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HENRY III. HENRY IV. 



p.oiir ^niimur, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and 

 thirty-fifth of his reign. Henry II. ranks among the 

 greatest kings of England, not only in extent of 

 dominion, but in all the qualities which give lustre 

 to authority, being equally fitted for public life and 

 for cultivated leisure. 1 le was manly in person, gifted 

 with ready elocution, and possessed warm affections. 

 His wisdom and love of justice were acknowledged 

 by foreign potentates, who made him arbiter of their 

 differences, and regarded him as the first prince of 

 the age. 



HENRY III., king of England, surnamed offVin- 

 thestcr, son of John, was born in 1207, and succeeded 

 his father, 1216. At the time of his accession, the 

 country was in a state of lamentable distraction. The 

 dauphin of b ranee, Louis, at the head of a foreign 

 army, supported by a faction of English nobles dis- 

 gusted with the conduct and tyranny of John, had 

 assumed the reins of government, but, being justly 

 suspected of arbitrary intentions, was become odious 

 to the body of the people. The cause of the young 

 king, then only nine years of age, was espoused by 

 the earl of Pembroke, whose prudent government, as 

 regent, in a short tune compelled Louis to sue for 

 peace, and quit the country. As Henry approached 

 to manhood, he displayed a character wholly unfit 

 for his station. One of his first false steps was to 

 discard his most faithful and able minister Hubert de 

 Burgh, and give his entire confidence to rapacious 

 and unprincipled foreigners, an evil which was fur- 

 ther augmented by his marriage, in 1236, with Ele- 

 anor of Provence. Many grievances were the con- 

 sequence ; and his foolish acceptance of the crown 

 of Sicily, offered him by the pope, involved him in 

 vast debts, which parliament refused to discharge. 

 In his necessity, he had recourse to exactions, which 

 increased the national discontent, and, finally, gave 

 an opportunity to his brother-in-law, the ambitious 

 Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, to make a tctal 

 change in the constitution, and deprive him of royal 

 authority. In 1258, conspiring with the principal 

 barons, that earl appeared with them in arms at a 

 parliament holden at Oxford, and obliged the king 

 to sign a body of resolutions, which threw all the 

 legislative and executive power into the hands of an 

 aristocracy of twenty-four barons, assisted by a lower 

 house, consisting of four knights, chosen from each 

 county. The aristocracy, as usual, soon displayed a 

 spirit which united both king and people against 

 them, and the former was absolved by the pope from 

 his oath to observe the provisions of Oxford By 

 the aid of his able and spirited son Edward, Henry 

 was gradually restored to authority ; on which Lei- 

 cester, calling in Llewellyn, prince of Wales, involved 

 the kingdom in a civil war. The power of the barons 

 was by this means partially restored, but great divi- 

 sions prevailing, both parties agreed to abide by the 

 award of Louis IX., king of France. The award of 

 this monarch, given in 1264, being favourable to the 

 king, Leicester and the confederate barons refused 

 to submit to it ; and a battle was fought near Lewes, 

 in which Henry and his brother Richard, king of the 

 Romans, were taken prisoners, and the person of 

 prince Edward also ultimately secured. A conven- 

 tion ensued, called the Mise of Lewes, which provided 

 for the future settlement of the kingdom ; but, in the 

 mean time, Leicester ruled without control. To 

 him, however, was owing the first example of a 

 genuine house of commons in England ; for, in a 

 parliament summoned by him, in 1265, deputies from 

 boroughs were sent, as well as knights of shires. 

 Prince Edward at length escaped, and, assembling an 

 army, defeated Leicester's son. The decisive battle 

 of Evesham quickly followed, in which Leicester him- 

 self was slain ; and the king, then in the hands of 



the rebels, being placed in the, front of the battle, 

 narrowly escaped with his life. Replaced upon the 

 throne, he remained as insignificant as ever ; and the 

 departure of his son for the Holy Land was the signal 

 for new commotions, which were, however, termina- 

 ted by his death, in 1272, in the sixty-fourth year of 

 his age and the fifty-sixth of his reign. 



HENRY IV., king of England, surnamed of 

 Bolingbroke, the first king of the house of Lancaster, 

 was born in 1367, being the eldest son of John of 

 Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III . , 

 by the heiress of Edmund, earl of Lancaster, second 

 son of Henry III. In the reign of Richard II., he 

 was made earl of Derby and duke of Hereford, and, 

 while bearing the latter title, appeared in the parlia- 

 ment of 1398, and preferred an accusation of treason 

 against Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. The latter 

 denied the charge, and offered to prove his innocence 

 by single combat, which challenge being accepted, 

 the king appointed the lists at Coventry ; but, on the 

 appearance of the two champions, at the appointed 

 time and place, Richard would not suffer them to 

 proceed. Both were banished the kingdom, Norfolk 

 for life, and Hereford for ten years, shortened 

 favour to four, with the further privilege of imme 

 ately entering upon any inheritance which migh 

 accrue to him. On the death of John of Gaunt, in 



1399, he succeeded to the dukedom of Lancaster, and 

 laid claim, according to agreement, to the great 

 estates attached to it ; but the fickle and imprudent 

 Richard recalled his letters patent, and retained pos- 

 session of the estates ; soon after which, he departed 

 for Ireland. The duke, disregarding the unfinished 

 term of his exile, embarked, in July, 1399, at Nantes ; 

 and, landing, with a small retinue, at Ravenspur, in 

 Yorkshire, made oath, on his landing, that he only 

 came for the recovery of his duchy. He was quickly 

 joined by the earls of Northumberland and West- 

 moreland, the most potent barons of the north, and 

 soon found himself at the head of 60,000 men. The 

 duke of York, acting as guardian in the king's ab- 

 sence, was unable to oppose him ; and, marching to 

 Bristol, he took upon himself to execute some of the 

 most odious of Richard's ministers, without trial. 

 The latter, on the report of these transactions, landed 

 at Milford Haven with an army, which soon melted 

 away by desertion ? and, falling into the hands of his 

 enemies, he was brought to London by the duke, 

 who now began openly to aim at the crown. A 

 resignation was first obtained from Richard, who was 

 then solemnly deposed in parliament. (See Richard 

 II.) On this abdication, the right of succession was 

 clearly in the house of Mortimer, descended from 

 Lionel, duke of Clarence, the second son of Edward 

 III. ; but the duke of Lancaster claimed the crown 

 for himself, as being lineally descended from Henry 

 III., alluding to an idle report that his maternal 

 grandfather, Edmund, earl of Lancaster, was really 

 that king's eldest son, although set aside for his bro- 

 ther, Edward I. A sort of right of conquest was also 

 set up, together with a plea of having delivered the 

 nation from tyranny ; and, though it was obvious 

 that none of these claims would bear discussion, 

 Henry was unanimously declared lawful king, under 

 the title of Henry IV. The death of Richard soon 

 removed a dangerous rival ; yet a short time only 

 elapsed before the turbulent nobles rebelled against 

 the king of their own creation. The first plot, in 



1400, was discovered in time to prevent its success, 

 and many executions of men of rank followed. In 

 order to ingratiate himself with the clergy, Henry 

 promoted a law for committing to the flames persons 

 convicted of the heresy of the Lollards. 'I he Gas- 

 cons, who, for a time, refused submission to Henry, 

 were soon awed by an army ; but an insurrection in 



