King's Bench, because he was firm
in dealing impartially with one of his dissolute companions. Upon this
the Chief Justice is said to have ordered him immediately to prison; the
Prince of Wales is said to have submitted with a good grace; and the King
is said to have exclaimed, 'Happy is the monarch who has so just a judge,
and a son so willing to obey the laws.' This is all very doubtful, and
so is another story (of which Shakespeare has made beautiful use), that
the Prince once took the crown out of his father's chamber as he was
sleeping, and tried it on his own head.

The King's health sank more and more, and he became subject to violent
eruptions on the face and to bad epileptic fits, and his spirits sank
every day. At last, as he was praying before the shrine of St. Edward at
Westminster Abbey, he was seized with a terrible fit, and was carried
into the Abbot's chamber, where he presently died. It had been foretold
that he would die at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never was,
Westminster. But, as the Abbot's room had long been called the Jerusalem
chamber, people said it was all the same thing, and were quite satisfied
with the prediction.

The King died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty-seventh year of
his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He was buried in Canterbury
Cathedral. He had been twice married, and had, by his first wife, a
family of four sons and two daughters. Considering his duplicity before
he came to the throne, his unjust seizure of it, and above all, his
making that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests called
heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went.

CHAPTER XXI--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH

FIRST PART

The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and honest man. He
set the young Earl of March free; he restored their estates and their
honours to the Percy family, who had lost them by their rebellion against
his father; he ordered the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to be
honourably buried among the Kings of England; and he dismissed all his
wild companions, with assurances that they should not want, if they would
resolve to be steady, faithful, and true.

It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions; and those of
the Lollards were spreading every day. The Lollards were represented by
the priests--probably falsely for the most part--to entertain treasonable
designs against the new King; and Henry, suff