King Henry the IV

From king Henry’s reign fron1399 to 1413 he had to deal with a lot tragedies. During his reign he foiled many assassination attempts, rebellions, and plots to restore King Richard to the throne. He was must successful at foiling these potential tragedies because of his well trained and loyal military (wikipedia).

King Henry was born April 3, 1367(wikipedia), at Bolingbroke castle as a result of he is later nicknamed “henry of bolingbroke”(wekipedia). He was born to John of Gaunt the duke of Lancast , and Blanche of Lancaster(Britannia). As a child Henry would play with his cousin Richard the Future king of England who Henry would eventually over throw(Wekipedia). They were both admitted to the Order of the Garter in 1377.

Later on in Henry’s life he would participate in the Lords Appellant’s Rebellion. After Richard regained his power he sentenced most of the rebels to be executed or exiled, but he spared the life of his cousin henry which would later come back to haunt him. In 1389 Henry and Richard had a second conflict when Richard exiled Henry with his

fathers approval. Henry was banished to prevent a bloody confrontation with Thomas de Mowbray the 1st Duke of Norfolk who was exiled for life. The next year Henry’s father John of Gaunt died, and king Richard decided to drop the legal documents so that Henry would be able to return. Henry inherited all of Guant’s land(wikipedia), because he was the oldest son.

While king Richard was in Ireland on a military campaign, Henry was on his own military campaign to kick Richard off the throne. He confiscated the land of anyone who opposed and ordered his military to destroy most of Cheshire. Henry gained enough power by doing so that he was able to declare himself king of England. After KING Henry declared him self king he threw poor old Richard into prison (wikipedia). Because the former king Richard had no children of his own and the closest heir was only seven Henry had no problem taking over the kingdom. Henry’s coronation was on October 13, 1399. As king Henry consulted often with the parliament. The parliament did not always think the way that Henry wanted them to but he would do what he thought was the best thing to do. One of the things that he disagreed

the most with the parliament about were ecclesiastical matters. King Henry was the first king to allow the burning of heretics mainly to quell the Lollard movement.

One of the kings first and foremost problems was what to do about the imprisoned Richard. There was an attempt to assassinate the king in hope that Richard would be restored to the thrown, but king Henry foiled this attempt. There is no real concrete evidence supporting this theory but some historians believe that King Henry sentenced Richard to death by starvation. What is known is that King Henry had Richards body on public display at St. Paul’s Cathedral so that his loyalists would no that he was in fact dead

During King Henry’s reign he spent a lot of time defending himself from attempted assassinations, and rebellions. The king successfully foiled these attempts thanks to the military ability of his son who would later take most of his fathers power in1410 and then become king after his fathers death in 1413.

During the last years of his reign after his son took over most of the power from his father King Henry became seriously ill. He suffered form a disfiguring skin disease. A more Significant health issue is that