In 2001 a group of scholars brought together in York by Drs Gwilym Dodd and Douglas Biggs began a revaluation of the reign of Henry IV. The proceedings of that symposium were published two years later. A similar group convened again at Nottingham on 7–9 July 2006 to continue the revaluation. The earlier gathering focussed on the early, crisis-ridden years of the reign. While the focus of the Nottingham symposium moved forward in time to encompass the whole reign, it nevertheless dwelt largely on the years in which the Lancastrian dynasty struggled to establish itself. There are several linked reasons for this. These years remain the most contentious and difficult to understand; they are more richly served by our sources; and they attract more scholarly attention. Whereas the previous collection concentrated on the establishment of the regime, both the revolution of 1399 and the struggles to survive thereafter, this volume shifts more attention to the shaping of the regime and the manner in which it operated. There is accordingly greater emphasis on administrative history, taxation and the institutional context of the turbulent politics of the decade. In this respect the revaluation is taking us back to an older tradition.

Yet debate has moved on, and the issues at the forefront are not those that were dominant in the mid-twentieth century. In one respect we seem to have arrived at a new consensus that the turning point in the parliamentary politics of the reign was the collapse of Henry IV's health in 1406. Discussion continues as to exactly what the king's condition was and to the extent to which he was capable of attending to affairs of the realm thereafter. Michael Bennett, below, argues that following the execution of Archbishop Scrope in 1405, guilt and remorse debilitated him. This could be a condition, which today would be diagnosed clinically as reactive depression, which renders patients periodically listless and lethargic. This would not preclude the more frequently supposed stroke, but intriguingly, Henry's guilt and remorse might have led him to believe that he could be struck down by leprosy, which, all scholars knew, was the fate that befell Uzziah for defying the servers in the Temple.