Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 / Or, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, as Prince of Wales and King of England

CHAPTER V.

the welsh rebellion. — owyn glyndowr. — his former life. — dispute with lord grey of ruthyn. — that lord's letter to prince henry. — hotspur. — his testimony to henry's presence in wales, — to his mercy and his prowess. — henry's despatch to the privy council.

1400-1401.

Previously to the accession of Henry IV, Wales had enjoyed, for nearly seventy years, a season of comparative security and rest. During the desperate struggles in the reign of Henry III, in which its inhabitants, chiefly under their Prince Llewellin, fought so resolutely for their freedom, many districts of the Principality, especially the border-lands, had been rendered all but deserts. From this melancholy devastation they had scarcely recovered, when Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II, headed the rebel army against her own husband, who had taken refuge in Glamorganshire; and carried with her the most dreadful of all national scourges,—a sanguinary civil war. The whole country of South Wales, we are told, was so miserably ravaged by these intestine horrors, and the dearth consequent upon them was so excessive, that horses and dogs became at last the ordinary food of the miserable survivors. From the accession of Edward III, and throughout his long reign, Wales seems to have enjoyed undisturbed tranquillity and repose. Its oppressors were improving their fortunes, rapidly and largely, in France, reaping a far more abundant harvest in her rich domains than this impoverished land could have offered to their expectations. Through the whole reign also of Richard II, we hear of no serious calamity having befallen these ancient possessors of Britain. A friendly intercourse seems at that time to have been formed between the Principality and the kingdom at large; and a devoted attachment to the person of the King appears to have sprung up generally among the Welsh, and to have grown into maturity. We may thus consider the natives of Wales to have enjoyed a longer period of rest and peace than had fallen to their lot for centuries before, when the deposition of Richard, who had taken refuge among their strongholds, and in defence of whom they would have risked their property and their lives, prepared them to follow any chieftain who would head his countrymen against the present dynasty, and direct them in their struggle to throw off the English, or rather, perhaps, the Lancastrian yoke.

The French writer to whom we have so often referred, M. Creton, in describing the creation of Henry of Monmouth as Prince of Wales, employs these remarkable words: "Then arose Duke Henry. His eldest son, who humbly knelt before him, he made Prince of Wales, and gave him the land; but I think he must conquer it if he will have it: for in my opinion the Welsh would on no account allow him to be their lord, for the sorrow, evil, and disgrace which the English, together with his father, had brought upon King Richard." How correctly this foreigner had formed an estimate of the feelings and principles of the Welsh, will best appear from that portion of Henry's life on which we are now entering. His prediction was fully verified by the event. Henry of Monmouth was compelled to conquer Wales for himself; and in a struggle, too, which lasted through an entire third part of his eventful career.

In accounting for the origin of the civil war in Wales, historians generally dwell on the injustice and insults committed by Lord Grey of Ruthyn on Owyn Glyndowr, and the consequent determination of that resolute chief to take vengeance for the wrongs by which he had been goaded. Probably the far more correct view is to consider the Welsh at large as altogether ready for revolt, and the conduct of Lord Grey as having only instigated Owyn to put himself at their head; at all events to accept the office of leader, to which, as we are told, his countrymen[97] elected him. The train was already laid in the unshaken fidelity of the Welsh to their deposed monarch, whom they believed to be still alive[98] and in the deadly hatred against all who had assisted Henry of Lancaster in his act of usurpation; the spark was supplied by the resentment of a personal injury. His countrymen were ripe for rebellion, and Owyn was equally ready to direct their counsels, and to head them in the field of battle.

Owyn Glyndowr was no upstart adventurer. He was of an ancient family, or rather, we must say, of princely extraction, being descended from Llewellin ap Jorwarth Droyndon, Prince of Wales. We have reason to conclude that he succeeded to large hereditary property. The exact time of his birth is not known: most writers have placed it between 1349 and 1354; but it was probably later by five years than the latter of those two dates.[99] This extraordinary man, whose unwearied zeal and indomitable bravery, had they taken a different direction, would have merited, humanly speaking, a better fate, was invested by the superstitions of the times with a supernatural character. His vaunt to Hotspur is not so much the offspring of Shakspeare's imagination, as an echo to the popular opinions generally entertained of him:[100]

At my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous in the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
1 Henry IV. iii. 1.

Whether Owyn had persuaded himself to believe the fabulous stories told of his birth; or whether for purposes of policy he merely countenanced, in the midst of an ignorant and superstitious people, what others had invented and spread; there is no doubt that even in his lifetime he was supposed, not only within the borders of his father-land, but even through England itself, to have intercourse with the spirits of the invisible world, and through their agency to possess, among other vague and indefinite powers, a supernatural influence over the elements, and to have the winds and storms at his bidding. Absurd as were the fables told concerning him, they exercised great influence on his enemies as well as his friends; and few, perhaps, dreaded the powers of his spell more than the King himself. Still, independently of any aid from superstition, Glyndowr combined in his own person many qualities fitting him for the prominent station which he acquired, and which he so long maintained among his countrymen; and as the enemy of Henry IV. he was one of a very numerous and powerful body, formed from among the first persons of the whole realm. He received his education in London, and studied in one of the Inns of Court. He became afterwards an esquire of the body to King Richard; and he was one of the few faithful subjects who remained in his suite till he was taken prisoner in Flint Castle. After his master's fall he was for a short time esquire to the Earl of Arundel, whose castle, situated in the immediate neighbourhood of Glyndowrdy, was called Castel Dinas Bran. Its ruins, with the hill on the crown of which it was built, still form a most striking object near Llangollen, on the right of the magnificent road leading from Shrewsbury to Bangor.

A few months only had elapsed after the deposition of Richard when those occurrences took place which are said to have driven Glyndowr into open revolt. He was residing on his estate, which lay contiguous to the lands of Lord Grey of Ruthyn. That nobleman claimed and seized some part of Owyn's property. Against this act of oppression Owyn petitioned the Parliament, which sate early in 1400, praying for redress. The Bishop of St. Asaph is said to have cautioned the Parliament not to treat the Welshman with neglect, lest his countrymen should espouse his cause and have recourse to arms. This advice was disregarded, and Owyn's petition was dismissed in the most uncourteous manner.[101]

Another act of injustice and treachery on the part of Lord Grey drove Owyn to take the desperate step either of raising the standard of rebellion, or of joining his countrymen who had already raised it. Lord Grey withheld the letter of summons for the Welsh chief to attend the King in his expedition against Scotland, till it was too late for him to join the rendezvous. Owyn excused himself on the shortness of the notice; but Lord Grey reported him as disobedient. Aware that he had incurred the King's displeasure, and could expect no mercy, since his deadly foe had possession of the royal ear, Owyn put himself boldly at the head of his rebellious countrymen, who almost unanimously renounced their allegiance to the crown of England, and subsequently acknowledged Owyn as their sovereign lord.

The Monk of Evesham, and the MS. Chronicle which used to be regarded as the compilation of one of Henry V.'s chaplains, both preserved in the British Museum, speak of the Welsh as having first risen in arms, and as having afterwards elected Owyn for their chief. It is, however, remarkable that no mention is made of Owyn Glyndowr in the King's proclamations, or any public document till the spring of 1401. Probably at first the proceedings, in which he took afterwards so pre-eminent a part, resembled riotous outrages, breaking forth in entire defiance of the law, but conducted neither on any preconcerted plan, nor under the direction of any one leader.

Lord Grey's ancestors had received Ruthyn with a view to the protection of the frontier; and on the first indication of the rebellious spirit breaking out in acts of disorder and violence, both the King and the Prince wrote separately to Lord Grey, reminding him of his duty to disperse the rioters, and put down the insurgents. These mandates were despatched probably in the beginning of June 1400, some days before the King departed for the borders of Scotland. Lord Grey, in the letter[102] to which we have above referred, supposing that the King had already started on that expedition, returned an answer only to the Prince, acknowledging the receipt of his and his father's commands; but pleading the impossibility of executing them with effect, unless the Prince, with the advice of the King's council, would forward to him a commission with more ample powers, authorizing him to lay hands on the insurgents in whatever part of the country they might chance to be found; ordaining also that no lord's land should be respected as a sanctuary to shield them from the law; and that all the King's officers should be enjoined through the whole territory to aid and assist in quelling the insurrection.[103]

This nobleman had evidently taken a very alarming view of the state of the country; and the first documents which we inspect manifest the uncurbed fury and deadly hatred with which the Welsh rushed into this rebellion. Indeed, the general character of Owyn's campaigns breathes more "of savage warfare than of chivalry." Lord Grey's letter is dated June 23, and must have been written in the year 1400; for, long before the corresponding month in the following year had come round, the Prince had himself been personally engaged in the district which the Earl was more especially appointed to guard.

It does not appear what steps were taken in consequence of this communication of Lord Grey; except that the King, on the 19th of September, issued his first proclamation against the rebels. Probably on his return from Scotland, the King went himself immediately towards Wales; for the Monk of Evesham states expressly that he came from Worcester to Evesham on the 19th of October, and returned the next day for London. In the course, however, of a very few months at the latest, a commission to suppress the rebellion, and restore peace in the northern counties of the Principality, was entrusted to an individual whose character, and fortunes, and death, deeply involved as they are in an eventful period of the history of our native land, could not but have recommended the part he then took in Wales to our especial notice under any circumstances whatsoever; whilst his name excites in us feelings of tenfold greater interest when it offers itself in conjunction with the name of Henry of Monmouth.

Henry Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, known more familiarly as Hotspur,—a name which historians and poets have preferred as characteristic of his decision, and zeal, and the impetuosity of his disposition,—very shortly after Henry IV.'s accession had been appointed not only Warden of the East Marches of Scotland and Governor of Berwick, but also Chief Justice of North Wales and Chester, and Constable of the Castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, and Caernarvon. In this latter capacity, with the utmost promptitude and decision, Hotspur exerted himself to the very best of his power, at great personal labour and expense, to crush the rebellion in its infancy.[104]

The letters of this renowned and ill-fated nobleman, the originals of which are preserved among the records of the Privy Council, seem to have escaped the notice of our historians.[105] They throw, however, much light on the affairs of Wales and on Glyndowr's rebellion at this early stage, and to the Biographer of Henry of Monmouth are truly valuable. The first of these original papers, all of which are beautifully corroborative of Hotspur's character as we have received it, both from the notices of the historian and the delineations of the poet, is dated Denbigh, April 10, 1401. It is addressed to the King's council under feelings of annoyance that they could have deemed it necessary to admonish him to exert himself in putting down the insurgents, and restoring peace to the turbulent districts over which his commission gave him authority. His character, he presumes, ought to have been a pledge to them of his conduct. In this letter there is not a shade of anything but devoted loyalty.

The reference which Hotspur makes in this first letter to "those of the council of his most honoured and redoubted Prince being in these parts," is perhaps the very earliest intimation we have of Henry of Monmouth being himself personally engaged in suppressing the rebellion in his principality, with the exception, at least, of the inference to be fairly drawn from the acts of the Privy Council in the preceding month. The King at his house, "Coldharbour," (the same which he afterwards assigned to the Prince,) had assented to a proclamation against the Welsh on the 13th of March; and on the 21st of March the council had agreed to seal an instrument with the great seal, authorizing the Prince himself to discharge any constables of the castles who should neglect their duty, and not execute their office in person. It is, however, to the second letter of Hotspur, dated Caernarvon, May 3rd, 1401, that any one who takes a lively interest in ascertaining the real character of Henry of Monmouth will find his mind irresistibly drawn; he will meditate upon it again and again, and with increasing interest as he becomes more familiar with the circumstances under which it was written; and comparing it with the prejudices almost universally adopted without suspicion and without inquiry, will contemplate it with mingled feelings of surprise and satisfaction. The name of Harry Hotspur, when set side by side with the name of Harry of Monmouth, has been too long associated in the minds of all who delight in English literature, with feelings of unkindness and jealous rivalry. At the risk of anticipating what may hereafter be established more at large, we cannot introduce this document to the reader without saying that we hail the preservation of this one, among the very few letters of Percy now known to be in existence, with satisfaction and thankfulness. It is as though history were destined of set purpose to correct the fascinating misrepresentations of the poet, and to vindicate a character which has been too long misunderstood. In the fictions of our dramatic poet Hotspur is the very first to bear to Bolinbroke testimony of the reckless, dissolute habits of Henry of Monmouth.[106] Hotspur is the very first whom the truth of history declares to have given direct and voluntary evidence to the military talents of this same Prince, and the kindness of his heart,—to his prowess at once and his mercy; the combination of which two noble qualities characterizes his whole life, and of which, blended in delightful harmony, his campaigns in Wales supply this, by no means solitary, example. Hotspur informs the council that North Wales, where he was holding his sessions, was obedient to the law in all points, excepting the rebels in Conway, and in Rees Castle which was in the mountains. "And these," continues Percy, "will be well chastised, if it so please God, by the force and governance which my redoubted lord the Prince has sent against them, as well of his council as of his retinue, to besiege these rebels in the said castles; which siege, if it can be continued till the said rebels be taken, will bring great ease and profit to the governance of the same country in time to come." "Also," he proceeds, "the commons of the said country of North Wales, that is, the counties of Caernarvon and Merioneth, who have been before me at present, have humbly offered their thanks to my lord the Prince for the great exertions of his kindness and goodwill in procuring their pardon at the hands of our sovereign lord the King."[107] The pardon itself, dated Westminster, 10th of March 1401, bears testimony to these exertions of Prince Henry in behalf of the rebels: "Of our especial grace, and at the prayer of our dearest first-born son, Henry Prince of Wales, we have pardoned all treasons, rebellions, &c."[108] Henry of Monmouth, when one of the first noblemen and most renowned warriors of the age bears this testimony to his character for valour and for kind-heartedness, had not quite completed his fourteenth year.

This communication of Henry Percy, as remarkable as it is interesting, appears to fix to the year 1401 the date of the following, the very first letter known to exist from Henry of Monmouth. It is dated Shrewsbury, May 15, and is addressed to the Lords of the Council, whom he thanks for the kind attention paid by them to all his wants during his absence in Wales. The epistle breathes the spirit of a gallant young warrior full of promptitude and intrepidity.[109] It may be surmised, perhaps, that the letter was written by the Prince's secretary; and that the sentiments and turn of thought here exhibited may, after all, be no fair test of his own mind. But this is mere conjecture and assumption, requiring the testimony of facts to confirm it: and, against it, we must observe, that there is a simplicity, a raciness and an individuality of character pervading Henry's letters which seem to stamp them for his own. Especially do they stand out in broad contrast, when put side by side with the equally characteristic despatches of Hotspur.

Two days only after the date of this epistle, Hotspur despatched another letter from Denbigh, which seems to convey the first intimation of his dissatisfaction with the King's government; a feeling which rapidly grew stronger, and led probably to the subsequent outbreaking of his violence and rebellion. Hotspur presses upon the council the perilous state of the Welsh Marches, at the same time declaring that he could not endure the expense and labour then imposed upon him more than one month longer; within four days at furthest from the expiration of which time he must absolutely resign his command.

In less than ten days after this despatch of Percy, the King's proclamation mentions Owyn Glyndowr by name, as a rebel determined to invade and ravage England. The King, announcing his own intention to proceed the next day towards Worcester to crush the rebellion himself, commands the sheriffs of various counties to join him with their forces, wheresoever he might be. At this period the rebels entered upon the campaign with surprising vigour. Many simultaneous assaults appear to have been made against the English in different parts of the borders. On the 28th of May a proclamation declares Glyndowr to be in the Marches of Caermarthen; and, only ten days before (May 18th), a commission was issued to attack the Welsh, who were besieging William Beauchamp and his wife in the Castle of Abergavenny; whilst, at the same time, the people of Salop were excused a subsidy, in consideration of the vast losses they had sustained by the inroads of the Welsh.

CHAPTER VI.

glyndowr joined by welsh students of oxford. — takes lord grey prisoner. — hotspur's further despatches. — he quits wales. — reflections on the eventful life and premature death of isabella, richard's widow. — glyndowr disposed to come to terms. — the king's expeditions towards wales abortive. — marriage proposed between henry and katharine of norway. — the king marries joan of navarre.

1401.

When Owyn Glyndowr raised the standard of rebellion in his native land, and assuming to himself the name and state and powers of an independent sovereign, under the title of "Prince of Wales," declared war against Henry of Bolinbroke and his son, he was fully impressed with the formidable power of his antagonists, and with the fate that might await him should he fail in his attempt to rescue Wales from the yoke of England. Embarked in a most perilous enterprise, a cause of life or death, he vigorously entered on the task of securing every promising means of success. His countrymen, whom he now called his subjects, soon flocked to his standard from all quarters. Not only did those who were already in the Principality take up arms; but numbers also who had left their homes, and were resident in distant parts of the kingdom, returned forthwith as at the command of their prince and liege lord. The Welsh scholars,[111] who were pursuing their studies in the University of Oxford, were summoned by Owyn, and the names of some who obeyed the mandate are recorded. Owyn at the same time negociated for assistance from France, with what success we shall see hereafter; and sent also his emissaries to Scotland and "the distant isles." On those of his countrymen who espoused the cause of the King, and refused to join his standard, he afterwards poured the full fury of his vengeance; and in the uncurbed madness of his rage, forgetful of the future welfare of his native land, and of his own interests should he be established as its prince, unmindful also of the respect which even enemies pay to the sacred edifices of the common faith, he reduced to ashes not only the houses of his opponents, but Episcopal palaces, monasteries, and cathedrals within the Principality.

Owyn Glyndowr was in a short time so well supported by an army, undisciplined no doubt, and in all respects ill appointed, but yet devoted to him and their common cause, that he was emboldened to try his strength with Lord Grey in the field. A battle, fought (as it should seem) in the very neighbourhood of Glyndowrdy,[112] terminated in favour of Owyn, who took the Earl prisoner, and carried him into the fastnesses of Snowdon. The precise date of this conflict is not known; probably it was at the opening of spring: the circumstances also of his capture are very differently represented. It is generally asserted that a marriage with one of Owyn's daughters was the condition of regaining his liberty proposed to the Earl; that the marriage was solemnized; and that Owyn then, instead of keeping his word and releasing him, demanded of him a most exorbitant ransom. It is, moreover, affirmed, that the Earl remained Glyndowr's prisoner to the day of his death. Now, that Lord Grey fell into the Welsh chieftain's hands as a prisoner, is beyond question; so it is that he paid a heavy ransom: but that he died in confinement is certainly not true, for he accompanied Henry V. to France, and also served him by sea. The report of his marriage with Owyn's daughter, might have originated in some confusion of Lord Grey with Sir Edmund Mortimer; who unquestionably did take one of the Welsh chieftain's daughters for his wife.[113] It is scarcely probable that both Owyn's prisoners should have married his daughters; and still less probable that he should have exacted so large a ransom from his son-in-law as to exhaust his means, and prevent him from acting as a baron of the realm was then expected to act. Dugdale's Baronage gives the Earl two wives, without naming the daughter of Glyndowr. Hardyng, in his Chronicle presented to Henry VI, thus describes the affair:

Soone after was the same Lord Gray in feelde
Fightyng taken, and holden prisoner
By Owayne, so that hym in prison helde
Till his ransom was made, and fynaunce clear,
Ten thousand marks, and fully payed were;
For whiche he was so poor then all his life,
That no power he had to war, nor stryfe.

Another letter from Henry Percy to the council, dated June 4, 1401, is very interesting in several points of view. It proves that the negociations "carried in and out," mentioned in a letter written by the chamberlain of Caernarvon to the King's council, had been successful, and that the Scots had sent aid to the Welsh chieftain: it proves also that Hotspur himself was at this time (though bitterly dissatisfied) carrying on the war for the King in the very heart of Wales, and amidst its mountain-recesses and strongholds; and that Owyn was at that time assailed on all sides by the English forces, a circumstance which might probably have led to his "good intention to return to his allegiance," at the close of the present year. Henry Percy declares to the council that he can support the expenses of the campaign no longer. He informs them of an engagement in which, assisted by Sir Hugh Browe and the Earl of Arundel, the only Lords Marchers who had joined him in the expedition, he had a few days before routed the Welsh at Cader Idris. News, he adds, had just reached him of a victory gained by Lord Powis[114] over Owyn; also that an English vessel had been retaken from the Scots, and a Scotch vessel of war had been captured at Milford. Another letter, dated 3rd July, (probably the same year, 1401,) reiterates his complaints of non-payment of his forces, and of the government having underrated his services; it expresses his hope also that, since he had written to the King himself with a statement of his destitute condition, should any evil happen to castle, town, or march, the blame would not be cast on him, whose means were so utterly crippled, but would fall on the heads of those who refused the supplies. Henry IV. had certainly not neglected this rebellion in Wales, though evidently the measures adopted against the insurgents were not so vigorous at the commencement as the urgency of the case required. His exchequer was exhausted, and he had other business in hand to drain off the supplies as fast as they could possibly be collected. He was, therefore, contented for the present to keep the rebels in check, without attempting to crush them by pouring in an overwhelming force from different points at once.

Towards the middle of this summer, the King marched in person to Worcester. He had directed the sheriffs to forward their contingents thither; but, when he arrived at that city, he changed his purpose and soon returned to London. Among the considerations which led to this change in his plans, we may probably reckon the following. In the first place, he found his son the Prince, Lord Powis, and Henry Percy, in vigorous operation against the rebels; his arrival at Worcester having been only three or four days after the date of Percy's last letter. In the next place, the council had urged him not to go in person against the rebels: besides, almost all the inhabitants of North Wales had returned to their allegiance, and had been pardoned. He was, moreover, naturally anxious to summon a parliament, with a view of replenishing his exhausted treasury, and enabling himself to enter upon the campaign with means more calculated to insure success.

In a letter to his council, dated Worcester, 8th June 1401, the King refers to two points of advice suggested by them. "Inasmuch as you have advised us," he says, "to write to our much beloved son, the Prince, and to others, who may have in their possession any jewels which ought to be delivered with our cousin the Queen, (Isabella,) know ye, that we will send to our said son, that, if he has any of such jewels, he will send them with all possible speed to you at our city of London, where, if God will, we intend to be in our own person before the Queen's departure; and we will cause to be delivered to her there the rest of the said jewels, which we and others our children have in our keeping." In answer to their advice that he would not go in person against the rebels, because they were not in sufficient strength, and of too little reputation to warrant that step, he said that he found they had risen in great numbers, and called for his personal exertions. He forwarded to them at the same time a copy of the letter which he had just received from Owyn himself. Not from this correspondence only, but from other undisputed documents, and from the loud complaints of French writers,[115] we are compelled to infer something extremely unsatisfactory in the conduct of Henry IV. with regard to the valuable paraphernalia of Isabella, the maiden-widow of Richard. To avoid restoring these treasures, which fell into his hands on the capture of that unfortunate monarch, Henry proposed, in November 1399, a marriage between one of his sons and one of the daughters of the French monarch. In January 1400 a truce was signed between the two kingdoms, and the same negociators (the Bishop of Durham and the Earl of Worcester) were directed to treat with the French ambassadors on the terms of the restitution of Isabella; and so far did they immediately proceed, that horses were ordered for her journey to Dover. But legal doubts as to her dower (she not being twelve years of age) postponed her departure till the next year. She had arrived at Boulogne certainly on the 1st of August 1401; and was afterwards delivered up to her friends by the Earl of Worcester, with the solemn assurance of her spotless purity.

It is impossible to glance at this lady's brief and melancholy career without feelings of painful interest:—espoused when yet a child to the reigning monarch of England; whilst yet a child, crowned Queen of England; whilst yet a child, become a virgin-widow; when she was not yet seventeen years old, married again to Charles, Earl of Angouleme; and three years afterwards, before she reached the twentieth anniversary of her birthday, dying in childbed.[116]

By the above letter of the King, which led to this digression, we are informed that the Prince was neither with his father, nor in London; for the King promised to write to him to send the jewels to London. He was probably at that time on the borders of North Wales; or engaged in reducing the Castles of Conway and Rhees, and in bringing that district into subjection. Indeed, that the Prince was still personally exerting himself in suppressing the Welsh towards the north of the Principality, seems to be put beyond all question by the records of the Privy Council, which state that "certain members of the Prince's council brought with them to the King's council the indenture between the said Prince and Henry Percy the son (Chief Justice) on one part, and those who seized the Castle[117] of Conway on the other part, made at the time of the restitution of the same castle." [118]

Owyn appears to have left his own country, in which the spirit of rebellion had received a considerable though temporary check; and to have been at this period exciting and heading the rebels in South Wales, especially about Caermarthen and Gower.

Hotspur himself left Wales probably about the July or August of this year, 1401; for on the 1st of September he was appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Scots for peace; and he was present at the solemn espousals which were celebrated by proxy at Eltham, April 3, 1402, between Henry IV. and Joan of Navarre. We must, therefore, refer to a subsequent date the information quoted by Sir Henry Ellis from an original paper in the British Museum, "that Jankin Tyby of the north countri bringthe lettres owte of the northe country to Owein, as thei demed from Henr. son Percy." Soon after the departure of Percy, a proclamation, dated 18th September 1401, notifies the rapid progress of disaffection and rebellion among the Welsh: whether it was secretly encouraged by him at this early date, or not, is matter only of conjecture. His growing discontent, visibly shown in his own letters, this vague rumour that Jankin Tyby might be the confidential messenger for his treasonable purposes, and his subsequent conduct, combine to render the suspicion by no means improbable. The proclamation states that a great part of the inhabitants of Wales had gone over to Owyn, and commands all ablebodied men to meet the King at Worcester on the 1st, or, at the furthest, the 2nd of October. Perhaps this, like his former visit to Worcester, was little more than a demonstration of his force.[119] Historians generally say that he made the first of his expeditions into Wales in the July of the following year; the Minutes of Council prove at all events that he was there in the present autumn, but how long or with what results does not appear. The council met in November 1401, to deliberate, among other subjects, upon the affairs of Wales, "from which country (as the Minute expressly states) our sovereign lord the King hath but lately returned,[120] having appointed the Earl of Worcester to be Lieutenant of South Wales, and Captain of Cardigan."[121]

The record of this council is remarkably interesting on more than one point. It throws great light on the state of Owyn's mind, and his attachment to the Percies; on the confidence still reposed by the King's government in Percy, and on the condition of Prince Henry himself. The several chastisements which Owyn and his party had received from the Prince, from Percy, from Lord Powis and others, had perhaps at this time made him very doubtful of the issue of the struggle, and inclined him to negociate for his own pardon, and the peace of the country. The Minute of Council says, "To know the King's will about treating with Glyndowr to return to his allegiance, seeing his good intention at present thereto." His readiness to treat is accompanied, as we find in the same record, with a declaration that he was not himself the cause of the destruction going on in his native land, nor of the daily captures, and the murders there; and that he would most gladly return to peace. As to his inheritance, he protests that he had only received a part, and not his own full right. And even now he would willingly come to the borders, and speak and treat with any lords, provided the commons would not raise a rumour and clamour that he was purposed to destroy "all who spoke the English language." He seems to have been apprehensive, should he venture to approach the marches to negociate a peace, that the violence and rage of the people at large would endanger his personal safety. No wonder, for his footsteps were to be traced everywhere by the blood of men, and the ashes of their habitations and sacred edifices. At the same time, he expressed his earnest desire to carry on the treaty of peace through the Earl of Northumberland, for whom he professes to entertain great regard and esteem, in preference to any other English nobleman.

Whether any steps were taken in consequence of this present opening for peace, or not, we are not told. But we have reason to suppose that Wales was in comparative tranquillity through the following winter[122] and spring. The rebel chief, however, again very shortly carried the sword and flame with increased horrors through his devoted native land. We read of no battle or skirmish till the campaign of the next year.

The questions relating to Prince Henry, which were submitted to this council, inform us incidentally of the important fact, that though he was now intrusted with the command of the forces against the Welsh, and was assisted in his office (just as was the King) by a council, yet it was deemed right to appoint him an especial governor, or tutor (maistre). He was now in his fifteenth year. These Minutes also make it evident that the soldiers employed in his service looked for their pay to him, and not to the King's exchequer. We shall have frequent occasion to observe the great personal inconveniences to which this practice subjected the Prince, and how injurious it was to the service generally. But the evil was unavoidable; for at that time the royal exchequer was quite drained.

"As to the article touching the governance of the Prince, as well for him to have a tutor or guardian, as to provide money for the support of his vast expenses in the garrisons of his castles in Wales, and the wages of his men-at-arms and archers, whom he keeps from day to day for resisting the malice of the rebels of the King, it appears to the council, if it please the King, that the Isle of Anglesey ought to be restored to the prince, and that Henry Percy[123] should agree, and have compensation from the issues of the lands which belonged to the Earl of March; and that all other possessions which ought to belong to the Prince should be restored, and an amicable arrangement be made with those in whose hands they are. And as for a governor for the Prince, may it please the King to choose one of these,—the Earl of Worcester, Lord Lovel, Mr. Thomas Erpyngham, or the Lord Say; and, for the Prince's expenses, that 1000l. be assigned from the rents of the Earl of March, which were due about last Michaelmas." We have reason to believe that the Earl of Worcester, Thomas Percy, was appointed Henry of Monmouth's tutor and preceptor. He remained in attendance upon him till, with the guilt of aggravated treachery, he abruptly left his prince and pupil to join his nephew Hotspur before the battle of Shrewsbury.

We are not informed how long Prince Henry remained at this period in Wales, after Percy had left it. Probably (as it has been already intimated) there was an armistice virtually, though not by any formal agreement, through that winter and the spring of 1402. The next undoubted information as to the Prince fixes him in London in the beginning of the following May, when being in the Tower, in the presence of his father, and with his consent, he declares himself willing to contract a marriage with Katharine, sister of Eric, King of Norway;[124] and on the 26th of the same month, being then in his castle of Tutbury, in the diocese of Lincoln, he confirms this contract, and authorises the notary public to affix his seal to the agreement. The pages of authentic history remind us, that too many marriage-contracts in every rank of life, and in every age of the world, have been the result, not of mutual affection between the affianced bride and bridegroom, but of pecuniary and political considerations. Perhaps when kings negociate and princes approve, their exalted station renders the transaction more notorious, and the stipulated conditions may be more unreservedly confessed. But it may well be doubted whether the same motives do not equally operate in every grade of life; whilst those objects which should be primary and indispensable, are regarded as secondary and contingent. Happiness springing from mutual affection, may doubtless grow and ripen, despite of such arrangements, in the families of the noble, the wealthy, the middle classes, and the poor; but the chances are manifold more, that coldness, and dissatisfaction, and mutual carelessness of each other's comforts will be the permanent result. We must however bear in mind, when estimating the moral worth of an individual, that negociations of this kind in the palaces of kings imply nothing of that cold-heartedness by which many are led into connexions from which their affections revolt. The individual's character seems altogether protected from reprobation by the usage of the world, and the necessity of the case. State-considerations impose on princes restraints, compelling them to acquiesce in measures which excite in us other feelings than indignation or contempt. We regret the circumstance, but we do not condemn the parties. Henry IV. of England, and Eric of Norway, fancied they saw political advantages likely to arise from the nuptials of Henry's son with Eric's sister; and the document we have just quoted tells us that the boy Henry, then not fifteen, and still under tutors and governors, gave his consent to the proposed alliance.

The more rare however the occurrence, the more general is the admiration with which an union in the palaces of monarchy is contemplated when mutual respect and attachment precede the marriage, and conjugal love and domestic happiness attend it. And here we are irresistibly tempted to contemplate with satisfaction and delight the unsuccessful issue of this negociation, whilst Henry was yet a boy; and to anticipate what must be repeated in its place, that, to whatever combination of circumstances, and course of events and state-considerations, the marriage of Henry of Monmouth with Katharine of France may possibly be referred, he proved himself to have formed for her a most sincere and heartfelt attachment before their union; and, whenever his duty did not separate them, to have lived with her in the possession of great conjugal felicity. Even the dry details of the Exchequer issues bear most gratifying, though curious, testimony to their domestic habits, and their enjoyment of each other's society.

Whilst the King was thus negociating a marriage for his son, he was himself engaged by solemn espousals to marry, as his second wife, Joan of Navarre, Duchess of Brittany. As well in the most exalted, as in the most humble family in the realm, such an event as this can never take place without involving consequences of deepest moment and most lively interest to all parties,—to the husband, to his wife, and to their respective children. If he has been happy in his choice, a man cannot provide a more substantial blessing for his offspring than by joining himself by the most sacred of all ties to a woman who will cheerfully and lovingly perform the part of a conscientious and affectionate mother towards them. If the choice is unhappy; if there be a want of sound religious and moral principle, a neglect, or carelessness and impatience in the discharge of domestic duties; if a discontented, suspicious, cold, and unkind spirit accompany the new bride, domestic comfort must take flight, and all the proverbial evils of such a state must be realized. The marriage of Henry of Monmouth's father with Joan of Navarre does not enable us to view the bright side of this alternative. Of the new Queen we hear little for many years;[125] but, at the end of those years of comparative silence, we find Henry V. compelled to remove from his mother-in-law all her attendants, and to commit her to the custody of Lord John Pelham in the castle of Pevensey. [126] She was charged with having entertained malicious and treasonable designs against the life of the King, her son-in-law. The Chronicle of London, (1419,) throwing[127] an air of mystery and superstition over the whole affair, asserts that Queen Joanna excited her confessor, one friar Randolf,[128] a master in divinity, to destroy the King; "but, as God would, his falseness was at last espied:" "wherefore," as the Chronicle adds, "the Queen forfeited her lands."[129] Of this marriage of Henry IV. with Joan of Navarre very little notice beyond the bare fact has been taken by our English historians. Many particulars, however, are found in the histories of Brittany. It appears that the Duchess, who was the widow of Philip de Mont Forte, Duke of Brittany, by whom she had sons and daughters, was solemnly contracted to Henry by her proxy, Anthony Rys, at Eltham, on the 3rd of April 1402, in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur, the Earl of Worcester, Thomas Langley, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and others. Having appointed guardians for her son, the young Duke of Brittany, she left Nantes on the 26th December, embarked on board one of the ships sent by Henry, at Camaret, on the 13th January, and sailed the next day, intending to land at Southampton. After a stormy passage of five days, the squadron was forced into a port in Cornwall. She was married on the 7th, and was crowned at Westminster on the 25th, of February following.[130] By Henry she had no child.