Accordingly, early in 1399 the king sailed for Dublin, leaving England in charge of his one surviving uncle, Edmund, Duke of York, a weak old man who had always shown himself very loyal, but very incapable. When Richard was lost to sight in the Irish bogs, all his enemies began to take counsel against him. The barons began to murmur at his arbitrary rule, the citizens of London at his forced loans, the clergy at his tolerance for the Lollards. At the critical moment Henry of Bolingbroke landed unexpectedly at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, proclaiming that he had only come to claim his father's duchy, which had been so wrongfully withheld from him. He was immediately joined by Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and many other northern lords. The regent Edmund of York gathered an army to withstand him, but when Bolingbroke explained to him that he came with no treasonable purpose, but only to plead for his forfeited estates, the simple old man dismissed his troops and went home. Thus unexpectedly freed from opposition, Bolingbroke soon showed his real mind by catching and hanging Richard's ministers, Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, Bushey, and Greene. [Sidenote: =Richard returns from Ireland--is overpowered.=] The news of Duke Henry's landing had soon got to Ireland, and the king at once prepared to return and resist him. But for four weeks persistent easterly winds kept him storm-bound at Dublin. At last the wind turned, and Richard could cross, but he came too late. York's army had dispersed, and some Welsh levies, whom the Earl of Salisbury had raised, had also gone home, after waiting in vain for the king's landing. When Richard reached Flint Castle with the small following that he had brought with him, he was surrounded by troops under the Earl of Northumberland, who had been awaiting his arrival. Nothing but surrender was possible, so Richard yielded himself up, trusting that his cousin aimed merely at seizing the governance of the realm, and not at his master's life or crown. [Sidenote: =Richard abdicates.--Election of Henry.=] Henry, however, had other views: he put Richard in strict custody, and took him to London. There the Parliament assembled, overawed by the armed retainers of the duke and his partisans. Richard was forced by threats to abdicate, and thought that he had thus secured his life. Then Henry caused the Parliament to accept his cousin's resignation, and claimed the crown for himself. This was in manifest disregard of the rights of Edmund of March, the young son of that Roger who had fallen in Ireland a year before. The Parliament, however, formally elected the duke to fill his cousin's throne, and saluted him as king by the name of Henry IV. Constitutionally, no doubt, they were acting within their rights; but it is only fair to say that Richard--headstrong and arbitrary though he had been--had scarcely deserved his fate. Nor was there any adequate reason for setting aside the clear hereditary claim of Edmund of March (1399).