#But I do genuinely wonder why Mortimer thinks Hal would have inevitably usurped Richard?

[themidnightcircusshow]

I'm sorry for inflicting Ian Mortimer on you but I found a thing from his introduction in his Henry IV bio that's like. deranged.

Nevermind the speculation about Richard setting the Lancastrian inheritance on Hal, Richard will be inevitably usurped!!!! And then we'd truly see what a failboat loser Henry V was and how Henry "David Beckham+Winston Churchill but better" IV is truly the great man in history!!!

Me reading this like

Breaking it down:

Just from the first line: why does he make Henry so petty oh my gosh.

Also no, just asking if things would have turned out differently if their roles were reversed does not automatically imply they were the same competency level.

Is it because I mostly look at 1413 through the lense of what was happening with Hal, or was the country really not that stable? A lot of the problems Henry V had in his early reign (i.e. the French, the Lollards, partially Southampton) were just carry overs from his father's reign. And a lot of the political factions that were dueling in Henry IV's reign either left or were fired at the start of Henry V's. That was either Hal cleaning house or Henry IV's supporters essentially leaving en masse, which doesn't suggest a whole lot of stability. And again, a lot of the credit for settling the Welsh rebellion is given to Hal, not Henry.

Why would Hal have usurped Richard though? Why is that inevitable? Richard could have adopted Hal instead, we don't know! And yeah, I was thinking that-- even if it wasn't the Duchy of Lancaster, Richard was trying to arrange Hal's marriage to a Valois, and I highly doubt the French would have allowed their princess to be married off to someone without a Duchy at minimum.

(The mental image of Richard taking the Duchy of Lancaster from Henry and giving it to Hal is hilarious though).

Also, as far as I can tell the Welsh rebellion had nothing to do with who was king (though it was probably taken as a good time to strike), so really wouldn't it have been Richard's problem? And the Scottish border was always an issue, even if it did get worse under Henry's reign. The French might not have been a problem at all for Hal if Richard had lived long enough to arrange Hal's marriage. Most of all, a lot of the Ricardians seem to have ended up on Hal's side, and he essentially had to deal with a repeat of the Epiphany plot with Southampton, so...