A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

A strange change of fortune thus clouded the end of what promised to be a glorious reign. Edward, making war in the spirit of a knight-errant, and trusting completely to the courage of his troops on the day of battle, had neglected all the precautions which the conquest of a country requires. He had been successful neither as a strategist nor as a statesman, and his war with France, adorned with splendid victories, and for one moment promising to establish on a firm footing the English power in the South of France, had ended in a more complete overthrow of that power than had been seen since the time of King John. It was natural that the close of such a reign should be marked by some expressions of discontent among the people. Old before his time, in the hands of a woman of the name of Alice Perrers, whose ostentation was constantly shocking the public eye, Edward had fallen under the influence of bad advisers, and had let the reins of government slip into the hands of John of Gaunt, his third son.

Politics of the time.

To understand the politics of this time, we have to rid ourselves of both the names and ideas of the present day. The lines which divided classes were much more distinctly marked. Political life was confined entirely to the upper ranks. The House of Commons, which we are in the habit of regarding as a popular assembly, and which was, in fact, the most popular assembly of that time, was in part entirely aristocratic, in part representative of the moneyed interests of the country. Below this no class could make its voice heard at all, and this moneyed and aristocratic House of Commons was only beginning by slow degrees to force itself into political power. It had, in fact, consisted at first of two separate orders,—the knights of the shire, who represented the lesser nobility, and the burgesses. The knights had naturally joined without difficulty in the deliberations of a baronage who were socially their equals; the burgesses had busied themselves almost exclusively with financial questions touching their own order. Various causes had gradually tended to draw the two lower orders together, and by the beginning of the reign of Edward III., the division of Parliament into two Houses, of which the lower consisted of knights and burgesses, had been completed. Indeed, the Act of 1321, passed when Edward II. was victorious over the barons, had acknowledged the claims of the burgesses to share in the proceedings of Parliament. The practical government of the country had hitherto been in the hands of the House of Lords. There were thus three distinct classes, the baronage, the upper or represented commonalty, consisting of knights and burgesses, and the lower commonalty. Power was as yet in the hands of the baronage. When, therefore, no common cause was driving the baronage to united action, as among all governing classes, there was certain to be a difference of view, and the baronage would be divided into parties. On the other hand, the upper Commons, just forcing their way upwards, were inclined to be sometimes subservient to the wishes of the Barons, sometimes ready to join that one of the baronial parties which seemed to give them the greatest promise of political assistance. The lower, or unrepresented Commons, unable to make themselves heard, had been of no political account; although a series of events had lately contributed to put them in such a position that their friendship was worth having, and to enable them soon to speak with arms in their hands, in a way which was very terrible. Each of these classes had its own particular interests, and made their combinations with the other classes to suit the advance of those interests. The Barons desired power, the higher Commons good administration, especially of the finances; the lower Commons such improvements in their position as they afterwards claimed under Wat Tyler. Hitherto, in the main, the interest of the baronage had been the restriction within fixed limits of the royal authority; they had hitherto been the guardians of the constitutional growth of the country, and their rebellions and opposition, whatever selfish leaven may have been mixed with them, deserve to be regarded as efforts towards popular liberty. About the period which we have now reached, this guardianship of the Constitution passed into the hands of the upper Commons. The Barons themselves having now acquired a preponderance in the government, it was their encroachments rather than the King’s which had to be guarded against. In principle, the safeguards of the Constitution had been established by Edward I., and were therefore no longer the subject of contention. The baronage was no longer interested to secure power, but to enjoy a power already secured. They thus fell into parties whose real object was to appropriate that power. For that purpose, like other political parties, the rival Barons would seek to attach to themselves any of the other sections of society, and would therefore adopt those principles and those party cries which seemed to promise them the most success. It becomes, therefore, impossible to say that this or that baronial insurrection was popular or constitutional. For their own objects, the most disorderly Barons might attach themselves to the Commons, to the lower classes, or to the King. Their divisions had, in fact, become party struggles for power.

Now the chief questions at that time exciting England were the position of the Church, the continuation of the war with France, and the management of the finances. On any of these questions the baronage might form itself into parties, which might seek their own advantage by adopting the interests of other sections of society. It is in this way that must be explained the apparent contradictions in the conduct of the Parliament at the close of Edward’s reign. For many years there had been growing a strong dislike to the Church in England. The oppressions of the Popes, the selfish character of their government at Avignon, the loss of spirituality on the part of the higher clergy, from whose ranks the statesmen of the time were largely drawn, and the deterioration of the mendicant orders, together with the idea always prevalent in England of the supremacy of the state, had given birth to a party who desired the pre-eminence in all matters of the laity,—a party which is of course connected with the doctrinal views at this time brought forward by Wicliffe. The existence of this lay party is clearly shown by the proceedings of the year 1340, when for the first time a lay Chancellor, Sir Robert Bouchier, was appointed in the place of Stratford. When the baronage were divided, the natural leaders of the parties were the royal princes. Thus, when circumstances had put the reins of power into the hands of John of Gaunt, he fortified himself by assuming the leadership of the lay party, which found its adherents in all sections of society, but no doubt mainly among the barons, jealous of the great part played in the government by the clergy, the vast wealth which the Church held, and which is calculated at more than a third of the land, and rendered self-confident by their successes in the French war. Already schemes for the confiscation of Church property had been publicly mentioned, and the Commons, with the approbation of John of Gaunt, had in 1371 petitioned for the removal of all the clergy from the higher offices of state. The Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham, had surrendered the great seal, which, together with the offices of the exchequer, had been put into the hands of laymen. There are many proofs that the class which was represented in the Commons partook strongly of the dislike to the Church. But any claim to popularity which Lancaster’s administration might have advanced on this ground was destroyed by their mismanagement of the finances and the disasters of the foreign war. In fact, there is little doubt that the ecclesiastics he had displaced were far better governors than the partisans he had put in their places. Another party was therefore formed, at the head of which was the Black Prince, a party consisting of those who preferred the old system of government, and which included the higher clergy and the financial reformers. It has been pointed out that the disastrous government of John of Gaunt had found its partisans chiefly among the Barons. On the whole, therefore, the Commons attached themselves to the party of the Black Prince. For the time a restoration of good government and well-managed finance seemed to them of more importance than the overthrow of the Church, especially as their interests as a class seemed to lead in the same direction. The struggle came to an issue in the Good Parliament, which met in April 1376. The Commons presented a remonstrance, which, after enumerating their financial grievances, and asserting the mismanagement of the Government, demanded a change in the council; in other words, a change of ministry. The clergy, and William of Wykeham among them, again came into office. They were not content with this, but impeached—and this is the first instance of parliamentary impeachment—Lord Latimer, the Chamberlain. A considerable number of the other officers were arrested and thrown into prison, and Alice Perrers was forbidden to use her influence under pain of banishment. They were still discussing further reforms, when the death of the Black Prince deprived them of their chief support. Afraid that John of Gaunt had views on the succession, they insisted on the immediate recognition of the Black Prince’s son; and a deputation waited on the old King at Eltham to receive an answer to their complaints and petitions. These, as might be expected, were chiefly directed against the encroachments of the Papacy, in hatred to which all parties in England joined. Still the King’s reply shows the influence of the newly restored clerical counsellors. Enough, he said, had been done in the way of legislation, he would continue his personal appeals to the Pope. Parliament then separated.

Death of Black Prince. Lancaster regains power.

Lancastrian Parliament. 1377.

Trial of Wicliffe.

Uproar in London.

Death of the King.

It at once became plain that the Black Prince’s death had again thrown the power into the hands of John of Gaunt. The power of the new Privy Council disappeared, Lord Latimer was pardoned, Peter de la Mare, the speaker of the Good Parliament, was thrown into prison, William of Wykeham was again driven from the court. The Parliament which assembled next year was thoroughly in the Lancastrian interest. Sir Thomas Hungerford, the Duke’s steward, was elected Speaker, the proceedings against Alice Perrers withdrawn, and a new form of tax—a poll-tax of 4d.—granted. But the clergy did not thus easily yield their ground. They attacked the apostle of the lay party, Wicliffe. He had to appear before Courtenay, Bishop of London, in St. Paul’s. He came, supported by Lancaster and by the Marshall, Henry Percy, a close adherent of that party of which Lancaster was the head. An unseemly brawl arose in the church. Lancaster threatened to drag Courtenay out of the church by the hair. The Londoners were already so ill disposed to Lancaster, that measures were in preparation to remove their mayor, and put the government of the town in the hands of a royal commission. The insult to their Bishop roused them to fury. It was only by Courtenay’s intervention that Lancaster’s house was saved from demolition; and a wretched man was killed under the supposition that he was Henry Percy. Lancaster escaped, and the city had to make some sort of reparation; but the quarrel was scarcely quieted when the King died. Deserted by his mistress, who is said to have torn the rings from his dying hand, and by his servants, the wretched old man died, tended only by a single poor priest.