Scanty as are the materials from which we must weave our opinion with regard to the first years of Henry of Monmouth, they are sufficient to suggest many reflections upon the advantages as well as the unfavourable circumstances which attended him: We must first, however, revert to a few more particulars relative to his family and its chief members. His father, who was then about twenty-four years of age, certainly left England[15] between the 6th of May 1390 and the 30th of April (p. 017) 1391, and proceeded to Barbary. During his absence his Countess was delivered of Humfrey, his fourth son. Between the summers of 1392 and 1393 he undertook a journey to Prussia, and to the Holy Sepulchre. [Footnote 15: The treasurer's account, during the Earl's absence, contains some items which remove all doubt from this statement: among others, 20_l._ to Lancaster the herald, on Nov. 5, going toward England; and in the same month, to three "persuivantes," being with the Earl, eight nobles; and to a certain English sailor, carrying the news of the birth of Humfrey, son of my lord, 13_s._ 4_d._] The next year visited Henry with one of the most severe losses which can befall a youth of his age. His mother,[16] then only twenty-four years old, having given birth to four sons and two daughters, was taken away from the anxious cares and comforts of her earthly career, in the very prime of life.[17] Nor was this the only bereavement which befell the family at this time. Constance, the second wife of John of Gaunt, a lady to whose religious and moral worth the strongest and warmest testimony is borne by the chroniclers of the time; and who might (had it so pleased the Disposer of all things) have watched (p. 018) over the education of her husband's grandchildren, was also this same year removed from them to her rest: they were both buried at Leicester, then one of the chief residences of the family. [Footnote 16: King Richard II, the Duke of Lancaster, and his son, Henry of Bolinbroke, became widowers in the same year.]