you see that noblemen have been of great use in England.

When you are older you will understand this better, and you will find out many more reasons to be glad that we have noblemen in our own dear country.

Henry IV. died at Westminster, when he had been king only fourteen years. He was wise and just, except in one thing; and that was, that he punished persons who did not agree with the bishops about the proper way to worship God. Some good men, called Lollards, who loved to read the Bible in English, were put in prison, and otherwise ill used, on that

account.

CHAPTER XXX.

HENRY V.-1413 to 1422.

How Henry the Fifth was very gay and thoughtless when he was Prince of Wales, but became a great and wise King; how he went to war with France, and gained the battle of Agincourt; and how the people lamented at his death.

I THINK you would have liked King Henry V., who was often called Harry of Monmouth.

He was very good-natured and very gay; yet, when it was right to be grave and wise, he could be so, and we never had a braver king in England.

I must tell you a little about his behaviour while he was a young man, and only Prince of Wales, before I say anything about the time when he was king.

He was so merry, that people used to call him Harry Mad-cap; and though his father, King Henry

IV., knew he had a great many good qualities, he was afraid he would always be too gay to make a good king.

Once, when he had been doing something wrong, his father, who was ill at Windsor, sent for him, and he went directly in a very droll dress, that he had had made for some frolic; it was of light blue satin, and it had a great many odd puckers in the sleeves, and at every pucker he made the tailor leave a bit of blue thread and a tag like a needle. When the king saw such a strange coat, he was a little vexed that he should dare to come to him, while he was so ill, in it. But Prince Harry said he was in such a hurry to see his father, and to do whatever he wished for, that he could not spare time to take off the coat, and so he came in it just as he was; and his father forgave him because of his obedience.

Another time he was strolling about in London with some idle merry companions, when he heard that one of his servants had behaved ill, and was carried before the chief judge, whose name was Sir William Gascoyne. He went directly to the court where the judge was, and desired him to let his servant go, because he was the king's son. But the judge refused, and said he was sitting there for the king himself, to do justice to everybody alike, and he would not let the man go till he had been punished. The prince was in too great a passion to think rightly at that moment, and he struck the chief justice. That wise and good man instantly ordered the officers to take the bold young prince to prison, and it was not till he had made very humble excuses that he forgave him, and set him free. He said that such an act was worse in the king's son than in anybody else; because, as he was sitting in the court for the king, other

people, if they offended, were only subjects doing wrong, but the Prince, being the king's son, as well as his subject, was offending both king and father. Harry had the sense to understand this, and when his passion was over he thanked the judge, promised never to behave so ill again, and kept his word.

The king, you may be sure, was pleased with the judge, who was not afraid to do justice on his son; and he praised his son for getting the better of his passion, and submitting to the judge without complaining. I must tell you that when Harry of Monmouth became king, he behaved to that same judge like a dutiful son to a good father, and said he knew he could trust his subjects to the man who had not been afraid to punish even him when he deserved it.

When King Henry IV. died, the people were a little afraid lest their Mad-cap Harry should not make a good king, though he might be a merry one.

But they soon saw they were mistaken.

The first thing he did was to send away all his foolish, wild companions, and almost the next was to make a friend of the wise Sir William Gascoyne, Chief Justice of England.

None of our kings was ever more wise, or clever, or brave, or fonder of doing justice; and even now nobody in England ever thinks of Henry V. without loving him.

In the very beginning of his reign there was a war with France. The poor King of France was mad. His queen was a very wicked woman, and his son very young. All the noblemen were quarrelling with one another, and the whole together with the King of England.

So Henry made ready, and sailed over to France, and, after having taken a town called Harfleur,

met a very large French army at a place called Agincourt.

The English soldiers were tired with a long march; they had had very bad weather to march in, which made many of them ill, and they had not enough to eat. But they loved the king; they knew he was as badly off as they were, and he was so kind and goodhumoured, and talked so cheerfully to them, that in spite of hunger, and weariness, and sickness, they went to battle in good spirits. The English bowmen shot their long arrows all at once with such force, that the French soldiers, especially those on horseback, were obliged to give way; and in a very short time King Henry won as great a victory at Agincourt, as Edward III. and the Black Prince did at Crecy and Poitiers. One day, when you are older, you will read a most delightful play written by the poet Shakspeare about this battle, and some other parts of King Henry the Fifth's life.

Not long after the battle, Henry went to Paris, and there the princes and nobles told him, that, if he would let the poor mad King Charles be called king while he lived, Henry and his children should be always Kings of France. And so peace was made, and Henry governed France for a little while, and he married the French Princess Catherine, and they had a little son born at Windsor, who was called Henry of Windsor, Prince of Wales, and was afterwards King Henry VI.

Very soon afterwards, King Henry V. was taken very ill at Paris. He found he was going to die, so he sent for his brothers, and the other English lords who were in France, and gave them a great deal of good advice about ruling England and France, and begged them to take great care of his little son.

He

then told his chaplain to chant some of the psalms to him, and died very quietly.

The English people cried and lamented bitterly, when they found that they had lost their king.

He was kind to them, and so true and honest, that even his enemies trusted entirely to him. He was very handsome, and so good-humoured, that everybody who knew him liked his company; so good and just, that wicked men were afraid of him; so wise, that his laws were the fittest for his people that could have been made at the time; so brave, that the very name of Henry, King of England, kept his enemies in fear. And above all this, he was most pious towards God.

CHAPTER XXXI.

HENRY VI.-1422 to 1452.

How Henry the Sixth became King while he was an infant; how the Duke of Bedford governed in France; how Joan of Arc persuaded the Dauphin and the French soldiers to take courage; how they nearly drove the English out of France; how Joan was taken prisoner and put to death.

HENRY of Windsor, the poor little Prince of Wales, was not a year old when his father died. He was made King of England directly, and became King of France soon after.

The parliament that his wise father left gave good guardians and protectors to the little king, and to England and to France.

The war in France began again, for the mad king having died, his son, who was almost as good for France as our Henry of Monmouth had been for