The Fears of Henry IV by Ian Mortimer

Author:Ian Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407066332
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Uneasy Lies the Head

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;

And in the calmest and most stillest night

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!

Uneasy lies the head which wears a crown.

Henry IV Part Two, Act 3, Scene 1

By Christmas 1401, Henry’s hopes of reviving the glorious kingship of Edward III had been destroyed. Only two years after his triumphant coronation, he was under pressure in almost every area of his responsibility. Bitter feelings against him were spreading as food became increasingly scarce and purveyors continued to requisition food for the royal household.1 Thomas Walsingham recorded a story about a new attempt on the king’s life. A vicious three-toothed iron implement was concealed in his bedstraw, which would have skewered him when he lay down on it.2 Such a story is almost certainly untrue.3 Nevertheless, it illustrates how unpopular Henry had become in certain quarters. Facing a three-pronged barbarous instrument of torture was not an edifying image for a pious warrior-king

Part of the reason for his declining popularity, and a fundamental reason for the lawlessness of the country, was the soaring price of corn. The harvest of 1400 had been bad; now that of 1401 failed too, so that wheat had doubled in price.4 This coincided with a dramatic drop in revenue from wool exports. These had once benefited Richard II to the tune of £47,000 per year but now barely reached £39,000.5 Thus, just as Henry had greater need to call for money from the wool merchants, they had less ability to pay. Similarly, as his purveyors came under heavier pressure to find food for men in royal service, those from whom they were taking the food had less to give. The result was that they themselves ended up contributing to the breakdown of law and order. It was a vicious circle, and one which could not be ended simply by dropping the import duties on corn until midsummer the following year, as the council suggested.

Circumstances such as these made it very difficult for Henry to act in what he would have considered a kingly way. He might have considered matters of finance beneath his dignity but he could hardly ignore the weight of loans under which the exchequer was operating. At the same time he could hardly put all royal business on hold until his finances were more securely established. This extended far beyond his need to maintain law and order. The marriage of his daughters to potentially important allies was another very expensive royal responsibility. There was a solution to this problem: the old feudal responsibility for every knight’s fee to pay an aid of twenty shillings on the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter. But levying such an aid for the first time in living memory was not likely to soothe the anger of those who had felt betrayed by the demand for taxation in the last parliament. Lords of manors would simply pass on the expense to the tenants.

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