According to the saying of Solomon, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child," in the time of the youth of the same Richard many misfortunes, both caused thereby and happening therefrom, ceased not to harass the kingdom of England ... even to the great disorder of the State, and to the last undoing of King Richard himself and of those who too fondly clung to him. Amongst all other misfortunes, nay, amongst the most wicked of all wicked things, even errors and heresies in the catholic faith, England, and above all, London and Bristol, stood corrupted, being infected by the seeds which one master John Wycliffe sowed, polluting, as it were, the faith with the tares of his baleful teaching. And the followers of this master John, like Mahomet, by preaching things pleasing to the powerful and rich, namely, that the withholding of tithes and even of offerings and the reaving[44] of temporal goods from the clergy were praiseworthy, and, to the young, that self-indulgence was a virtue, most wickedly did sow the seed of murder, snares, strife, variance, and discords, which last unto this day, and which, I fear, will last even to the undoing of the kingdom.... The people of England, wrangling about the old faith and the new, are every day, as it were, on the very point of bringing down upon their own heads rebellion and ruin. And I fear that in the end it will happen as once it did, when many citizens of London, true to the faith, rose against the Duke of Lancaster to slay him, because he favoured the said Master John, so that hurrying from his table into a boat hastily provided, he fled across the Thames, and hardly escaped with his life.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Plundering.
THE PARLIAMENT OF 1384 (April, 1384).
Source.—Higden's Polychronicon (Rolls Series), ix. 32-40.
[This Parliament has been well called the turning-point of Richard's reign. It marked his first deliberate attempt to enforce his own policy in Parliament.]
Moreover, on the 29th day of April the King of England held a Parliament at Salisbury, and it lasted until the 27th day of the month of May. At the beginning of which several extraordinary things happened. Firstly, because both the lords spiritual and temporal, quarrelling among themselves, almost frustrated the object of Parliament. But the Duke of Lancaster intervening pacified them, mingling threats with much eloquence of words. Secondly, because of the words of the Earl of Arundell; for, in the hearing of all, in full Parliament, when the King was present, he said these words, or to this effect:
"My Lords, you know that the whole kingdom stands in peril of destruction through lack of prudent government, and the thing is now apparent, because, as you know, this kingdom has long begun to languish, and is now almost decaying. And unless it is quickly succoured by fitting remedies, and immediately snatched out of the tempestuous whirlpool in which it is involved, one indeed fears lest it may shortly suffer even greater misfortunes and heavy damages, and may be lacking in everything, all power of relief being withdrawn in the future, which God forbid."
At these words the King leapt up, and turning himself in fury, and looking angrily at the earl, said to him:
"If you charge it on me and say it is my fault that the kingdom is badly governed, I say to your face, you lie, go to the devil!"