erformer of the English. After a sumptuous
supper the ladies and knights spent the remainder of the night in
dancing. The tournaments were continued in a similar manner on Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and on Saturday the Court,
with all the company, removed to Windsor, where the jousts, feasting,
and other diversions were renewed, and lasted several days longer.
Subsequently the king presented the foreign ladies, lords, and knights
with valuable gifts, and they returned to their own countries highly
pleased with the entertainment which they had enjoyed in England.

KING HENRY THE FOURTH

was born at Bolingbroke, in Lincolnshire, being the eldest son of John
of Gaunt and of his first wife, the heiress of the house of Lancaster,
and a grandson of Edward III. On the death of John of Gaunt in 1399,
Richard II. seized his lands, having in the previous year banished
Henry of Bolingbroke. On Henry hearing what had occurred, knowing his
own popularity and Richard's unpopularity, Henry returned from
banishment, and succeeded in an attack on Richard, whom he made a
prisoner. Then summoning a Parliament, at which Richard was formally
deposed and himself made king, Henry came to the throne with the title
of Henry IV. Soon, however, he found himself menaced by danger. Some
of the lords who had been stripped of the honours and wealth heaped
upon them by Richard entered into a conspiracy to assassinate Henry
the usurper. During the Christmas holidays they met frequently at the
lodgings of the Abbot of Westminster to plan the king's destruction.
After much deliberation they agreed to hold a splendid tournament at
Oxford on the 3rd of January, 1400. Henry was to be invited to
preside, and while intent on the spectacle a number of picked men were
to kill him and his sons. The king was keeping his Christmas at
Windsor, whither the Earl of Huntingdon presented himself and gave him
the invitation. Henry accepted it, but on the 2nd of January, the day
previous to the tournament, the Earl of Rutland, who was privy to the
plot, went secretly to Windsor and informed the king of the
arrangements which had been made for his assassination. The same
evening, after dusk, the king proceeded to London; and the next day
when the conspirators assembled at Oxford they were surprised to find
that neither the king nor their own accomplice, Rutland, had arrived.
Suspecting treachery they resolved to proceed at once to Windsor and
su