Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

Sir Robert Tresilian, of Tresilian, in the parish of Newlyn, and by virtue of marriage with the heiress of Haweis also lord of Tremoderet in Duloe, was Lord Chief Justice of England and adviser to King Richard II; he accordingly drew upon himself the animosity of the King's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. But he had also drawn upon his head the hatred of the commonalty by his "bloody circuit" after the insurrection of Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball.

When Sir Robert Knollys had brought together a large force against the insurgents, the young King had forbidden him to slaughter them en masse, as he proposed, "For," said he, "I will have their blood in another way." And he had their blood by sending Chief Justice Tresilian among them, and, according to Holinshed, the number of executions amounted to 1500. At first they were beheaded; afterwards they were hanged and left on the gibbet to excite terror; but their friends cut down the bodies and carried them off; whereupon the King ordered that they should be hanged in strong iron chains; and this was the first instance of this barbarous and disgusting practice in England.

The King had promised the insurgent peasantry that serfage should be abolished, that liberty should be accorded to all to buy and sell in the markets, and that land should be let at fourpence an acre, that a general amnesty should be accorded. To all these he had acceded with charters signed and sealed; but so soon as the disturbances were over he repudiated his undertakings, and we cannot doubt that he did so at the advice of Tresilian, who pronounced them illegal.

Richard did, indeed, in the next Parliament, urge the abolition of villainage, but the proposal was coldly received, not pressed, and rejected. Moreover, on the occasion of his marriage with Anne of Bohemia, which took place soon after, a general amnesty was proclaimed.

The people were, however, disaffected. The imposition of a poll tax levied on rich and poor at the same sum on all over fifteen, and the scandalous manner in which it had been collected, had given general dissatisfaction, and it was, in fact, this which had roused Wat Tyler to march on London to obtain redress.

The King had surrounded himself with favourites, and his uncles were excluded from his council. The country was divided between the party of the King and that of the Duke of Gloucester. There is not the least reason to suppose that the latter had at heart the welfare of the people of England, any more than had the creatures who surrounded the King. The Duke was moved by resentment, pride, and ambition, and many believed that he aimed at the crown.

The chief favourites of Richard were Michael de la Pole, whom he created Earl of Suffolk, and Robert de Vere, a young and handsome man, who was made Marquis of Dublin, receiving, at the same time, the extraordinary grant of the whole revenue of Ireland, out of which he was to pay a yearly rent of five thousand marks to the King. He was soon after created Duke of Ireland. The other advisers of the King were Worth, Archbishop of York, Sir Simon Burley, and Sir Robert Tresilian. These certainly judged rightly when they opposed the prosecution of the war in France, and the subvention of the claims of the Duke of Lancaster to the Crown of Castile. The country was being drained of men and money in these profitless wars. But the nobles, headed by Thomas of Gloucester, opposed this policy, and naturally had the support of those who made money out of the wars. To defeat the plans of the council, Gloucester demanded the dismissal of Suffolk. The King petulantly answered that he would not at his command dismiss a scullion-boy from his kitchen. Suffolk was, however, impeached by the Commons for undue use of his influence, and the King was obliged to submit to the fining and imprisonment of his favourite. It was next proposed that a council should be appointed to reform the State. At this proposition Richard threatened to dissolve the Parliament. A member of the Commons thereupon moved that the statute deposing Edward II should be read, and the King was warned that death might be the penalty of a continued refusal. He yielded. The commission was appointed, and Gloucester and his friends, who formed the great majority, were masters of England. In yielding, Richard limited the duration of the commission to a year. The King was now twenty years of age, but he was reduced to as mere a cipher as when he was a boy of eleven.

In the month of August in the following year, 1387, acting under the advice of Tresilian, he assembled a council at Nottingham, and submitted to some of the judges who attended it this question—Whether the Commission of Government appointed by Parliament, and approved of under his own seal, were legal or illegal? Tresilian led the rest of the judges to certify that the commission was illegal, and that all those who had introduced the measure were liable to capital punishment; that all who supported it were by that act guilty of high treason; in short, that both Lords and Commons were traitors.

On the 11th November following the King returned to London, when he was alarmed by hearing that the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel and Nottingham, the Constable, Admiral, and Marshal of England were approaching the capital at the head of forty thousand men. The decision of Tresilian and the judges and of the King had, in fact, forced them into rebellion, as it was pretty evident that Richard aimed at taking their lives.

So soon as Richard's cousin, the Earl of Derby, heard of the approach of Gloucester, he quitted the Court with the Earl of Warwick, went to Waltham Cross, and there joined him. The members of the Council of Eleven were there already. On Sunday, the 17th of November, the Duke entered London with an irresistible force and "appealed" of treason the Archbishop of York, De Vere, Duke of Ireland, De la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice of England, and Sir Nicolas Brember, Knight, a London grocer and Lord Mayor of London.