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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XV}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XV

     But whether through the wastefulness of government, or rather because
Edward's legacy, the French war, like a ruinous and interminable lawsuit,
exhausted all public contributions, there was an equally craving demand for
subsidy at the next meeting of parliament.  The commons now made a more
serious stand.  The speaker, Sir James Pickering, after the protestation
against giving offence which has since become more matter of form than,
perhaps, it was then considered, reminded the lords of the council of a
promise made to the last parliament, that, if they would help the king for
once with a large subsidy, so as to enable him to undertake an expedition
against the enemy, he trusted not to call on them again, but to support the
war from his own revenues; in faith of which promise there had been granted
the largest sum that any king of England had ever been suffered to levy within
so short a time, to the utmost loss and inconvenience of the commons, part of
which ought still to remain in the treasury, and render it unnecessary to
burden anew the exhausted people.  To this Scrope, lord steward of the
household, protesting that he knew not of any such promise, made answer by
order of the king, that, "saving the honor and reverence of our lord the king,
and the lords there present, the commons did not speak truth in asserting that
part of the last subsidy should be still in the treasury; it being notorious
that every penny had gone into the hands of Walworth and Philpot, appointed
and sworn treasurers in the last parliament, to receive and expend it upon the
purposes of the war, for which they had in effect disbursed the whole." Not
satisfied with this general justification, the commons pressed for an account
of the expenditure.  Scrope was again commissioned to answer, that, "though it
had never been seen that of a subsidy or other grant made to the king in
parliament or out of parliament by the commons any account had afterwards been
rendered to the commons, or to any other except the king and his officers, yet
the king, to gratify them, of his own accord, without doing it by way of
right, would have Walworth, along with certain persons of the council, exhibit
to them in writing a clear account of the receipt and expenditure, upon
condition that this should never be used as a precedent, nor inferred to be
done otherwise than by the king's spontaneous command." The commons were again
urged to provide for the public defence, being their own concern as much as
that of the king.  But they merely shifted their ground and had recourse to
other pretences.  They requested that five or six peers might come to them, in
order to discuss this question of subsidy. The lords entirely rejected this
proposal, and affirmed that such a proceeding had never been known except in
the three last parliaments; but allowed that it had been the course to elect a
committee of eight or ten from each house, to confer easily and without noise
together.  The commons acceded to this, and a committee of conference was
appointed, though no result of their discussion appears upon the roll.

     Upon examining the accounts submitted to them, these sturdy commoners
raised a new objection.  It appeared that large sums had been expended upon
garrisons in France and Ireland and other places beyond the kingdom, of which
they protested themselves not liable to bear the charge.  It was answered that
Gascony and the king's other dominions beyond sea were the outworks of
England, nor could the people ever be secure from war at their thresholds,
unless these were maintained.  They lastly insisted that the king ought to be
rich through the wealth that had devolved on him from his grandfather.  But
this was affirmed, in reply, to be merely sufficient for the payment of
Edward's creditors.  Thus driven from all their arguments, the commons finally
consented to a moderate additional imposition upon the export of wool and
leather, which were already subject to considerable duties, apologizing on
account of their poverty for the slenderness of their grant. ^l

[Footnote l: Rot. Parl. pp. 35-38.]

     The necessities of government, however, let their cause be what it might,
were by no means feigned; and a new parliament was assembled about seven
months after the last, wherein the king, without waiting for a petition,
informed the commons that the treasurers were ready to exhibit their accounts
before them.  This was a signal victory after the reluctant and ungracious
concession made to the last parliament.  Nine persons of different ranks were
appointed at the request of the commons to investigate the state of the
revenue and the disposition which had been made of the late king's personal
estate.  They ended by granting a poll-tax, which they pretended to think
adequate to the supply required. ^m But in those times no one possessed any
statistical knowledge, and every calculation which required it was subject to
enormous error, of which we have already seen an eminent example. ^n In the
next parliament (3 Ric. II.) it was set forth that only 22,000l. had been
collected by the poll-tax, while the pay of the king's troops hired for the
expedition to Brittany, the pretext of the grant, had amounted for but half a
year to 50,000l.  The king, in short, was more straitened than ever.  His
distresses gave no small advantage to the commons.  Their speaker was
instructed to declare that, as it appeared to them, if the affairs of their
liege lord had been properly conducted at home and abroad, he could not have
wanted aid of his commons, who now are poorer than before.  They pray that, as
the king was so much advanced in age and discretion, his perpetual council
(appointed in his first parliament) might be discharged of their labors, and
that, instead of them, the five chief officers of state, to wit, the
chancellor, treasurer, keeper of the privy seal, chamberlain, and steward of
the household, might be named in parliament, and declared to the commons, as
the king's sole counsellors, not removable before the next parliament.  They
required also a general commission to be made out, similar to that in the last
session, giving powers to a certain number of peers and other distinguished
persons to inquire into the state of the household, as well as into all
receipts and expenses since the king's accession.  The former petition seems
to have been passed over; ^o but a commission as requested was made out to
three prelates, three earls, three bannerets, three knights, and three
citizens. ^p After guarding thus, as they conceived, against malversation, but
in effect rather protecting their posterity than themselves, the commons
prolonged the last imposition on wool and leather for another year.

[Footnote m: Id. p. 57.]

[Footnote n: See Book vii.  Part ii. pp. 175, 176.]

[Footnote o: Nevertheless, the commons repeated it in their schedule of
petitions; and received an evasive answer, referring to an ordinance made in
the first parliament of the king, the application of which is indefinite.
Rot. Parl. p. 82.]

[Footnote p: P. 73.  In Rymer, t. viii. p. 250, the archbishop of York's name
appears among these commissioners, which makes their number sixteen. But it is
plain by the instrument that only fifteen were meant to be appointed.]

     It would be but repetition to make extracts from the rolls of the two
next years; we have still the same tale - demand of subsidy on one side,
remonstrance and endeavors at reformation on the other.  After the tremendous
insurrection of the villeins in 1382 a parliament was convened to advise about
repealing the charters of general manumission, extorted from the king by the
pressure of circumstances.  In this measure all concurred; but the commons
were not afraid to say that the late risings had been provoked by the burdens
which a prodigal court had called for in the preceding session.  Their
language is unusually bold.  "It seemed to them, after full deliberation,"
they said, "that, unless the administration of the kingdom were speedily
reformed, the kingdom itself would be utterly lost and ruined forever, and
therein their lord the king, with all the peers and commons, which God forbid.
For true it is that there are such defects in the said administration, as well
about the king's person and his household as in his courts of justice; and by
grievous oppressions in the country through maintainers of suits, who are, as
it were, kings in the country, that right and law are come to nothing, and the
poor commons are from time to time so pillaged and ruined, partly by the
king's purveyors of the household, and others who pay nothing for what they
take, partly by the subsidies and tallages raised upon them, and besides by
the oppressive behavior of the servants of the king and other lords, and
especially of the aforesaid maintainers of suits, that they are reduced to
greater poverty and discomfort than ever they were before.  And moreover,
though great sums have been continually granted by and levied upon them, for
the defence of the kingdom, yet they are not the better defended against their
enemies, but every year are plundered and wasted by sea and land, without any
relief.  Which calamities the said poor commons, who lately used to live in
honor and prosperity, can no longer endure.  And to speak the real truth,
these injuries lately done to the poorer commons, more than they ever suffered
before, caused them to rise and to commit the mischief done in their late
riot; and there is still cause to fear greater evils, if sufficient remedy be
not timely provided against the outrages and oppressions aforesaid.  Wherefore
may it please our lord the king, and the noble peers of the realm now
assembled in this parliament, to provide such remedy and amendment as to the
said administration that the state and dignity of the king in the first place,
and of the lords, may be preserved, as the commons have always desired, and
the commons may be put in peace; removing, as soon as they can be detected,
evil ministers and counsellors, and putting in their stead the best and most
sufficient, and taking away all the bad practices which have led to the last
rising, or else none can imagine that this kingdom can longer subsist without
greater misfortunes than it ever endured.  And for God's sake let it not be
forgotten that there be put about the king, and of his council, the best lords
and knights that can be found in the kingdom.

     "And be it known (the entry proceeds) that, after the king our lord with
the peers of the realm and his council had taken advice upon these requests
made to him for his good and his kingdom's as it really appeared to him,
willed and granted that certain bishops, lords, and others should be appointed
to survey and examine in privy council both the government of the king's
person and of his household, and to suggest proper remedies wherever
necessary, and report them to the king.  And it was said by the peers in
parliament, that, as it seemed to them, if reform of government were to take
place throughout the kingdom, it should begin by the chief member, which is
the king himself, and so from person to person, as well churchmen as others,
and place to place, from higher to lower, without sparing any degree." ^q A
considerable number of commissioners were accordingly appointed, whether by
the king alone, or in parliament, does not appear; the latter, however, is
more probable.  They seem to have made some progress in the work of
reformation, for we find that the officers of the household were sworn to
observe their regulations.  But in all likelihood these were soon neglected.

[Footnote q: Rot. Parl.  5 R. II. p. 100.]

     It is not wonderful that, with such feelings of resentment towards the
crown, the commons were backward in granting subsidies.  Perhaps the king
would not have obtained one at all if he had not withheld his charter of
pardon for all offences committed during the insurrection.  This was
absolutely necessary to restore quiet among the people; and though the members
of the commons had certainly not been insurgents, yet inevitable
irregularities had occurred in quelling the tumults, which would have put them
too much in the power of those unworthy men who filled the benches of justice
under Richard.  The king declared that it was unusual to grant a pardon
without a subsidy; the commons still answered that they would consider about
that matter; and the king instantly rejoined that he would consider about his
pardon (s'aviseroit de sa dite grace) till they had done what they ought.
They renewed at length the usual tax on wool and leather. ^r

[Footnote r: Id. p. 104.]

     This extraordinary assumption of power by the commons was not merely
owing to the king's poverty.  It was encouraged by the natural feebleness of a
disunited government.  The high rank and ambitious spirit of Lancaster gave
him no little influence, though contending with many enemies at court as well
as the ill-will of the people.  Thomas of Woodstock, the king's youngest
uncle, more able and turbulent than Lancaster, became, as he grew older, an
eager competitor for power, which he sought through the channel of popularity.
The earls of March, Arundel, and Warwick bore a considerable part, and were
the favorites of parliament.  Even Lancaster, after a few years, seems to have
fallen into popular courses, and recovered some share of public esteem.  He
was at the head of the reforming commission in the fifth of Richard II.,
though he had been studiously excluded from those preceding.  We cannot hope
to disentangle the intrigues of this remote age, as to which our records are
of no service, and the chroniclers are very slightly informed.  So far as we
may conjecture, Lancaster, finding his station insecure at court, began to
solicit the favor of the commons, whose hatred of the administration abated
their former hostility towards him. ^s

[Footnote s: The commons granted a subsidy, 7 R. II., to support Lancaster's
war in Castile.  R. P. p. 284.  Whether the populace changed their opinion of
him I know not.  He was still disliked by them two years before.  The
insurgents of 1382 are said to have compelled men to swear that they would
obey King Richard and the commons, and that they would accept no king named
John.  Walsingham, p. 248.]

     The character of Richard II. was now developing itself, and the hopes
excited by his remarkable presence of mind in confronting the rioters on
Blackheath were rapidly destroyed.  Not that he was wanting in capacity, as
has been sometimes imagined.  For if we measure intellectual power by the
greatest exertion it ever displays, rather than by its average results,
Richard II.  was a man of considerable talents.  He possessed, along with much
dissimulation, a decisive promptitude in seizing the critical moment for
action.  Of this quality, besides his celebrated behavior towards the
insurgents, he gave striking evidence in several circumstances which we shall
have shortly to notice.  But his ordinary conduct belied the abilities which
on these rare occasions shone forth, and rendered them ineffectual for his
security.  Extreme pride and violence, with an inordinate partiality for the
most worthless favorites, were his predominant characteristics.  In the latter
quality, and in the events of his reign, he forms a pretty exact parallel to
Edward II.  Scrope, lord chancellor, who had been appointed in parliament, and
was understood to be irremovable without its concurrence, lost the great seal
for refusing to set it to some prodigal grants.  Upon a slight quarrel with
Archbishop Courtney the king ordered his temporalities to be seized, the
execution of which, Michael de la Pole, his new chancellor, and a favorite of
his own, could hardly prevent.  This was accompanied with indecent and
outrageous expressions of anger, unworthy of his station and of those whom he
insulted. ^t

[Footnote t: Ibid. pp. 290, 315, 317.]

     Though no king could be less respectable than Richard, yet the
constitution invested a sovereign with such ample prerogative, that it was far
less easy to resist his personal exercise of power than the unsettled councils
of a minority.  In the parliament 6 R. II., sess. 2, the commons pray certain
lords, whom they name, to be assigned as their advisers.  This had been
permitted in the two last sessions without exception. ^u But the king, in
granting their request, reserved his right of naming any others. ^v Though the
commons did not relax in their importunities for the redress of general
grievances, they did not venture to intermeddle as before with the conduct of
administration.  They did not even object to the grant of the marquisate of
Dublin, with almost a princely dominion over Ireland; which enormous donation
was confirmed by act of parliament to Vere, a favorite of the king. ^w A
petition that the officers of state should annually visit and inquire into his
household was answered that the king would do what he pleased. ^x Yet this was
little in comparison of their former proceedings.

[Footnote u: Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100; 6 R. Ii. sess. 1, p. 134.]

[Footnote v: Ibid. p. 145.]

[Footnote w: Ibid. 9 R. II. p. 209.]

[Footnote x: Ibid., p. 213.  It is however asserted in the articles of
impeachment against Suffolk, and admitted by his defence, that nine lords had
been appointed in the last parliament, viz. 9 R. II., to inquire into the
state of the household, and reform whatever was amiss.  But nothing of this
appears in the roll.]

     There is nothing, however, more deceitful to a monarch, unsupported by an
armed force, and destitute of wary advisers, than this submission of his
people.  A single effort was enough to overturn his government.  Parliament
met in the tenth year of his reign, steadily determined to reform the
administration, and especially to punish its chief leader, Michael de la Pole,
Earl of Suffolk and Lord Chancellor.  According to the remarkable narration of
a contemporary historian, ^y too circumstantial to be rejected, but rendered
somewhat doubtful by the silence of all other writers and of the parliamentary
roll, the king was loitering at his palace at Eltham when he received a
message from the two houses, requesting the dismissal of Suffolk, since they
had matter to allege against him that they could not move while he kept the
office of chancellor.  Richard, with his usual intemperance, answered that he
would not for their request remove the meanest scullion from his kitchen.
They returned a positive refusal to proceed on any public business until the
king should appear personally in parliament and displace the chancellor.  The
king required forty knights to be deputed from the rest to inform him clearly
of their wishes.  But the commons declined a proposal in which they feared, or
affected to fear, some treachery.  At length the Duke of Gloucester and
Arundel Bishop of Ely were commissioned to speak the sense of parliament; and
they delivered it, if we may still believe what we read, in very extraordinary
language, asserting that there was an ancient statute, according to which, if
the king absented himself from parliament without just cause during forty
days, which he had now exceeded, every man might return without permission to
his own country; and, moreover, there was another statute, and (as they might
more truly say) a precedent of no remote date, that if a king, by bad counsel,
or his own folly and obstinacy, alienated himself from his people, and would
not govern according to the laws of the land and the advice of the peers, but
madly and wantonly followed his own single will, it should be lawful for them,
with the common assent of the people, to expel him from his throne, and
elevate to it some near kinsman of the royal blood.  By this discourse the
king was induced to meet his parliament, where Suffolk was removed from his
office, and the impeachment against him commenced. ^z

[Footnote y: Knyghton, in Twysden x.  Script. col. 2680.]

[Footnote z: Upon full consideration, I am much inclined to give credit to
this passage of Knyghton, as to the main facts; and perhaps even the speech of
Gloucester and the Bishop of Ely is more likely to have been made public by
them than invented by so jejune a historian.  Walsingham, indeed, says nothing
of the matter; but he is so unequally informed and so frequently defective,
that we can draw no strong inference from his silence.  What most weighs with
me is that parliament met on Oct. 1, 1387, and was not dissolved till Nov. 28;
a longer period than the business done in it seems to have required; and also
that Suffolk, who opened the session as chancellor, is styled "darrein
chancellor" in the articles of impeachment against him; so that he must have
been removed in the interval, which tallies with Knyghton's story.  Besides,
it is plain, from the famous questions subsequently put by the king to his
judges at Nottingham, that both the right of retiring without a regular
dissolution, and the precedent of Edward II., had been discussed in
parliament, which does not appear anywhere else than in Knyghton.]

     The charges against this minister, without being wholly frivolous, were
not so weighty as the clamor of the commons might have led us to expect.
Besides forfeiting all his grants from the crown, he was committed to prison,
there to remain till he should have paid such fine as the king might impose; a
sentence that would have been outrageously severe in many cases, though little
more than nugatory in the present. ^a

[Footnote a: Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 219.]

     This was the second precedent of that grand constitutional resource,
parliamentary impeachment; and more remarkable from the eminence of the person
attacked than that of Lord Latimer in the fiftieth year of Edward III. ^b The
commons were content to waive the prosecution of any other ministers; but they
rather chose a scheme of reforming the administration, which should avert both
the necessity of punishment and the malversations that provoked it.  They
petitioned the king to ordain in parliament certain chief officers of his
household and other lords of his council, with power to reform those abuses,
by which his crown was so much blemished that the laws were not kept and his
revenues were dilapidated, confirming by a statute a commission for a year,
and forbidding, under heavy penalties, anyone from opposing, in private or
openly, what they should advise. ^c With this the king complied, and a
commission founded upon the prayer of parliament was established by statute.
It comprehended fourteen persons of the highest eminence for rank and general
estimation; princes of the blood and ancient servants of the crown, by whom
its prerogatives were not likely to be unnecessarily impaired.  In fact the
principle of this commission, without looking back at the precedents in the
reign of John, Henry III., and Edward II., which yet were not without their
weight as constitutional analogies, was merely that which the commons had
repeatedly maintained during the minority of the present king, and which had
produced the former commissions of reform in the third and fifth years of his
reign.  These were upon the whole nearly the same in their operation.  It must
be owned there was a more extensive sway virtually given to the lords now
appointed, by the penalties imposed on any who should endeavor to obstruct
what they might advise; the design as well as tendency of which was no doubt
to throw the whole administration into their hands during the period of this
commission.

[Footnote b: Articles had been exhibited by the chancellor before the peers,
in the seventh of the king, against Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, who had led a
considerable army in a disastrous expedition against the Flemings, adherents
to the antipope Clement in the schism.  This crusade had been exceedingly
popular, but its ill success had the usual effect. The commons were not
parties in this proceeding.  Rot. Parl. p. 153.]

[Footnote c: Rot. Parl. p. 221.]

     Those who have written our history with more or less of a Tory bias
exclaim against this parliamentary commission as an unwarrantable violation of
the king's sovereignty, and even impartial men are struck at first sight by a
measure that seems to overset the natural balance of our constitution. But it
would be unfair to blame either those concerned in this commission, some of
whose names at least have been handed down with unquestioned respect, or those
high-spirited representatives of the people whose patriot firmness has been
hitherto commanding all our sympathy and gratitude, unless we could distinctly
pronounce by what gentler means they could restrain the excesses of
government.  Thirteen parliaments had already met since the accession of
Richard; in all the same remonstrances had been repeated, and the same
promises renewed.  Subsidies, more frequent than in any former reign, had been
granted for the supposed exigencies of the war; but this was no longer
illuminated by those dazzling victories which give to fortune the mien of
wisdom; the coasts of England were perpetually ravaged, and her trade
destroyed; while the administration incurred the suspicion of diverting to
private uses that treasure which they so feebly and unsuccessfully applied to
the public service.  No voice of his people, until it spoke in thunder, would
stop an intoxicated boy in the wasteful career of dissipation.  He loved
festivals and pageants, the prevailing folly of his time, with unusual
frivolity; and his ordinary living is represented as beyond comparison more
showy and sumptuous than even that of his magnificent and chivalrous
predecessor.  Acts of parliament were no adequate barriers to his
misgovernment.  "Of what avail are statutes," says Walsingham, "since the king
with his privy council is wont to abolish what parliament has just enacted?"
^d The constant prayer of the commons in every session, that former statutes
might be kept in force, is no slight presumption that they were not secure of
being regarded.  It may be true that Edward III.'s government had been full as
arbitrary, though not so unwise, as his grandson's; but this is the strongest
argument that nothing less than an extraordinary remedy could preserve the
still unstable liberties of England.

[Footnote d: Rot. Parl. p. 281.]

     The best plea that could be made for Richard was his inexperience, and
the misguided suggestions of favorites.  This, however, made it more necessary
to remove those false advisers, and to supply that inexperience.
Unquestionably the choice of ministers is reposed in the sovereign; a trust,
like every other attribute of legitimate power, for the public good; not, what
no legitimate power can ever be, the instrument of selfishness or caprice.
There is something more sacred than the prerogative, or even than the
constitution; the public weal, for which all powers are granted, and to which
they must all be referred.  For this public weal it is confessed to be
sometimes necessary to shake the possessor of the throne out of his seat;
could it never be permitted to suspend, though but indirectly and for a time,
the positive exercise of misapplied prerogatives?  He has learned in a very
different school from myself, who denies to parliament at the present day a
preventive as well as vindictive control over the administration of affairs; a
right of resisting, by those means which lie within its sphere, the
appointment of unfit ministers.  These means are now indirect; they need not
to be the less effectual, and they are certainly more salutary on that
account.  But we must not make our notions of the constitution in its perfect
symmetry of manhood the measure of its infantine proportions, nor expect from
a parliament just struggling into life, and "pawing to get free its hinder
parts," the regularity of definite and habitual power.

     It is assumed rather too lightly by some of those historians to whom I
have alluded that these commissioners, though but appointed for a twelvemonth,
designed to retain longer, or would not in fact have surrendered, their
authority.  There is certainly a danger in these delegations of pre-eminent
trust; but I think it more formidable in a republican form than under such a
government as our own.  The spirit of the people, the letter of the law, were
both so decidedly monarchical, that no glaring attempt of the commissioners to
keep the helm continually in their hands, though it had been in the king's
name, would have had a fair probability of success.  And an oligarchy of
fourteen persons, different in rank and profession, even if we should impute
criminal designs to all of them, was ill calculated for permanent union.
Indeed the facility with which Richard reassumed his full powers two years
afterwards, when misconduct had rendered his circumstances far more
unfavorable, gives the corroboration of experience to this reasoning.  By
yielding to the will of his parliament and to a temporary suspension of
prerogative, this unfortunate prince might probably have reigned long and
peacefully; the contrary course of acting led eventually to his deposition and
miserable death.

     Before the dissolution of parliament Richard made a verbal protestation
that nothing done therein should be in prejudice of his rights; a reservation
not unusual when any remarkable concession was made, but which could not
decently be interpreted, whatever he might mean, as a dissent from the statute
just passed.  Some months had intervened when the king, who had already
released Suffolk from prison and restored him to his favor, procured from the
judges, whom he had summoned to Nottingham, a most convenient set of answers
to questions concerning the late proceedings in parliament.  Tresilian and
Belknap, chief justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, with several
other judges, gave it under their seals that the late statute and commission
were derogatory to the prerogative; that all who procured it to be passed, or
persuaded or compelled the king to consent to it, were guilty of treason; that
the king's business must be proceeded upon before any other in parliament;
that he may put an end to the session at his pleasure; that his ministers
cannot be impeached without his consent; that any members of parliament
contravening the three last articles incur the penalties of treason, and
especially he who moved for the sentence of deposition against Edward II. to
be read; and that the judgment against the Earl of Suffolk might be revoked as
altogether erroneous.

     These answers, perhaps extorted by menaces, as all the judges, except
Tresilian, protested before the next parliament, were for the most part
servile and unconstitutional.  The indignation which they excited, and the
measures successfully taken to withstand the king's designs, belong to general
history; but I shall pass slightly over that season of turbulence, which
afforded no legitimate precedent to our constitutional annals.  Of the five
lords appellants, as they were called, Gloucester, Derby, Nottingham, Warwick,
and Arundel, the three former, at least, have little claim to our esteem; but
in every age it is the sophism of malignant and peevish men to traduce the
cause of freedom itself, on account of the interested motives by which its
ostensible advocates have frequently been actuated.  The parliament, who had
the country thoroughly with them, acted no doubt honestly, but with an
inattention to the rules of law, culpable indeed, yet from which the most
civilized of their successors, in the heat of passion and triumph, have
scarcely been exempt.  Whether all with whom they dealt severely, some of them
apparently of good previous reputation, merited such punishment, is more than,
upon uncertain evidence, a modern writer can profess to decide. ^e

[Footnote e: The judgment against Simon de Burley, one of those who were
executed on this occasion, upon impeachment of the commons, was reversed under
Henry IV.; a fair presumption of its injustice, Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 464.]

     Notwithstanding the death or exile of all Richard's favorites, and the
oath taken not only by parliament, but by every class of the people, to stand
by the lords appellants, we find him, after about a year, suddenly
annihilating their pretensions, and snatching the reins again without
obstruction.  The secret cause of this event is among the many obscurities
that attend the history of his reign.  It was conducted with a spirit and
activity which broke out two or three times in the course of his imprudent
life; but we may conjecture that he had the advantage of disunion among his
enemies.  For some years after this the king's administration was prudent. The
great seal, which he took away from Archbishop Arundel, he gave to Wykeham
Bishop of Winchester, another member of the reforming commission, but a man of
great moderation and political experience.  Some time after he restored the
seal to Arundel, and reinstated the Duke of Gloucester in the council.  The
Duke of Lancaster, who had been absent during the transactions of the tenth
and eleventh years of the king, in prosecution of his Castilian war, formed a
link between the parties, and seems to have maintained some share of public
favor.