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Henry IV ment (14 Jan. to 20 March 1404). The estates were more disposed to debate than do business (‘plura locuta sunt, pauca fuere statuta,’ Ann. Henr. p. 378). But they petitioned that Northumberland should be pardoned outright, though he had not yet given up his castles. They insisted on the expulsion of aliens and schismatics. The royal expenses were limited, and Henry was forced to publish the names of the council in parliament. The failure of the attempt to rouse Essex, and the ignominious defeat of the French invaders at Dartmouth, followed close on the dismissal of parliament, and strengthened the king's position. Henry returned thanks for this signal victory at the shrine of the Confessor (Ann. Henr. p. 385). The Dartmouth prisoners were examined before Henry (Fœdera, viii. 358), and he boasted that he knew all the secrets of the French court (, p. 420, in Panthéon Littéraire). Although on 14 June a formal treaty was made between Owain and the French, the accession of John the Fearless to the duchy of Burgundy gave Orleans employment at home. Henry's energy declined. He suffered during this year from serious ill-health, and was long in getting quite well again (, Correspondence, ii. 373–4). This seems the first of a long series of illnesses. He visited Pontefract in June, where, on the 24th, Northumberland (Ann. Henr. p. 390) at last surrendered his castles. Henry also arranged a continuation of the truce with the Scots, and the execution of Serle, the reputed murderer of Thomas of Gloucester, put a stop to the reports that Richard was still alive. On 22 Aug. he arrived at Lichfield, where he held a great council, which decided that he could not that year go to Wales. On 6 Oct. Henry opened at Coventry the ‘Unlearned parliament,’ from which all lawyers had been excluded by proclamation. The resumption of royal grants since 1367 and the appropriation for the year of the whole of the temporalities of the church were discussed and rejected, and a very liberal supply was granted. The king kept his Christmas at Eltham (ib. p. 397), where a plot for his murder came to nothing.

In February 1405 Edmund Mortimer, the young earl of March, was stolen from Windsor, but was soon brought back. On 17 Feb., at a great council at Westminster, Lady Despenser accused her brother (now Duke of York by Edmund of Langley's death) of complicity in his abduction and in the Eltham plot. Archbishop Arundel himself was suspected, but, to Henry's great delight, purged himself. As the lords showed no disposition to comply with the king's requests the council was moved to St. Albans, where Lord Bardolf headed a virulent opposition.

Henry prepared for another expedition to Wales, and on 8 May was at Worcester. He heard there that Bardolf had joined Northumberland in an open revolt, and was supposed to have suggested a treaty between Northumberland, Owain, and Mortimer for the division of England into three parts (Chron. Giles, pp. 39–42). Archbishop Scrope of York (second cousin of the late Earl of Wiltshire) had joined with Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, styled the earl-marshal, in raising the Yorkshiremen, and had published articles against Henry. The king hurried northwards, and on 3 June was at Pontefract. But the rebellion had collapsed with the surrender of the archbishop and Mowbray to Westmoreland on 29 May at Shipton Moor. Henry advanced upon York, where the citizens implored his pardon. Henry sternly bade them return. On 6 June the king lodged at Bishopsthorpe, where Scrope was now a captive in his own palace. The courtiers, headed by the Earl of Arundel and Thomas Beaufort, urged Henry to make a terrible example of the treacherous prelate (, Ann. Eccl. viii. 143, ed. Mansi). Archbishop Arundel hurried to Bishopsthorpe to persuade Henry to refer the case of Scrope to pope or parliament. While Archbishop Arundel was at breakfast with Henry, after his journey, the Earl of Arundel and Thomas Beaufort held a hasty and irregular trial of the archbishop and Mowbray, and executed them on the spot (Ann. Henr. pp. 408–9;, Ann. Eccl. viii. 143, but cf. the different accounts in , Liber Veritatum, pp. 225–9, ed. Rogers; , Hist. de Martyrio R. Scrope in Anglia Sacra, ii. 369–72; and Chron. Giles, p. 45).

Every one was horrified at the deed, and miracles at once attested the sanctity of the martyred archbishop. (The poem in, Polit. Poems, ii. 114–18, well expresses clerical opinion.) Conscious perhaps of his blunder, Henry at once hurried northward against Northumberland and Bardolf. He took Northumberland's last castles, Warkworth and Alnwick, and drove his foes into Scotland. At the end of August he again invaded Wales. His most glorious exploit was the relief of the long-beleaguered castle of Coyty in Glamorgan. He lost his baggage, wagons, and treasure from floods, and early in October was back at Worcester, leaving Carmarthen to fall into the hands of Owain and his French allies. He sought a further supply of money from the archbishop and bishops. Arundel resisted what he regarded