THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF ENGLAND
Richard the Second
RICHARD, of Bordeaux, the son and heir of the Black Prince, was waited on, while Edward yet lay on his death-bed, by a deputation of the London citizens, who tendered life and fortune in defence of his regal rights. At the same time they recommended his leaving Shene, for the Tower, and solicited his mediation in their behalf, with his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster. To this he replied graciously, as he had been advised; the next day his grand father died, and after a brief delay of three weeks, be was crowned at Westminster. The prelates and barons now proceeded to arrange the form of government during the king's minority, for which purpose they chose twelve counselors in aid of the chancellor and treasurer. To their great surprise this was acquiesced in by the Duke of Lancaster, for it had been feared, from his known ambition, that he would attempt to seize the crown for himself. Still they had entered upon an uneasy office. Charles had availed himself of so favourable an opportunity to renew hostilities; his fleets, in conjunction with the Spaniards, burnt Hastings, plundered the Isle of Wight, and alarmed the whole coast. The English king had to call upon parliament after parliament for aid, in the granting of which the latter never forgot to extort fresh rights from the crown, or to obtain a confirmation of the old. Ere the close of the session, Alice Perrers was arraigned before the peers, and being abandoned by her former patron, was condemned to banishment and forfeiture.
The actions of the Duke of Lancaster, to whom had been entrusted the conduct of the war in France, corresponded but little with his lofty promises. For several weeks he lay before the town of St. Malo, and then returned to England without achieving anything. To add to the popular discontent, the Scots, in violation of the truce, burnt Roxburgh, and surprised Berwick. By sea for a time they were no less fortunate. A private adventurer of the name of Mercer, carried off a fleet of merchantmen from Scarborough, and scoured the German ocean till he was met by Philpot, a citizen of London, who had equipped a small squadron at his own charge. A sharp action ensued; Philpot took him prisoner, and captured sixteen Spanish vessels, for which good service, instead of thanks, he received a reprimand from the council, as having presumed to levy war without the king's permission.
The next parliament met at Gloucester, in no favourable mood for the prerogative, and exercised a searching inquiry into the way in which the previous grants had been expended. When satisfied on that head, they granted a new subsidy, though to very little purpose so far as regarded time war with France. At first, things had seemed favourable to the English interest in that country. John de Montfort had surrendered Brest to Richard, for a competence in England, whereupon, Charles, in the security of his previous conquests, annexed Bretagne to the French crown. This step alarmed the pride of the Bretons. They expelled the French, recalled their duke, and solicited aid from England. An army under Buckingham, the king's uncle, penetrated as far as the borders of the duchy, when, Charles dying, the Bretons transferred their jealousy from the French to their allies; Montfort made his peace with the regency, and at the return of spring, Buckingham was glad to lead off his army without further damage.
More appeals had to be made by the king to his parliament for pecuniary aid, and these when granted, were still insufficient. If the commons, mollified by the king's numerous concessions, were willing to impose taxes, the difficulty was still to raise them. There was a secret ferment amongst the English as well as among many other nations of Europe, a spirit of resistance to authority, in place of the former passive obedience, which made it dangerous to pull the cord much tighter. We need not look very deeply for the causes ; such must of necessity be the case unless the world were absolutely to stand still, a state of things which seems hardly possible; man must either advance or retrograde; and it is the part of a wise statesman to guide the torrent which he can no more hope to stop, than to keep back the flowing waters of the Atlantic. In Flanders, the commons had driven their Count, Louis, from his dominions; in France, the people had possessed themselves of Paris and Rouen, and massacred the collectors of revenue; in England, the villains had formed associations to defend their freedom, and refused the services to which the tyranny of the feudal law condemned them. The doctrines of Wycliffe, by asserting the right of men to think for themselves on religious questions, tended to foment this spirit.
It was in such a critical state of the country that commissioners were appointed to enforce the payment of a tax of three groats per head on every male or female of fifteen years of age. The commons of Essex were the first to rise against its imposition, and having murdered the clerks and jurors of the commission, placed themselves under the command of a profligate priest, who called himself Jack Straw. The brutal violence of a collector roused the men of Kent to follow their example. He had demanded the tax for a young girl at Dartford, the daughter of a tyler. Her mother denied that she was of the age required by the statute; and as he at tempted to prove the fact by the exposure of her person, the father happened to return from work, and with his hammer at once dashed out the miscreant's brains. Other acts of individual tyranny excited the populace in various parts of the country. At Maidstone, the commons of Kent, appointed Wat, the tyler, of that town, their leader, and leading away with them .John Ball, an itinerant preacher, they marched to Blackheath. By the time they had reached it, their numbers are said to have swelled to a hundred thousand men. To this lawless multitude, Ball preached a sermon, the nature of which may be gathered from the lines he assumed for his text
" When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman."
The flame spread from the southern coast of Kent to the right bank of the Humber, the insurgents in all places pursuing the same course. They pillaged the manors and demolished the houses of their lords ; burnt the court-rolls ; cut off the head of every justice, lawyer, or juror, who fell into their hands ; swore all others to be true to King Richard and the commons, and bound them to oppose all taxes but fifteenths, the ancient tallage paid by their fathers. At Rotherhithe, the insurgents waited for the king, who was descending the river in his barge to receive the petitions. But the royal attendants were seized with a sudden panic at the sight of this multitude; they would not let the king land, and took advantage of the tide to make a precipitate retreat. Irritated at this absurd conduct, Tyler and Straw led their followers to Southwark, where they committed their usual acts of violence. The next morning they marched in small companies into the city ; the populace joined them ; the work of devastation commenced; Newgate and the splendid palace of the Savoy were demolished; the Temple with its books and records was burnt; and a party was despatched to fire the house of the knights hospitallers at Clerkenwell. To prove, however, their disinterestedness in the work of destruction, they issued a proclamation forbidding any one to secrete his plunder, and when one of their fellows was found to have concealed a silver cup in his bosom, he was immediately flung with his prize into the river.
During a night of extreme anxiety, which the king and his council passed in the Tower, they agreed to try conciliatory measures, the garrison being too weak to coerce the people. In the morning they proclaimed to the crowd who had gathered upon Tower-hill, that they should retire to Mile-End, where the king would meet them and grant their demands. The gates were then thrown open ; Richard, with a few unarmed attendants passed through; the better intentioned of the multitude followed him, to the number of sixty thousand, and arrived at the appointed place set forth their petition. It consisted of four points. I. the abolition of slavery. II. The reduction of the rent of land to fourpence the acre. III. The free liberty of buying and selling in all markets. IV. A general pardon for past offences. With the exception of the second article, which, as attempting to fix a maximum rate of value, is absurd, there is nothing in these demands but what is eminently just. Whether Richard or his counsellors thought so, may well be doubted from their subsequent conduct, though the king did not hesitate to grant the required charter. The whole multitude marched off well satisfied with the result. But Tyler and Straw, with their more immediate adherents, would seem to have had no object in view but to destroy and elevate themselves upon the ruins. The moment the king was gone they rushed into the Tower, and seizing the archbishop, Sir Robert Hales, William Apuldore the king's confessor, Legge the farmer of the taxes, and three of his associates, dragged them out to instant execution. The next morning, when at the head of twenty thousand insurgents, Tyler encountered the king in Smithfield, attended by no more than sixty horsemen. In the interview that followed, he laid his hand on Richard's bridle, and at the moment the lord mayor, Walworth, plunged a short sword into his throat, upon which he fell from his horse, and was despatched by Robert Standish, one of the royal esquires. Richard's presence of mind saved himself and his followers from the death that had else been inevitable. Galloping up to the archers, who had bent their bows to avenge the fall of the demagogue, he exclaimed, "What are ye doing, my lieges? Tyler was a traitor. Come with me, and I will be your leader." To the credit of Richard it must be said, that when a thousand men at arms came up for his protection, under Sir Robert Knowles, he refused to listen to those who would have punished the past excesses.
On the southern coast, the insurrection reached as far as Winchester; on the eastern to Beverley and Scarborough. The nobility retired for safety to their castles, the only man who showed a proper resolution, being the bishop of Norwich. In complete armour he led his followers to the attack, after battle sate in judgment on the prisoners, and to the condemned, afforded the last consolations of religion. By his energy peace was restored and maintained in Norfolk, Cambridge, and Huntingdon. In other parts the insurrection was finally quelled on the death of Tyler, by the dispersion of the men of Kent and Essex, and the gathering of a royal army. At the head of forty thousand men, the king revoked his charter and sacrificed many of the culprits in that vindictive and timid spirit, which seeks satisfaction for its past, and security for its future fears in the death of the offenders. Among the numbers who thus perished, few will regret to find that neither Straw nor Ball escaped the rope of the executioner.
On the meeting of parliament the king, while stating he had revoked his charters of emancipation, submitted to the houses whether it would not be better to abolish. the state of bondage. The reply was unanimous ; the villains were theirs ; no one could deprive them of such vested right without their consent; and that they never had given, and never would give, either to force or to persuasion. The monarch was forced to yield, so determined was the opposition to his proposal of all concerned. They next proceeded to consider the causes of the late insurrection, which they found to have arisen :—I. From the extortion of the purveyors. II. From the rapacity of the royal officers in the various courts of justice. III. From the banditti, called maintainers, who, strong in their numbers, plundered all around and set law at defiance. IV. From repeated aids and taxes. To remove these grievances a commission of inquiry was appointed but, in defiance of the last complaint, a fresh supply was demanded, and after much altercation yielded by the houses.
While the people of Europe were thus struggling against their feudal chains, the Christian world was no less agitated by the claims of two contending pontiffs; Clement VII. established his pontifical chair at Avignon, and was supported in his claims by France and her allies, Spain, Scotland, Sicily, and Cyprus. Urban VI. made Rome the seat of authority, and was acknowledged by England and all the rest of Europe. Each preached up a crusade against the other, for which purpose Urban had invested the bishop of Norwich with extraordinary powers. As the war between France and England had never wholly ceased, a singular contract was entered into between Richard and his war like prelate, the former supplying money, and the latter engaging to serve for a year against France, with two thousand five-hundred men at arms, and an equal number of archers. To aid the citizens of Ghent in their rebellion against their Count, was his first object; Gravelines he took by assault, and having defeated an army of twelve thousand men, entered Dunkirk with the fugitives, and made himself master of the coast as far as Sluys. But he was not assisted as he had been promised; the jealousy of the Duke of Lancaster detained a large body of men that had been assembled at Dover; and none but desperate adventurers joined him, who controlled his authority and marred his best plans, so that finally on the approach of the French king, after a vain attempt to defend Gravelines, he went back to England. His enemies took advantage of his bad success, to accuse him before the parliament. As he certainly had broken his contract by returning before the year's end, he was deprived of his temporalities till he had paid the full damages to the king.
It is now time to speak of Wycliffe. We hear of him for the first time in the preceding reign, about the year 1360, engaged in a fierce controversy with the different orders of friars, maintaining that mendicity was opposed to the gospel. Next we find him expelling the warden and monks of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, with the consent, indeed, of the founder, Bishop Islip, and himself assuming the place of warden. Upon the death of Islip, his successor, Simon Langham, replaced the old warden; whereupon Wycliffe appealed to the pope, who gave judgment against him, and hence, according to his enemies, arose his hatred to the see of Rome. On all occasions he maintained the rights of the crown against the pope, and his name stands second on the list of commissioners appointed to meet the papal envoys at Bruges, to adjust the existing disputes. That he was for a time a man of high estimation with the ruling powers is plain. In addition to what has been already noticed, he had obtained the honorary title of king's chaplain, was preferred to a prebend in the collegiate church of Westbury, and possessed the rectory of Lutterworth. This acceptance, however, of preferment, was in direct contradiction to his subsequent doctrines, and it is only fair to suppose that he did not adopt them all at once. Soon he began to imitate the austerity of the men he was condemning, went barefoot, was clad in a gown of the coarsest russet, and extended his invectives from the friars to the pope himself, and the whole body of the clergy, who were bound, he said, to assume the poverty no less than the virtues of our Saviour. As traitors to God they bad forfeited their emoluments, wherefore it became the duty of laymen to with-hold their tithes and strip them of their possessions. To disseminate these doctrines he collected a body of fanatics under the name of poor priests, who, dressed like himself, avowed that they would never accept any benefice, and went abroad as itinerant preachers, in opposition to the authority of the bishops. For a time he found support among the nobles. Even the Duke of Lancaster and the Lord Mareschal Percy were among his patrons. But the insurrection of the commons—and it is to that period we have again come— had raised a prejudice against his doctrines. A synod of divines having condemned them, he appealed to the Duke of Lancaster, but found his application was rejected, and a royal mandate suspended him from preaching. He then presented a petition to parliament, in which, going a step farther than he had hitherto ventured, he prayed that no more taxes should be laid upon the people, but that the national wants should be supplied from the superfluous revenues of the church, which were in reality the patrimony of the poor. His petition was so far successful, that be obtained the repeal of an act which the bishops had some what illegally obtained for the suppression of the itinerant preachers; for the rest of his proposal men's minds were not as yet sufficiently prepared; his appeal on matters of doctrine from a spiritual to a lay tribunal, shocked his best patrons, amid even the Duke of Lancaster counselled submission to time judgment of his ordinary. Two years afterwards, at the close of 1384, he died of an apoplectic stroke, a singular proof that toleration was more prevalent in those early days than in many a subsequent period.
The doctrines of Wychiffe, if we omit the nicer theological points, may be summed up in a few words. He maintained that dominion or the right to property, was founded in grace; and admitted seven sacraments with the Catholic church, but differed from it as to the nature of the eucharist and the contract of matrimony; teaching in regard to the former a doctrine similar to the impanation of Luther. Purgatory he allowed, as well as the efficacy of the mass, but while he did not deny the use of ceremonies, he censured the multitude of them, and was bitter against the custom of singing in the churches. In proof of his doctrines he appealed to the scriptures, of which, though many versions were extant, he made a new translation. This, in fact, was calling upon men to exercise their own judgment, instead of receiving their belief from the teaching of others, yet with the usual inconsistency of all doctrinal reformers he did not intend such freedom to lead to any dissent from his own opinions. He and his "poor priests" were the only true hierarchy, all who opposed them being antichrists and proctors of Satan.
If the king had raised high expectations by his firmness in putting down the insurgents, these hopes were doomed to be never realized. The nobles would bear no favourite near the throne but of their own order, and Richard, like the unfortunate Edward, selected his confidants from the middling classes. Hence arose a factious opposition on their part, and a jealousy only too well founded upon his. The Duke of Lancaster was the chief object of suspicion. A Carmelite friar put into the king's hand a paper, containing the particulars of a design on his uncle's part to seize the crown; and on this charge being communicated to him, he demanded, while he denied it, that the informer should be committed to close custody for future examination. The friar persisting in his story, was given to the care of Sir John Holand, the king's uterine brother, who, with his own hands strangled him during the night, and the next morning ordered his body to be publicly dragged through the streets. This murder would seem to confirm the charge, yet the Lord Zouch whom the friar had represented as the author of the memorial, declared, on oath, his ignorance of its existence, and Buckingham, another of the royal uncles, bursting into the king's room with his drawn sword, swore he would kill the first man who should accuse his brother of treason. Richard dissembled for the moment, and the Princess of Wales finally reconciled the uncle and nephew, as well as obtained a pardon for her son, Sir John Holand.
During this time of troubles in England, the King of France sent to his Scottish allies, a thousand men at arms, under Vienne, with forty-thousand francs in gold, and armour for the equipment of a thousand native knights and esquires. The visitors, however, seem to have been little pleased either with their friends or the country. The land was wild; the people uncivilized; the capital—Edinburgh—was inferior to the provincial towns of Valenciennes or Tournay; there were no balls, no banquets, no tournaments; they were obliged to buy the coarsest food at a high price; the jealousy of the natives refused provender for their horses, and was constantly laying snares for their lives; and when introduced to the king, they were shocked at "his red bleared eyes, of the colour of sandal wood, which convinced them he was no warrior." Worse than all, the Scots demanded to be paid for fighting their own battles, nor would they march till the forty-thousand francs had been distributed amongst them. At length they burst into Northumberland, but at the advance of Richard; as hastily retreated, and the latter burnt Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee, in succession. His vanguard had even reached Aberdeen, when news came, that the Scots were ravaging Westmoreland and Cumberland, and that Vienne had laid siege to Carlisle. Lancaster advised that the English should march back to the frontiers and intercept the enemy on their return; but the chancellor, Michael de la Pole, infused fresh suspicions into the king's mind, and the army was disbanded, leaving the north to be plundered by the Scots at their pleasure.
The honours which the king had bestowed during the late expedition, he, upon his return, confirmed in parliament. Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, with the title of Marquess of Dublin, obtained a grant for life of the revenue of Ireland, on condition of paying five thousand marks yearly into the exchequer; and Michael de la Pole was created Earl of Suffolk, with the reversion of the estate of the late earl, on the deaths of his widow and the queen. To make these promotions less displeasing to the princes of the blood royal, Richard lavished yet higher preferment’s among themselves. His uncles, the Earls of Cambridge and Buckingham, created Dukes of York and Gloucester, were invested with the sword, coronet, and cap of state, receiving at the same time a grant of lands from the crown, to the yearly value of one thousand pounds. Henry of Bolingbroke, son of the Duke of Lancaster, and Edward Plantagenet, son to the Duke of York, were made Earls of Derby and Rutland.
During the sitting of parliament, an embassy from Portugal arrived in London, to invite Lancaster to prosecute some remote claims he had, in right of his wife, to the crown of that country. Richard, glad to get rid of his too powerful subject, appropriated one half of the year's supplies to this expedition. But though he feared his uncle when present, he soon found greater reason to regret his absence. He had been a necessary check on the Duke of Gloucester, who, now that he was removed, speedily contrived to get all the substance of government into his own hands. The French, too, formed such extensive plans for the invasion of England, that the whole kingdom, from one end to the other, was in the greatest alarm. Preparations were made in haste to meet this unexampled peril, but the invasion was delayed from week to week, till it became necessary to postpone it to the following year. This was in the highest degree fortunate, as the great barons, under Gloucester's guidance, were only in tent upon embroiling things that they might upset the government. When the parliament opened, and the king submitted to the houses the propriety of carrying the war into France, the lords and commons, instead of voting the necessary supplies, returned with a joint petition for the removal of the ministers and the members of the council. After a struggle, Richard was forced to comply; he dismissed his obnoxious ministers, gave the seals to the bishop of Ely, and made the bishop of Hereford treasurer. Instead of mollifying, this encouraged his adversaries. The commons resolved to prosecute the Earl of Suffolk, the late chancellor, and with some difficulty the king obtained the exemption of his other favourites, by yielding up this point to them. The charges were proved to be false where they were dangerous, and of little import where true, so that the chancellor was only condemned to forfeit certain specified sums, and to be imprisoned during the pleasure of the king, who, of course, released him when the parliament was dissolved. This prosecution, however, deserves to be noted, as it confirmed to the commons their new claim of impeaching the ministers of the crown, and is the second instance of an impeachment by the lower house. The first occurred about the close of the preceding reign.
It was not long before the faction made another step towards their secret object. They proposed to imitate the precedents of the reigns of John, Henry III., and Edward II., by establishing a permanent council with authority to reform the state of the nation; in other words, to place the regal power, if not something more than regal power, in their own hands. Richard protested that he would never give his consent to such a measure, and threatened to dissolve the parliament. The commons, to terrify him, sent for the statute by which Edward II. had been deposed, and Gloucester caused him to be informed, that if he persisted, his life would be in danger. Richard wanted the courage, or the wisdom, to resist any longer. He signed the commission appointing the permanent council, but with as little sincerity as had been evinced by his adversaries; and, shortly after, traveling through various parts of the country, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with the people, that he might have something to oppose to the power of his factious nobles. At Shrewsbury, and afterwards at Nottingham, he held a council of the judges, propounding to them certain questions relative to the late proceedings, and received for answer, that they were utterly illegal and subversive of the constitution. They affixed their seals to this reply, under an oath to keep it secret. The next day it was betrayed to Kent, and by him communicated to the Duke of Gloucester.
Ignorant of this treachery, the king made preparations for resuming his authority, when the year allotted to the commissioners should have expired. This would be on the 19th of November; on the 10th, he entered the capital amidst general acclamations, and the next morning learnt, to his surprize, that an army of forty-thousand men had reached the neighbourhood of London, under the command of Gloucester, and the Earls of Arundel and Nottingham. The ensuing day they were joined at Waltham Cross, by the Earls of Derby and Warwick, when the five insurgent nobles, in the presence of commissioners, appealed five of the king's favourites of treason. Richard, unable to help himself, consented to hear the lords appellants, and, after many protestations of loyalty to himself, they accused of treason the archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the Earl of Suffolk; Sir Robert Tresilian false justice, and Sir Nicholas Bramber false knight; then throwing their gauntlets on the floor, they offered severally to prove the truth of their charges by single combat. Richard promised to refer the matter to his parliament.
The obnoxious counsellors fled. The Duke of Ireland repaired to the northern borders of Wales, where he received the king's orders to raise forces, with a promise to join him. on the first opportunity. He unfurled the royal banner, and was speedily joined by Molyneux the constable of Chester, at the head of a strong body of archers. Gloucester now unfolded his real designs. He agreed with Arundel and Warwick and the Lord Thomas Mortimer, "to depose Richard and take the crown under his own custody." This scheme was defeated by the earls of Derby and Nottingham, who, with all their hatred of the royal favourites, would not consent to hurl the king from his throne. The approach of the Duke of Ireland left the con federates little time to quarrel among themselves. They met and defeated him at Radcot-bridge, but a lucky rumour that he was drowned, saved him from pursuit, and he escaped to Ireland.
The king was now completely in the power of the appellants, and obliged to subscribe to whatever terms they chose to dictate. They exhibited thirty-nine articles of impeachment against the appellees, and as these did not answer to their names, prayed judgment against them by default. The decision being put off till next day, all the judges, with the exception of Sir William Skipwith, were arrested on their seats in court and committed to the Tower; when, in defiance of legal opinions declaring that the impeachment in all its parts was informal, the lords resolved to proceed. They were bound, they said, by no other law than the custom of parliament; England had never been governed by the civil law, nor would they be guided by the practice of the lower courts. Under such judges, as a matter of course the accused were found guilty. The temporalities of the archbishop were confiscated; the duke, the earl, and Tresilian were condemned to death; but the earl had fled to Paris, where he died heart-broken, the Duke of Ireland took refuge in Ireland, and the archbishop was still concealed in Northumberland. Other prosecutions took place in the same spirit, the real offence of the accused being their hostility to Gloucester's faction; and even the judges were banished for the opinions they had given on the illegality of the impeachment’s, their lives being spared at the intercession of the bishops. Seldom indeed, has a more sanguinary monster existed than this Duke of Gloucester; victim after victim was immolated to his fears or his thirst for blood, and no entreaties, from whomever they proceeded, could induce him to spare where once he had fired an eye of hatred. One of the strongest instances of this determined vindictive spirit was the case of Sir Simon Burley; he had been appointed by the black prince guardian to his son Richard, but, when condemned by his iniquitous judges, neither the prayers of Richard, nor the tears of his beautiful queen, nor the intercession of the Earl of Derby, himself an appellant, could move the duke to spare him. A week later, Sir John de Beauchamp, Sir James Berners, and Sir John Salisbury were executed.
The "wonderful parliament," as some called it, or the "merciless parliament," as it was named by others, had now done its work of blood, and was dissolved. The last legislative act of its members amounted to a condemnation of themselves, since it allowed that they had construed many things into treason which had never been so declared by any statute. They had besides helped to deprive Richard of all real power, and place it in the hand of Gloucester, who, however, governed with more lenity than could have been expected from his previous conduct. Still, his rule was distinguished by none of those brilliant actions that could dazzle men's judgments, and blind them to the way in which it had been gained. If the Earl of Arundel captured a fleet of French merchantmen, the Percies lost against the Scots the battle of Otterburn in Northumberland; and if in the latter, the Earl Douglas was slain, his fate might be said to be more than counterbalanced to the enemy, by the loss of the English generals, Henry and Ralph Percy, who were made prisoners. The influence of Gloucester thus declined. Many of his partizans abandoned him; and Richard, by one bold act, dissolved his council when they least expected such a measure, telling them he had been long enough under the control of tutors. At the same time he took the seals from the archbishop of York, and the keys of the exchequer from the bishop of Hereford, receiving into favour the Duke of York, and the young Earl of Derby.
For some few years uninterrupted harmony reigned between the monarch and his people. He appeared to retain no memory for past injuries, even recalling Gloucester to a seat in the council, on the return of Lancaster from Guienne. Nor did he venture any thing in favour of the friends who had suffered in his cause, until he could do so with perfect safety. That this proceeded from policy, and not from indifference, is proved beyond a doubt by the whole of his subsequent conduct. In the same wise spirit the legislative enactment’s were completed against papal provisions and reservations; yet the good understanding between England and Urban VI., does not appear to have suffered interruption, till it was disturbed by Edward Bromfield, the agent at Rome for the abbey of St. Edmunds. On the decease of his abbot, be took possession of the vacant benefice in virtue of a papal provision, and this attracting general attention to many similar offences, the parliament made new and more stringent enactment’s against the system of provisions. Urban, however, could not be brought, on this point, to give up his claims, and upon his death, his successor Boniface IX., took yet more decided measures. Among other provisions, be granted a prebend in the church of Wells to cardinal Brancacio, who immediately commenced a suit in the papal court against William Langbroke, the king's presentee. The royal courts decreed in favour of Langbroke; the prelates were threatened with ecclesiastical penalties if they carried such decrees into effect. Hence arose the last and most extensive of the statutes of provisors or prae munire, by which it was enacted that if any man obtained in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, anything against the king's crown and regality, be should forfeit land and goods to the king, and his person be attached. This bill however was from some unknown cause withdrawn by the commons, and the same battle had to be fought over again as each occasion presented itself; till, at last, the pope found it more prudent to consort to such modifications as virtually yielded the point, while in appearance they preserved his rights unaltered.
The war between France and England, which had for a long time languished, was about this time brought to an end by a truce for four years. Soon afterwards the good queen Anne died, and to divert the melancholy of Richard, he was advised to visit his Irish dominions, where affairs had fallen into a most deplorable state. From the time of Edward II. up to the present reign, the English kings had found little leisure to attend to Ireland, and, in consequence, the revenue had fallen below the expense of governing it; the natives had continually narrowed the ground held by the invaders; and the pale presented a scene of anarchy. The English descendants of the first settlers, had, in the lapse of time, nearly lost all sympathy with their native land, and felt perhaps still less regard for such of their countrymen as had recently come over, whether as adventurers or invested by the king with office. But the time now seemed favourable for some attempt to restore order. With four thousand men at arms and thirty thousand archers, Richard landed at Waterford, and assisted by Gloucester and the earls of Rutland and Nottingham, he reduced to submission both the natives, and the rebellious English. The chieftains, seventy-five in number, did him homage, and consented to pay a yearly tribute.
While Richard was still employed in wise measures for securing the ascendency thus gained, he was suddenly recalled to England. The disciples of Wycliffe, under the name of Lollards, had taken advantage of his absence to make a fierce attack upon the discipline as well as the revenues of the church, and the prelates in alarm earnestly prayed him to return. His presence and the severe reprimand he gave to the protectors of the factious, seemed for a time to allay the ferment. Had he always acted with equal prudence, or with equal integrity of purpose, his reign might have been equally honorable to himself, and useful to his people, But he now contracted a marriage with Isabella, the daughter of Charles the Sixth of France, and this alliance awoke in his breast the hope that he might, with safety to himself. wreak a full revenge upon his enemies. Amidst the outward show of magnanimity, he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; though indeed as far as regards Gloucester, there was some excuse if he entertained a vindictive feeling. The duke was, as he always had been, the soul of every faction opposed to his nephew. He inveighed against the peace with France, affected to lament the king's pusillanimity, embarrassed the council, and kept alive resentment by a repetition of petty injuries.
The design of Richard against his real or supposed enemies was effected with equal secrecy and despatch. The Earl of Warwick, having dined with the king, was arrested at the chancellor's house, and hurried away, first to the Tower, and subsequently to the castle of Tintagel in Cornwall. By what seems a cruel refinement on treachery, the unsuspecting primate was employed to bring his brother, the Earl of Arundel, to a private conference with Richard, who instantly apprehended and sent him to Carisbrook castle in the isle of Wight. The duke he seized at Pleshy, and delivered him to the custody of the Earl of Nottingham, the mareschal, who, pretending to convey his prisoner to the Tower, put him aboard a ship when they reached the Thames, and carried him over to the castle of Calais. To tranquillize the general fears produced by these measures, Richard issued a proclamation stating that the offences of the prisoners were of recent date, and that no one had cause to be alarmed for any fault committed in the tenth and eleventh years of his reign. Having taken this precaution, he copied their own example and resolved to appeal them of treason. With this object he repaired to the castle of Nottingham, where the noblemen who had counselled the arrests were at dinner, suddenly summoned them to the castle-gate, and required them to put their seals to a form of appeal which had been prepared. On their return they found the king seated on a throne in the hall, and were made to appeal Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, in the usual terms of supplication, to which he of course assented; fixing the time of trial for the next parliament. The next measure was to take Gloucester's deposition. For this purpose a commission was signed and addressed to Sir William Rickhill, one of the justices; who was awakened in the middle of the night at Essingham in Kent, by a royal messenger, and ordered to set out immediately for Dover, whence he was to follow the Earl of Nottingham to Calais. Still more to Sir William's surprize, on his arrival, the earl delivered to him a commission to interrogate the Duke of Gloucester, whom more than half England imagined to have been long since privately put to death. Alarmed at the critical position in which he thus unexpectedly found himself placed, he required that two witnesses should hear and see what passed between him and the prisoner, and advised Gloucester, not only to let his answer be in writing, but to keep a copy of it. In a few hours the duke had drawn up what he termed his confession, and gave it to the justice, with a request that be would come again in the morning. But the next morning the latter was denied admission, and he returned to the king with his account, the day before the opening of parliament.
The commons, under the royal influence, began by revoking all pardons heretofore granted to Gloucester, and to the earls of Arundel and Warwick. They then impeached Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, of high treason; amid the following day the lords appellant presented their charges against the three peers, when the Earl of Arundel was found guilty and beheaded at the Tower, under the direction of Lord Morley. Gloucester was cited to appear at the bar of the house, and orders were issued to convey him hither from Calais; but in three days came back the answer that he had died there; an announcement which at the time led to a suspicion of foul play, and subsequently to a report that he had been smothered between two feather-beds. His confession, was then read in parliament, as taken by Sir William Rickhill; by which it appeared that, amongst other offences he had conspired to depose the king, though only for a few days, and had spoken slanderously to him in the presence of others. He protested, however, that since the day on which he swore to his nephew on God's body at Langton, he had always been faithful to him; where fore he besought the king to take him to his grace and mercy.
The commons next prayed for judgment against the archbishop of Canterbury, who had not appeared in parliament since his impeachment. The king replied that he had acknowledged his guilt and thrown himself upon the royal mercy. His sentence was perpetual banishment and the forfeiture of his temporalities. They then attacked the Earl Warwick. He was found guilty, but the doom of death was commuted into exile, the isle of Man being assigned for his residence. Lord Cobham was banished for life to the isle of Jersey. Lord Mortinmer, who had sought refuge among the Irish septs, was outlawed.
These prosecutions were certainly illegal, as well as direct violations of the king's previous pardons. Still, there are some grounds for suspecting, that the conduct of Gloucester had been so dangerous, as to make severity a measure necessary to self-defence. His nephews, the earls of Somerset and Rutland, were amongst his accusers; his brothers, the dukes of Lancaster and York, joined to condemn him; and the former even pronounced against him the judgment of treason. Such sentences, however, did not the less excite the fears of those who had been implicated in the same transgressions. Richard endeavoured to allay these alarms, by openly advocating their cause in full parliament, and by scattering honours on many around with a lavish hand. His two cousins, of Derby and Rutland, he made Dukes of Hereford and Albemarle; his two uterine brothers, the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon, he created Dukes of Surrey and Exeter; the Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Norfolk; the Earl of Somerset, Marquess of Dorset; the Lords Despencer, Nevil, Percy, and William Scrope, Earls of Gloucester, Westmoreland, Worcester, and Wiltshire. To give yet greater stability to the throne, new oaths were exacted, and fresh penalties invented; but the dissimulation and vindictiveness of the king's character, had become too manifest for the offenders to rely altogether upon these fair appearances. The Duke of Norfolk, though seemingly high in the royal favour, was conscious how deeply he had been involved in the politics of the eleventh year, and knew besides, that he had again offended, by reluctance to join in the late prosecutions. In an evil moment, he communicated his fear to the Duke of Hereford, and by him it was incautiously divulged, or clandestinely betrayed, to Richard. Whichever was the case, Hereford received an injunction to submit the whole conversation to parliament, which assembled at Shrewsbury in the same obsequious spirit as before the prorogation. New enactment’s were again made to give security to the throne, and fresh oaths taken, but this time, on the cross of Canterbury, as more binding from its superior holiness. The liberties of the people were no less disregarded than the fudal mental laws of the constitution, the king's pleasure being the only thing considered.
It had been customary in former times, when the members were dismissed on the conclusion of the public business, to detain a committee of lords and justices, for the purpose of deciding on such petitions as had been presented and not answered. Such a committee was now appointed, of twelve peers and six commoners, but in addition to the usual powers, they were to determine on all matters which had been moved in presence of the king, so that in fact, a few men chosen under the influence of the crown, had the authority of a full parliament. To them was referred the charge, which, during the sessions, Hereford had brought against the Duke of Norfolk; and that nobleman, who had hitherto absented himself, appeared before Richard at Oswaldstre, loudly maintaining his innocence against his accuser. The king ordered both parties into custody, and proceeding to Bristol, decided causes, and published laws, as if the two houses had been sitting; and even made it treason to attempt repealing them. At the time agreed upon, the appellant and appellee were brought before a high court of chivalry assembled at Windsor. The one persisted in his charge, the other in his denial, and, as no witnesses could be called, wager of battle was joined, to be fought on the 16th of September. When, however, the day came, and the combatants had entered the lists, the king, throwing down his warder, took the battle into his own hands, and, for the sake of public tranquillity, banished Hereford for ten years, and inflicted a yet severer sentence upon his opponent. He was to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to remain an exile for life in Germany, Hungary, or Bohemia, and, as he was in arrears to the king, his lands were to be taken into the royal hands for the payment of his debts, with a reserve of one thousand a year for his own use. Finally the exiles were not to communicate with each other, or with Thomas, late archbishop of Canterbury. No doubt, in punishing Hereford, who, on this occasion had committed no crime, and was only obeying his own commands, Richard in reality visited upon him an offence he had long ago forgiven, but not forgotten---the offence of having be longed to the party of Gloucester. Hereford obeyed, however, and retired to Paris. His rival, after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, died of a broken-heart at Venice.
By these various acts, Richard had obtained the object of all his policy, despotic power. The grant of a subsidy for life enabled him to dispense with parliaments; and his committee made whatsoever ordinances he directed. He raised money by forced loans, compelled the judges to expound the law after his own pleasure, made the former adherents of Gloucester, purchase and repurchase charters of pardon, and put seventeen counties at once out of the protection of the law, under the pretence that they had assisted in the battle at Radcot-bridge. His evil genius urged him to a yet more fatal step. On the death of the Duke of Lancaster, the exiled Hereford expected to succeed by his attorneys to his father's ample estates; but Richard then found out that banishment had the effect of outlawry, and rendered him incapable of inheriting. Through his great council and his committee, he declared that the patents granted both to Hereford and his opponent were illegal, and Henry Bowet, who had procured the patent for the former, was for this imaginary offence, condemned to death as a traitor, but spared on condition of abjuring the kingdom for ever. This iniquitous proceeding, though it affected only an individual, seems to have been all that was wanting to set the nation in a flame. Henry had long been the idol of the people, who, smarting from the sense of their own wrongs, and only passive from a sense of weakness, now saw in their injured favourite, a leader, able, and as they hoped willing, to conduct them. We can hardly understand the infatuation of Richard who at such a moment, could leave England for the purpose of chastising the Irish, who had slain his cousin and heir, the Earl of March. If the symptoms of revolt on all sides were not sufficient to alarm him, he bad yet sufficient warning of plots and conspiracies from divers quarters. These too, he treated with contempt, and having appointed his uncle, the Duke of York, regent in his absence, he embarked with his army at Milford Haven, and with a fleet of two hundred sail, arrived in a few days at Waterford. Three weeks, however, were inactively consumed in waiting for his cousin, the Duke of Albemarle, who was expected to follow with a hundred more. At length he led his forces against the Irish, when several of the inferior chiefs submitted themselves to his mercy. But Mc Murchad resolved to destroy the invaders, and by a wise policy, affecting to fly before them, drew them into woods and morasses, where they fought at a fearful disadvantage; and they suffered even more from the want of provisions. The English army grew weary of the pursuit; their discontent, which broke out into clamours both from men and officers, compelled the king to change his measures and proceed to Dublin. Mc Murchad then condescended to solicit a parley with the Earl of Gloucester, the commander of the rear guard. He was willing to become a nominal vassal to the English monarch, but would be bound by no conditions, and Richard being joined by the Duke of Albemarle, set a price upon the chieftain's head, and re-commenced his pursuit of him.
While the king was thus uselessly employed, Henry Bolingbroke, who, by his father's death, had become Duke of Lancaster, deceived the vigilance of the French monarch, and left Paris with a passport to visit the Duke of Bretagne. Accompanied only by the archbishop, the son of the late Earl of Arundel, fifteen lances, and a few servants, he sailed with three small ships, from Vannes, and landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. Here he was joined by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, deceived, or affecting to be deceived, by his solemn declaration that he came only to claim his paternal honours and estates This sagacious policy won over to his cause, numbers of the king's adherents; and when the Duke of York summoned the retainers of the crown to join him at St. Albans, he found himself indeed at the head of a. sufficient army, but with leaders unwilling to draw the sword against the prosecutor of a just claim. Alarm spread among the friends of Richard. The Earl of Wiltshire, Bossy, and Green, to whose care the queen had been committed, fled hastily to Bristol; and York himself turned to the same quarter, in doubt how far he could rely upon his forces, and anxious, perhaps, to join the king on his return. The road from Yorkshire to the metropolis was thus open to Henry, who marched on, his numbers increasing as he proceeded, till by the time he reached London, his twenty followers had become an army of sixty thousand men. Here he stayed no longer than was necessary to ingratiate himself with the citizens, when he resumed his march towards the west, entering Evesham on the same day that York reached Berkley. Messages were now interchanged the two dukes met in the castle-church ; and the result was,—that York came over to his nephew's side, and joined him in laying siege to the castle of Bristol, which was given up by the governor, Sir Peter Courteney, not to Henry, but to the command of the regent. Bolingbroke then went on to Bristol, leaving the Duke of York behind him.
For three weeks the tempestuous state of the weather had kept Richard ignorant of these events. The first to bring the intelligence was Scroop, the chancellor, and it was immediately agreed that the Earl of Salisbury should sail from Dublin, with all the troops the shipping in that port could carry, while the king led the rest to Waterford, where the greater part of his fleet was lying. On landing at Conway, the earl was soon able to collect an army of Welshmen ; but a fortnight passed, and still Richard did not appear ; evil reports began to spread; and the royalists in alarm disbanded. A few days later he arrived in Milford Haven, with a force that even now' might have enabled him to triumph over all his enemies. The next morning, as he looked from his window, he found that the greater part had disappeared. Some then advised him to fly by sea to Bourdeaux. The Duke of Exeter objected that to do so was to abdicate the throne, and counselled him rather to join the army at Conway, where he might hope to make a stand, or in case of the worst, might still retreat to Guienne, the sea being open. In compliance with this advice, the King, at midnight, stole away in the disguise of a priest, with a few of his principal friends, and in the morning, Albemarle and Sir Thomas Percy went over to Henry. The troops thus abandoned to themselves dispersed.
On reaching Conway, the fugitives found only the Earl of Salisbury with a hundred men, instead of the army they had expected. As the only chance left, the king's brothers of Exeter and Surrey, who had accompanied his flight, repaired to Henry at Chester, for the purpose of sounding his intentions. This measure led to no good. Henry detained them both, in the hope that the king by awaiting their return, might lose the opportunity of escape; and in the meanwhile despatched Northumberland to Conway, at the head of four hundred men at arms, and a thousand archers, with directions not to shew his force, lest Richard should put to sea, but by fair words to draw him from his retreat, and then make him prisoner. In obedience to these orders, he concealed his men behind a rock, riding forward him self with five attendants only, and was readily admitted into the fortress. A letter, real or fictitious, from the Duke of Exeter, obtained for him full credit, and gave a colour to Henry's offers, the very reasonableness of which might have justified suspicion. But if Henry was insincere, the king was no less so. On accepting the articles proposed to him, be privately assured his friends, that he would take the first opportunity of vengeance;. and with the same utter contempt of all truth and honour, Northumberland swore upon the host, to the observance of the conditions. The earl then departed to make arrangements for the meeting in the castle of Flint, and after dinner, Richard followed with his friends. On coming to a steep ascent with the sea on one side, and a high rock on the other, the king dissmounted; when he suddenly took the alarm, and exclaimed, "I am betrayed! God of Paradise assist me. Do you not see banners and pennons in the valley ?" At this moment, Northumberland appeared with twelve of his followers, but pretended 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." The earl instantly caught his bridle, and exclaimed, "you can not return; I have promised to conduct you to the Duke of Lancaster." Escape was now impossible. A hundred lances had come up, with two hundred archers on horseback.
It was evening when they reached Flint. After a sleepless night, the captive heard mass, and from the tower watched the coming of Henry, who at length appeared at the head of eighty thousand men. At this sight Richard is said to have wept, lamenting bitterly his weakness in having spared so dangerous an opponent ; though one would imagine that a proneness to forgive was the last fault with which he could in justice reproach himself. These reflections were interrupted by a summons to dinner, in his case a melancholy meal, yet farther embittered by the insulting threats of strangers, who entered the ball at will, equally unknown and uninvited. When he arose, he was requested to receive the Duke of Lancaster, who, except that he was without a helmet, appeared in complete armour. Yet he did not fail to use all the wonted ceremonials, and the king, uncovering himself, with equal sincerity pronounced him welcome To this Henry replied, " My lord, 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." " Fair cousin,'' said the king ; '' since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me well." Henry then spoke graciously to all the king's friends except Salisbury, whom he refused to notice, and the whole party followed the duke into Chester, amidst the sound of trumpets and the triumphant shouts of those who met and joined them. At this place writs were issued in the king's name, for the assembling of parliament. The duke, too, dismissing the greater part of his army, set out with his captive for London, but Richard with a just suspicion of his ultimate intentions, seized a favourable moment when at Lichfield, to let himself down from his window, in the hope of making his escape. He was retaken, however, in the garden; this unsuccessful attempt only serving to put his captors more upon their guard. In the vicinity of London, they separated on their different ways ; Henry, attended by the mayor and chief citizens, prayed before the high altar of St. Paul's, and spent a few minutes at the tomb of his father ; Richard rode through Westminster to the Tower, amidst the clamours of the people, who cursed him for a bastard, a word, in his situation prophetic of the future. Nothing could convey a plainer denial of his right to the throne. It soon, too, appeared that the duke had either dealt falsely from the outset, or that his ambition had expanded under the circumstances that seemed to favour it. He no longer made a secret of his desire to exchange a coronet for a crown, and a project was formed by which the voluntary abdication of Richard should be yet farther confirmed, by an act of both houses affirming his deposition. To effect the first, a deputation of prelates, barons, knights, and lawyers, waited on the captive in the Tower, and reminded him of his promise to resign the crown when in Conway castle, at a time when he was his own master; and not only did he with apparent cheerfulness sign a paper acknowledging his own incapacity for reigning, but even went so far as to point out Henry, as the best qualified for the vacant throne. This account, which was entered in the rolls of parliament by Henry's order, has by some been doubted; it is, however, quite consistent with the usual conduct of Richard, who, as he never meant to keep any promise longer than suited him, could have no scruple in yielding whatever might be demanded. That he had never given such a promise when in Conway castle, does, indeed, seem highly probable, but he would not be the less ready to allow that he had done so when Henry required the falsehood, the better to advance his purposes.
On the following day, the two houses met in Westminster Hall. The king's resignation was read, each member standing in his place and signifying his assent, amidst the clamorous approbation of the multitude. They next proceeded to the act of deposition. In thirty-three articles, it was said that Richard had repeatedly violated his coronation oath; and, if many of these accusations were frivolous or ill-grounded, it must yet be allowed, that he had sinned quite enough against his people to justly incur the doom of forfeiture. His share in the death of the Duke of Gloucester can hardly be doubted; his revocation of the pardons he had granted, and his judicial murders, are beyond the possibility of a question; and, even if these were wanting, it would yet have been a good ground for his deposition, that be had set himself above all law, levying what taxes, and. making what enactment’s, he thought proper, without the concurrence of any parliament. No opposition had been expected; but, to the surprise of the Lancastrians, Thomas Merks, the bishop of Carlisle, denied the right of the two houses either to depose Richard, or to pass by the next prince of the blood, ridiculing the idea that Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, ancestor, by the mother's side, to the present duke, was in reality the elder brother of Edward I.; a report which had been industriously circulated, that Henry might seem to be the real heir to the throne. The moment he sate down, he was arrested and carried off to the abbey of St. Albans. Such an atrocious act of violence would hardly have been passed over in quiet, had not all parties been well disposed to the claims of Henry. As it was, the unanimous votes of the whole assembly deposed Richard, and eight commissioners ascending a tribunal before the throne, pronounced the sentence of degradation. The act of deposition was then notified to him, by Sir William Thirnyng, chief justice, and received on his part with a meek declaration that he looked not after the royal authority, but hoped his cousin would be a good lord to him.
We shall see how he perished in the story of the next reign. By Richard's voluntary act, as well as by the decree of parliament, the throne was now vacant. And what real claims to it had Henry? According to the acknowledged law of succession, the descendants of Lionel, the third son of Edward III., were nearest to the throne, and parliament had formally allowed their right. But how often had claims of equal force been set aside to suit the fears, the wishes, or the prejudices of the moment. The duke rose from his seat, and crossing his breast and forehead, as if to vouch for his sincerity by the solemnity of the deed, thus addressed his hearers: "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England and the crown, with all the members and appurtenances, as I that am descended by right line of blood, coming from the good lord, King Henry III., and through that right that God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my kind and friends to recover it; the which realm was in point, to be undone by default of governance, and undoing of good laws." The claim thus artfully worded, was allowed unanimously by both houses, and in confirmation, Henry produced the seal and ring, which, as he said, had been given to him by Richard, at the time when he signed his resignation. The primate then led him by the hand to the throne, on the steps of which he knelt for a few minutes in prayer, when he was seated upon it by the two archbishops; loud acclamations followed, and attested the satisfaction of the beholders, and when they had subsided, the new monarch made a brief address, concluding with his thanks to all for their attachment, and a promise to govern them according to law and right. But with the authority of Richard had expired that of the parliament and of the royal officers, He therefore ordered the same parliament to meet again in six days, appointed new officers, and having received their oaths, retired in state to the royal apartments. With this last ceremony, the reign of Richard may be said to conclude, and that of Henry IV. to commence, amidst the general expectations of a brilliant future to the country.