The Coronation of Henry IV

On October 13th, 1399, Henry Bolingbroke was crowned King Henry IV of England in Westminster Abbey.

1399

King Henry IV 1399-1413

From a manuscript of Froissart’s ‘Chronicles’ (?1470-72), via the British Library and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The coronation of Henry IV, on October 13th, 1399, as depicted in an edition of Jean Froissart’s Chroniques published circa 1470-1472. Froissart (?1335-1404/10) was a Belgian chronicler and contemporary of Henry who spent several years in England, initially in the service of Philippa of Hainault, Edward III’s queen. By 1399, Edward’s grandson and successor, Richard II, had made himself so wealthy at others’ expense and so deeply unpopular, that he was pushed off the throne with relative ease by his cousin Henry IV, another of Edward’s grandsons, who required only a few hundred men for the purpose. William Shakespeare dramatised John of Gaunt, Henry’s father, bewailing the state of the nation: see ‘This England’.

Introduction

The reign of Richard II began with the Peasants’ Revolt, and by 1399 he had done little to win his unhappy people over. He had become both greedy and extravagant, and when the powerful Percy family in Northumberland encouraged Richard’s second cousin Henry Bolingbroke to claim the crown, he won it with only a few hundred men. On Monday October 13th, 1399, Henry was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

by Jean Froissart ?1335-1404/10

THE procession entered the church about nine o’clock. In the middle of the church was erected a scaffold covered with crimson cloth, in the centre of which was the royal throne of cloth of gold. When the duke entered the church, he seated himself on the throne, and was thus in regal state, except having the crown on his head. The Archbishop of Canterbury proclaimed from the four corners of the scaffold how God had given them a man for their lord and sovereign, and then asked the people if they were consenting parties to his being consecrated and crowned King, upon which the people unanimously shouted “Ay,” and held up their hands, promising fealty and homage.

The duke* then descended from the throne and advanced to the altar to be consecrated. Two archbishops and ten bishops performed the ceremony. He was stripped of all his royal state before the altar, naked to his shirt, and was then anointed and consecrated at six places: i.e. on the head, the breast, the two shoulders, before and behind; on the back and hands.

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* Froissart acknowledges that Henry is at this stage still Duke of Lancaster, and not yet ‘the King’.

Précis

In 1399, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, was crowned Henry IV of England at Westminster Abbey. Chronicler Jean Froissart recorded the scene as Henry left his Palace and went to the Abbey, where he was proclaimed before the people, who acknowledged him as their lord, then stripped of his robes and anointed by the clergy.

Clay Lane The Copybook

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