Evesham (Monk of Evesham, p. 173). On 8 Nov. he was at Westminster granting Owain's estates to his brother Somerset, and on 12 Nov. propounded the knotty problems involved in the restitution of Queen Isabella (Fœdera, viii. 164).
On 21 Dec. 1400 Henry met on Blackheath the Greek emperor, Manuel Palaiologos, who stayed two months, spending Christmas with the king at Eltham. Henry entertained him splendidly, and gave him three thousand marks at his departure, but could not give him military help against the Turks. On 20 Jan. 1401 parliament reassembled, and, led by its pertinacious speaker, Arnold Savage, sought to make what it could out of the king's poverty. Henry could still reject as unprecedented the demand that the redress of grievances should precede supply. In this session was passed the act against the lollards. Henry's orthodoxy led him to approve the policy of which his wife's uncle, Archbishop Arundel, was the chief mover. The repressive legislation now sanctioned by Henry against the rebellious Welsh was in accordance with the earnest petitions of the commons. Henry himself showed a more conciliatory spirit by an almost general pardon, issued on 10 May, the last day of the session.
At the end of May Henry again started upon an expedition to Wales, the fall of Conway Castle having excited fears of a Welsh invasion of England. He reached Evesham on 1 June, already attended by a large army. On 3 June he departed thence for Worcester (Monk of Evesham, p. 174). Here he received letters from the council urging his return to London, as the danger had been exaggerated (Ord. P. C. i. 134). After resting a few days at Worcester he returned to London on 25 June (ib. i. 143).
Henry attended a council the very day of his arrival. On 27 June he saw the infant Queen Isabella before her departure for France. But her surrender did Henry no good, and left the French a freer hand. On 15 Aug. Henry met a great council at Westminster, strengthened by more knights from the shires than generally attended parliament. The council accepted war with both France and Scotland, and attempted to supply funds. An effort was also made to put down the chronic anarchy of Ireland by sending Thomas, the king's second son, as lord-lieutenant, and the Prince of Wales was ordered to advance against Owain. But Henry had now become violently unpopular. The people murmured against his officers, who seized supplies without paying for them (Ann. Henr. p. 337). His best friends complained that his remissness had brought about almost a state of anarchy, and his confessor, Philip Repingdon, addressed to him an earnest and plain-spoken letter of remonstrance (Beckington, Correspondence, i. 151–4, Rolls Ser.). About 8 Sept. Henry found hidden in his bed an ‘iron with three branches so sharp that wherever the king had turned him it should slay him’ (Capgrave, Chron. p. 278; Ann. Henr. p. 337; Monk of Evesham, p. 175; Chron. Giles, p. 25).
On 18 Sept. Henry issued from Westminster military summonses for 2 Oct. at latest to meet at Worcester for a fresh attack upon Wales (Fœdera, viii. 225; Chron. Giles, p. 26; the Monk of Evesham, p. 176, transposes the two expeditions of this year). On 1 Oct. he reached Worcester, and at once hurried off into Wales. The accounts of this expedition are confused and contradictory. On 8 Oct. Henry reached Bangor and Carnarvon (Wylie, p. 243, from Rot. Viag. 28). He is said to have made a raid into Cardiganshire, for which, however, there was hardly time, as he was at Mochdre on 13 Oct. and on 15 Oct. back at Shrewsbury (ib. p. 244). His northern foray in a hostile country at a wet time of year is of itself a remarkable proof of his energy. He was back at Westminster early in November (Fœdera, viii. 230–1).
Early in 1402 Henry met great councils or parliaments at London and Coventry, and obtained more supplies. The foreign outlook was as threatening as ever, and Henry had negotiated a series of marriages to improve his position. On 21 June 1402 his elder daughter Blanche set sail for Germany to marry Louis, eldest son of Rupert, the count palatine, newly chosen king of the Romans (see for marriage negotiations and her subsequent history Beckington, Corresp.) In May he began negotiations to wed the Prince of Wales to Catharine, grandniece of Margaret, the powerful ruler of a newly united Scandinavia, and his second daughter, Philippa, to King Eric, Margaret's grandnephew and heir (Geijer, Geschichte Schwedens, i. 197). The former proposal came to nothing; the latter marriage was effected in 1406. Henry was simultaneously arranging a marriage between himself and Joan, widow of John IV, duke of Brittany, and daughter of Charles the Bad of Navarre, who since November 1399 had been acting as regent for her son, Duke John V, and on 3 April 1402 a proxy marriage was celebrated at Eltham. But Henry failed in his political hopes of the marriage. In October the Duke of Burgundy compelled Joan to resign the regency and the custody of her sons, and Brittany was henceforth among Henry's active enemies.
Riots and outrages now broke out all over
