was neither. This seething, tumbling mass of popular discontents was
besides only the groundwork for the personal strifes and ambitions
which raged about the throne. The wretched King, embroiled with every
class and every party, was pronounced by Parliament unfit to reign, the
same body which deposed him, giving the crown to his cousin Henry of
Lancaster (1399), and the reign of the Plantagenets was ended.




CHAPTER V.


[Sidenote: House of Lancaster, 1399-1461. Henry IV.,1399-1413.]

The new king did not inherit the throne; he was _elected_ to it.
He was an arbitrary creation of Parliament. The Duke of Lancaster,
Henry's father (John of Gaunt), was only a younger son of Edward III.
According to the strict rules of hereditary succession, there were two
others with claims superior to Henry's. Richard Duke of York, his
cousin, claimed a double descent from the Duke Clarence and also from
the Duke of York, both sons of Edward III.

This led later to the dreariest chapter in English history, "the Wars
of the Roses."

It is an indication of the enormous increase in the strength of
Parliament, that such an exercise of power, the creating of a king, was
possible. Haughty, arrogant kings bowed submissively to its will. Henry
could not make laws nor impose taxes without first summoning Parliament