It was the constant drain of money for this interminable war that kept the king in strict submission to his Parliament, so that he was obliged to allow them to audit all his accounts, and even to dismiss his servants when they thought that he kept too large and wasteful a household. Henry much disliked this control, but he always bowed before it. His health was failing, though he was still in middle age, and bodily weakness seems to have bent his will. From 1409 to 1412 he was so feeble that the government was really carried on by his son, the Prince of Wales, and his half-brothers, the Beauforts, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas, the Chancellor. Of the Beaufort clan we shall hear much in the future; they were the sons of John of Gaunt's old age. After the death of his wife, Constance of Castile, a lady named Katharine Swinford became his mistress and bore him several sons. He afterwards married her, and the children were legitimatized by Act of Parliament. Of these the eldest was now Earl of Somerset, and the youngest Bishop of Winchester. [Sidenote: =Detention of Prince James of Scotland.=] It was fortunate for England in these years, when the realm was ruled by a bedridden king and a very young Prince of Wales, that her neighbours to north and south had fallen on evil days. Neither Scot nor Frenchman was dangerous at this time. The Scots were bridled by the fact that the heir of the kingdom was in Henry's hands. For it chanced that King Robert III. was sending his son James to France, and that the ship was taken by an English privateer. "Why did they not send him straight to me?" said King Henry; "I could have taught him French as well as any man at Paris." So Prince James was kept at Windsor as a hostage for the good behaviour of Scotland. His jealous uncle Albany, the regent of that kingdom, did not want him released, and was quite content to leave him in Henry's power and keep the peace. [Sidenote: =Civil War in France.--Armagnacs and Burgundians.=]