Lambeth; on the following day penetrated into London, freed the
prisoners in Newgate, destroyed Lancaster’s house of the Savoy,
and showed their national spirit by killing some fifty Flemish
merchants. The King was alone in London; he offered to meet them
at Mile End. He there received their petition, which demanded not
political but social rights,--the abolition of villeinage, the
reduction of rent to fourpence an acre, the free access to all
fairs and markets, and a general pardon. The King granted their
demands; and charters were at once drawn up for every township.
But, in the meanwhile, the more advanced leaders, disliking the
moderation of the bulk of their followers, broke into the Tower
and ransacked it. On the following day, the King came across these
men in Smithfield. Tyler was at their head. He advanced to have
a personal interview with the King, and was suddenly killed by
Walworth, the Lord Mayor, as he played with his dagger, an action
which was construed as a threat. The young King, with remarkable
presence of mind, rode forward to the astonished rebels, declared
that he would be their leader, and induced them to follow him
to Islington, where they found themselves in the presence of
Sir Robert Knowles and 1000 soldiers. They at once yielded,
and demanded the King’s mercy; he declined to punish them, and
dismissed them to their homes. When time had thus been gained, the
crisis was over. Richard found himself at the head of an army.
Several defeats and numerous executions broke the spirit of the
rebels, and the insurrection was suppressed.
[Sidenote: Parliament rejects the villeins’ claims.]
In autumn the Parliament met. The King declared he had recalled
his charters, but asked the Commons to consider the propriety of
abolishing villeinage. The ignorance and want of sympathy with
the feelings of the class below them, which existed among the
representative Commons, was then made evident. No men, they said,
should rob them of their villeins. The charters were therefore
finally revoked; and not only the charters, but the general pardon
also: at least 250 persons were exempted from it. Meantime, the
House of Commons made political capital out of the insurrection;
they declared that the cause of the insurrection was not the social
oppression of the labourer, but their own grievances, purveyance,
the rapacity of the officers of the Exchequer, the maintainers, or
bands of robbers who carried on depredations in some counties, and
the heavy taxation. This was followed by a further inquiry into the
royal household.
[Sidenote: Lancaster’s government.]
[Sidenote: He deserts Wicliffe.]
Lancaster continued in power for three years longer. His ministry
was unmarked by success; and the feeling against him, which had
been exhibited in the insurrection, found frequent expression. With
regard to Church reform he had completely changed his tactics.
When Wicliffe passed beyond his attacks upon the abuses of the
Church, and touched its doctrine, questioning even the fundamental
point of Transubstantiation, Lancaster withdrew his support.
Although Wicliffe was so far upheld by Parliament, that a statute
which had been passed for the suppression of his “poor priests”
was repealed, he was unable, without Lancaster’s assistance, to
withstand the power of the Church, and was compelled to make some
form of recantation before he regained his living of Lutterworth,
where he died in 1384. But Lancaster reaped no advantage from
this change in his conduct. Every disaster was still laid to his
charge, and the old suspicion that he harboured covert designs upon
the throne still clung to him. The great schism was at this time
dividing the Catholic Church. For seventy years the Papacy fixed
at Avignon had been the servant of the French king: the Babylonish
captivity the Italians called it. Gregory XI. restored the Papacy
to Rome, but his death was followed by a double election. The
French cardinals elected Clement VII., the Roman cardinals Urban
VI.; and the Christian world was divided in its allegiance. In the
interests of Pope Urban, who was received in England, the Bishop of
Norwich, a remarkable prelate, who had distinguished himself in the
suppression of the late insurrection, was engaged to lead an army
against France. He selected the old road of attack. The Flemish
citizens, in spite of the death of their great leader, Philip Van
Artevelt, and of a crushing defeat they had received from the
French chivalry at Rosbecque, continued their enmity to France. The
Bishop was to act in concert with them.
[Sidenote: Is charged with the failure in Flanders.]
[Sidenote: Jealousy of him thwarts the Scotch invasion. 1385.]
His expedition failed; it was currently reported that Lancaster had
thwarted it. A certain friar came to the King offering to prove
traitorous designs on the part of Lancaster. Sir John Holland,
the King’s half-brother, and a partisan of Lancaster’s, into
whose charge he was given, killed him. His death was no doubt
suspicious. His story against Lancaster was believed. In 1385,
Scotland, which had been subsidized by France, became troublesome.
Richard led an army against it; but the advice of De la Pole,
the King’s chancellor and favourite minister, who pretended to
dread the designs of Lancaster, induced Richard to retreat, and
the expedition came to nothing. Moreover, still further to mark
his fear of Lancaster, Richard declared Roger, Earl of March, his
presumptive heir. The enmity between March and Lancaster, in which
perhaps may be traced the first beginnings of the Wars of the
Roses, had been already marked in the last reign. Peter de la Mare
was the steward of the Earl of March, while Sir Thomas Hungerford,
the speaker of the following Parliament, occupied the same office
in the household of Lancaster.
[Sidenote: He is glad to have to support his claims in Castile.]
John of Gaunt, thus mistrusted and opposed, was glad to embrace the
opportunity of leaving England, which was offered him by affairs in
Spain, where he wished, in union with the Portuguese, to push the
claim to the throne of Castile, which he derived from his wife, the
daughter of Pedro the Cruel.
[Sidenote: Gloucester takes his place.]
[Sidenote: The King’s favourites.]
[Sidenote: Gloucester heads an opposition.]
[Sidenote: Change of ministry demanded. Impeachment of Suffolk.]
He was at once succeeded in his influence and in his party
leadership by a far more dangerous man, another uncle of the King,
Thomas, Duke of Gloucester. Meanwhile the politics of England had
changed, and had fallen back into their normal condition. We have
seen that the King had been allowed the free selection of his own
household. He had surrounded himself by men not drawn from the
higher baronage.[64] His chief favourite was De Vere, whom he
had made Earl of Oxford, and subsequently Duke of Ireland, and to
whom he had intrusted the government of that disturbed country;
while his ministers nominated by Parliament were also men who owed
their position to their capacity rather than to their birth. The
chief of these was Michael de la Pole, the chancellor, whom the
King had raised to the rank of Earl of Suffolk. He was thus open
to the old charge of favouritism. The Lancastrian party had set
themselves against his favourites. Already one of them, the Earl
of Stafford, had been killed by Sir John Holland, and Gloucester
found no difficulty in forming a powerful party among the barons,
taking for his cry the reform of the administration, and seeking to
excite the national feeling, by keeping alive the animosity against
France, towards which country Richard was much drawn; while the
specious pretext of reform as usual attracted the Commons. In 1386,
Gloucester took advantage of a threatened invasion from France to
produce charges against the administration. The King’s officers, it
was said, had used the public revenues for their own purposes; the
Commons had been impoverished by taxes, the landowners could not
get their rents, and tenants were compelled to abandon their farms
through distress. The three last of these charges were traceable,
not to government, but to economical changes, but served well as a
party catchword; and so successful were they, that in a Parliament
held at Westminster, Commons and Lords united in demanding a change
of ministry. After a contest of three weeks the King yielded.
Suffolk was dismissed, and his dismissal was immediately followed
by his impeachment. The charges brought against him were held to
be partly proved, and he was sentenced to be kept in prison during
the King’s pleasure. After the dissolution of Parliament he was
released. His place was taken by Arundel, Bishop of Ely.
[Sidenote: Commission of Government.]
[Sidenote: The King prepares a counterblow. 1387.]
[Sidenote: The five Lords Appellant in arms impeach the King’s
friends.]
[Sidenote: Affair of Radcot.]
This blow, though severe, was followed by a worse one. The old
baronial policy of establishing a committee of reform was renewed.
To intimidate the King, the statute of the deposition of Edward
II. was produced in Parliament. The estates having declared that
unless he granted their requests they would separate without his
permission, he was finally compelled to authorize a commission of
eleven peers and bishops, to inquire into abuses and regulate
reform. Their duty was a very wide one, touching the household, the
treasury, and all complaints out of the reach of law. The partisans
of Gloucester formed the majority of this committee, of which the
Duke himself and his chief friend, Lord Arundel,[65] were members.
It was arranged that the power of the committee should last for
one year only. It does not seem to have brought to light any great
abuses, nor was its government sufficiently superior to that which
had preceded it to justify its establishment. Richard had no mind
to submit to a limitation of his prerogative which seemed so
little called for. He set to work with his usual secretiveness. At
Shrewsbury, and again at Nottingham, he inquired of the judges how
far the late conduct of the reformers was constitutional. Their
reply was strongly in favour of the prerogative. They declared
the late measures treasonable, and its authors liable to capital
punishment, denied the power of Parliament to impeach, and declared
Suffolk’s condemnation false. Fulthorpe, one of the King’s judges,
though sworn to secrecy, at once told Gloucester of the King’s
questions. Consequently, when Richard had made all preparations
for a sudden coup d’état, he was alarmed to find that Gloucester,
Arundel, and Nottingham, had reached London the same day as
himself, with a numerous army. At Waltham Cross the Earls of Derby
and Warwick joined them, and they proceeded to appeal, or, as we
should say, accuse of high treason, the Archbishop of York, the
Duke of Ireland, the Earl of Suffolk, Robert Tresilian the judge,
and Sir Nicholas Brember, whose influence had been employed to
secure London for Richard. The accused sought refuge in flight, and
the Duke of Ireland succeeded in raising troops in the West, and
attempted to bring the matter to the issue of battle. But the Lords
Appellant were beforehand with him; he was unable to cross the
Thames, as he hoped, at Radcot; and being there surrounded, with
difficulty escaped by swimming the river.
[Sidenote: The Wonderful Parliament.]
[Sidenote: Gloucester’s unimportant government.]
The appellants, now masters of the kingdom, made a thorough
clearance of all who could be considered King’s favourites. Eleven
of his intimate friends were imprisoned, a number of the lords and
ladies of the Court removed, and in February 1388, a Parliament
known as the “Wonderful or merciless Parliament” assembled, which,
in a long session of 122 days, was employed almost entirely in
destroying the enemies of Gloucester. His appeal was heard, and
all the five accused gentlemen were found guilty; three escaped,
Tresilian and Brember were put to death. Some of the judges were
likewise executed, some pardoned on the intercession of the
bishops, and four knights, old and intimate friends of Richard, of
whom Sir Simon Burley is the best known, were also impeached and
beheaded. Parliament closed with an ordinance, declaring that the
treasons for which these men had suffered were not established by
any statute, and should not form a precedent; and by exacting a
repetition of Richard’s coronation oath. For a year, Gloucester
ruled at his will, without any marked success. The Percies were
defeated by the Scotch at Otterbourne, and an invasion from France
was only averted by the incessant dissensions which had arisen in
that country during the minority of Charles VI. Before the end of
Gloucester’s administration, however, truces were concluded with
both Scotland and France.
[Sidenote: Richard assumes sole authority. 1389.]
Richard appears to have been able to dissemble profoundly; he
had been most submissive to his conquerors, who believed their
power safe, when, at a council in the spring of 1389, he quietly
asked Gloucester how old he was. Gloucester replied that he was
twenty-two. “Then,” said the King, “I am certainly old enough
to manage my own affairs. I thank you, my lords, for your past
services; I want them no longer.” He then proceeded to change
the ministry, removed Arundel from the chancellorship,[66] and
took the government into his own hands. Although the ministry was
changed, there was no great reversal of policy, no punishment of
the Lords Appellant. On the contrary, the King, under the advice,
it is probable, of William of Wykeham, seemed determined to
ignore party, and to attempt a moderate government. He declared
that he would be bound by the decisions of the late Parliament,
employed among his most intimate counsellors, Derby, who had been
one of the appellants, and the Duke of York, who had been on the
commission of 1386; and it would appear that he did not even
remove Gloucester from his councils. In pursuance of this national
and healing policy, in the following year, the chief officers
temporarily resigned their offices, that their administration
might be examined. The Commons found not the slightest cause of
complaint, and they were reinstated at once. This peaceable state
of affairs continued till 1397. During the whole of that time, we
must believe that Richard was only waiting his opportunity. There
were indeed some signs of his secret thoughts. Some of his banished
friends were relieved or obtained places in Ireland. On the death
of Robert de Vere he succeeded in obtaining the Earldom of Oxford
for his uncle, Aubrey de Vere; and a year or two afterwards he
brought his friend’s body, which had been embalmed, from abroad,
and before it was reburied, had the coffin opened, and gazed with
much emotion upon the dead man’s face. But outwardly such unity
reigned, that national matters could be considered, and the period
is marked by the completion of the quarrel with the Papacy with
regard to Provisors, and by an expedition to Ireland.
[Sidenote: Final Statute of Provisors.]
England, it has been said, embraced the cause of Urban VI. In his
gratitude he had given the King the nomination to the two next
vacant prebends in all collegiate churches. But the appointment by
the Pope of an Abbot of St. Edmunds, in 1380, produced a repetition
of the Statute of Provisors of Edward III.’s reign.[67] Still
the laws were repeatedly evaded, the Pope always presenting to
benefices which fell vacant at Rome. As the cardinals generally
died at Rome, this was a large exception. In 1390, the 29th of
January of that year was settled as a term. All Provisors before
that year were legal; all after, together with the introduction of
any Papal letter of recommendation, absolutely illegal. In 1391,
the new Pope, Boniface IX., declared all these enactments void, and
proceeded to grant Provisors. Consequently, in 1393,[68] was drawn
up the final Statute of Provisors, or Præmunire. By this any man
procuring instruments of any kind from Rome, or publishing such
instruments, was outlawed, his property forfeited, and his person
apprehended.
[Sidenote: Expedition to Ireland. 1394.]
The following year the King made an expedition to Ireland. The
condition of that country had long demanded attention. Since the
invasion of the Bruces, the native tribes had made considerable
advances on all sides, but their domestic dissensions prevented
any permanent success. A far greater evil was the condition of the
Irish of old English race. The want of strong central authority had
allowed the individual chieftains to establish something like royal
power in their own dominions; they were gradually falling back into
barbarism, and in a way very unusual among conquering races, had
been gradually adopting the manners and laws of the conquered race
around them. Among them, as among the natives, perpetual discord
and fighting existed. So disorderly were they, that Edward III. had
ordered that no official places should be occupied except by men
born in England; and Lionel of Clarence, who had been appointed
to bring the country into order, had, in 1364, procured, at the
Parliament of Kilkenny, statutes, directed not against the Irish,
but against the English settlers, making the adoption of Irish
habits, and of the Brehon or Irish law, high treason. Earlier in
the reign, Richard had appointed his favourite De Vere to restore
order. His success had been prevented by the attack upon him by the
Lords Appellant in 1387. The King now, in the year 1394, determined
to go in person. His measures were just and moderate, and he
succeeded in inducing all the native princes to swear fealty.
[Sidenote: Marriage with Isabella of France. 1397.]
He was called home by the excesses of the Lollards, as the
followers of Wicliffe were called. They had prepared a petition,
containing a forcible exposition of their own tenets, and a
vigorous attack on the priests. The Church demanded the presence
and protection of the King, who, on his arrival in England,
expelled the Lollards from Oxford. At the same time he contracted
a marriage, consonant with his known French views, with Isabella,
the daughter of Charles VI. of France, a Princess of ten years of
age. In 1397, the marriage ceremony having been performed, the
young Queen was crowned. It seems possible that it was in reliance
upon this new friendship with France that the King now determined
to execute his long dissembled vengeance. The seven years of
peaceful government had allayed suspicion, and won him popularity.
Lancaster, who had returned from Spain, had ceased to take a
very prominent part in the government, and had, moreover, been
gratified by the legitimization of his children by his mistress
Catherine Swinford. His son, the Earl of Derby, had deserted his
former associates, and was one of the King’s advisers. Mowbray
of Nottingham, another of the Lords Appellant, had also been won
over. The Duke of York had throughout been friendly disposed to the
King. On the other hand, Gloucester had been continually acting
in a spirit of covert hostility. He had made political capital by
opposing the French match, and by publicly speaking against the
extravagances of the royal household, which appear to have been
very great. Froissart, indeed, mentions a story, which however
needs confirmation, that he had combined with Warwick and the
Arundels in a plot to seize the King.
[Sidenote: Richard’s vengeance after seven years’ peace.]
Richard carried out his plans of vengeance with his usual secrecy
and skill. Suddenly, Warwick, Arundel and Gloucester were
apprehended, and sent to different and distant castles. He then
proceeded against them as they had themselves proceeded against
his friends. They were appealed of treason by a number of Earls
in the royal interest. Rickhill, one of the justices, was sent
to Calais to obtain Gloucester’s confession, and a Parliament was
assembled at Westminster, in which the good will of the Commons
had been already secured. As a preliminary measure, all pardons
to Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick were revoked. An impeachment
was then brought against the Archbishop Arundel, and the appeal
against the Duke and the two Earls was heard. Arundel refused to
plead anything but his pardon. This having already been revoked,
he was at once condemned and executed. The Earl Marshall, to whom
Gloucester had been intrusted, was ordered to produce him, but
replied that the Duke was dead. It seems almost certain that he had
been murdered by Richard’s orders at Calais. The Archbishop was
condemned to banishment for life; and Warwick, who pleaded guilty,
was exiled to the Isle of Man. Lord Mortimer, who was also involved
in the accusation, fled to Ireland, and was outlawed. A shower of
new titles was lavished on the obsequious Lords. Derby and Rutland
were made Dukes of Hereford and Albemarle; Nottingham, Duke of
Norfolk; De Spencer, Neville, Percy and Scrope, respectively, Earls
of Gloucester, Westmoreland, Worcester and Wiltshire. A statute
was passed making it treason to levy war against the King, and
declaring the penalty of treason against any one who should attempt
to overthrow the enactments of this Parliament. The next Parliament
at Gloucester, in 1398, acted in the same obsequious manner. The
Acts of the Wonderful Parliament were repealed. To the grant of
a subsidy was added the tax on wool and hides for life; and a
permanent committee of twelve peers and six commoners was appointed
to represent Parliament for the future.
[Sidenote: Hereford and Norfolk banished.]
The new Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk alone remained unpunished of
the old Lords Appellant of 1386. These two men, who had shared in
the destruction of their former associates, had now quarrelled, and
Hereford brought a formal charge against Norfolk of treasonable
conversation. To the Parliamentary committee this question was now
referred, and by them laid before a court of chivalry; at the same
time the committee enacted laws in the royal interest, exactly as
though it had been the Parliament. It was agreed that the dispute
between the two dukes should be settled by the arbitrament of
battle. The lists were prepared at Coventry, but as the combatants
were about to engage, the King took the matter into his own hands,
and, on what principle it is impossible to conceive, punished both;
Hereford he banished for ten years, Norfolk for life. Richard had
thus destroyed his old enemies, rid himself of the constraint of
Parliament, and was practically despotic. “Then the King began
to rule,” says Froissart, “more fiercely than before. In those
days there were none so great in England that durst speak against
anything that the King did. He had council meet for his appetite,
who exhorted him to do what he list. He still kept in his wages
10,000 archers. He then kept greater state than ever, no former
king had ever kept so much as he did by 100,000 nobles a year.”[69]
[Sidenote: His arbitrary rule alienates the people.]
[Sidenote: During his absence in Ireland, 1399.]
He acted in accordance with his position. He raised forced loans,
meddled in the administration of justice, and went so far as to
declare no less than seventeen counties outlawed, for having, as
he asserted, favoured the Lords Appellant before the affair at
Radcot Bridge. But he overrated his real power. His government had
been accepted because it had been constitutional and moderate.
The change which was evident since his acquirement of the sole
authority induced the people to give the credit of that moderation
to Hereford, who had been a chief member of that council, and who
was a popular favourite. Thousands had attended him as he left
England for his banishment, and excitement spread through the
country when the King, in contravention of his promise and of law,
refused him the succession to his father’s title and property upon
the death of that prince. Regardless of the discontented feeling
of the people, Richard unwisely determined upon another expedition
to Ireland, to complete his work there, and to exact vengeance for
the death of the Earl of March, whom he had named as his successor.
The kingdom was thus left vacant, and in the charge of the Duke
of York, whose subsequent conduct proved that he shared in the
national feeling.
[Sidenote: Hereford returns and is triumphantly received.]
[Sidenote: Captures Richard.]