'Henry IV struggled to maintain his hold on the throne in the years .' How far do you agree with this statement? A2 History Pearson Edexcel.
High achieving student answer. Checked by teachers. A/B grade.
‘Henry IV struggled to maintain his hold on the throne in the years 1399-1405.’ How far do
you agree with this statement?
Whilst there is evidence to suggest that Henry IV had issues during his reign that caused him
difficulty in maintaining the thrones shown though the threat of the Percy family and the Welsh
rebellions I do not agree with the statement saying that he struggled to maintain his hold on the
throne between the years 1399 and 1405s shown by how he did manage to keep hold of the throne
though his show of military power and politcal innuences despite being a usurper and having to
quell rebellions.
I believe it would be accurate to say that Henry IV did not struggle to maintain his hold on the
throne and therefore do not agree with the statements as he was able to maintain his power after
usurping Richard II by quickly and efectvely distnguishing uprisings that occurreds taking away
factors that could cause serous long term threats that could have led to the downfall of his reign as a
result of these. For examples his uprising against the previous king Richard IIs allowed him to show
the public that he was militarily very powerful with a lot of innuences and therefore present himself
to be a warrior king who would bring stability to the government and in turn stabilise the public. This
would help maintain his hold on the throne as then people would not feel the dissatsfacton they
felt during Richard II’s reigns and therefore would not start another uprisings partcularly as Henry
had proven that it is possible to usurp the throne. This led to the imprisonment of Richard II – which
also helped to consolidate power as he then took away any opportunity for Richard to gain support
and reclaim the throne himself - leading to him consolidatng his power through compromising with
those who supported Richard and those who didn’t that he was the only proper candidate for the
role of kings as he had a male bloodline to the thrones as well as being an adult male. This was
strengthened by starving Richard II to death and parading his body around to stop impersonators s as
this meant Ricardians would be unable to use him as a vice for threatening Henry IVs thus allowing
Henry to maintain his hold on the throne as one of the claimants to the throne.
The other claimant was the eight year old Edmund Mortmers and in this respect Henry did have a
threat to the thrones which could have led to the struggle to maintain his hold on the throne as
Mortmer had a stronger claims despite it being through a female line. The Mortmer family was a
partcularly strong family and had a considerable following in Wales s and because of this Henry was
threateneds indicatng that from this perspectve this could be followed by a struggle of maintaining
his power. Howevers Edmund’s threat was weakened by his ages meaning that he would be unable
to take part in any politcal role and has therefore been weakened as a threat to Henry IV s as
Mortmer would not have been able to start an uprising or usurpaton against Henry. You can infer
from this perspectve that it would be more precise to say that Henry IV didn’t struggle to maintain
his hold on the throne.
In this sense you can infer that Henry did not struggle to maintain his claim of the thrones as the
populaton did not want another child king who kept asking for tax when it wasn’t necessarys or had
a good relaton with an enemys which was something Henry IV was not. This is due to Richard II’s
marriage to a French princess – who was several years younger and therefore couldn’t produce an
heir untl several years laters destabilising the line of the throne - and how he had shown that to be a
terrible idea through his actons when dealing with the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381s where he had a
number of rebels executed after statng he would grant freedom for them putng fear into his
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