dower, finding himself already at the head of a powerful and spirited army, proclaimed himself Prince of Wales. The defeat of the Flemings of Pembroke and Cardiganshire, who had been surrounded with a greatly superior force on Mynydd Hyddgant, was followed by the capture of Lord Grey, who obtained his sovereign's license to purchase his liberty by acceptance of the terms of ransom proposed by Glendower. These were of such a kind as neutralized the future efforts of his prisoner. Besides payment of 10,000 marks, the proud baron was compelled to accept of the hand of Jane, his rival's daughter, in marriage. Henry now published a general amnesty, with no other exceptions than Owen of Glendowrdy, Rice ap Tudor, and William ap Tudor. But the Welsh continued to pour into the camp of their countryman from all quarters, and even the Welsh students at Oxford and Cambridge hastened to join the national cause. The revolt had now assumed too serious an aspect for ordinary measures. In the month of October 1401, Henry placed himself at the head of an army and set out in person to chastise the presumptuous rebel ; but the activity of Owen, aided by an uncommonly severe winter, rendered all his efforts abortive, and a dishonourable retreat followed. The Percies now re

belled, and the irregular and wild Glendower joined that formidable coalition, which we have treated of under another head. His next step was to assemble the estates of the principality at Machynlaeth in Montgomeryshire, by whom he was formally crowned sovereign of

Wales.

Henry was successful in preventing the junction of the Northumbrian and Welsh forces, but Owen maintained with unabated spirit the independence of his country; and, in 1404, concluded a treaty of alliance with Charles, King of France, in which he styled himself, "Owemus Dei Gratia Princeps Walliæ," &c. The king of England now entrusted the recovery of Wales to his gallant son, Henry of Monmouth, whom he created lord-lieutenant of that country, with special powers, for the better execution of his commission." Owen commenced the campaign of 1405 by taking some castles, and defeating the earl of Warwick at Mynydd Cwmdu in Montgomeryshire; but the young Henry soon after successively defeated Owen himself at Grosmount, and his son at Mynydd-y-Pwli-Melyn.

Owen was now compelled to seek an asylum in the most inaccessible spots of Wales. A diversion was made in his favour by a French armament, but its success was only temporary, and Prince Henry gradually got possession of the strongest fortresses of the country. Still he seems to have struggled on with unconquerable spirit though diminished fortunes. In 1411, we find him specially excepted from the general pardon issued by Henry, as an arch-rebel with whom his enemies dared not to negotiate. In the ensuing year, David Gam, an apostate Welshman, who had been seized in an attempt to assassinate Glendower, though his own brother-in-law, obtained license to purchase his liberty by payment of a ransom to the unconquered chief. Three months before the battle of Agincourt, Henry V. commissioned Sir Gilbert Talbot to treat with Glendower, and the offer was again renewed after that victory had graced the English arms; but, during the negotiation, Rymer's Fœd. vii. 181. 5 Walsing. 364. Rymer's Fœd. viii. 711.

G Rymer's Fœd. viii. 356.

Ib. viii. 291.

8

death overtook this last king of the Britons, who expired on the 20th of September, 1415. His countrymen seem to have forgotten the memory of their intrepid defender sooner than his enemies themselves. In the year 1431, the English commons besought the lords to enforce the forfeiture of Owen Glendower's lands, whom they describe as an arch-traitor, whose success would have been "to the destruction of all English tongue for evermore.'

"9

Sir William Gascoigne.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1350.-DIED A. D. 1413.

SIR WILLIAM GASCOIGNE, chief-justice of the king's bench in the reign of Henry IV., was born at Gawthorp, in Yorkshire, about the year 1350. His family was noble, and of Norman extraction. Having studied law, and acquired considerable reputation as a pleader, he was appointed one of the king's sergeants-at-law in 1398. Upon the accession of Henry IV., he was made judge in the court of common pleas; and, in 1401, was elevated to the chief-justiceship of the king's bench. In July, 1403, he was joined in the commission with Ralph Neville, earl of Westmoreland, for levying forces in Yorkshire and Northumberland against the insurrection of Henry Percy; and, on the submission of that nobleman, he was nominated in the commission to treat with the rebels. In all these high trusts, Gascoigne acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his royal master and the kingdom at large. But on the apprehension of Archbishop Scroop, when the king required his chief-justice to pass sentence of death upon him as a traitor, the virtuous and inflexible Gascoigne sternly refused, because the laws which he was appointed to administer gave him no jurisdiction over the life of an ecclesiastic. Henry was highly displeased at the obstinacy, but had sufficient strength of mind to respect the integrity of his minister, and Gascoigne had the honour of knighthood conferred on him the same year.

From his general conduct, as related by historians, there is sufficient reason to place Sir William Gascoigne in the first rank of chief-justices, both for integrity and abilities. The many abstracts of his opinions, arguments, and decisions, which occur in our older law-reports, sufficiently attest the general opinion which was entertained of his professional merits. One memorable transaction, which still remains upon record, would have sufficed, had others equally strong been wanting, to have stamped his character for ever with the noble feature of judicial independence. It happened that one of the associates of the youthful, and then dissolute prince of Wales, had been arraigned for felony. The news of his favourite's apprehension no sooner reached the prince's ears, than he hastened to the court, and imperiously demanded that the prisoner should be immediately set at liberty. Gascoigne desired him instantly to withdraw, and leave the law to take its course; whereupon the prince, breaking through all restraint and decorum, rushed furiously up to the bench, and, as is generally affirmed, struck the chief-justice.

Rot. Parl. iv. 377. — Hen. VI.

On this, Sir William coolly ordered his assailant to be taken into custody, and after administering a sharp reproof to him in the hearing of the court, ordered him into confinement in the prison of the king's bench. The young prince had the good sense to submit calmly to the punishment which he had so justly merited; and, when the matter was related to his father, it is recorded to his honour also, that, instead of manifesting any displeasure towards the chief-justice, he thanked God for having given him both a judge who knew how to administer the laws, and a son who respected their authority.' Gascoigne was called to the parliament which met in the first year of Henry V., but died before the expiration of the year, on the 17th of December, 1413. He was twice married, and left a numerous train of descendants by both his wives.

Henry V.

BORN A. D. 1388.-DIED A. D. 1422.

THE younger days of this gallant and splendid sovereign were, as is of common knowledge, remarkable for eccentricity and licentiousness; it is less notorious that the season of wild excess was darkened by acts, or at least by machinations, of far deeper criminality. Shakspeare has made us all familiar with the rough gaieties and unprincely associations amid which Falstaff's mad compound of majesty' wasted the rich hours of youth, and cast away the golden opinions' of the wise and good; but, in his immortal scenes, the redeeming brightness of an ingenuous spirit breaks through the shadows that a restless and inconsiderate temper had thrown over the promise of clear intellect and generous feelings. History insinuates, rather than reveals, a tale of less extenuable guilt. It tells, indeed, of that impetuous but noble disposition, which, when it had violated the sanctuary and insulted the administrator of justice, could so well atone, by yielding dignified obedience to the sentence that avenged its questioned supremacy. It tells, beside, of more doubtful transactions; when dark rumours and fearful intimations had reached the ears of the reigning king, of insolent speeches betraying unhallowed designs; and when, clad in fantastic attire of silk and gold, and followed by a numerous train, the halfpetulant, half-penitent aspirant, fell at his father's feet, and proffered life as the pledge of sincerity. But this is not all: there are still in existence, documents which impute to the prince a deliberately formed purpose to dethrone the king, and affirm the fact, that in open parliament the latter was required by his son to resign the crown, which disease prevented him from wearing with dignity and efficiency. It is farther stated, that when this insolent and unfilial requisition was at once rejected, the younger Henry withdrew in fierce anger, and forthwith engaged in measures intended ultimately to force from his father's weakened grasp the sceptre which, however gained, had been wielded with signal ability. The death of the king prevented the consumma

1 Stow, 339.

tion of this treason, and gave to the craving heir an innocent and undisputed possession.*

Few sovereigns have ascended the throne more eminently endowed with mental and personal advantages than was Henry of Monmouth. In prime of manhood, graceful in person and manner, singularly vigorous and active, he obtained the favour of the commonalty by his fair exterior and courteous deportment. Of distinguished talents, well-cultivated by education, and called into exercise by early experience both in counsel and action, he commanded the admiration and obedience of those whose rank or whose sagacity gave them influence.

When his father was sent into banishment, Henry was a mere boy, and in his twelfth year made his first campaign in the Irish expedition of Richard II., who had taken him under his care, and on that occasion gave him knighthood with his own hand. When his father landed in England on the enterprise which gave him a kingdom, Henry disarmed, by his shrewdness and presence of mind, the anger of Richard, which was rising to his danger. The elder Henry seems to have been anxious that his son should be well-instructed in the art of war. He had a command under his father in the Scottish and Welsh campaigns, and in the desperate conflict which, at Shrewsbury, crushed the rebellion of the Percies, the prince distinguished himself alike as an officer and a soldier. When only sixteen, he had assigned to him the arduous task of subjugating Wales, and in all that he undertook he exhibited high courage and skilful conduct. The excesses which, in the words of Elmham, clouded as with the black smoke of misdoing,' the brightness of his rising, were thrown aside when, at the early age of twenty-five, he assumed the crown. His father's death seemed to have awakened in him the dormant elements of his nobler nature: he lamented his filial errors,—discarded his dissolute companions,—and took to his counsels the men who had rebuked and withstood him in the season of his extravagance. He gave freedom to the earl of March, whose lineal claim to the crown had induced the former king to detain him, if not in absolute captivity, at least in strict observance, he restored the exiled son of Harry Percy' to his rank and possessions, and when the "emains of Richard received, at his command, a royal burial in Westminster abbey, he led, as chief mourner, the funeral procession.3

The first decided trial of Henry's character as statesman and war. rior, is exhibited in the affair of the Lollards. Of those heretics, Dr Lingard, the advocate of Romanism, gives an unfavourable representation, as the abettors of a wild and injurious theology, and as men quite prepared to engage in active and thorough-going rebellion. This is mere exaggeration. It may be difficult to extract from the chroniclers of the olden time, a clear and unbiassed explanation of facts and circumstances; but a fair and temperate investigation would certainly bring out a more exculpatory result. It is probable that the persecuting policy of the house of Lancaster might produce exasperation, but the

It should be mentioned, that the sole authority for this statement appears to be an unpublished writing, ascribed to the contemporary historian Walsingham, extant among the Sloane MSS., and first cited by Sharon Turner. It is worthy of observation, that of the prince's requisition, though apparently made with all formality, no trace is to be found in the rolls of parliament.

a Walsing. 385.-Otterb. 274.

design against the king's person,-its failure through his removal from Eltham, and the consequent armed assemblage in St Giles's fields,—are, if not altogether apocryphal, liable to reasonable suspicion, as excessively overcharged by party feeling. Henry was a persecutor: he gave up his companion, Sir John Oldcastle, to the tender mercies of an ecclesiastical tribunal; and he adopted, in its full extent, the system of deference practised by his father towards the hierarchy. He appears, indeed, to have been characterised by a stern and inflexible severity. His hasty order for the massacre of the prisoners at Azincour, may be defended on the ground of necessity; but his insensibility to human suffering is proved by his conduct at the siege of Rouen, when he suffered twelve thousand non-combatants-men, women, and children -to perish between his camp and the walls, rather than depart from his refusal to allow them a passage through his lines.

From the very outset of his kingly career, Henry's mind seems to have been fixed on foreign conquest, and his aim was nothing less than the sovereignty of France. That kingdom was miserably vexed by the feuds of its powerful lords: the war between the respective parties of the Dauphin and the duke of Burgundy, shook the foundations of the state; and hence, in the creed of conquerors, it presented to ambition a legitimate field, a fair arena, on which armies might contend for the mastery, while a suffering nation paid the heavy cost both of victory and defeat. Henry negotiated until his preparations were complete, and in August, 1415, landed in Normandy, after having been delayed at Southampton by the detection and punishment of a treasonable conspiracy, in which his cousin, the earl of Cambridge, and Lord Scroop, his favoured intimate, were desperately and unaccountably concerned. Six thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers were marshalled on the shores of France, and immediately invested Harfleur, which yielded after a gallant defence. Henry was thus furnished with a strongly fortified place of arms, but it had cost him dear; half, at least, of his numbers had either fallen in the operations of the siege, or perished by disease. Shorn of its strength, the army was now altogether unequal to decisive operations; yet, although prudence clearly dictated the expediency of postponing farther movements until strongly reinforced, the king, on some strange ground of punctilious intrepidity, determined on forcing his way over the hostile ground that lay between him and Calais. From this moment the campaign becomes an object of the highest interest. The constable of France, Charles d'Albret, though far from a first-rate commander, seems to have acted under sound advice. Aware of the faults which had led to the discomfiture of Cressy and Poitiers, he adopted a cautious and defensive policy, fully resolved not to fight except on such vantage-ground and with such favourable odds of number, as to make victory certain. Strong corps of partizans hung upon the march of the English, pressing on their flanks and rear, wasting the country around, and occupying every defensible post, while the main army of the French held, in overpowering force, the right bank of the Somme. Leaving out of consideration the primary error-the mal-apropos entertainment of the point of honour-nothing could be more ably conducted than the movements and manœuvres of Henry. Finding the fords of the Somme palisaded and strongly guarded, he determined on turning it