Shakespeare's Kings (46 page)

To
the
King's
enemies
-
and
to
many
of
his
friends
-
the
murder
of an
Archbishop
was
an
unspeakable
sin;
rumours
began
to
spread
of miracles
at
Scrope's
tomb,
and
it
was
natural
that
when
Henry's
health began
to
fail
not
long
afterwards
his
illness
should
be
ascribed
to
the vengeance
of
God.
On
the
other
hand
his
throne
was
safe
again;
on hearing
of
the
fate
of
his
allies,
Northumberland
had
given
up
his rebellion
and
fled
with
Bardolph
to
Scotland,
leaving
his
two
remaining castles,
Warkworth
and
Alnwick,
in
the
King's
hands.
But
Glendower continued
to
threaten:
the
French
fleet
had
finally
arrived
at
Milford Haven
in
early
August,
Carmarthen
was
quickly
captured,
and
by
the time
Henry
reached
Worcester
on
the
23
rd
French
and
Welsh
together were
little
more
than
ten
miles
away
to
the
west.
At
the
end
of
the month,
for
the
fifth
and
last
time,
the
King
invaded
Wales,
only
to
be attended
by
his
usual
ill
fortune.
Although
he
managed
to
relieve
the long-beleaguered
castle
of
Coyty
in
Glamorgan,
most
of
his
baggage train
was
swept
away
by
sudden
floods
and
much
of
the
rest
captured by
Glendower.
When
he
returned
to
London
in
early
December
he was
in
a
state
bordering
on
despair
—
and
conscious,
too,
that
he
was now
a
very
sick
man.

The
rest
of
the
story
of
the
reign
of
King
Henry
IV
can
be
quickly
told. His
illness
not
only
sapped
his
physical
strength,
but
seems
also
to
have demoralized
him.
Precisely
what
it
was
we
shall
never
know,
but what
little
evidence
we
have
points
to
some
form
of
heart
disease, accompanied
by
a
horrible
skin
complaint
which,
while
almost
certainly not
leprosy
as
several
chroniclers
maintain,
nevertheless
became
disfiguring
to
the
point
where
his
intimates
could
hardly
bear
to
look
at him.
His
customary
progresses
through
the
country
were
henceforth impossible:
by
Easter
1406
he
was
unable
to
ride
even
the
short
distance from
Eltham
to
Windsor,
and
was
obliged
to
travel
by
river.
He
fought no
more
campaigns
and
made
only
one
more
painful
journey
to
the north.
This
was
in
1408,
after
Northumberland,
Bardolph
and
their men
had
made
one
last
attempt
at
insurrection
and
had
been
soundly defeated
by
the
Sheriff
of
Yorkshire,
Sir
Thomas
Rokeby,
on
19 February
at
Bramham
Moor.
Northumberland
had
been
killed
in
the
Battle
;
Bardolph,
taken
prisoner,
had
died
of
his
wounds
that
same evening.
Somehow
Henry
dragged
himself
to
Yorkshire
where,
at
the palace
near
Selby
of
his
friend
and
supporter
the
Bishop
of
Durham, he
sentenced
some
of
the
rebels,
pardoned
others,
and
hanged
the Abbot
of
Halesowen
who
had
played
a
leading
part
in
the
rising.
He was
back
in
London
by
the
end
of
May,
never
again
—
apart
from
one short
visit
to
Leicester
and
one
to
Kenilworth
—
to
leave
the
home counties.

Meanwhile
more
and
more
of
the
day-to-day
business
of
government was
entrusted
to
Archbishop
Arundel,
now
Chancellor
of
the
Realm, and
-
insofar
as
his
responsibilities
in
Wales
allowed
-
to
the
King's eldest
son
who,
whatever
the
chroniclers
may
say,
by
this
time
had little
time
for
dissipation.
Now
twenty-one,
young
Henry
had
been campaigning
against
the
Welsh
since
the
age
of
thirteen;
for
the
past five
years
he
had
exercised
effective
command
and
gone
a
long
way towards
turning
the
tide.
On
St
George's
Day
1406,
having
finally brought
the
rebels
to
a
direct
encounter,
he
had
fought
a
victorious
Battle
in
which
one
of
Glendower's
sons
had
been
killed;
soon
afterwards he
had
surrounded
and
captured
a
considerable
number
of
the
French men-at-arms.
Even
when
he
was
in
London
his
visits
to
the
stews
were less
frequent
than
before.
Clearly
he
was
beginning
to
settle
down,
and was
already
showing
signs
of
being
as
gifted
in
the
arts
of
statesmanship as
he
was
in
those
of
war.

For
the
rest,
the
pattern
was
largely
unchanged.
The
King
was,
as always,
in
desperate
need
of
money;
in
the
summer
of
1406
he
had
had to
appeal
for
loans
before
he
could
find
the
£4,000
necessary
to
send his
daughter
Philippa
in
a
respectable
degree
of
state
to
her
betrothed King
Eric
of
Denmark,
who
had
already
agreed
to
take
her
without
a dowry.
He
was
consequently
obliged
to
make
every
concession
that
a harsh
and
unyielding
Parliament
might
demand.
In
that
same
year for
example,
at
the
Parliament's
insistence,
he
had
agreed
on
further expulsions
of
aliens,
including
the
two
daughters
of
Queen
Joan
herself and
some
forty
humbler
members
of
his
own
household
-
cooks,
valets and
grooms;
had
nominated
a
new
council,
whose
approval
would
be necessary
before
he
could
make
any
grants
of
lands
or
revenues;
and had
given
his
consent,
albeit
reluctantly,
to
the
auditing
of
the
accounts of
the
'treasurers
of
war'
appointed
at
Coventry
two
years
before.