The Last Plantagenets (23 page)

The judges who had entered a verdict for the king at Nottingham were then brought to the bar of the House and sentenced to death. It was only when the bishops united in a body to support the queen in begging for the remission of this sentence that the judges were condemned instead to perpetual exile in Ireland.

On the twelfth of March four knights of Richard’s train were brought before the House. They were Sir John Beauchamp of Holt, Sir John Salisbury, Sir James Berners—and Sir Simon Burley. The last act was now to be played out.

May 5, 1388. The Merciless Parliament, after a recess for Easter, had completed its part that morning by finding the four knights guilty. It was on one count only that a case had been made against Burley. This was the eighth, which charged him with encouraging the king to gather a corrupt court about him. The four were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

The state of mind of King Richard and his young queen can easily be conceived. Burley had been like a foster father to them both. He had taken the boy’s education in hand from the earliest years on the instructions of the Black Prince. He had broken the rules of the coronation by picking him up when he looked too tired to complete the ceremony and had carried him out in his arms, at which time the shoe had fallen from the young king’s foot. He had taught him the pleasure and profit of reading and had supplied him with the books which would never have been found otherwise at court. When Richard rode into London, it was his desire always that Sir Simon Burley should carry the state sword before him.

It was this courtly knight who had gone first to Bohemia to open negotiations for the hand of the princess Anne and who had won her assent to the match. Later he had been sent with English troops to escort the bride to England. Anne had become as deeply attached to him as the king.

The course of history often hinges on matters of seeming unimportance.
Burley was not one of the king’s chief ministers. It would have cost the relentless barons nothing if they had agreed to commute the death sentence on this very great friend of both king and queen. It is conceivable that Richard would not in that case have carried in his heart the dark design of vengeance which led to such bitterness later.

But there was a reason why they would not yield. Arundel hated Burley. He had never forgiven the latter for his open criticism of naval strategy during the earlier years when the tardy admiral had seemed unable to do anything right. Even after his great victory, which might have brought him to a magnanimous state of mind, Arundel was determined to make the knight pay for what he considered insolence.

It was the king’s harsh uncle and the revengeful admiral who shared equally the responsibility for the cruel decisions of Parliament, but instinctively the king and his consort knew that it was Arundel who was pressing for the death of Burley. It was to him they went to plead his case.

Arundel was brusque, discourteous, even brutal, to them. He brushed aside every reason they advanced for remitting the death penalty with acerbic responses. Burley had been given a fair trial and had been found guilty. The sentence must stand. They could see in his dark and passionate eye, in the frown which never left his brow, the real reason which he did not put into words. Burley must now pay for the things he had said in the past.

Queen Anne, growing desperate in her desire to save an old friend, actually went down on her knees to this fiercely unrelenting subject. She pleaded, she wept, she wrung her hands. She was no longer a queen with position and authority to wield, she was a woman willing to lay aside all dignity and all power in this sorry crisis.

Arundel did not stir from his stand. Nothing she could say had any effect on him. He pulled at his beard and glowered about him, anxious to end the scene but not daring to carry disrespect to the point of turning his back on her and leaving the room. It is said that she remained on her knees for three hours, all to no avail.

One statement only from the adamant earl is given in the chronicles of the day.

“Let the request alone, Madame Queen,” he is reported to have said. Then, permitting his words to convey in full measure the threat being held over the royal pair, he added: “Pray for yourself and your husband. That is the best thing you can do.”

Completely spent and unable to say more, the queen was led finally from the room by her women. There was nothing more she could do.

It may have been that Woodstock was in the room part of the time
during which the young queen thus sacrificed her dignity in the effort to save the unfortunate knight. It is certain that he agreed with Arundel. At some stage of this tragic morning he said to Richard: “If you wish to be king, Burley must suffer!”

What would have happened if the weak young king had stood out? If he had refused to sign the warrant, would the other barons have joined hands to prevent the two leaders from carrying out their openly stated purpose of deposition? The Earl of Derby was also against the death sentence and expressed his dissent to Woodstock and Arundel, even though he would have been a probable choice to succeed Richard.

This poses a vital speculation. Looking backward, it seems reasonable to assume that Richard, with Derby’s backing, could have succeeded in his one honest and earnest effort and saved Burley. Had he done so, he would still have been held in leash long enough to perceive the error of his autocratic opinions and it would not have been necessary for him to follow a course of dissimulation and to keep always one angry thought in the front of his mind: “Let me have time and I shall make them pay!”

The only concession that he won for his old friend was that the sentence be changed to beheading.

At an early hour of that same afternoon, the fifty-two-year-old knight, who had fought bravely through the wars close to the side of the Black Prince, was subjected to a final indignity. With his hands bound behind his back and his white hair uncovered, he was led through the streets of London for the people to gaze upon. Nothing is told as to the way the staring citizens reacted, but it is to be hoped they did not jeer. Finally he was led back, the ax still carried before him, to Tower Hill where the sentence was to be carried out.

Nor does history tell how the king and queen bore themselves during the last stage of the tragedy. Knowing how close they were to each other and how deeply their feelings were involved, it is certain that they sat together with clasped hands and bowed heads, waiting for the roll of drums to cease, which would tell them that the ax had fallen.

A
RESTRAINED and rather silent king, who had learned a bitter lesson through cruel experience, sat with his hostile council at Westminster and listened to them direct the affairs of the kingdom. This continued for a full year. He made no protest when Thomas Arundel, the Bishop of Ely, was appointed chancellor and later made Archbishop of York. He did not raise his voice to procure pardons for any of his friends in exile. He had nothing to say when the confident barons put through Parliament a grant of £20,000, to be distributed amongst themselves, presumably to recompense them for the cost of their forcible seizure of power.

It became clear during this relatively calm year, however, that the type of man who makes his mark as a critic in opposition does not always show to advantage when he assumes the responsibilities and burdens of office. Woodstock and Arundel proved themselves vulnerable as ministers of the Crown. They did not succeed in putting into effect any of the reforms they had demanded so vehemently of the young king. They were as lavish in spending as their predecessors had been.

During this year the silent young king had been giving much thought to the situation which existed and had made up his mind to act. When the time seemed ripe, he moved with a celerity which caught his opponents unprepared.

On May 3, 1389, a meeting of the council was being held. The king was in attendance but had been silent as usual. Then in a moment when there was a pause he raised his hand.

“My lords,” he asked, “what is the number of my years?”

The question had been directed at his uncle of Woodstock who sat beside
him. The latter hesitated briefly and then said, “Your Highness is in your twenty-second year.”

“Then,” declared Richard, “I am old enough to manage my own affairs.”

A silence settled over the room as the members exchanged uneasy side glances. What answer could they give which would express their opposition and yet fall short of open treason?

“I have been longer under guardianship,” went on the king, “than any ward in my realm.” He reached out his hand. “The Great Seal is to be returned into my custody.”

Bishop Arundel, to whom this demand had been addressed, had no course open but to obey. He placed the Great Seal in Richard’s hand.

“My lords,” said the king, “I thank you for your past services.”

His move, so unexpected, so swift, so skillfully made, left the usually clamorous opposition with nothing to say. It was true that the king was long out of his minority. Woodstock and Arundel made no move to protest the royal decision. The silence which settled over the room was deep and long.

The triumph scored by the armed forces of the baronage had been reversed by these few cool sentences.

There followed a brief period of official upheaval. Bishop Arundel was removed as chancellor and the place given to that sage old clerical war horse, William of Wykeham. Bishop Gilbert of Hereford was dismissed from his post at the treasury. The new judges were all relieved of office, although the earlier incumbents were not summoned back from exile. If not actually in disgrace, the baronial leaders found themselves out of control.

On May 8, Richard issued a proclamation to the nation at large. He acknowledged that there had been abuses during the years of his minority but these he promised to redress. There would be “a better peace and better justice” in the land. It was not his purpose, he declared, to exact punishment for the force used in taking his rightful powers from him and none of his earlier advisers would be recalled to office.

If the opposition leaders had expected a popular clamor to be raised in their behalf, they were disappointed. Apparently a realization had been spreading that these lordly critics had been as ineffective in office as those they had so relentlessly expelled.

The king, with his new men about him, proceeded at once to sign a three-year truce with France and her allies, Scotland and Spain. This move the country approved heartily. The people were tired of the costly and cruel war which seemed to drag on endlessly. Taxes would now be
lighter. In tavern and alehouse there was a sly tendency to wink at the past and say that “the young one” knew what he was about. Woodstock and Arundel could fume and growl in retirement, but for the time being no attention was paid them.

Later in the year the now aging John of Gaunt returned from Spain, convinced at last that he could not attain his great dream, the crown of that kingdom. He seems to have approved of Richard’s bold move but, having a sincere desire to see peace in the family, he persuaded the king to summon back to the royal council the three leading appellants, Woodstock, Arundel, and Warwick. Richard accepted the suggestion unwillingly. He told John of Gaunt that his gorge rose at once more having those three set and grim faces at his council board.

For eight years Richard governed the country with wisdom and a full respect for the constitution. The peace with France was maintained by renewals of the truce. Freed from the heavy burden of war taxes, the country became prosperous. Many sound laws were passed, some of them with a distinctly liberal basis. The desire of the king to consider the well-being of his subjects was made apparent when he refused to entertain a statute prohibiting education to the children of villeins and his assent to the checking of “livery of company,” the custom in the baronage of maintaining a last phase of feudalism by keeping large armed retinues.