A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Change of ministry demanded. Impeachment of Suffolk.

He was at once succeeded in his influence and in his party leadership by a far more dangerous man, another uncle of the King, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester. Meanwhile the politics of England had changed, and had fallen back into their normal condition. We have seen that the King had been allowed the free selection of his own household. He had surrounded himself by men not drawn from the higher baronage.[64] His chief favourite was De Vere, whom he had made Earl of Oxford, and subsequently Duke of Ireland, and to whom he had intrusted the government of that disturbed country; while his ministers nominated by Parliament were also men who owed their position to their capacity rather than to their birth. The chief of these was Michael de la Pole, the chancellor, whom the King had raised to the rank of Earl of Suffolk. He was thus open to the old charge of favouritism. The Lancastrian party had set themselves against his favourites. Already one of them, the Earl of Stafford, had been killed by Sir John Holland, and Gloucester found no difficulty in forming a powerful party among the barons, taking for his cry the reform of the administration, and seeking to excite the national feeling, by keeping alive the animosity against France, towards which country Richard was much drawn; while the specious pretext of reform as usual attracted the Commons. In 1386, Gloucester took advantage of a threatened invasion from France to produce charges against the administration. The King’s officers, it was said, had used the public revenues for their own purposes; the Commons had been impoverished by taxes, the landowners could not get their rents, and tenants were compelled to abandon their farms through distress. The three last of these charges were traceable, not to government, but to economical changes, but served well as a party catchword; and so successful were they, that in a Parliament held at Westminster, Commons and Lords united in demanding a change of ministry. After a contest of three weeks the King yielded. Suffolk was dismissed, and his dismissal was immediately followed by his impeachment. The charges brought against him were held to be partly proved, and he was sentenced to be kept in prison during the King’s pleasure. After the dissolution of Parliament he was released. His place was taken by Arundel, Bishop of Ely.

Commission of Government.

The King prepares a counterblow. 1387.

The five Lords Appellant in arms impeach the King’s friends.

Affair of Radcot.

This blow, though severe, was followed by a worse one. The old baronial policy of establishing a committee of reform was renewed. To intimidate the King, the statute of the deposition of Edward II. was produced in Parliament. The estates having declared that unless he granted their requests they would separate without his permission, he was finally compelled to authorize a commission of eleven peers and bishops, to inquire into abuses and regulate reform. Their duty was a very wide one, touching the household, the treasury, and all complaints out of the reach of law. The partisans of Gloucester formed the majority of this committee, of which the Duke himself and his chief friend, Lord Arundel,[65] were members. It was arranged that the power of the committee should last for one year only. It does not seem to have brought to light any great abuses, nor was its government sufficiently superior to that which had preceded it to justify its establishment. Richard had no mind to submit to a limitation of his prerogative which seemed so little called for. He set to work with his usual secretiveness. At Shrewsbury, and again at Nottingham, he inquired of the judges how far the late conduct of the reformers was constitutional. Their reply was strongly in favour of the prerogative. They declared the late measures treasonable, and its authors liable to capital punishment, denied the power of Parliament to impeach, and declared Suffolk’s condemnation false. Fulthorpe, one of the King’s judges, though sworn to secrecy, at once told Gloucester of the King’s questions. Consequently, when Richard had made all preparations for a sudden coup d’état, he was alarmed to find that Gloucester, Arundel, and Nottingham, had reached London the same day as himself, with a numerous army. At Waltham Cross the Earls of Derby and Warwick joined them, and they proceeded to appeal, or, as we should say, accuse of high treason, the Archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the Earl of Suffolk, Robert Tresilian the judge, and Sir Nicholas Brember, whose influence had been employed to secure London for Richard. The accused sought refuge in flight, and the Duke of Ireland succeeded in raising troops in the West, and attempted to bring the matter to the issue of battle. But the Lords Appellant were beforehand with him; he was unable to cross the Thames, as he hoped, at Radcot; and being there surrounded, with difficulty escaped by swimming the river.

The Wonderful Parliament.

Gloucester’s unimportant government.

The appellants, now masters of the kingdom, made a thorough clearance of all who could be considered King’s favourites. Eleven of his intimate friends were imprisoned, a number of the lords and ladies of the Court removed, and in February 1388, a Parliament known as the “Wonderful or merciless Parliament” assembled, which, in a long session of 122 days, was employed almost entirely in destroying the enemies of Gloucester. His appeal was heard, and all the five accused gentlemen were found guilty; three escaped, Tresilian and Brember were put to death. Some of the judges were likewise executed, some pardoned on the intercession of the bishops, and four knights, old and intimate friends of Richard, of whom Sir Simon Burley is the best known, were also impeached and beheaded. Parliament closed with an ordinance, declaring that the treasons for which these men had suffered were not established by any statute, and should not form a precedent; and by exacting a repetition of Richard’s coronation oath. For a year, Gloucester ruled at his will, without any marked success. The Percies were defeated by the Scotch at Otterbourne, and an invasion from France was only averted by the incessant dissensions which had arisen in that country during the minority of Charles VI. Before the end of Gloucester’s administration, however, truces were concluded with both Scotland and France.