The chancellor continued. ‘Our lord the king – considering how many high offences and misdeeds have been committed by the people of his kingdom against their allegiance and the estate of our lord the king and the law of his land in the past … and willing in his royal benignity to show and do grace to his said people, so that they should have greater courage and will to do good, and bear themselves the better towards the king in time to come – so he wills and agrees to make … a general pardon to his lieges … excepting fifty persons whom it would please the king to name, and all those who will be impeached in the present parliament.’
The king refused to name the fifty. Fear struck all those present.
It intensified the following day.
‘My lord king’, said Sir John Bussy, after the commons had re-elected him Speaker, ‘since we are bound by your command to tell your royal highness who undermined your power and transgressed against your regality, we tell you that Thomas, duke of Gloucester, and Richard, earl of Arundel, in the tenth year of your reign, with the assistance of Thomas Arundel, then chancellor of England and now archbishop of Canterbury, compelled you to concede a commission touching the government and state of your kingdom which was to the prejudice of your regality and majesty, whereby they did you great injury.’34
With that, the king demanded the commission of 1386 be read out. When everyone had heard it, the king declared in cold anger that it was hereby revoked, repealed and perpetually annulled, and so was every single Act which had been passed as a consequence.
Next the king demanded that the pardons against those who had risen in revolt in 1387 be read out aloud. When they had been heard, these were all revoked also. So too was the special pardon granted to the earl of Arundel in 1394. The pro-royalist commons, through Bussy, demanded that Richard be informed that the archbishop of Canterbury had advised the granting of this pardon to his brother, the earl, and so he too should be declared a traitor. Immediately the archbishop rose to his feet and began to speak. But Richard silenced him, declaring he could answer tomorrow. He never had the chance. As Bussy had said to the king, the archbishop was too clever; he should not be allowed to speak.
What Henry thought of this can be seen in the charges he later brought against Richard. But for the moment he kept quiet. He had to. His own pardon had just been revoked, and although Richard was prepared to forgive him on the grounds that he had tried to restrain the others, this provided him with little reassurance. In this mood of terror, it would take barely a word against Richard to incur the penalty of death. When the chancellor went on to announce that the matters that were about to be discussed were criminal offences, and that the prelates need not be present, it was clear that someone was going to die. The bishops and abbots withdrew. Outside the Cheshire archers were nervous. Someone spread the word that the king was under attack. Shouts went up, bows were drawn. Some arrows may even have been let fly. Not until the king himself appeared did the Cheshire men settle down.
On the third day, Wednesday 19 September, the tension rose higher still. The clergy were ordered to put their authority into the hands of a lay representative. They chose Sir Thomas Percy. Satisfied, the king turned to the Speaker and stated that, although certain people had asked to know who were the fifty men to be impeached, he refused to say. Moreover, anyone even asking for such information was a traitor and would be sentenced to death. The guilty men would take flight, the king explained, and men who were not on the list might also flee.35 In fact there was no list of fifty names, or, if there was, it was never produced. The king was purposefully creating the maximum amount of fear. In Richard’s mind, the fear of his subjects equated to his own sense of power.
On Thursday the 20th the terrified archbishop of Canterbury returned to parliament, prepared to speak against the accusations of treason and defend his life. The last two days must have been an ordeal for him, no less than they had been for his brother, the earl, locked in the Tower. But when he appeared at his seat in the parliamentary marquee, the king ordered him to leave. This was shocking: the king was acting as if he really was going to impeach the archbishop of Canterbury. Yet what had the archbishop done? He had acted as the spokesman for parliament in 1387. He had not ridden in arms against the king or de Vere or anyone else. He had been sent by parliament, along with the duke of Gloucester, to speak on their behalf when it had emerged that Richard was planning to waylay and murder the parliamentary embassy. He had dutifully served as chancellor for seven of the last ten years. How could this man be called a traitor?
Nevertheless, the trial went ahead. No one dared speak up for the archbishop. Bussy, speaking on behalf of the commons, in accordance with instructions given to him by the king, accused the archbishop of high treason.36 Following the recital of his actions in 1386, the proctor acting on behalf of the clergy was required to speak on their behalf. Sir Thomas Percy had no option but to do as the terrified clergy told him, and declared that the archbishop was a traitor. Richard then announced that he would take advice on how to punish the archbishop. A few days later he announced that he had decided to confiscate all of his lands, chattels, income and other possessions, and banish him from the kingdom for life.
On Friday 21 September Richard’s adopted brother, the earl of Rutland, entered parliament with the king’s half-brother, the earl of Huntingdon, the earls of Kent, Nottingham, Somerset and Salisbury, and Lord Despenser and William Scrope. They were all dressed in red silk robes banded with white silk, which was powdered with letters of gold. These men were the Counter-Appellants, and now they appealed six men of treason in direct emulation of the Merciless Parliament of 1388.
The six accused men were the archbishop of Canterbury, the duke of Gloucester, the earls of Arundel and Warwick, Lord Cobham and Thomas Mortimer.37 The last of these, although he was not one of the Lords Appellant, had slain Thomas Molyneux at Radcot Bridge. Henry had been there too. There was no doubt now that he was on very dangerous ground indeed. When the king ordered Roger Mortimer, earl of March and lieutenant of Ireland, to arrest Thomas – the uncle who had raised him from infancy – and to surrender him as a traitor, Henry could see that the king was prepared to test to destruction the loyalty of everyone whose past was questionable. The earl of March had three months to give up his uncle or be declared a traitor himself. The Mortimers were doomed. Henry must have known then that it was only a matter of time before he too would be forced into a similarly impossible situation.
Thomas Mowbray was equally nervous. On the face of it, as one of the Counter-Appellants, he was firmly and safely in the king’s camp. But he, like Henry, was one of the original Lords Appellant, and if the original three were guilty of treason, then he and Henry were too. Moreover, Mowbray had been entrusted with the custody of the duke of Gloucester. This had also entailed him supposedly murdering the duke on Richard’s orders. As Mowbray confessed to William Bagot a month later, he had never been so scared in his life as the day he had returned to England from Calais having received the order to murder the king’s uncle, and having failed to carry it out.38
When the earl of Arundel was dragged before parliament that Friday, he had heard nothing of the earlier proceedings. As far as he was concerned, he was an innocent man wrongfully arrested. Nevertheless, he knew he had many enemies, and since he had failed to do anything to stop Thomas Talbot from plotting the assassination of John and Henry, the Lancastrians were among them. Knowing this, Richard now looked to John, as hereditary high steward of England, to accuse the earl formally. The ensuing argument was recorded by the author of the anonymous but contemporary Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi.39 When the appeal had been read out, Arundel insisted that he had been pardoned for any wrongdoing in 1388, and again in 1394.
‘Those pardons have been revoked, traitor’, John responded.
‘Truly, you lie’, replied the earl. ‘I was never a traitor.’
‘Then why did you seek a pardon?’ asked John.
‘To silence the tongues of m
y enemies, of whom you are one’, replied the earl. ‘And to be sure, when it comes to treason, you are in greater need of a pardon than I am.’
‘Answer the appeal’, interrupted the king angrily.
The earl now realised he was alone. Far from being pardoned, he was already a condemned man. He looked around him. He – unlike everyone else there – had nothing to lose.
‘I see it clearly now’, he said. ‘All those who accuse me of treason, you are all liars. Never was I a traitor.’ Then he faced the king. ‘I still claim the benefit of my pardon, which you, within these last six years, when you were of full age and free to act as you wished, granted to me of your own volition.’
Richard was in no mood for bargaining. ‘I granted it provided that it were not to my prejudice’, he said coldly.
‘Therefore the grant is worthless’, added John.
The earl could not believe what was happening to him. ‘In truth’, he said to John, ‘I was as ignorant about that pardon as you were – and you were abroad at the time – until it was willingly granted to me by the king.’
This was true. John could say nothing. But Bussy could. ‘That pardon has already been revoked by the king, the lords and us, the faithful commons.’
The earl shook his head. ‘Where are those faithful commons?’ Turning to them, he exclaimed, ‘You are not here to act faithfully. You are here to shed my blood. If the faithful commons were here they would without doubt be on my side, trying to help me from falling into your clutches. They, I know, are grieving greatly for me while you, I know, have always been false.’
Bussy, seeing the earl running away with the debate, and knowing he did indeed have sympathisers among the terrorised commons, and more sympathisers outside among the Londoners, interjected hurriedly. ‘Look, lord king, how this traitor is trying to stir up dissent between us and the commons who stayed at home.’
‘Liars, all of you!’ shouted back the earl. ‘I am no traitor.’
At this point Henry rose to his feet. ‘Did you not say to me at Huntingdon, when we first gathered in revolt, that before doing anything else it would be better to seize the king?’
The earl glared at his erstwhile comrade-in-arms. This was betrayal. ‘You, Henry, earl of Derby, you lie in your teeth! I never said anything to you or to anyone else about my lord king, except what was to his welfare and honour.’
But this reply only gave the king himself the opportunity to testify. ‘Did you not say to me at the time of your parliament, in the bath behind the White Hall, that Simon Burley was worthy of death? And I replied that I neither knew nor could discover any reason for his death. And even though the queen, my wife, and I interceded tirelessly on his behalf, yet you and your accomplices, ignoring our pleas, traitorously put him to death.’
To this the earl had no answer. Henry had asked him a question to which he obviously knew the answer. The king had then asked him another, to which there was no answer.
‘Pass judgement on him’, snapped the king.
Then the earl heard John, in his capacity of steward of England, sentence him to be drawn to the gallows, hanged, beheaded and quartered. To which the king added that, out of regard for his rank, he need only be beheaded.
The earl did not flinch. He walked to his death, smiling at those who lined the streets to see him go.
With the earl of Arundel executed, Thomas Arundel banished, and Thomas Mortimer in exile in Ireland, only the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham were left for Richard to deal with. Cobham, who had been a commissioner in 1386, was accused on the same day as Arundel, but his trial was postponed. The earl of Warwick was led into parliament and broke down in tears, weeping and wailing. He was a sixty-year-old man, and unable to function in the atmosphere of terror which Richard had created. So much did he confess, and so many tears did he shed, and so abject was his apology, that, although he was sentenced to death by John, as was required, the king granted him his life, and only ordered that he spend it on the Isle of Man.
That left Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester. The king had announced his death in late August or early September, after ordering Mowbray to murder him, but Mowbray had not been able to do the deed, and had returned to England. On being told this, Richard had insisted that Mowbray had to kill the duke. To make sure, Richard sent his own chamber valet, William Serle, with Mowbray to Calais. Just before the parliament began, having made a confession on 9 September, Thomas of Woodstock was smothered to death under a featherbed in the back room of an inn in Calais. Although the duke had been kept secretly alive, he was dead by 21 September, when Richard ordered Mowbray to bring him to parliament. Three days later, Mowbray announced that the duke had died in custody in Calais. This time it was true.
In return for his loyalty during this parliament, and in return for his and his father’s cooperation in the lead up to it, Henry was raised to a dukedom. On the last day of parliament, 29 September, he became the duke of Hereford, in recognition of his late wife’s inheritance of the title of Hereford. He was also permitted to bear the arms of St Edward the Confessor, along with certain other men of royal descent. At the same time seven of the eight Counter-Appellants were given new titles. The king’s adopted brother, Edward, was made duke of Aumale; Mowbray became duke of Norfolk, and the king’s half-brother, John Holland, became duke of Exeter. Richard’s nephew, Thomas Holland, son of his recently deceased half-brother of the same name, became duke of Surrey. The earl of Somerset became the marquis of Dorset, Lord Despenser became the earl of Gloucester, and William Scrope became the earl of Wiltshire. In return for doing Richard’s bidding, these men were well rewarded. But even now Henry could not feel at ease. On the very day that he was raised to a dukedom, one of his men, William Laken, was murdered by Sir John Hawkston, one of Richard’s Cheshire knights, in Fleet Street. In fact, Laken was killed while he was waiting to meet Henry, and if Henry believed that the king was secretly plotting against his own life at this time, he would have been correct.40
After years of rivalry and jealousy, Richard could at last feel that he had brought Henry to heel. Richard had always lived in the shadow of his cousin’s achievements. Henry had sired sons, was a jousting champion, had been on a crusade, led an army and travelled to Jerusalem. It had taken many years, but at last Richard had proved to himself that he could master him. As far as Richard was concerned, he had finally achieved the sort of power which he believed a king ought to wield over his subjects.
For Henry the parliament of September 1397, and the lead up to it, had been like nothing he had ever known. He had seen the workings of his cousin’s mind finally revealed in all their terrifying selfishness and cruelty. The duplicity which Richard had demonstrated was anathema to a logical, honest man like Henry. But more than anything else, it was the murder of his uncle that stuck in his mind. This time, Richard had not just threatened to kill a member of the royal family. He had actually done it.
EIGHT
The Breath of Kings
How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word: such is the breath of kings!
Richard II, Act III, Scene 3
At some point between February 1397 and January 1398, Henry paid his goldsmith to make a gold chain for a ‘medicinal stone’ to protect him against poison.1 This was probably a bezoar, from the Middle East, which the owner dunked into a wine goblet to nullify the harmful effects of the potion.2 For such a payment to appear in Henry’s accounts in this year is a telling fact. He was in fear of his life, and one of the forms of attack he feared was poison.
To judge from Henry’s recorded public behaviour, he was unconcerned by any of the intrigues of the court, and as confident as ever. He gave the appearance of being utterly loyal. His dukedom even suggests that he and Richard were getting on well at this time. Yet the wearing of jewellery containing stones to protect him from poison gives a very different impression. The fear prevalen
t in Richard’s ‘Revenge Parliament’ and the murder of Henry’s man, William Laken, on the day of his elevation similarly alerts us to the fears concealed behind his courtly smiles.
One day in December 1397 Henry was riding on the road between London and Brentford in the company of his household staff and knights. Towards him came the party of Thomas Mowbray, the newly created duke of Norfolk. According to Henry’s own testimony, given later under oath in parliament, Mowbray told him ‘We are about to be undone.’3
‘Why?’ asked Henry.
‘Because of what was done at Radcot Bridge.’
Henry, aware that Mowbray had close links at court, was alarmed. ‘But the king has given us a pardon, and declared his will to uphold that pardon in parliament. He even said that we had been true and loyal to him.’
Even as he said these words, Henry must have known what was going on. To get rid of the senior Lords Appellant, Richard had not taken action against Henry and Mowbray, saying they had deserved their pardons for they had restrained the others, and had tried to prevent them from killing Burley. But now the senior Appellants had been dealt with, Richard could turn his thoughts to them.
‘He will do with us what he has done with the others’, replied Mowbray. ‘He wants to wipe clean any trace of our opposition.’
Henry was aghast. ‘It would be a great wonder’, he said, ‘if the king went back on what he said in parliament.’
‘It is a wondrous world, and a false one’, Mowbray agreed. And then his nerve broke. Maybe he should have stopped there, and not said what he said next. But what followed changed the political state of England forever. ‘It is a false world indeed’, he declared, ‘for I know well, that, had several of us not taken action, you and your father would have been murdered on the way to Windsor after the parliament. But Edward, duke of Aumale, John Holland, duke of Exeter, Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester and I all swore that we would never agree to destroy a lord without a just and reasonable cause …’
The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King Page 21
