Prince, who was young, and had highly distinguished himself in both
field and council, was not a usurper, and was not held responsible for
any of the unpopular acts done by the Government of his father. They
were at variance not long before Henry IV.'s death, but little is
known as to the nature of their quarrels. The crown scene, in which
the Prince helps himself to the crown while his father is yet alive,
is taken by Shakspeare from Monstrelet, who is supposed to have
invented all that he narrates in order to weaken the claim of the
English monarch to the French throne. If Henry IV., when dying, could
declare that he had no right to the crown of England, on what could
Henry V. base his claim to that of France?

Henry V. died before his only son, Henry VI., had completed his first
year; and Henry VI. was early separated from his only son, Edward
of Lancaster, the same who was slain while flying from the field
of Tewkesbury, at the age of eighteen. There was, therefore, no
opportunity for quarrels between English kings and their sons for the
sixty years that followed the death of Henry IV.; but there was
much quarrelling, and some murdering, in the royal family, in those
years,--brothers and other relatives being fierce rivals, even unto
death, and zealous even unto slaying of one another. It would be hard
to say of what crime those Plantagenets were not guilty.[A] Edward
IV., with whom began the brief ascendency of the House of York, died
at forty-one, after killing his brother of Clarence, his eldest son
being but twelve years old. He had no opportunity to have troubles
with his boys, and he loved women too well to fall out with his
daughters, the eldest of whom was but just turned of seventeen. The
history of Edward IV. is admirably calculated to furnish matter for a
sermon on the visitation of the sins of parents on their children. He
had talent enough to have made himself master of Western Europe,