ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND
Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age, succeeded
to the Crown under the title of King Richard the Second. The whole
English nation were ready to admire him for the sake of his brave
father. As to the lords and ladies about the Court, they declared him
to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best—even of princes—whom
the lords and ladies about the Court, generally declare to be the most
beautiful, the wisest, and the best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy
in this base manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good
was in him; and it brought him to anything but a good or happy end.
The Duke of Lancaster, the young King’s uncle—commonly called John of
Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common people so
pronounced—was supposed to have some thoughts of the throne himself;
but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the Black Prince was, he
submitted to his nephew.
The war with France being still unsettled, the Government of England
wanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise out of it;
accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which had originated in
the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the people. This was a tax
on every person in the kingdom, male and female, above the age of
fourteen, of three groats (or three four-penny pieces) a year;
clergymen were charged more, and only beggars were exempt.
I have no need to repeat that the common people of England had long
been suffering under great oppression. They were still the mere slaves
of the lords of the land on which they lived, and were on most
occasions harshly and unjustly treated. But, they had begun by this
time to think very seriously of not bearing quite so much; and,
probably, were emboldened by that French insurrection I mentioned in
the last chapter.
The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely
handled by the government officers, killed some of them. At this very
time one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to house,
at Dartford in Kent came to the cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade,
and claimed the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home,
declared that she was under the age of fourteen; upon that, the
collector (as other collectors had already done in different parts of
England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted Wat Tyler’s
daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother screamed. Wat the Tiler,
who was at work not far off, ran to the spot, and did what any honest
father under such provocation might have done—struck the collector dead
at a blow.
Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They made Wat
Tyler their leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were in
arms under a priest called Jack Straw; they took out of prison another
priest named John Ball; and gathering in numbers as they went along,
advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is
said that they wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men
equal. I do not think this very likely; because they stopped the
travellers on the roads and made them swear to be true to King Richard
and the people. Nor were they at all disposed to injure those who had
done them no harm, merely because they were of high station; for, the
King’s mother, who had to pass through their camp at Blackheath, on her
way to her young son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, had
merely to kiss a few dirty-faced rough-bearded men who were noisily
fond of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole
mass marched on to London Bridge.
There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William Walworth the Mayor
caused to be raised to prevent their coming into the city; but they
soon terrified the citizens into lowering it again, and spread
themselves, with great uproar, over the streets. They broke open the
prisons; they burned the papers in Lambeth Palace; they destroyed the
Duke of Lancaster’s Palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the
most beautiful and splendid in England; they set fire to the books and
documents in the Temple; and made a great riot. Many of these outrages
were committed in drunkenness; since those citizens, who had
well-filled cellars, were only too glad to throw them open to save the
rest of their property; but even the drunken rioters were very careful
to steal nothing. They were so angry with one man, who was seen to take
a silver cup at the Savoy Palace, and put it in his breast, that they
drowned him in the river, cup and all.
The young King had been taken out to treat with them before they
committed these excesses; but, he and the people about him were so
frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got back to the Tower in
the best way they could. This made the insurgents bolder; so they went
on rioting away, striking off the heads of those who did not, at a
moment’s notice, declare for King Richard and the people; and killing
as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be their enemies
as they could by any means lay hold of. In this manner they passed one
very violent day, and then proclamation was made that the King would
meet them at Mile-end, and grant their requests.
The rioters went to Mile-end to the number of sixty thousand, and the
King met them there, and to the King the rioters peaceably proposed
four conditions. First, that neither they, nor their children, nor any
coming after them, should be made slaves any more. Secondly, that the
rent of land should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead of
being paid in service. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy
and sell in all markets and public places, like other free men.
Fourthly, that they should be pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows,
there was nothing very unreasonable in these proposals! The young King
deceitfully pretended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all
night, writing out a charter accordingly.
Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted the entire
abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with the rest,
but, while that meeting was being held, broke into the Tower of London
and slew the archbishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people
had cried out loudly the day before. He and his men even thrust their
swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales while the Princess was in
it, to make certain that none of their enemies were concealed there.
So, Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the city.
Next morning, the King with a small train of some sixty gentlemen—among
whom was Walworth the Mayor—rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his
people at a little distance. Says Wat to his men, ‘There is the King. I
will go speak with him, and tell him what we want.’
Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. ‘King,’ says Wat,
‘dost thou see all my men there?’
‘Ah,’ says the King. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ says Wat, ‘they are all at my command, and have sworn to do
whatever I bid them.’
Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand on the
King’s bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play with his own
dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke to the King like a rough,
angry man as he was, and did nothing more. At any rate he was expecting
no attack, and preparing for no resistance, when Walworth the Mayor did
the not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword and stabbing him in
the throat. He dropped from his horse, and one of the King’s people
speedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a
mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find an
echo to this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who had suffered
much, and had been foully outraged; and it is probable that he was a
man of a much higher nature and a much braver spirit than any of the
parasites who exulted then, or have exulted since, over his defeat.
Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to avenge his
fall. If the young King had not had presence of mind at that dangerous
moment, both he and the Mayor to boot, might have followed Tyler pretty
fast. But the King riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a
traitor, and that he would be their leader. They were so taken by
surprise, that they set up a great shouting, and followed the boy until
he was met at Islington by a large body of soldiers.
The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as the King
found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had
done; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were tried (mostly in Essex)
with great rigour, and executed with great cruelty. Many of them were
hanged on gibbets, and left there as a terror to the country people;
and, because their miserable friends took some of the bodies down to
bury, the King ordered the rest to be chained up—which was the
beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. The King’s
falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful figure, that I think
Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond comparison the truer and more
respectable man of the two.
Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of Bohemia, an
excellent princess, who was called ‘the good Queen Anne.’ She deserved
a better husband; for the King had been fawned and flattered into a
treacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad young man.
There were two Popes at this time (as if one were not enough!), and
their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal of trouble. Scotland was
still troublesome too; and at home there was much jealousy and
distrust, and plotting and counter-plotting, because the King feared
the ambition of his relations, and particularly of his uncle, the Duke
of Lancaster, and the duke had his party against the King, and the King
had his party against the duke. Nor were these home troubles lessened
when the duke went to Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that
kingdom; for then the Duke of Gloucester, another of Richard’s uncles,
opposed him, and influenced the Parliament to demand the dismissal of
the King’s favourite ministers. The King said in reply, that he would
not for such men dismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen. But, it
had begun to signify little what a King said when a Parliament was
determined; so Richard was at last obliged to give way, and to agree to
another Government of the kingdom, under a commission of fourteen
nobles, for a year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the head of this
commission, and, in fact, appointed everybody composing it.
Having done all this, the King declared as soon as he saw an
opportunity that he had never meant to do it, and that it was all
illegal; and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration to that
effect. The secret oozed out directly, and was carried to the Duke of
Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester, at the head of forty thousand men,
met the King on his entering into London to enforce his authority; the
King was helpless against him; his favourites and ministers were
impeached and were mercilessly executed. Among them were two men whom
the people regarded with very different feelings; one, Robert
Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was hated for having made what was called
‘the bloody circuit’ to try the rioters; the other, Sir Simon Burley,
an honourable knight, who had been the dear friend of the Black Prince,
and the governor and guardian of the King. For this gentleman’s life
the good Queen even begged of Gloucester on her knees; but Gloucester
(with or without reason) feared and hated him, and replied, that if she
valued her husband’s crown, she had better beg no more. All this was
done under what was called by some the wonderful—and by others, with
better reason, the merciless—Parliament.
But Gloucester’s power was not to last for ever. He held it for only a
year longer; in which year the famous battle of Otterbourne, sung in
the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was fought. When the year was out, the
King, turning suddenly to Gloucester, in the midst of a great council
said, ‘Uncle, how old am I?’ ‘Your highness,’ returned the Duke, ‘is in
your twenty-second year.’ ‘Am I so much?’ said the King; ‘then I will
manage my own affairs! I am much obliged to you, my good lords, for
your past services, but I need them no more.’ He followed this up, by
appointing a new Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and announced to the
people that he had resumed the Government. He held it for eight years
without opposition. Through all that time, he kept his determination to
revenge himself some day upon his uncle Gloucester, in his own breast.
At last the good Queen died, and then the King, desiring to take a
second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry Isabella, of
France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth: who, the French courtiers
said (as the English courtiers had said of Richard), was a marvel of
beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon—of seven years old. The council
were divided about this marriage, but it took place. It secured peace
between England and France for a quarter of a century; but it was
strongly opposed to the prejudices of the English people. The Duke of
Gloucester, who was anxious to take the occasion of making himself
popular, declaimed against it loudly, and this at length decided the
King to execute the vengeance he had been nursing so long.
He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester’s house, Pleshey
Castle, in Essex, where the Duke, suspecting nothing, came out into the
court-yard to receive his royal visitor. While the King conversed in a
friendly manner with the Duchess, the Duke was quietly seized, hurried
away, shipped for Calais, and lodged in the castle there. His friends,
the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in the same treacherous
manner, and confined to their castles. A few days after, at Nottingham,
they were impeached of high treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned
and beheaded, and the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then, a writ was
sent by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, requiring him to send
the Duke of Gloucester over to be tried. In three days he returned an
answer that he could not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester had
died in prison. The Duke was declared a traitor, his property was
confiscated to the King, a real or pretended confession he had made in
prison to one of the Justices of the Common Pleas was produced against
him, and there was an end of the matter. How the unfortunate duke died,
very few cared to know. Whether he really died naturally; whether he
killed himself; whether, by the King’s order, he was strangled, or
smothered between two beds (as a serving-man of the Governor’s named
Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be discovered. There is not much
doubt that he was killed, somehow or other, by his nephew’s orders.
Among the most active nobles in these proceedings were the King’s
cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, whom the King had made Duke of Hereford to
smooth down the old family quarrels, and some others: who had in the
family-plotting times done just such acts themselves as they now
condemned in the duke. They seem to have been a corrupt set of men; but
such men were easily found about the court in such days.
The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore about the
French marriage. The nobles saw how little the King cared for law, and
how crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid for themselves. The
King’s life was a life of continued feasting and excess; his retinue,
down to the meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner,
and caroused at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten
thousand persons every day. He himself, surrounded by a body of ten
thousand archers, and enriched by a duty on wool which the Commons had
granted him for life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than
powerful and absolute, and was as fierce and haughty as a King could
be.
He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the Dukes of
Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than the others, he
tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he got him to declare before
the Council that the Duke of Norfolk had lately held some treasonable
talk with him, as he was riding near Brentford; and that he had told
him, among other things, that he could not believe the King’s
oath—which nobody could, I should think. For this treachery he obtained
a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was summoned to appear and defend
himself. As he denied the charge and said his accuser was a liar and a
traitor, both noblemen, according to the manner of those times, were
held in custody, and the truth was ordered to be decided by wager of
battle at Coventry. This wager of battle meant that whosoever won the
combat was to be considered in the right; which nonsense meant in
effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. A great holiday was
made; a great crowd assembled, with much parade and show; and the two
combatants were about to rush at each other with their lances, when the
King, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he
carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford was
to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of Norfolk was to be
banished for life. So said the King. The Duke of Hereford went to
France, and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, and afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart.
Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career. The
Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of Hereford, died
soon after the departure of his son; and, the King, although he had
solemnly granted to that son leave to inherit his father’s property, if
it should come to him during his banishment, immediately seized it all,
like a robber. The judges were so afraid of him, that they disgraced
themselves by declaring this theft to be just and lawful. His avarice
knew no bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous
pretence, merely to raise money by way of fines for misconduct. In
short, he did as many dishonest things as he could; and cared so little
for the discontent of his subjects—though even the spaniel favourites
began to whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent
afloat—that he took that time, of all others, for leaving England and
making an expedition against the Irish.
He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York Regent in his absence,
when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came over from France to claim the
rights of which he had been so monstrously deprived. He was immediately
joined by the two great Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; and
his uncle, the Regent, finding the King’s cause unpopular, and the
disinclination of the army to act against Henry, very strong, withdrew
with the Royal forces towards Bristol. Henry, at the head of an army,
came from Yorkshire (where he had landed) to London and followed him.
They joined their forces—how they brought that about, is not distinctly
understood—and proceeded to Bristol Castle, whither three noblemen had
taken the young Queen. The castle surrendering, they presently put
those three noblemen to death. The Regent then remained there, and
Henry went on to Chester.
All this time, the boisterous weather had prevented the King from
receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At length it was conveyed
to him in Ireland, and he sent over the Earl of Salisbury, who, landing
at Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and waited for the King a whole
fortnight; at the end of that time the Welshmen, who were perhaps not
very warm for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went home.
When the King did land on the coast at last, he came with a pretty good
power, but his men cared nothing for him, and quickly deserted.
Supposing the Welshmen to be still at Conway, he disguised himself as a
priest, and made for that place in company with his two brothers and
some few of their adherents. But, there were no Welshmen left—only
Salisbury and a hundred soldiers. In this distress, the King’s two
brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henry to learn what his
intentions were. Surrey, who was true to Richard, was put into prison.
Exeter, who was false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his
shield, and assumed the rose, the badge of Henry. After this, it was
pretty plain to the King what Henry’s intentions were, without sending
any more messengers to ask.
The fallen King, thus deserted—hemmed in on all sides, and pressed with
hunger—rode here and rode there, and went to this castle, and went to
that castle, endeavouring to obtain some provisions, but could find
none. He rode wretchedly back to Conway, and there surrendered himself
to the Earl of Northumberland, who came from Henry, in reality to take
him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms; and whose men were
hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted to the castle of
Flint, where his cousin Henry met him, and dropped on his knee as if he
were still respectful to his sovereign.
‘Fair cousin of Lancaster,’ said the King, ‘you are very welcome’ (very
welcome, no doubt; but he would have been more so, in chains or without
a head).
‘My lord,’ replied Henry, ‘I am come a little before my time; but, with
your good pleasure, I will show you the reason. Your people complain
with some bitterness, that you have ruled them rigorously for
two-and-twenty years. Now, if it please God, I will help you to govern
them better in future.’
‘Fair cousin,’ replied the abject King, ‘since it pleaseth you, it
pleaseth me mightily.’
After this, the trumpets sounded, and the King was stuck on a wretched
horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he was made to issue a
proclamation, calling a Parliament. From Chester he was taken on
towards London. At Lichfield he tried to escape by getting out of a
window and letting himself down into a garden; it was all in vain,
however, and he was carried on and shut up in the Tower, where no one
pitied him, and where the whole people, whose patience he had quite
tired out, reproached him without mercy. Before he got there, it is
related, that his very dog left him and departed from his side to lick
the hand of Henry.
The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to this wrecked
King, and told him that he had promised the Earl of Northumberland at
Conway Castle to resign the crown. He said he was quite ready to do it,
and signed a paper in which he renounced his authority and absolved his
people from their allegiance to him. He had so little spirit left that
he gave his royal ring to his triumphant cousin Henry with his own
hand, and said, that if he could have had leave to appoint a successor,
that same Henry was the man of all others whom he would have named.
Next day, the Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where Henry sat
at the side of the throne, which was empty and covered with a cloth of
gold. The paper just signed by the King was read to the multitude amid
shouts of joy, which were echoed through all the streets; when some of
the noise had died away, the King was formally deposed. Then Henry
arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and breast,
challenged the realm of England as his right; the archbishops of
Canterbury and York seated him on the throne.
The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed throughout all
the streets. No one remembered, now, that Richard the Second had ever
been the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best of princes; and he
now made living (to my thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the
Tower of London, than Wat Tyler had made, lying dead, among the hoofs
of the royal horses in Smithfield.
The Poll-tax died with Wat. The Smiths to the King and Royal Family,
could make no chains in which the King could hang the people’s
recollection of him; so the Poll-tax was never collected.