Uneasy Lies the Head

Abstract

Henry IV had attained “the world, the power and the glory” in taking his cousin Richard’s throne; but he never knew any peace of mind or body again. His reign was full of trouble and anxiety, crisis after crisis, wearing down this strong energetic man, until well before the end he was prostrated with illnesses, when only in his forties a hopelessly sick man. And he had been so strong. Born in the same year as Richard, 1367, Henry was only forty-six when he died. It is as if the strain of kingship exhausted the strength of even the toughest.