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Henry IV of England

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain); Monarchs of Great Britain

                   Henry IV
     By the Grace of God, King of England
   and France and Lord of Ireland
              Image:Henry4.JPG
   Reign       30 September 1399 - 20 March 1413
   Coronation  13 October 1399
   Born        3 April 1367
               Bolingbroke Castle
   Died        March 20, 1413 (aged 45)
               Westminster
   Buried      Canterbury Cathedral
   Predecessor Richard II
   Successor   Henry V
   Consort     Mary de Bohun (c. 1369- 1394)
               Joanna of Navarre (c. 1370- 1437)
   Issue       Henry V ( 1387- 1422)
               John, Duke of Bedford
               ( 1389- 1435)
               Thomas, Duke of Clarence
               ( 1388- 1421)
               Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
               ( 1390- 1447)
               Blanche of England ( 1392- 1409)
               Philippa of England ( 1394- 1430)
   Royal House Lancaster
   Father      John of Gaunt, 1st Duke
               of Lancaster ( 1340- 1399)
   Mother      Blanche of Lancaster
               (c. 1341- 1369)

   Henry IV ( 3 April 1367 – 20 March 1413) was the King of England and
   France and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413. He was born at
   Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he
   was known, "Henry (of) Bolingbroke". His father, John of Gaunt, was the
   third and oldest surviving son of King Edward III of England, and
   enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign
   of Richard II. Henry's mother was Blanche, heiress to the considerable
   Lancaster estates.

   His half-sister Catalina Plantagenet by his father's second wife,
   Constanza of Castile ruled as co-consort of Castile. He also had four
   half-siblings by Katherine Swynford, his father's longtime mistress and
   eventual third wife. His relationship with the Beauforts and their
   mother was equivocal. He expressed resentment that his former governess
   had taken his mother’s place, as well as the favour shown to them by
   their father. Upon his accession, he revoked his half-brother’s
   marquessate, and passed further legal measures barring them from the
   throne. However, Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherine’s first marriage
   was a trusted and able companion.

   Henry enjoyed a rather more equivocal relationship with Richard II than
   his father had: they were first cousins and childhood playmates. They
   were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry
   participated in the Lords Appellant’s rebellion against the king in
   1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry (many of the
   other rebellious barons were executed or exiled). In fact, Richard
   elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford.

   The relationship between Henry and the King reached a second crisis in
   1398, when Richard banished Henry from the kingdom for ten years (with
   the approval of Henry's father, John of Gaunt) to avoid a blood feud
   between Henry and Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, who was
   exiled for life. Henry spent a full year supporting the unsuccesfull
   seige of Vilnius (capital of Grand dutchy of Lithuania) by Teutonic
   knights with his 300 fellow knights.

   The following year, however, John of Gaunt died, and without
   explanation, Richard cancelled the legal documents that would have
   allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt's land automatically -- instead, Henry
   would be required to ask for the lands from Richard. After some
   hesitation, Henry met with the exiled Thomas Arundel, former (and
   future) Archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of
   his involvement with the Lords Appellant, and Henry and Arundel
   returned to England while Richard was on a military campaign in
   Ireland. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry Bolingbroke began a
   military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and
   ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire. Quickly, Henry
   gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV,
   imprisoning King Richard (who died in prison under mysterious
   circumstances) and by-passing Richard’s seven-year-old heir-presumptive
   Edmund de Mortimer. Henry's coronation, on 13 October 1399, is notable
   as the first time following the Norman Conquest that the monarch made
   an address in English. Henry consulted with Parliament frequently, but
   was sometimes at odds with them, especially over ecclesiastical
   matters. On Arundel's advice, Henry passed the De heretico comburendo
   and was thus the first English king to allow the burning of heretics,
   mainly to suppress the Lollard movement.

Reign

The Previous Ruler

   His first problem was what to do with the deposed Richard, and after an
   early assassination plot was foiled, he probably ordered his death by
   starvation in early 1400, although there is no evidence for this.
   Richard's body was put on public display in the old St Paul's Cathedral
   to show his supporters that he was dead.

Rebellions

   Henry spent much of his reign defending himself against plots,
   rebellions and assassination attempts.
           English Royalty
          House of Lancaster
   Armorial of Plantagenet
               Henry IV
      Henry V
       John, Duke of Bedford
       Thomas, Duke of Clarence
       Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

   Rebellions continued throughout the first ten years of Henry’s reign,
   including the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr, who declared himself Prince of
   Wales in 1400, and the rebellion of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of
   Northumberland. The king's success in putting down these rebellions was
   due partly to the military ability of his eldest son, Henry, who would
   later become king, though the son (who had maintained a close
   relationship with Richard II) managed to seize much effective power
   from his father in 1410.

Foreign relations

   Early in his reign, Henry hosted the visit of Manuel II Palaiologos,
   the only Byzantine emperor ever to visit England, from December 1400 to
   January 1401 at Eltham Palace, with a joust being given in his honour.
   He also sent monetary support with him upon his departure to aid him
   against the Ottoman Empire.

   In 1406, English pirates captured the future James I of Scotland off
   the coast of Flamborough Head as he was going to France. James remained
   a prisoner of Henry for the rest of Henry's reign.

Final illness and death

   The later years of Henry's reign were marked by serious health
   problems. He had a stepine disfiguring skin disease, and more seriously
   suffered acute attacks of some grave illness in June 1405, April 1406,
   June 1408, during the winter of 1408–09, December 1412, and then
   finally a fatal bout in March 1413. Medical historians have long
   debated the nature of this affliction or afflictions. The skin disease
   might have been leprosy (which in any case did not mean precisely the
   same thing as it does to modern medicine), perhaps psoriasis, perhaps a
   symptom of syphilis, or some other disease. The acute attacks have been
   given a wide range of explanations, from epilepsy to some form of
   cardiovascular disease.

   It is said in Holinshed (and taken up in Shakespeare's play) that it
   was predicted to Henry he would die in Jerusalem. Henry took this to
   mean that he would die on crusade, but in fact it meant that, in 1413,
   he died in the Jerusalem Chamber in the house of the Abbot of
   Westminster. He died with his executor Thomas Langley at his side.

Burial

   Unusually for a King of England, he was buried not at Westminster Abbey
   but at Canterbury Cathedral, on the north side of what is now the
   Trinity Chapel as near to the shrine of Thomas Becket as possible. (No
   other kings are buried in the Cathedral, although his uncle the Black
   Prince is buried on the opposite, south side of the chapel, also as
   near the shrine as possible.) Becket's cult was then at its height, as
   evidenced by the Canterbury Tales by Richard and Henry's court poet
   Chaucer, and Henry was particularly devoted to it (he was anointed at
   his coronation with oil supposedly given to Becket by the Virgin Mary,
   which had then passed to Henry's father). Henry was given an alabaster
   effigy, alabaster being a valuable English export in the 15th century.
   His body was well embalmed, as a Victorian exhumation some centuries
   later established

     * Edward d. 1382
     * Henry V of England
     * Thomas, Duke of Clarence
     * John, Duke of Bedford
     * Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
     * Blanche of England ( 1392- 1409) married in 1402 Louis III, Elector
       Palatine
     * Philippa of England ( 1394- 1430) married in 1406 Eric of
       Pomerania, king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

   Mary died in 1394, and in 1403 Henry married Joanna of Navarre, the
   daughter of Charles d'Evreux, King of Navarre. She was the widow of
   John IV of Brittany, with whom she had four daughters and four sons,
   but she and Henry had no children. The fact that in 1399 Henry had four
   sons from his first marriage was undoubtedly a clinching factor in his
   acceptance onto the throne. By contrast, Richard II had no children,
   and Richard's heir-apparent Mortimer was only seven years old.

Shakespeare

   Almost two hundred years afters his death, Henry became the subject of
   two plays (or one two-part play) by William Shakespeare ( Henry IV,
   Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2) as well as featuring prominently in
   Richard II.
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