Tamro asked Ian Mortimer:

After reading your fantastic Henry IV: The Righteous King I was wondering why did Henry IV not marry off his sons to collect doweries (and make allies or reward those loyal to the Lancasters) as he spent pretty much his entire kingship in serious need of cash?

Ian Mortimer This is a good question - not least because there is a marked difference between how he treated his daughters and his sons with regard to their marriages. It's a long time since I was closely involved with rethinking Henry and his family but, sixteen years after that book was finished, my suggestion is that there was a family tradition among the men of marrying 'romatically' or by choice, not by arrangement. Edward III had chosen his bride (from five daughters). The Black Prince married an older woman, and that was a love-match. John of Gaunt made a love-match too, twice, in fact (wives 1 and 3), and Henry IV certainly did so himself with his second wife, if not his much-loved first. The only one of Henry IV's sons married in Henry's lifetime (Thomas) married his own choice of bride - and not entirely to his father's satisfaction. As a result, I don't think Henry saw his sons' hands in marriage as his to give away. In marked contrast to his daughters. But on that note, his vision of his sons' standing in line to the throne was very different from that regarding his daughters (as shown by his first Act settling the throne on his sons and the male line only). That is my best suggestion in answer to your question: he saw his sons as having the right to choose their own wives but not his daughters their husbands.

flag