Poor old Henry IV: labelled (probably unfairly) as a leper, but accurately as a usurper, he has been one of England’s most neglected monarchs. He is best known through his Shakespearean starring roles — which little resembled the real man, according to Chris Given-Wilson — and as the father of the ultimate warrior-king, Henry V, rather than in his own right. Ian Mortimer began redressing the balance in 2007; now Given-Wilson has produced this meticulous and definitive life of the troubled king for Yale’s ‘English Monarchs’ series.
Though he was the son of John of Gaunt and his heir to the Duchy of Lancaster, England’s richest estate, Henry was not guaranteed an easy life of privilege. Already a successful soldier by the age of 21 (being victorious at the battle of Radcot Bridge in 1387), he exposed himself to the dangers of life among the Teutonic Knights on their harsh Baltic crusade in the 1390s; he enhanced his religious (and political) reputation further with a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Inevitably, given his family’s status, he was drawn into the intrigues of the state; as a result, he was exiled for treason in 1398.
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