The Last Plantagenets (31 page)

The duke was forced to the ground and feather beds were piled on top of him. The assassins held him down until he had been smothered to death.

Both Halle and Serle were executed later for their part in the murder.

It seems probable that the duke was removed from Calais Castle as soon as he had written his confession. This would have given the governor, the double-dealing Nottingham, a chance to claim that he had no part in, or knowledge of, what happened. It is more than likely that the murder was carried out that night and that the duke was dead when Rickhill returned to the castle the following morning and was refused admittance.

On October 14 the king ordered Nottingham to deliver the body to a priest of the royal chapel, named Richard Maudelyn (of whom many curious things will be told later), and the latter conveyed it to the widow for burial in Westminster Abbey. In the succeeding reign it was interred in the chapel of the kings at Windsor.

The curtain had fallen on the three important figures in the drama, and what followed was anticlimactic. On September 28, Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was brought from the Tower to stand trial. He lacked the courage of Arundel and broke down almost at once under questioning. He confessed his guilt and threw himself on the king’s
mercy. Richard apparently felt for him contempt rather than the hatred which had festered in his mind for his uncle Thomas and the Earl of Arundel. He was content to have Warwick sentenced to life imprisonment and the forfeiture of all his property.

Warwick was sent to the Isle of Man, where William le Scrope was governor. The latter spent little time on the island and the prisoner complained bitterly that he was neglected and treated harshly by the servants in whose hands Le Scrope left him.

In the succeeding reign he was released and his conduct thereafter was quite characteristic. He first attempted to deny his confession before the Commons in 1397, although no weight was attached to his explanations. Henry IV, who was present on this occasion and also when the confession had been made, brusquely demanded his silence. Later he was one of the high baronage who put pressure on Henry to have Richard killed. He himself died in 1401.

M
UCH of the story of Richard’s twenty-two-year reign is based on insufficient evidence and it has generally been told without any effort to be impartial. When a king is deposed, the story of what happened is written with an eye to the favor of the new incumbent. The boy king has been treated harshly in the chronicles of the Lancastrian period and much of what has been published since follows that lead. Perhaps he is deserving of most of this criticism, but there are certain things which must be said in his favor. He was not cast in the mold of kings and the age was one which demanded a rude and masterful hand on the helm. Richard, somewhat effeminate, a hater of war, was condemned to failure from the beginning, especially as he ascended the throne at such an early age.

Charles VI, who succeeded to the French crown at practically the same age as Richard, found himself also beset and badgered by a circle of unfriendly uncles. This may have been one of the reasons for the insanity which overtook him so quickly. Richard ruled as a minor under the powerful and sometimes menacing shadow of John of Gaunt and the incessant bullying of his uncle of Woodstock. The vindictive streak to be found in many of the Plantagenets may have been kept under cover until he felt he could strike back with impunity. It is conceivable also, though unlikely, that a second conspiracy was under way and that he acted in self-defense.

Everything good that can be advanced about Richard as King of England has now been said. Only the dark and disturbing sequel remains to be told.

When his old enemies had felt the edge of his vengeance, he seemed
to change for the worse. In his thirtieth year, still handsome although growing somewhat heavy of build, he must have felt his position to be unassailable. The philosophy his father had accepted and which had been dinned into his ears as a boy now became one on which he could act. “By God’s will you are king,” he had been told, “and you are answerable only to Him.” The opposition was broken, his uncle Thomas and the Earl of Arundel were dead, the archbishop had been banished and was languishing in Florence, Warwick had sniveled for a pardon and was in perpetual imprisonment. Who was left to stand in his way?

Before Parliament adjourned, the king took steps to strengthen his position. He scattered dukedoms about with a lavish hand. His cousin Henry of Derby became Duke of Hereford, Edward of Rutland the Duke of Aumale, his two hotheaded and obnoxious kinsmen, the Hollands, were both raised to the rank of duke, and the Earl of Nottingham, who had been the sword hand of the
revanche
, was created Duke of Norfolk. Some of the lesser figures became earls.

This largesse of honors won him the support of individuals, but did nothing to improve the king’s standing with the older nobility or the common people. In the London streets they chanted songs of derision and they coined a term to describe the new favorites, the
duketti
. The citizens of London became so antagonistic, in fact, that they claimed miracles were being performed at Arundel’s grave. Richard, whose sleep was said to be troubled with dreams of the dead earl and who complained that the clothes on his bed were wet with blood, went to the extreme of ordering that the tomb be paved over.

It was necessary for the king to keep his Chester troops about him to prevent the trained bands and the apprentices with their clubs and knives from venting by violent measures their disapproval of him and of the carefully hand-picked Parliament.

This question of protecting the House had been one which gave concern to many kings. In 1332, Edward III had thought it necessary to decree that “no man, upon pain of forfeiting all his substance, should presume to wear any coat of mail or other weapons in London, Westminster or the suburbs of the same.” A quite different form of protection had been applied in 1205 by the infamous King John, the black sheep of the Plantagenets. This was designed to protect the king from the members! They were required to send their children as hostages for their allegiance and their obedience to the king’s wishes. This method of gagging the House and preventing a free and courageous expression of opinion was, fortunately, never used again.

Undoubtedly the hostility of the Londoners influenced the king in deciding to hold the next meeting of Parliament elsewhere. It was announced
that the next session would be held at Shrewsbury on January 28. This was to prove one of the shortest of all sessions, lasting for three days only. Later it was called the Suicidal Parliament because of the effect of the legislation passed on Richard’s demand.

This Parliament of three days proceeded to nullify everything that had been done by the House of 1388 and restored all property rights to those who had suffered then, or to their families. It provided, moreover, for a permanent board of eighteen members to serve with the king: ten of the upper ranks of the baronage, two earls to act for the clergy, and six commoners. The men nominated to this committee were partisans of the king and could be depended on to bend to his will. The authority vested in them was such that it would not be necessary to summon a full Parliament again.

The king was granted a tenth and a fifteenth of all national revenue. The last act of this short-lived House was the almost unbelievable one of granting him a subsidy on all wool, woolfells, and leather for the term of his natural life!

In three days Richard was granted the power to rule England as an absolute king!

The Great Charter had not been revoked, but its restrictions would never be felt. The nobility were shackled to the royal chariot like conquered generals marching in chains in a Roman triumph. The House had given away its right to maintain a check on royal conduct by the withholding of financial supplies. The country was at peace and would continue to live for a full quarter century under the truce made with France. The king himself had been provided with a lifelong revenue, large enough to cover all his peace-time needs, extravagant though they might be.

Other kings had disregarded the administrative checks placed on their power. But Richard had gone much further than that. He had succeeded in having this declared as his right. He could now regard himself as answerable only to God.

This seems a suitable place at which to pause and introduce a character whose part in the drama of Richard’s last years was veiled in mystery but who undoubtedly was to prove himself most useful to the king. There was a priest in the royal chapel named Richard Maudelyn. The first time the king set eyes on him he must have paused and wondered,
for the young priest was in all respects a replica of himself. Not only did he have the same rather florid coloring and identical features but even his voice was so similar that no one could tell the difference.

Was there a blood relationship between them, one having to do with the left hand? It seemed impossible that nature could have produced so unusual a double unless there had been some crossing of bloodlines. Edward the Black Prince had brought two illegitimate sons into the world before he succumbed to the matrimonial-minded Joan of Kent. Was the existence of this handsome young priest due to another adventure on the part of that great warrior? Or could the explanation be found in the rumor widely circulated that Richard was not the son of the Black Prince? There had been, it was whispered, many handsome priests in the royal household at Bordeaux, and the Fair Joan, having lost her first son born to the prince, was determined to replace him. This farfetched story (because Richard was born before his older brother died) was introduced later by his successor, Henry of Derby, and there were many time servers to profess a belief in it.

The only thing about which there can be no shadow of doubt is that this handsome young Maudelyn was in the service of Richard and that the king took advantage of the amazing resemblance. He was not the first king, nor the last, to use a double for his own purposes. Richard was indolent and many of the duties he was supposed to perform were irksome to him. Why not substitute Maudelyn and let him meet unimportant visitors, or attend church services while the real king lolled about at his ease?

Maudelyn was used as well for errands of much more importance—“secret and perilous missions,” according to one chronicle. It is on the official records that he accompanied the king on the second, and last, journey to Ireland. Here he was given the task of repairing the buildings in the castle at Dublin. A French writer, who was in Ireland at the time and has contributed a number of intimate pictures of the king’s activities, had this to say: “Many a time have I seen him [Maudelyn] riding through the country with King Richard, his master.” He adds this comment: “Never for a long time did I see a fairer priest.”

This fair priest will be given credit later for mysterious activities during the years immediately preceding the change of kings and for a somewhat longer period after the deposition and death of Richard.

Despotic power was too potent a brew for one with the unstable mind and temper of Richard. He began to think of himself as wise and strong and courageous, in fact as the greatest monarch in the world. He dreamed of the day when the electors would meet and cast their votes for him as Holy Roman Emperor.

But he never forgot the bitter lesson of the Merciless Parliament. Never again must he find himself in the power of forces antagonistic to him. He set his crafty mind to work on that problem or listened to someone near him who was cunning and unscrupulous. It was clear that he must get the most thickly populated and wealthy part of England under his thumb. A proclamation was issued that no longer “might he ride safely in his realm for dread of the men of London and seventeen shires lying round about.” Lists were prepared of those he considered dangerous and disloyal and from each of them he demanded a “submissory letter.” In these documents, which they were compelled to sign, they acknowledged themselves as “misdoers” and promised on pain of heavy fines to agree to all that the Suicidal Parliament had done. For any fines levied on this illegal basis the term
pleasaunce
was used. This far from gentle pressure helped to replenish the royal purse, but its chief value was that it gave the king a weapon to suspend over the heads of all who had signed the papers.

The Chester archers accompanied the king whenever he appeared in public. Like all hired soldiers, they began to regard themselves as privileged. They would walk into a public house, demand a flagon of mead or ale, toss it off, and leave without paying. The badge of the White Hart aroused resentment wherever it was seen. It was not surprising that the people of London and of the seventeen shires felt for this vengeful king a dislike and fear which grew finally beyond the point of endurance. All that was needed to set the trained bands to marching and the men of the shires to arming was a leader.

It is said (in the most unfavorable chronicles, it is true) that Richard’s manners became unbearable. He would stroll into a meeting of his parliamentary committee like a vision from some strange world of glowing colors and nightmare designs. In a condescending tone, and with a finger pressed to his fine white brow, he would comment on a proposed amendment of laws in some such words as:

“The laws are in my mouth or in my breast. I alone can change the laws of the land.”

Expressions such as this were quite as liable to cause an explosion of popular discontent as the powder with which he had experimented in the Tower when he was a boy. The crux of the matter may be found right there. Richard had not grown up.

All tyrants, no matter how powerful they conceive themselves to be, live in fear. Every man is a potential enemy; the dagger in every other belt may be the one that will be plunged between the vital ribs. This sense of menace was so deeply entrenched in Richard that he would listen to strange preachings. He was even prevailed upon to hear the words of a hermit who came like another Jeremiah with a message of divine wrath.