From Exile to the Throne
Henry Bolingbroke was born around 1367, the son of John of Gaunt and cousin to the king, Richard II. In 1398 a quarrel between Henry and another lord, Thomas Mowbray, was due to be settled by a judicial duel, but Richard stopped it and exiled both men. Henry’s exile was set at ten years, and was later reduced to six.
The decisive blow came in February 1399, when Gaunt died. Richard confiscated the great Lancaster estates rather than let them pass to Henry, and went to Ireland on campaign. That decision made Henry a man with nothing to lose and gave other landowners a reason to fear for their own inheritances. If a king could take a duchy from its heir, no one’s property was safe.
Henry landed in Yorkshire in the summer of 1399, claiming at first only that he wanted his inheritance back. Support grew quickly, particularly among northern lords. Richard returned to find his authority collapsing and was taken. By late September he had agreed to give up the crown, or was pressured into doing so, and Parliament accepted Henry’s claim.
What Kind of Claim?
Henry’s right to be king was weak, and he knew it. He was a grandson of Edward III, but he was not the nearest heir by strict descent. The descendants of Lionel, an older son of Edward III, had a stronger claim in the eyes of many lawyers; the young Edmund Mortimer was in that line. There was also an old story that Henry’s ancestor Edmund, earl of Lancaster, had really been the elder brother of Edward I and was passed over because of a physical defect. Few historians give this any credit, but it was used in propaganda.
So Henry offered a mixture of arguments. He pointed to descent from Henry III, to Richard’s misgovernment, and to the “conquest” of the kingdom, though he soon dropped that last idea since it frightened landowners. At his coronation in October 1399 the older coronation rituals were used, including anointing, with a holy oil that was said to have been given to Thomas Becket by the Virgin Mary, a story meant to lend sacred approval to a contested claim. Richard was deposed, but he was not forgotten.
A Dead King Still Dangerous
Richard died in custody in early 1400, probably at Pontefract Castle. Some said he starved himself, others that he was killed. The truth is unknown, but what mattered was that rumors persisted that he was alive, and that kept plots going. The earliest was the Epiphany rising of January 1400, which failed. The usurpation had also created an obvious problem: every rebel could claim to be defending the true line.
Wales, the Percys and the Scots
The largest challenge came on the Welsh border. Owain Glyndŵr, a Welsh landowner, began a revolt in 1400 after a dispute with a neighbor and a failure to obtain justice from the king. It grew into a national rising that lasted for years, with Glyndŵr seeking alliances with France and with English rebels. Royal armies entered Wales repeatedly but struggled with terrain and supply.
Meanwhile the Percy family, the earls of Northumberland, had been among Henry’s strongest backers and expected rewards. They felt underpaid for defending the Scottish border, and they had links to the Mortimer claim. In 1403 Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, rose against the king. The two sides met near Shrewsbury, where Hotspur was killed and the rebellion crushed. Henry’s son, the future Henry V, was wounded in the fighting, an early sign of his military ability. The elder Percy rebelled again, and in 1405 Archbishop Scrope of York was executed for joining a revolt. Executing a bishop shocked many people, and some later saw the king’s illness as a punishment.
Money, Parliament and Illness
Henry always needed money, and Parliament used that need to bargain. The Commons pressed for regular accounting, for control over who sat on the king’s council, and for reform of the household. Henry often had to accept, and his reign is sometimes presented as a time when Parliament gained ground. It is better to say he had little choice. The costs of defending Calais, the Scottish border, and Wales were high, while his income was limited. Church matters also pressed on him; as Wycliffe teachings spread, he supported laws against heretics, including the first English statute prescribing burning, in 1401.
From about 1405 his health was poor. He suffered from a long illness, often described as a skin disease, together with what seem to have been strokes or seizures, though the diagnosis is uncertain. For a time Prince Henry led the council and tried to steer policy, and the father and son differed over policy, particularly toward France. Henry IV recovered enough to dismiss his son’s allies, then died in March 1413.
An Assessment
Henry IV’s reign was not a failure in the narrow sense: he survived, kept the crown, and passed it to his son without a civil war. But it was a reign dominated by the problem of legitimacy. The deposition of an anointed king opened a gap in the way English monarchy worked, since later challengers could point to a precedent. The crown he passed on is the one that gave the Lancastrian dynasty its name in history, and many historians see these years as part of the long chain leading to the Wars of the Roses, though that is a distant link and other causes mattered. For the people of the time, the main legacy was a king who spent most of his reign defending what he had taken.