uncles, through affection or fear, seconded all his measures. He had
attained what seems for some time to have been the great object of his
policy. He had placed himself above the control of the law. By the
grant of a subsidy for life he was relieved from the necessity of
meeting his parliament; with the aid of his committee, the members of
which proved the obsequious ministers of his will, he could issue what
new ordinances he pleased; and a former declaration by the two houses,
that he was as free as any of his predecessors, was conveniently
interpreted to release him from the obligations of those statutes which
he deemed hostile to the royal prerogative. But he had forfeited all
that popularity which he had earned during the last ten years; and the
security in which he indulged hurried him on to other acts of despotism,
which inevitably led to his ruin. He raised money by forced loans; he
compelled the judges to expound the law according to his own prejudices
or caprice; he required the former adherents of Gloucester to purchase
and repurchase charters of pardon; and, that he might obtain a more
plentiful harvest of fines and amercements, put at once seventeen
counties out of the protection of the law, under the pretence that they
had favored his enemies.
The Duke of Lancaster did not survive the banishment of his son more
than three months; and the exile expected to succeed by his attorneys to
the ample estates of his father. But Richard now discovered that his
banishment, like an outlawry, had rendered him incapable of inheriting
property. At a great council, including the committee of parliament, it
was held that the patents granted, both to him and his antagonist, were
illegal, and therefore void; and all the members present were sworn to
support that determination. Henry Bowet, who had procured the patent for
the duke of Hereford, was even condemned, for that imaginary offence, to
suffer the punishment of treason; though, on account of his character,
his life was spared on condition that he should abjure the kingdom
forever.
This iniquitous proceeding seems to have exhausted the patience of the
nation. Henry--on the death of his father he had assumed the title of
duke of Lancaster--had long been the idol of the people; and the
voluntary assemblage of thousands to attend him on his last departure
from London might have warned Richard of the approaching danger. The
feeling of their own wrongs had awakened among them a spirit of
resistance; the new injury offered to their favorite pointed him out to
them as their leader. Consultations were held; plans were formed; the
dispositions of the great lords were sounded; and the whole nation
appeared in a ferment. Yet it was in this moment, so pregnant with
danger, that the infatuated monarch determined to leave his kingdom. His
cousin and heir, the Earl of March, had been surprised and slain by a
party of Irish; and, in his eagerness to revenge the loss of a relation,
he despised the advice of his friends, and wilfully shut his eyes to the
designs of his enemies.
Having appointed his uncle, the Duke of York, regent during his absence,
the King assisted at a solemn mass at Windsor, chanted a collect
himself, and made his offering. At the door of the Church he took wine
and spices with his young Queen; and, lifting her up in his arms,
repeatedly kissed her, saying, "Adieu, madam, adieu till we meet again."
From Windsor, accompanied by several noblemen, he proceeded to Bristol,
where the report of plots and conspiracies reached him, and was received
with contempt. At Milford Haven he joined his army, and, embarking in a
fleet of two hundred sail, arrived in a few days in the port of
Waterford. His cousin the Duke of Albemarle had been ordered to follow
with a hundred more; and three weeks were consumed in waiting for that
nobleman, whose delay was afterward attributed to a secret understanding
with the King's enemies.
At length Richard led his forces from Kilkenny against the Irish.
Several of the inferior chiefs hastened barefoot and with halters round
their necks to implore his mercy; but M'Murchad spurned the idea of
submission, and boasted that he would extirpate the invaders. He dared
not indeed meet them in open combat; but it was his policy to flee
before them, and draw them into woods and morasses, where they could
neither fight with advantage nor procure subsistence. The want of
provisions and the clamor of the soldiers compelled the King to give up
the pursuit, and to direct his march toward Dublin; and M'Murchad, when
he could no longer impede their progress, solicited and obtained a
parley with the Earl of Gloucester, the commander of the rear-guard. The
chieftain was an athletic man; he came to the conference mounted on a
gray charger, which had cost him four hundred head of cattle, and
brandished with ease and dexterity a heavy spear in his hand. He seemed
willing to become the nominal vassal of the King of England, but refused
to submit to any conditions. Richard set a price on his head, proceeded
to Dublin, and at the expiration of a fortnight was joined by the Duke
of Albemarle with men and provisions. This seasonable supply enabled him
to recommence the pursuit of M'Murchad; but while he was thus occupied
with objects of inferior interest in Ireland, a revolution had occurred
in England, which eventually deprived him both of his crown and his
life.
When the King sailed to Ireland, Henry of Bolingbroke, the new Duke of
Lancaster, resided in Paris, where he was hospitably entertained, but at
the same time narrowly watched, by the French monarch. About Christmas
he offered his hand to Marie, one of the daughters of the Duke of Berry.
The jealousy of Richard was alarmed; the Earl of Salisbury hastened to
Paris to remonstrate against the marriage of a daughter of France with
an English "traitor," and, suiting his conduct to his words, the envoy,
having accomplished his object, returned without deigning to speak to
the exile. While Henry was brooding over these injuries, the late
Primate, or nominal Bishop of St. Andrews, secretly left his house at
Cologne, and in the disguise of a friar procured an interview with the
Duke at the Hotel de Vinchester. The result of their meeting was a
determination to return to England during the King's absence. To elude
the suspicions of the French ministers, Henry procured permission to
visit the Duke of Bretagne; and, on his arrival at Nantes, hired three
small vessels, with which he sailed from Vannes to seek his fortune in
England. His whole retinue consisted only of the Archbishop, the son of
the late Earl of Arundel, fifteen lances, and a few servants. After
hovering for some days on the eastern coast, he landed at Ravenspur in
Yorkshire, and was immediately joined by the two powerful earls of
Northumberland and Westmoreland; before whom, in the White Friars at
Doncaster, he declared upon oath that his only object was to recover the
honors and estates which had belonged to his father, and bound himself
not to advance any claim to the crown.
The Duke of York, to whom the King had intrusted the government during
his absence, was accurately informed of his motions, and had summoned
the retainers of the crown to join the royal standard at St. Albans.
There is, however, reason to believe that he was not hearty in the cause
which it was his duty to support. He must have viewed with pity the
unmerited misfortunes of one nephew, and have condemned the violent and
thoughtless career of the other; and from the fate of his brother
Gloucester, and the cruel and unjust treatment of the only son of his
brother, John of Gaunt, he could not draw any very flattering conclusion
with respect to the stability of his own family. Whether it was from
suspicion of his fidelity, or from the disinclination of the chief
barons to draw the sword against one who demanded nothing more than his
right, the favorites of Richard became alarmed for their own safety.
The Earl of Wiltshire, with Bussy and Greene, members of the committee
of parliament, had been appointed to wait on the young Queen at
Wallingford; but they suddenly abandoned their charge, and fled with
precipitation to Bristol. York himself followed with the army in the
same direction. It might be that, to relieve himself from
responsibility, he wished to be in readiness to deliver up the command
on the expected arrival of Richard from Ireland; but at the same time he
left open the road from Yorkshire to the metropolis, and allowed the
adventurer to pursue his object without impediment. Henry was already on
his march. The snowball increased as it rolled along, and the small
number of forty followers, with whom he had landed, swelled by the time
that he had reached St. Albans to sixty thousand men. He was preceded by
his messengers and letters, stating not only his own wrongs, but also
the grievances of the people, and affirming that the revenue of the
kingdom had been let out to farm to the rapacity of Scrope, Bussy, and
Greene. In all those lordships which had been the inheritance of his
family he was received with enthusiasm; in London by a procession of the
clergy and people, with addresses of congratulation, and presents, and
offers of service.
His stay in the capital was short. Having flattered the citizens, and
confirmed them in their attachment to his person, he turned to the west,
and entered Evesham, on the same day on which York reached Berkeley.
After an interchange of messages they met in the church of the castle;
and, before they separated, the doom of Richard was sealed. That the
regent consented to the actual deposition of his nephew does not
necessarily follow; he might only have sought his reformation by putting
it out of his power to govern amiss; but he betrayed the trust which had
been reposed to him, united his force with that of Henry, and commanded
Sir Peter Courtenay, who held the castle of Bristol for the King, to
open its gates. That officer, protesting that he acknowledged no
authority in the Duke of Lancaster, obeyed the mandate of the regent.
The next morning the three fugitives, the Earl of Wiltshire, Bussy, and
Greene, were executed by order of the constable and marshal of the host.
The Duke of York remained at Bristol; Henry with his own forces
proceeded to Chester to secure that city, and awe the men of Cheshire,
the most devoted adherents of the King.
We may now return to Richard in Ireland. It must appear strange, but
Henry had been in England a fortnight before the King, in consequence,
it was said, of the tempestuous weather, had heard of his landing. The
intelligence appears to have provoked indignation as much as alarm.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "fair uncle of Lancaster, God reward your soul! Had
I believed you, this man would not have injured me. Thrice have I
pardoned him; this is his fourth offence." But he referred the matter to
his council, and was advised to cross over to England immediately with
the ships which had brought the reënforcement under the Duke of
Albemarle. That nobleman, however, insidiously, as it was afterward
pretended, diverted him from this intention. The Earl of Salisbury
received orders to sail immediately with his own retainers, a body of
one hundred men, and to summon to the royal standard the natives of
Wales. Richard promised to follow in the fleet from Waterford in the
course of six days. The Earl obeyed; the men of Wales and Cheshire
answered the call; and a gallant host collected at Conway.
But Richard appeared not according to his promise; distressing reports
were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for
him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties
of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived in
Milford Haven with the dukes of Albemarle, Exeter, and Surrey, the Earl
of Worcester, the bishops of London, Lincoln, and Carlisle, and
several thousands of the troops who had accompanied him to Ireland. With
such a force, had it been faithful, he might have made a stand against
his antagonist; but on the second morning, when he arose, he observed
from his window that the greater part had disappeared. A council was
immediately summoned, and a proposal made that the King should flee by
sea to Bordeaux; but the Duke of Exeter objected that to quit the
kingdom in such circumstances was to abdicate the throne. Let them
proceed to the army at Conway. There they might bid defiance to the
enemy; or at all events, as the sea would still be open, might thence
set sail to Guienne. His opinion prevailed; and at nightfall the King,
in the disguise of a Franciscan friar, his two brothers of Exeter and
Surrey, the Earl of Gloucester, the Bishop of Carlisle, Sir Stephen
Scrope, and Sir William Feriby, with eight others, stole away from the
army, and directed their route toward Conway. Their flight was soon
known. The royal treasure, which Richard left behind him, was plundered;
Albemarle, Worcester, and most of the leaders hastened to pay their
court to Henry; the rest attempted in small bodies to make their way to
their own counties, but were in most instances plundered and ill-treated
by the Welsh.
The royal party with some difficulty, but without any accident, reached
Conway, where, to their utter disappointment, instead of a numerous
force, they found only the Earl of Salisbury with a hundred men. In this
emergency the King's brothers undertook to visit Henry at Chester, and
to sound his intentions; and during their absence Richard, with the Earl
of Salisbury, examined the castles of Beaumaris and Carnarvon; but
finding them without garrisons or provisions, the disconsolate wanderers
returned to their former quarters.
When the two dukes were admitted into the presence of Henry, they bent
the knee and acquainted him with their message from the King. He took
little notice of Surrey, whom he afterward confined in the castle, but,
leading Exeter aside, spoke with him in private, and gave him, instead
of the hart, the King's livery, his own badge of the rose. But no
entreaties could induce him to allow them to return. Exeter was observed
to drop a tear when the Duke of Albemarle said to him tauntingly: "Fair
cousin, be not angry. If it please God, things shall go well."
The immediate object of Henry was to secure the royal person. He was
gratified to learn from the envoys the place of Richard's retreat, and
detained them at Chester, that the King, instead of making his escape,
might await their return. His first care was to take possession of the
treasure which the King had deposited in the strong castle of Holt; his
next, to despatch the Earl of Northumberland at the head of four hundred
men-at-arms and a thousand archers to Conway, with instructions not to
display his force, lest the King should put to sea, but by artful
speeches and promises to draw him out of the fortress and then make him
prisoner. The Earl took possession in his journey of the castles of
Flint and Rhuddlan, and a few miles beyond the latter, placing his men
in concealment under a rock, rode forward with only five attendants to
Conway.
He was readily admitted, and, to the King's anxious inquiries about his
brothers, replied that he had left them well at Chester, and had brought
a letter from the Duke of Exeter. In it that nobleman said, or rather
was made to say, that full credit might be given to the offers of the
bearer. These offers were, that Richard should promise to govern and
judge his people by law; that the dukes of Exeter and Surrey, the Earl
of Salisbury, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Maudelin, the King's chaplain,
should submit to a trial in parliament, on the charge of having advised
the assassination of Gloucester; that Henry should be made grand
justiciary of the kingdom, as his ancestors had been for a hundred
years; and that, on the concession of these terms, the Duke should come
to Flint, ask the King's pardon on his knees, and accompany or follow
him to London. Richard consulted his friends apart. He expressed his
approbation of the articles, but bade them secretly be assured that no
consideration should induce him to abandon them on their trial, and that
he would grasp the first opportunity of being revenged on his and their
enemies--"for there were some among them whom he would flay alive; whom
he would never spare for all the gold in the land." Northumberland was
then sworn to the observance of the conditions. He took his oath on the
host; and, "like Judas," says the writer, "perjured himself on the body
of our Lord."
As Northumberland departed to make arrangements for the interview at
Flint, the King said to him: "I rely, my lord, on your faith. Remember
your oath, and the God who heard it." Soon afterward he followed with
his friends and their servants, to the number of twenty-two. They came
to a steep declivity, to the left of which was the sea, and on the right
a lofty rock overhanging the road. The King dismounted, and was
descending on foot, when he suddenly exclaimed: "I am betrayed. God of
Paradise, assist me! Do you not see banners and pennons in the valley?"
Northumberland with eleven others met them at the moment and affected to
be ignorant of the circumstance. "Earl of Northumberland," said the
King, "if I thought you capable of betraying me, it is not too late to
return." "You cannot return," the Earl replied, seizing the King's
bridle; "I have promised to conduct you to the Duke of Lancaster." By
this time he was joined by a hundred lances, and two hundred archers on
horseback; and Richard, seeing it impossible to escape, exclaimed: "May
the God, on whom you laid your hand, reward you and your accomplices at
the last day!" and then, turning to his friends, added: "We are
betrayed; but remember that our Lord was also sold and delivered into
the hands of his enemies."
They dined at Rhuddlan, and reached Flint in the evening. The King, as
soon as he was left with his friends, abandoned himself to the
reflections which his melancholy situation inspired. He frequently
upbraided himself with his past indulgence to his present opponent:
"Fool that I was!" he exclaimed: "thrice did I save the life of this
Henry of Lancaster. Once my dear uncle his father, on whom the Lord have
mercy! would have put him to death for his treason and villany. God of
Paradise! I rode all night to save him; and his father delivered him to
me, to do with him as I pleased. How true is the saying that we have no
greater enemy than the man whom we have preserved from the gallows!
Another time he drew his sword on me, in the chamber of the Queen, on
whom God have mercy! He was also the accomplice of the Duke of
Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel; he consented to my murder, to that
of his father, and of all my council. By St. John, I forgave him all;
nor would I believe his father, who more than once pronounced him
deserving of death."
The unfortunate King rose after a sleepless night, heard mass, and
ascended the tower to watch the arrival of his opponent. At length he
saw the army, amounting to eighty thousand men, winding along the beach
till it reached the castle and surrounded it from sea to sea. He
shuddered and wept, and cursed the Earl of Northumberland, but was
called down by the arrival of Archbishop Arundel, the Duke of Albemarle,
and the Earl of Worcester. They knelt to Richard, who, drawing the
prelate apart, held a long conversation with him. After their departure
he again mounted the tower, and, surveying the host of his enemies,
exclaimed: "Good Lord God! I commend myself into thy holy keeping, and
cry thee mercy, that thou wouldst pardon all my sins. If they put me to
death I will take it patiently, as thou didst for us all."
Northumberland had ordered dinner, and the Earl of Salisbury, the Bishop
and the two knights, Sir Stephen Scrope and Sir William Feriby, sat with
the King at the same table by his order; for since they were all
companions in misfortune, he would allow no distinction among them.
While he was eating, unknown persons entered the hall, insulting him
with sarcasms and threats. As soon as he rose, he was summoned into the
court to receive the Duke of Lancaster. Henry came forward in complete
armor, with the exception of his helmet. As soon as he saw the King he
bent his knee, and, advancing a few paces, he repeated his obeisance
with his cap in his hand.
"Fair cousin of Lancaster," said Richard, uncovering himself, "you are
right welcome." "My lord," answered the Duke, "I am come before my time.
But I will show you the reason. Your people complain that for the space
of twenty or two-and-twenty years you have ruled them rigorously; but,
if it please God, I will help you to govern better." The King replied,
"Fair cousin, since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth us well." Henry then
addressed himself successively to the Bishop and to the knights, but
refused to notice the Earl. The King's horses were immediately ordered;
and two lean and miserable animals were brought out, on which Richard
and Salisbury mounted, and amid the flourish of trumpets and shouts of
triumph followed the Duke into Chester.
At Chester writs were issued in the King's name for the meeting of
parliament and the preservation of the peace. Henry dismissed the
greater part of his army, and prepared to conduct his prisoner to the
capital. At Lichfield Richard seized a favorable moment to let himself
down from his window, but was retaken in the garden, and from that
moment was constantly guarded by ten or twelve armed men. In the
neighborhood of London they separated. Henry, accompanied by the mayor
and principal citizens, proceeded to St. Paul's, prayed before the high
altar, and wept a few minutes over the tomb of his father. The King was
sent to Westminster, and thence on the following day to the Tower, and,
as he went along, was greeted with curses and the appellation of "the
bastard," a word of ominous import, and prophetic of his approaching
degradation.
When the Duke first landed in England, he had sworn on the Gospels that
his only object was to vindicate his right to the honors and possessions
of the house of Lancaster. If this was the truth, his ambition had grown
with his good-fortune. He now aspired to exchange the coronet of a duke
for the crown of a king. Can we believe that he would meet with
opposition from his associates, the Percy family? Yet so we are assured.
They, however, by their perfidy, had given themselves a master. Their
retainers had been already dismissed; and the friends of Richard
abhorred them as the worst of traitors. They had therefore no resource
but to submit, and to second the design of Lancaster. After several
consultations it was resolved to combine a solemn renunciation of the
royal authority on the part of Richard with an act of deposition on the
part of the two houses of parliament, in the hope that those whose
scruples should not be satisfied with the one, might acquiesce in the
other. To obtain the first, the royal captive was assailed with promises
and threats. Generally he abandoned himself to lamentation and despair;
occasionally he exerted that spirit which he had formerly displayed.
"Why am I thus guarded?" he asked one day. "Am I your king or your
prisoner?" "You are my king, sir," replied the Duke with coolness; "but
the council of your realm has thought proper to place a guard about
you."
[Illustration: Richard II resigns the crown of England to
Henry, Duke of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt, at London.
Painting by Sir John Gilbert.]
On the day before the meeting of parliament a deputation of prelates,
barons, knights, and lawyers waited on the captive in the Tower, and
reminded him that in the castle of Conway, while he was perfectly his
own master, he had promised to resign the crown on account of his own
incompetency to govern. On his reply that he was ready to perform his
promise, a paper was given him to read, in which he was made to absolve
all his subjects from their fealty and allegiance, to renounce of his
own accord all kingly authority, to acknowledge himself incapable of
reigning, and worthy for his past demerits to be deposed, and to swear
by the holy Gospels that he would never act, nor, as far as in him lay,
suffer any other person to act, in opposition to this resignation. He
then added, as from himself, that if it were in his power to name his
successor, he would choose his cousin of Lancaster, who was present, and
to whom he gave his ring, which he took from his own finger.