Shakespeare's Kings (49 page)

was
more,
he
had
not
only
the
Beauforts
but
virtually
the
whole
of Parliament
on
his
side.
Relations
between
himself
and
his
father
grew worse
than
ever.

But
did
all
the
blame
for
this
increasing
estrangement
lie
with
the King?
Not,
perhaps,
entirely.
If
Bishop
Beaufort
had
indeed
suggested abdication
-
which,
fourteen
years
later,
he
hotly
denied
-
had
the Prince
of
Wales
been
behind
the
suggestion?
During
his
long
absence
in the
midlands
the
Prince
had
taken
the
opportunity
to
raise
a
considerable armed
force,
which
accompanied
him
when
he
returned
to
London
in June
1412;
and
though
he
made
no
threats
-
and
was
indeed
vociferous in
his
denials
of
the
several
accusations
of
conspiracy
that
had
been made
against
him
-
his
protestations
that
this
force
was
intended to
supplement
Clarence's
campaign
against
the
Armagnacs
deceived nobody.
His
followers
were
still
with
him
when
on
25
September
he arrived
at
Westminster
to
defend
himself
against
a
charge
of
peculation at
Calais
-
from
which,
in
due
course,
he
was
completely
exonerated. It
was,
incidentally,
on
this
occasion
that
he
is
said
to
have
forced
his way
into
his
father's
presence
in
that
extraordinary
costume
described by
Holinshed,
¹
for
a
moving
scene
of
reconciliation
and
forgiveness.

In
the
autumn
the
King's
health
declined
fast.
As
late
as
November
he was
still
talking
about
the
Crusade
that
he
had
so
long
contemplated, but
by
now
his
words
carried
little
conviction;
in
early
December came
another
period
of
unconsciousness,
and
although
he
recovered sufficie
ntly
to
celebrate
Christmas
as
usual
at
Eltham
there
could
no longer
be
any
doubt
that
the
end
was
near.
Soon
afterwards
he
fell
into an
intermittent
coma,
and
the
Parliament
that
had
been
summoned
for the
following
February
came
to
nothing.
In
mid-March
he
asked
to
be taken
to
Westminster
Abbey,
to
pray
before
the
shrine
of
his
saintly predecessor
King
Edward
the
Confessor;
and
it
was
there
that
he
suffered the
sudden
seizure
that
was
to
kill
him.
He
was
carried
to
the
Abbot's private
drawing-room,
known
-
from
the
inscription
round
the
fireplace -
as
the
Jerusalem
Chamber.
Holinshed
relates
that
on
regaining
consciousness
he
inquired
where
he
was;
when
he
was
told,
he
murmured: 'Now
I
know
that
I
shall
die
here
in
this
chamber,
according
to
the prophecy
of
me
declared,
that
I
should
depart
this
life
in
Jerusalem.'

He
lingered
a
little
longer,
finally
dying
on
Monday
20
March
1413,
a fortnight
before
his
forty-sixth
birthday.

His
embalmed
body
lay
in
state
at
Westminster;
then
it
was
taken slowly
down
the
river
to
Gravesend
and
thence
by
road
to
Canterbury for
burial,
as
he
himself
had
commanded,
in
the
cathedral.
There,
in the
Trinity
Chapel
where
once
stood
the
shrine
of
St
Thomas
a
Becket, near
the
tomb
of
his
uncle
the
Black
Prince,
Queen
Joan
built
for
her husband
one
of
the
most
elaborate
alabaster
monuments
ever
created, a
massive
sarcophagus
in
which,
just
twenty-four
years
later,
her
body was
to
join
his.
Upon
it,
under
canopied
niches,
He
their
two
recumbent
effigies.
Henry's
at
least,
his
head
lying
on
a
pillow
smoothed by
solicitous
angels,
is
clearly
a
portrait.
We
see
a
heavy
face,
bloated by
disease,
with
drooping
moustaches
and
a
short,
forked
beard.
There is
little
enough
evidence
of
the
outstanding
physical
beauty
on
which he
had
prided
himself
in
his
youth;
he
looks
nearer
sixty
than
forty-five. In
1832
the
tomb
was
opened
and
the
face
revealed.
The
beard,
thick and
surprisingly
red,
was
still
evident.
The
features
at
first
glance
showed less
signs
of
the
'leprosy'
which,
according
to
the
chroniclers,
ravaged them
during
his
last
years;
but,
on
being
exposed
to
the
air,
the
flesh almost
immediately
fell
away
into
dust.
¹

To
his
family
and
friends,
as
well
as
to
himself,
the
reign
of
Henry IV
can
only
have
been
one
long
anticlimax.
The
vaillant chevalier, aigre et subtil contre ses ennemis,
who
had
carried
all
before
him
in
1399, winning
a
kingdom
without
the
loosing
of
a
single
arrow
and
establishing a
new
dynasty
on
the
throne
of
England,
had
declined
in
just
fourteen years
into
a
hopeless,
hideously
disfigured
invalid.
At
the
time
of
his accession
the
richest
man
in
England,
he
had
almost
immediately
found himself
in
the
desperate
financial
difficulties
which
had
continued throughout
his
reign,
throwing
him
on
the
mercy
of
a
hostile
and parsimonious
parliament
on
which,
thanks
to
the
circumstances
of
his accession,
he
was
never
able
to
impose
his
authority.
The
ultimate
irony