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Advances in Information Security 105

Sushmita Ruj
Salil S. Kanhere
Mauro Conti Editors

Blockchains
A Handbook on Fundamentals,
Platforms and Applications
Advances in Information Security

Volume 105

Series Editors
Sushil Jajodia, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Pierangela Samarati, Milano, Italy
Javier Lopez, Malaga, Spain
Jaideep Vaidya, East Brunswick, NJ, USA
The purpose of the Advances in Information Security book series is to establish
the state of the art and set the course for future research in information security.
The scope of this series includes not only all aspects of computer, network security,
and cryptography, but related areas, such as fault tolerance and software assurance.
The series serves as a central source of reference for information security research
and developments. The series aims to publish thorough and cohesive overviews on
specific topics in Information Security, as well as works that are larger in scope
than survey articles and that will contain more detailed background information.
The series also provides a single point of coverage of advanced and timely topics
and a forum for topics that may not have reached a level of maturity to warrant a
comprehensive textbook.
Sushmita Ruj • Salil S. Kanhere • Mauro Conti
Editors

Blockchains
A Handbook on Fundamentals,
Platforms and Applications
Editors
Sushmita Ruj Salil S. Kanhere
School of Computer Science and School of Computer Science and
Engineering Engineering
University of New South Wales University of New South Wales
Sydney Kensington, NSW, Australia Sydney Kensington, NSW, Australia

Mauro Conti
Department of Mathematics
University of Padova
Padova, Italy

ISSN 1568-2633 ISSN 2512-2193 (electronic)

Advances in Information Security
ISBN 978-3-031-32145-0 ISBN 978-3-031-32146-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32146-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
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Contents

Part I Building Blocks

Ten Myths About Blockchain Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
David Hyland, João Sousa, Gauthier Voron, Alysson Bessani,
and Vincent Gramoli
Cryptographic Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Mayank Raikwar and Shuang Wu

Part II Popular Blockchains

Bitcoin Blockchain System: An Overview of Security and Privacy
Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Mauro Conti, Ankit Gangwal, Chhagan Lal, and Sushmita Ruj
The Ethereum Blockchain: Implementation and Security Aspects . . . . . . . . 109
Alessandro Brighente, Mauro Conti, and Andrea De Salve
The Future Ring Confidential Transaction Protocols for
Privacy-Preserving Blockchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Muhammed F. Esgin, Joseph K. Liu, Shi-Feng Sun,
and Dimaz Ankaa Wijaya
Algorand Blockchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Arash Mirzaei, Amin Sakzad, Ron Steinfeld, and Jiangshan Yu
Tendermint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Yackolley Amoussou-Guenou, Antonella Del Pozzo,
and Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni

Part III Security and Scalability

The Security of Delegated Proof-of-Stake Wallet and Stake Pools . . . . . . . . . 225
Mario Larangeira and Dimitris Karakostas

v
vi Contents

Layer 2 Scaling Solutions for Blockchains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Subhra Mazumdar and Sushmita Ruj
Illicit Blockchain Content: Its Different Shapes, Consequences,
and Remedies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Roman Matzutt, Martin Henze, Dirk Müllmann, and Klaus Wehrle
Blockchain-Based Distributed and Secure Digital Forensic
Investigation Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Mauro Conti, Gulshan Kumar, Chhagan Lal, and Rahul Saha

Part IV Applications
Supply Chain Management Using Blockchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Christopher Klinkmueller, H. M. N. Dilum Bandara, Xiwei Xu,
and Qinghua Lu
Blockchain Technology for E-Governance Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Ras Dwivedi, Nilesh Vasita, Mukul Verma, Tanmay Yadav,
and Sandeep Shukla
When Blockchain meets Smart Cities: Opportunities, Security
and Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Roben C. Lunardi, Regio A. Michelin, Maher Alharby, Volkan Dedeoglu,
Henry C. Nunes, Eduardo Arruda, Avelino F. Zorzo, and Aad van Moorsel
Decentralized Identity Management and Blockchains: Design
Patterns and Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Hye-young Paik, Yue Liu, Qinghua Lu, and Salil S. Kanhere
From Centralized to Decentralized Remote Electronic Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
Christian Killer, Bruno Rodrigues, Eder John Scheid,
Muriel Figueredo Franco, and Burkhard Stiller
Blockchain Technology Accelerating Industry 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Jan Pennekamp, Lennart Bader, Eric Wagner, Jens Hiller, Roman Matzutt,
and Klaus Wehrle
Blockchain for Health Data Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Dinh C. Nguyen, Pubudu N. Pathirana, Ming Ding, and Aruna Seneviratne
Supporting Secure Trusted Manufacturing via Blockchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Ali Dorri, Sabah Suhail, Zahra Jadidi, Rasheed Hussain, Colin Fidge,
and Raja Jurdak
Blockchain for Data Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
Gowri Sankar Ramachandran and Bhaskar Krishnamachari
About the Editors

Sushmita Ruj is Faculty of Engineering Lead of UNSW Institute for Cybersecurity,

IFCYBER and Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Engineering
at UNSW, Sydney. Her research interests are in applied cryptography, post-quantum
cryptography, blockchains and privacy enhancing technologies. She designs prac-
tical, efficient, and provably secure protocols that can be deployed in real-world
applications. She has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles and delivered over
100 technical lectures around the world. She has won several competitive grants like
Samsung GRO Award, NetApp Faculty Fellowship and Cisco Academic Grant. She
is an Associate Editor of the Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.
Before joining UNSW, she was a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61,
an Associate Professor at Indian Statistical Institute and an Assistant Professor at
Indian Institute of Technology, IIT, Indore. She was a visiting researcher/faculty
at NTU, Singapore; KDDI R&D Labs, Japan; INRIA, France; Kyushu University,
Japan; and Microsoft Research Labs, India. She was a member of the “Blockchain
for Cybersecurity” working group of the National Blockchain Roadmap of Australia
and the Blockchain working group founded by the Reserve Bank of India. Sushmita
is a senior member of both ACM and IEEE.

Salil S. Kanhere is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW

Sydney. He is also affiliated with the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre
(CSCRC) and the UNSW Institute for Cyber Security (IFCYBER). His research
interests span the Internet of Things, cyberphysical systems, cybersecurity,
blockchain and applied machine learning. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed
articles and is leading several government and industry-funded research projects
on these topics. He received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2020)
and the Humboldt Research Fellowship (2014), from the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation in Germany. He is an ACM Distinguished Member and served as
an ACM Distinguished Speaker from 2019 to 2021. He is an IEEE Computer
Society Distinguished Visitor and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has held
visiting positions at I2R Singapore, Technical University Darmstadt, University
of Zurich, RWTH Aachen and Graz University of Technology. He serves as the

vii
viii About the Editors

Editor in Chief of the Ad Hoc Networks journal and as an Associate Editor of IEEE
Transactions on Network and Service Management, Computer Communications and
Pervasive and Mobile Computing. He regularly serves on the organising committee
of IEEE/ACM international conferences. Salil co-authored a book titled Blockchain
for Cyberphysical Systems published by Artech House in 2020.

Mauro Conti is Full Professor at the University of Padova, Italy. He is also

affiliated with TU Delft and University of Washington, Seattle. He obtained his
Ph.D. from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, in 2009. After his Ph.D., he was
a Post-Doc Researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2011
he joined as Assistant Professor at the University of Padova, where he became
Associate Professor in 2015 and Full Professor in 2018. He has been Visiting
Researcher at GMU, UCLA, UCI, TU Darmstadt, UF and FIU. He has been
awarded with a Marie Curie Fellowship (2012) by the European Commission, and
with a Fellowship by the German DAAD (2013). His research is also funded by
companies including Cisco, Intel and Huawei. His main research interest is in the
area of security and privacy. In this area, he has published more than 550 papers in
topmost international peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He is Editor-in-Chief
for IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Area Editor-in-
Chief for IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials and has been Associate
Editor for several journals, including IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials,
IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on
Information Forensics and Security and IEEE Transactions on Network and Service
Management. He was Program Chair for TRUST 2015, ICISS 2016, WiSec 2017,
ACNS 2020, CANS 2021, CSS 2021, WiMob 2023 and ESORICS 2023, and
General Chair for SecureComm 2012, SACMAT 2013, NSS 2021 and ACNS 2022.
He is Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the AAIA, Senior Member of the ACM and
Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe.
 Part I
Building Blocks
Ten Myths About Blockchain Consensus

David Hyland, João Sousa, Gauthier Voron, Alysson Bessani,

and Vincent Gramoli

1 Introduction

Over the last decade, blockchain experienced an important momentum leading

to a plethora of new consensus protocol proposals (e.g., Ripple’s consensus
algorithm [55], Democratic Byzantine Fault Tolerance (DBFT) [24], Aura [41],
Casper [16], HotStuff [65], IBFT [46], Tendermint [43]). A consensus protocol is a
key element of the blockchain system as it helps a distributed set of machines agree
on a unique block at each given index of a chain. In contrast with the problem
of consensus that has been known by the distributed computing community for
the past four decades [52], a significant part of these proposals is often unclear.
Most of these new consensus protocols are described in white papers, wikis, and
online documentations, rather than in more traditional academic publications, and it
is unclear whether they satisfy the application requirements [19].
As a result, there are several misconceptions about what is blockchain consensus,
the guarantees it should offer, and how it could be made secure and fast. For
example, efforts to standardize blockchain technologies have revealed ambiguous
terminologies [36], and, when consensus protocols are stated informally, one can

D. Hyland · G. Voron
University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
J. Sousa · A. Bessani
Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
V. Gramoli (O)
University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 3

S. Ruj et al. (eds.), Blockchains, Advances in Information Security 105,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32146-7_1
4 D. Hyland et al.

easily find scenarios in which these protocols fail [6, 19, 33, 60]. As blockchains are
becoming important components to guarantee the security of critical applications,
these myths can have devastating effects, whose latest example is probably the
vulnerability of some of the mostly deployed blockchain software (e.g., parity
and geth) [31], used to handle high-value digital assets. Other examples include
the recent efforts devoted to develop quantum-resilient cryptographic software on
top of blockchain systems that are already vulnerable to the misbehavior of a single
participant [20]. While cryptography and fault tolerance address problems that may
seem orthogonal, a blockchain cannot provide the security level required by such
applications without both cryptography and fault tolerance (cf. Myth #7).
As blockchains are now being offered as a service by most cloud providers and
have become the cornerstone of various applications, it is crucial to clarify some of
the misconceptions that will have, sooner or later, dramatic consequences. Some of
these misconceptions could be attributed to the lack of knowledge of the distributed
computing and database literatures. First, there are various failure models in which
an algorithm can solve consensus. In fact, a consensus algorithm typically allows n
nodes (or processes) reach an agreement despite f of them failing. These failures are
generally classified in two types: crash, where a node simply stops, and Byzantine,
where a node behaves arbitrarily, misbehaving either accidentally or with malicious
intent. This is why we distinguish crash fault-tolerant (CFT) from Byzantine
(or arbitrary) fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols (cf. Myths #6 and #8). Second, the
three properties of the classic consensus problem [44] are often misinterpreted:
(i) validity requires that the value decided by a non-faulty (or correct) node has to
be valid, (ii) agreement requires that two non-faulty nodes cannot decide differently,
and (iii) termination requires that eventually the non-faulty nodes decide. Also,
the factors affecting the performance of a blockchain are often misunderstood
(Myths #4 and #5) as they typically embed, in addition to the consensus protocol,
other components like cryptography (Myth #11). This may distract engineers
from other challenging problems (Myths #9 and #10). One of the most common
misinterpretations is illustrated by the large family [49] of so-called proof-of-∗
consensus (sic) that cannot ensure agreement upon a unique block and may lead
the blockchain to counterintuitively fork into multiple branches (cf. Myth #3).
The aim of this chapter is to bust ten myths about blockchain consensus,
summarized in Table 1. These myths correspond typically to misinformation that
professionals and students commonly learn by reading posts and blogs online before
attending a blockchain course. We proceed by listing each myth and explaining
why it is incorrect by offering a counterexample, sometimes using a blockchain
(Hyperledger Fabric, Red Belly Blockchain, or R3 Corda) or a consensus algorithm
(BFT-SMaRt, DBFT, or HotStuff). Our aim is not to survey existing approaches
for blockchain consensus, as there is an extensive literature on the subject (e.g.,
[19, 49]), neither to provide a formal treatment of these myths but rather to state
them in a pedagogical language to reach the blockchain community at large. As
some of these clarifications already helped improving the scalability of blockchains
(Myth #12), we hope that they will help build secure and efficient blockchain
applications in the future.
Ten Myths About Blockchain Consensus 5

Table 1 A summary of common blockchain consensus myths

# Myth Clarification At risks
1. Po* solves consensus Po* selects blocks without Users
guaranteeing uniqueness
2. Consensus bottlenecks blockchain in BFT-SMaRt runs faster outside Designers
LANs Hyperledger
3. Consensus bottlenecks distributed DBFT and BFT-SMaRt scale better Designers
ledgers in WANs outside Corda
4. CFT consensus tolerates Byzantine BFT quorums are larger than CFT ones Users
faults
5. Signatures and hashes make They do not cope with disagreement Users
blockchain secure and double spending
6. A CFT blockchain with a BFT The whole communication pattern Users .+
consensus becomes BFT needs to be changed Designers
7. BFT consensus needs linear message Some quadratic complexity algorithms Designers
complexity perform better
8. Reconfiguring consensus It is difficult to make it non-disuptive Designers
participants is easy
9. Blockchain performance is not CPU demand can surpass the network Designers
limited by cryptography demand of consensus
10. Blockchain needs to solve the Deciding .o(n) proposals help scale Designers
classic consensus problem

2 Background on Consensus and Proof-of-∗

Before listing each myth, we present various interpretation of the term “consensus”
in the blockchain context. A blockchain is easily understood as a chain of blocks
abstraction where new blocks get regularly appended; however, the system that
replicates this abstraction on multiple machines or nodes of the network does not
always maintain the sequence structure of the chained blocks.
Instead a more precise description of this abstraction is a directed acyclic graph
or—to put it simply—a tree structure whose nodes are blocks and whose edges are
directed upward in the tree, from children blocks to their parent block [35]. Each
of these edges is implemented as a hash of the content of the parent block stored as
a field of the child block. A parent block has multiple children in the tree as soon
as the blockchain forks, which means that two nodes disagree about the block that
should be inserted at the next available index of the chain. The consensus abstraction
is employed to guarantee that there is no such disagreement among all nodes about
the unique block to be appended next.
The consensus problem was defined more than half a century ago [52] and
requires to guarantee that if replicas propose their block, then no two replicas
should decide differently (agreement), the block that is decided is one of the
proposed block (validity), and the non-faulty replicas should eventually decide
(termination). While this definition presents some inherent limitations for scalability
that will be discussed in Myth #11, it paved the way for research on consensus
6 D. Hyland et al.

algorithms in small settings and influenced newer definitions of the consensus

problem considering cryptography [18] and scalability [24, 25].
Interestingly, the term “consensus” has been extensively used on blog posts
and websites about blockchain to denote proof-of-∗ methods of selecting a subset
of blocks proposed to a particular index of the blockchain. As surveyed in [49],
these proof-of-∗ (Po*) methods include proof-of-work, proof-of-reputation, proof-
of-lock, proof-of-activity, proof-of-stake, proof-of-burn, proof-of-authority, and
proof-of-location, each choosing a different local attribute in order to decide whether
a block is selectable to a particular index. These attributes include the computational
power of the node, stake owned by the node in the considered blockchain system,
its activity, location, etc. The diversity of existing proof-of-∗ makes it difficult to list
them all here and is not part of the scope of this paper.

3 Myth #1: Proof-of-∗ Solves Consensus

A proof-of-work [29] is a mechanism to limit the power of the adversary that

can control the Byzantine participants. By requesting each participant to solve a
moderately complex crypto-puzzle and produce a proof of this effort, called proof-
of-work, before producing a block [48], the ability for the adversary to overwhelm
the system with new valid blocks becomes limited by its computational power. Many
alternatives to this proof-of-work mechanism have been proposed, like proof-of-
stake that limits the power of the adversary to its stake, hence leading to the large
family of proof-of-∗ mechanisms. For a list of more than a dozen of these proof-of-∗
proposals, we refer the interested reader to a survey on the topic [49].
As it is widely believed that proof-of-∗ protocols solve consensus,1 many proto-
cols have been called “proof-of-∗ consensus (sic).” As an example, Cointelegraph
explains how proof-of-work can be seen as the “original consensus algorithm in a
blockchain network” by using a “complicated mathematical puzzle and a possibility
to easily prove the solution.”2 It may seem as if “proof-of-work consensus”
was a metonymy aimed at being pedagogical and referring to proof-of-work as
the component of a more complex consensus procedure. However, the frequent
forks [64] in proof-of-work blockchains indicate the possibility of disagreements,
which contradict the scientific notion of consensus [52]. This metonymy, albeit
simple, hides more complex intricacies. Such simplifications put the users at
risk, because, strictly speaking, consensus prevents double spending that could be
induced by forks whereas proof-of-∗ actually tolerates forks and may lead to double
spending.

1 Wikipedia makes use of the term “proof-of-work consensus (sic)” at https://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Proof_of_work.
2 https://cointelegraph.com/explained/proof-of-work-explained.
Ten Myths About Blockchain Consensus 7

Fig. 1 Proof-of-∗ mechanisms do not solve the consensus problem. Instead, they select a subset,
say, .{b1, b3}, of proposed blocks, say, .{b1, b2, b3}, as legitimate based on some attribute (com-
putational power, coins owned, etc.) of the nodes that generated them, but a separate consensus
algorithm is necessary to guarantee that the block, like b3, decided for a given index of the chain
is unique

In fact, the proof-of-∗ mechanism cannot solve consensus but is instead a mech-
anism to enforce some of the consensus prerequisites so that a proper consensus
algorithm can be executed. Typically, a proof-of-∗ mechanism selects a small subset
of nodes to participate in the consensus by proposing a block for the same index of
the chain as depicted in Fig. 1, where .{b1, b3} are proposed. As this mechanism
cannot guarantee that a unique block is proposed, it is insufficient to decide a single
block and does not solve the consensus problem. Recently, researchers have tried to
clarify the terminology to address this confusion [36], but it remains well spread on
the Internet.

3.1 Example: Bitcoin

Bitcoin [48] uses proof-of-work to limit the number of nodes that can create a
new block for a given index of the chain. Once these blocks are created, Bitcoin
solves consensus by deciding among multiple candidate blocks (that all contain a
valid proof-of-work) the unique block that is part of the longest branch. This is
the reason why Bitcoin [48] uses an extra mechanism, Nakamoto’s consensus, to
try to solve the problem: it selects the blocks of the longest branch by assuming
that the delay to create and propagate every block to all miners in the network is
upper-bounded such that every miner can safely choose the candidate block at index
i once they have waited long enough [34]. The proof-of-work mechanism helps
limit the block creation speed by requiring that a node first solves a computationally
hard crypto-puzzle before propagating a new block. This proof-of-work mechanism
alone does not ensure the uniqueness of the block at each index—this is precisely
why a separate consensus protocol based on identifying the block of the longest
branch is required in Bitcoin.
8 D. Hyland et al.

4 Myth #2: Consensus Is the Bottleneck of Blockchains in

LANs

Distributed consensus performance (expressed, e.g., in decisions per unit of time)

generally degrades with the number of participants. This led to the folklore belief
that the performance of consensus is the key limiting factor of the performance of
the blockchain in normal executions as was described by NEC.3 Typically, BFT
consensus algorithms involve a quadratic number of messages [13, 21, 24] that
are believed to rapidly consume the limited bandwidth resource. For example, the
classic PBFT consensus algorithm [21] employs a distinguished participant, the
leader, proposing a value and having participants exchanging sufficiently many
prevotes to make sure that no other value will be accepted and then having
participants exchanging sufficiently many votes to make sure the value is accepted
by other participants before deciding this value.
For this reason, it has long been thought that a blockchain performance is limited
by the performance of its consensus, and recent solutions, like HotStuff [65],
attempted to boost blockchain performance by reducing the message complexity
of the consensus algorithm using threshold signatures (as discussed in Myth #9).
HotStuff follows the classic leader-based pattern but reduces the quadratic message
complexity, induced by the participants sending prevotes and votes to each other, to
the linear complexity, induced by the participants sending their prevotes and votes
only to the leader that retransmits them.
It turns out that there are other scalability limitations in blockchain systems,
especially in local area networks (LANs)—one example is the verification of
transaction signatures [12, 62]. Traditional blockchain would require every node
to verify the signatures of every transaction. Although there are some blockchains
that employ verification sharding [25] for each signature to be verified by only
.f + 1 nodes, in general, even this optimization is not sufficient to make the

verification finish significantly earlier. We present the cost of verification sharding in

Myth #11. Additionally, previous works [66] point the execution of smart contracts
as a significant scalability limitation, specifically the frequent disk operations they
cause as well as their computational cost.

4.1 Example: Hyperledger Fabric

In order to test our hypothesis on the existence of other performance limitations,

we selected the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain [3] that aims at being modular and
offering privacy. Even though Hyperledger Fabric v1.x is crash fault tolerant and
does not aim at tolerating malicious behaviors, there exists a prototype version [57]
that makes use of a BFT orderer (cf. Myth #8 for more details) based on BFT-

3 https://www.nec.com/en/global/insights/article/2020022520/index.html.
Another Random Scribd Document
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Title: Henry the Fifth

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY THE

FIFTH ***
English Men of Action

HENRY THE FIFTH

 HENRY THE FIFTH
From a Picture in the possession of Queen’s College, Oxford.
 HENRY THE FIFTH
BY

THE REV. A. J. CHURCH

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK

1889

The right of translation and reproduction is reserved

 CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I

The Boyhood of Henry 1

CHAPTER II
Prince Henry and Prince Hal 7

CHAPTER III

Prince Henry and the Chief Justice 22

CHAPTER IV
The Charges against Prince Henry 30

CHAPTER V

Accession to the Throne 43

 CHAPTER VI

The French Crown 50

CHAPTER VII

Preparations for War 59

CHAPTER VIII

The Invasion of France 67

CHAPTER IX

Agincourt 76

CHAPTER X

After Agincourt 88

CHAPTER XI
Henry and the Lollards 97

CHAPTER XII

Henry and Queen Joanna 105

 CHAPTER XIII

The Second Campaign in France 109

CHAPTER XIV

Henry’s Marriage 123

CHAPTER XV

The Siege of Melun 131

CHAPTER XVI

The Last Campaigns 137

CHAPTER XVII

The Death of Henry 144

 CHAPTER I

THE BOYHOOD OF HENRY

Henry was born in the castle of Monmouth on August 9th, 1387. He

was the eldest of the six children of Henry of Lancaster by Mary de
1
Bohun, younger daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey de Bohun.
Humphrey, as the last male descendant of the De Bohuns, united in
himself the dignities and estates of the Earls of Hereford,
Northampton, and Essex. The elder daughter, Eleanor, was married
to Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward the Third.
Eleanor’s husband hoped to secure the whole of the Hereford
estates, amounting, it is said, to fifty thousand nobles of annual
income (not less, it may be calculated, than two hundred thousand
pounds of money at its present value). He took charge of his sister-
in-law, and had her carefully instructed in theology, intending that
she should take the veil in a convent of the Sisters of St. Clare. John
of Gaunt had other views for her future. He took occasion of his
younger brother’s absence in France to have her removed to Arundel
Castle, where she was very soon afterwards married to his son
Henry. She died in 1394 in her twenty-fifth year. She was better
educated, it appears, than most of the ladies of her day, and it
would seem that some of her taste for books descended to her son.
The character of Henry of Lancaster has been variously estimated.
He won in his youth a high reputation for enterprise and courage.
We find him fighting against the Mahommedans in Barbary in one
year, and in the next against the Pagan tribes of Lithuania. His skill
in all martial exercises was conspicuously great. But, according to
one account, he was so stained with crime that his own father
wished him to be put to death. He was a bold and probably an
unscrupulous man, whom circumstances exposed to a very strong
temptation. The weaknesses and vices of Richard the Second put
the throne within his reach. We can easily believe that he really felt
himself better qualified to rule than his feeble and capricious cousin,
and it is just possible that he may have persuaded himself or been
persuaded by others that there was something in his claim of
hereditary right to the throne. The power unjustly gained was
retained by the methods to which an usurper is commonly driven, by
falsehood and by cruelty. Former friends were betrayed—as, for
example, the Lollards, who certainly had helped him to the throne—
and enemies were ruthlessly crushed. The power thus won and
maintained descended to his son in happier circumstances. The
younger Henry’s title was not seriously questioned. There was, it is
true, a conspiracy against him, but it was not supported by any
formidable party in the nation. A great success, won early in his
reign, made him the object of popular enthusiasm. At the same time
he had the advantage of a singularly attractive exterior: the
hereditary beauty of the Plantagenets was conspicuous in him. And
he was felix opportunitate mortis: he died before the lustre of his
achievements and the charm of his personal qualities were dimmed
by failure and the corrupting influences that wait on power. It was
with him as it would have been with the Black Prince if he had died
after Poictiers. Yet, allowing for some differences of a finer
organisation, it is not difficult to see some of the main characteristics
of the fourth Henry in his more fortunate son.
If tradition may be trusted, the young Henry was a delicate
child, and was put out to be nursed at a village near Monmouth. The
cradle in which he had lain was long shown as a curiosity at Bristol,
and the name of his nurse, Joan Waring, appears in the public
accounts, from which we learn that an annuity of twenty pounds was
settled upon her after her foster-son’s accession to the throne.
The household-book of John of Gaunt gives some interesting
glimpses of the lad’s education. We have an item of money paid for
strings for his harp, and another of four shillings expended on seven
books of grammar for his use. The continued weakness of his health
may be seen in the payment of a courier who announced to his
father the fact of his alarming illness.
He had just entered on his twelfth year when his father was
banished. He remained in England, probably under the care of his
grandfather. But John of Gaunt died in the February following his
son’s banishment, and a few weeks afterwards Henry of Lancaster’s
estates were seized by the Crown on the ground that he had
slandered the King, and was consorting with his enemies abroad.
The young Henry accompanied Richard to Ireland, and was sent to
the castle of Trim in Meath, the ancient meeting-place of the Irish
Parliament. He seems to have been kindly treated, and received the
honour of knighthood from the King’s hands. He was left behind in
Ireland in company with his cousin, the young Duke of Gloucester,
when Richard returned to England in July. On August 18th Richard
was made prisoner. The young Henry was immediately sent for, and
was brought to England in a ship furnished by a citizen of Chester. At
Chester he met his father, whom he accompanied to London. On
September 29th Richard, who was now in the Tower, signed a deed
of abdication: on the 30th Parliament met and declared him to be
deposed; and on the same day the Duke of Lancaster was seated on
the throne by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
Henry is said to have been created Prince of Wales by his father
on the day of his coronation. At least we find him in possession of
that dignity a fortnight afterwards, when the King grants to his
“most dear eldest son Henry, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and
Earl of Chester, the custody and rights of all lands of heirs under age
in the principality of Wales and the counties of Chester and Flynt,”
and also orders him to be put in possession of the revenues of the
duchy of Cornwall. The Council also had to consider where he should
reside, and what establishment should be kept up for him.
Before long negotiations were entered upon for his marriage.
Towards the end of the year a mission was sent to the King of
France, proposing in general terms alliances between the two royal
families. The proposal was rejected contemptuously. The King of
France knew of no King of England but his son-in-law Richard.
Before many weeks were past, Richard was dead—by what means it
does not belong to our present purpose to inquire—leaving a virgin
widow, Isabella of Valois. Isabella, eldest of the five daughters of
Charles the Sixth of France and Isabeau of Bavaria, was then in her
thirteenth year. She had all the beauty of her race, and would be a
richly-dowered bride. Henry lost no time in asking her hand for his
eldest son. The demand was not welcome either to the French
Court, which was not disposed to recognise Henry’s title, or to the
young lady herself, who seems to have cherished a fond recollection
of her husband. It was renewed more than once with the same ill-
success. Henry was afterwards to win for himself by a very rough
wooing a bride of the same house, the youngest of Isabella’s sisters.
If we are to believe a local tradition, the young Henry studied for
a time at Queen’s College, Oxford, under the care of his uncle Henry,
afterwards Cardinal Beaufort, whom we know to have been
Chancellor of the University during the two years 1397–8. The
Chancellor was then a resident officer, performing the functions now
delegated to the Vice-Chancellor.
Queen’s College had been founded in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield
under the auspices of Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, and
might therefore be considered a specially appropriate residence for
princes of the Plantagenet line. A room in the college over the
gateway that fronts St. Edmund’s Hall was long shown as having
been occupied by Prince Henry. His portrait was to be seen painted
on the glass of the window, while an inscription in Latin recorded (it
disappeared with the gateway early in the last century) the fact that
“Henry V, conqueror of his enemies and of himself, was once the
great inhabitant of this little chamber.” This glass is now in the upper
library. It is difficult to estimate the precise value of such a tradition.
There is no documentary evidence to confirm it; on the other hand,
it is not intrinsically unlikely. Henry had some of the tastes of a
student. This fact and the academical standing of his uncle might
have suggested a residence at Oxford as a useful way of employing
some of his time. Such a residence, if it ever took place, must be
assigned to some time between October 1399 and March 1400–1. At
the latter date he had begun to take a part in public affairs, for we
find on March 10th, 1400–1, that King Henry grants, “on the
supplication of his most dear son, the Prince of Wales,” a pardon to
all the rebels of four counties of North Wales, with three exceptions,
of whom Owen Glendower is one. Thenceforth his name occurs, as
will be seen, continuously in the State documents of the time.
 CHAPTER II

PRINCE HENRY AND PRINCE HAL2

He who would draw a portrait of Prince Henry finds himself

anticipated by the work of a master hand, a work done in colours so
fresh and vivid, and with outlines so firm, that rivalry is hopeless.
Shakespeare’s “Prince Hal,” the reckless, brilliant lad, now bandying
jests with bullies and sots in city taverns, now leading his troops to
victory on the field of Shrewsbury, is one of those creations of
genius which, be they true to history or untrue, never lose their hold
on the minds of men. No sober description of the actual Henry,
however accurately worked out of authentic details, can possibly
supersede the figure which the great dramatist has made immortal.
If I may borrow an illustration from literature, it is here as it is with
Pope and the rival translators of Homer. Nothing could be more
unlike the real Iliad than the polished epigrammatic rhetoric of
Pope’s version, yet it is so masterly a work, so splendid in style, so
magnificent in versification that it is the despair of the most scholarly
and the most faithful translators; whatever the learned may say, the
world still reads “Pope’s Homer.” So the world will always think of
Henry in his youth as the Prince Hal who spoils Falstaff of his ill-
gotten booty at Gadshill, laughs at him and with him over his cups in
Eastcheap, and soliloquises over his prostrate bulk at Shrewsbury.
Many figures in history seem to bring up before us these curious
eidola, which even the best information cannot wholly banish from
our minds. Who can quite dissociate his conception of the first Cyrus
from the figure which Xenophon has pourtrayed in his philosophical
romance, or forget, when he thinks of Tiberius, the gloomy
profligate and tyrant who stands out so vividly from the pages of
Tacitus?
The brilliant figure, then, of the first and second parts of Henry
the Fourth is at least a literary fact. I do not propose to enter on a
connected discussion of its authenticity. There are many genuinely
historical details which we have about Henry’s real personality, and
we have at least some suggestions of the source from which the
great dramatist drew his materials.
Of course it is easy to take Shakespeare too seriously. Supreme
in genius as he was, he was also a playwright, had to do a
playwright’s work, and descend, if we must say so, to a playwright’s
arts. His audience had to be amused; and certainly no audience was
ever better amused than were the pit and the galleries of the Globe
by Prince Hal and Falstaff. The slender, graceful youth, with gay
dress and plumed and jewelled cap, was the happiest foil to the
huge “man mountain,” with his untrussed hose and wine-stained
doublet. The fancy, too, of the people was caught by the notion of
this young heir to the crown drinking sherry-sack, as might any one
of themselves, in an Eastcheap tavern. It was an excellent jest, with
just a spice of romance in it, less familiar also than the manners of
some of our heir-apparents since that time have made it.
Shakespeare never could have dreamt that he was raising a grave
question for historians to quarrel over.
The fact is that the great dramatist, whose genius was never
more signally shown than in transmuting other men’s lead into gold,
found a play, dull enough in itself, which he fashioned into that
masterpiece of humour, the comedy of Henry the Fourth. The
Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth was possibly written by William
Tarleton, a comedian who flourished in Elizabeth’s reign. It is known
that he acted in it, taking the part of Sir John Oldcastle. Of the real
Oldcastle it is sufficient here to say that he was a man of lofty
morality, who witnessed to his convictions by his death. In Tarleton’s
play—if it be his—he is a vicious buffoon and thief. He goes by the
name of “Jockey,” and he has two companions of similar character,
who are known as “Ned” and “Tom.” These are represented as the
Prince’s associates. And to mark more distinctly the true object of
the play, which certainly was to bring the Puritans into ridicule, the
other and principal character is one Dericks, a name borne by one of
the Marian martyrs. This play was first acted before 1588, Tarleton
dying in that year, and it was the play which Shakespeare adapted.
But an English audience would be far less disposed to relish jests
upon Protestant martyrs after the Armada and the Papist
conspiracies of Elizabeth’s latter days, and Shakespeare made a
change to suit the altered taste of the day. Oldcastle and Dericks
disappear: they are replaced, we may say, by Falstaff and Bardolf.
Both were historical personages, and Shakespeare does them as
much injustice as his predecessor had done to the Lollard martyr.
Bardolf went more than once as ambassador to France in Henry the
Fourth’s reign, and in the time of his successor he was Lieutenant of
Calais. Sir John Falstaff was a Knight of the Garter, a general of
distinction, and a man of undoubted honour. There is not a shadow
of reason for connecting either Bardolf or Falstaff with any
disreputable proceedings. Shakespeare seems to have taken their
names absolutely at random.
In the first part of Henry the Fourth, then, we see the Prince
associating with boon companions, and spending his days in riot,
until he is recalled to serious thoughts by his mission to take high
command in the army which his father is sending against the rebels
in the north and west; and finally doing away with the discredit that
had fastened itself on his good name by his gallant behaviour on the
field of Shrewsbury. Now let us examine the facts.
First, the situation may be briefly described. Henry the Fourth
was far from being safe on his newly won throne. Early in 1400 he
had discovered a plot against his life. The Kings of France and
Scotland had refused to recognise his title to the crown, and were
even making preparations for an invasion of England. A more
immediate danger also threatened him; Wales was in revolt. Here
Owen Glendower, lineal descendant of the Llewellyn who had been
defeated and slain by Edward the First, had been roused by private
wrongs to assert the independence of his nation. And it was here
that we find the young Henry employed by his father. That a boy so
young—in the early part of 1400–1 he still wanted some months of
completing his fourteenth year—should be put in a position of
authority is remarkable; that the boy so trusted should have been a
profligate simply exceeds belief.
The young Prince was apparently taking an active part in the
conduct of affairs; in any case, he must have been on the spot, and
not wasting his time in London. He was summoned to attend a
Council to be held in London on August 15th, 1401. A month
afterwards the rebellion in Wales broke out afresh, and the Prince
was probably again engaged in active service. At least we find him in
November with a small force of twenty men-at-arms and forty
archers, in respect of which he received, by order of Council, the
sum of one thousand pounds. In the following year we find him
acting on his own account. He addresses (under date May 15th) a
letter to the Privy Council, in which he gives an account of his doings
in Wales. Owen Glendower, it seems, had sent him something like a
challenge. He had gone, accordingly, to Owen’s principal mansion,
but had found no one there. Thence he had proceeded to the
Welshman’s seat at Glendourdy, and had burnt it, capturing at the
same time one of Owen’s chief men. The prisoner had offered five
hundred pounds for his ransom, but this was not accepted, and he
was put to death. Henry had afterwards marched into
Merionethshire and Powysland. This letter was written from
Shrewsbury, and was followed by another about a fortnight later, in
which he describes himself as being in great straits. His soldiers
wanted to know when they would be paid; unless he had some
money sent, he could not remain where he was; he had already
pawned his jewels (nos petitz joualx). The castles of Harlech and
Lampadern must be relieved without delay. But if help were given,
things promised well for a suppression of the rebellion.
What reply the Prince received to these representations we do
not know. The rebellion was not suppressed then, nor for many
years to come. On June 25th something like a general levy was
ordered, the King addressing precepts to the Lieutenants of many
English counties by which it was enjoined that all persons liable to
military service should meet him at Lichfield and march with him
against the Welsh rebels. Similar documents were issued later in the
year, in one of which all persons liable to serve in the counties of
Derby and Shropshire were enjoined to meet “our very dear son,
Henry, Prince of Wales” at Chester on August 27th.
It is needless to follow the King’s proceedings in detail. His
resources were not equal to the demands made upon them. New
dangers started up in unexpected places, and he had to change his
plans to meet them. But on March 7th, 1403, we come to an
important document. It is an ordinance of the King in Council, given
at Westminster. The beginning of it runs thus:

“The King to all whom it may concern, greeting. Know

that, wishing to provide for the good government of the
region of Wales, and of the Marches and parts adjacent
thereto, and for resistance to the rebels who have contrary to
their allegiance treasonably risen against us, and having full
confidence in the fidelity and energy of our dearly beloved
eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales, we constitute the said
Prince our Lieutenant in the said region of Wales.”

Here then we find Henry, who was now about half-way through
his sixteenth year, appointed to the civil and military command of
the most disturbed part of the King’s dominions. About six weeks
later the men of Shropshire write to the Council complaining of the
ravages of the Welsh rebels, and praying that some men-at-arms
and archers should be sent to protect them till the Prince himself
should come.
The King had now to meet a more formidable combination of
enemies than he had yet encountered. Henry Percy, eldest son of
the Earl of Northumberland, the Harry Hotspur of Shakespeare, had
been a trusted lieutenant of Henry. He had served in Wales against
Glendower, and had been employed both in negotiations with the
Scotch and in military action against them. He conceived himself to
have been unjustly treated, for reasons which do not concern our
present purpose, and to avenge his wrongs he formed an alliance
with Owen Glendower and with the Earl of Douglas on behalf of the
King of Scotland. Glendower was to invade Gloucestershire. To meet
this danger the King issued briefs, under date of June 16th, to the
Lieutenants of Gloucestershire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and
Herefordshire, directing that all persons liable to serve should put
themselves at the command of his son, Henry, Prince of Wales. At
the same time an attack on the northern borders was threatened
from Scotland, and the Percies, whose disaffection was not yet
known at Court, were commissioned to repel it. The King himself
marched northwards to assist them, and seems to have been
ignorant as late as July 10th of their real intentions. These, however,
became known to him a day or so after, for he issued briefs to the
Lieutenants of the counties, dated from Burton-on-Trent on July
16th, Lichfield on the 17th, and Westminster on the 18th, requiring
military assistance to repel the invasion of Henry Percy with the
Welsh rebels and “certain enemies of ours from Scotland” in his
company.
Six days later than the date of the Westminster brief the battle
of Shrewsbury was fought. Prince Henry was on the field and bore
himself bravely, though we must not credit him with the great
achievement which Shakespeare attributes to him, of having slain
Henry Percy in single combat. A lad, still wanting some months of
sixteen, could hardly have vanquished a man of thirty, one of the
bravest and most expert soldiers of his time. Hotspur seems to have
been killed by a chance arrow as he was charging with characteristic
impetuosity the royal forces. The young Prince was himself wounded
in the forehead by an arrow.
His father’s confidence in him was continued. Two days after the
battle he expresses his trust in the loyalty and prudent caution of his
son, Henry, Prince of Wales, and gives him full power to amnesty at
his discretion such persons concerned in the late rebellion as he
might think fit, in the county of Chester and in other places named.
Owen Glendower, who had not shared the defeat of the Percies
at Shrewsbury, still held out. In 1404 he assumed the title of Prince
of Wales. In the June of that year the Sheriff of Hereford, with
various gentlemen of the county, represented to the King that they
were suffering greatly from the ravages of the Welsh rebels. The
Prince was directed to go to their help, and on the 20th of the
month wrote to his father from Worcester, to which city he had
removed his headquarters. He thanks him for his kind letter written
from Pontefract five days before, and rejoices in the news it brought
of his health and prosperity, which are, he says, the greatest
pleasure that can come to him in the world. He had been taking
measures for the defence of the county of Hereford, which the
Welsh rebels had been ravaging with fire and sword, and he would
do all he could to resist them and to save England from their
attacks. Another letter to the same effect was addressed by him to
the Council, and a second four days afterwards.
On August 30th the Council granted him three thousand marks
for the expenses of holding the castle of Denbigh and other
strongholds in North Wales, and suggested that he should remain for
a certain time on the borders of Herefordshire, and afterwards
invade Wales. In a document apparently belonging to the same time
there is a list of castles in North Wales which the Prince had kept at
his own cost since the commencement of the rebellion.
In March 1405 the Prince wrote to the King relating a victory
which he had won over the Welsh:

“On Wednesday, the 11th day of this present month of

March, the rebels in parties from Glamorgan, Morganoe, Usk,
Netherwart, and Overwart were assembled to the number of
eleven thousand by their own account. On the said 11th of
March they burnt part of your town of Grosmont. Thereupon I
sent my dear cousin Lord Talbot and others. To them there
 joined themselves your faithful and valiant knights, William
Newport and John Greindel. And though they were but a
small number, yet was it well seen that the victory is not in
the multitude of the people but in the power of God.... By the
aid of the Blessed Trinity your people held the field of battle
and vanquished the said rebels, and slew of them, by one
account eight hundred, since said one thousand.... No
prisoners were taken save one, a great knight, whom I would
have sent to you but that he cannot yet comfortably ride.... I
pray God to keep you always in joy and honour, and to grant
me that I may soon comfort you with other good news.”

In this year by prompt action, and still more by skilful diplomacy,

the King crushed a formidable insurrection that threatened his power
in the north. After executing the chiefs of the rising—Scrope,
Archbishop of York, and Mowbray, Earl Marshall—he turned his
attention to Wales. If he could crush Glendower he had practically
rid himself of his enemies, for he held in his power the heir to the
Scottish throne. With his father’s action in the north the Prince could
have had nothing to do; but we may be sure that he took a part in
the Welsh campaign. Large as was the force which Henry brought
into the field, little or nothing was accomplished. The Welshmen
were driven from the plain country; but they could not be touched in
their mountain fastnesses. Indeed the weather was so exceptionally
bad that Glendower was believed to have secured the aid of this
powerful ally by his magical arts. Early in the autumn the King
returned to London, disbanding at the same time the greater part of
his forces, and leaving the command of operations, as before, in the
hands of the Prince of Wales.
It would be tedious to give all the details of Henry’s proceedings
that may be found in the public documents of the time. On the
whole, we get from these sources the picture of a vigorous young
prince, who must of course have been assisted by older counsellors,
but who was not a mere puppet in their hands. He is making head to
the best of his abilities and means against a formidable rebellion. He
is much hampered by want of money, and the King and the Council
try to help him. As time goes on, more means and more power are
put into his hands. King, Privy Council, and Parliament seem to be
agreed in trusting him. The King does not think it necessary to visit
in person the region which he had put into his son’s charge. More
than once, after proclaiming his purpose to take the field himself
against the Welsh rebels, he changes his mind, and goes elsewhere.
The Council accept without hesitation his recommendation of the
Prince and his affairs to their care. When Parliament is sitting, it
votes him money for the purposes of his campaigns.
The proceedings, however, in the first half of 1406 are so
important as bearing on the position of the Prince that they must be
specially mentioned. At some time in March or April the Privy Council
held a meeting, at which the succession of the Prince of Wales to the
throne was considered, as was also the subject of his lieutenancy in
Wales, and of his power to amnesty rebels who might give in their
submission. About the same time the House of Commons sent up an
address to the King, praying him to thank the Prince for his diligence
in the government of Wales, to which, it will be remembered, he had
been appointed three years before. This address is dated April 3rd.
Two days afterwards the King renewed the appointment of the
Prince as Lieutenant of Wales till November 11th. Special authority
was conferred upon him to admit rebels to grace on such terms as
might approve themselves to him and his counsellors. Before the
period thus specified had expired—i.e., on September 27th—
provision was made for a further tenure of his office.
In the interval between April and September the King’s health
had begun to fail so seriously that the question of settling the
succession became urgent. On April 26th he addressed two letters
from Windsor to the Council. In the first—written, it would seem,
early in the day—he tells them that he should not be able to fulfil his
purpose of being at Westminster on that day. Some ailment had
attacked his leg, and he was also suffering seriously from ague.
Consequently his physicians considered that it would be dangerous
for him to travel on horseback. However, he intended to be at
Staines that night; from Staines he would journey by water to
London, where he hoped to be in the course of three or four days.
The second letter was written later in the day. By that time his illness
had so much increased that he had to give up altogether the idea of
travelling. The Council would have to go on with public business
without him. On June 7th the House of Commons voted an address
of thanks to the Prince, which was to be forwarded to him in Wales.
At the same time Parliament passed an Act declaring that the
succession to the throne was in the Prince of Wales and the heirs-
male of his body lawfully begotten; and failing these, to the other
sons of the King and their heirs in succession. Six months later this
was amended by another Act, which abolished the restriction to
heirs-male. This was done, of course, from considerations of general
policy, but it indicates a feeling of confidence in the Prince.
The proclamation of this Act bears date December 22nd. Before
this time the Prince had come to London, and this is positively the
first time that we have an intimation of his presence in the capital.
His name appears on the list of the persons attending the meeting of
the Privy Council in the afternoon of December 8th; but it is absent
from a list dated November 27th, and the Prince must therefore
have been sworn in between the two dates. He was present again at
a meeting held on January 30th, when the Great Seal was resigned
by Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, and handed to Thomas
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. How much longer his visit to
London lasted, we cannot say. Probably he returned to the scene of
his government when the season for action in the field came on. At
any rate by the early autumn of the year he had gained considerable
successes, having received the submission of three chiefs, an event
which was evidently thought to be of considerable importance.
In a brief session of Parliament during the same year (October
20th to November 21st) the Prince again received public thanks. A
little later in the year the King granted him certain property which
had been forfeited by the outlawry of sundry persons; and also
reappointed him, for the fourth time, his Lieutenant in Wales. He
had now, it will be remembered, completed his twentieth year. The
Welsh appointment was twice more renewed—on December 27th,
1407, and again on January 19th, 1409–10. Probably there would
have been an impropriety, now that the Prince had attained years of
maturity, in handing over to any one else the chief command in the
principality from which he took his title. But he seems to have had
personally little to do with Welsh affairs during the latter part of his
father’s reign. The last record of his presence in the country is a
document, executed at Carmarthen Castle, and bearing date
September 23rd, 1408. At that time he had been five years and a
half in command. He had been so far unsuccessful in dealing with
the Welsh insurrection that Owen Glendower still held out, as indeed
he continued to do up to the day of his death. But the rebels or
patriots, according as we may choose to call them, were certainly
confined within narrow limits. The Welsh difficulty was no longer, as
it had been in the days before the battle of Shrewsbury, a danger
that threatened the throne of the Lancastrian princes; it had ceased
to be even a serious annoyance. Glendower still remained
unsubdued in his mountain fastnesses; but the rich plains of
Herefordshire and Worcestershire were no longer in fear of his
incursions. So the Prince’s Welsh campaigns were a success rather
than, as is commonly stated by historians, a failure. How much of
this success was due to his personal initiative it is, of course,
impossible to say. When he was first formally appointed to his office
he was just nine months younger than was the Black Prince at Crecy.
Lads between fifteen and sixteen are now-a-days considered too
young even for the responsibilities of a sixth form in a public school.
In the England of Edward and Henry’s time men came much earlier
to their maturity. The royal caste especially, accustomed from the
very first to the realities of power, learnt very soon to act for
themselves. The young Prince is probably entitled to a very
considerable share of whatever credit may attach during the time of
his active lieutenancy to the management of Welsh affairs.
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