Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/506

492 his meanness, for his murder of Richard, and challenging him to mortal combat. This -was not the only epistle which Henry received from France in the same strain, for the Count Walleran de Ligny and St. Pol had written to him before the queen arrived, and sent his heralds with his letter into England, also defying him, and protesting that he would everywhere, on land and sea, do him all the harm that he possibly could.

Henry was stung to answer these missives in a similar strain, but they did not prevent him still cherishing the idea of yet securing Isabella for his son. In 1406, if we are to believe Monstrellet, he made singular offers for this purpose, but the Duke of Orleans declared in the council that the hand of Isabella was now promised to his son, Charles of Angoulême. To this young prince the widowed queen of England was married, and died in childbirth in September, 1410. Such was the last of the fortunes of King Richard and his little queen; and it has been well argued that nothing is so decisive in proof of Richard being actually dead as the pertinacity of Henry to obtain Isabella for his son's wife, as he certainly would not have done this had he known that Richard was living, for it would have illegitimate the issue of the marriage, and the claim of succession to the throne.

Meantime the revolt of Owen Glendower had been acquiring strength. Not only did the Welsh, amid their native mountains, flock to his standard, but such of them as were in England left their various employments and hastened back to join in the great efforts for the independence of their country. Not only labourers and artisans, but the apprentices in London and other cities caught the contagion, and went streaming back. The students left the universities, and the Commons at length presented themselves before the king, representing to him how all these various classes of men were hastening to Wales laden with armour, arrows, bows, and swords. Owen took the field early, engaged his original adversary, Lord Grey, defeated and made him prisoner on the banks of the Vurnway. Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the young Earl of Marche, collected all the friends and vassals of the family to prevent the devastation of their lands. They mustered 12,000, with whom they attacked Glendower near Knighton, in Radnorshire, but were defeated, and Sir Edmund was made prisoner, with a loss of 1,100 of his men. At the same time the young earl himself, who had been allowed by Henry to retire to his castle of Wigmore, though a mere boy, took the field, but was also captured by Glendower and carried into the mountains.

Henry, who had the strongest reasons for wishing the Mortimers out of his way, we may suppose was by no means displeased at their seizure by Glendower; and this was sufficiently evident, for he refused to allow the Earl of Northumberland, who was closely allied to the Mortimers, to treat for their ransom with Glendower. Still, Henry put forth all his vigour to reduce the Welsh chieftain. He entered Wales at three different points; his son, the Prince of Wales, leading one division of the army, the Earl of Arundel the second, and himself the third. The Prince of Wales pushed into the heart of the mountains with a bravery which was the herald of Agincourt. He reached the very estate of Glendower and burnt down his house, and laid waste his property; but Glendower kept aloof on the hills till he saw young Henry retire, when he poured down like one of his native torrents, and carried desolation in his rear. The English armies found it impossible to come to close quarters with these enemies, and equally impossible to procure provisions. The weather was insupportable. The rains descended in incessant deluges, the tempest tore away the king's tent, and everything appeared to confirm the ideas of the people, and indeed of contemporary historians, that Owen Glendower, by the power of necromancy, could "call spirits from the vasty deep," and bring the elements in league against his foes. Henry was compelled to return baffled from the contest.

The news which reached the king from Scotland was equally extraordinary. It was that King Richard was alive and residing at the Scottish court, and about to invade England at the head of a large army. The king issued repeated proclamations against the propagation of these rumours, and it was now that he put to death Sir Roger Clarendon, the natural son of the Black Prince, the nine Franciscan friars, and several other persons, for disseminating this account. But his efforts only added force to the popular belief. The circumstance most in his favour was the distraction of the Scottish court, where a most terrible tragedy had been the consequence of the criminal ambition of the Duke of Albany, the king's brother.

Robert III. had never been a martial monarch, owing to a kick which he received in his youth from a horse, which left him very lame. He was of peaceful habits, a religious and just temperament, but of feeble mind, and readily influenced by those around him. His aspiring brother, the Duke of Albany, had taken advantage of these circumstances to grasp the whole power of the state in his hands.

David, the Duke of Rothsay, the eldest son of Robert, was, like the son of Henry in England, gay and dissipated. He was at the same time brave, generous, and honourable, and, therefore, the more liable to be entrapped by the crafty arts of Albany. The king and queen were anxious to have their son well married, but Albany prevailed on them to select a wife from a Scottish house which would pay the largest dower. On this disgraceful principle he sought to degrade the prince, and make him enemies. He succeeded completely. George, Earl of March—not the English Marche—made the most ample offer for the honour of this connection with royalty. The prince was said to have his own attachment, but that was by no means consulted. When, however, the match was arranged with the daughter of the Earl of March, Archibald, Earl of Douglas, the most powerful and overbearing baron in Scotland, felt himself aggrieved, and determined to place his own daughter, as Rothsay's wife, on the throne. Earl James, his predecessor, had married the king's sister, and he was resolved that no subject but himself should hold the same relation to the crown. He outbade March, the Duke of Albany gave him the preference, the alliance already arranged was broken off with March, and Mariell Douglas was married to Rothsay.

It was not to be expected that such a marriage should be an auspicious one. Rothsay loved another, and not only hated but despised his wife, who is said to have been