ade by Mr. Green himself in the margin of his volume of the original
edition.

A.S. Green.

VOLUME III

BOOK IV
THE PARLIAMENT
1399-1461

CHAPTER V
THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER
1399-1422

[Sidenote: Henry the Fourth]

Once safe in the Tower, it was easy to wrest from Richard a resignation of
his crown; and this resignation was solemnly accepted by the Parliament
which met at the close of September 1399. But the resignation was
confirmed by a solemn Act of Deposition. The coronation oath was read, and
a long impeachment which stated the breach of the promises made in it was
followed by a solemn vote of both Houses which removed Richard from the
state and authority of king. According to the strict rules of hereditary
descent as construed by the feudal lawyers by an assumed analogy with the
rules which governed descent of ordinary estates the crown would now have
passed to a house which had at an earlier period played a leading part in
the revolutions of the Edwards. The great-grandson of the Mortimer who
brought about the deposition of Edward the Second had married the daughter
and heiress of Lionel of Clarence, the third son of Edward the Third. The
childlessness of Richard and the death of Edward's second son without
issue placed Edmund Mortimer, the son of the Earl who had fallen in
Ireland, first among the claimants of the crown; but he was now a child of
six years old, the strict rule of hereditary descent had never received
any formal recognition in the case of the Crown, and precedent suggested a
right of Parliament to choose in such a case a successor among any other
members of the Royal House. Only one such successor was in fact possible.
Rising from his seat and crossing himself, Henry of Lancaster solemnly
challenged the crown, "as that I am descended by right line of blood
coming from the good lord King Henry the Third, and through that right
that God of his grace hath sent me with help of my kin and of my friends
to recover it: the which realm was in point to be undone by default of
governance and undoing of good laws." Whatever defects such a claim might
present were more than covered by the solemn recognition of Parliament.
The two Archbishops, taking the new sovereign by the hand, seated him upon
the throne, and Henry in emphatic words ratified the compact between
himself and his people. "Sirs