Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/48

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Henry IV

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Henry IV

Bedford [see John]; and fourthly, Humphrey, made Duke of Gloucester in 1414 [see Humphrey]. His daughters were, first, Blanche (b. 1392), married in 1402 to Louis, count palatine of the Rhine; and secondly, Philippa (b. 1393 or 1394), married in 1406 to Eric, king of Sweden.

Henry was ‘of a mean stature,’ but ‘well proportioned and compact’ (Hall, p. 45). He was strong and handsome, proud of his good looks (‘beau chevalier,’ Froissart, xi. 325; Hardyng, p. 370; Elmham, in Polit. Poems, ii. 121), with regular teeth which lasted till death, and wearing a thick matted beard of a deep russet colour. All through his life he was brave, active, orthodox, devout, and pure. Though a keen partisan from early youth, he remained long amenable to the influence of more experienced advisers. He seems to have been naturally merciful and trustful of his friends, but hot-tempered. Bitter experience taught him to be reserved, suspicious, and upon occasion cruel. His courtiers resented his clemency, and urged him to bad acts. His conscience does not seem to have been quite easy in his later years, and perhaps stimulated the curious interest he showed in discussing doubtful points of casuistry, which Capgrave notes as his most distinguishing characteristic (De Illustr. Henr. p. 109). He had a retentive memory, was able to follow a Latin sermon, and delighted in the conversation of men of letters. He more than doubled Chaucer's pension, patronised Gower, and invited Christine de Pisan to England because he was so pleased with her poetry. Scholars who had enjoyed his bounty spoke strongly to Capgrave of his knowledge and ability. He kept to the end his power of saying sharp things. His activity in affairs of state is seen by his answering petitions himself, and by the endorsements in his own hand on state papers (Pauli, v. 75).

Besides the fine effigy on his tomb at Canterbury, there is a well-known portrait of Henry at Windsor Castle. A portrait in MS. Harl. No. 1319 is figured in Doyle's ‘Official Baronage,’ ii. 316.

[The only old biography of Henry, Capgrave's De Illustribus Henricis, pp. 98–111, is both meagre and inaccurate. The chief chroniclers for his early history are: Knighton, in Twysden's Decem Scriptores (to 1395); Annales Ricardi Regis, ed. Riley, published with Trokelowe, &c. (Rolls Ser.); Walsingham's Hist. Anglicana, vol. ii., and Ypodigma Neustriæ, both in Rolls Ser.; the Monk of Evesham's Life of Richard II, ed. Hearne (to 1402); Adam of Usk's Chronicle, ed. Thompson (to 1404); Capgrave's Chronicle of England (Rolls Ser.); Continuator of the Eulogium Historiarum, vol. iii. (Rolls Ser.). The French authorities, bitterly hostile and not trustworthy, include the Chronique de la Traïson et Mort de Richart (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Creton's Metrical Chronicle in Archæologia, vol. xx.; Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys, in Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France, and Juvénal des Ursins in Panthéon Littéraire. Copious, but quite untrustworthy, is Froissart (up to 1400), ed. Buchon, or ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, with M. Kervyn's copious, though not always accurate, notes. The chief authorities for Henry's crusades and early adventures abroad are cited above. Dr. Pauli's labours are here of special value. Kyngeston's Expenses Rolls, already referred to, are about to be published for the Camden Society by Miss L. Toulmin Smith. For the early years of Henry's reign the chief chronicle is the Annales Henrici IV, ed. Riley (with Trokelowe), Rolls Ser., rightly described by its editor as the ‘most valuable memorial of the period that we now possess.’ Unfortunately it ends in 1406, before which period Usk, the Monk of Evesham, Froissart, and the French chroniclers of Richard's fall have all stopped. For the last few years of the reign we have to fall back on the comparatively meagre chronicles of Walsingham, the Continuator of the Eulogium, Capgrave, Otterbourne (ed. Hearne), and the Incerti Scriptoris Chronicon Angliæ regnante Henr. IV, edited by Dr. Giles in 1848 among his Scriptores Monastici. The foreign writers, such as Monstrelet, ed. Douët-d'Arcq (Soc. de l'Histoire de France), Waurin, Chroniques, 1399–1422, Rolls Ser. (who now begins to be of some independent value), and the Monk of Saint-Denys are, so far as they go, of much more service than for the earlier years of the reign. A little can be gleaned from the London Chronicles, such as Gregory's Chronicle, ed. Gairdner (Camden Soc.), and the Chronicle, 1089–1483, published by Sir H. Nicolas in 1827. Something also can be got from Wright's Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Ser.), especially from Gower's Tripartite Chronicle in vol. i., and the many important indications of popular feeling in vol. ii. The later writers, such as Hall and Fabyan, can only be used with caution, but Hardyng is sometimes useful from his connection with the Percies. The chief collections of documents are to be found in Rymer's Fœdera, vols. vii. and viii., original edition; the Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii.; the Statutes of the Realm, vol. i.; Ellis's Original Letters, vol. i.; Beckington's Correspondence (Rolls Ser.); and, above all, Nicolas's Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vols. i. and ii. The Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry IV, 1399–1404, ed. Hingeston (Rolls Ser.), are also of primary importance. Of modern books, Pauli's Geschichte von England, vol. v., is the fullest working-up of the whole reign. Dr. Stubbs's Constitutional History, iii. 1–72, besides a complete survey of the parliamentary history, explains satisfactorily for the first time the political relations and the struggles of parties. Mr. J. H. Wylie's History}}

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