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RICHARD II. (1367-1399)

From a painting in Westminster Abbey. Artist unknown.

No one who considers the life and reign of Richard II. can fail to observe, and in some measure to understand, the very remarkable personal affection which he inspired in the people, especially the people of London, whose loyalty he rewarded so shamefully. His singular beauty, his kingliness, his charm of manner, the splendour and luxury of his court, his love of art and music, his personal bearing, all these things dazzled and fascinated the populace. Never was there a more gallant prince to look upon. That he was proud, almost as proud as Henry III., proud to a degree which is in these days absolutely unintelligible; that he was wasteful and prodigal; that he was led by unworthy favourites almost as much as his great-grandfather; that he was revengeful; that he always wanted money and cared nothing about charters, rights, and liberties, upon all of which he trampled without scruple in order to get money,—these things the people of London were going to find out to their cost. Meantime they loved the lovely boy, the son of the Black Prince. To begin with, the nobles called Richard the Londoners’ King. We shall see that the City endured blow after blow, before they finally abandoned him. Mostly, I think, the City regarded Richard with gratitude and affection for that deed of desperate daring when he faced the mob, himself a mere boy, and persuaded them to go home. Every citizen who remembered those few terrible days when the wildest mob ever seen in London streets held possession of the City, and when they remembered what the better sort had to endure, robbery, fire, and murder, looked on that act as the salvation of himself as well as of the City. The alienation of the City which followed was due solely to the King’s long-continued exactions and his arbitrary disregard of Charters.

The new reign—Richard was only eleven—began happily for London by a reconciliation of the City with the Duke of Lancaster. At the Coronation Banquet the Mayor and Citizens claimed their right to assist the chief butler, but were refused by Robert Belknap, Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas, who told them that they might come and wash up the pots and pans if they pleased. The citizens therefore set up an effigy of Belknap on one of the arches erected in Cheapside for the procession. The figure was made to vomit wine continuously. This is an early example of caricature in things political. Robert Belknap withdrew his opposition; the effigy was removed, and the Mayor and Aldermen played their accustomed part in the Coronation Banquet. It is noted by Sharpe (London and the Kingdom, p. 213) that the King’s Butler in ordinary could claim the post of City Coroner.

The City granted the Council an advance of £5000 on the security of the Customs. When Parliament met, it granted a tallage of two-tenths and two-fifteenths, and named two citizens, Walworth and Philpot, to act as treasurers. At this time, nearly the worst in our annals, the French were harrying the south coast almost unopposed; the Scottish army was on the borders; and a Scottish fleet was in the North Sea making descents upon the ports and seaboard towns. The Abbot of Battle drove off the French, and it was left to a private merchant of London to destroy the Scottish fleet.

This fleet was commanded by a man named Mercer who was called a pirate. Like his countrymen on the Border he probably called his own proceedings lawful acts of war. Sir John Philpot, hearing that this sea captain, or pirate, Mercer was plundering English towns and picking up English ships, fitted out at his own private expense a fleet of ships manned with a thousand men well armed, went on board himself as Admiral or Commander, sailed north, met Mercer’s fleet off Scarborough, valiantly attacked it, and killed him and took all his ships; then, with these and fifteen Spanish vessels, deeply laden, which had been captured by Mercer, he returned to London. The Council sent for him and asked him to explain his presumption in going to war on his own account. But the citizens showed their approval of his work by electing him Mayor in the following year.

The late King having died while the petition of the City for a confirmation of their liberties was impending, they renewed it on the accession of Richard. The House of Commons also prayed the King that the City might continue to enjoy all the Franchises and usages granted by his Progenitors. This was answered by a Charter of Confirmation as follows:—

“Whereas the said Citizens, by their Petition exhibited to us in Parliament, did set forth that although they, for a long time past, have used and enjoyed certain free Customs, until of late Years they have been unjustly molested; which Customs are as followeth, viz., That no Foreigner do buy or sell of another Foreigner any Merchandises within the Liberties of the said City, upon Pain of forfeiting the same. Nevertheless, being desirous, for the future, to take away all Controversies about the same, We do by these presents, with the Assent aforesaid, will and grant, and by these Presents, for us and our heirs, do confirm unto the said Citizens, and their Successors, that, for the future, no Foreigner sell to another Foreigner any Merchandises within the Liberties of the said City: nor that any Foreigner do buy of another Foreigner any Merchandise, upon pain of forfeiting the same; the Privileges of our Subjects of Aquitaine in all Things excepted, so that such buying and selling be made betwixt Merchant and Merchant.”

The City was still at this time torn by internal dissensions. The party headed by John of Northampton, representing the popular cause of the craft guilds, was always striving after more power and always meeting with the most determined resistance; it is also certain that a new and very important spirit had been introduced into the City, which was teaching new ideas concerning personal holiness, the riches of priest and monk, the true teaching of Christ as set forth in the Gospels, and spread abroad by Wyclyf’s preachers. The other side, headed by Philpot and Brembre, represented the old aristocratic party with the great guilds of distribution, import and export. The Duke of Lancaster, for reasons of his own, gave his support to John of Northampton and the popular party. In this he was joined by his brother Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham, who three times accused Brembre before the Parliament: first of connivance in a riotous attack upon his house, and next of treason. The Earl showed his resentment still further by withdrawing from the City with all his following and all his friends. He must have had a great many friends, because the blow to trade was so sorely felt that the richer merchants subscribed and bribed him to come back again. The history of the City factions will be found in another place.

In 1379 a poll tax was imposed. Every man had to pay according to his rank and station. The Mayor of London was assessed as an Earl and paid £4. The Aldermen, assessed as barons, paid £2 each. The lowest workmen had to pay a groat—fourpence. The poll tax of the City amounted to no more than £700. It is estimated that there was a population of about 46,000. But the expenses of collection are not included. In the taxation of the whole population, man, woman, and child, there must have been a great number of clerks and collectors. Perhaps 25 per cent was spent in the work. That would give us a population of 56,000. Next year the poll tax was again imposed; but this time the smallest sum to be paid was three groats, and that by every man, woman, and child over the age of fifteen. What would this tax mean at the present day? It would mean that every working man would have to pay half-a-crown for himself, half-a-crown for his wife, and half-a-crown for every one in his house over fifteen years of age, say four half-crowns, or ten shillings in all. How long would a Government last which should impose such a tax? The tax produced in London alone no more than £1000. It was a fatal impost for the country, for it proved the cause of the rebellion, the most formidable rising of the peasantry which this country ever had to encounter, that named after Wat Tyler. The history of this insurrection belongs to the history of England rather than that of London, but the later and more dramatic part of it took place in the City. Perhaps I cannot do better than transcribe the short and graphic contemporary account given in Riley’s Memorials (p. 449):—

“Among the most wondrous and hitherto unheard-of prodigies that have ever happened in the City of London, that which took place there on the Feast of Corpus Christi, the 13th day of June, in the 4th year of the reign of King Richard the Second, seems deserving to be committed to writing, that it may be not unknown to those to come.

For on that day, while the King was holding his Council in the Tower of London, countless companies of the commoners and persons of the lowest grade from Kent and Essex suddenly approached the said City, the one body coming to the town of Southwark, and the other to the place called ‘Mileende,’ without Algate. By the aid also of perfidious commoners within the City, of their own condition, who rose in countless numbers there, they suddenly entered the City together, and, passing straight through it, went to the mansion of Sir John, Duke of Lancaster, called ‘Le Savoye,’ and completely levelled the same with the ground, and burned it. From thence they turned to the Church of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, without Smethfeld, and burnt and levelled nearly all the houses there, the Church excepted.

On the next morning, all the men from Kent and Essex met at the said place called ‘Mileende,’ together with some of the perfidious persons of the City aforesaid; whose numbers in all were past reckoning. And there the King came to them from the Tower, accompanied by many knights and esquires, and citizens on horseback, the lady his mother following him also in a chariot. Where, at the prayer of the infuriated rout, our Lord the King granted that they might take those who were traitors against him, and slay them, wheresoever they might be found. And from thence the King rode to his Wardrobe, which is situated near to Castle Baynard; while the whole of the infuriated rout took its way towards the Tower of London; entering which by force, they dragged forth from it Sir Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor of our Lord the King, and Brother Robert Hales, Prior of the said Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the King’s Treasurer; and, together with them, Brother William Appletone, of the Order of Friars Minors, and John Leg, Serjeant-at-arms to the King, and also, one Richard Somenour, of the Parish of Stebenhuthe; all of whom they beheaded in the place called ‘Tourhille,’ without the said Tower; and then carrying their heads through the City upon lances, they set them up on London Bridge, fixing them there on stakes.

Upon the same day there was also no little slaughter within the City, as well of natives as of aliens. Richard Lions, citizen and vintner of the said City, and many others, were beheaded in Chepe. In the Vintry also, there was a very great massacre of Flemings, and in one heap there were lying about forty headless bodies of persons who had been dragged forth from the churches and their houses; and hardly was there a street in the City in which there were not bodies lying of those who had been slain. Some of the houses also in the said City were pulled down, and others in the suburbs destroyed, and some too, burnt.

Such tribulation as this, greater and more horrible than could be believed by those who had not seen it, lasted down to the hour of Vespers on the following day, which was Saturday, the 15th of June; on which day God sent remedy for the same, and His own gracious aid, by the hand of the most renowned man, Sir William Walworthe, the then Mayor; who in Smethefelde, in presence of our Lord the King and those standing by him, lords, knights, esquires, and citizens on horseback, on the one side, and the whole of this infuriated rout on the other, most manfully, by himself, rushed upon the captain of the said multitude, ‘Walter Tylere’ by name, and, as he was altercating with the King and the nobles, first wounded him in the neck with his sword, and then hurled him from his horse, mortally pierced in the breast; and further, by favour of the divine grace, so defended himself from those who had come with him, both on foot and horseback, that he departed from thence unhurt, and rode on with our Lord the King and his people, towards a field near to the spring that is called ‘Whittewellebeche’; in which place, while the whole of the infuriated multitude in warlike manner was making ready against our Lord the King and his people, refusing to treat of peace except on condition that they should first have the head of the said Mayor, the Mayor himself, who had gone into the City at the instance of our Lord the King, in the space of half an hour sent and led forth therefrom so great a force of citizen warriors in aid of his Lord the King, that the whole multitude of madmen was surrounded and hemmed in; and not one of them would have escaped, if our Lord the King had not commanded them to be gone.

KING RICHARD II. AND HIS COUNCIL GO DOWN THE THAMES IN A BARGE TO CONFER WITH THE REBELS

From Froissart’s Chronicles.

Therefore our Lord the King returned into the City of London with the greatest of glory and honour, and the whole of this profane multitude in confusion fled forthwith for concealment in their affright.

For this same deed our Lord the King, beneath his standard, in the said field with his own hands decorated with the order of knighthood the said Mayor, and Sir Nicholas Brembre, and Sir John Phelipot, who had already been Mayors of the said City; as also Sir Robert Launde.”

“Jack Straw” before his execution made a full confession. It has been doubted whether this confession is genuine, but it seems possible and even probable. They promised to have masses said for his soul (which assured him that it was purgatory to which he would be sent) and on this promise he declared that they had intended to seize the King, to carry him about in order to reassure the people, and in the end to kill him and all who were set in authority. They were going to spare the mendicant friars alone. And they were going to set up separate kingdoms all over the country.

The doctrines of Wyclyf’s preachers and “simple priests” certainly made this rebellion possible: they filled the minds of the rustics with new ideas of equality and right; they made them question authority; they made it possible for them to unite. As regards London, on inquiry after the rebellion, it was proved that two hundred persons had left the City in consequence, which does not seem to show that Lollardy was advanced by the rebels, or that there was any sympathy extended to them from the Lollards of the City. Now London at this time, Walsingham says, was full of Lollards—they were all Lollards. A little later than this even Whittington was accused of being male credulus. As regards the word Lollard its true meaning has been ascertained by Professor Skeat (Piers the Plowman, Early Eng. Text Soc., vol. iv. p. 86). There was a sect in Brabant before Wyclyf was born who were called Lollards.... “Sive Deum laudantes,” says one writer. “Mussitatores,” i.e. mumblers of prayers, says another. The name of Lollard, a term of reproach in Brabant, was borrowed from that country and applied to the followers of Wyclyf in order to render them unpopular. The word lollere or loller—one who lolls, an indolent person—had nothing to do with the word Lollard: nor with the Latin lolium, tares, which was also pressed into the service in order to make the new opinions unpopular.

After the murder of Archbishop Sudbury, William Courtenay became Archbishop of Canterbury: he was a man of high birth, a scholar, one of a temper which would not bear opposition, and one who held the strongest views as to authority and the power of the Church. He naturally saw in the late dangerous rising of the people a blow against authority, which he also ascribed, quite reasonably, to the teaching and the influence of Wyclyf. The doctrines of the rebel leaders were, however, an exaggeration and perversion of those taught by Wyclyf. And we must remember that Jack Straw looked forward to a time when the Franciscans should inherit the whole earth, an aspiration certainly not shared by Wyclyf. Twice had Wyclyf been summoned to appear before an ecclesiastical court. Courtenay called a Court and again summoned Wyclyf to appear. He was probably prevented by a stroke of paralysis, for he did not come. The Court was held in his absence in the Great Hall of the Black Friars. There were assembled (see Milman’s Latin Christianity, v. 509) eight Bishops, fourteen Doctors in Civil and Canon Law, six Bachelors of Divinity, four monks, fifteen Mendicant Friars, not one being a Franciscan, which is significant. Twenty-four articles were gathered out of the writings of Wyclyf, all to be condemned. In order to give these scenes great solemnity, a procession of clergy and laity walked barefoot to St. Paul’s to hear a sermon on the subject. (See Appendix I.).

Etch^d. By. J Harris

WAT TYLER FOR HIS INSOLENCE IS KILLED BY WALWORTH, AND KING RICHARD PUTS HIMSELF AT THE HEAD OF THE REBELS

From Froissart’s Chronicles.

There is the significant fact that in 1393 the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London complained formally to the King of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Sheriffs—Whittington being then one of the Sheriffs—as male creduli, upholders of Lollards, detractors of religious persons, detainers of tithes, and defrauders of the poor. Richard II.’ s “Good Queen Anne” was a Wyclyfite. She read the Gospels for herself in English, in Bohemian, and in Latin. Nobles and knights, among them Sir John Oldcastle, sometimes called Lord Cobham, and the Earl of Salisbury, were avowed Wyclyfites. Even among the monks themselves there were Lollards. Peter Patishull, an Augustinian monk, and actually one of the Pope’s chaplains, preached plain Wyclyfism at St. Christopher’s Church, close to the monastery of St. Augustine. And he affixed a written document to the doors of St. Paul’s, stating that “he had escaped from the companionship of the worst of men”—meaning his brethren of St. Augustine’s—“to the most perfect and holy life of the Lollards.” And again there is that most remarkable Petition of the London Lollards to Parliament. Remember that these words were written a hundred and fifty years before the Dissolution of the Religious Houses. They were the opinions of the common people put into articulate speech by such men as Peter Patishull. The document is, as Dean Milman says, “vehemently anti-papal, anti-Roman.”

“Since the Church of England, fatally following that of Rome, has been endowed with temporalities, Faith, Hope, and Charity have deserted her communion. Their Priesthood is no Priesthood: men in mortal sin cannot convey the Holy Ghost. The clergy profess celibacy but from their pampered living are unable to practise it. The pretended miracle of Transubstantiation leads to idolatry. Exorcism or Benedictions are vain, delusive, and diabolical. The realm cannot prosper so long as spiritual persons hold secular offices. One who unites these two is a hermaphrodite. All chantries of prayer for the dead should be suppressed: one hundred religious houses would be enough for the spiritual wants of the realm. Pilgrimages, the worshipping of the Cross or images, or reliques, is idolatry. Auricular confession, indulgences, are mischievous or a mockery. Capital punishments are to be abolished as contrary to the New Testament. Convents of females are defiled by licentiousness and the worst crimes. All trades which minister to pride or luxury, especially goldsmiths and sword cutlers, are unlawful.” (Latin Christianity.)

London was placarded with these manifestoes, half wise, half foolish. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London hastily summoned Richard from Ireland by information that an outbreak of Lollards was at hand. Probably fear and hatred exaggerated the danger. Then came the deposition of Richard, the accession of Henry and his declaration that he would support the Church. For a time the Lollards were quiet.

Returning to City history it was perhaps in the hope of increasing the popularity of the King that Brembre in 1383 issued a proclamation “concerning the liberties lately granted to the Citizens of London by the Lord King in his Parliament.”

The substance of the Charter is given in the Liber Albus. It was obtained partly by the good offices of the Queen, and partly by an advance, loan, or gift of 4000 marks.

KING RICHARD II. IN GREAT DANGER IN THE CITY OF LONDON

From Froissart’s Chronicles.

In the year 1392 the King, wanting money as usual, ordered every London citizen who possessed an estate worth £40 at least to take up the honour of knighthood for which heavy fees would have to be paid. The Sheriffs reported, however, that all tenements and rents in the City were “held of the King in capite as for burgage at a fee farm (ad feodi firmam); that the tenements were constantly in need of repair, and that it was impossible to make such a return as the King desired. The King had to withdraw the order. But he had a new quarrel with the City: he offered some jewels as security for a loan; the citizens said they were too poor to advance the money; therefore the King sent to a certain Lombard who promised to find the money; in order to get it, he himself borrowed of the citizens. Another version of the story is that the citizens learning that this Lombard, one of the Pope’s licensed usurers, had advanced the money, fell upon him and beat him grievously. If this story is true the reasons were probably the general ill feeling towards foreigners always existing in the City, and next, a special rage that this man should have become so rich. Richard heard of this; for the moment he said nothing, for he was in some respects a most self-restrained prince, though at all times most revengeful. Moreover, he had another quarrel with the City on account of the side they took in the late troubles. His chance came. It began with a loaf of bread snatched from a baker’s tray by a servant of the Bishop of Salisbury, named Roman, in Fleet Street. The baker, as the tale is told, naturally resented the robbery and tried to recover his loaf: in the scuffle he was wounded by the said Roman—probably they had both drawn their knives. A crowd collected; Roman’s fellow-servants rescued him, dragged him into the house and refused to give him up. The crowding people round the gates bawled that they would set fire to the place in order to get the man out. The Mayor and Sheriffs hurried to the spot and with some difficulty persuaded the people to go home, before violence was done. Here the affair, really a trifle, should have ended. But the Bishop of Salisbury, who is said to have desired an opportunity to do the City a bad turn, hurried to the King and asked if the Londoners were to be allowed with impunity to insult the Church and defy the State.” “Certainly not,” said Richard; “if necessary I will raze the City to the ground.” He ordered the Mayor, the Sheriffs, the Aldermen, and four-and-twenty principal men of the City to attend him to Nottingham there to answer for these grievous disorders.

It was very soon discovered that the King meant mischief. The citizens threw themselves upon his mercy as the shortest and perhaps the cheapest way out of the quarrel. He committed the Mayor to prison at Windsor, and the Sheriffs to Odysham and Wallingford. He then appointed a commission under the Great Seal—his uncles the Dukes of York and Gloucester being the Commissioners—to inquire into the misgovernment of the City. The prisoners had to pay a fine of 1000 marks for the first offence, whatever that was, of which they were convicted; 2000 marks for the second; and in the third the Liberties of the City were seized by the King, contrary to the Charters. The Mayor was degraded, the Sheriffs and Aldermen deposed and others appointed in their place, and a Custos was given to the City—Sir Edward Dalyngrigge. Richard then summoned the Aldermen to Windsor and imposed a fine of £100,000 upon the City. But it does not appear that he meant it to be paid, for in the following month he announced his intention of riding through the City. Then the citizens humbled themselves and made a very expensive effort to win back the King’s favour. They prepared a most magnificent reception for him. First, at St. George’s Church, Southwark, he was met by the Bishop of London, all the clergy, and five hundred choristers in surplices: at London Bridge he was presented with a splendid charger richly clad in cloth of gold, and to the Queen was given a stately white pad with rich furniture: the streets through which he passed were lined with the City Companies in order: the conduits ran wine: and the people shouted. At the Standard in Cheapside stood a boy in white raiment, representing an angel, who presented the King a crown of gold and the Queen with another: he also offered wine from a golden cup. Then the Mayor and the City Fathers rode with the King to Westminster. The next day, to complete this show of loyalty, they sent the King two silver gilt basins in each of which lay a thousand nobles of gold: and a picture of the Trinity said to have been valued at eight hundred pounds—one cannot believe there was then any picture in the world valued at so much. The King remitted the fine of £100,000 and restored the Charters.

The citizens on receiving back their Charters proceeded to institute certain reforms. They resolved that their Aldermen should be elected for life, and not year by year: a measure which diminished the factious quarrels over the elections. They also divided the Ward of Farringdon into two.

In the year 1394 the Queen Anne of Bohemia died. She had the reputation of being a good friend to the City. In the Latin poem of “Richard of Maidstone” (Camden Society, Deposition of Richard the Second), the Queen is represented as pleading with the King for the City:—

Ingreditur Regina suis comitata puellis,

Pronaque regales corruit ante pedes.

Erigitur, mandante viro, “Quid,” ait, “petis Anna,

Exprime, de votis expediere tuis.”

Supplicatio Reginae pro eisdem civibus.

“Dulcis,” ait, “mi Rex, mihi vir, mihi vis, mihi vita,

Dulcis amor, sine quo vivere fit mihi mors.

Regibus in cunctis similem quis possidet urbem?

Quae velut haec hodie magnificaret eum?

Et rogo constanter per eum quem fertis amorem

Ad me, condignum si quid amore gero,

Parcere dignemini plebibus, qui tanta dedere

Munera tam prompte nobis ad obsequia.

Et placeat veteri nunc urbem reddere juri,

Ac libertates restituisse suas.”

Two years later the King went through the form of marriage with the French princess Isabel who was brought over at the age of eight. The Mayor and Aldermen went out to meet the “little Queen” at Blackheath, and escorted her to Kennington Palace, and the next day from that Palace to the Tower, the roads and streets being crowded with an innumerable throng.

The extravagance of the King had now become an intolerable burden to the country, especially to London. He is said to have maintained 10,000 persons at his Court. There were 300 employed in the kitchen alone. There was never any prince who clad himself more gorgeously: one cloak he had made of gold and silver cloth studded with jewels which cost him £2000, or about £40,000 of our money. He seems to have been unable to understand the meaning of money or the relation between things he desired, and the taxable wealth of the country. His last method of extortion was to issue blank charters which the merchants were to sign and he was to fill up at his pleasure. This proved too much for the long-suffering City. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had recently died; so they sent for his son Henry, Duke of Lancaster.

HENRY OF LANCASTER BRINGS KING RICHARD BACK TO LONDON

From MS. in British Museum. Harl. 1319.

The rest is history; Henry came, was received with acclamations by the City, a company of 1200 Londoners, fully armed, was raised for him; he marched out with them and with others and seized the King whom he brought back to London with him. The rabble wanted to murder their former idol on the way. The Recorder with a great number of Knights and Esquires went out to meet Lancaster and his captive. In the name of the City this functionary begged Henry to behead the King. Perhaps, however, the story is not true. Holinshed simply speaks of the immense joy of the people, and says that “many evil-disposed persons, assembling themselves together in great numbers, intended to have met with him and to have taken him from such as had the conveying of him, that they might have slain him.”

HOW RICHARD II. RESIGNED THE CROWN TO THE DUKE OF LANCASTER

From Froissart’s Chronicles.

In the Parliament which was called on the arrival of the King at the Tower, thirty-three articles were drawn up showing that he was worthy of deposition. These articles were read at the Guildhall. The King, brought to Westminster, read publicly the renunciation of his Crown.