would produce upon this bold leader of his sect. He accordingly desired a private conference with lord Cobham ; but he found that nobleman obstinate in his opinions, and determined rather to part with life than what he believed upon conviction. The king, finding him immoveable, gave him up to the fury of his enemies. Persecution ever propagates those errors which it aims at abolishing. The primate indicted lord Cobham; and, with the assistance of his suffragans, condemned him, as an heretic, to be burned alive. Cobham, however, escaping from the Tower before the day appointed for his execution, privately went among his party; and stimulating their zeal, led them up to London to take a signal revenge of his enemies. But the king, apprized of his intentions,