Cassell's History of England, Vol. 1 (of 8) / From the Roman Invasion to the Wars of the Roses

by Anonymous

COINS OF THE REIGN OF RICHARD II.

Henry of Norwich passed over the Channel, took Gravelines by assault, pursued the fugitives to Dunkirk, and entered the town in their rear. He was speedily master of the coast as far as Sluys, and might have struck a decisive blow at the French power in Flanders; but he was not supported, though there was a numerous body of men-at-arms at Calais. The Duke of Lancaster, whose own offers of leading this expedition had been refused by Parliament, and who is said to have seen with chagrin the success of his rival, was accused of preventing the advance of these troops. The bishop, thus thwarted in the midst of his triumphs, turned his arms against Ypres, to oblige the Ghentese; but the siege was prolonged, and the King of France, at the entreaty of the Count of Flanders, was approaching with a fine army. The men of Ghent retired; the bishop made one furious assault, and then withdrew. He threw himself once more into Gravelines, and, after holding it a short time, demolished its fortifications, and returned to England.

That this campaign of the militant bishop did not equal the expectations which his former demonstration had raised, appears partly owing to his own precipitancy, but far more to the machinations of his powerful enemies. Like most unsuccessful commanders, he fell under the censure of the Government. He was accused before Parliament of having taken a bribe of 18,000 francs to betray the expedition, and of having broken his contract with the king by returning before the year of his engagement had expired. Of the former charge he was cleared on full inquiry, but he was condemned on the latter to forfeit all his temporalities till he had paid the full damages to the king. Four of his principal knights were also condemned to pay 20,000 francs into the treasury for having sold stores and provisions to the enemy to that amount.

Not to interrupt the narrative of events which extend over into other years, we may here note one of the most remarkable incidents of this reign. This is the death of Wycliffe, who was struck with apoplexy while performing public service in his parish church, and died on the last day of the year 1384.

John Wycliffe had not only put in active motion the principles of Church reform by his preaching, and his public defences against the attacks of the authorities of the Church, but he had made those principles permanent by the translation of the Bible. Not that Wycliffe's was the first translation of the Scriptures into English; we know, for instance, that Bede translated the Gospel of St. John, and finished the work on his death-bed in 735. But these earlier translations of the Bible had remained in the libraries of monasteries, and, by the little education of the people, and the conservative vigilance of the Church, had been the sole study of a few learned men. Wycliffe, by his position as teacher at Oxford, had excited a wide interest and inquiry about the Scriptures; by his patronage at court, and the persecutions of the prelates, they had been made the subject of a vast curiosity, and this curiosity he had taken care to gratify by multiplying copies through the aid of transcribers, and by the "poor priests," the converts to his doctrines, reading them and recommending them everywhere amongst their hearers. The English Bible was never more to be a rare or merely curious book. It is said that when the good Queen Anne's countrymen who attended her here at the court were expelled by the Lancaster faction, they carried back copies of Wycliffe's Bible and writings, which had been her favourite reading; they thus fell into the hands of Huss and Jerome of Prague, accompanied by the anti-papal doctrines of the great English reformer; and in this manner arose in Bohemia the sect of the Hussites.

The chief value of Wycliffe's work consisted in his correction of abuses. Numbers of his "poor priests," as they were called, traversed the nation, as he had done, in their frieze gowns, and with bare feet, everywhere proclaiming the doctrines of the Gospel, and denouncing the impositions and vices of Popery. They held up the monks and priests of the time to deserved scorn, and the people, feeling the sacred truth, flocked round them, deserting those by whom they had been so long deluded and fleeced.

There can be little doubt that John Ball, the preacher of Wat Tyler's army, was one of these "poor priests" of Wycliffe, for it was only three years before Wycliffe's death that this insurrection occurred, and Wycliffe's apostles had been preaching everywhere amongst the people for years. There is as little doubt that this preaching produced this insurrection, as Luther's produced the "Peasants' War" afterwards in Germany. The effect was perfectly natural that men, who for ages had been trodden down as slaves and beasts of burden, hearing all at once that "God had made of one blood all the nations of the earth," that He "was no respecter of persons," and that they were called upon by Him to do to one another as they would be done by, should review their position, and stand astonished at its vast antithesis to the ordinances of Christianity. That the people rebelled was not their fault, but that of the barons and the Church, which, while professing the Gospel, had ignored every precept of it in regard to the people. Now that the great and eternal principles of political justice as well as saving faith contained in the Gospel were once known, they never could be again taken away; they became the heritage of the people. The Wat Tyler insurrection was put down, but that which produced it could never be put down any more. The powerful eloquence and holy lives of the preachers of Wycliffe were universally confessed. Men of all ranks, from the royal Duke of Lancaster, to the peasant, joined them, and acquired the name of Lollards. It is true that John of Gaunt supported Wycliffe from selfish motives only, and deserted him as soon as he began to attack the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The inhabitants of London were especially warm adherents of the new teaching. John of Northampton, one of the most opulent and distinguished citizens, was a decided Lollard, and during the time of his being mayor, particularly irritated the clergy, who drove a brave trade in pardons and indulgences, by his active reformation of the vices of the people. The Lords Hilton, Latimer, Percy, Berkeley, and Clifton, with many other nobles, knights, and eminent citizens, became the protectors and advocates of scriptural reform.

Richard had now reached the age of nineteen. The ability, address, and bravery which he had displayed at the time of the insurrection raised high hopes in the nation of the success of his future government. Time, however, failed to realise these expectations. Richard was by no means destitute of cleverness, but his mind was rather showy than solid. He had been brought up in his boyhood in the south of France, at the luxurious court of Bordeaux. He had early been imbued with the tastes of Provence—music and poetry—rather than with politics and arms. After his father's death his mother and half-brother had treated him with ruinous personal indulgence, and instilled into his mind the most mischievous ideas of his future greatness and royal authority. There is a striking parallel between his education, his personal character, and his fate, and those of Charles I. Both were fond of literature and the fine arts; both had the strongest domestic attachments, and had been indoctrinated with the most fatal ideas of the royal prerogative. Both were high-spirited, chivalrous, and, necessarily, despotic; they were moulded to despotism by their parents. Both had their favourites—Richard, De Vere and De la Pole; Charles, Strafford and Buckingham. Both, while they were intensely beloved by their own families and immediate associates, lost the affections of their people by utterly despising their rights, and both came to a tragic end.

When the Bishop of Norwich returned from his unfortunate expedition, Lancaster concluded an armistice with France, in which the Scots were included; but, as these reckless neighbours still continued the war, he marched into Scotland in 1384, burnt the huts of which their towns were composed, and—to destroy the retreats into which they always retired on the approach of an English army—he supplied his troops, according to Knighton, with 80,000 axes, with which they cut down the forests, inflicting a most serious injury on the nation. Notwithstanding this service, he found, on his return to London, that the suspicions of his disloyalty were more rife than ever. While the Parliament was sitting at Salisbury, a Carmelite friar, one John Latimer, put into the king's hands the written particulars of a real or pretended conspiracy to place the crown on the head of John of Gaunt. Richard was advised to show this to Lancaster, who swore that it was false, and vowed to do battle with any one who impeached his innocence. He insisted that the friar, who persisted in his story, should be committed to safe custody; and, accordingly, he was consigned to the care of Sir John Holland, the king's half brother, but a secret ally of the Duke of Lancaster, who strangled him in the night, it is said, with his own hands, and had him dragged through the streets in the morning as a traitor.