Dissension now broke out between the king and the lords. A Parliament was convoked. The king inserted in his writs an order to return those persons who were debatis modernis magis indifferentes; but he was soon obliged to erase this clause, and to declare it illegal in new writs. The Parliament met on the 3rd of February, 1388, and took precautions to ensure that it should alone decide upon all great public matters, and that it should not be dissolved after having voted a subsidy. An accusation was lodged by five lords, called appellants, against the favourites of the king, and the judges. This accusation really conceals a great party conflict beneath the forms of judicial procedure. The Upper House declared that, on such grave occasions, the Parliament alone could judge, and was bound by none of the laws which regulate the proceedings of other courts. Eighteen persons were condemned, most of them to death, and many by default. The Parliament separated after having sat five months. It was called the Wonderful Parliament, and also the Pitiless Parliament. It had been careful to declare that the condemnation of the favourite councillors and judges, did not in any way throw discredit upon the king himself.
Increase Of The Royal Power.
The authority of the committee of eleven lords over the government was exercised without opposition for a year. In May, 1389, the king assembled his council, and declared that, being now of full age, he was capable of governing his inheritance himself, and that it was not fitting that he should be in a worse condition than every subject in his dominions who could freely dispose of his goods. "It is well known," he said, "that for several years I have lived under your guardianship, and I thank you for the trouble you have taken on my account; but now that I have reached my majority, I am determined to remain no longer under tutelage, but to take in hand the government of my kingdom and to appoint or revoke my ministers and other officers according to my pleasure." He changed the chancellor and other great officers, and dismissed from his council several of the eleven lords.
Here began the second epoch in this reign—the epoch of reaction against the Parliament. Great obscurity prevails as to the causes which placed Richard II. in a position to effect such a revolution; but he was most probably emboldened to do so by division in the committee of eleven lords, and by the bad use which some of them had made of their power. The king and his new council governed at first with prudence, and manifested great respect for the Parliament. On the 16th of January, 1390, a Parliament was convoked. The new ministers resigned their offices, and submitted their conduct to its scrutiny. The Parliament declared that it found no cause for complaint, and the ministers resumed their functions. Seven Parliaments were held from 1390 to 1397. They became more and more timid and docile, and the king's authority assumed an increasingly extended and arbitrary character. These are the principal facts which characterize this reaction:—
In 1391, the Parliament assured the king that the royalty and prerogatives of his crown should ever remain intact and inviolable; that if they had in any way been infringed, it should be reformed; and that the king should enjoy as large liberty as any of his predecessors ever did: "which prayer seemed to our lord the king honest and reasonable," and he consented to it. In 1391 and 1392, the Parliament admitted the king's power to dispense with the observance of certain statutes in ecclesiastical matters, on condition that these statutes should not be held to be thereby revoked. In 1392, the king, being offended with the city of London, withdrew from it its liberties and imprisoned its magistrates; but shortly afterwards he restored its liberties to the city, and imposed on it a fine of £1000 sterling. In 1394, the judges who had been banished to Ireland by the Parliament of 1388, were recalled. In 1397, a bill was brought forward in the House of Commons, proposing that all extravagant expenditure should be avoided in the royal household, and that those bishops and ladies who had nothing to do at court should not have permission to reside there. The king was incensed at this bill before it was presented to him, and said in the Upper House, "that it was directed against those liberties and royalties which his progenitors had enjoyed, and which he was resolved to uphold and maintain." He ordered the Lords to inform the Commons of his resolution, and directed the Duke of Lancaster to command Sir John Bussy, the Speaker of the Commons, to inform him what member had introduced the bill into Parliament. The Commons became alarmed, and humbly besought the king's pardon. At a conference, they placed the bill in the king's hands, and delivered up to him its proposer, Thomas Haxey. The king forgave them, and the Parliament itself declared Haxey guilty of treason. The clergy saved his life by claiming him as a clerk—which proves that at this period ecclesiastics were not excluded from Parliament.
In September, 1397, Richard II. at length judged himself in a position to assume the plenitude of his power, to annul all that had been done in 1388 to limit his authority, and to avenge his injuries.
A Parliament was convoked. Every precaution had been taken to ensure its docility. The sheriffs had been changed; and all sorts of practices had been put in force to influence the elections. Numerous bodies of troops formed the royal guard. The Parliament was opened with great solemnity. The chancellor, the Bishop of Exeter, took as the text of his speech: Rex unus erit omnibus. Subsequent events fully corresponded with these preliminaries. All the acts of the Parliament of 1388 were revoked, and their authors accused of treason; five of them were condemned to death. The principal leader of the opposition, the Duke of Gloucester, was assassinated in prison at Calais, after having been constrained to acknowledge his past crimes in a confession in which he formerly accused himself of having "restrained the king of his freedom." After these condemnations the same Parliament held a second session at Shrewsbury, in which the answers of the judges in 1387 were declared good and legitimate, and precisely the same measures were taken to render these new decisions inviolable, which had been employed by the Parliament of 1388 to ensure the observance of its own resolutions. These two sessions lasted sixteen days. In less than two years afterwards, Richard was dethroned.