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of serfdom. A new tax of three groats, levied on the poor equally
with the rich, following soon after a capitation tax of more than
usual amount, brought the discontent of the people to a height,
and occasioned this revolt. A hundred thousand men marched
into London, demanding abolition of serfdom, freedom of commerce
in all market towns without tax or toll, and a fixed rent on land
in lieu of the service required by villenage. In the moment of

panic, charters granting these most reasonable demands were drawn
up, and promises of pardon given, all of which, however, were
revoked the moment the danger was past. In an interview held
at Smithfield between Richard, then only fifteen, and Wat Tyler,
the latter, who had advanced unattended into the midst of the
king's escort, was struck down by the lord mayor, Sir William
Walworth. This dangerous crisis drew out the one sole spark of
heroism in Richard's history: he rode his horse into the midst of
the angry rebels, and cried out, "Tyler was a traitor, I myself will
be your leader!"
The mob was pacified. The king was lavish
of promises and charters, every one of which he violated. The
revolt was happily suppressed; but from that time the condition
of the serf was improved, and serfdom began gradually to disappear.
Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, led an army
into Spain to assert his claim to the crown of Castile, in right
of his second wife, daughter of Peter the Cruel. An agreement
took place between him and his competitor, son of Henry de
Transtamare, by which he gave one of his daughters in marriage
to the King of Castile's son, and another was married to the King
of Portugal. During the Duke of Lancaster's absence, the tyranny
exercised by the Duke of Gloucester over his nephew, led to a
series of events, which made this reign the disgrace of English
history-king, dukes, parliaments, all disregarded principle and
honour. The king's chancellor, Michael de la Pole, was impeached,
at the instigation of Gloucester and his partisans, by the obsequi-
ous Commons. After this, in order to remedy the evils of
Richard's arbitrary government, they proceeded to appoint a Com-
mission of Regency, which deprived the king of all authority,

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A.D. 1397.]

GLOUCESTER PUT TO DEATH.

63

When he hesitated to give his

though now twenty-one years of age. assent, he was threatened with the fate of Edward II. Richard consulted the judges on the legality of the commission. They pronounced it high treason. Gloucester had the judges banished. The king's counsellors were condemned as traitors.

Two were

executed, three others fled. Old Sir Simon Burley, a man honoured and loved by Edward III. and the Black Prince, and whom they had appointed governor to Richard in his youth, was, in spite of the king's and queen's earnest prayers and tears, executed by the cruel Gloucester, the Commons sanctioning all his acts. These events occurred in 1388. In the same year was fought the battle of Otterburn, between the Percys of Northumberland and the Scottish Earl of Douglas, in which Henry Percy, called Hotspur, was made prisoner.

Suddenly Richard recovered his authority, and was supported by his uncle Lancaster. He never forgave the injuries and sufferings inflicted by Gloucester, and in 1397, an act of accusation was presented against him and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick. A compliant Parliament yielded to the king's wish. Gloucester was carried off to Calais, where he is supposed to have died by violent means. The Earl of Arundel was executed. As some of those who joined in the accusation against Gloucester had formerly been associated in the acts for which he forfeited his life, they felt uneasy, and recriminations began. Among others, the king's

Edward III.

Edward the Black Prince. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster,

third son.

cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, the Duke of Lancaster's son, accused the Duke of prove his innocence

Richard II. Henry Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV. Norfolk of high treason. The latter offered to by duel. When the day came, and the parties had entered the lists, the king took the decision into his own hands, and banished Norfolk for life, and his cousin Bolingbroke, Earl of Hereford, for ten years, promising him the possession of whatever inheritance might fall to him in the interval.

Shortly after, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, died, and

64

HENRY BOLINGBROKE HEADS A REBELLION. [A.D. 1399. Richard appropriated his estates to his own use. This increased the disgust of the nation; and Henry Bolingbroke, now Duke of Lancaster, resolved to resist the illegal confiscation. Unfortunately for himself, this was the moment Richard chose for making a second visit to Ireland. He had paved the way for Bolingbroke's success by his desperate acts, his forced fines, which he extorted from both individuals and counties, and the general disorder into which the kingdom had fallen under his inefficient rule, the course of justice having been interrupted, and robberies everywhere abounding. During his absence the exiled Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, where he was joined by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland (1399). He took a solemn oath, that his only intention was to recover possession of his inheritance, but his ambition rose higher when he heard the acclamations that greeted him, and saw the crowds that flocked to his standard. Even the Duke of York, who had been left regent during the king's absence, acquiesced in Henry's schemes. Richard quickly returned to England with an army, but it immediately deserted him. A few days after, the Duke of Lancaster entered London with Richard as his captive, from whom he extorted a resignation of the crown. And, not content with this, he caused him to be solemnly deposed in Parliament, on the ground of misgovernment and breach of the constitution. The articles of impeachment in the act of deposition were thirty-three in number. Among other things, Richard's despotic tendencies were complained of, and it was affirmed that when asked to do justice according to the laws, he would say, that "his laws were in his mouth," and that "he alone could make and change the laws of the kingdom;" and that he maintained that the life and goods of all his subjects were at his will and pleasure. After the reading of this act, eight commissioners solemnly pronounced the sentence of deposition; and Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, having crossed himself, approached the throne and said, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England, and the crown, with

A.D. 1399.]

DEATH OF RICHARD II.

65

all the members and appurtenances, inasmuch as I am descended by right line of the blood coming from the good lord King Henry III., and through that right that God of his grace hath sent me, with help of my kin and of my friends, to recover it: the which realm was in point to be undone, for default of government and undoing of the good laws." He was then led to the royal chair by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, all the people shouting for joy.

There was but one voice raised in behalf of the unfortunate

king, that of Merks, bishop of Carlisle. Richard is supposed to have been either murdered, or starved to death in Pomfret Castle (1399). The latter is the more probable, as his body was exposed to the people's view early in the next reign, when, had violence been used, the marks would have been visible. Richard's first wife was Anne of Bohemia; on her death he married Isabella, daughter of Charles VI. of France.

The events we have just recorded form the subject of Shakspere's well-known drama. In one of its closing scenes, Richard, whose courage had deserted him on hearing of the success of Bolingbroke and the defection of those whom he had trusted, replies to the consolations of his friends as follows:

Of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:
And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For Heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:-
How some have been deposed, some slain in war;

E

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd:
All murder'd:-For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps death his court: and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle walls, and—farewell king:
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty.

For you have but mistook me all this while :

I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,

Need friends:-Subjected thus,

How can you say to me--I am a king?

Carlisle. My lord, wise men ne'er wail their present woes,

But presently prevent the ways to wail.

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,

Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,

And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight;
And fight and die, is death destroying death,
Where fearing dying, pays death servile breath.

King Richard. Thou chid'st me well.-Proud Bolingbroke, I come To change blows with thee for our day of doom.

This ague-fit of fear is overblown ;

An easy task it is, to win our own.

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
Scroop. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:

So may you by my dull and heavy eye,

My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

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