ate the revenues of
the clergy, even urged him also to soften the laws against the
Lollards. The king refused, and he had no opposition to fear from the
Prince of Wales.

[Illustration: Costume of a judge, about 1400: from the brass of Sir
John Cassy, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, at Deerhurst,
Gloucestershire.]

12. =The Last Years of Henry IV. 1411--1413.=--It was not long before
a bitter quarrel broke out between Henry IV. and his son, which lasted
till the death of the old man. In later times stories were told how
Prince Henry gave himself up to the society of low and debauched
companions, how he amused himself by robbing the receivers of his own
rents, and how, having struck Chief Justice Gascoigne for sitting in
judgment on one of his unruly followers, he was sent to prison for
contempt of court. There is no real evidence in support of these
stories; but there is good reason to believe that, though they were
certainly exaggerated, they were not altogether without foundation.
Since =1410= the Prince kept house in the heart of London, and, as a
young and active man suddenly called from service in the field to live
in the midst of the temptations of a city, he may very well have
developed a taste for boisterous amusements, even if he did not fall
into grosser forms of dissipation. It is certain that during this
period of his life he ran deeply into debt, and was no longer on good
terms with his father. Yet even the story about the Chief Justice goes
on to say that the Prince took his punishment meekly and offered no
resistance, and that his father thanked God that he had so upright a
judge and so obedient a son. Political disagreement probably widened
the breach between the King and the Prince. Henry IV. had grown
accustomed to live from hand to mouth, and had maintained himself on
the throne rather because Englishmen needed a king than because he was
himself a great ruler. In his foreign policy he was swayed by the
interests of the moment. In =1411= he helped the Burgundians against
the Armagnacs. In =1412= he helped the Armagnacs against the
Burgundians. Prince Henry already aimed at a steady alliance with the
Burgundians, with a view to a policy more thoroughgoing than that of
keeping a balance between the French parties. The king, too, was
subject to epileptic attacks, and to a cutaneous disorder which his
ill-willers branded by the name of leprosy. It has even been said that
in =1412= the Prince urged his fat