Royal Murder Page 12
To help the royalist cause the king recalled de Vere and summoned his old tutor Sir Simon Burley, Chief Justice Tresilian, Archbishop Neville of York, a leading London merchant named Nicholas Brember and the Earl of Suffolk whom he managed to get released. In November, 1387, Richard returned to London and had some judges declare that the promises he had given to Parliament were not legal. This almost led to civil war as Richard’s five great enemies — Gloucester, Arundel, Warwick, Nottingham and Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt — began mustering their soldiers.
Known as the Lords Appellant, these five nobles were obsessed with the destruction of Robert de Vere who, in all fairness, was guilty of nothing worse than being the royal favourite.
On December 12 the Lords Appellant put troops on every road leading from London to the north in the knowledge that de Vere was travelling to the capital with a company of men. It was Arundel’s force which intercepted him. De Vere unfurled the royal standard and the banner of St George and prepared to fight, but Arundel shouted to his followers that if they defended him they would be defending a traitor. At these words they melted away though de Vere managed to escape in the confusion. He fled from England in company with two other erstwhile supporters of the king, Archbishop Neville and the Earl of Suffolk, all of whom were to die in exile. Next Brember, Tresilian and Burley were captured.
Soon after Christmas the Lords Appellant rode to the Tower of London to confront the king. Despite his perilous position he received them royally, sitting in a tent in a vineyard carpeted over with cloth of gold. Though he gave them audience proudly he was soon forced to agree to their demands. Early in the New Year there was a meeting of what came to be known as the Merciless Parliament at which the Lords Appellant produced a bill of 39 charges against Richard’s ministers. It sat until June 8 and at the instigation of the vindictive Gloucester it succeeded in imprisoning or driving away all the king’s friends, even to his confessor and his wife’s Bohemian attendants. Sir Nicholas Brember and Tresilian were executed as well as many others who had supported the king. Gloucester thirsted for the blood of his royal nephew’s allies, and the fate of Sir Simon Burley excited the deepest sympathy with the public because of his long and distinguished life.
Queen Anne even was said to have gone on her knees for three hours before Gloucester imploring him in vain to spare Sir Simon. For three weeks the king resolutely refused to sign the execution warrant for his old tutor, but on May 5 he was beheaded on Tower Hill without it. All the king managed to achieve was to save him the disgrace of being hanged at Tyburn. The Merciless Parliament wound up by giving the Lords Appellant £20,000 for their “services” and granted them and their friends a full indemnity.
For a year the defeated king lived in retirement. He must have pondered frequently on the similarity of his position to that of his great grandfather following the death of Piers Gaveston, and he was equally determined to revenge himself on those who had killed and exiled his friends. By the end of that year the people were as tired of the harsh Gloucester as they had been of their extravagant king, indeed their sympathy was veering back to him. The problem of the Lollards had grown and the Catholic population was anxious for action to be taken. Richard judged that the time had come to strike and at mid-day on May 31, 1389, he strode into the Council hall at Westminster and demanded from the astonished members to be told his age. A chorus of voices answered that he was twenty-two.
“Then I should not be of less account than any other heir in England,” he declared, “since the law grants any man his full rights on his twenty-first year.”
He seized the Great Seal from the Chancellor and placed it in the hands of the old Bishop Wykeham, dismissed the Lords Appellant and announced he was assuming full control of the realm in his own person. The news was greeted joyously throughout England, and Richard underlined it by persecuting the unfortunate Lollards. He ordered their excommunication, and on his tomb are still engraved the words: “He overthrew the heretics and laid their friends low”.
Richard celebrated his return to power with a tournament at Smithfield which attracted knights from all Europe and lasted for three weeks. When the festivities were over, he asked John of Gaunt to return from Castile and truces were agreed with France, Scotland and Spain. A new era had unexpectedly dawned and for the next few years Richard remained popular with his subjects and had the confidence of Parliament.
This peaceful time ended in June, 1394, when Queen Anne died of the plague. The shock seemed to unhinge Richard, who had idolised her. He ordered her apartments at Shene to be demolished, and for twelve months he was unable to enter a house where they had been together. At her funeral in Westminster Abbey the Duke of Arundel gave Richard great offence by arriving late. He heightened the insult by asking for permission to leave before the ceremony was completed.
It was too much for the grief-stricken monarch. He seized a verger’s staff and brought it down so hard on ArundePs head that he fell stunned and bleeding to the floor. He was dragged away and imprisoned in the Tower for a week. Meanwhile confusion reigned in the abbey. Because blood had been shed in its holy precincts, a special service of purification had to be held before the rites could continue. Night had fallen on London before all was completed. Night seemed to have fallen on Richard, too. Without the counsel of Anne, his ambition became reckless.
In his unhappiness the king had de Vere’s body brought from Louvain and had it buried with great pomp, just as Edward II had with Gaveston’s. He had a book prepared of the miracles which were supposed to have taken place at Edward II’s tomb. This he sent to the Pope with a request that he canonise his great-grandfather. No doubt while he was doing these things he pondered deeply on the treachery of nobles to their kings. As he was without a direct heir, he now decided to marry Isabella, the pretty six-years-old daughter of Charles VI of France. This had the added attraction of infuriating Gloucester who wanted to renew the Hundred Years’ War.
In October 1396, Richard went to France to meet the French king. After the centuries of hostility between the two countries, great precautions were taken to protect both monarchs from assassination. Then, on an afternoon at three o’clock at a special meeting ground, Richard stepped out of his pavilion and walked to meet Charles who was coming from his tent. Over his yellow hair Richard wore a coronet which had been sent to him by the French king, and a red gown which reached his heels. Charles was dressed in red and white hose and a gown to his knees with Richard’s white hart emblem tactfully embroidered on the breast. The two kings met at a post which had been set up exactly between their tents. They smiled, grasped each other’s hands in friendship and kissed. The spectators, mainly made up of unarmed French and English soldiers, dropped to their knees in thanksgiving for what seemed a final settlement between the two countries.
It was Richard’s first visit abroad since his childhood, and in the following six weeks he managed to spend £200,000. A chronicler wrote: “Everyday he wore different and more gorgeous clothes, while he gave the King of France gold and crystal cups and collars of pearls.” When his child bride was brought to London the citizens were so eager to see her procession that nine persons were trampled to death. Two days later, on January 7, 1397, she was crowned queen.
Meanwhile the king’s love of luxury and display had been excited by what he had seen at the French court, and despite an endless financial crisis, he kept his own court as lavish as possible and thronged it with painters, musicians and craftsmen. Richard was also an enthusiastic builder, and his greatest monument is Westminster Hall as we see it today.
The historian Froissart gave the king one of his books and wrote this description of the occasion: “The King desired to see my book that I had brought him: so he saw it in his chamber, for I had laid it there ready on his bed. When the King opened it, it pleased him well, for it was fair enlumined and written, and covered with crimson velvet, with ten buttons of silver and gilt, and roses of gold in the midst, with two great clasps of gi
lt, richly wrought. Then the King demanded of me whereof it treated, and I showed him how it treated matters of love; whereof the King was glad and looked in it, and read it in many places, for he could speak and read French very well. . .”
* * *
What Richard had observed of the king’s position in France had stimulated him in his desire for absolute rule, free from meddling Parliament and bullying nobility, and it is noted that on one occasion he was inspired to sign himself “Full Emperor of England”.
He also surrounded himself with a new set of favourites. Almost unbelievably the principal of these was Sir John Holland whom the king had once sworn to hang. Following a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in penance for his crimes, he had been created the Earl of Huntingdon. As before the favourites had immense power, favours and honours passing through their .hands, and thus adding to a new wave of popular dislike of the king.
Two weeks after the coronation of little Isabella, the king summoned Parliament and announced he wanted to help his father-in-law against Lombardy. The Commons demurred, a hatred of France having been in their blood for generations. Richard flew into a rage, shouting he could “order his people to go to the support of his friends, and for that purpose to dispose of his own goods as and when he pleased.” It was not “his own goods” which the Commons questioned, but the public goods he was taking. Taxes had been greatly increased, and with them the resentment of the population. Much of this money Richard was using to bribe Gloucester’s supporters away from him.
On the other hand Gloucester and Arundel were making capital out of Richard’s marriage. In the agreement England surrendered Cherbourg and Brest to France. It was whispered that the king had received a huge secret payment from the King of France in consideration for this. Now the two Lords Appellant added to the general discontent by spreading the rumour that the king was going to hand over Calais. This came into the open at a banquet when, according to the writer Higden, Gloucester quarrelled with Richard and cried out: “Syre, ye oughte first to putte your bodye in devoyre to gete a towne or a castell by fayte or warre upon youre enemys er ye sholde selle or delyver any townes that your predecessors Kynges of Engelonde have goten and conquered.”
Richard got the excuse he needed to strike back when he was informed that Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick were plotting against him. On July 10, 1397, the king invited the three to dine with him at Westminster. Arundel wisely retired to his castle at Reigate, Gloucester excused himself as he was ill at Fleshy in Essex, but Warwick accepted the invitation.
The king ate with him and then, when the meal was over and the wine drunk, ordered him to be arrested. No doubt the thought ot how he was going to avenge his earlier humiliations and the treatment of de Vere had made him a charming host.
As soon as Warwick was under escort for the Tower, Richard and a number of his young companions galloped to Fleshy where they hammered at the door of Gloucester’s lodgings. The duke came down unarmed and unattended to greet his nephew.
“Fair uncle,” Richard said, “by Saint John the Baptist, what has been done will be best for you and me.”
Meanwhile a strong detachment had ridden from London to arrest Arundel who, surprisingly, surrendered himself.
Soon afterwards Warwick confessed his guilt and the king exiled him to the Isle of Man. Gloucester was sent to Calais where he was imprisoned to await his trial.
Two months later Parliament was called. As Westminster Hall was partly dismantled at the time the assembly was held out of doors on a large wooden platform. Richard arrived with his private company of 600 Cheshire archers. Although it was illegal for weapons to be taken to Parliament, the archers lined up round the platform and strung their bows. In the proceedings which followed the Commons took the hint.
Arundel was brought on to the stage and charged with treason by John of Gaunt who had remained on friendly terms with Richard. Even Gaunt’s son Henry Bolingbroke shouted abuse at Arundel as he spiritedly defended himself. Finally John of Gaunt sentenced the prisoner with these words: “I, seneschal of England, do adjudge you traitor, and I do by sentence and judgement condemn you to be drawn, hanged, beheaded and quartered, and your lands entailed and unentailed to be forfeited.”
Richard did have enough mercy left to alter the sentence. Arundel was hurried off to Tower Hill where he met the headsman with a coolness which won him great posthumous acclaim. He tossed his gold to the spectators, tested the edge of the axe and politely asked the executioner to do his work efficiently. The man obliged with one blow.
A mandate was issued by Richard for his prisoner, the Duke of Gloucester, to be brought from Calais to the bar of the House. Three days later the earl marshal reported that “he could not produce the said duke before the king and his council in that parliament for that, being in his custody in the king’s prison at Calais, he there died.”
Such a brief announcement of the death of a member of the blood royal is still as startling today as it was in Richard’s, and can only lead to one conclusion - that of murder. Obviously the king had not dared to put on trial a man so close to the crown and with a large following in the country. After Henry Bolingbroke had usurped King Richard’s throne, and was anxious to defame his victim, a servant of the Earl of Nottingham, named John Hall, swore that Gloucester had been taken from prison to an inn where he had been smothered between two mattresses by Richard’s agents. Froissart claimed that he was strangled in prison by four men using towels. Though eight persons were accused of involvement, not one was examined. Hall, who confessed to his own part in the plot, was immediately beheaded without appearing before a judge.
Although Richard had now taken his revenge he was haunted by Arundel’s death. At night it was a recurring nightmare. Then a story began to circulate that the head had miraculously joined on to the body again. This upset the king so much he had the corpse disinterred. It was found that the head had been sewn back into position.
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Apart from bad dreams, Richard had now achieved all he wanted. He rewarded his friends by making them dukes, and there were so many the people called them “dukettes”. At the next Parliament, held at Shrewsbury, the country was virtually handed over to the king with a series of articles including one which stated it was treason to renounce homage to the sovereign. The new statues retracted all the liberties which had been won against royal dictatorship over the years. Finally the members voted Richard a permanent income, which made it unnecessary for any further Parliaments to be called.
The powers of Parliament were then delegated to a committee of eighteen lords and six knights, all of whom were Richard’s friends. Yet Richard’s triumph was short-lived. Just when he was at the peak of his power it suddenly crumbled, almost as if by his own neurotic death wish.
In Ireland Richard’s cousin the Earl of March, still the royal heir, had been killed in a local skirmish. The king took an oath to avenge his death and set about raising an army. Then, in February, 1399, John of Gaunt died and on the same day Richard deprived his absent son, Henry Bolingbroke, of his inheritance and banished him from England for life. In France Henry replied by planning to invade England with Archbishop Arundel who had been exiled when his brother had been beheaded.
For some unknown reason Richard made no plans to meet the threat. Instead he held a feast at Whitsun then he set out for Ireland, leaving his uncle the Duke of York, one of the few men he still trusted, as regent. It seems he was in a highly nervous state, at one moment full of exaltation and deeply depressed the next. As he was departing a holy hermit gave him a warning from God to lead a better life and bring back those he had exiled. Richard had him arrested, saying: “If you are so familiar with God, go and walk on the water, so that He may know that you are His messenger.”
In July the king was in Dublin where he received news Henry Bolingbroke, now Duke of Lancaster, had landed in Yorkshire and was leading his army on Bristol. The Duke of York betrayed Richard and joined Henry, while in London the council of Richard�
�s favourites fled.
Richard confronted the young son of Bolingbroke and the future Henry V, who was in his retinue as a hostage.
“See, Henry, what your father is doing to me,” said the king. “He is riding over my land like an enemy, imprisoning and destroying my subjects without mercy or reverence. Truly, I am sorry for you, for because of this misfortune you may lose your inheritance.” The little boy replied that he was sorry too, but that he was innocent in the matter. Richard kindly sent him off to Trim Castle and to his credit did not use him as a weapon against his father.
Richard planned to take his army back to England to fight for his throne but it was decided that the Earl of Salisbury would go ahead to raise the men of Wales, Richard promising to join him in a week. The earl was successful as both the men of Wales and Cheshire flocked to the royal standard and Salisbury waited impatiently at Conway for the king to join him. Unaccountably Richard did not arrive while the news that the Duke of York had joined Lancaster began to thin down the ranks of royalist troops. The king arrived a fatal fortnight late at Milford Haven where, by the second day, his own army had melted away. Most of the king’s companions wisely suggested that he should retire to his French provinces; John Holland urged him to hasten to Conway to join up with Salisbury. He took Holland’s advice and, disguised as a Franciscan friar, he left his camp at midnight accompanied by his two half brothers and two attendants.
At Conway he found that Salisbury only had a hundred men loyal to him and they lacked provisions. According to Shakespeare when Richard asked Salisbury where his army was the earl replied:
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,
Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.