The country was misgoverned by Richard II till 1399, when he was deposed by his subjects under the leading of his cousin, Henry, Duke of Lancaster. This person, though some nearer the throne were alive, was crowned as HENRY IV, and his predecessor, Richard, was soon after murdered. In the meantime, David of Scotland died in 1371, and was succeeded by ROBERT STUART, who was the first monarch of that family. ROBERT I, dying in 1389, was succeeded by his son ROBERT II, who was a good and gentle prince. He had two sons, David and James; the former was starved to death by his uncle, the Duke of Albany; and the latter, when on his way to France for his education, was seized by Henry IV of England, and kept captive in that country for eighteen years. Robert II then died of a broken heart (1406), and the kingdom fell into the hands of the Duke of Albany, at whose death, in 1419, it was governed by his son Duke Murdoch, a very imbecile personage.
Henry IV proved a prudent prince, and comparatively a good ruler. The settlement of the crown upon him by parliament was a good precedent, though perhaps only dictated under the influence of his successful arms. He was much troubled by insurrections, particularly a formidable one by Percy, Earl of Northumberland――and one still more difficult to put down in Wales, where Owen Glendower, a descendant of the British princes, kept his ground for several years.
On the death of Henry IV in 1413, he was succeeded by his son, who was proclaimed under the title of HENRY V. The young king attained high popularity, on account of his impartial administration of justice, and his zeal to protect the poor from the oppressions of their superiors. His reign is less agreeably marked by the persecutions of the Lollards, a body of religious reformers, many of whom were condemned to the flames. Being determined to use every endeavor to gain the crown of France, which he considered his by right of birth, he landed in Normandy with 30,000 men (August 1415), and gave battle to a much superior force of the French at Agincourt. He gained a complete victory, which was sullied by his afterwards ordering a massacre of his prisoners, under the apprehension that an attempt was to be made to rescue them. The war was carried on for some years longer, and Henry would have probably succeeded in making good his claim to the French crown, if he had not died prematurely of a dysentery (August 31, 1422), in the thirty-fourth year of his age, leaving the throne to an infant nine months old, who was proclaimed as HENRY VI, King of France and England.