The Good Parliament.
Whatever men might have hoped from the Congress at Bruges, and from the
lay ministry formed by the influence of John of Gaunt and his party, all
their hopes were now disappointed. They had hoped for reform in the
Church, and all they obtained was a compact with the Papacy for the
maintenance of old abuses. The man who had been foremost in making this
compact, the Bishop of Bangor, was rewarded by translation by Papal
provision to the see of Hereford. This was what the lay ministry had
done for the Church after all its promises of reform. And what had
become of the money which they had voted for the continuance of the war?
How had the war been conducted? A few short years before France had lain
crushed and humbled at the feet of England; now nothing remained of all
that the Black Prince had won in France, except Bayonne, Bordeaux,
Calais, and a few other unimportant places. The English navy had been
annihilated; the English coasts had been insulted by the enemy; never
had England known such degradation. Men had believed in the Duke of
Lancaster, and this was what he had led them to. Now men saw his
personal aims, his selfish ambition. All the tide of popular fury was
turned against him and his ministers. He was accused, whether justly or
not we cannot say, of designs on the throne; since he knew that his
brother, the Black Prince, could not live long. When he was dead nothing
would stand between Lancaster and the throne but the young Prince
Richard. There was no man more unpopular than he in England; for he was
regarded as the opponent of the people's hero, the Prince of Wales.
But the people alone could do nothing against the power and influence of
the Duke. In their hour of need, however, they found a leader in the man
who had so often led their armies victoriously against the enemy, in the
Black Prince himself.
Parliament met at Westminster in the spring of 1376. It was three years
since it had last met--an unusually long interval, considering the
frequent Parliaments held in this reign. The Black Prince had moved to
the royal palace at Westminster, that he might be able to watch over the
proceedings. The King opened Parliament on the 28th of April; and on the
following day the Lord Chancellor Knyvet addressed the Lords and the
Commons assembled in the great chamber at Westminster. He told them
briefly the reasons for which they had been summoned. "First, to advise
on the good government and peace of the kingdom of England; secondly, to
consider for the external defence of the kingdom, by land as well as by
sea; and thirdly, to make arrangements for the continuation of the war
with France." The Commons were then bidden to retire, and deliberate
apart in their own chamber in the Chapter-house of the Abbey of
Westminster. At the demand of the Commons, certain bishops and barons
were appointed to deliberate with them, and give them their advice on
the subject of the subsidy to be granted to the King. The next point was
the choice of a Speaker, and the election made by the Commons was in
itself a mark of their opposition to the Duke of Lancaster. Peter de la
Mare, the man chosen, was the steward of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,
who had married Philippa, the only child of Lionel Duke of Clarence,
Lancaster's elder brother. Philippa had a prior right to the throne to
that of John of Gaunt, and therefore she and her husband necessarily
opposed his ambitious schemes. Peter de la Mare's policy was sure to be
opposition to the Duke. He was, a contemporary chronicler tells us, "a
man of abundant wisdom and courage; a lover of justice and truth;
neither the bribes nor the threats of his enemies could deter him from
the right course."
With regard to the demand for a subsidy, the Commons consented to grant
the same sum as they had given three years before; more they would not
give on account of the great scarcity throughout the land produced by
the plague, the murrain amongst the cattle, and the failure of the
crops. This matter once settled, the Commons proceeded to what they
considered the chief business of the session, the petitions about
grievances. Headed by Peter de la Mare, they carried their answer about
the subsidy to the council and the barons.
Then, standing before the nobles, amongst whom John of Gaunt stood
foremost, the Speaker began to disclose the grievances of the country.
The people, he complained, were exceedingly weighed down by taxes; but
even this they would have borne patiently had the money been usefully
employed; yet in spite of the great expenditure the wars had not
prospered. The Commons demanded an account of the way in which the money
had been spent. "Neither is it credible," concluded the Speaker, "that
the King should want such an infinite treasure, if they were faithful
that served him." Great was the indignation of Lancaster at this
insolence of the Commons, as he called it. Full of wrath, he declared
his intention of silencing them next day by a show of his power; but his
followers pointed out to him that the Commons had the support of the
Black Prince, his brother, and that he could not crush them. Afraid lest
they should go further, and allow disclosures to be made about the evil
manner of his own life, he appeared before them next day seemingly mild
and gracious. Then the Commons went on with their proceedings. They
stated that, on account of the great wars abroad, the present Council
was insufficient to manage the affairs of the state; and they asked that
ten or twelve bishops, lords, and others be added to strengthen the
Council. They next unfolded a long list of grievances, which showed the
disordered condition and the maladministration of the country.
They petitioned, first of all, that the King's guilty officers be
punished, they insisted that such heavy taxation would not have been
necessary, considering the immense amount of money that had come into
the kingdom as ransoms for French prisoners, if only it had been
properly and honestly administered. They promised that the King should
have no difficulty in getting plenty of money for the war, and his other
necessities, if he would first dismiss and punish his ministers. They
attacked Richard Lyons, a London merchant, and a creature of the Duke's.
He had had patents granted him by members of the Council, to buy up
merchandise, and sell it again at his own price; he had also caused
customs to be put upon wool and other commodities, which he levied
principally for his own profit. It was no wonder that the Duke, who
interfered in this way with the trade of London, should draw upon
himself the hatred of the Londoners. Lyons tried to save himself by
sending a bribe to the Prince of Wales, in the shape of a barrel
containing £1,000. The Prince refused it with scorn; but afterwards
regretted his refusal, saying that he would have "done a good deed by
sending it to the knights that travail for the realm." Lyons then sent
his money to the King, who kept it, saying "that he took the same in
part payment of the money that was owing to him; for this and much more
he owed him, and had not presented him with anything but his own."
Lyons could not save himself. He was ordered to be imprisoned at the
King's pleasure, to lose the freedom of the city, and have all his goods
seized.
Next followed the impeachment of Lord Latimer, another creature of the
Duke's, who was Chamberlain and Privy Councillor, and governor of a
castle in Britany, where he had appropriated large sums of money, and
had taken bribes to surrender places to the French. He was also
sentenced to be fined and imprisoned. Other accusations followed, all
founded on much the same charge--appropriation of the public money. One
man, William Ellis, an accomplice of Lyons, had extorted money at
Yarmouth from ships driven by stress of weather into the port. Another,
John Peachy, had obtained from Lyons a patent giving him the exclusive
right of selling sweet wines in London. Sir John Neville was sentenced
to be fined and imprisoned, because he had allowed some soldiers whom
he was conducting to France to ravage the country all the way to
Southampton. The Commons declared in plain terms that the people of
England would no longer consent to have their interests trampled upon,
and their trade interfered with, for the sake of enriching a greedy
baronage and its creatures. In all this they were firmly supported and
encouraged by the Prince of Wales and the good Bishop William of
Wykeham, who was quite restored to the favour of the people. In fact,
the Black Prince had seen that the best policy would be to attempt to
unite against the baronage the Commons and the national clergy. The
Commons were quite ready to welcome the clergy back to office; for they
now saw only too well the selfish policy which had made John of Gaunt
wish to drive them out.
But the Commons did not stop short with attacking the evil counsellors
of John of Gaunt; they went on to impeach Alice Perrers, the woman who
had gained such an unworthy influence over the King in his old age. They
passed an ordinance against "certain women of the court, and especially
Alice Perrers, who interfered with the course of justice in the kingdom,
sitting side by side on the bench with the judges." Alice Perrers was
examined before the nobles, and banished from the court. She was obliged
to swear that she would keep away from the King.
It was by its vigorous attack upon all these abuses, and its desire to
restore an orderly and discreet administration, that this Parliament
earned for itself the name of "The Good Parliament." It established the
right of Parliament to demand the redress of grievances, and to impeach
the King's ministers. When we remember that at the beginning of the
reign of Edward III. the one function of the Commons was to vote
subsidies, we shall realize how great the increase of the power and
influence of Parliament must have been during the reign, to admit of
such proceedings as those of the Good Parliament taking place.
Parliament was now strong enough to cause the ministers of the crown to
be removed, and new ones more pleasing to it to take their place.
Knyvet, the Lord Chancellor, was the only one of the old ministry who
was retained.