erable indignities to the fair maiden. Her est of their bondmen. More than fifteen mother made an outcry which brought back hundred wretches perished by the hand of the tiler to his cottage, and, incensed at the the hangman. In one day Tresilian the taxgatherer, felled him to the ground with chief justice caused nineteen to be hanged a mortal blow. "The villains and poor peo- on the same gallows. ple" of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, and The new opinions on religion which now other of the eastern counties, were roused arose, mingled with the general spirit of by the cry of the men of Kent; and de- Christianity in promoting the process of claring that there should be no more bond- emancipation, and had their share in the men, that they should be faithful to king few disorders which accompanied it. WickRichard, but never endure a king named liffe the celebrated reformer, had now beJohn (an arrow aimed at John of Gaunt), come one of the most famous doctors of the they assembled at Blackheath to the num- English church. His lettered education ber of sixty thousand, in the month of May, rendered him no stranger to the severity 1381, and proceeded to enforce their coun- with which Dante and Chaucer had lashed sels by an attack on London, where they the vices of the clergy, without sparing the succeeded in obtaining possession of the corruptions of the Roman see itself. His town, and put to death the chancellor and theological learning and mystical piety led the primate as evil counsellors of the crown him to reprobate the whole system of wealth and cruel oppressors of the people. At this and worldliness, by which a blind bounty moment of victory, however, the demands had destroyed the apostolical simplicity and of the serfs were moderate, and, except in primitive humility of the Christian religion. one instance, just. They required the abo- His dissent from opinions was chiefly regulition of bondage, the liberty of buying and lated by their tendency to enrich, to agselling in fairs and markets, a general par- grandize, and thereby to corrupt, the mindon, and the reduction of the rent of land isters of religion. Viewing doctrines in to an equal rate. The last of these condi- this light, he might occasionally fluctuate tions was indeed unjust and absurd; but the in his feelings or language respecting them, first of them, though incapable of being without being liable to any grave imputacarried into immediate execution without tion of inconsistency. This temper, howprobably producing much mischief to them- ever, adds to the difficulty of ascertaining selves, was yet of such indisputable justice his opinions: necessarily progressive, they on general grounds, as to make it most ex- could not have been the same at every pecusable in the sufferers to accept nothing riod of life. It is possible, that if he someless from their oppressors. times yielded to authority, he might have been actuated more by sincere deference than by personal apprehension.

In relating what follows, it must not be forgotten that the partisans of Tyler had no historians. At an interview in SmithThe principal points on which Wickliffe field on the 15th of June, 1381, between was condemned by a national synod under the king and Tyler, the writers of the vic- | archbishop Courtenay, in 1382, were, 1st, torious party tell us, that Tyler, while con- His deviation from orthodox language reversing with his young sovereign, played specting the presence of Christ in the with his dagger, and seemed about to seize sacrament of the altar; 2d, His doctrine, on the king's bridle, when William of Wal- that a pope, bishop, or priest, who is in a worth, apprehending a mischievous pur-state of mortal sin, has no authority over pose, plunged a short sword into Tyler's the faithful, and that his acts are null; 3d, throat, who, falling to the ground, was dis- His assertion, that scripture prohibits ecpatched by Standish, one of the king's clesiastics from having temporal possesesquires. It would be very difficult for the sions; and 4th, This position,—that where calmest bystander to have ascertained the contrition is sincere, confession to a priest order and discovered the nature of so rapid is useless. His opinion respecting the a succession of minute circumstances in Lord's Supper is supposed to have nearly one small part of a vast multitude, which resembled that peculiar to Luther and his might all have passed in the twinkling of immediate followers. It is easy to see that an eye. What the purposes of Tyler were; unless he distinguished morality from law whether Walworth was too officious; whe- with the utmost steadiness, his denial of the ther the king's counsellors observed faith to lawful authority of vicious superiors must those who showed them no mercy;-are be dangerous to civil as well as spiritual questions which must in some degree ever power. But it must on the other hand be continue doubtful. The revolt was extin- allowed, that his warm popular language guished with the cruelty and bloodshed by against a corrupt clergy was liable to be which the masters of slaves seem generally misrepresented, and that positions laid down anxious to prove that they are not of a race morally by him might very easily be imsuperior in any noble quality to the mean- 'puted to him in a legal sense. In shades

of meaning on such occasions it was not doubtedly within his competence, and for hard for power, armed with sophistry and which he substituted professions of clemencasuistry, to perplex his judgment and be- cy and acts of grace to particular towns;* tray him into concessions which he might and after the dreadful harvest of legal masafterwards withdraw, not so much as false, sacre, there were about 250 persons exceptas because their language might give just ed by namet from pardon, every one of offence to weaker brethren, or lead them whom may have laid down their arms on into dangerous error. This celebrated re- the faith of the king's declaration of genformer died in 1384, at his parsonage of eral amnesty. It is thus that the insurrecLutterworth in Leicestershire: but his doc- tions of slaves, of all wars generally the trines, or rather his spirit, survived him; most provoked, are usually treated by their and however his successors might vary from victorious masters, who consider the serfs him in their exposition of mysterious dog- inferior beings, in whom it is the height of mas, they owed to him the example of an presumption to expect any share of the sad open attack by a learned clergyman upon privileges of the vanquished in civil war. the authority of the church and the juris- The administration of old John of Gaunt, of diction of the supreme pontiff. Payne, one "time-honored Lancaster," was as little of his disciples, carried his system into Bo- characterized by the experience of age as hemia, where it flourished in spite of per- by the spirit of youth. He still suffered secution, till it was lost in the broad stream the useless hostilities with France and of reformation in the sixteenth century. Scotland to linger, sometimes suspended by The reception of the doctrines of the an armistice. In the mean time he seems Lollards (for so they were called) shows to have been chiefly occupied in the visionplainly that the soil had been prepared for ary pursuit of the crown of Castile, which the seed. With the dawn of history, we he claimed in right of his wife, the daughdiscover some simple Christians in the val- ter of Peter the Cruel; and after two inleys of the Alps, where they still exist under effectual campaigns, returned to Gascony the ancient name of Vaudois, who by the discomfited, in 1387. During this long ablight of the New Testament saw the extra-sence, which lasted about two years, the ordinary contrast between the purity of state of the court and country in England primitive times and the vices of the gor- became such as to demand the presence of geous and imperial hierarchy which sur- the first prince of the blood. The person rounded them. They were not so much dis- of the king, in years of full age for the tinguished from others by opinions, as by crown, but perpetually disqualified for govthe pursuit of a more innocent and severe ernment by want of decision and firmness, life. was now disputed by his uncles the dukes Another body of men, apparently much of York and Gloucester with De la Pole more numerous, acquired dominion, and and De Vere, two minions of Anglo-Nornumbered sovereigns among their follow-man race, of whom the former was created ers, in the French provinces which lie earl of Suffolk and the latter was raised to southward of the Loire. They were called the invidious dignity of duke of Ireland. Albigeois, and appear to have been com- The duke of Gloucester excited a parliaposed of the remnants of separatists from mentary prosecution against De la Pole. the eastern church who had been driven Richard made a feeble attempt to save the into the west by the persecutions of the favorite. The parliamentary commissioners Byzantine government: they combined in darkly reminded the king of the fate of Edgeneral the mystic piety and austere purity ward II. Not satisfied with the ignominiof the Vaudois, with their hostility to a rich ous expulsion of De la Pole from office, the and powerful establishment; but added commons impeached him for high crimes many of the unpopular opinions of the Ma- and misdemeanors, of which the principal nicheans from whom they were descended, consisted in obtaining undue grants of the and in some instances slid from the pure royal demesne, and in putting the great doctrine of the mental nature of all religion seal to illegal pardons. In this first conand virtue into the licentious and monstrous spicuous exercise of the formidable power notion of the indifference of outward ac- of the commons to proceed against public tions. officers before the house of lords for such

After the suppression of the insurgents, injurious maladministration or evil counsel John of Gaunt, who was the most obnox- as was not punishable by the ordinary ious to them, was reinstated in the govern- course of law, the deliberate formalities ment with the amplest marks of regal grace which are considerable securities against and favor; and under his influence the king not only revoked the letters of manumis- Parl. iii. sion, which were beyond his power, but even the general pardon, which was un

* Rymer, vii. 317. Chelmsford, 2 July, 1381. Rot.

Rot. Parl. iii. 113.

Rot. Parl. iii. 216. Knight. 268, &c.

gross injustice were by no means disregard- met on the 3d of February, 1388, condemned. After a long hearing, the chancellor ed the five accused persons to the death of was acquitted of some charges, convicted traitors. De Vere escaped to Holland, where of others, and sentenced in the latter case he expired four years after; De la Pole died to pay a suitable fine. Soon after, the king at Paris in the same year; the archbishop was prevailed on to vest, substantially, the was suffered to linger out his old age as a government in the hands of eleven com- Flemish curate; Tresilian, odious for his missioners, at the head of whom was his bloody circuit,† and Brembre, perhaps beuncle Gloucester. The experiments of a cause he was mayor of the capital, were similar nature in the reigns of John, of put to death. The chroniclert ascribes the Henry III., and of Edward II., had familiar-apprehension of Tresilian to the pettifogized the barons to daring measures, espe- ging stratagem of hiding himself in an cially under the feeble reign of a stripling, apothecary's house near Westminster, in who was actually, though he could never order to gather early tidings of the parliabe regarded by law, as in a state of minori- ment; but a servant, who was thus placed ty.* The right of parliament to advise the too near temptation, betrayed him. Glouerown in all public concerns was an inhe-cester brought him before the parliament, rent principle of the constitution, then prob- and on the same evening he was hanged at ably, as now, recognized in the writ of sum- Tyburn. The other judges, who had submons which calls parliament together; and scribed the bold opinion, were capitally conit seemed to be a natural inference from victed, but by the intercession of the queen this legal right, that the parliament had a and the bishops committed for life to Irish moral claim on the king to treat their coun- prisons. Black, who had drawn up the quessels as of more weight and authority than tions, and Usk, appointed under-sheriff to either his own personal inclination or the arrest the duke of Gloucester, were consuggestions of private counsellors. demned and executed. The king now found The early exertions, however, of parlia- means to loosen the fetters which Gloucesmentary privilege, were so much tainted ter had fastened on him. He removed archby ambition and violence, as to be account- bishop Arundel, a creature of his uncle, ed little more than fortunate usurpations. from the office of chancellor, who was then Richard soon found that his court was de- the prime minister, and gave the great seal serted for that of the distributors of favor: to William of Wickham, bishop of WinDe Vere and De la Pole, together with chester. He notified by proclamation that Tresilian the chief justice, and a few pre- he had taken the whole government of the lates, were the chief adherents who clung kingdom into his own hands. On the to him. On the 25th of August, 1387, he death of the "good queen Anne," he found held a council at Nottingham, at which the himself in sufficient security for a journey judges attended, who, being asked by him into Ireland, and he soon after espoused whether the commission of government Isabella, a princess of France, then in the was legal, certified under their hands and seventh year of her age, which contributed seals that it was illegal, and that all who to an armistice with that kingdom for twenpromoted it were guilty of high treason. ty-five years. The king seized this period It has seldom happened that judges have of calm as an opportunity for executing delivered an irregular and extrajudicial those projects of vengeance which he had opinion, pronouncing an established gov- long harbored against his uncle Thomas of ernment to be an usurpation, proclaiming Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, a prince that the king, who seemed to assent to it, who had neither used the license of civil had been under force and fear, and declar-war with moderation, nor shown much foring acts to be treason, which were no more bearance to his royal kinsman. The duke deserving the appellation of criminal than of Gloucester, together with the earls of those by which the Great Charter itself had Warwick and Arundel, were appealed for been obtained and preserved. On the 11th treason; in consequence of which the forof November, 1387, the king, who had re-mer was sent prisoner to Calais, and the turned with his junto to London, learnt two earls were committed to the Tower. that his uncle Gloucester was marching at At the meeting of the parliament, in Septhe head of 40,000 men. They immediate- tember, 1398, all the acts in which Glouly after appealed (an accusation by a pri- cester had taken a share were annulled, vate individual to obtain redress for person- the commission of government was canal wrong arising from a crime) against the archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, the earl of Suffolk, the chief justice, and the lord mayor. The parliament, which

* Blackstone, book i. chap. 7.

to

†The authentic accounts of these proceedings are

be found in "Statutes of the Realm," ii. and Rot. records will envy their more fortunate successors,

Parliament, iii. Those who have examined these

who will have before them the Illustrations of Mr. Palgrave.

+ Knighton.

§ Rymer, vii. 618.

celled, the opinions of the judges were de- where his uncle resided, after the family clared to be legal, and the judgment against had retired to rest. Gloucester was perMichael de la Pole reversed. The arch- suaded to accompany his nephew for urgent bishop of Canterbury and the earl of Arun- business. The king lulled all suspicion or del being both convicted of high treason, apprehension of sinister purpose by the the former was banished, and the latter was gaiety and courtesy of his conversation beheaded on Tower-hill. with the duchess of Gloucester, while the

The intricate intrigues and violent chan- snare was laying for her husband. Shortly, ges of statesmen under Richard II. were however, after the duke was at a sufficient such as might have defied the eye and distance from his castle, he was dragged pencil of the most refined inmate of a into a boat, which deposited him at Calais; court to trace, through the conduct of those where all our farther authentic informawhom he most intimately knew. To us, tion respecting the last days of that prince who see only the surface in a monkish an- would probably have ceased, if the policy nalist or a legal instrument, these occur- of a new government had not led to the rences are almost unintelligible. Among disclosure of circumstances which indicate them, there is none perhaps so barbarous the perpetration of one of the foulest of and so mysterious as the murder of the murders.

duke of Gloucester, the fourth son of Ed- On the 21st day of September, 1397, a ward III., who, during the continental ex-writ was issued to Thomas Mowbray earl peditions of John of Gaunt, had the prin- marshal, governor of Calais, commanding cipal share in the administration, and who him to bring the body of his prisoner, the had expelled very harshly the favorites of duke of Gloucester, to answer before the Richard. He appeared to have been sup- king in parliament, to the appeal of treason ported in his most ambiguous measures by against him. In three days a return was the royal family. The duke of York had made by the governor of Calais that the been a member of the famous commission prisoner had died in custody. His body of 1386, now treated by him, among others, was granted to his widow, to be interred as an act of high treason. The earl of with the honors due to his death; masses Derby (afterwards king Henry IV.) had were appointed to be performed for his soul; commanded the baronial army against the and the parliament seemed to be contented king on that memorable occasion, and was with an account of his death, more sumone of the accusers of the favorite. He mary and vague than would be required in was not ashamed now to take a part against the case of the humblest subject. his companions, and ventured to impair his "As I was informed, when he had dined, own security, by pronouncing acts, in which and was about to have washen his hands, he had conspicuously shared, to be crimes there came into the chamber four men, and of the deepest dye. The ambitious and en- cast suddenly a towel about the duke's croaching spirit of Gloucester might have neck, and drew so sore that he fell to the justly provoked them; they might have earth, and so they strangled him, and closed been naturally weary of his domination; an his eyes; and when he was dead they deexertion to deliver themselves and their sove- spoiled him, and bare him to his bed, and reign from an imperious master might have laid him between the sheets naked, and been justifiable; but an active share in then they issued out of the chamber into proscribing other men for co-operating in the hall, and said openly how a palsy had their own measures, at least deprives their taken the duke of Gloucester, and so he part in the condemnation of all pretension died. These words were abroad in the to the character of historical or moral evi- town of Calais: some believed them-some dence of guilt. not."

In July, 1397, the imprisonment of Glou- At a subsequent period, however, it apcester, with the assent of the dukes of Lan-peared that Sir William Rikhill, a judge caster and York and of the earl of Derby, of the common pleas, had been secretly was announced to the public by royal pro- sent to Calais shortly after the imprisonclamations, apparently issued to allay the ment of Gloucester, with written orders alarm which so important an arrest had from the king directing him "to do there spread.† Unusual stratagems had been em- whatever the earl marshal should enjoin.' ployed to lure him into the hands of his On his arrival the earl delivered another enemies. The king himself, at the head writ commanding Rikhill to examine the of a small force, went to the castle of Plashy, duke, and to report the results of the communication to the king. Rikhill observed to the earl, that the death of the duke had

* Appeal of the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Derby, &c. &c. against De la Pole, Vere, Tresilian, &c. 11 Rich. II. 1387, 1388. Rot. Parliam. iii. 228.

† Rymer, viii. 6, 7. Winds. 15 July. Westm. 28 July.

Berner's Froiss. ii. c. 226,

§ 17 August, 1357. Rot. Parliament. iii. 431.

already been "notified* to all the people, all purposes but that of succession to the as well in England as at Calais," in lan- crown. His son, the earl of Derby, was guage and with a tone which seemed to in- created duke of Hereford, and soon after dicate that the rumor was industriously succeeded his father as chief of the Lanspread by those who were about to convert castrian party, which, under more than one it into a fact. family of that title, had, since Henry III., Rikhill, however, saw Gloucester. He constituted the strength of the baronial attempted to visit him at the prisoner's de- power. sire, but he was forbidden by the governor. Elated with these successes, Richard, Rikhill reported the contents of the exami- with the wantonness and giddiness which nation. As his body was seen by his family, characterize tyrannical youth, "began," the general report that he was smothered says Froissart, "to reign more fiercely than seems to rest on the most reasonable found- before." Because a knight belonging to ation. A confession, by Gloucester, pur- the duke of Gloucester spake against the porting to be secretly made to the confi- king and his council, he was taken and bedential agent of his enemies at a moment headed. "In those days there was none so of such injustice, could not weigh a feather great in England that durst speak against in the scale. But as it contained only the any thing that the king did; he had counnotorious acts done in full and open parlia-sel meet for his appetite, who exhorted him ment in 1386, obeyed by the whole king- to do what he list; he still kept in his dom, and in which his accusers were as wages 10,000 archers who waited on him guilty as he, there seems no reason that he day and night, for he reputed himself not should disavow them, though his enemies sure of his uncle." A general murmur now called them treason. Rikhill com- now prevailed against the late parliament, plained that it was a hardship to represent as not freely chosen; as managed by the him as a justice, in a case where he acted minions of the court; as having, in consolely as a messenger. From this last tempt of faith and mercy, revoked pardons, complaint, joined to the dark language of and confiscated property long legally vested the king's first mandate, to the equally sea- in the owners; as having imposed intolersonable and sudden death of Gloucester, able taxes, and connived at illegal exacand from the silence with which the brief tions; as being a party to the infamous imreturn was allowed to pass without the punity of the murderers of Gloucester; least information, it may seem not improb- finally, as abetting the purpose of the king able that Rikhill prostituted his character to rule the kingdom according to the counby taking part in a midnight trial; in which sels of obscure and unworthy favorites. the avowal of the facts being obtained, by These discontents, also, agitated the greater whatever means, the governor of Calais nobility. The two most considerable men might consider himself as warranted to surviving among the leaders of the oppoinflict death on a dangerous culprit in the sition of 1386 were Henry of Lancaster mode most conducive to public tranquillity. duke of Hereford and Thomas Mowbray There are few instances in history of a duke of Norfolk, who, though equally imdeadly hatred hoarded for eleven years by patient of the rule of upstarts, were not a gay and convivial youth, hidden from the likely to have imbibed much confidence victim under the disguise of smiles and in each other from the endless and countcaresses, and at length gratified with more less changes which prevailed around them, falsehood, more treachery, more inhumanity, from which they were not exempt. In a grosser breach of the substance of jus- riding from Windsor to Brentford in the tice, and a more offensive mockery of its month of December, 1397, these lords conforms, than is exhibited in the murder of versed on the general topic of the king's the duke of Gloucester. The condition of bad government. Mowbray observed, "We the ordinary justice of an age may be easily are about to be ruined." Henry asked, imagined, where such a disappearance of "For what?" "For the affair of Radcot a prince of the blood, and such an insolent Bridge," answered Mowbray. "How can withholding of farther information, could be that be, after a pardon?" inquired Henry. endured by an assembly representing a na-"As easily," says Mowbray, "as he has retion. called the pardons granted to others." The The court endeavored to consolidate their duke of Norfolk at last said that Richard union with the princes. John of Gaunt had broken all his oaths. was propitiated by the recognition of the legitimacy of his children by Catharine Swynford, the sister-in-law of Chaucer, for

*La mort de dit duc fut notifié a tout le peuple si bien à Calais qu'en Engleterre."-Rot. Parl. ubi supra.

How this conversation was disclosed

comprehended by name, which it was probably held that the king could not comprehend of his own separate authority, no generality or universality of language can extend to the crown by implication. Berner's Froissart, ii. c. 227.

Rot. Parl. iii. 342. As the royal dignity is not