being of tender years, others, who had the care of him and his kingdom,
did not cease to inflict on the land acts of wantonness, extortions,
and unbearable wrongs. Whence sprang that unnatural deed, when the
commons of the land and especially those of Kent and Essex, under their
wretched leader Jack Straw, declaring that they could no longer bear
such wrongs, and above all wrongs of taxes and subsidies, rose in
overwhelming numbers against the lords and the King's officers, and,
marching to London on the eve of Corpus Christi [June 12], in the year
of our Lord 1381, struck off the heads of Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of
Canterbury, then the King's Chancellor, Sir Robert Hales the treasurer,
and many others, hard by the Tower of London. And on the places where
these lords were beheaded there are set up to this day two marble
crosses, a lasting memorial of so monstrous a deed.
In this rising of the commons were many great men of the land in many
places beheaded. The Savoy, the palace of the Duke of Lancaster and the
fairest in the kingdom, standing near London, on the bank of Thames,
was, from the commons' hatred of the duke, utterly destroyed by them
with fire; and the duke himself, for fear of them, fled into Scotland.
To appease them and to quiet their fury, the King granted that the
state of villeinage, as well in their persons as in their labour,
should be henceforth done away, freedom fully given, and all prisoners
set at large. And this he commanded and made to be openly proclaimed
throughout the counties of the kingdom. And then what a throe of grief
passed through the desolated land! For they boasted that they would
slay all those of higher birth, would raise up King and lords from
among themselves, would stablish new laws, and, in a word, would make
new, or rather disfigure, the face and estate of the whole island.
Then every man struck off the head of his enemy, and despoiled his
richer neighbour. But, by the mercy of God, when their leader, being
in Smithfield near London, doffed not his hood before the King nor
in anything did reverence to the King's Majesty, his head was deftly
struck off, in the very midst of his flock of kites, by Sir William
Walworth, knight and citizen of London: and straightway, being raised
on the point of a sword, it was shown before them. Then the commons,
in sore dread, sought flight by stealth, and there and then casting
away their rebellious weapons, as though unguilty of such riot and
wickedness, like foxes into their holes, they pitifully crept home. But
the King and the lords pursued them, and some they made to be dragged
behind horses, some they slew with the sword, some they hanged on the
gallows, some they quartered; and they destroyed thousands.
WONDROUS AND UNHEARD-OF PRODIGIES (1381).
SOURCE.--H.T. Riley's _Memorials of London_ (London, 1868),
449-451.
Among the most wondrous and hitherto unheard-of prodigies that have
ever happened in the City of London, that which took place there on the
Feast of Corpus Christi, the 18th day of June, in the 4th year of the
reign of King Richard the Second, seems deserving to be committed to
writing, that it may be not unknown to those to come.
For on that day, while the King was holding his Council in the Tower of
London, countless companies of the commoners and persons of the lowest
grade from Kent and Essex suddenly approached the said City, the one
body coming to the town of Southwark, and the other to the place called
"Mileende," without Algate. By the aid also of perfidious commoners
within the City, of their own condition, who rose in countless numbers
there, they suddenly entered the City together, and, passing straight
through it, went to the mansion of Sir John, Duke of Lancaster, called
"Le Savoye," and completely levelled the same with the ground and
burned it. From thence they turned to the Church of the Hospital of St.
John of Jerusalem, without Smithfield, and burnt and levelled nearly
all the houses there, the church excepted.
On the next morning, all the men from Kent and Essex met at the said
place called "Mileende," together with some of the perfidious persons
of the City aforesaid; whose numbers in all were past reckoning. And
there the King came to them from the Tower, accompanied by many knights
and esquires, and citizens on horseback, the lady his mother following
him also in a chariot. Where, at the prayer of the infuriated rout,
our Lord the King granted that they might take those who were traitors
against him, and slay them, wheresoever they might be found. And
from thence the King rode to his wardrobe, which is situated near to
Castle Baynard; while the whole of the infuriated rout took its way
towards the Tower of London; entering which by force, they dragged
forth from it Sir Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor of our
Lord the King, and Brother Robert Hales, Prior of the said Hospital of
St. John of Jerusalem, the King's Treasurer; and together with them,
Brother William Appeltone, of the Order of Friars Minor, and John Leg,
Serjeant-at-Arms to the King, and also, one Richard Somenour, of the
Parish of Stebenhuthe; all of whom they beheaded in the place called
"Tourhille," without the said Tower; and then carrying their heads
through the City upon lances, they set them up on London Bridge, fixing
them there on stakes.
Upon the same day there was also no little slaughter within the City,
as well of natives as of aliens. Richard Lions, citizen and vintner of
the said City, and many others, were beheaded in Chepe. In the Vintry
also, there was a very great massacre of Flemings, and in one heap
there were lying about forty headless bodies of persons who had been
dragged forth from the churches and their houses; and hardly was there
a street in the City in which there were not bodies lying of those who
had been slain. Some of the houses also in the said City were pulled
down, and others in the suburbs destroyed, and some, too, burnt.
Such tribulation as this, greater and more horrible than could be
believed by those who had not seen it, lasted down to the hour of
Vespers on the following day, which was Saturday, the 15th of June;
on which day God sent remedy for the same, and His own gracious aid,
by the hand of the most renowned man Sir William Walworthe, the then
Mayor; who in Smithfield, in presence of our Lord the King and those
standing by him, lords, knights, esquires, and citizens on horseback,
on the one side, and the whole of this infuriated rout on the other,
most manfully, by himself, rushed upon the captain of the said
multitude, "Walter Tylere" by name, and, as he was altercating with the
King and the nobles, first wounded him in the neck with his sword, and
then hurled him from his horse, mortally pierced in the breast; and
further, by favour of the divine grace, so defended himself from those
who had come with him, both on foot and horseback, that he departed
from thence unhurt, and rode with our Lord the King and his people
towards a field near to the spring that is called "Whittewell-beche";
in which place, while the whole of the infuriated multitude in warlike
manner was making ready against our Lord the King and his people,
refusing to treat of peace except on condition that they should first
have the head of the said Mayor, the Mayor himself, who had gone into
the City at the instance of our Lord the King, in the space of half an
hour, sent and led forth therefrom so great a force of citizen warriors
in aid of his Lord the King, that the whole multitude of madmen was
surrounded and hemmed in, and not one of them would have escaped if our
Lord the King had not commanded them to be gone.
Therefore our Lord the King returned into the City of London with the
greatest of glory and honour, and the whole of this profane multitude
in confusion fled forthwith for concealment in their affright.
HERETICAL AND ERRONEOUS CONCLUSIONS OF WICLIF (CONDEMNED AT LONDON,
1382).
SOURCE.--_Fasciculi Zizaniorum_ (Rolls Series), 277-282.
Heretical conclusions, contrary to the determination of the Church:....
I. That the material substance of bread and wine remains after
consecration in the sacrament of the altar.
II. That accidents do not remain without a subject in the same
sacrament.
III. That Christ is not in the sacrament of the altar inherently,
truly, and really, in His own corporal presence.
IV. That if a bishop or priest be in mortal sin he may neither ordain,
consecrate, nor baptize.
V. That if a man be duly penitent all outward confession is superfluous
or useless to him.
VI. To tenaciously affirm that it is not stated in the Gospels that
Christ ordained the Mass.
VII. That God should obey the Devil.
VIII. That if the Pope be a worthless and evil man and so a member of
the Devil, he has no power over the faithful of Christ granted to him
by any, except perchance by Cæsar.
IX. That after Urban VI. no one is to be received as Pope, but it is
necessary for us to live, like the Greeks, under our own laws.
X. To assert that it is contrary to Scripture that ecclesiastical men
should have temporal possessions.
Erroneous conclusions contrary to the determination of the Church: ...
XI. That no prelate should excommunicate anyone unless he first knows
he is excommunicated by God.
XII. That if he excommunicates he is thereby a heretic or excommunicate.
XIII. That a prelate excommunicating a clerk who has appealed to the
King and the Council of the realm is thereby a traitor to God, King,
and realm.
XIV. That those who abstain from preaching or hearing the Word of God
or the Gospel, preached, on account of the excommunication of men, are
themselves excommunicate, and in the day of judgment shall be held to
be traitors to God.
XV. To assert that it is lawful to anyone, either deacon or priest, to
preach the Word of God without the authority of the Apostolic See, or a
Catholic bishop, or some other sufficiently authorized.
XVI. To assert that no one is a civil lord, bishop, or prelate while he
is in mortal sin.
XVII. That temporal lords can at their will take away temporal goods
from ecclesiastics habitually sinful, or that the public may at their
will correct sinful lords.
XVIII. That tithes are pure alms, and that the parishioners may
detain them on account of the sins of their curates and confer them at
pleasure on others.
XIX. That special prayers restricted to one person by prelates or
religious do no more avail the same person, other things being equal,
than general prayers.
XX. That the fact of anyone entering into any private religion makes
him more unfit and unable to perform God's commandment.
XXI. That holy men who endow private religions either of possessioners
or mendicants had sinned in so endowing.
XXII. That the religious living in private religions are not of the
Christian religion.
XXIII. That friars are bound to get their living by the labour of their
hands and not by begging.
XXIV. That anyone conferring alms on friars or preaching friars is
excommunicate; as is the one who receives.
THE FOLLOWERS OF THIS MASTER JOHN (1382).
SOURCE.--_Chronicle of Adam of Usk_ (translated and edited by
Sir E. Maunde Thompson, 1904), 140, 141.
According to the saying of Solomon, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy
king is a child," in the time of the youth of the same Richard many
misfortunes, both caused thereby and happening therefrom, ceased not
to harass the kingdom of England ... even to the great disorder of
the State, and to the last undoing of King Richard himself and of
those who too fondly clung to him. Amongst all other misfortunes, nay,
amongst the most wicked of all wicked things, even errors and heresies
in the catholic faith, England, and above all, London and Bristol,
stood corrupted, being infected by the seeds which one master John
Wycliffe sowed, polluting, as it were, the faith with the tares of his
baleful teaching. And the followers of this master John, like Mahomet,
by preaching things pleasing to the powerful and rich, namely, that
the withholding of tithes and even of offerings and the reaving[44]
of temporal goods from the clergy were praiseworthy, and, to the
young, that self-indulgence was a virtue, most wickedly did sow the
seed of murder, snares, strife, variance, and discords, which last
unto this day, and which, I fear, will last even to the undoing of the
kingdom.... The people of England, wrangling about the old faith and
the new, are every day, as it were, on the very point of bringing down
upon their own heads rebellion and ruin. And I fear that in the end
it will happen as once it did, when many citizens of London, true to
the faith, rose against the Duke of Lancaster to slay him, because he
favoured the said Master John, so that hurrying from his table into a
boat hastily provided, he fled across the Thames, and hardly escaped
with his life.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Plundering.
THE PARLIAMENT OF 1384 (APRIL, 1384).
SOURCE.--Higden's _Polychronicon_ (Rolls Series), ix. 32-40.
[This Parliament has been well called the turning-point of Richard's
reign. It marked his first deliberate attempt to enforce his own policy
in Parliament.]
Moreover, on the 29th day of April the King of England held a
Parliament at Salisbury, and it lasted until the 27th day of the
month of May. At the beginning of which several extraordinary things
happened. _Firstly_, because both the lords spiritual and temporal,
quarrelling among themselves, almost frustrated the object of
Parliament. But the Duke of Lancaster intervening pacified them,
mingling threats with much eloquence of words. _Secondly_, because of
the words of the Earl of Arundell; for, in the hearing of all, in full
Parliament, when the King was present, he said these words, or to this
effect:
"My Lords, you know that the whole kingdom stands in peril of
destruction through lack of prudent government, and the thing is
now apparent, because, as you know, this kingdom has long begun
to languish, and is now almost decaying. And unless it is quickly
succoured by fitting remedies, and immediately snatched out of the
tempestuous whirlpool in which it is involved, one indeed fears lest
it may shortly suffer even greater misfortunes and heavy damages, and
may be lacking in everything, all power of relief being withdrawn in
the future, which God forbid."
At these words the King leapt up, and turning himself in fury, and
looking angrily at the earl, said to him:
"If you charge it on me and say it is my fault that the kingdom is
badly governed, I say to your face, you lie, go to the devil!"
Hearing these words all kept silence, nor was there one who stood by
who dared to speak. Then the Duke of Lancaster, breaking the silence,
interpreted the speech of the earl in his own words; thus was the fury
of the King mitigated.
_Thirdly_, because a certain Carmelite friar, influenced by a foolish
zeal, came to the King's Court with the intention of accusing the
Duke of Lancaster of craftily and treacherously plotting the King's
death. Therefore, after the said friar on a certain day had celebrated
Mass before the King in the chamber of the Earl of Oxford, and had
obtained to speak with the King ... he immediately accused the Duke of
Lancaster, and so bitterly that the King without trial ordered the duke
to be put to death. But the other nobles present with the King utterly
opposed this, declaring that it was unlawful for anyone to be condemned
without judgment. Hearing this, the King wisely promised he would do
as they said. Then, as Sir J. Clanvowe has said, immediately he had
dissembled his fury burst out, and flinging his cape and boots out of
window, behaved like a madman....[45]
The Duke of Lancaster hearing that he was to be gravely accused before
the King, hastened to him, and so completely cleared himself that the
King afterwards held him excused....
In the meanwhile, those elected to Parliament by the commonalty for
the common weal of the kingdom earnestly complained concerning [the
frustration of justice by] those who were in power in certain parts
of the country ... whence they prayed for a general statute coercing
them so that in future their fraud and cunning might not prevail to the
detriment of the kingdom.
To this the Duke of Lancaster replied that the charge was too general;
saying moreover ... that any lord was powerful enough and had authority
enough to correct and punish such excesses in his parts. For in things
temporal, after the King, he said, he himself was above all other
lords of the kingdom. And he himself, if any of those in his parts
were found guilty, and it should come to his notice, he would subject
them to such punishment that it would inculcate fear in others against
doing likewise.... Truly those elected by the commonalty of the kingdom
hearing these things, since no remedy would be given, remained silent.
The King and his Council were then eagerly seeking to extort money from
both clergy and people. And after much consultation and discussion
of pros and cons, the clergy conceded to him the said moiety of a
tenth which had been before conceded to him, under conditions, in
another Parliament. The laity also granted a fifteenth. But the
King, not content with these concessions, declared he would employ
that most severe inquisition against usurpers of the Crown called
Trailbastoun,[46] unless they made him a more ample grant. Having heard
this and consulted together, the clergy conceded to him another moiety
of one-tenth, and the laity likewise another moiety of a fifteenth;
according to that [saying], as is his darkness so is his light. For
behold in these days almost all the lights of the Church of God are
about to be extinguished; which thing is grievous since great darkness
is obscuring her surface everywhere, nor is there anyone now who will
rise up and defend the Church of God. The prelates are as dumb dogs
that are not strong enough to bark. Wherefore it is to be feared, which
God forbid, lest there shall come upon ecclesiastics in high place, a
sudden calamity, an immeasurable sorrow, an intolerable distress and
lamentable misfortune.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Here follows an account of the torture of the friar by the
Lancastrian party. Evidence seems to prove that he was a tool of the
King, who showed sorrow at the cruel treatment he received, but was
powerless to save him.
[46] The office of the justices of Trail-Baston, so styled for
"trailing or drawing the staff of justice," was to make inquisition
through the kingdom concerning extortion, bribery, etc., of intruders
into other men's lands, robbers, etc. Some offenders were punished
with death, some with ransom; the land was quieted and the King gained
riches for his wars. Edward I. appointed them during his absence in the
Scotch and French wars; Edward III. also granted a commission at least
once.
THE PLOT AGAINST LANCASTER (FEBRUARY, 1385).
SOURCE.--Higden's _Polychronicon_ (Rolls Series), ix. 55-59.
A conspiracy, said to be approved by the King, was set on foot by
certain lords, to put the Duke of Lancaster to death, but he himself,
being warned of this thing, fled secretly with a few of his companions.
Now the cause why they wished to kill him was this, as some claim. A
little while before, the government of the kingdom and the rule of the
King, and what it would be most expedient for the King to do for the
safety of the realm in the coming autumn, was discussed in Council.
Then the Duke of Lancaster declared it seemed to him most necessary for
the good of the kingdom that the King should cross to France with an
army, and should fight his enemies boldly with armed fist, rather than
give them the opportunity of coming into this land, since they would
continually infest us, not without grave danger and loss. Upon this
certain of the Council, thinking differently, proceeded to reject, and
violently attack the advice of the duke, asserting it would be madness
for the King to cross the sea and enter France for many causes; but
rather he should remain safely in his own land to defend it from the
attacks of enemies, and not cross unadvisedly to foreign provinces,
adding nothing to the glory of his fame. This pleased all the Council
except the Duke of Lancaster and his brothers, who, indignant at this,
stalked out of the Council. Further, the Duke of Lancaster declared
neither he nor his vassals would aid the King again unless he should
determine to cross to France. Which saying much displeased both the
King and his Council. Wherefore, on account of this, they declared
he was neither faithful to the King nor to the kingdom. Nevertheless,
these temporal lords were always fearful of the Duke of Lancaster on
account of his great power, his remarkable prudence, and his wonderful
ability....
On the 23rd day of February the Duke of Lancaster, having gathered a
company of armed men, came by night to the King at Sheen, and, having
first of all disposed the main body of men on this side the Thames, he
crossed the river, leaving there some of his men to guard the skiff
until his return. Then he hastened to the gate, and left certain of
his men to await there until his return, and deny anyone entrance or
exit. At length, in full armour, he entered with a few of his men
into the King's presence, where, having made due reverence, he at
first addressed him harshly, and sternly, upbraiding him for retaining
such evil councillors with him, and finally counselling him to remove
such men from him, and henceforward to adhere to the wiser men in his
Council. For unworthy is it for a King in his kingdom, when he may be
lord of all, to avenge himself by private homicide when he himself may
be above the law, and is able to concede life and limbs, and what is
more, if he wishes, may deprive men of them at his pleasure. Therefore
is it the more necessary that he should have good and faithful
councillors around him, by whose good advice he should ever withdraw
from illegal actions, and should not fear any jealousy to perform those
things which are right.
The King replied graciously, in suave and gentle words, saying
undoubtedly he would give his attention to reforming those things
which before time had been unjustly done. Then the Duke of Lancaster,
having sought license, excused himself from coming to him in future,
as was hitherto accustomed, since he saw certain men still adhering to
the King who would gladly see him (Lancaster) deprived of life. And
immediately he left the King, and came by night with his men to the
village of Tottenham, where he rested a little while, and then hastened
to his Castle of Hertford, where he decided to abide in safety with his
men.