The Gloucester Parliament that opened on 24 October 1407 is one of the most obscure of all the parliamentary meetings of the fifteenth century. Not only did every contemporary English chronicler but one ignore the parliament and its outcomes, the only one who did mention the assembly, Thomas Walsingham, put its meeting in the wrong month: November; and in the wrong place: London. Perhaps because of this dearth of comment by contemporaries the Gloucester Parliament has, as Chris Given-Wilson notes, never received a detailed study. Nevertheless, the Gloucester Parliament has received at least passing notice by historians who have viewed the assembly within the traditional confrontational paradigm of Henry IV and his parliaments: meeting against a backdrop of fiscal and political crisis where the king and the commons found themselves locked in a political battle.

William Stubbs saw this parliament, as those before it, embroiled in bitter conflict with Henry as it worked ‘under the constitutional rule of Lancaster’ to achieve important concessions for the powerful house of commons. James Wylie thought that Henry was ill during the period of the parliament, but that at Gloucester the relations between the king and the commons were adversarial. John Kirby found that in spite of the fact that the chancellor's opening speech centered on the theme of ‘honor the king’ it took little time for the commons of 1407, to ‘resume … their usual critical course’ against Henry. Edmund Wright agreed with this general line of the commons being in opposition to Henry IV, but argued that the council, who had governed the realm with financial responsibility and success since the end of the Long Parliament in December 1406, placated the opposition in the house sufficiently so that they acquiesced and provided the king with a subsidy. Peter McNiven, although he suggested that Henry's movements and inability to personally lead a campaign to Wales earlier that year demonstrate a king in poor health, nevertheless concluded that the relationship between Henry and the commons in 1407 was adversarial. But, fortunately for Henry, the house could not stand before the titanic personality of Archbishop Arundel who dominated the proceedings on behalf of the king, brought the commons to heel, and rammed through a generous subsidy.