RICHARD II.
AS I have pointed out in the Introduction to this book, reliable historical details regarding the Tower are very meagre up to the date of the reign of Edward III., but with the reign of Richard II. the story of the Tower becomes of interest. Holinshed describes at some length the splendours of the new King’s coronation. How the youthful monarch, who was “as beautiful as an archangel”—as the life-size portrait of Richard in Westminster Abbey proves—clad in white robes, issued from the Tower surrounded by a vast retinue of knights and nobles. He tells us of the streets through which the royal cortege took its way to the Abbey, all adorned with tapestry, the conduits running with wine, and the pageants performed in the principal thoroughfares. Shortly after this Wat Tyler’s Rebellion broke out, and the young King with his mother sought refuge in the Tower. How the revolt ended is too well known to require telling here at length—how the mob surged angrily round the fortress, “at times,” as Froissart writes, “hooting as loud as if the devils were in them,” how Lord Mayor William Walworth advised Richard to sally forth and himself attack the rebel rout while they were asleep and drunk, and how the young sovereign decided to meet them at Mile End. How during his absence some of the rioters broke into the Tower, massacred the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, who, with Sir Robert Hales and some of the courtiers, had taken refuge in the Chapel in the White Tower, and how these were butchered; of the pillage of the royal apartments and the insults which the King’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, was compelled to endure—all this has been told scores of times since old Froissart wrote his veracious account of these violences which read like a page from the French Revolution of 1789.
Yet, often as this tale has been told, it has never been more vividly described than by the pen of George Macaulay Trevelyan, who in this, his first work, “England in the Age of Wycliffe,” has given grounds for believing that the literary mantle of his father and of his famous great-uncle has descended upon him. In this book are the following passages relating to the peasant rebellion in 1381. Of those who had taken shelter in the Tower in those days of terror, Trevelyan writes: “There was but one ark of safety, where many whose blood was sought had already taken refuge. Gower compares the Tower of London during this terrible crisis to a ship in which all those had climbed who could not live in the raging sea. It had been the King’s headquarters for the last two days. It was from the Tower steps that he had been rowed across to the conference at Rotherhithe. His mother was with him in the famous fortress, as were Treasurer Hales and Chancellor Sudbury, for whose heads the rebels clamoured; his uncle Buckingham and his young cousin Henry, who was destined to depose him; the Earls of Kent, Suffolk, and Warwick; Leg, the author of the poll-tax commission, now trembling for his life; and, last but not least, the Mayor Walworth. But the noblest among them all was the tried and faithful servant of Edward III., the Earl of Salisbury, a soldier who had shared in the early glories of the Black Prince, a diplomatist who had dictated the terms of Bretigny to the Court of France; he seems to have held aloof in his old age from the intrigues of home politics, but in the imminent danger that now threatened his country he acted a part not unworthy of the name he bore. One man was absent from this assembly of notables, who, if he had been present, would assuredly never have left the Tower alive. John of Gaunt had good reason to be thankful that, during the month when England was in the hands of those who sought his life, he was across the Border arranging a truce with the Scots.
“By the evening of Thursday, a great mob was encamped on St Catherine’s Hill, over against the Tower, clamouring for the death of the ministers who had there taken refuge. Sudbury was the principal victim whom they demanded. The most horrible of all sounds, the roar of a mob howling for blood, ever and again penetrated into the chambers of the Tower, where prelates and nobles ‘sat still with awful eye’ (Froissart). The young King, from a high turret window, watched the conflagrations reddening the heavens. In all parts of the city and suburbs, the flames shot up from the mansions of those who had displeased the people. Far away to the west, beyond the burning Savoy, fire ascended from mansions in Westminster; away to the north blazed the Treasurer’s manor at Highbury. Close beneath him lay the rebel camp, whence ominous voices now and again rose. Returning pensive and sad from these unwonted sights and sounds, the boy held counsel with the wisest of his kingdom, shut up within the same wall.”
Then follows the account of the attempted escape from the Tower of the Archbishop during the following night, or rather in the early dawn of the next day. Sudbury had resigned the Great Seal into Richard’s keeping; but this had no effect in calming the rage of the mob. In vain did the Archbishop attempt to break from his prison; but as he appeared on the Tower stairs, he was seen by the rebels from St Catherine’s Hill, and obliged to return. Trevelyan then goes on to describe the interview between Richard and his rebellious subjects at Mile End, when the young monarch conceded their demands, and granted them a general pardon. But meanwhile a great tragedy had taken place within the fortress. “The rebels,” continues Trevelyan, “broke into the Tower. Authorities differ as to the exact moment; some place it during, and some after, the conference at Mile End. But it is, unfortunately, certain that no resistance was made by the very formidable body of well-armed soldiers, who might have defended such a stronghold for many days even against a picked army. These troops were ordered, or at least permitted, by the King to let in the mob. It appears that part of the agreement with the rebels was that the Tower and the refugees it contained were to be delivered over to their wrath. The dark passages and inmost chambers of that ancient fortress were choked with the throng of ruffians, while the soldiers stood back along the walls to let them pass, and looked on helplessly at the outrages that followed. Murderers broke into strong room and bower; even the King’s bed was torn up, lest someone should be lurking in it. The unfortunate Leg, the farmer of the poll-tax, paid with his life-blood for that unprofitable speculation. A learned friar, the friend and adviser of John of Gaunt, was torn to pieces as a substitute for his patron. Though the hunt roared through every chamber, it was in the Chapel that the noblest hart lay harboured. Archbishop Sudbury had realised that he was to be sacrificed. He had been engaged, since the King started for Mile End, in preparing the Treasurer and himself for death. He had confessed Hales, and both had taken the Sacrament. He was still performing the service of the Mass, when the mob burst into the Chapel, seized him at the altar, hurried him across the moat to Tower Hill, where a vast multitude of those who had been unable to press into the fortress greeted his appearance with a savage yell. His head was struck off on the spot where so many famous men have since perished with more seemly circumstance. The Treasurer Hales suffered with him, and their two heads, mounted over London Bridge, grinned down on the bands of peasants who were still flocking into the capital from far-distant parts.”
Richard was again forced to take refuge in the Tower in 1387, in consequence of a revolt led by his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and other disaffected nobles, who, out of patience with the King’s misgovernment, and detesting his ministers, who had alienated Richard from the more respectable of his subjects, succeeded in depriving him of legislative power. The government of the country was placed in the hands of a commission appointed by Gloucester, whereupon Richard flew to arms and summoned a Parliament which met at Nottingham. Gloucester and his adherents took the field with an army forty thousand strong, and in an action fought between them and the King’s army at Radcot Bridge, the latter was defeated. Richard once more took shelter with his family in the Tower, the fortress being besieged soon afterwards. A truce, however, was called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and negotiations were arranged for a meeting between the King and his nobles, of whom, after Gloucester, the Earls of Derby and Nottingham were the principal leaders. A conference was held in the Council Chamber of the White Tower, and some kind of agreement was arrived at, Richard returning to his palace at Westminster as soon as the proceedings terminated.
The King’s most unpopular ministers were impeached, some of them being executed, one of them being his greatest friend, Sir Simon Burley, a valiant soldier who had been appointed Richard’s governor by the Black Prince. Despite the tears and entreaties of Queen Anne, Burley was beheaded on Tower Hill. His death was never forgiven by the King; he had been a loyal and devoted friend and subject both to Richard’s father and to himself, and he had served with great distinction throughout the wars of Edward the Third’s reign. His execution was terribly revenged by Richard when he was able, once more, to act for himself.
Three years later, the Tower witnessed brighter scenes. Froissart tells us in his inimitable manner of a splendid tournament held in Smithfield, and commencing with a State procession which left the Tower, and in which the King, his Queen, and the whole Court presented an imposing sight. But Richard was biding his time to avenge the death of his old friend Burley, and these brave shows and festivities were only used as a cloak for designs he had meditated carrying out from the day of Burley’s execution by his rebel subjects. The time at length arrived—in 1396. His “good Queen,” Anne of Bavaria, was dead, and Richard had taken as his second wife and Queen, Isabel of France—daughter of the mad King Charles—who was lodged in the palace at the Tower until her coronation. In the following year (1397) Richard obtained his revenge.
This was a coup d’état—I have the authority of Mr Gardiner for using the French term—by which he summarily arrested his uncle Gloucester, with the Earls of Warwick and Arundel. The shrift of these enemies of the King was a short one. The Duke of Gloucester[7] was taken to the Castle of Calais, and there he died, probably by the King’s orders; the Earl of Warwick had received an invitation to meet the King at dinner at the palace of the Lord Chancellor, Edmund de Strafford, who was also Bishop of Exeter, which was in the Strand, near Temple Bar, with gardens running down to the river. When the dinner was ended, Warwick, on rising to take leave, was arrested, hurried to a barge, rowed up to the fortress, and placed in the tower which bore his family name. After a time, he was removed from the Beauchamp Tower to the castle rock of Tintagel in Cornwall, and thence to the Isle of Man, the King sparing his life, probably because of the public indignation that would have been roused by the execution of one who had, more than any other of the great nobles of his day, distinguished himself so highly in the French wars.
Arundel was brought to trial, pleading not guilty, and offering to prove his innocence of the charges brought against him by the ordeal of battle. No mercy, however, was shown him, and he was beheaded the same day that his sentence was pronounced. His death was lamented by many who knew his worth; he was a gallant soldier, and ten years before this fate befell him had commanded an English fleet which had defeated a French one. He was one of the greatest sons of the most illustrious house in the kingdom, and his prowess on land was as renowned as his success upon the sea.
On his way from the Tower to the scaffold on Tower Hill, Arundel asked that the cords with which his hands were tied might be loosened, in order that he might bestow the money he carried about him upon the people through whom he passed on his way to death. He was accompanied to the scaffold by the Earl of Nottingham, who was his son-in-law, and by Thomas Holland, the young Earl of Kent, his nephew, who apparently came to triumph over his downfall rather than to sympathise in the tragedy, for he is reported to have said to them, “It would have been more seemly of you to have absented yourselves from this scene. The time will come when as many shall marvel at your misfortunes as you do at mine,” a prophecy soon afterwards fulfilled.
Arundel’s body was buried in the Church of the Austin Friars in Broad Street in the City, a building once filled with splendid monuments to the illustrious dead, but of which no single one now remains. Among these monuments were those of Hubert de Burgh, of Edward Plantagenet, Richard the Second’s half-brother, and many others, but none more illustrious, both by birth and renown, than Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Whatever his relatives may have felt concerning the Earl’s death, the great body of the people lamented and mourned him bitterly, regarding him as a martyr; and so much so, that they flocked in crowds to the church of Austin Friars expecting miracles to be performed at his tomb. Richard, although outwardly rejoicing at the great Earl’s death, is said to have had his nights disturbed ever after by fearful dreams, and his mind haunted by the wraith of Fitzalan.
Side of the Scaffold on Tower Hill.
After this sanguinary act of vengeance Richard seems to have lost all self-control. Mr Gardiner writes that, “It is most probable that, without being actually insane, his mind had to some extent given way.” However that may be, it is certain that after the deaths of Gloucester and Arundel, Richard knew no peace; and in three short years he, too, lay in a bloody grave.
Richard dissolved Parliament the year after the murder of Gloucester and the execution of Arundel, appointing a Committee of twelve peers and six commoners, his personal adherents, to carry on the government of the country with himself. Like the first Charles he attempted to rule the realm without a Parliament, and by this act of autocracy destroyed himself. The Duke of Norfolk and Henry of Hereford had been banished during that memorable tournament at Coventry, which Shakespeare has immortalised in his great tragedy, and during the two succeeding years Richard ruled the land, a half-crazed despot.
In 1399 Hereford, who by his father’s death, “old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” had become Duke of Lancaster, returned to England from his banishment, having heard that the King had seized all his father’s lands; and, in returning to claim his own, it chanced that he obtained the realm of England from his cousin Richard.
When Lancaster landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, Richard had betaken himself to Ireland, whence he returned in hot haste to England: he found his situation already desperate. Events moved swiftly, and on the 2nd of September 1399, Richard was taken a prisoner to London and placed in the Tower.
Did scowl on Richard; no man cried God save him;
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head:
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,
That had not God, for some strange purpose steel’d
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.”
The day after the gates of the fortress closed upon him, Richard’s deposition was read in Parliament. Twenty-two years had passed since he had left the Tower for his coronation, surrounded by all the pomp of this world—himself the brightest figure in a brilliant pageant; he was now throneless, a prisoner in the power of his cousin; a broken-down and prematurely aged man, although still in the prime of life.
“On St Michael’s Day (September 29) a deputation of prelates, barons, knights, and lawyers proceeded on horseback to the Tower, where they alighted; King Richard came to them in the hall (probably the Council Chamber in the White Tower) when they were assembled. He was apparelled in his robes, the crown on his head, the sceptre in his hand. Standing there alone, he then spoke: ‘I have been King of England, Duke of Aquitaine, and Lord of Ireland about twenty-two years, which royalty, lordship, sceptre, and crown I resign here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and I entreat him here in presence of you all to accept this sceptre.’ He then tendered the sceptre to the Duke, who, on receiving it, handed it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. King Richard next raised the crown from off his head, and said: ‘Henry, fair cousin, and Duke of Lancaster, I present and give to you this crown and all the rights dependent on it,’ and the Duke, accepting it, delivered it also to the Archbishop.” (From “The Story of the House of Lancaster,” by G. H. Hartwright.)
After the final tragedy in Richard’s dungeon at Pomfret Castle, his corpse rested one night in the Tower, with the still beautiful face exposed, until the following day, when it was placed in St Paul’s.
Shakespeare has dealt leniently with the character of Richard of Bordeaux. Doubtless the tragedy of his life made Shakespeare kinder to his memory than was warranted by sober history, for Richard was one of the worst of our English kings. The son of the heroic Black Prince and the grandson of Edward the Third, with the blood and traditions of Richard the Lion-Hearted, Richard inherited none of their great qualities, and was content to fritter away his life in petty acts of tyranny and oppression. England had been used to victory during the great reigns of the first and third Edwards; under Richard, the only success of the national arms was the defeat of the French fleet by Arundel, and Arundel was put to death by Richard. Proud, passionate, and tyrannical, the Black Prince’s son threw away the love, respect, and loyalty which, for the sake of his father’s memory, he had possessed to the fullest upon his ascent to the throne. And although he was only thirty-four at the time of his death, he had lived long enough to see the heartfelt affection of his people turn to dislike and contempt. But the glamour of his personal beauty, combined with the tragedy of his fall, inspired the greatest of our dramatists to perpetuate his memory in a manner which will ever touch the human heart.
“Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.”