Dual monarchy of England and France so allowed Bedford to concentrate in Normandy. Some Englishmen who feared an English government in France were opposed to the idea of Henry's being crowned in France before his coronation in England. During Henry's coronation as king of England in 1429, poems by John Lydgate were read to stress further Henry's dual inheritance of England and France. A direct link was made between Henry and his grandfather, Charles VI. The painted pedigree paralleled Henry's descent through his mother, Catherine of Valois, from Saint Louis, and his descent on his father's side from another saint, Edward the Confessor. This was not
Henry IV of England his nephew King Richard II (1377-1399) whom Henry eventually deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche of Lancaster, heiress to the great Lancashire estates of her father Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster (a descendant in the male line of King Henry III). Henry, having succeeded his father as 2nd Duke of Lancaster, when he became king thus founded the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenet English monarchy. He was also the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French. One of Henry's elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married King John I of Portugal,