Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Makers of History
Richard II.
BY JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1901
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-eight, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District
of New York.
Copyright, 1886, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN ABBOTT, LYMAN
ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT.
[Illustration: PARLEY WITH THE INSURGENTS.]
PREFACE.
King Richard the Second lived in the days when the chivalry of feudal
times was in all its glory. His father, the Black Prince; his uncles,
the sons of Edward the Third, and his ancestors in a long line,
extending back to the days of Richard the First, were among the most
illustrious knights of Europe in those days, and their history abounds
in the wonderful exploits, the narrow escapes, and the romantic
adventures, for which the knights errant of the Middle Ages were so
renowned. This volume takes up the story of English history at the
death of Richard the First, and continues it to the time of the
deposition and death of Richard the Second, with a view of presenting
as complete a picture as is possible, within such limits, of the ideas
and principles, the manners and customs, and the extraordinary
military undertakings and exploits of that wonderful age.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I. RICHARD'S PREDECESSORS 13
II. QUARRELS 37
III. THE BLACK PRINCE 81
IV. THE BATTLE OF POICTIERS 103
V. CHILDHOOD OF RICHARD 140
VI. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 166
VII. THE CORONATION 185
VIII. CHIVALRY 197
IX. WAT TYLER'S INSURRECTION 225
X. THE END OF THE INSURRECTION 255
XI. GOOD QUEEN ANNE 273
XII. INCIDENTS OF THE REIGN 290
XIII. THE LITTLE QUEEN 310
XIV. RICHARD'S DEPOSITION AND DEATH 324
ENGRAVINGS.
Page
PARLEY WITH THE INSURGENTS _Frontispiece._
RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CASTLE 15
MAP--SITUATION OF NORMANDY 23
KING JOHN 29
CAERNARVON CASTLE 51
PORTRAIT OF EDWARD THE SECOND 55
WARWICK CASTLE 61
KENILWORTH CASTLE 66
A MONK OF THOSE DAYS 69
BERKELEY CASTLE 71
CAVES IN THE HILL-SIDE AT NOTTINGHAM CASTLE 75
MORTIMER'S HOLE 79
MAP--CAMPAIGN OF CRECY 85
VIEW OF ROUEN 87
GENOESE ARCHER 94
OLD ENGLISH SHIPS 105
MAP--CAMPAIGN OF POICTIERS 110
STORMING OF THE CASTLE OF ROMORANTIN 116
RICHARD RECEIVING THE VISIT OF HIS UNCLE JOHN 152
PORTRAIT OF RICHARD'S GRANDFATHER 165
EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE 169
THE BULL 177
STORMING OF A TOWN 205
KNIGHTS CHARGING UPON EACH OTHER 220
VIEW OF THE TOWER OF LONDON 235
THE SAVOY 248
RUINS OF THE SAVOY 252
COSTUMES 282
FASHIONABLE HEAD-DRESSES 283
SEAL OF RICHARD II 300
HENRY OF BOLINGBROKE--KING HENRY IV 340
PONTEFRACT CASTLE 342
KING RICHARD II.
CHAPTER I.
RICHARD'S PREDECESSORS.
Three Richards.--Richard the Crusader.--King John.--Character of the
kings and nobles of those days.--Origin and nature of their
power.--Natural rights of man in respect to the fruits of the
earth.--Beneficial results of royal rule.--The power of kings and
nobles was restricted.--Disputes about the right of succession.--Case
of young Arthur.--The King of France becomes his ally.--Map showing
the situation of Normandy.--Arthur is defeated and made prisoner.--John
attempts to induce Arthur to abdicate.--Account of the assassination of
Arthur.--Various accounts of the mode of Arthur's death.--Uncertainty
in respect to these stories.--League formed against him by his
barons.--Portrait of King John.--Magna Charta.--Runny Mead.--The
agreement afterward repudiated.--New wars.--New ratifications of Magna
Charta.--Cruelties and oppressions practiced upon the Jews.--Extract
from the old chronicles.--Absurd accusations.--The story of the
crucified child.--John Lexinton.--Confessions extorted by
torture.--Injustice and cruelty of the practice.--Anecdotes of the
nobles and the king.
There have been three monarchs of the name of Richard upon the English
throne.
Richard I. is known and celebrated in history as Richard the Crusader.
He was the sovereign ruler not only of England, but of all the Norman
part of France, and from both of his dominions he raised a vast army,
and went with it to the Holy Land, where he fought many years against
the Saracens with a view of rescuing Jerusalem and the other holy
places there from the dominion of unbelievers. He met with a great
many remarkable adventures in going to the Holy Land, and with still
more remarkable ones on his return home, all of which are fully
related in the volume of this series entitled King Richard I.
Richard II. did not succeed Richard I. immediately. Several reigns
intervened. The monarch who immediately succeeded Richard I. was
John. John was Richard's brother, and had been left in command, in
England, as regent, during the king's absence in the Holy Land.
After John came Henry III. and the three Edwards; and when the third
Edward died, his son Richard II. was heir to the throne. He was,
however, too young at that time to reign, for he was only ten years
old.
The kings in these days were wild and turbulent men, always engaged in
wars with each other and with their nobles, while all the industrial
classes were greatly depressed. The nobles lived in strong castles in
various places about the country, and owned, or claimed to own, very
large estates, which the laboring men were compelled to cultivate for
them. Some of these castles still remain in a habitable state, but
most of them are now in ruins--and very curious objects the ruins are
to see.
[Illustration: RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CASTLE.]
The kings held their kingdoms very much as the nobles did their
estates--they considered them theirs by right. And the people generally
thought so too. The king had a _right_, as they imagined, to live in
luxury and splendor, and to lord it over the country, and compel the
mass of the people to pay him nearly all their earnings in rent and
taxes, and to raise armies, whenever he commanded them, to go and fight
for him in his quarrels with his neighbors, because his father had
done these things before him. And what right had his father to do these
things? Why, because _his_ father had done them before him. Very well;
but to go back to the beginning. What right had the first man to assume
this power, and how did he get possession of it? This was a question
that nobody could answer, for nobody knew then, and nobody knows now,
who were the original founders of these noble families, or by what
means they first came into power. People did not know how to read and
write in the days when kings first began to reign, and so no records
ere made, and no accounts kept of public transactions; and when at
length the countries of Europe in the Middle Ages began to emerge
somewhat into the light of civilization, these royal and noble families
were found every where established. The whole territory of Europe was
divided into a great number of kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms, and
other such sovereignties, over each of which some ancient family was
established in supreme and almost despotic power. Nobody knew how they
originally came by their power.
The people generally submitted to this power very willingly. In the
first place, they had a sort of blind veneration for it on account of
its ancient and established character. Then they were always taught
from infancy that kings had a right to reign, and nobles a right to
their estates, and that to toil all their lives, and allow their kings
and nobles to take, in rent and taxes, and in other such ways, every
thing that they, the people, earned, except what was barely sufficient
for their subsistence, was an obligation which the God of nature had
imposed upon them, and that it would be a sin in them not to submit to
it; whereas nothing can be more plain than that the God of nature
intends the _earth_ for _man_, and that consequently society ought to
be so organized that in each generation every man can enjoy something
at least like his fair share of the products of it, in proportion to
the degree of industry or skill which he brings to bear upon the work
of developing these products.
There was another consideration which made the common people more
inclined to submit to these hereditary kings and nobles than we should
have supposed they would have been, and that is, the government which
they exercised was really, in many respects, of great benefit to the
community. They preserved order as far as they could, and punished
crimes. If bands of robbers were formed, the nobles or the king sent
out a troop to put them down. If a thief broke into a house and stole
what he found there, the government sent officers to pursue and arrest
him, and then shut him up in jail. If a murder was committed, they
would seize the murderer and hang him. It was their interest to do
this, for if they allowed the people to be robbed and plundered, or to
live all the time in fear of violence, then it is plain that the
cultivation of the earth could not go on, and the rents and the taxes
could not be paid. So these governments established courts, and made
laws, and appointed officers to execute them, in order to protect the
lives and property of their subjects from all common thieves and
murderers, and the people were taught to believe that there was no
other way by which their protection could be secured except by the
power of the kings. We must be contented as we are, they said to
themselves, and be willing to go and fight the king's battles, and to
pay to him and to the nobles nearly every thing that we can earn, or
else society will be thrown into confusion, and the whole land will be
full of thieves and murderers.
In the present age of the world, means have been devised by which, in
any country sufficiently enlightened for this purpose, the people
themselves can organize a government to restrain and punish robbers
and murderers, and to make and execute all other necessary laws for
the promotion of the general welfare; but in those ancient times this
was seldom or never done. The art of government was not then
understood. It is very imperfectly understood at the present day, but
in those days it was not understood at all; and, accordingly, there
was nothing better for the people to do than to submit to, and not
only to submit to, but to maintain with all their power the government
of these hereditary kings and nobles.
It must not be supposed, however, that the power of these hereditary
nobles was absolute. It was very far from being absolute. It was
restricted and curtailed by the ancient customs and laws of the realm,
which customs and laws the kings and nobles could not transgress
without producing insurrections and rebellions. Their own right to the
power which they wielded rested solely on ancient customs, and, of
course, the restrictions on these rights, which had come down by
custom from ancient times, were as valid as the rights themselves.
Notwithstanding this, the kings were continually overstepping the
limits of their power, and insurrections and civil wars were all the
time breaking out, in consequence of which the realms over which they
reigned were kept in a perpetual state of turmoil. These wars arose
sometimes from the contests of different claimants to the crown. If a
king died, leaving only a son too young to rule, one of his brothers,
perhaps--an uncle of the young prince--would attempt to seize the
throne, under one pretext or another, and then the nobles and the
courtiers would take sides, some in favor of the nephew and some in
favor of the uncle, and a long civil war would perhaps ensue. This was
the case immediately after the death of Richard I. When he died he
designated as his successor a nephew of his, who was at that time only
twelve years old. The name of this young prince was Arthur. He was the
son of Geoffrey, a brother of Richard's, older than John, and he was
accordingly the rightful heir; but John, having been once installed in
power by his brother--for his brother had made him regent when he went
away on his crusade to the Holy Land--determined that he would seize
the crown himself, and exclude his nephew from the succession.
So he caused himself to be proclaimed king. He was in Normandy at the
time; but he immediately put himself at the head of an armed force
and went to England.
The barons of the kingdom immediately resolved to resist him, and to
maintain the cause of the young Arthur. They said that Arthur was the
rightful king, and that John was only a usurper; so they withdrew,
every man to his castle, and fortified themselves there.
In cases like this, where in any kingdom there were two contested
claims for the throne, the kings of the neighboring countries usually
came in and took part in the quarrel. They thought that by taking
sides with one of the claimants, and aiding him to get possession of
the throne, they should gain an influence in the kingdom which they
might afterward turn to account for themselves. The King of France at
this time was named Philip. He determined to espouse the cause of
young Arthur in this quarrel. His motive for doing this was to have a
pretext for making war upon John, and, in the war, of conquering some
portion of Normandy and annexing it to his own dominions.
So he invited Arthur to come to his court, and when he arrived there
he asked him if he would not like to be King of England. Arthur said
that he should like to be a king very much indeed. "Well," said
Philip, "I will furnish you with an army, and you shall go and make
war upon John. I will go too, with another army; then, whatever I
shall take away from John in Normandy shall be mine, but all of
England shall be yours."
The situation of the country of Normandy, in relation to France and to
England, may be seen by the accompanying map.
[Illustration: SITUATION OF NORMANDY.]
Philip thought that he could easily seize a large part of Normandy and
annex it to his dominions while John was engaged in defending himself
against Arthur in England.
Arthur, who was at this time only about fourteen years old, was, of
course, too young to exercise any judgment in respect to such
questions as these, so he readily agreed to what Philip proposed, and
very soon afterward Philip assembled an army, and, placing Arthur
nominally at the head of it, he sent him forth into Normandy to
commence the war upon John. Of course, Arthur was only nominally at
the head of the army. There were old and experienced generals who
really had the command, though they did every thing in Arthur's name.
A long war ensued, but in the end Arthur's army was defeated, and
Arthur himself was made prisoner. John and his savage soldiery got
possession of the town where Arthur was in the night, and they seized
the poor boy in his bed. The soldiers took him away with a troop of
horse, and shut him up in a dungeon in a famous castle called the
castle of Falaise. You will see the position of Falaise on the map.
After a while John determined to visit Arthur in his prison, in order
to see if he could not make some terms with him. To accomplish his
purpose more effectually, he waited some time, till he thought the
poor boy's spirit must be broken down by his confinement and his
sufferings. His design was probably to make terms with him by offering
him his liberty, and perhaps some rich estate, if he would only give
up his claims to the crown and acknowledge John as king; but he found
that Arthur, young as he was, and helpless as was his condition in his
lonely dungeon, remained in heart entirely unsubdued. All that he
would say in answer to John's proposal was, "Give me back my kingdom."
At length, John, finding that he could not induce the prince to give
up his claims, went away in a rage, and determined to kill him. If
Arthur were dead, there would then, he thought, be no farther
difficulty, for all acknowledged that after Arthur he himself was the
next heir.
There was another way, too, by which John might become the rightful
heir to the crown. It was a prevalent idea in those days that no
person who was blind, or deaf, or dumb could inherit a crown. To blind
young Arthur, then, would be as effectual a means of extinguishing his
claims as to kill him, and John accordingly determined to destroy the
young prince's right to the succession by putting out his eyes; so he
sent two executioners to perform this cruel deed upon the captive in
his dungeon.
The name of the governor of the castle was Hubert. He was a kind and
humane man, and he pitied his unhappy prisoner; and so, when the
executioners came, and Hubert went to the cell to tell Arthur that
they had come, and what they had come for, Arthur fell on his knees
before him and began to beg for mercy, crying out, Save me! oh, save
me! with such piteous cries that Hubert's heart was moved with
compassion, and he concluded that he would put off the execution of
the dreadful deed till he could see the king again.
John was very angry when he found that his orders had not been obeyed,
and he immediately determined to send Arthur to another prison, which
was in the town of Rouen, the keeper of which he knew to be an
unscrupulous and merciless man. This was done, and soon afterward it
was given out through all the kingdom that Arthur was dead. Every body
was convinced that John had caused him to be murdered. There were
several different rumors in respect to the way in which the deed was
done. One story was that John, being at Rouen, where Arthur was
imprisoned, after having become excited with the wine which he had
drunk at a carousal, went and killed Arthur himself with his own
hand, and that he then ordered his body to be thrown into the Seine,
with heavy stones tied to the feet to make it sink. The body, however,
afterward, they said, rose to the surface and floated to the shore,
where some monks found it, and buried it secretly in their abbey.
Another story was that John pretended to be reconciled to Arthur, and
took him out one day to ride with him, with other horsemen. Presently
John rode on with Arthur in advance of the party, until late in the
evening they came to a solitary place where there was a high cliff
overhanging the sea. Here John drew his sword, and, riding up to
Arthur, suddenly ran him through the body. Arthur cried aloud, and
begged for mercy as he fell from his horse to the ground; but John
dragged him to the edge of the precipice, and threw him over into the
sea while he was yet alive and breathing.
A third story was that John had determined that Arthur must die, and
that he came himself one night to the castle where Arthur was confined
in Rouen on the Seine. A man went up to Arthur's room, and, waking him
from his sleep, directed him to rise.
"Rise," said he, "and come with me."
Arthur rose, and followed his guard with fear and trembling. They
descended the staircase to the foot of the tower, where there was a
portal that opened close upon the river. On going out, Arthur found
that there was a boat there at the stairs, with his uncle and some
other men in it. Arthur at once understood what these things meant,
and was greatly terrified. He fell on his knees, and begged his uncle
to spare his life; but John gave a sign, and Arthur was stabbed, and
then taken out a little way and thrown into the river. Some say that
John killed him and threw him into the river with his own hand.
Which of these tales is true, if either of them is so, can now
probably never be known. All that is certain is that John in some way
or other caused Arthur to be murdered in order to remove him out of
the way. He justified his claim to the crown by pretending that King
Richard, his brother, on his death-bed, bequeathed the kingdom to him,
but this nobody believes.
At any rate, John obtained possession of the crown, and he reigned
many years. His reign, however, was a very troubled one. His title,
indeed, after Arthur's death, was no longer disputed, but he was
greatly abhorred and hated for his cruelties and crimes, and at length
nearly all the barons of his realm banded themselves together against
him, with the view of reducing his power as king within more
reasonable bounds.
[Illustration: KING JOHN.]
The king fought these _rebels_, as he called them, for some time, but
he was continually beaten, and finally compelled to yield to them.
They wrote out their demands in a full and formal manner upon
parchment, and compelled the king to sign it. This document was called
the MAGNA CHARTA, which means the great charter. The signing and
delivering this deed is considered one of the most important events in
English history. It was the first great covenant that was made between
the kings and the people of England, and the stipulations of it have
been considered binding to this day, so that it is, in some sense, the
original basis and foundation of the civil rights which the British
people now enjoy.
The place of assembly where King John came out to sign this covenant
was a broad and beautiful meadow on the banks of the Thames, not far
from Windsor Castle. The name of the field is Runny Mead. The word
_mead_ is a contraction for meadow.
The act of once signing such a compact as this was, however, not
sufficient, it seems, to bind the English kings. There were a great
many disputes and contests about it afterward between the kings and
the barons, as the kings, one after another, refused to adhere to the
agreement made by John in their name, on the ground, perhaps, of the
deed not being a voluntary one on his part. He was forced to sign it,
they said, because the barons were stronger than he was. Of course,
when the kings thought that they, in their turn, were stronger than
the barons, they were very apt to violate the agreement. One of the
kings on one occasion obtained a dispensation from the Pope, absolving
him from all obligation to fulfill this compact.
In consequence of this want of good faith on the part of the kings,
there arose continually new quarrels, and sometimes new civil wars,
between the kings and the barons. In these contests the barons were
usually successful in the end, and then they always insisted on the
vanquished monarch's ratifying or signing the Magna Charta anew. It is
said that in this way it was confirmed and re-established not less
than _thirty times_ in the course of four or five reigns, and thus it
became at last the settled and unquestioned law of the land. The power
of the kings of England has been restricted and controlled by its
provisions ever since.
All this took place in the reigns preceding the accession of Richard
II.
Besides these contests with the barons, the kings of those times were
often engaged in contentions with the people; but the people, having
no means of combining together or otherwise organizing their
resistance, were almost always compelled to submit. They were often
oppressed and maltreated in the most cruel manner. The great object of
the government seems to have been to extort money from them in every
possible way, and to this end taxes and imposts were levied upon them
to such an extent as to leave them enough only for bare subsistence.
The most cruel means were often resorted to to compel the payment of
these taxes. The unhappy Jews were the special subjects of these
extortions. The Jews in Europe were at this time generally excluded
from almost every kind of business except buying and selling movable
property, and lending money; but by these means many of them became
very rich, and their property was of such a nature that it could be
easily concealed. This led to a great many cases of cruelty in the
treatment of them by the government. The government pretended often
that they were richer than they really were, while they themselves
pretended that they were poorer than they were, and the government
resorted to the most lawless and atrocious measures sometimes to
compel them to pay. The following extract from one of the historians
of the time gives an example of this cruelty, and, at the same time,
furnishes the reader with a specimen of the quaint and curious style
of composition and orthography in which the chronicles of those days
are written.
=Furthermore, about the same time, the King taxed the Jewes,
and greeuouslie tormented and emprisoned them bicause divers
of them would not willinglie pay the summes that they were
taxed at. Amongst other, there was one of them at Bristow
who would not consent to give any fine for his deliverance;
wherefore by the king's commandment he was put unto this
penance, namely, that eurie daie, till he would agree to
give to the king those ten thousand marks that he was siezed
at, he would have one of his teeth plucked out of his head.
By the space of seaun daies together he stood stedfast,
losing euerie of those days a tooth. But on the eighth day,
when he shuld come to have the eighth tooth, and the last
(for he had but eight in all), draun out, he paid the monie
to save that, who with more wisedome and less paine might
have done so before, and so have saved his seven teeth which
he lost with such torments; for those homelie toothdrauers
used no great cunning in plucking them forth, as may be
conjectured.=
The poor Jews were entirely at the mercy of the king in these cases,
for they were so much hated and despised by the Christian people of
the land that nobody was disposed to defend them, either by word or
deed, whatever injustice or cruelty they might suffer. The most absurd
and injurious charges were made against them by common rumor, and were
generally believed, for there was nobody to defend them. There was a
story, for example, that they were accustomed every year to crucify a
Christian child. One year a mother, having missed her child, searched
every where for him, and at length found him dead in the bottom of a
well. It was recollected that a short time before the child
disappeared he had been seen playing with some Jewish children before
the door of a house where a certain Jew lived, called John Lexinton.
The story was immediately circulated that this child had been taken by
the Jews and crucified. It was supposed, of course, that John Lexinton
was intimately connected with the crime. He was immediately seized by
the officers, and he was so terrified by their threats and
denunciations that he promised to confess every thing if they would
spare his life. This they engaged to do, and he accordingly made what
he called his confession. In consequence of this confession a hundred
and two Jews were apprehended, and carried to London and shut up in
the Tower.
But, notwithstanding the confession that John Lexinton had made and
the promise that was given him, it was determined that he should not
be spared, but should die. Upon hearing this he was greatly
distressed, and he offered to make more confessions; so he revealed
several additional particulars in regard to the crime, and implicated
numerous other persons in the commission of it. All was, however, of
no avail. He was executed, and eighteen other Jews with him.
Judging from the evidence which we have in this case, it is highly
probable that the alleged crime was wholly imaginary. Confessions that
are extorted by pain or fear are never to be believed. They may be
true, but they are far more likely to be false. It was the custom in
ancient times, and it still remains the custom among many ignorant and
barbarous nations, to put persons to torture in order to compel them
to confess crimes of which they are suspected, or to reveal the names
of their accomplices, but nothing can be more cruel or unjust than
such a practice as this. Most men, in such cases, are so maddened with
their agony and terror that they will say any thing whatever that they
think will induce their tormentors to put an end to their sufferings.
The common people could not often resist the acts of oppression which
they suffered from their rulers, for they had no power, and they could
not combine together extensively enough to create a power, and so they
were easily kept in subjection.
The nobles, however, were much less afraid of the monarchs, and often
resisted them and bid them defiance. It was the law in those days
that all estates to which no other person had a legal claim
_escheated_, as they called it, to the king. Of course, if the king
could find an estate in which there was any flaw in the title of the
man who held it, he would claim it for his own. At one time a king
asked a certain baron to show him the title to his estate. He was
intending to examine it, to see if there was any flaw in it. The
baron, instead of producing his parchment, drew his sword and held it
out before the king.
"This is my title to my estate," said he. "Your majesty will remember
that William of Normandy did not conquer this realm for himself
alone."
At another time a king wished to send two of his earls out of the
country on some military expedition where they did not wish to go.
They accordingly declined the undertaking.
"By the Almighty," said the king, "you shall either go or hang."
"By the Almighty," replied one of the earls, "we will neither go nor
hang."
The nobles also often formed extensive and powerful combinations among
each other against the king, and in such cases they were almost always
successful in bringing him to submit to their demands.