#in my head Humphrey imprinted on Hal like a baby duckling

[themidnightcircusshow]

I was thinking about Hal's relationship with his youngest brothers and decided my feelings could only be expressed in meme t-shirt form:

My favourite topic: Hal's oldest daughter syndrome :D

On one hand, it was probably inevitable as the oldest child of a widowed father that he would be a bit of a de facto parent, but once you add in his position Hal really seems to have become the parent of the family. Henry's health started deteriorating when everyone was still rather young, so I wouldn't be surprised if the brothers (at least John and Humphrey) started differing to him the same way Hal started gaining more authority in parliament. After Henry died, however, you can quite clearly see just how much John and Humphrey treated Hal as the head of the family, probably even before their father died. Hal is the one who gives them their titles, not their father; Hal is the one who at least gets the ball rolling on their marriages; Hal quite frankly is the one who they seem to have respected more and cared most about continuing his legacy.

I feel like that also would have contributed to Henry's insecurities around Hal. Not only is Hal now the healthy, vibrant one who Henry is compared to, not only does he have the military excursions, not only is Hal gaining political favour over Henry, but he has the authority within the family as well. Like, I do wonder sometimes if Henry was in denial and thought if things really did go down with Hal, John and Humphrey would still be on his side, or if he knew John and Humphrey would immediately be Team Hal so any outright conflict would have quickly become disastrous. Which certainly wouldn't have helped any resentment brewing between the two of them.