"This letter preceded the rebellion of the Percies by less than four weeks; and that event may, it is presumed, be mainly attributed to the inattention shown to their requests of payment of the large sums which they had expended in the King's service. They were not only harassed by debts, and destitute of means to pay their followers, but their honour, as the Earl expressly told the King, was involved in the fulfilment of their engagements; a breach of which not only exposed them to the greatest difficulties, but, in the opinion of their chivalrous contemporaries, perhaps affected their reputation. That under these circumstances, and goaded by a sense of injury and injustice, the fiery Hotspur should throw off his allegiance, and revolt, is not surprising; but it is matter of astonishment that Henry should have hazarded such a result. To the house of Percy he was chiefly indebted for the crown; and it is scarcely credible that at the moment of their defection it could have been his policy to offend them. The country was at war with France and Scotland, Wales was then in open rebellion, and Henry was far from satisfied of the general loyalty of his (p. 147) subjects. Can it be believed that he desired to increase his enemies by adding the most powerful family in the kingdom to the number? Nor can Henry's constant efforts to prevent the people from becoming disaffected, be reconciled with the wish to excite discontent in two of the most influential and distinguished personages in the realm. It is shown in another part of this volume, (Minutes of Privy Council,) that the King had not the slightest suspicion of Hotspur's revolt until it took place; and it appears that, when he heard of it, he was actually on his route to join that chieftain, and, to use his own words to his council, 'to give aid and support to his very dear and loyal cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry, in the expedition which they had honourably commenced for him and his realm against his enemies the Scotch.' Instead of refusing to pay to the Percies the money which they claimed, from the desire to lessen their power, or to inflict upon them any species of mortification, all which is known of the state of this country justifies the inference that Henry had the strongest motives for conciliating that family. The neglect of their repeated demands seems, therefore, to have arisen solely from his being unable[148] to comply with them; and the (p. 148) King's pecuniary embarrassments are shown by the documents in this work to have been of so pressing and so permanent a nature, that there is no difficulty in believing such to have been the case. It is deserving of observation, however, that the discontent which is visible in the letters of Hotspur and his father, is as much at the conduct of the council as at that of the King; and jealousy of their superior influence with Henry, and possibly a suspicion that they endeavoured to injure