What became of Richard after his having been deposed is a point upon which historians have differed; but the favourite belief is that he was cut off with an axe by one of his gaolers at Pomfret Castle, where he was kept in custody. Some are of opinion that he was starved, and died rather from want of a chop than by one having been administered. Mr. Tytler believes that the unfortunate exmonarch escaped to Scotland, where he resided for twenty years; but the story is doubtful, for even in Scotland it is impossible to live upon nothing, which would have been the income of Richard after his exclusion from the royal dignity.
When we come to weigh this sovereign in the scale, we can scarcely allow him to pass without noticing his deficiency. He seems to have had originally a due amount of sterling metal, but the warmth of adulation melted away much of the precious ore, as a sovereign is frequently diminished in value by sweating. To this deteriorating influence may be added that of the clipping process, to which he was subjected by his enemies, who were bent on curtailing his power. He had by nature a noble and generous disposition, which might have made him an excellent monarch. But our business is with what he really was, and not with what he might have been. He was alternately cowardly and tyrannical, in conformity with the general rule—applicable even to boys at school—that it is the most contemptible sneak towards the stronger who is towards the weaker the fiercest bully. Wholesome resistance tames him down into the sneak again, and in pursuance of this ordinary routine, Richard, from an overbearing tyrant, became a crouching poltroon, when his enemies got the upper hand of him.
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It was during this reign that the authority of the pope was vigorously disputed in England, chiefly at the instigation of John Wickliffe, who denied many of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and protested against its supremacy. Its influence was, moreover, weakened by its being in some sort "a house divided." Avignon had been for some time the papal residence, but the Italian cardinals having persuaded the pontiff to return to Rome, the French cardinals set up a sort of opposition pope, who continued to live at Avignon. Urban did the honours with great urbanity in the Eternal City, while Clement carried on the papal business at the old establishment in France, and Europe became divided between the Clementines and Urbanists.
These two sects of Christians continued to denounce each other to eternal perdition for some years, and their trial of strength seemed to consist chiefly in a competition as to which could execrate the other with the greatest bitterness. This dissension was no doubt favourable to the views of Wickliffe, who, like other great reformers, renounced in his old age the liberal doctrines by which he had obtained his early popularity.
We have alluded in the course of this chapter to a combat which was about to take place between the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, in pursuance of the practice of Wager of Battle, which was in those days prevalent. It may seem unjust and ridiculous to the present generation, that the strongest arm or stoutest spear should have settled a legal difference, but even in our own times it is frequently the longest purse which determines the issue of a law-suit. The only difference is that litigants formerly knocked about each other's persons, instead of making their assaults upon each other's pockets, and the legal phrase, that "so-and-so is not worth powder and shot," preserves the allegory of a combat, to which an action-at-law may be compared with the utmost propriety. There has always been something chivalric in entering upon the perilous enterprise of litigation, and we are not surprised that the forensic champions of England should have been originally an order of Knights Templars. The only military title which is still left to the legal corps is that of Sergeant, and the black patch in the centre of their heads is perhaps worn in memory of some wound received by an early member of their order in the days of Wager of Battle. The sword of justice may also be regarded as emblematical of the hard fight that is frequently required on the part of those who seek to have justice done to them by the laws of their country.
Contemporaneously with the Wager of Battle, there was introduced during the reign of Henry the Second a sort of option, by which suitors who were averse to single combat might support their rights by the oaths of twelve men of the vicinage. Thus it was possible for those who were afraid of hard hitting to have recourse to hard swearing, if they could get twelve neighbours to take the oath that might have been required. These persons were called the Grand Assize, and formed the jurors—a word, as everybody knows, derived from the Latin juro, to swear—but the duty has since been transferred from the jury to the witnesses, who not unfrequently swear quite as hard as the most unscrupulous of our ancestors.