Royal Murder Page 11
The realm which Richard had inherited was in a state of unrest due to the result of plague, heavy taxation and the democratic ideas of the Lollards. The latter were originally a religious community established in Antwerp in 1300 to care for the sick, but the name grew to have the same meaning as heretic, and was applied to the followers of John Wycliffe, “the morning star of the Reformation,” whose ideas were distorted by wandering preachers such as the famous John Ball. Not only were the powers of the Church questioned, but the whole medieval social structure, and peasants began to gain a dim concept of the equality of men summed up in a couplet which they delighted in repeating.
When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?
Added to this was the powerful influence of John of Gaunt and Alice Ferrers during the declining years of the late king’s life. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was the fourth son of Edward III, and before his father’s death he was the most influential noble in England. He was often suspected of having his eye on the crown which by right went to his nephew Richard. In collusion with him was Alice Ferrers who had become the chief mistress of the tarnished old hero of Crecy and Poitiers. According to Walsingham “unmindful of her sex and frailty she used to sit by the justices on the bench and by the doctors in the ecclesiastical courts, persuading them to act against the law.” And it was she who was said to have pulled the rings from the fingers of the old king when he lay dying and deserted.
Against this background the boy king was put under the care of his mother while a council of eleven was chosen to govern “until he was of age to know good and evil.” For playmates of his own age he had his two half brothers, John and Richard, who were the sons of his mother by her first husband Sir Thomas Holland. His greatest friend was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was destined to play Gaveston to his Edward II.
Despite the problems all appeared to go well at first. The Council diminished the power of John of Gaunt and Alice Ferrers was exiled. But as time passed it became apparent that Richard would come into conflict with his royal uncles as he approached manhood. These men, the Dukes of Lancaster, York and Gloucester, were the sons of a king while Richard was only the son of a prince. Perhaps it was for this reason he followed the example of Edward II in choosing his favourites from lower ranks.
Five years after his coronation Richard proved his regal qualities by one of the most spectacular confrontations of his subjects ever made by a sovereign.
With the old warrior Edward III and his dreaded son, the Black Prince, safely in their graves, the French had taken advantage of the reign of a minor to continue the Hundred Years’ War. In alliance with Spain, and enthusiastically assisted by the Scots, they attacked England soon after Richard’s coronation, taking possession of the Isle of Wight, burning Hastings and Rye, devastating large districts of Kent and Sussex and sinking English shipping in the Channel. In the north the Scots attacked Berwick, burned Roxburgh and invaded the northern counties. The result was that the Hundred Years’ War recommenced, the war which had already depleted the English treasury and thus led to increased taxation on a population already overtaxed. In December, 1380, a special shilling poll tax was introduced and next year popular resentment against this became the spark which ignited Wat Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt. What added to the people’s bitterness was the corrupt way in which the tax was gathered, the collection being farmed out to some members of the court who in turn sold the franchise to foreign merchants whose agents were feared for their harshness.
Trouble first occurred at Brent wood, Essex, where Thomas de Bampton summoned the people of Fobbings before him and ordered them to pay the new tax, threatening them with arrest. In reply they drove de Bampton’s soldiers away. Sir Robert Bealknap, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was sent to Essex to try the recalcitrants but it was too late. The locals denounced him as a traitor and he only just managed to escape with his life. The jurors and clerks of the commission were summarily decapitated and their heads stuck upon poles which were carried through neighbouring towns as a signal for an uprising led by a vagabond priest known as Jack Straw.
News of the rebellion spread like prairie fire not only through Kent but Norfolk and Suffolk. Meanwhile at Deptford, Kent, a tax collector arrived at the house of Wat Tyler who indeed was a “tiler of houses”. The collector demanded the tax for Wat’s daughter even though her mother protested that the girl was under fifteen and thus exempt. The tax man declared he would soon prove this and was “proceeding to the grossest outrage” when Tyler, hearing the screams of his daughter, rushed in and killed the official with a blow from his hammer.
Everywhere there was popular approval of the tiler’s action for, as Froissart wrote, “the rude officers had in many places made the like trial”. The news of this, coupled with the insurrection in Essex, spread from the Thames to the Humber. Natural-born leaders appeared in every district with the universal idea of marching on London where “the Commons should be of one mind, and should do so much to the king that there should not be one bond man in all England”. At Maidstone, Wat Tyler was elected leader of the insurgents with John Ball as their chaplain.
As the streams of peasants converged towards the capital they plundered and pillaged. According to Froissart “they took their way thither and on their going they beat down abbeys and houses of advocates and men of the court and so came into the suburbs of London which were great and fair, and beat down divers fair houses, and especially the king’s prisons, as the Marshalsea and others, and delivered out the prisoners that were therein.”
Wat Tyler with John Ball and Jack Straw led 20,000 men into London and at the Savoy they burned down John of Gaunt’s palace after killing his servants. A chronicler wrote: “In destroying these noble houses the people disclaimed any idea of plunder. Their objects were, as they asserted, to punish the great traitors to the nation, and obtain their freedom from bondage. They published a proclamation forbidding anyone to secrete any booty. They hammered out the plate, and cut it into small pieces: they beat the precious stones to powder, and, one of the rioters having concealed in his bosom a silver cup, was thrown with his prize into the river.”
Londoners, who at first had welcomed the insurgents, were soon terrified of them, especially as their leaders’ edicts about loot did not seem to extend to the contents of wine cellars. Everywhere groups of rebels would approach citizens on the street and demand, “With whom holdest thou?” and unless the reply was “With King Richard and the Commons” death and mutilation followed automatically. The columns of smoke from aristocratic houses caused many members of the court to melt away, leaving the sixteen-years-old king to deal with his unruly subjects. This he did by sending a message to Wat Tyler that if they would retire to Mile End, which was then “open land where the people of the city did disport themselves in the summer season”, he would ride out and listen to their demands.
Tyler’s men moved out of the city and then Richard, with only a few unarmed followers, rode forth to meet them. At the sight of the huge peasant army his two half brothers took fright and rode off leaving him to face Wat Tyler who treated him courteously and explained the peasants’ demands. These were the abolition of bondage, the reduction of the rent of land at four pence an acre, the free liberty of buying and selling in all fairs and markets and a general pardon for all past offences. While the two conversed, the petitioners must have looked at the king in wonder, for he certainly showed no fear of them. At sixteen he had become an impressive figure being tall, pale-skinned and golden-haired and every inch of what they expected a king to be. He smiled as he listened to Wat make his demands and agreed that they were reasonable. He promised that if the rebels retired each to his own county he would give one of his banners to each shire to march home under, and they should leave two men from each village to bring copies of the charter he would give them. As word of this spread through the multitude most of the peasants were satisfied and they began to walk towards London to spend the
night in the city. That same night thirty clerks set to work making copies of the king’s charter which were to be sealed and delivered in the morning.
The king’s promises failed to placate the more extreme elements. In London they managed to enter the Tower where they rampaged through the royal apartments and insulted the king’s mother, the Fair Maid of Kent. They then beheaded the Treasurer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and others they deemed to be “traitors”. Encouraged by unruly London apprentices the mob was almost out of hand when Richard went forth to meet Wat Tyler for a second time at Smithfield on June 15. His courtiers advised against him appearing before the crowd of “shoeless ribalds” but, with the same cool courage he had shown at Mile End, he rode through the cattle market and faced them. What exactly followed afterwards remains confused but it was to be the king’s first experience of murder.
With 60 horsemen behind him the king had reined up in front of the Abbey of St Bartholomew, where Wat Tyler was awaiting him at the head of the insurgents. The peasants’ leader had refused the charter which had previously been agreed, demanding new conditions among which were the total repeal of the hated forest or game laws. Some chronicles state that Wat Tyler insulted the king, but this is doubtful as he had conducted himself with great courtesy at Mile End. We do know that, in presenting his new demands, he drew Richard aside and touched him. Perhaps it was a kindly gesture of reassurance but to Richard’s attendants Tyler had committed the crime of laying hands on the monarch. A version given by Froissart was that Wat Tyler saw one of the king’s squires against whom he had a grudge.
“Give me thy dagger,” he demanded. The squire refused but Richard told him to hand it over. Wat Tyler then began to play with it and said to the squire: “By my faith, I will never eat meat ‘til I have your head.” At this moment the mayor of London, Sir William Walworth, hearing these words, said: “Ha! thou knave, darest thou speak such words in the king’s presence.” Then the king said to Walworth: “Set hands on him”.
Whether this was true or not, the fact remains that Walworth spurred forward and struck Tyler with a baselard, a short sword which is said to have been incorporated commemoratively in London’s coat of arms. This blow was followed by one from Robert Standish who may have been the squire over whom the trouble had started. Tyler wheeled his horse, riding about a dozen yards before falling to the ground and dying. In the seconds that followed a flight of peasant arrows could have altered the whole course of English history, but in the tensest moment of his life the king responded brilliantly. Walsingham related: “As they were stringing their bows, Richard spurred his horse up to them and cried: ‘What is it, my men? What are you doing? Do not talk about wishing to shoot your king nor be sad about the death of a rogue and traitor. I am your king, I will be your captain and leader. Follow me to the field and you shall have all you ask for!’”
At that instant he must have appeared the ideal sovereign and Richard of Maidstone wrote rapturously: “How fresh coloured his face, crowned with yellow hair, his combed locks shining under the garland; gleaming with gold and the red robe that covers too much of his fair body.” His fine ringing words and noble appearance halted the expected arrow flight. The rebels hesitated and were won over. They formed a huge procession and marched behind the king to Clerkenwell Fields where Richard signed some documents which freed them from villeinage and granted them amnesty. They then quietly left the city for their distant homes.
How they must have regretted their obedience a fortnight later when the charters were revoked and a special commission under Chief Justice Tresilian were sent forth to punish the leaders. A mere accusation was enough to get a man sentenced to death and the wholesale executions which followed spelled out to the people that Richard was not their captain but a king as jealous of his rights as any of his predecessors. Hollinshead estimated that 1500 of the rebels were executed, among them Jack Straw and Lester and Westbroom who had assumed the titles of kings of Norfolk and Suffolk.
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On January 20, 1381, King Richard married “the excellent virgin” Anne of Bohemia, a daughter of the Emperor Charles IV. Although the marriage had been arranged by the Council anxious for alliance against France, Richard was tp fall completely in love with her. Later on he was so affected by her death that it seems to have upset the balance of his mind. But though the marriage brought him great happiness Richard was surrounded by difficulties personified by his three powerful uncles. When Parliament sat at Salisbury a Carmelite friar named John Latimer delivered into Richard’s hands written details of a plot — the truth of which will never be known — to place John of Gaunt on the throne. Richard confronted his uncle with the letter and the duke swore that it was a conspiracy against him and vowed to fight anyone who doubted his innocence. He insisted that the Carmelite, who refused to deny the story, should be put in the custody of Sir John Holland, a stepbrother of the king who was one of John of Gaunt’s allies. That night Sir John strangled the friar with his own hands. This act confirmed public opinion there was treason afoot but the king was in no position to take the matter further.
The following year the French sent a thousand men at arms and a vast sum in gold francs to the Scots to assist them in an invasion of England after which they ravaged Westmorland, Cumberland and Lancashire. Richard led an army north but before he had crossed the border Sir John Holland committed another murder. This time the victim was one of Richard’s favourites, the son of the Earl of Stafford, who, at the time of his death, had been carrying despatches from the king to Queen Anne. Apparently an affray occurred and Sir John Holland struck him down, killing him on the spot. The motive for this killing is not clear though young Stafford was in high favour with Queen Anne and it was whispered that the deed was the result of jealousy.
Holland fled to Beverley where he took sanctuary in the church there. Naturally the Earl of Stafford demanded revenge and Richard vowed that he would hang his half brother if ever he left the sanctuary of the church of St John. Stricken with grief at her son’s second murder, the Fair Maid of Kent spent four days weeping and pleading with Richard to spare Holland’s life. Richard declared he would have him hanged like a common criminal and on the fifth day his mother died of a broken heart at Wallingford Castle.
Richard was so shocked by her death that he granted Sir John Holland his second pardon. He then continued into Scotland where he razed Edinburgh and several other Scottish towns. In the Parliament which followed the Scottish campaign, the king tried to allay the jealousies between his favourites and his relatives by giving the latter grants of land titles. Then by removing members of his Council who represented the old nobility and replacing them with his supporters he planned to regain control of his kingdom from the barons and Parliament. He heaped honours on his favourites especially Robert de Vere, his beloved boyhood companion, whom he created Earl of Oxford with the title of Marquis of Dublin, a title before unknown in England. Another leading favourite, a merchant’s son named Michael de la Pole, was created Earl of Suffolk and, as Richard had no children, he named Roger, Earl of March, as his royal heir.
This successfully countered any of John of Gaunt’s aspirations to the throne and in 1386 the duke went to Spain to press his claims on the crown of Castile through his marriage to Constance, daughter of Pedro the Cruel of Castile. The departure of his dread uncle pleased Richard so much that he gave him and his wife, the Infanta of Castile, a golden crown each as a farewell gift.
With John of Gaunt safely out of the way Richard felt free from restriction and enjoyed it by refusing to meet Parliament and vastly increasing the number of his household, his retainers and servants all wearing his badge of a white hart. In the royal kitchen there was a staff of three hundred and this extravagance alone outraged lords and commoners alike. In October 1386 Parliament was further angered by the promotion of the hated favourite de Vere to Duke of Ireland. Demands were made that the king’s Treasurer and Chancellor (his friend the Earl of Suffolk) should be dismissed to whi
ch the king replied haughtily that “he would not displace the meanest scullion in his kitchen for their pleasure.”
It was a blatant reference to the fate of Edward II that checked the king. He went immediately to Westminster and humbly agreed to the dismissal of his Treasurer and the impeachment of his Chancellor and to the setting up of a committee of eleven lords to supervise the royal household and its income for the next twelve months. To it were elected some of the king’s bitterest enemies, including the Duke of Arundel, and Richard’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, who had taken over the role of John of Gaunt in Richard’s life.
Gloucester now became the most powerful man in England and Richard was virtually deposed, but at least he had gained time and he immediately began scheming against the committee. He travelled through the west of England in a kind of electioneering campaign believing that if he could make himself popular with the people he could get a royalist House of Commons elected which would support him in revoking the agreement which had been forced upon him.