ENRICO IV, king of ENGLAND. — Born on 3 April 1367 at Bolingbroke Castle, died on 20 March 1413 at Westminster. The son of Giovanni di Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, he was elected king by Parliament in 1399, after Riccardo II had been deposed. Opposed to the heretical movement of Wyclif, in 1401, in agreement with Parliament, he issued a statute, De haeretico comburendo, prohibiting the possession of heretical writings and prescribing death by burning for anyone who persisted in false doctrines.
BIBL.: C. Oman, The history of England from the accession of Richard II to the death of Richard III, London 1906, passim; T. F. Tout, Henry IV, in The dictionary of national biography, IX, pp. 482–94, with bibliography. Silvio Furlani