The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part B. / From Henry III. to Richard III.

by David Hume

We may even the proof of these articles, frivolous as they are, was found very deficient upon the trial: it appeared that Suffolk had made no purchase from the crown while he was chancellor, and that all his bargains of that kind were made before he was advanced to that dignity.[*] It is almost needless to add, that he was condemned, notwithstanding his defence; and that he was deprived of his office.

Glocester and his associates observed their stipulation with the king, and attacked no more of his ministers: but they immediately attacked himself and his royal dignity, and framed a commission after the model of those which had been attempted almost in every reign since that of Richard I., and which had always been attended with extreme confusion.[**] By this commission, which was ratified by parliament, a council of fourteen persons was appointed, all of Glocester’s faction, except Nevil, archbishop of York: the sovereign power was transferred to these men for a twelvemonth: the king, who had now reached the twenty-first year of his age, was in reality dethroned: the aristocracy was rendered supreme: and though the term of the commission was limited, it was easy to foresee that the intentions of the party were to render it perpetual, and that power would with great difficulty be wrested from those grasping hands to which it was once committed. Richard, however, was obliged to submit: he signed the commission which violence had extorted from him; he took an oath never to infringe it; and though at the end of the session he publicly entered a protest, that the prerogatives of the crown, notwithstanding his late concession, should still be deemed entire and unimpaired,[***] the new commissioners, without regarding this declaration, proceeded to the exercise of their authority.

* Rymer, vol. vii. p. 481. Cotton, p. 31.
** Cotton, p. 315.
*** Knyghton, p. 2686. Statutes at large, 10 Rich. II. chap.
I.

1887.

The king, thus dispossessed of royal power, was soon sensible of the contempt into which he was fallen. His favorites and ministers, who were as yet allowed to remain about his person, failed not to aggravate the injury which without any demerit on his part, had been offered to him. And his eager temper was of itself sufficiently inclined to remark that the dukes of Glocester and York, though vastly rich received at the same time each of them a thousand pounds a year top support their dignity and to seek the means, both of recovering his authority, and of revenging himself on those who had invaded it. As the house of commons appeared now of weight in the constitution, he secretly tried some expedients for procuring a favorable election: he sounded some of the sheriffs, who, being at that time both the returning officers, and magistrates of great power in the counties, had naturally considerable influence in elections.[*] But as most of them had been appointed by his uncles, either during his minority or during the course of the present commission, he found them in general averse to his enterprise. The sentiments and inclinations of the judges were more favorable to him. He met at Nottingham Sir Robert Tresilian, chief justice of the king’s bench, Sir Robert Belknappe, chief justice of the common pleas, Sir John Gary, chief baron of the exchequer, Holt, Fulthorpe, and Bourg, inferior justices, and Lockton, serjeant at law; and he proposed to them some queries, which these lawyers, either from the influence of his authority or of reason, made no scruple of answering in the way he desired. They declared that the late commission was derogatory to the royalty and prerogative of the king; that those who procured it, or advised the king to consent to it, were punishable with death; that those who necessitated and compelled him were guilty of treason; that those were equally criminal who should persevere in maintaining it; that the king has the right of dissolving parliaments at pleasure; that the parliament, while it sits, must first proceed upon the king’s business; and that this assembly cannot without his consent impeach any of his ministers and judges.[**] Even according to our present strict maxims with regard to law and the royal prerogative, all these determinations, except the two last, appear justifiable: and as the great privileges of the commons, particularly that of impeachment, were hitherto new and supported by few precedents, there want not plausible reasons to justify these opinions of the judges.[***]

* In the preamble to 5 Henry IV. cap. vii. it is implied,
that the sheriffs in a manner appointed the members of the
house of commons, not only in this parliament, but in many
others.
** Knyghton, p. 2694. Ypod. Neust. p. 541.
*** The parliament, in 1341, exacted of Edward III., that on
the third day of every session, the king should resume all
the great offices; and that the ministers should then answer
to any accusation that should be brought against them; which
plainly implies, that, while ministers they could not be
accused or impeached in parliament, therefore, their answer
to the king’s queries before the archhishops of York and
Dublin, the bishops of Durham, Chichester, and Bangor, the
duke of Ireland, the earl of Suffolk, and two other
counsellors of inferior quality. Henry IV. told the
commons that the usage of parliament required them to go
first through the king’s business In granting supplies;
which order the king intended not to alter. Parl. Hist. vol.
ii. p. 65. Upon the whole, it must be allowed that,
according to ancient practice and principles, there are at
least plausible grounds for all these opinions of the
judges. It must be remarked, that this affirmation of Henry
IV. was given deliberately, after consulting the house of
peers, who were much better acquainted with the usage of
parliament than the ignorant commons. And it has the greater
authority, because Henry IV. had made this very principle a
considerable article of charge against his predecessor; and
that a very few years before. So ill grounded were most of
the imputations thrown on the unhappy Richard.

They obliged the king to summon a parliament, which was entirely at their devotion, they had full power, by observing a few legal forms, to take vengeance on all their enemies. Five great peers, men whose combined power was able at any time to shake the throne,—the duke of Glocester, the king’s uncle; the earl of Derby, son of the duke of Lancaster; the earl of Arundel; the earl of Warwick; and the earl of Nottingham, mareschal of England,—entered before the parliament an accusation, or appeal, as it was called, against the five counsellors whom they had already accused before the king. The parliament, who ought to have been judges, were not ashamed to impose an oath on all their members, by which they bound themselves to live and die with the lords appellants, and to defend them against all opposition with their lives and fortunes.[*]

* Cotton, p. 322.

The duke of Glocester and his adherents soon got intelligence of this secret consultation, and were naturally very much alarmed at it. They saw the king’s intentions; and they determined to prevent the execution of them. As soon as he came to London, which they knew was well disposed to their party, they secretly assembled their forces, and appeared in arms at Haringay Park, near Highgate, with a power which Richard and his ministers were not able to resist. They sent him a message by the archbishop of Canterbury, and the lords Lovel Cobham, and Devereux, and demanded that the persons who had seduced him by their pernicious counsel, and were traitors both to him and to the kingdom, should be delivered up to them. A few days after, they appeared in his presence, armed, and attended with armed followers; and they accused by name the archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, the earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, and Sir Nicholas Brembre, as public and dangerous enemies to the state. They threw down their gauntlets before the king, and fiercely offered to maintain the truth of their charge by duel. The persons accused, and all the other obnoxious ministers, had withdrawn or had concealed themselves.

The duke of Ireland fled to Cheshire, and levied some forces, with which he advanced to relieve the king from the violence of the nobles. Glocester encountered him in Oxfordshire with much superior forces; routed him, dispersed his followers, and obliged him to fly into the Low Countries, where he died in exile a few years after.