Henry IV of England Henry IV of England Henry IV (15 April 1367 – 20 March 1413), also known as Henry Bolingbroke (), was King of England from 1399 to 1413, and asserted the claim of his grandfather, Edward III (himself a maternal grandson of Philip IV of France), to the Kingdom of France. Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire. His father, John of Gaunt (1340-1399) (created 1st Duke of Lancaster in right of his wife), was the fourth son (third to survive to adulthood) of King Edward III and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of
Henry VIII of England largely positive, view of the king, lauding him, "as the king and statesman who, whatever his personal failings, led England down the road to parliamentary democracy and empire". Pollard's interpretation remained the dominant interpretation of Henry's life until the publication of the doctoral thesis of G. R. Elton in 1953. Elton's book on "The Tudor Revolution in Government", maintained Pollard's positive interpretation of the Henrician period as a whole, but reinterpreted Henry himself as a follower rather than a leader. For Elton, it was Cromwell and not Henry who undertook the changes in government – Henry was shrewd, but lacked