The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King

by Mortimer, Ian

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  Henry’s principal aims in his first parliament were to make his dynasty secure and to administer justice for those who had benefited from, or been victimised by, the old regime. In line with the first of these, he created his eldest son prince of Wales, duke of Aquitaine and earl of Chester – the traditional titles for the king’s son to bear – and had him recognised in parliament as heir to the throne. He also gave him the title of duke of Lancaster. All four of his sons were nominated as Knights of the Garter. No matter what happened to Henry himself, his dynasty was as safe as he could reasonably make it.

  Justice was a much more complicated issue. Many people at that parliament wanted Richard to be put to death. Many more wanted those who had benefited from his reign to be punished as traitors. Part of the problem was that the very concept of treason had been greatly enlarged by Richard to encompass anyone who dared disagree with him: in Richard’s own words ‘he is a child of death who offends the king’.20 Thus the first step towards re-establishing justice in such matters was to reaffirm Edward III’s Statute of Treasons as the proper measure by which traitors should be judged. This was done on 15 October.

  Nothing, however, could entirely smooth the path which Henry and those at that parliament had now to tread. When the Speaker, John Doreward, asked that all of Richard II’s ‘evil counsellors’ be arrested, many saw an opportunity to revenge themselves on Richard’s companions. William Bagot, who had been captured in Ireland and brought back in chains by Peter Bucton, was the first ‘evil counsellor’ summoned before parliament, on 16 October.21 He had already submitted a bill to Henry which outlined a defence of sorts, based partly on his alerting Henry to Richard’s ill will in March 1399. But the main thrust of his defence was that the duke of Aumale had been the principal ‘evil counsellor’. He directly accused the duke of at least two treasonable acts (being an accessory to the murder of the duke of Gloucester and expressing a desire that Henry himself might be killed). He was asked whether he stood by the terms of his bill, and he swore that he did. ‘It was you’, he said to the duke in person, ‘who said that if the duke of Gloucester, and the earls of Arundel and Warwick, and others were not killed, the king would never be able to exercise his regal power to the full.’ In addition, he stated that Mowbray and himself had urged Richard to resign in favour of Henry. Richard had retorted that he would never do so on account of his belief that Henry ‘is a worthless man at heart, and will always remain so. Besides, if he were to rule the kingdom, he would want to destroy the whole of God’s Holy Church.’22

  Henry felt the need to defend himself on this point. ‘With the grace of God, I will show such a prediction to be quite false’, he declared, adding that he had taken a vow to uphold, protect and support God’s Church with as much zeal as any of his predecessors. ‘But I hope to see men appointed to churches who are worthy of their position, unlike many of those who were appointed in Richard’s reign.’23

  Meanwhile Edward, duke of Aumale, was seething with fury at Bagot’s accusations. He knew he was now on trial for his life. ‘If the duke of Norfolk maintains that I sent two yeomen to Calais to see to the duke of Gloucester’s death’, he bellowed, referring to Bagot’s informant, ‘then I say that he lies falsely, and I shall prove it with my body!’24 And with that he flung his hood at the feet of Bagot in the middle of the hall, challenging him to a duel.

  Henry was in a difficult position. Both men were guilty. But Bagot had probably saved Henry’s father from being murdered in January 1398 and had subsequently been a useful informer. As for the duke of Aumale, despite being Richard II’s adopted brother, he had been part of the plot to arrest the king in July, triggering his flight to North Wales. His father, the duke of York, had practically acted as kingmaker at Berkeley. Despite their guilt, Henry could not afford to punish either man severely. He ordered the duke to pick up his hood and return to his seat.

  Bagot was asked why he had consented to so much of the bad advice which the king had received. His reply is revealing of the fear which had prevailed at court during the last days of Richard’s rule. ‘Is there any one among you all who, if King Richard had demanded a certain thing from you, would have dared to disagree with him, or not have complied with his order?’

  John Norbury, whom Henry had appointed treasurer, stepped forward and claimed that he for one would have refused. But Norbury was a mere esquire, and protected by Henry. It was hardly fair to compare him in his current safe position with the dukes and earls in Richard’s line of sight a year earlier. Henry himself had been forced to accede to the proceedings of the Revenge Parliament. He knew that Bagot was speaking the truth.

  Bagot went on to incriminate other great lords present, especially those who had been among the Counter-Appellants. The dukes of Surrey and Exeter threw down their hoods, challenging him for accusing them of being complicit in the murder of the duke of Gloucester. Again, Henry ordered them to step forward and pick up their hoods themselves. Bagot saw that he had an opportunity to prove the substance of what he was saying. ‘If you really want to know who was responsible for the murder, then you ought to question a valet named John Hall, who is now in prison in Newgate’, he said. Hearing this, Henry gave instructions to his clerk, James Billingford, to interrogate Hall.

  The following day, while Hall was being questioned, Henry summoned all the lords with the exception of the three dukes whom Bagot had accused (Aumale, Surrey and Exeter). He wanted to know whether these three should be arrested or not. Lord Cobham, a victim of the Revenge Parliament, was firmly of the opinion that they should. Those who had incited or encouraged the king in his malice should be punished too. They had referred to themselves as the ‘foster-children’ of Richard, and, Cobham claimed, ‘as the foster-parent is, so shall the foster-children be’. He added that he said this not for the sake of revenge but for common justice. The other lords unanimously agreed.25

  Henry was picking his way shrewdly between the potential pitfalls of royal judgement. After the discussion about the dukes, he considered a petition of the earl of Warwick to delete the record of his shameful confession in the Revenge Parliament. He refused, on the grounds that he could not justify obliterating the record of what so many knew to have taken place. Next he showed similar wisdom in responding to the commons’ calls for all the evil counsellors who had advised Richard to be brought to justice. He replied that some were already in custody, and others could be arrested at short notice, if the commons would be more explicit as to whom they suspected. That silenced the commons, who realised that there would be no general blood-letting by the new king to purge the country of his predecessor’s crimes.

  Bagot appeared again on 18 October and was questioned further by Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester. He resorted to a defence based on letters of pardon he had received, which were then at Chester. Henry ordered that he be held in custody while parliament attended to its next item of business: the confession of John Hall.

  Poor John Hall was one of the most unfortunate men of the fourteenth century. He was not only in the wrong place at the wrong time but also in the service of the wrong man, Thomas Mowbray, who ordered him to do a very wrong thing. Hall had been asleep in his house at Calais when Mowbray came to him and demanded to know what he had heard of the duke of Gloucester. Hall replied that he had heard that he was dead. Mowbray then told him that he was not, but the king and the duke of Aumale had sent men to kill him. Hall was one of six valets who would represent Mowbray at the murder, along with two valets of the duke of Aumale and William Serle, Richard II’s man. Hall was horrified, and prayed that he might be forgiven for not doing this, even to the loss of all his goods, but Mowbray struck him hard and ordered him to obey. Hall himself played no part in the actual killing (or so he claimed). But he stood by with the others as William Serle and one of the duke of Aumale’s valets named Frauncis smothered the king’s uncle.

  Hall’s confession was deeply shocking. The mismatch between the royal status of the victim and his l
owly murderers was deeply troubling to the lords present. As he waited there in shackles and manacles, not knowing his fate, Hall saw the bitter recriminations fly. The duke of Aumale tried to exonerate himself, but Lord Fitzwalter launched into a tirade. ‘It was you who appealed him of treason’, he shouted at Aumale, ‘you who brought accusations against him, and you who made the king hate him; and for all these reasons it was you who brought about his death, which I shall prove in battle.’

  At this the duke of Surrey, realising that the Counter-Appellants’ only hope was to stick together, defended Aumale. ‘You are always interfering’, he snapped at Lord Fitzwalter, ‘you talk too much. Why are you so eager to accuse us on the grounds of this appeal when in fact there was no way that we could have avoided doing what we did at the time? When we were so much in the king’s power, and in so many ways under his authority, how could we dare disobey any command that he gave us?’ Then the duke accused Fitzwalter of also acquiescing to the appeal against Thomas of Woodstock. There he fell into a trap, as Fitzwalter was able to claim he had not been present at the time. So Surrey was forced to sit down.

  Lord Fitzwalter resumed his attack on Aumale. ‘You were cause of the duke of Gloucester’s death. You were midwife to his murder. And this I shall prove by battle!’ he declared, throwing down his hood. Aumale, angered and fearful, responded by throwing down his own hood. But even without Hall’s testimony, many lords there believed that he had indeed countenanced the royal murder. A wave of outrage and shouting rose through the hall. The earl of Warwick, Lord Morley and Lord Beauchamp were just three of the lords who threw down their hoods, and the commons roared like men so angry that it seemed as if a battle would break out there and then, if justice was not done.

  Amid this, Henry called for silence. He stood up. First he begged them not to do anything that was against the law. Then, with a growing sternness, he warned them of the consequences if they lynched the duke of Aumale or anyone else in parliament. Finally he ordered them to act legally and to restrain themselves until proper discussions had taken place. It was an impressive speech, and it stopped all those who had been about to seize the duke of Aumale. Unfortunately for John Hall, it focused attention back on him. When Henry called for judgement by the lords upon the wretch, there was only one fate suitable to the moment. Despite having done nothing but witness the murder – and that against his will – Hall was ordered to be drawn to Tyburn, hanged and then cut down and disembowelled alive, with his entrails being burned in front of him. Then he was to be beheaded and cut into quarters, and the parts of his body publicly displayed, with his head being sent to Calais, where the murder had taken place. It was the full traitor’s death, the disembowelling being a particularly harsh treatment reserved for those of the worst kind.26 The sentence was carried out immediately.

  The next day was Sunday, and so parliament did not sit. On the Monday the king’s ceremonial bath took place, it being a week since his coronation. No parliamentary business was conducted that day, but Henry had all six surviving Counter-Appellants arrested: the dukes of Aumale, Exeter and Surrey, John Beaufort, marquis of Dorset, Thomas Despenser, earl of Gloucester, and John Montagu, earl of Salisbury. They were questioned over the following week.

  Meanwhile parliament deliberated the future of Richard II. The commons wanted him brought into parliament to be tried, but Henry did not agree. Instead he replied that he wished to consult with the prelates before making a decision. The commons responded by asking Henry to assign legal advisers to help them deliberate further on the matter. Henry did so, and for three days they debated the ex-king’s fate. Henry in the meantime asked the earl of Northumberland to consult the lords about the same issue. In particular the lords were asked how the ex-king ‘should be kept in safekeeping, saving his life, which the king wished to be preserved to him in all events’.27 They were not at liberty to demand the death penalty. Archbishop Arundel made a preliminary address, requiring them all to keep their advice secret.

  On 27 October parliament met again – lords, prelates and commons together – to hear the judgement on Richard II. The lords had come to an opinion, to which all fifty-eight of them had set their names: two archbishops, thirteen bishops, seven abbots, Prince Henry, the duke of York, six earls, twenty-four lords and four knights. In their view, Richard should be ‘kept under safe and close guard, in some place where there was no coming and going of people; and that he should be guarded by reliable and competent men’; and that none of his previous companions should be allowed to come into his presence; and that everything concerning his keeping ‘should be done in the most secret manner possible’.28 The commons unanimously agreed. Richard would be confined in isolation in perpetuity. Two days later, in accordance with parliament’s wishes, the ex-king was secretly removed from the Tower by night and taken via various castles to Knaresborough, and finally to the great Lancastrian stronghold of Pontefract, to be guarded by Henry’s trusted friends, Robert Waterton and Thomas Swynford.29

  With Richard’s sentence agreed, the trial of the Counter-Appellants could go ahead. A good deal of hood-throwing ensued, as several men challenged each other to mortal combat. Each of the accused lords claimed that they had never consented to, nor known about, the murder of the duke of Gloucester, and that they had only participated in the Revenge Parliament out of fear of the king. Henry asked the lords to deliver judgement; but they declined, and passed the problem back to him. They only stipulated that the security of the kingdom should be his top priority. The prelates added that they hoped the men’s lives would be spared. On 3 November, Chief Justice Thirning delivered judgement on them. They were to lose all their new titles acquired in September 1397, and any grants of land they had received since then. Otherwise they were to retain their old titles and inherited lands, and go free.

  It was an incredibly lenient sentence, so much so that it needed an official explanation. Three key points were made: (1) that the foremost consideration had been the security of the realm, as the lords had requested, for leniency would incline these men to support the new king; and besides, it was specifically laid down that any attempt by the Counter-Appellant lords to restore Richard would be regarded as treason; (2) that the commons had intended that the evils of the Revenge Parliament ‘should be reversed and amended in this parliament’, which had been done; and (3) that, if these men were traitors, then the full penalty of the law should also be meted out on others not yet accused. On this point, Henry explained that he did not want to threaten the people ‘but should make his judgements in righteousness and truth, with mercy and grace’.

  The key in all this seems to be Henry’s understanding that a great king should be merciful. Indeed, one might go so far as to call it the ‘Merciful Parliament’. He had promised mercy, and he had delivered it. This is most clearly revealed in his treatment of Richard’s closest advisers. Six prelates and five secular lords had witnessed Richard II’s last charter (dated 23 June 1399), and these same eleven men had witnessed most of Richard’s charters during the period of his tyranny.30 Of the prelates, four – the archbishop of York and the bishops of London, Winchester and Exeter – continued to witness Henry’s charters as if there had been no change of regime. The other two were dealt with very leniently: Roger Walden, who had presumed to take Archbishop Arundel’s place in his exile, was only temporarily arrested, and four years later was nominated by Henry for a bishopric. Guy Mone, bishop of St Asaph, suffered no loss of status or property and was reappointed as treasurer by Henry in 1402. As for the secular lords, only one (William Scrope, executed for armed resistance) had been killed in the course of the revolution. The Counter-Appellants John Beaufort and John Montagu, earl of Salisbury, were dealt with very leniently, as mentioned above. John Beaufort was actually given the office of royal chamberlain, despite being stripped of his marquisate. The last two – Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester, and Richard Clifford, keeper of the privy seal – were also given royal appointments by Henry. Percy was chosen to lead an e
mbassy to France to negotiate a marriage between the French royal family and Henry’s own children, and Clifford remained in post as keeper of the privy seal. Thus of the ten surviving charter witnesses none suffered a dire punishment. They were all treated leniently, even though they were among Richard’s closest companions and supporters. Bagot too was spared the axe. Most significantly, Richard II himself was allowed to live, at Henry’s personal command. In fact, Henry was thought to have been too merciful. A number of those present in the parliament accused him of accepting bribes to save these men’s lives, and an anonymous letter was found not long after in the king’s chamber, threatening him with deposition for treating Richard’s supporters so leniently.