A history of England

by Charles Oman

Edward had raised vast sums of money from Aquitaine for his Spanish expedition by heavy taxation which sorely vexed his new subjects. For the Poitevins and other French, who had become the unwilling vassals of an English lord by the treaty of Bretigny, were entirely without any sympathy for Edward and his plans. When the prince returned, broken in health and penniless, from Spain, they plotted rebellion against him, with the secret approval of the young King of France. It soon appeared that Edward III. had been unwise in annexing so many districts of purely French feeling and blood to the Gascon duchy. For in 1369-70 Poitou, Limoges, and all the northern half of Aquitaine broke out into rebellion, and Charles V. openly sent out his armies to aid them. The Black Prince took the field in a litter, for he was too weak to ride, and stormed Limoges, where he ordered a horrid massacre of the rebellious citizens, a deed that deeply stained his hitherto untarnished fame. But his strength could carry him no further; he returned helpless to Bordeaux, and presently resigned the duchy of Aquitaine and returned to England, thereto languish for some years, and die at last of his lingering disorder.

Premature decay of the king.

The king himself, though not yet sixty years of age, had fallen into a premature decay both of mind and body, so that his son's early decease was doubly unfortunate. After losing his excellent wife Queen Philippa in 1369, he had sunk into a deep depression, from which he only recovered to fall into the hands of unscrupulous favourites. In private he was governed by his chamberlain, Lord Latimer, and by a lady named Alice Perrers, who had become his mistress; both abused their influence to plunder his coffers and make market of his favour. The higher governance of the realm was mainly in the hands of John of Gaunt, the king's eldest surviving son, a selfish and headstrong prince, who made himself the head of the war-party, and hoped to gather laurels that might vie with those of his elder brother, the Black Prince.

Loss of possessions in France.

The last seven years of Edward's reign (1370-77) were full of disasters abroad and discontent at home. In France the successors of the Black Prince proved utterly unable to maintain their grasp on Aquitaine. Town by town and castle by castle, all the districts that had been won by the treaty of Bretigny passed into the hands of King Charles V. His skilful general Bertrand du Guesclin won his way to success without risking a single pitched battle with the invincible English archery. When John of Gaunt took a great host over to Calais in 1373, the French retired before him by their king's order, and shut themselves up behind stone walls, after sweeping the country bare of provisions. The Duke of Lancaster marched up to the gates of Paris, and then all through Central France down to Bordeaux; but, though he did much damage to the open country, he could not halt to besiege any great town for want of food, and finally reached Guienne with an army half-starved and woefully reduced in numbers. Before King Edward was in his grave his dominions in France had shrunk to a district far smaller than he had held before the "Hundred Years' War" had commenced. Nothing was left save the ports of Bordeaux and Bayonne, with the strip of Gascon coast between them; in the north, however, the all-important fortress of Calais was firmly and successfully maintained.

Discontent and intrigue in England.—The Lollards.

Meanwhile there was bitter strife in Parliament at home, for ill success without always brings on discontent within. John of Gaunt, since he was known to sway his father's councils, was forced to bear the brunt of the popular displeasure. It was he who was considered responsible for the misconduct of the French war, the peculations of the king's favourites, and the demands of the crown for increased taxation. The party opposed to him in Parliament counted as its head the good bishop William of Wykeham, who had been Chancellor from 1367 to 1371, and had been driven from office by Lancaster's command. He was supported by the clergy, and by most of the "knights of the shires," who formed the more important half of the House of Commons. It was probably the fact that the clergy were unanimously set against him that led John of Gaunt to seek allies for himself by giving countenance to an attack on the Church, which was just then beginning to develop. This was the anti-papal movement of the Lollards, or Wicliffites, as they were called after their leader John Wicliffe—the "Morning Star of the Reformation." The state of the Papacy and of the Church at large was at this moment very scandalous. The Pope was living no more at Rome, but at Avignon, under the shadow of the French king, and the power of the Papacy was being shamelessly misused for French objects. England had never loved the papal influence, and had still less reason to love it when it was employed for the benefit of her political enemies. The tale of the simony, corruption, and evil living of the papal court had gone forth all over Europe, and provoked even more wrath in England than elsewhere. The English Church itself was far from blameless: there were bishops who were mere statesmen and warriors, and neglected their diocesan work; there were secular clergy who never saw their parishes, and monasteries where religion and sound learning were less regarded than wealth and high living. It was especially the great wealth of the monasteries, and the small profit that it brought the nation, which provoked popular comment. Since the days of the Statute of Mortmain the spirit of the times was changed, and benefactors who desired to leave a good work behind them founded and endowed schools and colleges, and not abbeys as of old. It was John Wicliffe, an Oxford Doctor of Divinity, and sometime master of Balliol College, who gave voice to the popular discontent with the state of the Papacy and the national Church. He taught that the Pope's claim to be God's vicegerent on earth and to guide the consciences of all men was a blasphemous usurpation, because each individual was responsible to Heaven for his own acts and thoughts. "All men," he said in feudal phraseology, "are tenants-in-chief under God, and hold from him all that they are and possess: the Pope claims to be our mesne-lord, and to interfere between us and our divine suzerain, and therein he grievously errs." Wicliffe also held that the Church was far too rich; he thought that her virtue was oppressed by the load of wealth, and advocated a return to apostolic poverty, in which the clergy should surrender the greater part of their enormous endowments. At a later date he developed doubts on the Real Presence and other leading doctrines of the mediaeval Church, but it was mainly as a denouncer of the power of the Papacy and the riches and luxury of the clergy that he became known.

Policy of John of Gaunt.—The Good Parliament.

John of Gaunt's object in favouring Wicliffe was purely political; with the reformer's religious views he can have had little sympathy. But he wished to turn the seething discontent of England into the channel of an attack on the Church, and to keep it from his own doors. For the last twenty years legislation against ecclesiastical grievances had been not infrequent. In 1351 the Statute of Provisors had prohibited the Pope from giving away English benefices to his favourites. In 1353 the First Statute of Praemunire had forbidden English litigants to transfer their disputes to the Church courts abroad. Duke John's attempt to distract the attention of the nation to the reform of matters ecclesiastic was partly successful; we find many proposals in Parliament to strip the Church of part of her overgrown endowments, and utilize them for the service of the state. On this point clerk and layman had many a bitter wrangle. But Lancaster could not altogether keep the storm from beating on himself and his father; in 1376 the "Good Parliament" impeached Latimer and Neville, Edward's favourites and ministers, and removed and fined them. Alice Perrers, the old king's mistress, was at the same time banished. In the following year Lancaster reasserted himself, packed a Parliament with his supporters, and cancelled the condemnation of Latimer, Neville, and Alice Perrers. The Bishop of London in revenge arrested Lancaster's protégé Wicliffe, and began to try him for heresy; but the duke appeared in the court, and so threatened and browbeat the bishop that he was fain to release his prisoner.