Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/39

Henry IV his followers home, and on 23 Sept. started for a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Richard Kyngeston's expenses roll again preserves his itinerary. He stayed at Prague from 13 to 25 Oct. 1392, passed three days with King Wenzel at his castle of Bettlern; spent the first four days of November at Vienna, meeting Archduke Albrecht III and Sigismund of Hungary; and, crossing the Semmering, reached Venice on 29 Nov., and was splendidly entertained at the expense of the state, which presented him with a fully equipped galley (, Archives de l'Orient Latin, II. ii. 238–40; Cal. State Papers, Venet. i. Nos. 107–8). He spent Christmas day at Zara, and also landed at Rhodes, whence he sailed to Jaffa. Thence he made a flying visit to Jerusalem, one donkey carrying his provisions, and returned by Cyprus (, Lectures on Mediæval and Modern History, p. 198;, Papers from the Northern Registers, p. 198), reaching Venice towards the end of March 1393, where the council voted one hundred ducats ‘that he might return home contented with us.’ After a month's stay at his old quarters at San Giorgio, he travelled by Milan (13 May) and Pavia and the Mont Cenis to Paris, where he arrived on 22 June (cf. , Chronique des Quatre Premiers Valois, p. 335, Soc. de l'Hist. de France). He reached London on 5 July, having industriously visited churches and other sights throughout his journey ( accounts in Lancaster Records, class xxviii. first bundle No. 7; summarised by Dr. in Nachrichten von der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, No. 8, pp. 329–40, 1880, and No. 14, pp. 345–357, 1881; cf., De Illustribus Henricis, pp. 99–101). Froissart's statement that he visited Cairo and St. Catherine's (xvi. 107, ed. Kervyn) is wrong.

For the next few years Henry remained quietly at home, taking an active but not a very conspicuous part in politics, and generally working with his father on the side of the king. In 1393 father and son quarrelled with Arundel, whom they accused of lukewarmness in putting down the Cheshire revolt. Henry was present in the Hilarytide parliament of 1394. His stepmother, Constance, and his wife, Mary Bohun, died and were buried with great pomp at the end of June at Leicester (, c. 2741; ii. 214). In 1395 Derby acted as one of the council which ruled England while Richard II was in Ireland (Ord. P. C. i. 57). He tried petitions at the Westminster parliament which met in January and February (Rot. Parl. iii. 329). The conclusion of a private treaty of alliance by his father and himself with the Duke of Brittany, without reservation of homage to Richard, on 25 Nov., is sometimes regarded as an attempt to establish a separate interest from that of the king (, Preface, pp. xix–xx, of Chronique de la Traïson, Engl. Hist. Soc.). But the treaty was mainly concerned with a projected marriage of Derby's eldest son, Henry (afterwards Henry V), to Mary, eldest daughter of John IV, duke of Brittany (, Hist. de Bretagne, Preuves, ii. 791–3). In October 1396 Derby took a prominent part at the meeting of Richard II and Charles VI of France, previous to the English king's marriage with Isabella, Charles's daughter, and in February 1397 Richard proposed a marriage between Derby and a lady of the lineage of the king of France (Fœdera, vii. 850).

Early in 1396 Henry was anxious to join the expedition of William of Bavaria, count of Oostervant, eldest son of Count Albert of Hainault and Holland, against Friesland, but was forbidden to go by his father (, xv. 269–70, ed. Kervyn). The story that he then went to Hungary and fought with King Sigismund against the Turks at Nicopolis (25 Sept.) rests solely upon the statement of the Italian chronicler Minerbetti (, Rer. Ital. Script. ii. c. 364), that a son of Lancaster (possibly John Beaufort) was present at the battle (see, i. 216).

In the January parliament of 1397 Derby was a trier of petitions (Rot. Parl. iii. 337), and witnessed a grant to his brother, John Beaufort, now Earl of Somerset (ib. iii. 343). Henry had long ceased to have any dealings with Gloucester and his friends, and was friendly to Richard throughout the great struggle that the king had made to win absolute power and revenge himself on his old enemies. The French authorities maintain (very improbably) that he was present at the conference of conspirators which met, according to them, at Arundel, in July (Chronique de la Traïson, p. 5; Religieux de Saint-Denys, ii. 478). When Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick were arrested, Henry took a decided part against his old associates; but he avoided the violence of Nottingham, earl-marshal. He was not a party to the marshal's new appeal, and had no share in the getting rid of Gloucester. But he joined his father and the Duke of York after 28 Aug. in gathering troops to protect the king (Fœdera, viii. 14). When the new parliament met on 17 Sept. 1397, Henry was again a trier of petitions (Rot. Parl. iii. 348). He attacked Arundel, now his personal enemy, who hotly gave him the lie (Monk of Evesham, p. 137;, p. 14). On the rehearsal of the commons that Derby and