The Last Plantagenet

by Thomas B. Costain

  Completely spent and unable to say more, the queen was led finally from the room by her women. There was nothing more she could do.

  It may have been that Woodstock was in the room part of the time during which the young queen thus sacrificed her dignity in the effort to save the unfortunate knight. It is certain that he agreed with Arundel. At some stage of this tragic morning he said to Richard: “If you wish to be king, Burley must suffer!”

  What would have happened if the weak young king had stood out? If he had refused to sign the warrant, would the other barons have joined hands to prevent the two leaders from carrying out their openly stated purpose of deposition? The Earl of Derby was also against the death sentence and expressed his dissent to Woodstock and Arundel, even though he would have been a probable choice to succeed Richard.

  This poses a vital speculation. Looking backward, it seems reasonable to assume that Richard, with Derby’s backing, could have succeeded in his one honest and earnest effort and saved Burley. Had he done so, he would still have been held in leash long enough to perceive the error of his autocratic opinions and it would not have been necessary for him to follow a course of dissimulation and to keep always one angry thought in the front of his mind: “Let me have time and I shall make them pay!”

  The only concession that he won for his old friend was that the sentence be changed to beheading.

  At an early hour of that same afternoon, the fifty-two-year-old knight, who had fought bravely through the wars close to the side of the Black Prince, was subjected to a final indignity. With his hands bound behind his back and his white hair uncovered, he was led through the streets of London for the people to gaze upon. Nothing is told as to the way the staring citizens reacted, but it is to be hoped they did not jeer. Finally he was led back, the ax still carried before him, to Tower Hill where the sentence was to be carried out.

  Nor does history tell how the king and queen bore themselves during the last stage of the tragedy. Knowing how close they were to each other and how deeply their feelings were involved, it is certain that they sat together with clasped hands and bowed heads, waiting for the roll of drums to cease, which would tell them that the ax had fallen.

  CHAPTER XX

  The King Raises a Hand

  1

  A RESTRAINED and rather silent king, who had learned a bitter lesson through cruel experience, sat with his hostile council at Westminster and listened to them direct the affairs of the kingdom. This continued for a full year. He made no protest when Thomas Arundel, the Bishop of Ely, was appointed chancellor and later made Archbishop of York. He did not raise his voice to procure pardons for any of his friends in exile. He had nothing to say when the confident barons put through Parliament a grant of £20,000, to be distributed amongst themselves, presumably to recompense them for the cost of their forcible seizure of power.

  It became clear during this relatively calm year, however, that the type of man who makes his mark as a critic in opposition does not always show to advantage when he assumes the responsibilities and burdens of office. Woodstock and Arundel proved themselves vulnerable as ministers of the Crown. They did not succeed in putting into effect any of the reforms they had demanded so vehemently of the young king. They were as lavish in spending as their predecessors had been.

  During this year the silent young king had been giving much thought to the situation which existed and had made up his mind to act. When the time seemed ripe, he moved with a celerity which caught his opponents unprepared.

  On May 3, 1389, a meeting of the council was being held. The king was in attendance but had been silent as usual. Then in a moment when there was a pause he raised his hand.

  “My lords,” he asked, “what is the number of my years?”

  The question had been directed at his uncle of Woodstock who sat beside him. The latter hesitated briefly and then said, “Your Highness is in your twenty-second year.”

  “Then,” declared Richard, “I am old enough to manage my own affairs.”

  A silence settled over the room as the members exchanged uneasy side glances. What answer could they give which would express their opposition and yet fall short of open treason?

  “I have been longer under guardianship,” went on the king, “than any ward in my realm.” He reached out his hand. “The Great Seal is to be returned into my custody.”

  Bishop Arundel, to whom this demand had been addressed, had no course open but to obey. He placed the Great Seal in Richard’s hand.

  “My lords,” said the king, “I thank you for your past services.”

  His move, so unexpected, so swift, so skillfully made, left the usually clamorous opposition with nothing to say. It was true that the king was long out of his minority. Woodstock and Arundel made no move to protest the royal decision. The silence which settled over the room was deep and long.

  The triumph scored by the armed forces of the baronage had been reversed by these few cool sentences.

  There followed a brief period of official upheaval. Bishop Arundel was removed as chancellor and the place given to that sage old clerical war horse, William of Wykeham. Bishop Gilbert of Hereford was dismissed from his post at the treasury. The new judges were all relieved of office, although the earlier incumbents were not summoned back from exile. If not actually in disgrace, the baronial leaders found themselves out of control.

  On May 8, Richard issued a proclamation to the nation at large. He acknowledged that there had been abuses during the years of his minority but these he promised to redress. There would be “a better peace and better justice” in the land. It was not his purpose, he declared, to exact punishment for the force used in taking his rightful powers from him and none of his earlier advisers would be recalled to office.

  If the opposition leaders had expected a popular clamor to be raised in their behalf, they were disappointed. Apparently a realization had been spreading that these lordly critics had been as ineffective in office as those they had so relentlessly expelled.

  The king, with his new men about him, proceeded at once to sign a three-year truce with France and her allies, Scotland and Spain. This move the country approved heartily. The people were tired of the costly and cruel war which seemed to drag on endlessly. Taxes would now be lighter. In tavern and alehouse there was a sly tendency to wink at the past and say that “the young one” knew what he was about. Woodstock and Arundel could fume and growl in retirement, but for the time being no attention was paid them.

  Later in the year the now aging John of Gaunt returned from Spain, convinced at last that he could not attain his great dream, the crown of that kingdom. He seems to have approved of Richard’s bold move but, having a sincere desire to see peace in the family, he persuaded the king to summon back to the royal council the three leading appellants, Woodstock, Arundel, and Warwick. Richard accepted the suggestion unwillingly. He told John of Gaunt that his gorge rose at once more having those three set and grim faces at his council board.

  2

  For eight years Richard governed the country with wisdom and a full respect for the constitution. The peace with France was maintained by renewals of the truce. Freed from the heavy burden of war taxes, the country became prosperous. Many sound laws were passed, some of them with a distinctly liberal basis. The desire of the king to consider the well-being of his subjects was made apparent when he refused to entertain a statute prohibiting education to the children of villeins and his assent to the checking of “livery of company,” the custom in the baronage of maintaining a last phase of feudalism by keeping large armed retinues.

  During these years of peace and bounty no effort was made by the king to pardon his early advisers who had gone into exile. Michael de la Pole died abroad. Robert de Vere, existing on the bounty of relatives, left the Low Countries and lived for some time in Paris. In 1392 he went boar hunting and received a wound from one of the tuskers which caused his death. If Richard grieved for his friend, he showed no outward evidence of i
t. It was not until three years later that he gave permission for de Vere’s body to be brought back to England and buried with his ancestors in Earls Colne priory. The king was present at the services and allowed the official mask he had been wearing for so long to drop at the last moment. Requesting that the coffin be opened, he gazed in silence at the embalmed body of his one-time friend. Then with moist eyes he leaned over and lightly touched the hand of the dead man.

  During these good years the king’s old enemies continued to sit in the council. Later events were to prove he had not forgiven them, that whenever he found it necessary to face them directly he felt a stirring of deep animosity, remembering no doubt the fatal morning when the queen went down on her knees to beg in vain for the life of Sir Simon Burley. The Earl of Arundel seems to have been the one who bore the brunt of the king’s dislike. Although he sat on the council, Arundel was never again employed in any administrative capacity.

  This did not apply to Arundel’s younger brother, Thomas, the churchman. The character of the latter has been a subject of much dispute. He was a handsome and able man who could win friends easily and who undoubtedly was of an amiable bent. The part he was to play later makes it clear, however, that he never lost sight of the main chance and that he allowed himself to consider above everything the ambitious path he had elected to tread. The part he would play during the first years of the reign of Henry IV in the matter of the first burnings for heresy brought to a close a contradictory career. Historians who favored him point out that he tried to be generous and forgiving to the Lollards, but the fact remains that the flames of bigotry were first kindled during his term as Archbishop of Canterbury (for, of course, he attained that highest of posts) and that he watched while William Sawtree and John Badby, the first to die for religous beliefs, were burned at the stake.

  As he belonged to one of the greatest families in England, Thomas Arundel’s rise in the church was spectacular and rapid. At the age of twenty-one he was made Archdeacon of Taunton and a year later he became the Bishop of Ely. Being of a generous turn, and having the wealth to gratify it, he was always profuse in his almsgiving. Having a liking for show, he celebrated his elevation to the bishopric of Ely by changing the rather modest episcopal house at Holborn into a stately mansion, with a stone wall enclosing twenty acres of beautiful gardens. He presented to his cathedral, among other costly gifts, a gold tablet which had been in the royal family. It was encrusted with pearls, rubies, and sapphires and contained relics of the saints. He liked those who walked in his train to dress in accordance with his own sense of dignity, and so he saw to it that their albs of red velvet were embroidered in gold with figures of griffins.

  When Archbishop Neville was dismissed from his see at York, the post was given almost automatically to Thomas Arundel. Richard used him as chancellor later, finding him always amiable and diplomatic. In 1396 Archbishop Courtenay of Canterbury died and, for reasons which will be explained later, the king had Arundel transferred from York to Canterbury, the first time this had occurred in the history of the church in England.

  In thus outlining briefly the chain of events which brought Thomas of Arundel to the highest peak, it becomes necessary to speak of another figure whose career became curiously tangled with his. Roger Walden, a man of humble birth, had risen in the world rapidly because he had many of the same qualities as had Arundel. He was an agreeable and handsome man, with a gift for getting things done, and with an ease of manner which made friends for him. Sent to the Isle of Jersey from the church of Kirkby Overblow in Yorkshire, he rose rapidly from one post to another, until he was bailiff of Guisnes and treasurer of Calais. Richard heard reports of this pliable and capable man and had him brought back to England to act as his personal secretary. Walden polished up the handle of the big front door so industriously that his rise was nothing short of spectacular. He succeeded the Bishop of Salisbury as treasurer of England, thus remaining close to the king and having ready access to the royal ear.

  The story of the intertwining of the careers of these two birds of a feather will have to be left, to be told in some detail later.

  3

  There has been little tendency on the part of history to allow credit to Richard for enduring contributions of any kind. This attitude can be traced to impatience with his unstable character and the delusions which led to his downfall. The eight years during which he played creditably the role of a constitutional monarch offer, surely, some evidence of accomplishment. But it is in an almost forgotten demonstration of fairness that a more just claim can be allowed him.

  Geoffrey Chaucer, born close to the year 1340 and married to Philippa de Roet, a sister of Katharine Swynford, the beautiful third wife of John of Gaunt, had been in high favor during the last years of the reign of Edward III. His poetry had attracted wide attention and he was given pensions and annuities and many remunerative posts, such as comptroller of the customs, and a subsidy on wools, hides, and woodfalls. Among his honors was the rather vague title of king’s laureate (the first poet laureate in the full modern sense was Ben Jonson), which carried with it the gift of a pitcher of wine every day, a gift to be collected from the king’s butler. Feeling very secure, he had taken a lease for life on a substantial house at Aldgate.

  It was a bad day for Chaucer when Richard fell foul of the appellant barons and had to submit to their authority. Poetry meant nothing to men of the stamp of Thomas of Woodstock and the Earl of Arundel. They were completely materialistic and, moreover, contemptuous of anyone of low degree. One can imagine them looking over the list of annuities and asking, Who is this fellow, this baseborn scribbler of verses, that he should have a pension of ten pounds a year? Why should he hold positions for which he is in no way fitted—and which, moreover, we could give to others to much better advantage? The name of Chaucer, at any rate, was struck from the bounty lists and his comptrollerships were taken from him. His wife had died and so her annuity also was lost. The middle-aged bard, the first to write rich and enduring verse in the English tongue, fell upon evil days.

  When Richard, with a lift of the hand and a few terse statements, took back his royal authority and made himself free from the heavy thumbs of the appellants, he proceeded at once to reinstate Geoffrey Chaucer in the service of the Crown. Being a reader, he was familiar with the work of this vigorous bard who had been raised in London, in the Vintry. A congenial post was found for him, that of clerk of the works at most of the royal palaces, including the Tower of London, Shene, Eltham, Kennington, and many others of lesser importance. This carried a yearly stipend of £31, which meant that Chaucer could again live in comfort and with some degree of decent dignity. Soon after he was made commissioner of maintenance of the river Thames between Woolwich and Greenwich, with permission to assign the work to a deputy. Finally, and this was the post which pleased Chaucer the most, he was assigned on July 12, 1390, to take charge of much needed repairs at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor.

  Geoffrey Chaucer was neither an architect nor builder but he had been at Windsor a great deal, particularly when his wife was serving there as an attendant of the queen. He knew every foot of the ground, every turret, every groin point, every twist and turn of stairway, every stone conceit or fancy of the great builders who had contributed to the rise of that stately pile. He had for Windsor, and particularly for St. George’s Chapel, the admiration that an artist in words can conceive for artistry in stone. He approached his task there with enthusiasm and, no doubt with a sense of relief that his days of want were at an end.

  St. George’s Chapel was sadly in need of repair. Although it had been standing no more than thirty-four years, it had already fallen into a ruinous condition. This was due in some degree to the fact that Windsor, once much used by the royal family, had been visited very little since Edward III had fallen into senility, and because his young successor had no family to send there. In some degree it had also come about through the precarious nature of the ledge of chalk on which it had been built. The
roof was falling in, the walls were cracking, the floors were in dire need of repair. In fact, this beautiful chapel which Edward III had designed as the meeting place for a chivalrous order of knights of a new round table, was in such condition that great haste was demanded of the new custodian.

  The chapel inside was still beautiful, with its oaken ceilings plated with gold and its four elaborately designed altars, which carried the names of the Cross, the Thorn, St. Edward’s, and St. George’s. The interior decorations had, of course, suffered some, but the part to which legend clung most, the altar of the Cross, was still lovely to the eye. It was generally called the Negt because it contained a piece of the cross of Calvary, a fragment of Syrian wood which a Welshman of that name had found on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Edward I had carried it with him on all his travels and it was natural that his grandson had planned an altar for it at Windsor.

  When he came to Windsor on this urgent errand, Chaucer was a plump man of fresh complexion with thinning white hair and a small pointed beard, still exercising a curious puckish charm. He had been given the power to hire such help as he needed, at a fixed wage, and to assemble his materials wherever he could find them. No craftsman could refuse the summons to help in the work of restoration and no contractor could withhold supplies demanded of him. The injunction placed on Chaucer’s own shoulders was even more pressing. He must make haste, haste, more haste, lest the great conception of the old king subside into rubble.

  Taking up his quarters in Winchester Tower, and having it pretty much to himself, Chaucer set to work with greater industry than he had ever displayed in the various governmental posts he had held or, even, in the finding of rhymes, in the seeking of chiseled phrase, the perfect simile which went into his immortal verse. He remained at Windsor for a year and a half and in that time he succeeded in checking the disintegration. He must be given at least a share of the credit for saving the chapel.