Shakespeare's Kings (23 page)

The
four
fugitives
were
sentenced
first.
The
life
of
the
Archbishop of
York
was
saved
by
his
cloth.
He
was
outl
awed,
with
all
his
possessions declared
confiscate;
then,
at
the
Appellants'
insistence,
his
case
was referred
to
Pope
Urban,
who
decreed
that
he
should
be
sent
off
in partes inf
idelium
and
soon
afterwards,
somewhat
surprisingly,
appointed
him to
the
see
of
St
Andrews.
¹
The
other
three
were
condemned
to
death
in absentia.
Next
came
Brembre.
When
he
pleaded
not
guilty
on
all charges
and
offered
to
undergo
trial
by
battle,
over
three
hundred
of those
present,
including
the
five
Appellants,
flung
down
their
gloves in
challenge
-
'like
a
fall
of
snow',
according
to
one
eyewitness;
but this
procedure
was
disallowed.
A
committee
of
twelve
peers
was
then appointed
to
investigate
the
charges
further,
and
-
to
the
fury
of
the Appellants
-
reported
that
the
former
mayor
had
done
nothing
deserving of
death;
and
tempers
on
both
sides
were
running
high
when
the
news was
brought
that
Sir
Robert
Tresilian
had
been
captured.
On
being discovered,
he
had
first
taken
refuge
in
Westminster
Abbey;
but
Gloucester
had
personally
given
orders
for
the
traditional
right
of
sanctuary to
be
ignored.
He
was
brought
to
the
White
Hall
to
hear
his
sentence which,
despite
his
emphatic
protestations
of
innocence,
was
immediately carried
out.
The
former
Chief
Justice
of
England
was
lashed
to
a
hurdle and
dragged
to
Tyburn,
where
he
was
hanged
on
the
spot.
Attention now
turned
back
to
the
luckless
Brembre.
Determined
to
destroy
him, the
Appellants
summoned
the
mayor,
recorder,
guild
members
and aldermen
of
London
to
give
further
evidence
of
his
crimes.
²
Once
again the
answers
they
received
were
unsatisfactory—no
witness
was
prepared

to
state
categorically
that
Sir
Nicholas
deserved
to
die
-
but
by
now they
had
lost
patience
and
condemned
him
anyway.
On
20
February he
followed
Sir
Robert
to
the
scaffold.

Now
it
was
the
turn
of
the
lesser
victims.
Sir
John
Salisbury,
one
of the
knights
of
the
chamber
who
was
believed
to
have
been
the
chief intermediary
in
negotiations
with
the
King
of
France,
was
hanged
as
a traitor;
other
knights,
including
Sir
James
Berners,
Sir
John
Beauchamp and
Sir
Simon
Burley
-
for
whose
life
the
Queen
went
down
on
her knees
before
Gloucester
-
were
accorded
only
the
privilege
of
being beheaded
rather
than
hanged.
Most
of
the
remaining
offenders
were released
under
surety,
and
Parliament
then
settled
down
to
the
more mundane
tasks
of
keeping
the
royal
household
under
strict
control, turning
away
any
further
undesirable
adherents
and
sending
most
of the
Queen's
compatriots
back
to
Bohemia.
Finally,
at
a
ceremony
held on
3
June
in
Westminster
Abbey,
Lords
and
Commons
together
renewed their
oaths
of
allegiance
and
the
King
gave
a
solemn
promise:
in
the future,
he
would
be
good.

Richard
had
been
brought
to
heel,
as
he
deserved
to
be;
but
the
cost had
been
great
indeed.
In
all
but
name,
his
power
and
authority
had been
usurped
by
a
group
of
ambitious
noblemen,
able
and
willing
to manipulate
a
weak
parliament
in
their
own
interests.
That
parliament has
gone
down
in
history
as
the
'Merciless'
Parliament;
in
fact,
as
the story
of
Sir
Nicholas
Brembre
makes
all
too
clear,
it
was
the
Appellants who
were
merciless.
The
parliament
simply
did
as
it
was
told.
Nor
was the
fate
of
Brembre
the
only
stain
on
its
reputation.
Of
those
executed, or
sentenced
to
execution
in
their
absence,
some
—
though
not
all
-may
well
have
been
greedy,
self-seeking
or
irresponsible;
but
none were
traitors,
none
were
criminals,
none
deserved
death.
Nor
did
any of
them
stand
a
proper
trial.
Legal
statutes
were
distorted
or
ignored altogether,
opinions
were
deliberately
misinterpreted
as
facts,
proper judicial
procedures
were
sidestepped.

These
were
dangerous
precedents;
and
those
who
set
them
must surely
bear
more
than
a
little
of
the
responsibility
for
the
dark
deeds and
civil
strife
which
cast
a
steadily
lengthening
shadow
over
the
next hundred
years
of
English
history.
On
the
other
hand,
they
were
not themselves
revolutionaries;
they
might
terrify
Richard
with
threats
of dethronement,
but
they
never
forgot
that
he
was
the
lawful
King,
and they
knew
only
too
well
that
any
attempt
to
replace
him
would
create
infinitely more problems than it would solve. That is why, however brutal their treatment of his friends, they were careful to spare, so far as they could, the reputation of the King himself. Never did they publicly humiliate him, as they could so easily have done; on the contrary, they were at pains to stress his youth and inexperience. He was not himself guilty of wrong-doing; he had simply been led astray. Now that those who had tried so hard to corrupt him had been removed from the scene, there was no reason why he should not make a fresh start.