Volume I Part 4 (1/2)
About the close of the present year, or the commencement of the following (1400), the Prince makes a direct appeal to the council,[77]
that they would forthwith fulfil the expressed desire of his royal father with reference to his princely state and condition in all points. He requires them first of all to determine upon his place of residence, and the sources of his income; and then to take especial care that the King's officers, each in his own department and post of duty, should fully and perfectly put into execution whatever orders the council might give. ”You are requested (says the memorial) to consider how my lord the Prince is utterly dest.i.tute of every kind of appointment relative to his household.” The enumeration of his wants specified in detail is somewhat curious: ”that is to say, his chapels,[78] chambers, halls, wardrobe, pantry, b.u.t.tery, kitchen, (p. 075) scullery, saucery, almonry, anointry, and generally all things requisite for his establishment.”
[Footnote 77: Minutes of Privy Council, vol. ii. p.
42.]
[Footnote 78: ”Ses chapelles.” Under this word were included not only the place of prayer, but the books, and vestments, and furniture, together with the priests, and whatever else was necessary for divine wors.h.i.+p. Indeed, the word has often a still wider signification. We shall see hereafter that Henry was always attended by his chapel during his campaigns in France.]
It has been already intimated in the Preface, that an examination would be inst.i.tuted in the course of this work into the correspondence of Shakspeare's representations of Henry's character and conduct with the real facts of history, and we will not here antic.i.p.ate that inquiry. Only it may be necessary to observe, as we pa.s.s on, that the period of his life when the poet first describes him to be revelling in the deepest and foulest sinks of riot and profligacy, as nearly as possible corresponds with the date of this pet.i.tion to the council to supply him with a home.
It was in the very first week of the year 1400 that Henry IV.
discovered the treasonable plot, laid by the Lords Salisbury, Huntingdon, and others, to a.s.sa.s.sinate him during some solemn justs intended to be held at Oxford, professedly in honour of his accession.
The King was then at Windsor; and, immediately on receiving information of the conspiracy, he returned secretly, but with all speed, to London.[79] The defeat of these treasonable designs, and (p. 076) the execution of the conspirators, are matter of general history; and, as the name of the Prince does not occur even incidentally in any accounts of the transaction, we need not dwell upon it. Probably he was then living with his father under the superintendence of Henry Beaufort, now Bishop of Winchester, from whom indeed up to this time he seems to have been much less separated than from his parent. We have already seen that, whether for the benefit of the ”young bachelor,”
or, with an eye to his own security, unwilling to leave so able an enemy behind, King Richard, when he took the boy Henry with him to Ireland, caused his uncle and tutor (Henry Beaufort) to accompany him also.[80] The probability also has been shown to approach demonstration that his residence in Oxford could not have taken place at this time; but that it preceded his father's banishment, rather than followed his accession to the throne. Be this as it may, history (as far as it appears) makes no direct mention of the young Prince Henry through the spring of 1400.
[Footnote 79: Some chroniclers say, that the conspiracy was made known to the Mayor of London, who forthwith hastened to the King at Windsor, and urged him to save himself and his children. The same pages tell us that John Holland Earl of Huntingdon was seized and beheaded in Ess.e.x by the Dowager Countess of Hereford.--Sloane MS.]
[Footnote 80: Pat. p. 3, 22 Ric. II.]
Soon, however, after the conspiracy against his father's life had been detected and frustrated, an event took place, already alluded to, which must have filled the warm and affectionate heart of Henry with feelings of sorrow and distress,--the premature death of Richard. That Henry had formed a sincere attachment for Richard, and long cherished (p. 077) his memory with grat.i.tude for personal kindness, is unquestionable; and doubtless it must have been a source of anxiety and vexation to him that his father was accused in direct terms of having procured the death of the deposed monarch. He probably was convinced that the charge was an ungrounded calumny; yet, with his generous indignation roused by the charge of so foul a crime, he must have mingled feelings of increased regret at the miserable termination of his friend's life.
The name of Henry of Monmouth has never been a.s.sociated with Richard's except under circ.u.mstances which reflect credit on his own character.
The bitterest enemies of his house, who scrupled not to charge Henry IV. with the wilful murder of his prisoner, have never sought to implicate his son in the same guilt in the most remote degree, or even by the gentlest whisper of insinuation. Whether Richard died in consequence of any foul act at the hand of an enemy, or by the fatal workings of a hara.s.sed mind and broken heart, or by self-imposed abstinence from food, (for to every one of these, as well as to other causes, has his death been severally attributed,) is a question probably now beyond the reach of successful inquiry. The whole subject has been examined by many able and, doubtless, unprejudiced persons; but their verdicts are far from being in accordance with each other.
The general (though, as it should now seem, the mistaken) opinion appears to be, that after Richard had been removed from the Tower (p. 078) to Leeds Castle, and thence to other places of safe custody, and had finally been lodged in Pontefract,[81] the partisans of Henry IV.
hastened his death. The Archbishop of York directly charged the King with the foul crime of murder, which he as positively and indignantly denied.[82] The minutes of the Privy Council have not been sufficiently noticed by former writers on this event; and the reflections of the Editor,[83] in his Preface, are so sensible and so immediately to the point, that we may be contented in these pages to do little more than record his sentiments.[84]
[Footnote 81: The Pell Rolls contain several interesting entries connected with this subject.
Payment for a thousand ma.s.ses to be said for the soul of Richard, ”whose body is buried in Langley.”
(20th March, 1400.) Payment also for carrying the body from Pomfret to London, &c.]
[Footnote 82: See Henry's answer to the Duke of Orleans, as recorded by Monstrellet, in which he solemnly appeals to G.o.d for the vindication of the truth.]
[Footnote 83: Sir Harris Nicolas. ”Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England.”]
[Footnote 84: Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, maintains with much ingenuity the paradoxical position, that Richard escaped from Pontefract, made his way in disguise to the Western Isles, was there recognised, and was conducted to the Regent; that, taken into the safe keeping of the government, and sick of the world and its disappointments, he lived for many years in Stirling Castle; and that he there died, and there was buried. It falls not within the province of these Memoirs to examine the facts and reasonings by which that writer supports his theory, or to weigh the value of the objections which have been alleged against it. The Author, however, in confessing that the result of his own inquiries is opposed to the hypothesis of Richard's escape, and that he acquiesces in the general tradition that he died in Pontefract, cannot refrain from making one remark. Whilst he is persuaded that Glyndowr, and many others, believed that Richard was alive in Scotland, yet he thinks it almost capable of demonstration that Henry IV, with his sons and his court, in England; and Charles VI, with his court and clergy, and Isabella herself, and her second husband, had no doubt whatever as to Richard's death. If they had, if they were not fully a.s.sured that he was no longer among the living, it is difficult to understand Henry IV.'s proposals to Charles VI. for a marriage between Isabella and one of his sons; or how, on any other hypothesis than the conviction of his death, the Earl of Angouleme, afterwards Duke of Orleans, would have sought her in marriage; how her father and his clergy could have consented to her nuptials; or how she could for a moment have entertained the thought of becoming a bride again. She had not only been betrothed to Richard, but had been with all solemnity married to him by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the face of the church; and she had been crowned queen. Yet she was married to Angouleme in 1406, and died in childbed in 1409.
Had she believed Richard to be still alive, she would have been more inclined to follow the bidding which Shakspeare puts into her husband's mouth at their last farewell, than to have given her hand before the altar to another:
”Hie thee to France, And cloister thee in some religious house.”
Froissart says expressly that the French resolved to wage war with the English as long as they knew Richard to be alive; but when certain news of his death reached them, they were bent on the restoration of Isabella.]
”Shortly after the attempt of the Earls of Kent, Salisbury, and (p. 079) Huntingdon to restore Richard to the throne, a great council was held for the consideration of many important matters. The first point was 'that if Richard the late king be alive, as some suppose he is, (p. 080) it be ordained that he be well and securely guarded for the salvation of the state of the King and of his kingdom.' On which subject the council resolved, that it was necessary to speak to the King, that, in case Richard the late king be still living, he be placed in security agreeably to the law of the realm; but if he be dead, then that he be openly showed to the people, that they may have knowledge thereof.”