18 Constitutional History. [chap.
and whose desertion of the cause of Bichard had, more tlɪan any
other single event, insured the success of Henry. His brother
Thomas had been steward to Richard II and had received from
The Nevilles, him the earldom of Worcester. Ralph Neville, the earl of
Westmoreland, was brother-in-law of Henry Percy, and had
risen in the same way ; he was son of the lord Neville who had
been impeached in the Good Parliament, and he had married,
as second wife, Johanna Beaufort, a daughter of John of Gaunt.
The blood of the house of Lancaster ran also in the veins of the
Hollands and the Arundels ; and such lords as were not cousins
to the king through his parents, were ranked in the affinity of
τhe,, the Boliuns. The vast estates of the house of Lancaster lay
lords. chiefly in the north and midland shires ; and the great names
of the Percies, Nevilles, Scropes, Lumley, Roos, Darcy, Dacre,.
Greystock and Fitzhugh, show that the balance of political
strength in the baronage lay northwards also.
The first parliament of Henry IV sat from October 6 to
The king's November ɪo. It dispatched a great deal of work. There
difficulties .
at the be- were, notwithstanding the great popularity oɪ the king, grounds
theɪrɪeign. for alarm at home and abroad ; how to obtain recognition by
the pope and foreign princes, how to equip an army without
having recourse to heavy taxation, how to deal with the
Wycliffites, how to reconcile the feuds, how to punish the
destroyers of Gloucester and Arundel, what was to be done
with king Richard. Henry had made great promises to
the clergy, and to Arundel he owed scarcely less than he
owed to the Percies. At Doncaster, and again at Knares-
borough castle, soon after he landed, he had promised not
to tax the clergy with tenths or the laity with tallages1 ;
Arundel was aware that at any moment the knights of the shire
in parliament might demand the seizure of the temporalities of
the clergy. Sir John Cheyne, the speaker chosen by the com-
mons, was known to be inclined to the Wycliffites ; on the plea
ɪ The oath at Doncaster is mentioned by Hardyng in the Percy Chal-
lenge, Chron. p. 352. That at Knaresborough by Clement Maidstone:
‘ quod nunquam Solveret Ecclesia Anglieana decimam nec populus taxam
Ang. Sac. ii. 369.
χvιιi∙] First Parliament of Henry IV. 19
0f Ш-health he declined the election, but not until the arch-
bifehoɪɔ had moved the synod of the clergy against him ɪ. Sir
John Doreward was chosen in his place2.
The speaker was admitted on the 15th of October ; and the Proceedings
c.ιroc day all the proceedings of Richard’s last parliament, in ment of
accordance with a petition of the commons, were annulled, and ,399.
the acts of that of 1388 reinstated in their validity ; the suf-
ferers of 1397 were restored, so far as they could be restored,
in blood and estate ; the king undertook that the powers of
parliament should not be again delegated to a committee such
as Richard had manipulated so cleverly ; the blank bonds which
he had used to tax the counties illegally were cancelled ; and
the king’s eldest son, Henry of Monmouth, was made prince of
Wales, duke of Cornwall, and earl of Chester3.
The next day, October 16, the knights of the shire demanded challenges
the arrest of the evil counsellors of King Richard4. Sir Wil- mations
•г» г 11 η ∙ PiiiT ∙ ∙ ι among the
Iiam Bagot5 the only survivor oɪ the luckless triumvirate who appellants
had managed the parliament of 1397, made a distinct charge ° ɪ397'
against the duke of Aumale as the instigator of the murder
of Gloucester. He repeated a conversation in which Richard
had spoken of Henry as an enemy of the church, which called
forth from the king himself a most distinct asseveration of his
faithfulness ; and Aumale, who saw that he was to be repre-
sented as Richard’s intended successor fζ challenged the accuser
1 Ann, Henr. p. 290. Walsingham says that Cheyne -was an apostate
deacon; ii. 266. He was member for Gloucestershire and had been im-
plicated in the designs of duke Thomas.
2 Rot. Paid. iii. 424.
3 lb. iii, 425, 426, 436 ; of. Adam of Vsk, p. 35. The blank charters
were burned by the king’s order of Nov. 30 ; Rvmer, viii. 109.
i Die Jovis/ Ann. Henr. p. 303; where a graphic account of the whole
proceedings will be found, supplementing the meagre record in the Rolls
0* Parliament. See also Arcbaeologia, xx. 275-281.
The story was that Richard had once expressed a wish to resign the
cr°wn to the duke of Aumâle, as the most generous and wisest man in the
ι∏gdom. The duke of Norfolk had urged that Henry stood nearer to
e succession. Then Richard had said, 'Si ipse teneret regni regimen de-
∏iere vellet totam ecclesiam sanctam Dei;, Ann. Henr. p. 304; Fabyan,
ɛ'θŋo. Henrynowallowedthat he had wished to Seemoreworthymen
⅛t? ate^ ^an ɪ1,4^ ^een ɪɪɪ Rkkard’s time ; and thus to some extent ad-
bad h ʤɪɪɛ su⅛ect been discussed. According to Hall, Henry
been heard by the abbot OfWestminster to say, when he was quite
C 2