the English, laden with gold and booty, took the road to Guienne, traversing France without any obstacle. "We will return hither," they said as they passed, "to fight with our King Henry." Eight thousand Englishmen embarked at Bordeaux towards the close of the year 1412. King Henry had nearly arrived at the end of his career. He was ill and sad. His throne had always appeared to him to be tottering; conspiracies had been so often repeated around him, that he had ended by suspecting them where they did not exist. A keen jealousy towards his eldest son troubled him. The Prince of Wales had given proofs of rare courage; when yet young, he had been wounded at the battle of Shrewsbury; being afterwards despatched by his father into Wales, he had there constantly held in check Owen Glendwyr, over whom he had finally triumphed. It is related--and, in his admirable tragedy of _Henry IV._, Shakespeare made use of these accounts, of which the authenticity is not well proved--that the young prince, besides his budding greatness, had given other causes for anxiety to his father; it is said that his debauches and coarse amusements had caused alarm for the fate of the State which he was one day to govern, so that a judge before whom he had been brought, without knowing him, thought it his duty to condemn him like a simple private person. {377} Perhaps the jealousy of the father and the restraint which he claimed to impose upon the son, to whom he left neither power nor resources, had contributed to plunge a sanguine, energetic young man, full of life and strength, into those excesses with which he was reproached. It is affirmed that the king had one day swooned, in consequence of one of the attacks of his distemper; he was believed to be dead. The Prince of Wales, entering the apartment, had carried off the crown, which lay upon a cushion. When Henry IV. came to himself again, he asked for the crown. The prince was sent for, "You have no right to it," cried the king. "You know that your father had none." "Your sword gave it to you, sire, and my sword will be able to defend it," replied the prince, exonerating himself as well as he could against the suspicions of his father. He demanded the punishment of those who accused him of prematurely claiming the throne, and the king referred him to the next session of the Parliament. He was weary of reigning and of living. "You shall do as you please," he said; "I have done with all these matters. May the Lord have mercy upon my soul!" But the young Prince Henry suffered in mind from the alienation of his father; he presented himself before him clad in a blue satin robe, covered with button-holes, a tag still hanging from each opening, and, in this strange costume, he threw himself at the feet of the king, drew a dagger from his bosom, and begged him to take his life if he had deprived him of his favor. The father and son became reconciled, it is said, after this scene.