Shakespeare's Kings (27 page)

Politically,
however,
there
were
disadvantages.
One
was
that
the French
were
not
only
England's
traditional
enemies;
they
were
also schismatics.
It
was
now
nearly
twenty
years
since
Pope
Gregory
XI
had

1. John Beaufort, the eldest, became Earl of Somerset; Henry, Dean of Wells and then Cardinal Bishop of Winchester; Thomas, Duke of Exeter. Joan married Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmorland. Tradition - but, alas, only tradition - holds that Kather-ine's elder sister Philippa was the wife of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

ended
the
seventy-year
exile
of
the
papacy
and
returned
to
Rome;
but a
succession
of
antipopes
continued,
with
the
full
support
of
the
French King,
to
contest
the
title
from
Avignon,
and
any
alliance
with
France would
be
sure
to
have
unpleasant
consequences
on
Richard's
relations with
Gregory's
second
successor,
Boniface
IX.
An
even
graver
cause for
concern
from
the
parliamentary
point
of
view
was
a
clause
in
the treaty
in
which
the
French
royal
house
promised
'to
aid
and
sustain [Richard]
against
all
manner
of
persons
who
owe
him
any
obedience, and
also
to
aid
and
sustain
him
with
all
their
power
against
any
of
his subjects'.
There
was
nothing
necessarily
sinister
in
this;
it
could
easily have
been
prompted
by
the
ever-present
danger
of
another
peasants' revolt.
On
the
other
hand,
Richard
could
equally
well
have
had
Gloucester
and
Arundel
in
mind,
and
the
very
idea
of
an
English
King summoning
a
French
army
to
champion
him
against
his
own
subjects was
enough
to
make
the
marriage
a
good
deal
more
unpopular
than
it might
otherwise
have
been.
It
was
scarcely
surprising,
in
the
circumstances,
that
those
two
noblemen
in
particular
-
and
especially
Gloucester,
who
had
always
detested
the
French
-
were
loud
in
its condemnation;
only
the
enthusiastic
endorsement
of
John
of
Gaunt enabled
Richard
to
ride
out
the
storm
and,
in
January
1397,
to
have Isabelle
crowned
Queen.

In
the
same
month
Parliament
met
at
Westminster,
the
first
that
had sat
for
two
years.
While
not
actively
hostile
to
the
King,
it
had
no intention
of
being
intimidated.
At
its
very
first
session
it
firmly
refused any
financial
backing
for
Richard's
plan
—
the
result
of
a
rash
promise to
his
father-in-law
Charles
VI
-
to
send
an
army
in
support
of
the Duke
of
Burgundy
against
Gian
Galeazzo
Visconti
of
Milan.
Next,
on 1
February,
a
petition
was
presented
in
the
name
of
one
Thomas
Haxey -
a
formerly
mysterious
figure
whom
we
now
know
not
to
have
been a
Member
of
Parliament
at
all,
but
a
clerk
to
the
Court
of
Common Pleas
and
proctor
to
the
Abbot
of
Selby.
Its
first
three
clauses
were unexceptionable;
the
fourth
and
last,
however,
was
an
outspoken
protest against
the
excessive
cost
of
the
royal
court
owing
to
the
presence
of so
many
bishops,
fashionable
ladies
and
their
retinues.
Richard
would have
done
well
to
ignore
it;
instead
he
flew
into
one
of
his
ever
more frequent
furies
and
appealed
to
the
Lords,
who
obedie
ntly
declared
it to
be
treason
for
anyone
to
excite
the
Commons
to
reform
anything affecting
the
person,
government
or
regality
of
a
King,
and
on
7
February condemned
Haxey,
by
a
shameless
piece
of
retroactive
legislation,
to
a traitor's
death.
The
unfortunate
man
was
in
fact
reprieved
only
three months
later
and
received
a
full
pardon,
but
the
damage
was
done:
all the
doubts
and
uncertainties
of
the
previous
decade
had
been
reopened, while
the
readiness
of
the
Lords
to
oblige
the
King
had
dangerously increased
his
self-confidence.

It
certainly
had
no
effect
on
his
expenditure.
Apart
from
his
normal extravagances,
Richard
was
now
spending
vast
sums
on
the
remodelling of
Westminster
Hall,
first
built
as
a
banqueting
hall
by
the
Conqueror's son
William
Rufus
almost
exa
ctly
three
centuries
before.
With
a
length of
240
feet
and
70
feet
across,
it
was
already
by
far
the
largest
Norman hall
in
England,
and
probably
in
Europe;
but
it
had
been
badly
damaged by
fire
in
1291,
and
though
restored
under
Edward
II
it
had
never regained
its
former
splendour
till
Richard
took
it
in
hand
in
1394. Architecturally
speaking,
the
moment
could
hardly
have
been
more propitious.
The
King
had
as
his
master
mason
one
of
the
greatest
of medieval
architects,
Henry
Yevele,
who
had
recently
completed
the nave
of
Westminster
Abbey;
with
Yevele
was
a
carpenter
of
genius, Hugh
Herland.
Together,
over
a
period
of
seven
years,
these
two
men produced
a
new
Hall
which,
though
no
longer
or
broader
than
William's, was
higher
and
infinitely
more
magnificent.
Its
chief
glory
was
-
and is
-
Herland's
timber
roof,
92
feet
above
the
floor,
the
earliest
large hammerbeam
roof
in
England
with
the
widest
unsupported
span;
surely the
finest
anywhere.
The
Hall
soon
became
the
centre
of
administrative life,
the
setting
for
council
meetings
and
often
for
parliaments
themselves;
it
was
to
house
the
law
courts
until
1882.
Here,
without
any question,
was
Richard's
greatest
gift
to
his
country:
for
Westminster Hall
alone
he
deserves
our
lasting
gratitude.