The Plantagenets: The Kings That Made Britain (17 page)

By this time, Wyclif had attracted many followers. Some were his students at Oxford, men who went on to be parish clergy or royal servants. From this pool of ‘Wycliffites’ there emerged English translations of various parts of the Bible. How far Wyclif himself was involved in this process we do not know, but the English Bible, in whole and in parts, was spread in steadily widening circles, as fresh copies were made and circulated secretly in order to prevent their discovery by the church authorities.

Wyclif died in 1384, but his followers continued his work, circulating not only the Scriptures but also English versions of the master’s writings. These disciples came to be known as ‘Lollards’, a term of ridicule from a contemporary Dutch word,
loller
, which was applied to itinerant unorthodox preachers. The Lollards gathered in secret groups to read the Bible and discuss their ideas. They tended to marry ‘within the faith’, and by the early 15th century Lollard cells were established in London and rural areas within about a 60-mile radius of the capital. However, these people had no central organization and no agreed body of doctrine. They represented a section of the populace critical of the existing establishment, who felt free to decide, on the basis of personal Bible study, what they would believe.

The rise of Lollardy was only one manifestation of a serious social dislocation of English society. ‘In the iiii year of King Richard’s reign the commons arisen up in divers
parts of the realm … the which they called the hurling time.’
¹
This ‘hurling’ or commotion erupted in several places. For example, at York in November 1380, ‘various malefactors among the commons’ drove the mayor, John Gysburn, out of the city, smashed their way into the guildhall with axes, seized one Simon Quixlay, forced him to become the new mayor and made all the members of the city council swear allegiance to him. Such incidents were but preludes to the rising in southeast England known as the Peasants’ Revolt. The grievances of the common people were many and acutely felt but what brought matters to a head was the poll tax, voted in 1380. ‘The Lords and Commons are agreed that … contribution should be made by every lay person in the realm … males and females alike, of whatsoever estate or condition, who has passed the age of 15 years, of the sum of three groats, except for true beggars, who shall be charged nothing.’
²
However, the tax realized only two-thirds of the required sum and provoked widespread complaint. Instead of paying heed to the public mood, the government sent commissioners in May 1381 to make up the deficit.

An attempt by commissioners at Brentwood, Essex, to gather the tax sparked what appeared to be a spontaneous reaction, although it had probably been planned between malcontents in Essex and Kent. Groups gathered on both sides of the Thames, and their ugly mood indicated the profound hatred they felt for the existing regime. They armed themselves with longbows, axes and knives and were not slow to use them. Some had served in recent campaigns across the Channel, were used to violence and had no love for the
‘officer class’. They seized Rochester Castle, broke into houses and abbeys, opened jails and released the prisoners, and took grain from barns and cattle from fields to feed their swelling number. At Canterbury Cathedral they told the monks to elect a new archbishop because the days of the present incumbent, Simon Sudbury (who, as chancellor, they blamed for the tax), were numbered. Everywhere they forced people to swear an oath to ‘King Richard and the true Commons’. People who refused were murdered or had their houses burned down. One group, as a broad hint to those they met, carried three decapitated heads with them. While missionaries were despatched to carry the message to neighbouring shires, the Kentish host camped on Blackheath and sent a message to the king, who had taken refuge in the Tower, asking him to meet them.

On 13 June Richard set out across the river with a flotilla of barges filled with men-at-arms. By this time the rebels had achieved some degree of overall organization and chosen as their leader Wat Tyler of Maidstone. The shouts that went up from the thousands of rebels, though expressions of loyalty, must have been heart-chilling to the young king and his attendants, who halted their boats well offshore. Worse followed when Tyler and his lieutenants began shouting their demands: ‘Give us John of Gaunt!’ ‘Give us Sudbury!’ ‘Give us Hob the Robber!’ (Robert Hales, the treasurer). The royal party beat a hasty retreat. Exactly what the leaders of the insurgents hoped to achieve is probably impossible to know now – their demands were more a passionate denunciation of the existing order than a coherent programme of reform
– but they certainly wanted Richard’s ‘evil councillors’ to be punished. The wild rhetoric of their preachers spoke of complete social levelling. Quotations from the Bible to the effect that God had created all men equal suggest possible Lollard influence.

All feudal service was to be abolished. The rebels called for free hunting and fishing rights for all, not just major landowners, the distribution of church lands among the people, the repeal of the Ordinance of Labourers and all other legislation restricting the rights of working men to sell their labour as and when they would. If acted upon, these ultimatums would have completely undermined the existing economic and social structure. The church taught that everyone should be content to remain in that station to which God had called them, and the civil authority enshrined social division in its laws. For example, a Sumptuary Law of 1363 had divided the population into seven classes and decreed what kind of clothes each was permitted to wear. Thus, for example, no one under the rank of gentleman might wear velvet or shoes having points of more than 2 inches in length, and no serving woman might have a veil costing more than 12 pence. Only by exercising rigid control could the crumbling feudal system be preserved. Without it there would be anarchy, and it was anarchy that Wat Tyler and his men were offering.

By this time many Londoners had declared support for the rebels. The city had its own problems. It housed a growing semi-criminal underclass of beggars, unemployed artisans, ex-soldiers, fanatical preachers and ‘barrack room lawyers’,
who had nothing to lose by joining the insurrection, and they now opened the bridge to a detachment sent from Blackheath. Some stayed on the Surrey side to burn down the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. On the other side of the Thames, Lancaster’s sumptuous residence was attacked by a frenzied mob, which smashed ornaments and furniture, burned tapestries, threw gold and silver plate into the river, hammered jewels into dust and then blew up the ransacked building with three barrels of gunpowder. Other orgiastic demonstrations of the protestors’ fury took place as the Kentish men marched through the city. There was nothing to stop them. John of Gaunt had an army, but it was hundreds of miles away campaigning in Scotland. No courtier-lord could have counted on the support of his tenantry as the ‘democratic’ contagion spread.

By nightfall on 13 June the Kentish rebels were camped on Tower Hill, and the Essex host was beyond the wall at Mile End. Richard and his court were, in effect, under siege, and it was by no means certain that the Tower garrison would take up arms against their own countrymen. There was only one person who had the respect of the insurgents, one person to whom they would listen. The nation’s fate rested on the 14-year-old king.

The next morning Richard rode out to Mile End with an armed escort. There Tyler presented the rebels’ demands and the king promised that they would be granted, demurring only at handing over his hated ministers to immediate lynch law. Richard maintained remarkable poise and dignity, but while he was calmly ‘reviewing’ the peasant host
a group rode off to the Tower. They entered with no show of resistance, dragged Sudbury from the chapel in the White Tower and took him out to Tower Hill for execution in front of the crowd. According to one chronicler, the job was bungled and the archbishop did not die until he had received eight strokes in the neck and head. Other royal confidants on whom the peasants laid hands were also summarily despatched.

This bloodletting and easy success went to the rebels’ heads, and any order in their ranks broke down. They went back into the city as a rampaging rabble, intent on loot, and by so doing they forfeited the support they had hitherto enjoyed. On 15 June Richard called for another meeting at Smithfield, outside the western wall of the city. He went out to meet Tyler with a large retinue whose armour and weapons were concealed beneath their robes. The rebel leader demanded that everything they itemized was to be written in a chart and sealed by the king. Richard agreed. Then Tyler and the mayor of London, Sir William Walworth, fell into an argument. Swords were drawn, and Tyler received a mortal wound. The crowd, stunned by this departure from the script, wavered and Richard seized the initiative. ‘I am your leader,’ he shouted, ‘follow me.’ He spurred his horse and some of the rebels fell in behind him. Others did not.

In the confusion Walworth was able to ride back into London and raise a contingent of citizens and the Tower garrison to come to the king’s rescue. A few ring-leaders were rounded up but most of the rebels, who may have amounted at one point to between 80,000 and 100,000 men, were
allowed to disperse. Eventually, about 150 of them were tried and executed for treason.

1382–6

In January 1382 Richard was married to Anne of Bohemia, the 15-year-old daughter of the late Emperor Charles IV. It was a diplomatic marriage, aimed at providing England with a powerful ally against France, but there is no evidence that any real advantage was gained from it. Anne’s large foreign entourage provided another subject for the opponents of the court to grumble about, and they claimed that the queen’s attendants added considerably to the expenses of an already spendthrift king. However, Richard, who, of course, had not seen his bride before her arrival, developed a deep affection for her, and she exercised a calming influence on him.

Now married and with the success of suppressing the revolt behind him, Richard took firm control of the government and began to assert his own style of kingship, even though he continued to feel overshadowed by his uncles, especially the Duke of Lancaster. The king relied to a great extent on his close friends, particularly Robert de Vere and Michael de la Pole, and he showered gifts and offices on his favourites. In 1383 de la Pole became chancellor and two years later Earl of Suffolk. He was unpopular with many of the nobles for advocating peace with France, for although they did not like paying for war they liked even less the thought of agreeing an ignominious end to hostilities. Two
factions had clearly emerged: while the royal uncles led a ‘traditionalist’ party committed to pursuing the old Plantagenet continental claims, Richard’s young friends promoted peace and a sophisticated style of court life modelled on that of France. At the same time de Vere was rocketed to even higher office: he was given the title Marquess of Dublin with vice-regal authority in Ireland. What particularly galled many of the nobles was that the rank of marquess, which took precedence over the rank of earl, was a novelty in England. And then in 1384 and 1385 de Vere and de la Pole even tried to bounce the king into putting Lancaster on trial for treason. The move failed, but Richard signalled his defiance in 1386 by taking another step in the elevation of de Vere. He made his friend Duke of Ireland, thus putting him on a par with Richard’s uncles, the dukes of Lancaster, York and Gloucester.

Following further cross-border incursions, Richard assumed command of an invasion of Scotland in July 1385. His army scoured the Lowlands as far as Edinburgh but, as so often in the past, was unable to bring the Scots to a pitched battle. Lancaster counselled pressing deeper into the country, but Richard overruled him and returned to London. It was by now clear that Richard was no warrior like his father and grandfather and that he bitterly resented attempts to force him into the same mould as his predecessors. Fortunately, he was able to rid himself of one of his uncles. Lancaster had ambitions to win the crown of Castile, to which he had a claim through his wife, the daughter of the late king, and in July 1386 he set off for Spain with a small army, partly paid for by a loan from Richard. However, this only brought
to the fore the king’s second uncle, Thomas of Gloucester, who, with his ally, the Earl of Arundel, maintained opposition to the favourites.

John of Gaunt’s departure coincided with a new invasion threat from France. Charles VI assembled the largest fleet that had ever been seen in the Channel, and de la Pole went to parliament to demand a massive subsidy to pay for national defence. Worried as they were by the military threat, parliament refused the demand. In fact, they refused to contract any business at all until the chancellor had been removed from office. Richard rejected this attack on his prerogative to choose his own ministers, but Gloucester and Arundel told the king that he would have to negotiate with parliament. This he refused. But his uncle reminded him of the fate of Edward II, in effect threatening to depose Richard if he proved obdurate. De la Pole was impeached by the Commons, tried and condemned to imprisonment, but Richard overruled the sentence and de la Pole remained at court. Internal politics in France meant the feared invasion did not materialize, but that did not ease the constitutional situation. Parliament had set up a commission to enquire into all aspects of government and make recommendations, and it required the king to abide by them.

1387–8

Richard distanced himself literally from the work of the parliamentary commission by going on a tour of the country to drum up support and also to obtain from some –
well-chosen – judges the opinion that parliament had acted illegally in imposing its will on their anointed king. However, as soon as he returned to the capital in November 1387 he was confronted by a delegation of nobles led by Gloucester and Arundel. They demanded the arrest and trial of de Vere, de la Pole and three other close royal attendants on charges of treason. De Vere had recently offered the king’s family a personal insult by divorcing his wife, a granddaughter of Edward III, in favour of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and Richard’s acquiescence in this action was the final straw that turned his uncles and their friends against him. Their demand was, in effect, a declaration of war.