The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King (13 page)

‘No matter what region you have come to with an army, you have been the ruin of my men because of your bad leadership, your advice, the bad terrain, and because of hunger, thirst and poverty. Always concerned for your purse, you are totally unconcerned for me. And now, it is typical of you to want to force me to cross the Scottish sea, so that I may perish with my men from hunger and destitution, and become a prey to my enemies … You will certainly not have your way in this matter. However, you may cross the sea with your men, if you so wish. Never before have you been thronged by so large a number of your men as you are now. But I and my men will return home.’

‘But I am also your man’, John responded.

‘I see no evidence of it!’ snapped Richard, whose mood was afterwards one of great distress.
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Although the retreat was sounded without any material gain and without even having engaged an enemy, the campaign of 1385 was not without its landmarks. One of these was Richard’s creation of two of his uncles as dukes: Edmund as duke of Canterbury and Thomas as duke of Aumale. These titles were short-lived; there may have been hostility to them, not so much arising from the recipients as from the fact that Richard had created them outside parliament. Edward III had been very careful to raise all his higher lords to their dignities within the parliamentary chamber. For this reason, Richard’s attempt to make Simon Burley the earl of Huntingdon – having already given him many of the old earl of Huntingdon’s lands – failed.
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He was more successful with his plan to create Michael de la Pole earl of Suffolk, but even here he managed to alienate one of his uncles, Thomas, to whom he had just given a dukedom. He gave de la Pole all the inheritance of the Ufford family, who had previously been the earls of Suffolk. This angered Thomas, who still had no landed inheritance of his own. He began to side more openly with those speaking against Richard’s personal form of government.

While the army waited at Bishopthorpe, a quarrel broke out between John Holland – Richard’s older half-brother – and Sir Ralph Stafford. Two esquires in the company of Stafford’s father, the earl of Stafford, killed two grooms in the service of Sir John Holland. The offenders fled to sanctuary and would have been dragged out and lynched had not Richard intervened. Holland then went to see Richard, to ask for redress, and was assured that the squires would stand trial. But shortly afterwards Sir Ralph chanced upon Sir John. As Ralph Stafford was one of Richard’s favourites, probably his closest friend after de Vere, and a great favourite of the queen’s too, John Holland should have exercised more caution. But like the king himself, Holland could not stand criticism of any sort, and
drew his sword and killed young Stafford. Subsequently, fearing Richard’s revenge, John Holland withdrew from the army and sought refuge on his estates in Lancashire.

News of the quarrel between her two sons plunged Joan of Kent into deeper grief. Hearing that one of her sons, the king, had insisted that another of her sons should face the full penalty of the law, she sent messengers to intercede with Richard, and to show pity to her through showing mercy to John. Richard refused. He had promised the dead heir’s father – who was understandably distraught at losing his eldest son – that he would not protect the killer even though he was his half-brother. When Joan’s messengers returned and told her this, she collapsed.
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We can sympathise with all parties: the royal family was wrenching itself apart, brother fighting against brother; cousin against cousin. A few days later, on 8 August, Joan died. Although she made due acknowledgement of Richard’s place in her affections in her will, describing him there as ‘her very dear son’, the king cannot have been reassured. She chose not to be buried with his father, the prince, but with Thomas Holland, the father of her other children, including the renegade John.
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Henry probably remained in the north at the end of the 1385 campaign. His father took on the securing of the northern border against reprisals from the Scots. They had both seen enough of the young king and his entourage for the time being. Although John had been reconciled to Robert de Vere and Thomas Mowbray in June, he did not trust either of them. Nevertheless, he could not remain in the north forever. There was a parliament to be attended. Writs had been sent out as soon as Richard had returned. And this time they included one name which had never before been included on a parliamentary summons: Henry of Lancaster, earl of Derby.

It was a tumultuous parliament. Everything was set for confrontation. The king had led his army, as he had been required to do. Now he wanted free rein to rule as he wished. He had turned his thoughts to how to counter criticisms of his personal rule, and he had a new strategy. Whatever parliament wished to throw at him, he had something to throw back. He was set to make a powerful display of his own vision of chivalric kingship. When the lords, prelates and commons arrived at Westminster Hall, they found themselves confronted by a series of larger-than-life-size statues: one for every king from St Edward the Confessor to Richard himself. Thirteen kings – some good, some bad, some strong and some weak, but all of them kings – were displayed as the inheritors of the throne of a saint, not a conqueror.
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The proceedings of the parliament were cold and meaningful. The chancellor made the opening speech, announcing that the parliament had been called to discuss the good governance of the realm and its preservation from threats within and without its borders. But then he announced that the internal ‘threats’ amounted only to the location of the wool staple and the standard of the currency. What of the appointment of bad ministers, of the raising of unworthy men to peerages, of the alienation of royal property? What of the fact that Richard had promised to give de Vere £45,000 to secure his lands in Ireland? The king was then petitioned repeatedly to revoke his grants to unworthy lords, for the royal purveyors to act within the law, for the royal household to be reviewed, for a committee of lords to be appointed to oversee the operations of the exchequer and to exercise restraint with regard to royal grants. Richard listened as his political opponents read out a blistering attack on his personal government. In thirteen clauses (echoing the thirteen kings, perhaps) it hammered home what exactly the lords wanted from Richard: that he give credence to his council, that he not interfere with the law, that he appoint suitable persons to control access to his chamber and other household offices, that he not appoint anyone to any offices without first seeking advice, that he not grant out lands and offices without advice, nor grant pardons for murder, robbery and rape as lightly as he had done.
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After a bitter and long debate, a compromise was reached.
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A commission of four men to reform the royal household was agreed, with a remit to oversee the operation of the royal finances.
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The king was prohibited from making further grants which reduced the Crown revenues. Other grants could only be made following an expert valuation, and then only to those who deserved them: the king could no longer simply hand out lucrative offices to his friends. Richard cleverly managed to water down the most excessive demands, but then he rendered the whole compromise utterly meaningless. Having been criticised for raising his friends to high titles outside parliament, he decided that the agreement now gave him the right to demand confirmation of their titles within parliament. On 9 November he announced that he would create his two uncles dukes. Thomas was henceforth to be duke of Gloucester, and Edmund, duke of York (the titles he had given them on the Scottish border were discarded). These were fine but then he declared that Sir Michael de la Pole would receive the earldom of Suffolk and Sir James Butler the earldom of Ormond. Sir Ralph Neville would become earl of Cumberland and Sir Simon Burley earl of Huntingdon. And then he declared that Robert de Vere would become duke of Ireland.
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Those present were horrified. They did not know what was more
objectionable: Richard handing out a grant of £45,000 of royal revenue to de Vere or making him a duke. Giving Burley, de la Pole and Neville earldoms was hardly any better. They objected. Burley was prevented from receiving his earldom, so too was Neville. De la Pole was grudgingly allowed his, but de Vere’s dukedom was out of the question. Richard refused to back down. So the debate raged. Eventually, yet another compromise was suggested. Rather than a dukedom, de Vere could be given a new form of title, a marquisate. Richard agreed. On 1 December, his favourite was created marquis of Dublin.

The earls were bitterly resentful. De Vere now outranked them in the chamber: an unremarkable, inexperienced pleasure-seeking twenty-five-year-old! But Richard was not finished yet. To insult his detractors that little bit more, he also gave de Vere the confiscated estates of John Holland, even though the reversion of these meant that they were not his to grant. And then he decided he would not abide by the decisions of the commission to reform his household and finances. Was this not everything which the lords had just sought to prevent happening? Would Richard never learn?

Richard was no fool, however. Instead of working with parliament, he made personal bridges with John of Gaunt. He agreed to pardon John Northampton, the pro-Lancastrian mayor of London. He agreed that John could lead a military expedition to Castile, funded by the subsidy granted in the last parliament. On the last day of the parliament, 5 December – four days after Richard had so controversially raised de Vere to a marquisate – John was dining in his company.
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Parliament’s will had once more been flouted. John was probably looking forward to his Castilian venture, if only because it removed him from threats of being murdered and Richard’s shameful political intrigues.

Henry spent Christmas and New Year at Leicester with his father. On 19 February 1386 they were at Lincoln, when Henry was accepted into the confraternity of Lincoln Cathedral. With them too were Henry’s half-brother, John Beaufort, now aged about fourteen, and Thomas Swynford, now seventeen.
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Following the ceremony, the Lancastrian party with all its many followers returned to London, to watch Henry take part in the jousts at Smithfield in early March. All eyes were on him, the champion of the Lancastrians, hoping that he would demonstrate the prestige and power of the family. Henry did not let them down. In front of a huge crowd of Londoners, he swept the field and took the prize as the best jouster of the tournament.

John and Henry remained in London for about three weeks. A royal council on 8 March confirmed support for John’s expedition to Castile,
and two days later Henry officially received custody of his wife’s inheritance.
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Having made his farewells to the king and queen, exchanging presents with them, John set out on a series of pilgrimages, a preliminary to his expedition to Castile. Henry went as far as Plymouth. In mid-June they were staying at the Carmelites house as the fleet and an eight-thousand-strong army gathered. While waiting for a favourable wind, they gave evidence in the famous heraldic legal case between Robert Grosvenor and Lord Scrope of Bolton as to who should be allowed to bear the arms
azure, a bend or.
On 9 July the wind changed and the fleet was ready to sail. Henry joined his father on board his flagship for one last meal together, and then disembarked.
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He was nineteen. The full weight of Lancastrian expectations now lay on his shoulders.

THREE

The Summons of the Appellant’s Trumpet

The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,

Stays but the summons of the Appellant’s trumpet.

Richard II,
Act 1, Scene 3

Enmity is a difficult subject for historians. Friendship is much easier. If a king gave a large gift to one of his companions, and showered honours on him, and entertained him regularly, then we may confidently build a picture of the positive rapport between the two men. Not so with enmity. An opponent might still show his face at court, he might continue to receive occasional grants (in order to satisfy the king’s debts to him), and he might even receive marks of respect according to his status while all the time plotting against the monarch, or while the monarch was plotting against him. Richard was so mercurial that one reads of him dining or drinking wine with his enemies just after forcing them into open revolt.
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Thus, historically, relations between lords normally appear as shades of friendship. Enmity is just the darkest, most obscure shade.

Henry was already set on the path which was to lead to enmity between him and the king. Although the crisis had not yet arrived, the parliament of 1385 had shown the level of outrage which Richard could cause through his arrogance and favouritism. Even before that parliament Henry had every reason to be deeply concerned. On top of their childhood rivalry, Richard had attempted to parcel out the inheritance of the Mortimers (Henry’s second cousins) and take back the benefactions given under the terms of the will of Edward III (Henry’s grandfather). He had sacked the chancellor, raised unworthy men to earldoms, and raised the unworthy de Vere to a higher title than Henry. He had viciously slandered the earl of Arundel (another of Henry’s cousins), attempted to kill the archbishop of Canterbury and despite his earlier promises permitted his half-brother John Holland, to go unpunished after murdering the earl of Stafford’s son and heir. Worst of all, he had ordered Henry’s father to be summarily executed in 1384, plotted to have him murdered in February 1385, and accused him of treason for nothing more than wanting to press ahead with the Scottish campaign. On top of all this the king was ignoring the
commission set up by the 1385 parliament to reform the royal household. Richard had frittered away more than a hundred thousand pounds of taxation, having given much of it to his friends. English military obligations overseas were being disregarded, the defence of the realm forgotten. For anyone of the Lancastrian affinity, Richard was both a vicious man and an incompetent ruler.