The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty

by J. S. Hamilton

  These included associates of his father, the Black Prince, such as Simon Burley and Michael de la Pole (like Arundel, appointed to ‘advise and govern’ the king), but increasingly also younger men such as the chamber knights James Berners, John Beauchamp of Holt and John Salisbury, and most significantly of all, the young earl of Oxford, Robert de Vere. Richard was extraordinarily generous in his patronage to his intimates, and this, along with favour to the queen’s Bohemian kinsmen, necessarily caused a reaction.

  At the Salisbury parliament of 1384, the earl of Arundel criticized both the king’s personal behaviour and the governance of the realm. Richard’s response to Arundel’s assault on his governance is recorded in the Westminster Chronicle, which states that the king turned white with anger and then turned to Arundel with the following challenge: ‘If it is to my charge that you would lay this, and it is supposed to be my fault that there is misgovernment in the kingdom, you lie in your teeth. You can go to the Devil!’8 He responded in a somewhat similar fashion in the following year when the archbishop of Canterbury admonished him about his insolence, and warned him of the need to seek better counsel. According to several chroniclers, Richard reached for his sword and would have struck at the primate if not for the physical restraint of his uncle, Thomas of Woodstock.

  If Richard was increasingly drawn to a small inner circle of younger, less experienced courtiers, however, in some sense he was driven there by his uncles and other critics. The most notorious of his protégés, often compared to Edward II’s favourite Piers Gaveston, was Robert de Vere, who had succeeded his father as ninth earl of Oxford at 9 years of age in 1371. He was raised in the king’s household, and his marriage was arranged with Philippa, daughter of Enguerrand de Coucy, earl of Bedford, and granddaughter of Edward III. The marriage duly took place in October 1376 when de Vere was 14 years old and his bride perhaps 9 or 10 years old. De Vere was another of those young men knighted by Edward III at the Garter celebrations of 1377 (along with Richard, and Henry Bolingbroke) and, early in the reign of Richard II, he was introduced into the king’s court where he soon become Richard’s dearest friend as well as a lightning-rod for criticism.

  Although the early years of the reign had seen considerable military activity, virtually all of it had been both costly and fruitless. The so-called crusade into Flanders led by Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich, in 1383 was only the most spectacular of these failures, leading to the bishop’s impeachment before parliament later that same year. Nevertheless, the king himself had not yet led an army in person, a requisite of medieval kingship. Given latitude by a truce with France, in 1385 Richard II undertook a campaign of retribution against the Scots to punish them for recent incursions into northern England. The last feudal levy ever summoned in England provided the king with a substantial force that was estimated at some 14,000 men. Richard’s army marched unopposed through Tweeddale, sacking Dryburgh and Melrose abbeys along the way, before reaching Edinburgh in mid-August. Although the campaign resulted in no major battle or important territorial acquisitions, Richard had demonstrated his military leadership and successfully reasserted English power within the territory of his northern neighbours. The king was pleased. He demonstrated his pleasure and new sense of power by granting a series of new titles and promotions. On the one hand, he rewarded members of the royal family: Edmund of Langley became duke of York and Thomas of Woodstock became duke of Gloucester. On the other hand, close associates of the king were also advanced: Sir Michael de la Pole became earl of Suffolk and Robert de Vere was elevated to the unprecedented title of Marquess of Dublin. It is possible that Richard also at this time expressed his intention to name Roger Mortimer as his heir, a move designed to weaken the strength of his uncles, and particularly the house of Lancaster.

  Richard was beginning to develop his own style and his own vision. Throughout his life, the king was devoted to fashion and display, spending lavish sums on fine clothing and particularly on jewels. This was a characteristic he may well have inherited from his extravagant parents, but he seems also to have had a highly developed aesthetic and artistic sense in general. He was a patron of both visual and literary artists, and Richard also appreciated architecture: domestic, public and ecclesiastical. He is perhaps best known for his rebuilding of the Great Hall at Westminster Palace, where a magnificent hammer-beam ceiling was constructed to cover the massive central space. On a less grand scale, his interests are reminiscent of the uxorious pursuits of Henry III: at his wife’s favourite manor of Sheen, he had a bath house constructed, as he did also at Eltham. Richard II is also famous for the invention of the pocket handkerchief, having ordered the production of small pieces of linen for ‘the lord king to carry in his hand for wiping and cleaning his nose’.9 The court culture developing around Richard II in the 1380s has been variously described as sophisticated, theatrical, ‘civilianized’, and even decadent. Perhaps all of these descriptions are apt, except the last; the intimation that Richard and de Vere shared an ‘obscene familiarity’, is little more than a cliché. The fact that de Vere repudiated his blue-blooded wife Philippa de Coucy in 1382 in favour of a Bohemian lady-in-waiting, Agnes Lanecrona, who had accompanied the queen to England, does not suggest a homosexual relationship. As had been the case with Gaveston, however, de Vere’s familiarity was indeed obscene in the eyes of the nobility if only because it diverted away from them the royal patronage they considered their own by right of birth. This aspect of the court and its politics would prove particularly damaging to the king.

  And yet, for all the facile comparisons of the reign of Richard II to that of his great-grandfather Edward II, there are stark differences in personality and temperament between the two. Richard was a devotee of the hunt, and a highly competent soldier. More importantly, he had a clear vision of kingship that was assertive and, quite unlike the spontaneous volatility of Edward II’s reign. Clearly by the mid-1380s, Richard was developing an ever stronger sense of regality. This is illustrated in his distribution of badges bearing the sun, prior to his adoption of the White Hart. It can also be seen in his commemoration of his predecessors: not only his father, the Black Prince, but also his grandfather Edward III, whose marble tomb with its gilt bronze effigy was completed in about 1386; and perhaps most particularly in his later campaign for the canonization of his great-grandfather Edward II, whose tomb at Gloucester he embellished with his own emblem of the White Hart.

  The first great period of crisis in the reign began at the ‘Wonderful Parliament’ at Westminster in October 1386. John of Gaunt and Richard II had had a falling out during the Scottish campaign of the previous summer when the duke had wished to press on beyond the Forth, but the king had refused. In July 1386, the duke had sailed for Spain, where he hoped to make good his claim to the throne of Castile in right of his second wife, Constanza, daughter of Pedro I. Although the duke and his nephew had not always seen eye to eye, Gaunt was a devoted royalist who provided Richard with tremendous support simply by virtue of his political and economic stature as duke of Lancaster and eldest surviving son of Edward III. The removal of this bulwark would prove devastating for the king.

  Perhaps inspired by the absence abroad of Gaunt, the most experienced English commander, the summer of 1386 had seen an unprecedented French military build-up, and fear of invasion ran rampant across the country. In order to deal with this impending threat, the king’s ministers, led by the chancellor, Michael de la Pole, requested an unheard-of quadruple subsidy from parliament.

  The commons’ reply was to demand the dismissal of the chancellor, the treasurer, and various other government officials. Refusing to entertain such an encroachment on his royal prerogative, Richard is famously reported to have said that he would not dismiss a single scullion from his household at parliament’s request.10

  Indeed, he demonstrated his utter disdain for the commons on 13 October, the feast of St Edward the Confessor, by promoting his favourite, de Vere, from Marquess of Dublin to duke of Ireland. He also re
fused to attend the parliament, which could not transact business in his absence. In order to end this stalemate, a delegation comprised of Richard’s uncle, the duke of Gloucester, and Thomas Arundel, bishop of Ely, was dispatched to the king at Eltham to seek a reconciliation. Gloucester and Ely reminded the king that parliament would be dissolved after a period of 40 days if he failed to attend, removing any possibility of gaining the desired subsidy. In reply, the king appears to have threatened to seek French assistance in controlling his unruly subjects. This rather vague threat, altogether ludicrous in the circumstances of an impending French invasion, may have been an oblique reference to Henry III and his recourse to the mediation of Louis IX when his own prerogative rights had been attacked by Simon de Montfort and other baronial opponents a century earlier. According to the chronicler Henry Knighton, Bishop Arundel, perhaps alarmed by Richard’s threat of French intervention, concluded this tense interview by reminding the king that ancient law provided for the removal of any king who was guided by evil council, and for his replacement by another of royal lineage.11 This not very subtle reference to the fate of Edward II, with which Richard II was already quite familiar by the mid-1380s, cannot have been well received.

  Returning to parliament, the king agreed to the dismissal of Chancellor de la Pole, who was immediately impeached by the commons. Other ministers, including the Treasurer and the Keeper of the Privy Seal, were also removed from office. A new continual council was appointed, including a number of outspoken critics of the king’s governance, such as the new chancellor – Bishop Arundel himself – his brother, the earl of Arundel, and the Dukes of Gloucester and York. Richard did all that he could to distance himself from the tutelage of the council. He quickly arranged de la Pole’s release from prison at Windsor, and later appointed de Vere as Justice of Chester. This was the region most loyal to the king, who was also earl there. Moreover, it was close to de Vere’s primary holdings in the southwest, as well as his titular holdings and authority in Ireland.

  As such, the appointment was seen as provocative by the king’s detractors. In the spring, Richard withdrew to the Midlands and Welsh marches, in no little part to inconvenience the officers of the council. During this so-called ‘gyration’, in August he summoned the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Sir Robert Tresilian, along with his fellow justices, to a pair of meetings, the first in Shrewsbury, the second in Nottingham. There, the king addressed ten questions to the judges, all having to do with the king’s prerogative and the regality of his person. The very first question posed was whether the appointment of the council was ‘derogatory to the regality and prerogative of the lord king’. When the judges replied in the affirmative, the next two questions asked how those responsible for this derogation should be punished. The answer, chilling in its simplicity, was ‘as traitors’. Other questions about the king’s right to dissolve parliament, about parliament’s authority to impeach royal ministers, and about parliament’s right to seek a response to their own petitions prior to dealing with the king’s business, were all answered to the king’s satisfaction. So was the tenth and final question, asking how those should be treated who reminded the king of how Edward II had been bound by statute to the appointment of the Lords Ordainer.

  Again, they were to be treated as traitors. The king had the questions and their answers committed to writing and sealed. He also swore all those involved in these deliberations to silence, in order that he might use these new legal weapons only when the time was ripe. This was political dynamite. The violence that the ruling class had unleashed upon itself in the reign of Edward II had led directly to the promulgation of the Statute of Treason of 1352, which had very carefully limited the definition of treason. Richard II’s questions to the judges redefined treason in the broadest possible context, essentially as any impediment to the king’s exercise of his prerogative. The threat to the king’s opponents, although implicit, was exceptionally clear.

  Richard returned to London in November. By then, he had secured at least the superficial support of the city, whose leaders had undertaken an oath to uphold the king against any who supported or spoke treason. Armed with his new definition of treason, Richard summoned the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Arundel to come into his presence. These lords, with the earl of Warwick, mustered a considerable military following at Harringay Park and they submitted an appeal declaring Archbishop Neville of York, the duke of Ireland (de Vere), the earl of Suffolk (de la Pole), Chief Justice Tresilian, and the king’s London agent, Mayor Nicholas Brembre, to be traitors. On 17 November, the three lords came before the king in Westminster Hall, accompanied by 300 men-at-arms, and laid their case against the king’s inner circle. Completely out-manoeuvered, for the moment Richard referred the matter to parliament; but, ultimately, such a direct challenge to his authority could only be resolved by resort to arms.

  Richard moved to Windsor, while the Appellants, as they became known, withdrew to Huntingdon, where they were joined not only by additional troops but also by two other lords, Henry Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, and Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham. In the meantime, de Vere had travelled to the Ricardian stronghold of Cheshire where he raised a considerable force loyal to the king and began to move south. Unfortunately, the king, who had returned to London, was unable to place himself at the head of this army, and so the five Appellants were able to intercept and engage de Vere’s force at Radcot Bridge in Oxfordshire on 20 December. De Vere appears to have demonstrated little skill as a commander and the Cheshiremen were cut to pieces and forced to flee the field. De Vere himself was able to escape only by urging his horse to swim across the Thames. He fled to the continent, but found himself unwelcome, first in Dordrecht and then in Paris; ultimately, he was allowed to settle in Louvain where he died, still in exile, in 1392. His companion-in-arms at Radcot Bridge, Sir Thomas Molyneux, Constable of Chester Castle, was even less fortunate. He was slain by Sir Thomas Mortimer. The king, in desperation, retreated to the fastness of the Tower.

  A week after the battle at Radcot Bridge, the Appellants entered London and demanded the king’s surrender. What happened next has long been a matter of speculation. The evidence is uncertain, but at the very least Richard seems to have been threatened with deposition. It is even possible that for a brief space of 2 or 3 days, he was actually deposed by the Appellants who could not then decide among themselves about a successor, and so in the end restored him.

  But the kingship to which Richard was restored at the outset of 1388 had very little relationship to the vision of kingship that he had formed over the previous several years.

  As the New Year dawned, on 6 January 1388, the feast of Epiphany, Richard II attained his twenty-first birthday. Under the circumstances, there was no formal celebration of the king having reached the age of majority. A month later, on 3 February, the king opened parliament at Westminster, perhaps the most notorious session ever to meet in the Middle Ages: the Merciless Parliament. The proceedings began with the five Lords Appellant kneeling before the king and declaring that they had not ‘countenanced, devised, or meditated the death of the king by any means’,12 a remarkable declaration that would seem to indicate that public opinion thought otherwise. In any case, despite this humble profession of loyalty, they quickly brought a lengthy appeal of treason against an equal number of the king’s closest associates: Archbishop Neville, de Vere, de la Pole, Tresilian and Brembre.

  Not all of the Appellants’ intended victims lay within their reach. De Vere, Suffolk and Archbishop Neville were safe on the continent, and Tresilian had taken sanctuary at Westminster. Of the five men initially appealed, only Nicholas Brembre appeared before parliament of his own volition, and gamely (but foolishly) attempted to defend himself. He was quickly convicted and hanged, on 20 February. Meanwhile, Tresilian had been forcibly removed from sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, his refusal to stand trial judged an admission of guilt. He too was hanged, at Tyburn, on 19 February. The Appellants were not yet satisfied, howev
er, and after an Easter recess, parliament reconvened and took up the fate of the rest of the king’s inner circle, his chamber knights. Beauchamp of Holt, Berners, Burley and Salisbury were all accused of treason, having accroached on the royal power. Richard made a personal plea for mercy for his former tutor, Burley, which, given his self-image, must have cost him dearly. Not only did he himself plead with the earl of Arundel in the newly built bath house behind the White Hall at Westminster, but the queen got down on her knees in her intercessory capacity. It was all for nothing, however. The only concession made was to spare Burley the ignominy of being hanged; he was beheaded on 5 May. A week later, the other chamber knights – Beauchamp, Salisbury and Berners – were hanged. At about the same time that Tresilian had been forcibly removed from sanctuary, his fellow justices Roger Bealknap, John Lockton, John Holt and William Burgh, along with John Carey, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, had been arrested and delivered to the Tower. They too were found guilty of treason, but their lives were spared and they were instead exiled to Ireland, where they were to languish until 1397. Meanwhile, the Appellants had seen to the appointment of men of their own: Robert Charleton was named as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, where he was soon joined by Walter Clopton. Even relatively humble officials were liable to suffer for their association with the king’s inner circle, as more than a dozen assorted serjeants-at-law, chancery clerks and exchequer clerks found themselves gaoled for as long as 2 years. It is also worth mentioning that if the Appellants could not physically punish de Vere, at least they could seek to humiliate both him and the king. This was achieved by his degradation from the Order of the Garter, an unprecedented act that was designed to mortify the king, whose election of de Vere as a Garter knight in 1385 had rankled with many more experienced soldiers who were passed over for the honour. All that said, however, the Appellants did little to consolidate their administrative authority, being satisfied with breaking that of the king.