The Last Plantagenet

by Thomas B. Costain

  Gaunt opened the proceedings by issuing an order. “Take off his hood and girdle.”

  The high steward then directed that the articles against the defendant be read, adding afterward that Arundel had been imprisoned for his manifold treasons and rebellions against the king and that he was required to answer for such crimes. “You are especially charged,” concluded Gaunt, “with having traitorously risen in arms with the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Warwick, against the king, in breach of the peace and the disquieting of the realm.”

  “This,” declared Arundel, “was not done with any ill intent against the king’s person but rather for the benefit of the king and the kingdom; if people would put a right construction on it, and look on it as it ought to be.”

  On further questioning, he declared that he had been pardoned. He would not recede from the favor of the king and his grace.

  It was evident from the first that the bad blood between John of Gaunt and the prisoner still kept them deeply estranged. That the duke had neither forgotten the charges made against him by the earl nor forgiven them was made clear at this point.

  “Thou traitor!” said the duke. “That pardon is revoked!”

  Not daunted in the slightest, the earl flared back, “Thou liest! I was never a traitor!”

  “Then,” demanded Gaunt, “why didst thou purchase the pardon of the king, if thou wert not conscious of any guilt?”

  There was no longer any pretense of decorum in the exchange between these old enemies. “I did that,” declared Arundel, heatedly, “to put a stop to the malicious aspersions of those who neither loved the king nor myself but were my implacable enemies. Amongst whom,” he added, turning to address the duke directly, “thou art one!” There was a moment’s silence before the prisoner continued with his countercharges. “I am sure thou hast more occasion for a pardon than I.”

  All in the room were seated save the defendant, even the mere knights and the burghers who had been summoned from the towns to make up the House. Arundel had been led to a station in the open space before the platform on which the king and the lord steward sat. It was evident that Richard, who wore a gold circlet on his head and was wrapped in a gown trimmed with ermine, in spite of the heat, had no intention of taking an active part in the hearing. He watched and listened, well content, it seemed, to leave the Crown case in the hands of his uncle.

  John Bushy, the Speaker of the House, took it on himself at this point to interject a statement. “The pardon,” he declared, “is revoked by the king, the lords, and his faithful commons.”

  Arundel listened with characteristic scorn and then glanced about him at the assembled baronage and the men from the shires and towns. “Where are these faithful commons?” he demanded. “You are got together but not to do justice. For I see that the faithful commons of England are not here.” Then he swung around again to face the Speaker. “Thou hast ever been a perfidious fellow!”

  Bushy was not to be put down in this manner. “Our sovereign lord and king,” he said, addressing Richard, “observe how this traitor endeavors to raise jealousies between us.”

  Arundel cried furiously: “You lie! I am no traitor!”

  Henry of Derby, the son of John of Gaunt, and later to reign as Henry IV, was seated beside his father. He had been one of the leading appellants who had clipped the king’s wings so relentlessly, one of the scornful five who had marched with linked arms into the presence of Richard to present him with their ultimatum. He had been fairer than the others, however, refusing to agree with Thomas of Woodstock and Arundel when they sought to depose the king at once, and striving later to save the life of Burley. He had since become friendly with his cousin, the king, and had not been invited to join the second conspiracy, if there had been any truth in that story. Derby was one of the handsome Plantagenets, reddish golden of hair and beard, and a bold and skillful soldier.

  Derby rose to his feet at this point to address the prisoner. Of all in the room he was in a position to offer the most damaging evidence.

  “Didst thou not say to me at Huntingdon,” he demanded, “when we first drew together to make an insurrection”—a damaging admission but one which Derby could afford to make, being now on such warm terms with the sovereign—“that the most advisable thing of all was to seize the king’s person?”

  Arundel’s anger rose to an even higher pitch, for the words of the young earl substantiated the charge of treasonable intent. “Thou liest in thy teeth!” he cried. “I never entertained a thought concerning my sovereign lord the king but what was just and made for his honor.”

  The king now spoke for the first time. He had been watching Arundel intently, thinking no doubt of the many times this stormy and obstinate peer had stood in his path. Earlier in the day Richard had been asked if he would extend mercy to Arundel and his answer had been: “Mercy? Yes, as much mercy as he allowed Burley!”

  “Didst thou not say to me,” he began, “in the time of thy parliament, in the bath behind the Whitehall, that Sir Simon Burley deserved to be put to death; and I made answer that I knew no reason why he should suffer death. And yet you and your companions traitorously took his life from him!”

  It is not on record that Arundel made any answer to the king. There was nothing he could say to excuse himself for the leading part he had played in the death of the king’s tutor and friend.

  It may have been that Arundel had considered himself immune to any form of reprisal. There was not only the pardon which had been granted but the fact that he had won the only victory scored on the French through the last twenty years of hostilities. He counted strongly on his popularity with the people of England. Would an incompetent and far from popular king dare to punish the favorite of the populace? Moreover, Arundel had experienced something very rare indeed, a queen kneeling at his feet and begging him for the life of a friend, a request which he had brusquely refused. He and Thomas of Woodstock had held the king in leading strings for most of the years of his reign, dictating what he was to do, refusing to let him have his own way, feeling for him nothing but contempt. They had threatened him with deposition, and it had been no idle gesture. Nothing would have pleased them better than to lay the papers of abdication before him and to drive him to signing them. No bolt of royal lightning had struck them. It seems certain that he had come to regard himself as above the rules and restraints which bound other subjects. Otherwise would he have dared ignore the summons to ride in the funeral train of Queen Anne and pass without any response the invitation to dine with the king at the house of the chancellor?

  His arrest must have been a shock, but his confidence in the outcome—if it came to a hearing in court—was not seriously shaken. He had been sent to the Tower before. But his arrival in the temporary structure at Westminster where Parliament was sitting had been a rude surprise. He encountered nothing but hostile looks. His enemy, John of Gaunt, was in charge of the proceedings. All about him were dukes and earls and mere lords and knights, and even the inconsequential commoners, who had to be allowed a say in the House; and he did not see a single friendly face.

  Duke John’s attitude had been sharp and definitely unfriendly. Every question was couched with the conviction back of it that he was guilty and must be punished. The earl’s temper had flared and he had answered with equal hostility. But when Henry of Lancaster, who now held the double earldoms of Derby and Hereford, had accused him of treasonable intent on the basis of conversations between them, the outlook began to darken. The final blow had been the speech of the king.

  He must have realized then that he could expect no more mercy than he had allowed Sir Simon Burley. The fierce anger of his replies ceased. He knew that he was doomed.

  Sentence was pronounced by John of Gaunt.

  “Richard,” he declared, in solemn tones, “I, John, Steward of England, adjudge thee to be a traitor, and condemn thee to be drawn and hanged and to be beheaded and quartered, and thy lands both entailed and not entailed, from thee and the de
scendants of thy body, to be confiscated.”

  The deep silence which falls after the announcement of such a verdict was not broken for several moments. Then the duke proceeded with a statement which indicated that the verdict and the punishment had been settled before the hearing began. “The king, our sovereign lord,” he declared, “of his mere mercy and favor, because thou art of his blood, and one of the peers of the realm, has remitted all of the other parts of the sentence but the last, and so thou shalt only lose thy head.”

  The sentence was to be carried out immediately. Six lords of the highest rank were selected to accompany the condemned man and to act as witnesses for the king. One was Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, who was Arundel’s son-in-law. Two of the others were Richard’s half brothers, Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, who was Arundel’s grandson, and John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon. The six witnesses rode in considerable state with their mounted attendants. A large force of the Chester archers had been deputed to surround the condemned man on his way to Tower Hill. If there had been any hope in Arundel’s mind that the citizens of London, who had always favored him and were now antagonistic to the king, would make any move to rescue him, he was soon disabused on that score. People lined the streets in thousands, silent and glum but not disposed to do anything for him. The sands were running out fast.

  He had made one request of his guards. “Loosen me my hands, I pray you,” he said. He was carrying some money with him and desired to distribute it among the people who would watch him pass. This request was allowed. The coins had all been tossed to the quiet Londoners before the procession reached Charing Cross.

  An effort was made at Tower Hill to get from the condemned man an acknowledgment of his guilt. He refused with all the vehemence he had displayed during the questioning before the House.

  “I am not a traitor,” he declared. “In word or in deed!”

  He felt a natural bitterness over the presence of his son-in-law and his grandson among the six official witnesses. “It would better have become you,” he said, “to have absented yourselves.”

  It is quite possible they were present on direct order of the king and that they would have preferred not to carry out so ungrateful a task.

  “The time will come soon,” continued the condemned man, “when people shall be as much astonished at thy misfortune as they are now at mine.”

  Arundel turned then to the executioner and forgave him for what he had to do. “Torment me not long,” he begged. “Strike off my head in one blow.”

  The executioner held out the ax and the victim felt its edge. “It is very well,” he commented.

  He then knelt beside the block. The executioner, who must have been a man of steady nerves and hand, did as he had been requested. He severed the head from the trunk with one blow.

  3

  With the archbishop banished from the kingdom and Arundel dead, the curtain was raised for the third act in the drama. During the first days of the session, Thomas of Woodstock’s statement, which Rickhill had brought back from Calais, was presented to the House. It had been cut, and certain portions which might have seemed favorable to the duke had been eliminated entirely, including his plea for mercy.

  On September 21 a writ was issued by the Commons to the governor of Calais, instructing him to produce his prisoner. Three days later a reply was received from Nottingham. He could not produce his prisoner because the duke was dead. There was no attempt at an explanation, but the intimation was that he had died a natural death. The date of the death was given as August 25.

  Copies of the statement were distributed throughout all the counties of England. It was declared that Rickhill’s commission had been issued on August 17, and so the inference was that the judge’s interview with the duke, which resulted in the preparation of the confession, had been at some time between that date and the day of Woodstock’s death.

  Casting some years ahead, Rickhill was summoned to appear before Parliament on November 18, 1399, after Richard’s deposition. His story was accepted as true and any suspicion which might have been held against him was dispelled. His prudence in demanding the presence of reputable witnesses made it possible for him to present a completely believable story.

  At the same time a man named John Halle, a former servant of Nottingham’s, swore before the House that the duke had been smothered to death at some date in September. Halle himself had been one of the agents of death and he described the murder in detail. The duke had been removed from Calais Castle to a hostelry in the town called Prince’s Inn, a much frequented haunt of rogues and beggars. Here he was lodged in a mean room. That he faced death was apparent to the prisoner and, when the door was thrown open to admit a group of men, all of whom were strangers to him, he realized that the moment had come. He was unarmed and helpless. If he attempted to cry out for assistance, the sound was cut off, probably by a muffler wrapped about his mouth. A man named William Serle, said to have been once a servant of the royal chamber, was in command of the band. Halle stood guard on the door.

  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.

  4

  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.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The Absolute King

  1

  MUCH 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 s
ucceeded 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.