Munera tam prompte nobis ad obsequia.
Et placeat veteri nunc urbem reddere juri,
Ac libertates restituisse suas.”
Two years later the King went through the form of marriage with the French princess Isabel who was brought over at the age of eight. The Mayor and Aldermen went out to meet the “little Queen” at Blackheath, and escorted her to Kennington Palace, and the next day from that Palace to the Tower, the roads and streets being crowded with an innumerable throng.
The extravagance of the King had now become an intolerable burden to the country, especially to London. He is said to have maintained 10,000 persons at his Court. There were 300 employed in the kitchen alone. There was never any prince who clad himself more gorgeously: one cloak he had made of gold and silver cloth studded with jewels which cost him £2000, or about £40,000 of our money. He seems to have been unable to understand the meaning of money or the relation between things he desired, and the taxable wealth of the country. His last method of extortion was to issue blank charters which the merchants were to sign and he was to fill up at his pleasure. This proved too much for the long-suffering City. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had recently died; so they sent for his son Henry, Duke of Lancaster.
HENRY OF LANCASTER BRINGS KING RICHARD BACK TO LONDON
From MS. in British Museum. Harl. 1319.
The rest is history; Henry came, was received with acclamations by the City, a company of 1200 Londoners, fully armed, was raised for him; he marched out with them and with others and seized the King whom he brought back to London with him. The rabble wanted to murder their former idol on the way. The Recorder with a great number of Knights and Esquires went out to meet Lancaster and his captive. In the name of the City this functionary begged Henry to behead the King. Perhaps, however, the story is not true. Holinshed simply speaks of the immense joy of the people, and says that “many evil-disposed persons, assembling themselves together in great numbers, intended to have met with him and to have taken him from such as had the conveying of him, that they might have slain him.”