History of England, Part I For the use of Middle Forms of Schools
Tout, T. F. --Powell, F. York
1898
CHAPTER IV: Richard II of Bordeaux 1377-1399
1. After a grand coronation, July 16, the new reign began with a reconciliation of the two parties. William of Wickham and were set at one, the two parties of the Londoners under 's helper, John of Northampton, and John Philpot, the bishops' partisan, made friends. Peter de la Mare was let out of prison. The Bishops of S. David and Worcester were made chancellor and treasurer, a council was chosen to carry on the government with them, and the king, a lad of eleven years old, was left to the care of his mother. When Parliament met it added nine members to the Council, and laid down But was still the chief man in the realm ; and though he had disclaimed in full Parliament all enmity to his brother's son, and his wishes for the good of the realm, he was disliked and mistrusted by many. The French and Scots had got fleets of privateers in the Channel, and the east coast, the Isle of , Rye, and Winchelsea suffered from their raids, and later on they harried Portsmouth and the mouth, burning Gravesend, . The expedition of Duke John and his brother Edmund to S. Malo in was of small profit, for though Charles, King of Navarre, gave up his fortresses in Normandy, amongst others Cherbourg, to get English help against the King of Castile, the French won them nearly all. Even Montfort's recall to Brittany in availed little, for the Bretons only wished to play off the one kingdom against the other, and so to keep their freedom.[1] Thus when the Earl of Buckingham marched from Calais to Vannes to their help, they would scarcely give his host food or shelter, and in forced their duke to send them away and make peace with the new King of France, Lancaster's blundering and mismanagement was made the more clear by the successes of others. For Sir Hugh Calverley with his one galley saved our transports at Brest from the French and Spanish fleet; while John Philpot fitted out a few craft of his own, and took the Scottish sea-rover John the Mercer, , (as he told the nobles who grudged him his victory); and John Bassett won back Berwick from the Scots by his ready action. Moreover, the wanton and reckless behaviour of the duke's followers, who slew a knight in lawful sanctuary in Westminster Abbey itself, made the Londoners and bishops hate him more than ever. So that the duke would not hold Parliament in London, but got it to sit at Northampton, where by 's help he tried to get the right of sanctuary done away with, save when the refugee's life or limbs were in danger. But the Houses were taken up with the ways of meeting the sums needed for the defence of the realm. A fresh toll or subsidy was set upon wool, and a poll-tax laid upon every grown-up person in the kingdom according to his means, from the labourer or workwoman's 4d. up to the duke and archbishop's £6, 13s. 4d. But the wool-tax only brought in £6000, and the poll-tax £22,000, so that at Northampton next year the ministers reported that they should want £1600,000. Astonished at this huge sum, and forgetting that the buying-power of money was less than it had been, the Parliament angrily turned out the ministry, audited the accounts, and refused to raise more than £ 100,000, of which the clergy, owning a third of the land, were to pay a third, the rest was to be got by a treble poll-tax, one of the results of which was the Peasants' Rising of , long remembered with horror as Hurling-time. | |
2. [2] Many causes met at this time to make the English poor unhappy and troubled. a. In the country the serfs, seeing the welfare of their free fellows, were longing to be free themselves: the free labourers were angry with the laws that tried to beat down wages ; the customary tenants disliked having to give up so much of their time without pay to the lords, and grumbled at the dues of the manor: the free tenants and yeomen suffered from the heavy market-tolls, the occasional purveyance, and the continual taxes, which as far as they could see were wasted by the Government. b. In many parts of the country the forest laws were very hateful, and led to much angry feeling, outlaws and poachers, such as the songs of Robin Hood tell of, being the heroes of the country-side. In the towns the labourers suffered from the selfish guild laws, which raised the cost of food. c. The craftsmen in the guilds were struggling hard to wrest the control of the towns from the rich burgess families, who managed matters for | |
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their own benefit; while both classes hated the foreigners, whose quickness and skill enabled them to undersell and outbid them in many ways, and the speculators, who forced up the price of food, and hoarded the money that was wanted for daily trade. The enmity between the friars and the endowed clergy raged as fiercely as ever, and the poor chaplains, who since the plague had been left by the rich rectors and vicars in charge of many of the country parishes, were indignant at the remissness and greed of their richer brethren. Nor were these feelings only shown in words. In the home counties the labourers formed clubs to resist the laws fixing wages; the freed bondsmen appealed to the courts against the lords, who were trying in many cases to get them back into bondage; the customary tenants resisted the encroachments of the manor-stewards. They were encouraged by the old soldiers, who came back from the wars boasting that the yeoman's arrow was more than a match for the knight's spear, and telling how the fullers and webbers of Ghent and Bruges under James of Artaveld and John Lyon had won their freedom by standing together shoulder to shoulder against their cruel lord the Earl of Flanders. They were flattered by the friars' praise of poverty and mockery of the rich; they were emboldened by 's poor priests, who preached the doctrine that property and power were only lawfully held by those who were pious and godly, and that a bad rich man had no right to his lands or goods. But the man who more than any one else tried to get the poor to stand up for themselves and demand reforms was John Ball, the priest of S. Mary's, , who began travelling through and Essex, holding forth to the people on their wrongs and the best ways of mending them. He often used in his sermons and letters the words of , a poor clerk of London, who had written a set of English poems called , allegories in which he boldly showed up the vices of the day, talking of Lady Bribery and her power at court, of Lord Lust and Master Simony, and their influence with the clergy and gentry; exhorting men to be patient, reasonable, kindly, and to follow the example of Piers the Plowman, the honest, hardworking, dutiful man who will not be turned from his right work by hardship or temptation; calling men to come and defend Conscience, who is closely besieged by the Seven Deadly Sins; and praying them to walk in the steps of Do-well, Dobetter, and Do-best, the types of holiness, uprightness, and |
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welldoing. The characters of these poems soon became as well known among the peasants by the preaching of Ball and his friend Wraw as those of John Bunyan's are to us. John Ball spoke with power, his pithy sayings could not be forgotten. In one of his sermons he makes his text of the famous couplet-
He said that all men were equal and all things common in the beginning, that England would never be at rest till slavery was done away with and things more fairly shared, so that those who did the work should have a better part of the profit thereof. He called on his hearers to rise in a body and go to the king and ask him to right their wrongs. One of his letters runs- In another he greets More than once Ball had been ordered to keep silence, and in Simon of Sudbury, the new archbishop (now chancellor also), put him in prison for the second time. But the hour he and his friends had striven for was at hand. |
3. The collection of the second poll-tax was cruelly and brutally carried out, and the word went round for a rising at Whitsuntide. In Essex already the peasants under Thomas Baker and Jack Straw had refused to pay it, and had driven the judge who came to punish them out of the country. In | |
246 | a tiler killed one of the taxmen who insulted his daughter, and the rising began. of Maidstone was made captain of ; in Norfolk, John the Lister [dyer], a Stafford man, was made leader; John Wraw, a priest, was captain of Suffolk; William Grindcob was the leader of the
S. Albans tenants; and in every shire from Somerset to
the peasants flocked together, [3] They marched along the highways, making every one they met swear to be true to King and the Commons, and never to take a king called John; they pulled down the houses of some of the worst landlords, and destroyed all the tax-rolls and manor-rolls they could get at, so that all proof of slavery might be destroyed; they also killed several lawyers and foreigners, and slew the Chief-Justice, the Prior of Bury, and some knights that resisted them. In the north great bands went about sacking the estates of the Duke of Lancaster, who was on the border making a truce with the Scots. In the east they were resisted by Henry Despenser, Bishop of , who scattered them with great slaughter. But in the south the ministers were either too careless or too frightened to do anything till it was too late, and the peasants had beset London, the Essex men camping at Hampstead, the ish men at Blackheath, and the Hertfordshire folk at Highbury. The king wished to hear what they wanted, but the archbishop would not have him however, he went down the river in his barge to Blackheath and saw their force, though he did not land or parley with them. William Walworth the mayor and the richer burgesses wished to keep the city gates shut, but the poor of London opened them and let the peasants in, July 12. They kept good order, and allowed no plundering, saying that they were seekers after truth and righteousness and not robbers; but they fired 's house the Savoy, the Temple, and the Priory of S. John's, burning all the law-books and tax-accounts they could lay hands on, and breaking all the plate and jewellery and casting it into the . The London mob joined them, and they murdered many Flemings and other aliens, among them Richard Lyon, beheading them with terrific yells of applause, and fixing their heads on the bridge-house as those of traitors. Their hatred to the Duke of Lancaster was so great that they set up his best jacket, which was covered with gems, as a target, and afterwards |
247 | cut it up and pounded it to pieces with axes, but they let his son go free. Their demands were-(a) a free pardon, (b) the abolition of slavery, (c) the sweeping away of all tolls and market-dues, and (d) the turning of all customary tenants into leaseholders for ever at 4d. per acre. On the 14th of July the king rode out to meet Jack Straw and the Essex men at Mile End, and promised to grant them their wishes, whereupon they went quietly home. But the ish men broke into the Tower as the king left, for the knights and archers on guard were too frightened to resist, and getting hold of the archbishop, Simon, and the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, beheaded them on Tower Hill as traitors. The king passed the night at the Wardrobe, a stronghold by Blackfriars, and next morning went with William Walworth the mayor and several knights to meet , the captain of , and head of the whole rising, at Smithfield. rode up and tried to get the king to promise to do away with the forest laws, and let all men be free to kill wild beasts and game. As they talked began quarrelling with one of the king's squires, and so angered the mayor, Walworth, that he drew his short sword and dealt the ish captain such a blow that he fell off his horse, whereupon the royal squires leapt down and stabbed him repeatedly as he lay helpless on the ground. When the peasants saw their leader fall they shouted, and bent their bows. But the young king rode alone towards them as quick as he could, and called to them, And seeing the boldness of the boy they followed him quietly out of the city to Islington, while Walworth rode back into London to gather troops. Now that was dead the rich citizens and knights grew bold, and gathered in numbers to the king's help, begging to be allowed to fall upon the leaderless peasants; but the king would not permit this, and sent them home with their charters in peace. The princess had been much frightened by the rising, for the ish men had stopped her on the way from , and had broken into her rooms in the Tower to search for traitors, and she was right glad to see her son come home safe that evening. said the boy; The rising was indeed over. And now the punishment of the peasants began, for it was said that Jack Straw had confessed that they had meant to take the king about with them, as their head, till all the gentry were slain, and then that they were going to put him and all the rich clergy to death, and set up a king of their own in every shire, letting the friars and poor priests serve the churches. Whether this was true or not, the landlords determined to stop such risings by hanging every ringleader they could catch. On the 2nd and 3rd of July the king recalled the charters as being got by unlawful force, forbade all public meetings, and sent Tresilian, the new chief-justice, round the shires to try the rebels. John Ball, Jack Straw, and Grindcob, and nearly all the village leaders, some hundreds in all, were taken, found guilty, and hanged in chains as a warning to others. |
The Parliament met in November, and the king said that though the charters had been unlawful, and he had therefore repealed them, since it was not in his power to deal with other men's property or bondsmen, yet that he would gladly agree to a law to set all bondsmen free: for he was sorry for the peasants who had trusted in his word. But the squires and clergy, the nobles and citizens, However, in January , on the marriage of the king to Ann, daughter of Charles, King of Bohemia, the Emperor, a general pardon was put forth to all who had joined in the rising. The movement had not turned out as the peasants hoped, but it taught the king's officers and the gentlefolks that they must treat the peasants like men if they wished them to behave quietly, and it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, and to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain services from their customary tenants, so that in a hundred years' time there were very few bondsmen left in England. | |
4. The Schism between the two popes-Urban VI. (whom the English, Flemings, Portuguese, and Germans followed) and Clement VII. (who was favoured by the French and Castillians)-led to much discord in the Church, and made men look more narrowly into its beliefs and rights. About , who was now Rector of Lutterworth, put forth in his lectures and pamphlets new views on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, on marriage, and on the conduct and the claims of the popes which led him into a bitter quarrel with the friars, who upheld Clement against the rest of the | |
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English Church. [4] also, with the help of his friends
John Horn and Nicholas of Hereford, set about turning the
Bible from Latin into English, in favour of which spoke up in Parliament against the bishops. and this he affirmed with a great oath. But s old foe, William Courtenay, now succeeded Simon as archbishop, and he lost no time in attacking the Hooded men or Lollards [idlers], as the ites were now called by the friars. At a council he held at Lambeth, May (since known as the Earthquake Council, from a great shock which did much damage in England while it was sitting), many of 's opinions were condemned as heretical or untrue. He also got the Upper Houses to pass a bill against the Poor Preachers, but the Commons would not agree to it. Moreover, he sent to to forbid all who held with to preach or teach there. And finally he brought up , Hereford, John Aston, and others to answer before him as to their belief. had a powerful friend in the Mayor of London, John Comberton of Northampton (one of the Lancaster party, who in spite of the bishops had made stern rules against evil-livers in the city), and he was therefore allowed, after making a quibbling defence, to go home unhurt to Lutterworth, where he lived, writing and preaching as before, till he was struck with palsy at mass in his own church, 28th December , and died on the 31st. Nicholas of Hereford appealed to the Pope and escaped to Rome, where he was imprisoned till , when he came home and employed himself with his friend John Purvey in revising s Bible. Aston and many others gave up their former views in fear of the bishops. But Lollardy was by no means put down, as will be seen, and the bishops and monks were still in fear because of its rapid spread. |
5. In the year the French overcame the men of Ghent at Rosbeck, slaying their leader Philip of Artaveld, and the English were afraid lest King Charles should win all Flanders. So when the Bishop of got leave from Urban to make a crusade against those who held with Clement, he soon raised men and money enough to take an army into Flanders in May , in spite of the wishes of Lancaster, the angry outcry of , and the reproaches of Langland, who prays for the amendment of the Pope- | |
250 | [5] Despenser took Gravelinles and won Dunkirk against heavy odds, but could not carry Ypres, and agreeing to a truce with the French, came home in October; where he was much blamed in Parliament, and deprived of the rents of his see for three years. However, the men of Ghent, owing to the fear of the English, had time to recover from their defeat, and were now strong enough to face their earl and his French friends, and hold their own under their new captain, Edward the Bursar. The king's uncle, the Earl of Cambridge, also came home from Portugal, whither he had gone in , on the invitation of Ferdinand, King of Portugal, to help him against John, King of Castile, the son of Henry of Trastamar. The Duke of Lancaster was to have followed him to Portugal, but had been kept at home because the money he would have had was spent over Despenser. Earl Edmund could not get Ferdinand to risk a battle with the Spaniards, so when he had betrothed his eldest son Edward to Ferdinand's daughter Beatrice, he came home, having spent 100,000 francs on this fruitless journey. Ferdinand now made peace with John, to whom, breaking off the English match he married his daughter Beatrice. |
6. In spite of peace abroad, there was little at home. The English nobles were split into parties : many held with Lancaster; others were taking for their leader Thomas, Earl of Buckingham; while those most infavour with the Princess of Wales and the young king were his half-brothers the Earls of and Huntingdon, and Sir Robert of Vere, Sir Simon Burley, and Tresilian. In the Duke of Lancaster was accused of treason, but his son-in-law, Sir John Holland, murdered the accuser, to the anger of the Earl of Buckingham: moreover, the duke's friend Comberton was imprisoned for opposing Sir Nicholas Brember, one of the king's party, who had been made mayor against the wish of many of the Londoners. The duke, fearing for his life, shut himself up in Pomfret Castle and prepared for war, but the king's mother managed to reconcile him with the king. And | |
251 | this was the easier, for the truce was over and the French were beginning to gather a great navy for the invasion of England, and had sent Sir John of Vienne on beforehand in with a fleetful of soldiers to help the Scottish King Robert II. [6] with a great army set out against them, and got as far as the Forth, burning Edinburgh and other towns, but came back without being able to bring his foes to a battle. Luckily the great French fleet was kept at Sluys by foul winds till it was too late to start for England, and next year, though King lay waiting all the autumn with 2000 ships and 100,000 men, when the wind did come it blew a gale and wrecked a great part of his fleet; so that the danger was again turned away, much to the delight of the Londoners, who had cleared the walls of all the houses built near them, mounted guns along them, and been at much cost to put themselves in good array. The third year, , when the French fleet was ready to sail from Treguier, the Duke of Brittany took the French Constable, Oliver of Clisson, prisoner because he had ransomed John of Blois and married him to his own daughter. So having lost their leader, the captains went home and the whole enterprise was at an end. It was well that the French were not able to land during these three years, for things were not going well in England, and a great part of the best knights were abroad with ; for in there had come two gentlemen from King John of Portugal, the late King Ferdinand's half-brother, to the Duke of Lancaster, to tell him that he had won a great victory over King John of Castile at Aljjubarota, August 14, and that if the duke would now bring an army to Portugal, he would be able to set him on the throne of Castile. The duke knowing that he had lost favour with both king and people in England, and seeing that he had no chance of the throne (for had lately made Roger, Earl of March, his heir), was glad to go abroad and try to win a crown there. too was not unwilling to let him go, and the Pope gave him a tithe of the Church and blessed his enterprise as a crusade, just as he had done for Despenser, for the Castillian King John was a Clementist. He set out with a fine force of picked men in the spring of , seeing him off and giving him and his wife two golden crowns for their coronation. Stopping on his way out, he raised the siege of Brest and then sailed to Coruna. After some months' fighting in Galicia and Castile with the help of his ally the King of |
252 | Portugal, who married his eldest daughter Philippa in , he was forced to withdraw into Gascony, for he himself was ill of fever, and the greater part of his army had perished of sickness. In Gascony he stayed two years, and then, putting an end to the war by marrying his second daughter Catherine to his enemy's son, Henry the heir of Castile, he came back to England, tired of strife and only desirous of keeping his dukedom in good order and of preventing a second civil war in England. |
7. [7] Now while he was away there had been a terrible struggle between the king's friends and the Earl of Buckingham, now Duke of Gloucester, with whom were the Archbishop William, the Earl of Warwick, Richard Earl of Arundel, and his brother Thomas, Bishop of Ely. In a Parliament at Westminster in October the dismissal of the chancellor, Michæl de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, was demanded. But bade the Parliament mind its own business, and said that he would not send away a scullion from his kitchen unless he chose. Then Gloucester and Arundel threatened to depose him if he did not govern as the Parliament wished, and he gave way, sent the seals to the Bishop of Ely, allowed Suffolk to be impeached and condemned for misuse of public moneys, and agreed to, saving his royal rights, the appointment of a Board of Eleven to act with the ministers, and sit for a year to overlook the royal household and treasury, and amend all wrongs not provided for by the common, Church, or forest laws. But as soon as Parliament | |
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was dismissed, set Suffolk free, and rode through the country with his friends to try and gain help in the next
Parliament. He got the opinion of the judges that the new
Board was unlawful, that the king also has a right to choose and dismiss his ministers, and that those who threatened him and set up the Board had acted as traitors. This sentence he published, ordered Robert de Vere, whom he had made Duke of Ireland, to raise troops in the west, and sent to seize Arundel, who was just then highly in favour with the Londoners for his action of March 24, when he had taken the French wine-fleet, with 19,000 tuns of claret on board, and Arundel escaped the royal officers, and taking up arms with Gloucester, Warwick, Nottingham, and Henry the young Earl of Derby, 's eldest son, marched to London, seized the Tower, and appealed five of the king's counsellors, Dublin, Suffolk, Alexander Neville, Archbishop of , Brember and Tresilian, of treason. Suffolk and the archbishop fled over-sea, Tresilian hid in disguise, Brember was taken. The Duke of Ireland was defeated at Radcot Bridge, December 20, , by the Earl of Derby's men, and took refuge in Lowen. As soon as the Parliament met, February , Gloucester first declared that he had never had any wish to make himself king, as his enemies had wished to make out, and then with his fellow-appellants charged the five counsellors with having advised the king ill, misused his money, tried to make Robert of Vere King of Ireland, to raise civil war, and to bring a French army into England. Ireland, Suffolk, Tresilian and Brember were condemned to death, and the two latter hanged. Neville was sent by the Pope to S. Andrews, where he would not be received, and put in his room at . The judges who had given their opinion against the earls were condemned to death, but allowed to live in exile in Ireland. Five more of the king's friends were then impeached and found guilty of treason, amongst whom was Sir Simon Burley. In vain Henry of Derby spoke for him, in vain the king wished him to be spared, in vain the queen pleaded on her knees to Gloucester and Arundel for the life of this old knight who had brought about her marriage to the king, and had served and his father and grandfather long and faithfully. The earls would have him hanged with the others. £20,000 was then voted as a gift to the Lords Appellant, and so ended the Marvellous or Merciless Parliament. |
At a second Parliament of Cambridge, , the sale of | |
254 | places in the Government was stopped, the laws about wages, beggars, and church patronage confirmed, the wearing of arms without cause forbidden, and many games, such as football, tennis, skittles, and rounders made unlawful, so that young men should be obliged to practise shooting as their amusement; for it was hoped to make every able labourer and workman in England a good shot, that he might defend his country in case of need. A truce was also made with the French, whose allies, the Scots, had just made a raid into North England. |
attacked them by night on their way home at the Otterburn, thirty miles from Newcastle. In the thick of the fight Douglas was stabbed by one of his own men, but the Scots, under his sister's son, Sir Hugh Montgomery, gained the day, according to the prophecy that as the old ballad tells:- | |
"The moon was clear, the day drew near, the spears in flinders flew, And many a gallant Englishman that day the Scotsmen slew. For no man there one foot would flee, but stiffly each did stand, One hewing the other while he could smite, with many a baleful brand. The Gordons good in English blood they steeped their hose and shoor, The Lindsays flew like fire about till all the fray was done. The fray was done at the Otterburn at the breaking of the day, Earl Douglas was buried at the bracken bush, and the was led away. On the morrow they made them biers, of the birch and the hazel grey, Many a widow with weeping tears her mate did bear away. There was never a time in the March-parts, when Douglas and did meet, But 'twas strange if the red blood ran not down, as the rain does in the street." | |
8. On the 3rd of May , came into the councilroom and asked his uncle Gloucester how old he was. he answered. Then said the king, He then gave the seals to William of Wyckham, and the treasury to | |
255 | Brantingham, his father's old friends, and turned the Appellants out of office. No man withstood him, for he was within his right, and he took care neither to break the law or show anger against those who had put his friends to death, even replacing the Appellants in the Council at the request of , upon whose advice and that of his own wife Ann he chiefly leaned. [1] For eight years there was peace and good rule. Many wise laws were made: the great Statute ofProvisors; a statute against livery and maintenance (forbidding lords to give their badges to any but their own servants and tenants, or to meddle with other men's quarrels or lawsuits) ; a law fixing the limits of the Constable's and Marshal's courts in ; an Act forbidding the manor courts to try cases touching ownership of land in ; the great Statte of Premunire in . In good Queen Ann breathed her last at Shene. was beside himself with grief; he had the palace where she died razed to the ground, and struck Arundel in the abbey itself for keeping the funeral waiting. also fell out with Arundel about this time, for the earl did not like the duke to have the duchy of Aquitaine, which had given him in , and wished for war with France, which John and rightly thought unwise. He even tried to rouse the Cheshire men against Lancaster, but they were easily quieted. However, the king soon forgave Arundel, and even gave his brother the archbishopric of on Courtnay's death, nor, though he paid great honour to his uncle, did favour his wish to get his son, the Earl of Derby, made heir in place of the Earl of March, in case the king died childless. As things were going badly in Ireland, made up his mind to cross to the Pale and see how it was that a land which was once of profit to the crown now proved a burden. The Irish kings and chiefs, O'Connor, MacMorrough, O'Brien, O'Neil, and others, were after a while willing to obey him; but the lords of the Pale, the Butlers and Geraldines, gave much more trouble, as they quarrelled with each other, and would not suffer the natives outside the Pale to live in peace. held a Parliament, did what he could to settle the country, and left his cousin the Earl of March as Lord Deputy, when he himself was called home, after nine months' stay, by Archbishop Arundel, who wished for his help against the Lollards. For in the Parliament of , held by the Duke of for the absent king, they had a strong party in the Lower House, and had brought in a petition |
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touching the state of the Church, in which they condemned confession, the mass, pilgrimage, image-worship, and many of the ceremonies of the Church; objected to the clergy being endowed, taking lay offices, and not marrying; and declared that war and capital punishment were sinful, and the making of jewels and weapons unrighteous, wasteful, and needless crafts. The king called Lord Montague and others of these opinions before him and and making them take an oath to that effect. |
9. In , wishing to put an end to the French war during his days, made a twenty-eight years' truce with and wedded his little daughter Isabel, a child of eight years old. The two kings met near Calais, where the wedding took place with great pomp, the married pair walking between two lines of French and English knights, four hundred of each, all in rich array. The whole festival cost 300,000 marks, but the princess's dowry was 300,000 crowns paid at once, and 100,000 a year for five years. The Duke of Gloucester had spared no endeavour to put a stop to this match, for he liked the war, in which he hoped to win money and glory, and he now began again to do all in his power to thwart and humble the king and his friends, spreading every kind of story about their lives and doings which could make the people dislike them. , willing to be rid of him on easy terms, gave him the government of Ireland; but he soon threw it up, for he could get nothing but hard fighting there, and though he started on a crusade to Prussia, he came back after a few days at sea. [8] In Gloucester, having many friends in the Commons, led them to send up a bill complaining (a) that the sheriffs were kept in office more than a year; (b) that the Scottish marches were ill-guarded; (c) that the statutes of against livery and maintenance were not fairly kept (an attack upon the king's friends, who spread his badge, the hart, widely among the gentry); (d) that there were too many foreign ladies and alien bishops maintained in the royal household at the king's expense. agreed to look into the first points; but saying that the Commons had no right to meddle with his guests, he sent Canon Thomas Haxey, who brought in the bill, to be tried for treason by the Lords, though when they found him guilty he pardoned him. But Gloucester, putting down 's forbearance to fear, pushed his violence so far as to openly and unjustly reproach his nephew at | |
257 | a banquet as a coward and sluggard for not making war on France, when according to sworn treaty Brest and Cherbourg were given up to their owners, the Duke of Brittany and the King of Navarre. But the king still withheld his hand till he heard from the Earl of Nottingham, who had quarrelled with Gloucester, that his uncle was plotting with Warwick and the two Arundels to imprison him and seize the government again. Showing no sign of displeasure, asked the four to a banquet. Warwick alone appearing, was arrested after the dinner and sent to Tintagel under guard. The archbishop was persuaded by promise that his brother's life should be safe to make him surrender, when he was put in prison at Carisbrooke. then with a large armed following rode to Plashy, Gloucester's seat, and took him, saying, and with that he handed him the charges against him. " replied Gloucester, who was then borne off to Calais under Nottingham's care. The ringleaders being thus trapped, gathered a body-guard of stout yeomen from his earldom of Chester, and called a Parliament, at which it was settled that the Earls of Nottingham, Rutland, Somerset, , Huntingdon, , and Salisbury, Baron Despenser and Sir William Scrope (the Earl of Suffolk's kinsman), should appeal the prisoners of treason. The Parliament met, 17th September, in a great shed open at the sides, which were guarded by the Cheshire men with bent bows, for the Hall of Westminster was being rebuilt. The Commons had been carefully chosen under the eye of the sheriffs and lords of the king's party, for Gloucester's friends were cowed, while the Lords were willing to follow 's lead, and the clergy, fearing for their sees, were not willing to interfere on either side. The statute of and the pardons given to the earls in and were repealed as being granted under compulsion. When Arundel was accused he said to the Duke of Lancaster, answered Arundel, So he was judged to be beheaded on Tower Hill, where he had put Burley to death, and early on the morrow, 21st September, his head was smitten off. There was a strong guard about the place, for the Londoners pitied him, and it was feared that they would try a rescue. Gloucester was not allowed to appear, but was smothered by Nottingham's orders at an inn in Calais. Yet sentence was passed upon his dead body, for ere Parliament met he had confessed his guilt to one of the judges. Warwick, who also confessed, was imprisoned in the Isle of Man, for the king would not put so old a man to death. The archbishop was banished, but refused to go. However the king said, said Arundel angrily, and he spoke long and sharply against the pride, greed, and other sins of the king and his friends. The Parliament then declared treason to lie in planning the king's death or removal, giving up the homage due to him and raising war against him, and pronounced Nottingham and Derby guiltless of this offence. The king now rewarded his friends for their help, making the Earls of Nottingham, Derby, Rutland, Huntingdon, and , Dukes of Norfolk, Hereford, Aumale, , and . The Earl of Somerset ('s son by his third wife) was created Marquess of Dorset; Barons Despenser and Neville, Earls of Gloucester and Westmoreland; Sir Thomas Percy and Sir William Scrope, Earls of Worcester and Wilts. Chester was made a principality. Roger Waldon the treasurer was made Archbishop of in spite of the king's promise to Arundel, and Henry Beaufort, Dorset's brother, was made Bishop of Lincoln. In January the same Parliament met again at Shrewsbury, when they gave more power than any English king had been trusted with. They granted him the |
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customs on wool, woolfells, and leather for his life; they gave up their own power to a board chosen from among the king's friends, and made up of ten nobles for the Lords (of whom six might be a quorum), two earls for the clergy, and six commoners (of whom four would be a quorum), who were
All these Acts were confirmed and declared irrepealable by a bull of Pope . But the people laughed at the and the clergy grumbled against the Pope and the king. |
ruled through the men who had managed the Commons for him in this Parliament, Bushy the Speaker, Scrope, Bagot, and Green, and he overawed his foes by his Cheshire guards, who were heartily fond of him and would say to him, as the story goes, But he was not easy in his mind; he regretted Arundel's death, and he was ever fearful of some fresh plot against him, for he knew that the Londoners (with whom he had quarrelled in because they would not lend him money) disliked him, and that many of the nobles distrusted him. He therefore tried to strengthen himself, he borrowed money by forced loans, he made London and seventeen of the shires ransom themselves by paying him large sums called the and he led many merchants and gentlefolk to sign blank charters to be filled up as he chose with promises of faithfulness. Moreover he sought to gain friends by giving his badge, a white hart of silver, to be worn on the arm or neck as a token of his special favour and protection. And as he was rich and well guarded, and a man who would risk much to win favour, he might have lived down much of the illwill against him, and ruled long and fairly, had he not set the powerful house of Lancaster against him by his lack of good faith. It happened that Norfolk, fearing for his life, tried to draw Hereford into a bond which he and Aumale, , and Worcester had entered into against , Salisbury, Wilts, and Gloucester; but Hereford refused and appealed his former friend oftreason. Norfolk denied it, and it was settled that they should fight a wager of battle. But begged not to let them fight, and when the two champions rode armed into the lists at Coventry, 16th | |
260 | September, before a vast throng of onlookers, the fight was altogether stopped, and both dukes made to swear to leave the realm. Hereford was to stay away for ten years, Norfolk never to return. Both were given pensions out of their estates, and were to enjoy all rights in England as if they had not been banished. , who had gone abroad after , had won fame by fighting in two crusades against the heathen-in Barbary, , and in Prussia, , whence he had gone as far as Rhodes on the way to Jerusalem. He was the best-loved man in England at this time, and the people pressed in weeping crowds to take leave of him. But , who was dreaming of being made Emperor, and listening to his flatterers' prophecies of great glory to come, paid no heed to this, and so far from making friends with his cousin, sent Salisbury to Paris to break off his marriage with the Duke of Berry's daughter, and recalled the rights he had given him; so that when died in , he would not suffer 's agent to take his estates, but seized them himself. thereupon went to Brittany, to his kinsman the duke, that he might be ready to come back to England if any chance should offer, and make do him right. He had not long to wait. |
10.[9] The Earl of March had been killed by the at Kenlys, July 20, , and now that all was outwardly at peace in England, was minded to go over to Ireland and stay there till he had established good government once for all. He made his will, leaving all his money to his heir on condition that he upheld the Acts of the two last Parliaments, appointed his uncle, the Duke of , Keeper of the Realm, and then sailed with many of his nobles, May . As soon as heard that he was gone he set out from Brittany with Archbishop Arundel and his nephew (the dead earl's son), Sir Thomas Erpingham, and forty men, and landed at Ravenspur, July 4, swearing to the northern lords who joined him that he was come to claim his heritage and to put an end to the bad rule of the king's friends, but not to touch the crown. The Keeper was won over, 27th July; surrendered, and the king's friends there, Wilts, Bushy, and Green, hanged. sent Salisbury to gather troops at Conway, promising to follow him at once; yet he did not come for three weeks, when he landed at Beaumaris. But there his own men fled from him, and he fell into despair and cursed the untruth of England, saying, and instead of | |
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going to Bordeaux, where he would have found help and welcome, left his treasure and fled in disguise to Conway.
He found no help there, Salisbury's levies had gone home, tired of waiting for him. Ere he could make fresh plans he was lured by 's false oath out of his stronghold and brought to Flint. he cried when he found himself betrayed,
When he saw Lancaster he smiled and said, answered Lancaster, bowing, replied . They then started for London. At Lichfield the king tried to escape, but was retaken and henceforth strictly guarded. The
Londoners welcomed with joy, but hooted and groaned as the king was led to the Tower. Before the
Parliament that had been called could meet, , seeing no present hope, agreed in writing to give up the crown.
New writs were issued for a fresh Parliament to meet in six days. When it met, the resignation was read in English and Latin and accepted. Thirty-three charges against
were then read, which accused him (a) of having acted wrongfully towards Archbishop Arundel and the
Appellants; (b) of having packed Parliaments by means of the sheriffs, and got them to give up their lawful rights to him; (c) of having lowered the free crown of England by seeking the Pope's approval of Acts of Parliament; (d) of having raised unlawful taxes, loans, purveyance, and ransoms; (e) of having broken the laws as to the sheriffs and royal officers and judges; (f) of having made an unrighteous will; (g) of having said and held that the laws lay in his own mouth, and that he could change them as he liked, and that the life, lands, and goods of every man were at his mercy without trial. The Parliament voted these charges true and sufficient grounds for setting the king aside, and sent Seven Commissioners to tell him so. Only one man, Thomas Marks, Bishop of , spoke up for his master, and asked for a fair trial, but he was not listened to.
As soon as the throne was declared vacant the Duke of
Lancaster rose, and crossing himself said, And with that he showed the signet which had given him at Flint. Whereon the Three Estates severally and together agreed to take him as king. Then having knelt down and prayed a while in their midst, was handed to the throne by the two archbishops. After a sermon from Arundel on the text, spoke again, And on the morrow, 1st October, Sir William Thirning, as the spokesman of the Seven Commissioners, went to the Tower and addressed , saying, said , But Thirning went on to say that cried , answered Thirning. said smiling, |
263 | This was the imprisoned king's last free utterance. On the 27th he was condemned by the Lords and Council to perpetual imprisonment, and two days after sent from the Tower to Pomfret. His after fate is as yet unknown. |
11. [10] was ruined, as William Langland says, by redelessness or lack of good counsel. He was not an idle trifler like , nor a shiftless spendthrift like , but a singularly gifted man, handsome, brave, generous, intelligent, merciful, and able to act boldly and quickly when he chose. His path was never free from difficulty and danger, family quarrels, foreign hatred, and English discontent, a heritage of trouble that came to him with his crown; but he was on the verge of safety when he ruined himself by two or three false steps taken in the interest of his friends rather than of himself or his people. He was ill-advised when for peace' sake he let the irritating misdeeds of his brothers, his officers, and his guard go unpunished; ill-advised when out of love for art, splendour, and a fair life he kept up a grand court, and was the patron of poets, painters, and architects, though he knew that his people grudged spending money on anything but war; ill-advised when, impatient at the ceaseless falsehood and plots of his kinsmen, he used haughty language, and spoke of his royal rights as above the law; and still more ill-advised when he tried to govern well, without consulting the likes and dislikes of the people he had to rule, banishing their favourites, breaking down their privileges, mocking at their cherished beliefs, and overriding the rights to which they clung. But was no brutal or heartless tyrant, and if his luck had not left him, he might have put away the follies, set right the mistakes into which his youth and his young counsellors had led him, and so reigned more happily than his supplanter. However, he had had his chance and failed, and the English people, perhaps rightly, would not give him another, though he had a few warm friends who could not forget his fair face and open hand, and pitied his fate.
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Footnotes: [1] John of Gaunt's unlucky government, 1377-1381. [2] The causes of the Peasants' Rising. [] [1381. [] [1381. [3] Hurling-time, the Peasants' Rising, July 1381. [4] Proceedings against the Lolards, 1382. [] [1382-1386] [5] Cambridge's war in Portugal and Despenser's Flanders, 1382, 1383. [6] French threats of invasion. John of Gaunt's crusade in Spain, 1385-1388 [] [1386-1388.] [7] The Merciless Parliament. Gloucester's cruel rule. Otterburn, Aug. 10, 1388. [] [1388-1394.] [1] Richard's peaceful rule, 1389-1397. [] [1396-1397.] [8] Richard crushes Gloucester's party and gets supreme power, 1397, 1398. [] [1398-1399] [9] Henry of Lancaster deposes Richard, 1399. [10] Richard's reign and character. |
