First, the situation may be briefly described. Henry the Fourth was far from being safe on his newly won throne. Early in 1400 he had discovered a plot against his life. The Kings of France and Scotland had refused to recognise his title to the crown, and were even making preparations for an invasion of England. A more immediate danger also threatened him; Wales was in revolt. Here Owen Glendower, lineal descendant of the Llewellyn who had been defeated and slain by Edward the First, had been roused by private wrongs to assert the independence of his nation. And it was here that we find the young Henry employed by his father. That a boy so young—in the early part of 1400–1 he still wanted some months of completing his fourteenth year—should be put in a position of authority is remarkable; that the boy so trusted should have been a profligate simply exceeds belief.
The young Prince was apparently taking an active part in the conduct of affairs; in any case, he must have been on the spot, and not wasting his time in London. He was summoned to attend a Council to be held in London on August 15th, 1401. A month afterwards the rebellion in Wales broke out afresh, and the Prince was probably again engaged in active service. At least we find him in November with a small force of twenty men-at-arms and forty archers, in respect of which he received, by order of Council, the sum of one thousand pounds. In the following year we find him acting on his own account. He addresses (under date May 15th) a letter to the Privy Council, in which he gives an account of his doings in Wales. Owen Glendower, it seems, had sent him something like a challenge. He had gone, accordingly, to Owen’s principal mansion, but had found no one there. Thence he had proceeded to the Welshman’s seat at Glendourdy, and had burnt it, capturing at the same time one of Owen’s chief men. The prisoner had offered five hundred pounds for his ransom, but this was not accepted, and he was put to death. Henry had afterwards marched into Merionethshire and Powysland. This letter was written from Shrewsbury, and was followed by another about a fortnight later, in which he describes himself as being in great straits. His soldiers wanted to know when they would be paid; unless he had some money sent, he could not remain where he was; he had already pawned his jewels (nos petitz joualx). The castles of Harlech and Lampadern must be relieved without delay. But if help were given, things promised well for a suppression of the rebellion.
What reply the Prince received to these representations we do not know. The rebellion was not suppressed then, nor for many years to come. On June 25th something like a general levy was ordered, the King addressing precepts to the Lieutenants of many English counties by which it was enjoined that all persons liable to military service should meet him at Lichfield and march with him against the Welsh rebels. Similar documents were issued later in the year, in one of which all persons liable to serve in the counties of Derby and Shropshire were enjoined to meet “our very dear son, Henry, Prince of Wales” at Chester on August 27th.
It is needless to follow the King’s proceedings in detail. His resources were not equal to the demands made upon them. New dangers started up in unexpected places, and he had to change his plans to meet them. But on March 7th, 1403, we come to an important document. It is an ordinance of the King in Council, given at Westminster. The beginning of it runs thus:
“The King to all whom it may concern, greeting. Know that, wishing to provide for the good government of the region of Wales, and of the Marches and parts adjacent thereto, and for resistance to the rebels who have contrary to their allegiance treasonably risen against us, and having full confidence in the fidelity and energy of our dearly beloved eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales, we constitute the said Prince our Lieutenant in the said region of Wales.”
Here then we find Henry, who was now about half-way through his sixteenth year, appointed to the civil and military command of the most disturbed part of the King’s dominions. About six weeks later the men of Shropshire write to the Council complaining of the ravages of the Welsh rebels, and praying that some men-at-arms and archers should be sent to protect them till the Prince himself should come.
The King had now to meet a more formidable combination of enemies than he had yet encountered. Henry Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, the Harry Hotspur of Shakespeare, had been a trusted lieutenant of Henry. He had served in Wales against Glendower, and had been employed both in negotiations with the Scotch and in military action against them. He conceived himself to have been unjustly treated, for reasons which do not concern our present purpose, and to avenge his wrongs he formed an alliance with Owen Glendower and with the Earl of Douglas on behalf of the King of Scotland. Glendower was to invade Gloucestershire. To meet this danger the King issued briefs, under date of June 16th, to the Lieutenants of Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire, directing that all persons liable to serve should put themselves at the command of his son, Henry, Prince of Wales. At the same time an attack on the northern borders was threatened from Scotland, and the Percies, whose disaffection was not yet known at Court, were commissioned to repel it. The King himself marched northwards to assist them, and seems to have been ignorant as late as July 10th of their real intentions. These, however, became known to him a day or so after, for he issued briefs to the Lieutenants of the counties, dated from Burton-on-Trent on July 16th, Lichfield on the 17th, and Westminster on the 18th, requiring military assistance to repel the invasion of Henry Percy with the Welsh rebels and “certain enemies of ours from Scotland” in his company.
Six days later than the date of the Westminster brief the battle of Shrewsbury was fought. Prince Henry was on the field and bore himself bravely, though we must not credit him with the great achievement which Shakespeare attributes to him, of having slain Henry Percy in single combat. A lad, still wanting some months of sixteen, could hardly have vanquished a man of thirty, one of the bravest and most expert soldiers of his time. Hotspur seems to have been killed by a chance arrow as he was charging with characteristic impetuosity the royal forces. The young Prince was himself wounded in the forehead by an arrow.
His father’s confidence in him was continued. Two days after the battle he expresses his trust in the loyalty and prudent caution of his son, Henry, Prince of Wales, and gives him full power to amnesty at his discretion such persons concerned in the late rebellion as he might think fit, in the county of Chester and in other places named.
Owen Glendower, who had not shared the defeat of the Percies at Shrewsbury, still held out. In 1404 he assumed the title of Prince of Wales. In the June of that year the Sheriff of Hereford, with various gentlemen of the county, represented to the King that they were suffering greatly from the ravages of the Welsh rebels. The Prince was directed to go to their help, and on the 20th of the month wrote to his father from Worcester, to which city he had removed his headquarters. He thanks him for his kind letter written from Pontefract five days before, and rejoices in the news it brought of his health and prosperity, which are, he says, the greatest pleasure that can come to him in the world. He had been taking measures for the defence of the county of Hereford, which the Welsh rebels had been ravaging with fire and sword, and he would do all he could to resist them and to save England from their attacks. Another letter to the same effect was addressed by him to the Council, and a second four days afterwards.
On August 30th the Council granted him three thousand marks for the expenses of holding the castle of Denbigh and other strongholds in North Wales, and suggested that he should remain for a certain time on the borders of Herefordshire, and afterwards invade Wales. In a document apparently belonging to the same time there is a list of castles in North Wales which the Prince had kept at his own cost since the commencement of the rebellion.
In March 1405 the Prince wrote to the King relating a victory which he had won over the Welsh:
“On Wednesday, the 11th day of this present month of March, the rebels in parties from Glamorgan, Morganoe, Usk, Netherwart, and Overwart were assembled to the number of eleven thousand by their own account. On the said 11th of March they burnt part of your town of Grosmont. Thereupon I sent my dear cousin Lord Talbot and others. To them there joined themselves your faithful and valiant knights, William Newport and John Greindel. And though they were but a small number, yet was it well