“He (Henry IV) was so sorely oppressed at the latter end of his sickness, that those who attended him, not perceiving him to breathe, concluded that he was dead, and covered his face with a cloth. It was the custom in that country, whenever the King was ill, to place the royal crown on a cushion beside his bed, and for his successor to take it at his death. The Prince of Wales, being informed by the attendants that his father was dead, had carried away the crown; but, shortly after, the King uttered a groan, and his face was uncovered, when, on looking for the crown, he asked what had become of it? His attendants replied that ‘my lord the Prince had taken it away.’ He bade them send for the Prince, and, at his entrance, the King asked him why he had carried away the crown. ‘My lord,’ answered the Prince, ‘your attendants here present affirmed to me that you were dead; and as your crown and kingdom belong to me as your eldest son, after your decease, I had taken it away.’ The King gave a deep sigh, and said, ‘My fair son, what right have you to it? for you well know I had none.’ ‘My lord,’ replied the Prince, ‘as you have held it by the right of your sword, it is my intent to hold and defend it the same during my life,’ The King answered, ‘Well, act as you see best; I leave all things to God, and pray that He will have mercy on me.’” Shakespeare has used the story for the scene with which every one is familiar; but he has used it in a different sense from that in which it is told. The dramatist’s purpose was to heighten the contrast between the Prince, reckless, selfish, greedy of power, and the King, changed by his elevation into a model of wisdom, thoughtfulness, and moderation. The chronicler, who is manifestly a Yorkist partisan, introduces it to enforce the dying King’s supposed confession of his wrongful tenure of the crown. There is no hint of the father charging the son with a greedy grasping at power. Dr. Lingard seems right in suggesting that the story was a fiction of the partisans of the Earl of March. It has a very improbable look, and is supported by nothing that we know of the manner of the King’s death. There remains, however, a certain residuum of evidence which makes it not altogether improbable that during the last year of Henry the Fourth’s life there was some disturbance of the harmony between him and his eldest son. Thomas Hardyng wrote in 1465 a metrical life of Henry the Fifth, which is known as _Versus Rhythmici in laudem Henrici Quinti_. In this we find the following lines: “The King discharged the Prince from his counsail, And set my lord Sir Thomas in his stead, Chief of the council for the King’s more avail; For which the Prince, of wrath and wilful head, Again him made debate and froward tread, With whom the King took part and held the field, To time the Prince unto the King him yield.”