A Great and Glorious Adventure (29 page)

The king agreed to meet the rebels again, at Mile End on 14 June, and now their demands went way beyond just the heads of those whom they disliked. There were political issues too: the abolition
of serfdom and villeinage, a fixed rent of fourpence an acre for land, equality of all men below the king (abolition of the lords and knights) and an amnesty for all involved in the revolt. The
king announced that he would grant all the
demands and returned to the Tower, to discover that during his absence another group of rebels had forced entrance, dragged out
the Chancellor, Archbishop Sudbury, and the Treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, and beheaded them both on Tower Hill. Henry Bolingbroke was fortunate not to have suffered the same fate. Whether the
murders were at the instigation of Tyler, who may or may not have been present at Mile End, we do not know. Most of the rebels now dispersed and began to make their way home, satisfied that the
king had granted their demands, but a hard core including Tyler remained, and the king agreed to meet them the next day at Smithfield.

On Sunday, 15 June, the king rode out from the Tower, escorted by 200 mounted men-at-arms, some of his household and the Lord Mayor. At Smithfield, the king’s party lined up at one end of
the field and the rebels at the other. Tyler was summoned to speak to the king and rode across the field on horseback. What happened then is disputed and depends on which chronicler you believe.
Tyler may or may not have got off his horse. He may have seized the king’s hand, called him ‘brother’ and failed to remove his hat. He may have added to the previous day’s
demands the disestablishment of the church and the abolition of the offence of outlawry, and he may have demanded a flagon of wine to quench his thirst. He may have drawn a dagger and threatened
the Lord Mayor, or he may have been accused of being a thief and a knave by a squire of the king’s household. Alternatively, it may have been the intention all along to arrest or kill Tyler,
a plan to which the king may or may not have been privy. What is not in dispute, though, is that Tyler was stabbed, probably by Mayor Walworth, and fell to the ground. Some of his men, former army
archers, seeing their leader felled, strung their bows, whereupon the young king, showing considerable courage (or perhaps, given he was a spoilt child, it never occurred to him that he might be in
danger and he simply had no fear), cantered over to them, drew his sword, and invited them to look upon him as their captain and to follow him to Clerkenwell, where he would grant them all that
they had asked. The rebels set off to Clerkenwell and the king and his escort made their own way, while Mayor Walworth may or may not have galloped back to the city and called out any available
soldiers, knights and citizens accustomed to bearing arms.
The resulting group, numbering 1,000 according to Walsingham but probably several hundred, set out for
Clerkenwell, where they may or may not have surrounded the rebels and forced them to drop their weapons, or the rebels may have simply been persuaded to go home and escorted to the city gates by
knights of the king’s household. What is not in doubt is that the dying Tyler was rushed to Tyburn and hanged under the auspices of the Lord Mayor.

With the death of Tyler and the dispersal of the rebel armies that had converged on London, the revolt collapsed, although mopping up took a little longer. Initially, it was the
government’s intention to promote reconciliation. There were few executions and, as a result of legal arguments over what exactly defined treason, those that were carried out were mainly for
felony, until there was a renewed flaring up in Essex. This time, there would be no mercy and anyone remotely suspected of rebellion was tried and hanged or beheaded. The king did not, of course,
keep any of his promises to the rebels, and the lesson of successful deceit was not lost on him, nor did he fail to notice the rebels’ touching faith in him personally. Although the king
avoided having to grant concessions on this occasion, later in his reign there was some reform of the administration, forced upon him by the members of Parliament and the money-granting power that
they and they alone had, one which they guarded jealously.

In France, too, there was revolt caused by excessive taxation, but ruthless and immediate action by the duke of Burgundy put it down. However much some elements in both countries wanted to
continue the war, neither could afford to do more than engage in inconclusive skirmishes at sea, and a threatened French invasion of England in 1386 was called off because of bad weather and an
exaggerated French view of the reception that they might get.
⁶⁷
While a continuance of the war by England would undoubtedly have been attractive to her
soldiers, who saw it as the only way to make a name and a fortune, it had cost the treasury dear: shipments of wool or wine could now only be carried in armed convoys, which
made them hideously expensive, and the pay of the garrisons in English France was reduced to an extent that the men had to rely on ransoms and extortion to survive. That ransoms and
extortion were a good source of income is evidenced by the fact that desertions and mutinies as a result of the reduction in pay were very few.

Richard II was now growing up and increasingly resenting the control exercised by the various councils established to govern the realm. When his uncle Gloucester and the earl of Arundel demanded
the sacking of the chancellor Richard de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, because of his disastrous foreign policy – one which had failed to prevent the French gaining control of Flanders and had
lost England the support of John of Brittany – the king arrogantly said that he would not dismiss a scullion from his kitchen on their say-so. When Gloucester reminded the king that monarchs
had been deposed before and pointed to the case of his own grandfather, Edward II, Richard then overreached himself by saying that his subjects were in rebellion against him and he would ask his
brother the king of France’ to aid him. But, rather than instigate outright opposition, Richard now backtracked; Suffolk was dismissed and impeached, and a new council with Gloucester and
Arundel as leading members was installed. Nonetheless, Richard’s insistence on the appointment of court favourites to lucrative offices and his failure to prosecute the conflict with France
very nearly led to civil war, with Gloucester, Arundel and their associates and armed retinues on one side and the king and soldiers paid by him personally on the other.

The Lords Appellant,
⁶⁸
as the opposition termed themselves, won the only battle, at Radcot Bridge in December 1387, and the following year the
so-called Merciless Parliament sentenced five of the king’s friends to suffer the death of traitors, with the full panoply of drawing, hanging and quartering. However much they may have
deserved it, theirs was judicial murder all the same and the king would have his revenge – but not just yet. His first move came the following year, 1389, when he announced that henceforth he
would reign in his own right, which, at the age of twenty-two, he was fully entitled to do. He was crafty enough not to change many of the court appointments that the Lords
Appellant had forced upon him, nor to upset the lords themselves. With the national coffers empty, the crown jewels pawned, large loans due to be called in and Scottish raids on the
increase, Richard desperately needed to bring the war with France to a close. He needed peace and genuinely seems to have wanted it, and this view was shared on the other side of the Channel. So,
in 1389, a temporary truce was agreed while negotiations for something more permanent could take place. England gave up Cherbourg and Brest, which brought murmurings from the Lords Appellant but
did not disturb a sort of peace that endured for the next few years. During this time, Richard made his court as glorious – and as expensive to finance – as any in Europe and quietly
began to recruit soldiers, mainly from Cheshire, who wore his livery of the white hart badge rather than the accepted English cross of St George.

In 1396, Richard married for the second time (his first wife, Anne of Bohemia, whom he married in 1382, had died in 1394). The bride was Isabel, the nine-year-old daughter of Charles VI of
France, and during the marriage ceremony at Calais Richard made a statement repugnant to all levels of English society. He promised that he would work with the French to depose Pope Urban and have
Pope Clement at Avignon recognized as the only legitimate heir to the keys of St Peter. In England, there was outrage, not only among the clergy, who saw themselves abandoned by their king, but
also among the laity, who saw it as playing into French hands. Richard cared not a jot. His dowry from the French on marriage was £170,000, enough for him to recruit even more soldiers and
take the next step to avenge the deaths of his friends nine years previously. In July 1397, he ordered the arrest of Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick, the senior members of the Lords Appellant.
Gloucester was conveyed to Calais and quietly murdered, probably by smothering – he was, after all, the son of a king – while Arundel, Warwick and their adherents were tried before
Richard’s equivalent of the Merciless Parliament, with John of Gaunt presiding. In September, Arundel was sentenced to death and executed, while Warwick was awarded life imprisonment. Henry
Bolingbroke, Gaunt’s son, had at one stage joined the Lords Appellant, but, although he had been pardoned on the grounds that he had moderated their demands, he was now seen as a potential
threat and exiled, banished for ten years.

Opposition grew as Richard’s rule descended into a tyranny of disregard for the laws and customs of the realm and the raising of forced loans to fund ever more
extravagance at court. The king insisted that he ruled by God’s will and not by leave of the people and adopted the title ‘majesty’ – never before used by an English king.
John of Gaunt had himself raised no objection to the fate of his brother Gloucester, nor to the exile of his son, at least not in public, and, as far as we can tell, he remained a loyal supporter
of the crown to the end – although what he might have told his son and how he may have advised him can only be supposition. Then, in 1398, Richard at last got what he wanted and needed in his
foreign relations, when a twenty-eight-year truce was agreed with France. But, after John of Gaunt’s death the next year, the king finally went too far: he extended Henry Bolingbroke’s
banishment from ten years to life and confiscated the duchy of Lancaster with all its castles, lands and titles. This was the final straw for the magnates, for, if the king could do this to the
duchy of Lancaster, whose lands might be next? Unaware, or uncaring, of the reaction in the country to his arbitrary actions, Richard set off for Ireland – that unhappy country was once more
in a state of unrest – and Henry Bolingbroke saw his chance. He had spent much of his exile in Paris, and elements of the French nobility were more than ready to help and support him. With
only about fifty personal retainers, fellow exiles and men-at-arms, Henry took ship at Boulogne sometime in June 1399, having given out that he was off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and landed
somewhere in the Humber estuary at the end of the month.

As Henry moved through Yorkshire, knights and magnates declared their support for him and joined him with their retinues. At this stage, he does not seem to have had any intention of deposing
Richard, only of regaining his Lancastrian heritage and removing Richard’s ‘evil counsellors’. Once the earl of Northumberland and his son, Henry Percy or ‘Hotspur’,
came over to him, Henry was assured of the support of the north. With the defection of Edmund, duke of York – the king’s uncle and regent during his absence in Ireland – and the
submission of the Ricardian stronghold of Chester without a fight, Richard’s spies knew that the situation was serious. In Ireland, the king was indecisive, and even when ships were found to
embark his army, he changed his mind
about the port of departure, and the unloading and then loading of men and horses wasted more time. Eventually, Richard landed in Wales
and his soldiers began slipping away. With a few trusted advisers he took refuge in Conway Castle, and, when the earl of Northumberland arrived as Henry’s emissary, the king was persuaded to
give himself up and was taken to London and lodged in the Tower.

At some stage, probably when the duke of York had gone over to him, Henry elected to aim for the throne itself, rather than just regaining what he considered to be his rightful due. Knowing how
duplicitous Richard could be, he presumably decided that he could not risk leaving Richard on the throne plotting revenge, but the question was how to assume the crown in a manner that could be
portrayed as legal. The deposition of Edward II was not a true precedent, as he had been replaced by the next in line, his son Edward III. Richard’s immediate heir was not Henry but another
cousin, the eight-year-old Edmund Mortimer, fifth earl of March, whose mother Philippa was a daughter of Lionel of Antwerp, Edward III’s second son, whereas Henry was the son of the third
son. As the English claim to the French throne was based on inheritance through the female line, Edmund’s claim could not be dismissed on those grounds, and the justices strongly advised
Henry against claiming the throne by right of conquest, this being quite the wrong message to send to other potential usurpers. Eventually, on 29 September 1399, Richard’s twenty-two-year
reign came to an end when he was persuaded to relinquish the crown to Henry, although there was much legal fudge to justify it. Henry was acclaimed by Parliament and duly crowned on 13 October
– he would reign as Henry IV. Richard was despatched to the Lancastrian stronghold of Pontefract.

Sometime in December, a conspiracy to restore Richard was discovered. Of the chief plotters, Salisbury was lynched by a mob in Gloucester, Despenser murdered in Bristol, and Huntingdon caught
and beheaded in Essex. As long as Richard lived, he was bound to be the focus for those who opposed the new regime, and, like Edward II’s, his demise would be convenient, and the sooner the
better. Only one chronicle suggests that Richard was murdered, by being hacked into pieces; others variously claim that he was starved to death by his jailers, that he deliberately starved himself
or that he died of grief. His corpse was removed from Pontefract
to London, and, as there were regular stops on the way so that it could be exhibited to the public, the
hacked-into-pieces theory can be discounted. Nobody actually dies of grief and, as death by starvation, whether forced or self-inflicted, can take an inconveniently long time, we may reasonably
suppose that Richard II was done to death in the usual way when the body of a high-born personage must be exhibited – by suffocation. And, as it was in Henry IV’s interests that Richard
should die, we may suppose that he ordered it.