Jealousy of Richard and his mother against the uncles.
When Richard was married, he was, as has already been said, only about fifteen or sixteen years of age. As he grew older, after this time, and began to feel that sense of strength and independence which pertains to manhood, he became more and more jealous of the power and influence of his uncles in the government of the country. His mother, too, who was still living, and who adhered closely to him, was very suspicious of the uncles. She was continually imagining that they were forming plots and conspiracies against her son in favor of themselves or of their own children. She was particularly suspicious of the Duke of Lancaster, and of his son Henry Bolingbroke. It proved in the end that there was some reason for this suspicion, for this Henry Bolingbroke was the means at last of deposing Richard from his throne in order to take possession of it himself, as we shall see in the sequel.
Plots and manœuvres.
In order to prevent, as far as possible, these uncles from finding opportunity to accomplish any of their supposed designs, Richard and his mother excluded them, as much as they could, from power, and appointed other persons, who had no such claims to the crown, to all the important places about the court. This, of course, made the uncles very angry. They called the men whom Richard thus brought forward his favorites, and they hated them exceedingly. This state of things led to a great many intrigues, and manœuvres, and plots, and counterplots, the favorites against the uncles, and the uncles against the favorites. These difficulties were continued for many years. Parties were formed in Parliament, of which sometimes one was in the ascendency and sometimes the other, and all was turmoil and confusion.
Thomas, Duke of Gloucester.
When Richard was about twenty years old, one of his uncles—his uncle Thomas, at that time Duke of Gloucester—gained such an influence in Parliament that some of Richard's favorites were deposed from office and imprisoned. The duke was imboldened by this success to take a farther step. He told the Parliament that the government would never be on a good footing until they themselves appointed a council to manage in the king's name.
When Richard heard of this plan, he declared that he would never submit to it.
"I am the King of England," said he, "and I will govern my realm by means of such officers as I choose to appoint myself. I will not have others to appoint them for me."
Province of Parliament.
Prerogative of the king.
The ideas which the kings of those days entertained in respect to the province of Parliament was that it was to vote the necessary taxes to supply the king's necessities, and also to mature the details of all laws for the regulation of the ordinary business and the social relations of life, but that the government, strictly so called—that is, all that relates to the appointment and payment of executive officers, the making of peace or war, the building and equipment of fleets, and the command of armies, was exclusively the king's prerogative, and that for the exercise of his prerogative in these particulars the sovereign was responsible, not to his subjects, but to God alone, from whom he claimed to have received his crown.