Richard II: Manhood, Youth, and Politics 1377-99 (Oxford Historical Monographs)

RICHARD II M A N H O O D , YOU T H , A N D P O L I T I C S , 1377 – 99

OXF O R D H I S TO R I C A L M O N O G R A PH S Editors .  . . .  .  .  .  . .  . - . 

Richard II Manhood, Youth, and Politics, 1377–99 C H R ISTO PHE R FLE TC HER

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  Christopher Fletcher 2008

The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978–0–19–954691–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Preface How can we study masculinity in a society which did not have a word for it? At first this question might seem rather pedantic. Most historians have come to accept that it is legitimate to ask questions derived from modern social theory about societies which could not have asked them about themselves. Nonetheless, in the emerging field of the history of masculinity, now some twenty years old, the problem of reconciling modern concepts with the thought-worlds of past societies has proved particularly troublesome.¹ Historians of masculinity have tended either to apply modern theories concerning male behaviour and identity to past societies, or else to focus on the analysis of past cultures and symbolic structures, but they have seldom combined the two approaches. Recent commentators have argued that this failure to pursue an ‘integrated approach’ to the history of masculinity is first and foremost the result of methodological choices made by historians.² Yet, in fact, this is not quite the whole problem. In order to reconcile modern social theory and past culture, such an approach must first overcome another difficulty inherent in the study of pre-modern masculinity, namely the lack of fit between the analytical categories of historians and the cultural categories of their object of study. It is sometimes noted that before the mid-eighteenth century the word ‘masculinity’ was not in common usage, whereas ‘manhood’ was. It is less often observed that even on the level of its apparently simplest meaning, manhood is not quite the same thing as masculinity. A ‘man’ could be a human in contrast to an animal or a god, or an adult as opposed to child, as well as a male in contrast to a female. Yet manhood was not a simple, ungendered marker of maturity or personhood either. Although an awareness that gender is not independent of other factors shaping social identity has been central to the project of gender history from the beginning, the recognition of such interlinkage does not in itself offer any easy way out for historians who would like to ¹ The beginnings of the history of masculinity might be dated to Brod 1987, although see also the foundational contributions made by Scott 1986, Connell 1987, and Tosh 1994. ² Harvey and Shepard 2005: 276.

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distinguish ‘masculinity’ as one factor interacting with others in human action and social organization.³ Manhood and its cognates have their own characteristics, their own associations and internal logic, which sometimes almost correspond with modern concepts of masculinity, and sometimes seem quite different. I first came up against these problems whilst trying to interpret the use of the themes of manhood and youth in the political controversies of the reign of Richard II. This king came to the throne at the age of 10. At the time of his deposition at the age of 32, it was argued by the archbishop of Canterbury that Richard was a ‘boy’, whereas his supplanter was a ‘man’. One writer presented him as feminine in appearance. A number of monastic chroniclers and contemporary poets portrayed him as a dissolute youth who was led away from the path of reason by youthful counsel. Sometimes they digressed from this picture to suggest that Richard had been ineffective in war. How should these themes be understood? Did they relate to what we would today mean by masculinity, or something else, perhaps something like adulthood? Is it possible to find another approach, one which neither denies the gendered undercurrents in these texts, nor reduces everything to gender? And in what way, if at all, were these themes important to the political struggles of these years? The research project which ultimately led to the present book thus began with an analysis of certain political texts taken as instances of rhetoric. The initial aim was to understand the import of the themes which they manipulated in the context of both late medieval culture and the politics of this reign. It soon became clear that the conclusions which many had drawn from these texts—that Richard was somehow observably unmasculine or effeminate—did not stand up to an analysis of the complex discourses which his critics deployed. The first result of this inquiry was thus to put into question accepted accounts of the king’s personality. As the project progressed, however, it took on a further dimension, as the focus moved from rhetoric to practice. The analysis of texts in terms of commonplace ideas of manhood and youth suggested new lines of inquiry concerning late fourteenth-century politics. If these terms were not selected by Richard’s critics purely because they fitted the reality of his character, then why were they chosen? It increasingly ³ Scott 1986: 1067–9; Bloch 1989: 15–16. Such an approach is anticipated by the work of anthropologists, see e.g. Bourdieu 1972: 35; Ortner and Whitehead 1981: 6–9, 16–17.

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seemed possible to go beyond a mere deconstruction of the accepted account of the character of the king, and to argue that commonplace ideas underlying the language of manhood had not just been chanced upon arbitrarily at the moment of his deposition, but had come to hand because of the rather different role they had played in the politics of the king’s earlier reign. Such a perspective offered a number of attractions, both in terms of what it could contribute to understanding Richard II’s reign, and in its possible contribution to debates taking place in gender history. First, the analysis of contemporary assumptions about manhood and youth opened up a lateral approach to accepted accounts of the reign, making it possible to put together a new picture of the events of 1377–99. Second, the politics of Richard II’s reign offered the chance to develop a detailed case study which would combine an inquiry into concepts such as manhood and youth with an analysis of one particular instance of social practice. The focus on one particular case might make it possible to proceed without suppressing the non-correspondence between modern categories and past cultural assumptions, since it would always be possible to appeal to the test: ‘How did this work in practice?’ Finally, such a study presented an opportunity to take up the challenge laid down by Joan Scott some twenty years ago, to explore the role of ideas associated with gender even in the realm of high politics. Notwithstanding these broader ambitions, however, this project would always be focused on Richard II. It is hoped that, in the coming pages, he will remain at the forefront of the reader’s mind even as the broader associations of his unmanly reputation are explored in detail. It is also hoped that the reader who is first and foremost interested in the operation of gender in human action will bear with me as the focus on one particular instance of social practice takes the analysis away from gender alone. This book has been ten years in the making and during this period my intellectual debts have not ceased to accumulate. The suggestion that I might like to look at the history of masculinity is only the first of my debts to Miri Rubin; since then she has been a constant source of inspiration and advice. The direction of that project towards Richard II, and the careful supervision of its first steps as a Masters thesis—these debts are owed to Rosemary Horrox. After that, from the start of my doctoral thesis, John Watts took over the responsibility for trying to direct my youthful vigour and inconstancy into profitable and reasonable channels. He has stuck with it ever since. How much I owe to

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him will be obvious to anyone who reads this book. Perhaps less obvious, but no less palpable for that, are the contributions of my contemporaries as graduate students, many of whom are still trying to make their way in a system which often seems unconcerned with promoting the potential of youth, even of youths in their 30s. Chris Briggs, Ian Forrest, Leonie Hicks, Jenni Nuttall, Catherine Rider, James Ross, Dorthea Sartain, Sethina Watson, and especially Ewan Johnson deserve more than a mention. All sorts of conference and seminar audiences in Canterbury, Leeds, London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Norwich have been submitted to various drafts of various parts of what follows. They have duly pointed out my more glaring errors and given me material for further reflection. Caroline Barron, Paul Brand, David Carpenter, Anne Curry, Rees Davies, Cliff Davies, David d’Avray, Chris Given-Wilson, Steve Gunn, Ralph Hanna, Michael Hicks, Maurice Keen, Katherine Lewis, Sheila Lindenbaum, Mark Ormrod, Lyndal Roper, Nigel Saul, George Stow, Jenny Stratford, and Paul Strohm were all generous in their comments either in the flesh or in reply to unsolicited offprints. More recently, I have had the good fortune to benefit from the advice and conversation of John Arnold, Richard Partington, Magnus Ryan, and Alex Shepard, all of whom have had their influence on my thinking. I have benefited from the unearned indulgence of many scholars who have made space in their overloaded schedules to read chapters in draft. Mark Ormrod and Rosemary Horrox kindly looked through and criticized much of the material which now makes up chapters 8 to 11. John Arnold, Catherine Rider, Steve Rigby, and John Watts made the ultimate sacrifice and generously read through and commented in detail on the typescript in its entirety—to them in particular I am indebted, and to Seth Cayley, Ceri Warner, and Kate Walker at Oxford University Press, for guiding this book through the last steps to publication. Finally, I owe much to my D.Phil. examiners, Simon Walker and Felicity Riddy, whose comments provided the blueprint following which the thesis was expanded, compressed, rewritten and transformed into the present book. It is a matter of great regret to me that neither Simon nor Rees Davies saw this book completed. The improvements which their conversation and criticism would have brought are the least loss caused by their passing. The practical conditions for researching this book were eased immeasurably by the staff of Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian and Taylorian Libraries in Oxford, the British Library, the National Archive, the Archives Nationales, Paris, the Bibliothèque Nationale

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Franc¸aise, and the Bibliothèque Municipale, Bordeaux. A scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board funded my doctoral work; the post of Lecteur at the University of Bordeaux, and a spell as a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London created the conditions for its continuation. A Drapers’ Company Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge enabled me to complete the book within convenient reach of Derby Stores. Without the inspirational teaching of John Roebuck, when I was at school, and of all who supervised me as an undergraduate at Cambridge, I would never have thought of embarking on this project in the first place. Without the support and encouragement of Helen, David, and Tony Fletcher it would never have reached completion. Without Frédérique Parrad, I would have gone a lot madder in the process. I can only hope that all those who have been dragged in to be acknowledged for this book’s merits can find any worthy of mention; the responsibility for what remains, of course, is entirely my own. Parts of chapters 1–4 and 7 make use of material which appeared in my article ‘Manhood and politics in the reign of Richard II’, Past and Present, no. 189 (Nov. 2005), pp. 3–39, and is reprinted here with kind permission.⁴ The Wilton Diptych is reproduced courtesy of The National Gallery, London. Thanks are also due to the Hamilton Kerr Institute for permission to use the infra-red reflectogram of the Westminster Abbey portrait of Richard II which appears as the cover illustration to this book. ⁴ World Copyright: The Past and Present Society, 175 Banbury Road, Oxford, England.

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Contents Abbreviations 1. Introduction

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2. The Language of Manhood I: Strength, Violence, and Honour

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3. The Language of Manhood II: ‘Humanitas’, Decorum, and Largesse

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4. Medico-Moral Theories of Manhood: Strength, Constancy, and Reason

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5. The Royal Authority and the King’s Childhood, 1376–82

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6. The Emergence of the King’s Firm Purpose, 1382–84

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7. The Pursuit of Manhood, 1384–86

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8. The Return of the King’s Youth, 1386–88

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9. The Establishment of a Conciliar Regime, 1388–90

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10. Majesty and Restriction, 1390–92

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11. The Drift to Power, c.1390–97

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12. A Boy not a Man? 1397–99

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Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Abbreviations Albert, QDA

Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones de Animalibus, ed. E. Filhault in Opera Omnia, vol. 12 (Münster, 1955).

Alphabetum

An Alphabet of Tales: An English Fifteenth-Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besanc¸on, ed. M. M. Banks, EETS os 126, 127 (London, 1904–5).

AN

Paris, Archives Nationales

AND

Anglo-Norman Dictionary, ed. W. Rothwell et al. (London, 1992).

ANLP

Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions from All Souls MS 182, ed. M. D. Legge, AngloNorman Texts Society 3 (Oxford, 1941).

Annales

‘Annales Ricardi Secundi et Henrici Quarti Regum Angliae’ in Johannis de Trokelowe et Henrici de Blaneforde, Chronica et Annales, ed. H. T. Riley. Rolls Series (London, 1866).

Anonimalle

The Anonimalle Chronicle, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Manchester, 1927).

Aristotle, Ethics

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross (Oxford, 1925).

Arthour

Of Arthour and of Merlin, ed. O. D. MacraeGibson, EETS os 268, 279 (Oxford, 1973).

BEC

Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes

Beues

The Romance of Sir Beues of Hamtoun, ed. E. Kölbing, EETS es 46, 48, 65 (London, 1885–94).

BIHR

Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research

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Abbreviations

BL

London, British Library

Bouillons

Livre des Bouillons, ed. H. Barkhausen, Archives Municipales de Bordeaux 1 (Bordeaux, 1867).

Brinton, Sermons

The Sermons of Thomas Brinton, Bishop of Rochester (1373–1389), ed. M. A. Devlin, Camden Soc. 3rd ser. 85 (London, 1934).

C14 Guy

The Romance of Guy of Warwick: The first or 14th-century version, ed. J. Zupitza, EETS es 42, 49, 59 (London, 1883–91).

C15 Guy

The Romance of Guy of Warwick: The second or 15th-century Version, ed. J. Zupitza, EETS es 25, 26 (London, 1875–6).

CA

[Thomas Walsingham], Chronicon Angliae 1328–1388, ed. E. M. Thompson (London, 1874).

CCR

Calendar of Close Rolls

CFR

Calendar of Fine Rolls

Chrimes and Brown

Select Documents of English Constitutional History, 1307–1485, ed. S. B. Chrimes and A. L. Brown (London, 1961).

Chronicles

Chronicles of the Revolution, 1397–1400, ed. and trans. C. Given-Wilson (Manchester, 1993).

CLH

Calendar of Letter Books of the City of London. Letter Book H, ed. R. R. Sharpe (London, 1907).

CPR

Calendar of Patent Rolls

Creton

Jean Creton, ‘Histoire du Roy d’Angleterre Richard . . . ’, ed. and trans. J. Webb, Archaeologia, 20 (1824), 1–423.

Degare

Sire Degarre, ed. G. Schleich, Englische Textbibliothek 19 (Heidelberg, 1929).

Abbreviations

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Degrevant

Sir Degrevant, ed. L. F. Casson, EETS os 221 (London, 1949).

DPR

On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour et al. (Oxford, 1975–1988).

Du Bosc

N. Du Bosc, Voyage pour négocier la paix entre les couronnes de France et d’Angleterre, in E. Martène and U. Durand (eds.), Voyage littéraire de deux religieux bénédictins de la congrégation de Saint-Maur, ii, 307–60 (Paris, 1724), 328–30.

Eglamour

Sir Eglamour of Artois, ed. F. E. Richardson, EETS 256 (London, 1965).

EHR

English Historical Review

Etymologies

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).

Eulogium

‘Continuatio Eulogii’ in Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. F. S. Haydon, 3 vols. (London, 1863), vol. iii.

Fasciculus Morum

Fasciculus Morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s Handbook, ed. S. Wensel (London, 1989).

Favent

Thomas Favent, Historia siue narracio de modo et forma mirabilis parliamenti, ed. M. McKisack in Camden Miscellany XIV, Camden Soc. 3rd ser. 37 (London, 1937).

Foedera

Foedera, Conventiones, Literae . . ., ed. T. Rymer, 3rd edn., 10 vols (The Hague, 1745).

Froissart, Oeuvres

Jean Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 26 vols. (Brussels, 1867–77).

GEC

G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, ed. H. V. Gibbs et al., 13 vols. (London, 1910–45).

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Abbreviations

Genet, Four Tracts

Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, ed. J.-P. Genet, Camden Soc. 4th ser. 18 (London, 1977).

Gower, CA

John Gower, ‘Confessio Amantis’ in The English Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, EETS es 81, 82 (London, 1900–1).

Gower, VC

John Gower, ‘Vox Clamantis’ in The Complete Works of John Gower, ed. G. C. Macaulay, 4 vols (Oxford, 1902), vol. iv.

Gui

Gui de Warewic: Roman du XIIe siècle, ed. A. Ewert, CFMA, (Paris, 1932).

HA

Thomas Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols, Rolls Series (London, 1863–4).

Handlyng Synne

Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. I. Sullens (Binghampton, N.Y., 1983).

HBC

Handbook of British Chronology, ed. E.B. Fryde et al. 2nd edn (London, 1961).

Hist. Parl.

The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1386–1421, ed. J. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, 4 vols. (Stroud, 1992).

HT

History Today

HVRS

Historia Vitae et Regni Ricardi Secundi, ed. G. B. Stow (Philadelphia, 1977).

JBS

Journal of British Studies

JMH

Journal of Medieval History

Kirkstall

The Kirkstall Abbey Chronicles, ed. J. Taylor, Thoresby Society 42 (Leeds, 1952).

Knighton

Knighton’s Chronicle, 1337–1396, ed. G. H. Martin (Oxford, 1995).

LGR

Giles of Rome, Li Livres du Gouvernement des Rois, ed. S. Molenaer (London, 1899).

Abbreviations

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LSE

Leeds Studies in English

Lybeaus

Lybeaus Desconus, ed. M. Mills, EETS os 261 (Oxford, 1969).

MED

Middle English Dictionary, H. Kurath et al. (Ann Arbor, 1954– ).

Maidstone, Concordia

Richard Maidstone, Concordia facta inter regem Riccardum II et Civitatem Londonie, ed. with intro. by C. R. Smith, Ph.D. thesis (Princeton, 1972).

Mézières, Letter

Philippe de Mézières, Letter to King Richard II, ed. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool, 1975)

MLD

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, prepared by R. E. Latham et al. (Oxford, 1975– ).

MLR

Modern Language Review

ODNB

Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols. (London, 1885–1900).

Orfeo

Sir Orfeo, ed. A. J. Bliss (Oxford, 1966).

Perroy, DC

Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, ed. E. Perroy, Camden Soc. 3rd ser. 48 (London, 1933).

Polychronicon

Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis, ed. C. Babington, Rolls Series, 9 vols. (London, 1865–86).

PP B-Text

The Vision of Piers Plowman: A Critical Edition of the B-Text, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt, 2nd ed., (London, 1995).

PP C-Text

The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman: Text C, ed. W. W. Skeat, EETS 54 (London, 1873).

PPC

Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, ed. N. H. Nicolas, 7 vols. (London, 1834–7).

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Abbreviations

PMLA

Publications of the Modern Language Association of America

PTA

The Parlement of the Thre Ages, ed. M. Y. Offord, EETS 246 (London, 1959).

RDP

Reports from the Lords Committees Touching the Dignity of the Peerage, 5 vols. (London, 1820–9).

Richard

Der Mittelenglische Versroman über Richard Löwenherz, ed. K. Brunner, Wiener Beitrage zur Englischen Philologie 42 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1913).

Regement

Thomas Hoccleve, ‘The Regement of Princes’ in F. J. Furnivall (ed.) Hoccleve’s Works, vol. iii. EETS es 72 (London, 1897).

Riverside Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L. D. Benson et al. (Oxford, 1987).

RP

Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6 vols. (London, 1767–77).

RR

‘Richard the Redeless’, in The Piers Plowman Tradition, ed. H. Barr (London, 1993).

RSD

Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys, ed. L. Bellaguet (Paris, 1840).

Somer

‘The Chronicle of John Somer, OFM’ in Camden Miscellany XXXIV, ed. J. Catto and L. Mooney, Camden Soc. 5th ser. 10 (Cambridge, 1997).

St Albans

The St Albans Chronicle, 1406–1420, ed. V. H. Galbraith (Oxford, 1937).

Statutes

Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810– ).

SVP

Philippe de Mézières, Le Songe du Vieil Pèlerin, ed. G. W. Coopland, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1969).

TNA

London, The National Archives

Abbreviations

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Traison

Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy Dengleterre, ed. B. Williams (London, 1846).

TRHS

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Usk

The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, 1377–1421, ed. C. Given-Wilson (Oxford, 1997).

Vincent, SN

Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale (Venice, 1494).

Walsingham

The St Albans Chronicle. The Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham: vol. i: 1376–94, ed. J. Taylor, W. Childs and L. Watkiss (Oxford, 2003).

Westminster

The Westminster Chronicle 1381–94, ed. L. C. Hector and B. F. Harvey (Oxford, 1982).

William

William of Palerne, ed. G. J. V. Bunt (Gröningen, 1985).

Wimbledon

Wimbledon’s Sermon: Redde Rationem Villicationis Tue, ed. I. K. Knight (Pittsburgh, 1967).

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1 Introduction On Tuesday, 30 September 1399, Archbishop Thomas Arundel preached a remarkable sermon to the estates of the realm assembled in Westminster Hall. The Lords and Commons, who had been summoned to parliament in the name of Richard II, had just approved the king’s deposition and had accepted Henry, duke of Lancaster as his replacement.¹ The archbishop gave an address in which he portrayed Richard as a ‘boy’ (puer), whereas Henry was a ‘man’ (vir). Beginning with a slight misquotation of the biblical passage in which God identified Saul as the future king of Israel, declaring that ‘A man will rule the people’,² Arundel went on to assert that God no longer threatened the English as he had threatened the people of Israel saying, after Isaiah, ‘I shall give you boys (pueros) to be your princes’.³ It must have seemed strange to contrast the deposed monarch and his usurper in this way, since Richard was at that time some 32 years old, and Henry was more or less the same age.⁴ This curious contrast between a ‘boy’ and a ‘man’ who were of the same chronological age was not the only striking aspect of the archbishop’s address. The elaboration of the faults of boys and the ¹ RP, iii. 415–53; Annales, 252–87; Usk, 62–71; HVRS, 157–160. ² ‘Vir dominabitur populo.’ Cf. I Samuel 9:17. The Vulgate actually gives ‘Ecce vir quem dixeram tibi; iste dominabitur populo meo’ (‘Behold the man whom I told you of; this one shall rule my people’). ³ RP, iii. 423. ⁴ Richard was born at Bordeaux on 6 January 1367 (ODNB, ‘Richard II’). The accepted dating of Henry’s birth to April 1366 does not seem to be correct (Kirby 1970: 11; GEC, vii. 417). This date is based on gifts of sovereigns to the poor on Maundy Thursday, traditionally one for each year of his life. This evidence is contradictory, however, suggesting both a birthday between 4 and 11 April 1366 and between 9 April 1367 and 8 April 1368. The Issue Roll for 1367 records a payment on 1 June to the messenger who brought news of Henry’s birth to Edward III. It seems reasonable to accept 16 March 1367, the date given by a late fifteenth-century redaction of John Somer’s chronicle. See Issues of the Exchequer, ed. F. Devon (London, 1837), 191; Somer, 275.

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virtues of men led Thomas Arundel to a set of associations which might surprise a modern reader. The archbishop subdivided his theme using a passage from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: ‘When I was a child I used to speak as a child, understand (sapiebam) as a child, think as a child.’⁵ He expanded the three parts of this text to show just what he meant when he said that Richard was a boy, whereas Henry was a man.⁶ First, Arundel asserted that a child was inconstant in speech, easily saying true things and easily saying false things. A child easily promised with a word, but what was promised was quickly forgotten. Under the rule of Richard II, these things had been very irksome to the kingdom. It was not possible for the realm to stand easily where such circumstances reigned. The archbishop then claimed that ‘the kingdom is liberated from these weaknesses when a man (vir) rules, for it pertains to a man to keep guard on his tongue.’ Now it was not a boy who ruled but a man. Then, as his second distinction, Arundel considered the passage ‘sapiebam ut parvulus’ (‘I understood as a child’), using ‘sapere’ in the sense in which it invokes taste and discernment as well as ‘understanding’. He argued that Richard had a taste for, or understood (sapit), only pleasing things and flattery. The child hated the one who reveals truth. This was how Richard had ruled, having no taste for wisdom. Henry, on the other hand, held like a man to truth. Finally, the archbishop asserted that Richard had ruled wilfully, which he opposed to the rule of reason: ‘For the child alone takes care to do all things wilfully, not out of reason. So when a boy rules, will alone rules, reason is an exile.’ From the lack of reason and the rule of wilfulness, Arundel proceeded to constancy, asserting that: ‘Truly where will reigns and reason has withdrawn, constancy (constantia) has fled, and so great peril threatens.’ Now, though, a man had arrived, who had been completed by reason, who said ‘I came not to do my will but that of he who sent me, namely God.’ This man not only lived in wisdom and reflected in his understanding ‘as a man not a boy’, but also looked for the will of God in everything rather than his own will. ‘And so in the place of the playful will of the boy a man now rules the people.’ ⁵ I Cor xiii.11: ‘Cum essem parvulus loquebar ut parvulus, sapiebam ut parvulus, cogitabam ut parvulus.’ ⁶ It is clear that these faults are ascribed to Richard, not the earl of March, one of Henry’s other potential rivals who really was a child, as suggested by e.g. Keen 2003: 242. Archbishop Arundel locates the faults of youthful government in Richard’s reign, from which the kingdom is delivered by Henry’s arrival.

Introduction

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Thomas Arundel’s sermon was to be tremendously influential in establishing the future reputation of Richard II.⁷ Its notoriety was immediate. The chronicles of St Albans abbey, Adam of Usk, and the Eulogium continuator all mention it, citing the archbishop’s scriptural theme although not giving the full text.⁸ The document known as ‘The Manner of King Richard’s Renunciation’ states that it concerned ‘the way in which a king ought to live and govern his people and kingdom, and upon what pertained to the government (governaile) of a king.’⁹ The archbishop himself repeated it in summarized form a week later, at the opening of Henry IV’s first parliament. On that occasion, Arundel asserted that he had earlier shown how England had been the most prosperous corner of riches in all the world; but then it was ‘for a long time directed, ruled and governed by children, and by the counsel of widows’. He said that the kingdom would have been lost, had not God in his wisdom placed ‘a wise and prudent man for the governance of the same kingdom’ who knew how to be governed and counselled.¹⁰ Similar themes were invoked around the same time in a number of texts to which we shall return below, notably a revised version of John Gower’s Vox Clamantis, an obituary of the king in the chronicle of Evesham abbey, and an alliterative poem criticizing the mores of the political class in general and of Richard II in particular, known today as Richard the Redeless. These texts argued with varying emphases that Richard was inconstant in speech; that he was wilful, which meant that he followed worldly pleasures and his own impulses instead of reason and the will of God; that he followed the counsel of youths; and that he himself was either unmanly or (in one case) feminine in physical appearance and morality. Whether or not these works were directly inspired by Thomas Arundel’s sermon, they nonetheless demonstrate the resonance of his words for his contemporaries. What was it that made these themes so powerful? It would be unwise to assume that Archbishop Arundel chose these themes simply because they seemed a fair description of the character of the king. That we cannot take the archbishop’s remarks at face value has been made clear in recent years by literary scholars who have begun to explore some of the complex gendered undercurrents of this text.¹¹ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹ ¹¹

For this reputation from the Tudor period, see Aston 1971. Annales, 281; Usk, 68; Eulogium, 384. Sayles 1981: 266–70. ¹⁰ RP, iii. 415. Rubey 1998; Goldberg, Riddy, and Tyler 2004.

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Discussing Arundel’s portrayal of Richard II as a boy, Felicity Riddy notes how ‘inconstancy and deceit are tropes of misogynistic discourse’ and argues that ‘in the archbishop’s sermon ‘‘boy’’ and ‘‘woman’’ are explicitly conflated and are together opposed to manliness’. She goes on to suggest that this is an attack on ‘the style of the court—what might be termed its ‘‘youth culture’’ ’, which involved ‘extravagant spending on fashion and luxury items, as well as what looked to outsiders like outrageous sexual mores’.¹² She argues that this court style need not be portrayed negatively, and picks out the Wilton Diptych, which was created for the king in the mid-1390s, as an alternative, positive portrayal of courtly youth and magnificence.¹³ In a separate analysis, Daniel Rubey has argued that the archbishop’s remarks are an attempt to use ‘the language of gender and antifeminism to attack [Richard’s] masculinity and that of his court’.¹⁴ For Rubey, it is primarily ‘Richard’s new peace policy’ which motivated this attack, not the ‘supposedly unmilitary, pleasure-seeking behaviour’ of the court.¹⁵ The ‘attack by his enemies on Richard’s manhood’ is a means to resist ‘a shift away from the feudal politics of the Appellants [Richard’s noble opponents] to a more diplomatically-based and sophisticated international policy’ and to ‘greater centralization of political and economic power’. Rubey interprets Arundel’s sermon primarily in terms of patriarchy and the transmission of inheritance. He reads it as an older generation which favoured war and the vigorous pursuit of the king’s claims in France ‘punishing the bad son who had not submitted to the law of the father and had not become a man according to their rules’. He in turn relates this to the clash—which he finds also in Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee —between two different conceptions of masculinity: ‘an aristocratic patriarchal masculinity involving the production of children and heirs, and a celibate clerical masculinity’.¹⁶ In presenting these analyses, Riddy and Rubey develop themes which have attracted increasing scholarly attention as part of the emerging field of the history of masculinity. An expanding body of work has developed in recent years around the fundamental insight that masculinity or manhood is never a simple given—the automatic concomitant of the possession of male sex—but a culturally constructed status which may be distributed in greater and lesser degree amongst different men. So far, ¹² Rubey 1998; Goldberg, Riddy, and Tyler 2004: 5. ¹³ For the Wilton Diptych, see below, Ch. 12, fig. 1 and discussion, pp. 258–262. ¹⁴ Rubey 1998: 167. ¹⁵ Ibid., 161, 164. ¹⁶ Ibid., 165–6.

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research has tended to cluster around three broad approaches. The first of these draws more or less directly on the psychoanalytic proposition that adult males need to engage in sexual activity in order to demonstrate that they are indeed men. Following this approach, a number of writers have considered the social and psychological consequences of celibacy for the clergy,¹⁷ whilst others have emphasized particular moments at which clerical and lay ideals of male behaviour produced tension.¹⁸ The second approach draws less on psychoanalysis than on the work of the sociologist R. W. Connell.¹⁹ It makes use of her suggestion that it might be possible to analyse men, just as Simone de Beauvoir did with women, in terms of certain gendered ‘types’, male ‘ways of life’, or even specifically male ‘cultures’.²⁰ This has enabled writers to develop the feminist notion of patriarchy in historical context, considering the differing forms that paternal authority took in varying social circumstances, and how it was reproduced from generation to generation.²¹ Drawing on the work of anthropologist David Gilmore, historians have turned to the processes by which young males might be admitted to the full status of a ‘man’ within their social group, and how socio-economic or political circumstances might block that progression, creating eternal ‘youths’.²² Finally, a third pole of research has developed around the analysis of gendered ideologies and symbolic structures. Ideologies of sex difference found in medical theory, for example, have come in for detailed and revealing analysis, and literary critics and historians have produced a mountain of work which elucidates gendered discourses in particular medieval texts and genres.²³ ¹⁷ e.g. McNamara 1994: 8; McNamara 1999; Swanson 1999. ¹⁸ Nelson 1999; Leyser 1999: esp. 104–5; Balzaretti 1999: esp. 145; Coakley 1994. ¹⁹ Connell 1995; Connell 1987: 175–88. See also Tosh 1994. Medievalists have not made as much use as writers on later periods of Connell’s argument that one such masculinity can be seen as ‘hegemonic’, that it dominates and subjects the others, perhaps because of the development of research in terms of an opposition between two culturally valued masculinities, the clerical and the lay aristocratic. See esp. Cullum and Lewis 2004. ²⁰ M. Bennett 1999; Dunlop 2001; Karras 1997; Karras 2003. ²¹ Stuard 1994; Chojnacki 1994. ²² Gilmore 1990. Cf. Goldberg 1999; Aird 1999. ²³ On the medical theory of manhood, see Bullough 1994; Cadden 1993; Jacquart and Thomasset 1988, and below, Ch. 4. The work of literary critics on such themes has been vast, but see e.g. Bloch 1991; Clover 1993; Kay 1995; Gaunt 1995; Blamires 2003, and the essays in Beidler 1998; Cohen and Wheeler 1997; the essays by Kinney, Lees, Baswell, and Mirrer in Lees 1994; and by Chinca, Ailes, and Haseldine in Hadley 1999.

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Richard II

Combining these three approaches, Felicity Riddy and Daniel Rubey interpret Thomas Arundel’s sermon as an attack on the alternative male subculture of Richard II and his court. They see this as a clash of generations, a negotiation over the transference of patriarchal power from the old to the young in which the former seek to define what proper masculinity ought to be. In the process, Riddy and Rubey draw welcome attention to the gendered dimension of Arundel’s rhetoric, the way it related to broader structures of ideas which opposed manhood not only to boyhood but also to femininity. But their analyses also suffer from a number of important drawbacks. To begin with, interpreting Archbishop Arundel’s sermon as part of a conflict between competing masculinities seems to place undue stress on certain aspects of his attack on the king at the expense of wider associations which seem more prominent. Although some of the characteristics which Arundel ascribes to boys were also ascribed to women in misogynist discourse, women and effeminacy at first seem largely peripheral to a central attack in terms of Richard’s alleged failure to pass from the status of a ‘boy’ to that of a ‘man’. Although Arundel undoubtedly makes use of gendered themes, his conflation of youth and women is an implicit one whose origins and internal logic invite further investigation. Moreover, it is far from clear on the basis of this text alone that the archbishop was attacking those aspects of Richard’s rule—especially in foreign policy and the character of his court—which Riddy and Rubey see invoked by his references to boyhood and manhood. The archbishop makes no mention of war, nor of conspicuous expenditure, and not even of inheritance. Although it would seem correct to say that many of the issues which scholars have begun to analyse as part of the history of masculinity are relevant to this text, and behind it to the politics of Richard II’s reign, it remains to be established whether these are the most important aspects of either Arundel’s sermon or the political situation on which it draws. This leads on to a second set of problems related to the question of determining why exactly the archbishop chose to make use of the rhetorical themes of manhood and youth. Taking a gendered approach, although it helps to reveal the complexity of the themes which Richard’s critics used, still does not resolve the problem of ascertaining whether the king really did behave in the way that his enemies suggested that he did. The tendency is simply to place a positive interpretation on Richard’s unmanliness, reclaiming it in the name of a subversive masculinity or

Introduction

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an alternative youth culture. This begs a number of questions about the relationship of these texts to reality. Was it because there were aspects of Richard’s comportment which could easily be portrayed in this way that his critics chose to attack him in these terms? Or were these strategies just convenient slurs, happened upon opportunistically at the moment of his deposition? Or, again, was there something else going on in the politics of these years which made these themes seem relevant? To be able to discover what the relationship was between Richard’s unmanly reputation and the realities of late fourteenth century politics, we need to establish which aspects of the former are the simple product of rhetorical attacks upon him and which are plausible interpretations of real contemporary controversies. Did Richard’s critics judge harshly his foreign policy, for example, or his courtly style, because these did not correspond with their own ideas of appropriate adult male behaviour? Or was the ‘language of gender and antifeminism’ only mobilized ‘to attack [Richard’s] masculinity and that of his court’ after the king had been judged wanting for other reasons? Was Richard’s masculinity really at issue, or was it simply a rhetoric mobilized in disputes with different origins? For answers to these questions, it at first seems natural to turn to the writings of historians on the politics of this period, to find out what exactly lay behind these accusations in the political controversies of the late fourteenth century. Unfortunately, this method of proceeding soon reveals its own drawbacks, and above all a risk of circularity. Historical interpretations of the reign of Richard II have for centuries been more or less consciously influenced by this king’s unmanly reputation. Since at least the sixteenth century, he has habitually been associated with lavish courtly expenditure, absolutist ideas, Francophile tendencies, and a principled love of peace, all of which were, until relatively recently, unselfconsciously linked to the king’s observable unmanliness. Before the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a number of writers sounded the alarm, historians had no doubt that the significance of manhood, boyhood, and youth at Richard’s deposition arose from the objective reality of the effeminate character of the king.²⁴ Each new account of the reign adapted the king’s established legend to the historical ²⁴ For comment, see Aston 1971, 310; Jones 1968: 113–18. For a sympathetic version of this view of Richard II in the eighteenth century see e.g. Historia vitae et regni Ricardi II, ed. T. Hearne (London, 1729), vii; Fisher 1965: 23. For negative ninteenthcentury views, see e.g. Webb 1824: 101–2; Satirical Poems and Songs on Costume, ed. F. W. Fairholt (London, 1849), 43–8; Stubbs 1883: ii. 498, 508–9, 512, 484.

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Richard II

approach in vogue at the time of writing. Anthony Steel, for example, in his 1941 biography of the king, fitted Richard’s accepted character into the emerging psychological theories of his own day. Steel explained the events of Richard’s reign in terms of his inability to live up to the demands of noble male behaviour in general and of knighthood in particular.²⁵ Physically unable to follow the manly example of his father and grandfather, the king instead retreated from his subjects, compensating for his feelings of inferiority by violently asserting his regality.²⁶ Although this view did not go unchallenged, its critics shared many of Steel’s assumptions. Whilst V. H. Galbraith doubted the evidence for Richard’s physical incapacity, he nonetheless regarded the king as a ‘misfit in his own class’ whose ‘nice personal habits’ classed him as an outsider in the boys’ school of the historian’s imagination: ‘the non-cooperator, who hates rugger and cricket and refuses to shout on the touchline’.²⁷ Even in the revisionist accounts of Richard II’s reign which began to appear from the 1960s, scepticism about the origins of his reputation never quite led to its total abandonment. Instead a pattern was established in which certain aspects of the king’s traditional character were rejected, whilst those which corresponded better with the interpretation being advanced were retained. This tendency can be detected even in those accounts of the reign which attempted to present the king in a positive light. Gervase Mathew, for example, who portrayed the king in more approving terms than Steel had done, nonetheless thought of Richard’s court as marking a fundamental break with ‘the masculinity of the earlier Curia Regis’, believing it to be characterized by an ideal court manhood which was ‘perpetually adolescent and perhaps slightly epicene’.²⁸ Although, in another revisionist work, R. H. Jones preferred to dismiss the foppish aspects of Richard’s reputation whilst retaining his association with absolutist ideas, his objections to the accepted picture were soon lost in the process of reception. In the end, most historians discarded Jones’s objections to Steel whilst adopting his comments on Richard’s ‘high royalist notions’ and the influence of the De Regimine Principum of Giles of Rome.²⁹ It was still normal to assert that ‘[b]y inclination [Richard] was an artist rather than a warrior’,³⁰ or that ‘with his highly developed aesthetic sense and love of refinement’ he could ²⁵ Steel 1941: 8. ²⁶ Ibid., 41–2, 113, 174–5, 225, 252, 278–9. ²⁷ Galbraith 1942: 227, 226. ²⁸ Mathew 1968: 1–3, 11–12, 25. ²⁹ Jones 1968: 113–18, 128–43, 155. ³⁰ Hollister 1992: 227.

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not share his interests with his barons.³¹ The rupture between Richard and his nobility continued to be seen as the rejection of a refined courtly effeminate by a warlike nobility who thirsted for a renewal of the glories of Edward III’s day. Despite the warnings of Margaret Aston against accepting in ‘attenuated form’ the Tudor portrayal of Richard II as an eternally youthful, courtly fop,³² and despite the optimism of G. O. Sayles that archival research would serve to dispel this well-established picture,³³ the publication of a raft of empirical studies in the early 1970s did surprisingly little to disturb received ideas about the king’s character and preferences. Although studies by J. J. N. Palmer, Anthony Goodman, and Anthony Tuck moved the centre of debate away from the character of the king and towards foreign policy and the king’s relations with his nobility, they nonetheless continued to make use of central aspects of Richard’s long-accepted reputation to support their innovative theses. Although Palmer began his work on Anglo-French diplomacy partly in order to dislodge the view of Richard II as a craven Francophile, and to re-evaluate the peace policies of his reign as a rational response to contemporary circumstances, he continued to regard the king’s enthusiasm for peace as ‘too well-known to require comment’.³⁴ Although Goodman’s research focused on the material interests of particular nobles, he was ultimately obliged to explain their resistance to Richard’s rule by their revulsion to his pursuit of peace, since their financial circumstances were too varied to fully account for their discontent.³⁵ Even as Anthony Tuck constructed a new interpretation of the reign which was focused on patronage, he, too, continued to draw on Richard’s reputation for an aversion to warfare and an obsession with courtly culture. The accepted character of the Ricardian court could be used to explain repeated requests for war taxation as rhetorical gambits to secure resources for other ends, such as the expansion of the royal household and the promotion of the king’s associates.³⁶ The grant to Robert de Vere of the duchy of Ireland, for example, or the promotion of Sir Simon Burley’s position ³¹ Barber 1978: 238. ³² Aston 1971: 316–17. ³³ For this hope see Sayles 1971; Sayles 1979. ³⁴ Palmer 1971b; Palmer 1971c; Palmer 1972. Quote from Palmer 1966: 81. ³⁵ For Arundel’s and Gloucester’s varied financial resources, see Goodman 1971: chs. 1, 2. For their supposedly shared distaste for the king’s alleged policy of peace, see ibid., 77, 87–90, 94, 104, 105, 114, 121. ³⁶ Tuck 1973: 61–2, 63–5, 90–1, 99, 102, 104–5. Although cf. ibid., 73, in which Tuck notes Richard’s use of his own estates as military recruiting grounds.

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Richard II

in Kent, could be portrayed simply as profligate patronage to favourites, rather than as the distribution of resources needed to fulfil particular military and administrative functions.³⁷ Finally, the persistence of instability after the problems of patronage had been resolved in the late 1380s could be explained by the king’s peaceful instincts, which aroused the opposition of a warlike nobility and gentry.³⁸ Each of these new accounts of Richard II’s reign thus drew on different aspects of the time-honoured model of the king’s character even as they challenged particular elements of it. The traditional model of Richard’s character and preferences has not been displaced by work which stresses the king’s attitude to the property rights of his subjects,³⁹ nor by accounts of this reign which locate his faults in his retaining policies, his intervention in the localities or his attitude to the nobility.⁴⁰ In these accounts, it is still necessary to explain why Richard behaved in the disruptive way that he did, how he came to maintain and to pursue with such vigour the ‘misconceptions about the crown’s authority and his own role in the polity’ which led him to undermine the natural consensus between the king and nobility.⁴¹ A crisis at the centre is required not only to explain the misuse of royal authority in local affairs but also to provide the occasion for the accumulation of local grievances to be expressed on the national stage. So far, no better explanation has been found than the king’s perverse political ideas and a fundamental clash between the personalities and values of the nobility and the personality and priorities of the king. Once again, these accounts draw more or less directly on the tradition of the fundamentally unsympathetic and unmilitary character of a courtly and absolutist king. Recent work on the Ricardian court has returned with some enthusiasm to R. H. Jones’s views of Richard II’s ideas of kingship and to Gervase Mathew’s picture of his court. Many writers still draw a strong link between the king’s courtly character—the picture of a wilful, despotic, unchivalric Richard II—and his attitude to his subjects’ ³⁷ Tuck 1973: 74–86, esp. 75, 82. ³⁸ Ibid., ch. 6. Although both Tuck and Goodman are aware of the limitations of the continental sources which portray Richard as a martyr king and those who displaced him as unprincipled warmongers, they accept them nonetheless. See ibid., 155–86; Goodman 1971: 74–86. A similar approach is taken by Saul 1997a: 370–3. For the fundamentally misleading nature of these sources, see below, Ch. 12. ³⁹ Ross 1956: 574–5; Barron 1968; Given-Wilson 1978; Given-Wilson 1994. ⁴⁰ R. R. Davies 1971; Gillespie 1979; Castor 2000: 9–20. ⁴¹ Ibid., 20.

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lives and property. The image of the king’s absolutism remains so tied up with his unusual love of clothes and ceremonial that his absolutist views of kingship have been associated with such disparate aspects of courtly culture as the clothing of his courtiers or his use of handkerchiefs.⁴² Even those historians who view Richard in a sympathetic light still retain the traditional picture of a king who was unusually attached to clothing, art, and ceremonial, temperamentally opposed to war with France and committed to extreme views of his office.⁴³ It is thus in keeping with the dominant thrust of writing on Richard II in the late twentieth century that the most recent full-scale work on his reign should strongly link the king’s physical unmanliness with his courtly self-presentation, his ideas of kingship, his foreign policy, and his eventual downfall. Nigel Saul’s 1997 biography deals in its concluding chapter with Richard’s alleged effeminacy in the course of an examination of his courtly ideals. Saul tentatively suggests that the reason behind the apparent opinion of contemporaries that the king was ‘slightly epicene’ might have been ‘that the chroniclers were measuring him against the manliness of his father, who, in his prime, had been an exceptionally vigorous man’.⁴⁴ For Saul, this view fits well with the adoption of ideas similar to those of R. H. Jones. In the use of terms such as ‘majesty’ and ‘prince’ in petitions addressed to the king, Saul detects a concern with ‘sovereignty’, ‘distance’, and ‘obedience’ derived from civil law and Giles of Rome.⁴⁵ Saul also adopts the picture of a fundamentally unmilitary king, who preferred to observe the tourney at a distance rather than get his hands dirty, as it were, as his father or grandfather had done.⁴⁶ This, as in the work of Steel, is attached to a full psychological diagnosis. Richard II’s failure is explained by a ‘narcissistic’ personality which craved praise and attention, and ended by becoming totally detached from reality.⁴⁷ His fall is still the removal by a warlike political class of a wanton young effeminate who combined unmanly courtly interests with disturbing absolutist principles to an extent which bordered on madness.⁴⁸ ⁴² Eberle 1985; Stow 1995. ⁴³ Barron 1985: 36; Barron 1990: 132–49; Barron, 1993: 16. ⁴⁴ Saul, 1997a: 452. ⁴⁵ Saul 1995; Saul 1997a: 93, 119, 248–50, 384–388, 441–5, 453; Saul 1999a. See further below, Ch. 10, pp. 204–213. ⁴⁶ Saul 1997a: 452–3; Saul 1998. ⁴⁷ Saul 1997a: 129, 189, 459–62. ⁴⁸ Ibid., 332–3, 339–42, 439, 454–5. Cf. McHardy 2000: 19.

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Richard II

Over the years, Richard II’s unmanly character has provided the cement with which historians have filled the gaps in their interpretations of his reign. It has rarely been the central means of explaining events, but it has almost always made some sort of contribution. It has provided a way of making the king seem more real, more concrete as a personality, explaining his actions in a satisfyingly straightforward fashion. In a period where it is rarely possible to know what exactly anyone was thinking, in the absence of informal letter collections or autobiographic writing, this picture of the king provides a way of giving life to chronicle accounts and documentary sources, and of making the king come alive, a familiar figure whose actions can be readily understood. Yet even before the contemporary evidence for Richard’s reputation is considered in detail, there is reason to doubt the validity of this familiar picture. For example, how unusual were Richard II’s ideas of kingship? The work of Simon Walker has suggested that the king’s political ideas lay within the broad spread of contemporary orthodoxy, even if he subscribed to an extreme interpretation of widely held ideals.⁴⁹ It is increasingly clear that the ideas of Giles of Rome were as widely spread and as subject to varying interpretations in late medieval England, as were the maxims of Roman law.⁵⁰ The Appellant duke of Gloucester, as much as Richard’s tutor, Sir Simon Burley, possessed a copy of De Regimine Principum, the wide circulation of which is evidenced today by an exceptionally large number of manuscript survivals.⁵¹ Nor is this tract any longer regarded as straightforwardly absolutist. Recent studies of Giles’s work have stressed how the doctrines of counsel, and of the subjugation of the king’s aims to the common good, are to be found alongside his insistence on obedience to the king—itself scarcely a controversial doctrine in a monarchical society.⁵² The second touchstone of ‘Ricardian kingship’, meanwhile, the unusual splendour and extravagance of his court, has also been subject to re-assessment. Since the 1980s, scholars have revealed that Richard II’s predecessors were at least his equals in their performance of the kingly virtue ⁴⁹ Walker 1995: 50–7, 60–2. ⁵⁰ Briggs 1999, 3 and appendix A. On civil law in England see e.g. Bellamy 1970: 6–7; Plucknett 1939. ⁵¹ Dillon and St John Hope 1897: 302; Scattergood 1968; Jones 1968: 143; Goodman 1971: 81. ⁵² Contrast the views of Giles presented by Berges 1938: 211–28; Jones 1968: 142–3, 155–6 with the reading of Kempshall 1999: ch. 5.

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of ‘magnificence’.⁵³ It has become clear that complaints about the household were not proportional to absolute expenditure, but to the king’s ability to meet his debts.⁵⁴ Indeed, complaints came thickest during the 1380s, when expenditure was restrained, and then faded away even as wardrobe expenditure increased from the early 1390s.⁵⁵ Finally, even the question of the king’s attitude to war and chivalric activity has come under renewed examination. G. B. Stow’s archival work has shown that accusations of the king’s distaste for hunting, for example, are unfounded.⁵⁶ A number of writers, notably J. L. Gillespie and Anne Curry, have drawn attention to Richard’s enthusiasm for warfare in Scotland in 1385 and in Ireland in the 1390s,⁵⁷ and others, including Anthony Tuck, have come to doubt that he was committed to peace with France for its own sake.⁵⁸ One historian of Anglo-French foreign policy has even suggested that the abandonment of a plan for a final peace with France was the result of Richard becoming interested in diplomacy for the first time, after about 1392, at the very time when a final settlement began to seem less likely.⁵⁹ Evidence of purchases of armour for the king’s participation in tourney or on campaign seem difficult to square with Nigel Saul’s view of Richard’s desire for ‘distance’, as do chronicle references to the king winning tournament honours.⁶⁰ What then are we to make of Richard II’s unmanly reputation, so often contested and yet never entirely superseded? Although a body of research has accumulated over the past forty years or so which ought to give serious cause for concern about the established reputation of Richard II, it has nonetheless proved surprisingly resistant to attack. Perhaps the most important reason for this state of affairs is that Richard’s unmanly reputation is not simply the product of each age projecting onto him whatever faults they wished to condemn in their own time, nor is it solely a testament to the seductive power of a well-established orthodoxy. Richard’s reputation does have a certain kind of basis in late fourteenth-century texts and images, although ⁵³ Sherborne 1983: 182–4; Staniland 1997. On Edward III see Newton 1980: 29–64, esp. 43; Vale 1982; Staniland 1986: 244–5. ⁵⁴ Given-Wilson 1986: 14–15, 78–9, 82, 103–6, 113, 127. ⁵⁵ Ibid., 81–3, 132–3. The last complaint against household expenditure before Haxey’s petition of January 1397 (RP, iii. 338–9) was presented during the Merciless Parliament of 1388 (RP, iii. 242). ⁵⁶ Stow 1989: 168. ⁵⁷ Ibid.; Gillespie 1997b. ⁵⁸ Tuck 1990: 121–3; Curry 2000. ⁵⁹ Phillpotts 1990. ⁶⁰ Fletcher 2005: 29–30, 34.

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the nature of the themes they deploy and their relationship to reality has been consistently misconstrued. We can form a clearer impression of the issues which Richard’s critics found the most important by turning to a number of texts, briefly alluded to above, which invoke both Thomas Arundel’s concerns, and certain overlapping issues which he does not directly discuss. After setting out the full range of the themes they invoked—from the king’s inconstant complexion to his susceptibility to youthful advice—it should be possible to begin to assess what lay behind these themes in the politics of Richard II’s reign. ∗ The only contemporary writer who describes Richard II as feminine is the chronicler of Evesham abbey. The passage in question must date from after the king’s fall, since it takes the form of an obituary. The chronicler begins by noting that King Richard was of common stature.⁶¹ This is not an altogether propitious start, given that the excavation of his bones in the nineteenth century revealed him to have been a tall man for his day, perhaps some six foot tall.⁶² The chronicler then states that the king ‘had fair hair, a white, rounded and feminine face, occasionally corrupted with phlegmatic humour’.⁶³ At first this appears to be a physical judgement, a confirmation of the objective reality of Richard’s effeminacy. However, it is soon clear that there is more to it than that, since the colourless lack of form of the king’s face allows it to be corrupted by the arrival of phlegmatic (that is, cold and wet) humour. This passage has been translated in the past as ‘a rounded feminine face which sometimes flushed’.⁶⁴ For contemporaries, however, there was far more to a man’s ‘complexion’ than his skin colour, since it indicated also his personality and bodily constitution.⁶⁵ This description raises the possibility of an inconstant and wilful personality, not just red cheeks. This suspicion is confirmed when the chronicler goes on to note that the king’s tongue was ‘short and stuttering’, that he was ‘inconstant in ⁶¹ HVRS, 166. ⁶² Stanley 1880: 323; Galbraith 1942: 226. ⁶³ HVRS, 166: ‘Inerant enim ei crines glauci facies alba et rotunda et feminia, interdum sanguinis fleumatice uiciata . . .’. ⁶⁴ Chronicles, 241. ⁶⁵ See Rigby 1996: 7–9 and below, Ch. 4.

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his mores’ and that this was because ‘scorning the counsel of the old nobles, he adhered to young men’.⁶⁶ The consequences of this bad counsel become clear as the chronicler relates how the king was ‘extravagant in his gifts, splendid beyond measure (ultra modum) in entertainments and garments’. This seems to lead naturally to the remark that Richard was ‘luckless and timid in wars against enemies, directing his anger against his own people (domesticos)’.⁶⁷ Haughty in pride, occupied by cupidity, he was much devoted to the sin of intemperance, of luxuria. He sometimes stayed up until the night sometimes until the morning, ‘in drinking and in other unmentionable things’. In the passage which follows this description, the consequences for the kingdom are made clear, for Richard’s sins led him to impose crushing taxes on the people throughout the reign, ‘yet when, under the pretext of defeating the enemy, he had acquired enormous wealth to the crown, it was all spent on his foolish wantonness’.⁶⁸ Thus from a ‘feminine’ appearance the chronicler passes on to the youthful, inconstant mores of the king which meant that heavy taxes were not translated into military victory. Some commentators have located the origins of this portrayal of Richard II in the king’s physical constitution, whilst others have doubted the truth of this account of his bodily capacities.⁶⁹ This makes it important to consider whether the Evesham chronicler’s description of the king as ‘feminine’ in appearance was a simple observation of fact, or at least a fair comment on his observable appearance. In his recent biography of the king, Nigel Saul usefully brings together much of the visual material which has contributed to the king’s reputation, and which provide the source for Richard’s physical incapacity cited by Steel.⁷⁰ Saul begins by suggesting that in Richard’s funeral effigy he is depicted with ‘striking, but slightly feminine, features’.⁷¹ He notes the high cheekbones; the long, straight nose; the large, heavy-lidded eyes; and the suggestion of a goatee beard. Saul finds ‘the same youthful-looking but slightly feminine features’ in a portrait in Westminster Abbey.⁷² Finally, in a number of ⁶⁶ HVRS, 166: ‘lingua breuis et balbuciens, moribus inconstans, quia, spreto antiquorum procerum consilio, iuuenibus adherebat, magis eorum quam illorum consilium sequens.’ ⁶⁷ Ibid.: ‘. . . ad bella contra hostes infortunatus et timidus, in domesticos iram multum attendens . . .’. ⁶⁸ Ibid., 167. ⁶⁹ See e.g. Steel 1941: 41; Galbraith 1942: 226. ⁷⁰ Saul 1997a: 449–453. Cf. Steel 1941: 41. ⁷¹ Saul 1997a: 450. Cf. ibid., plate 20. ⁷² Saul 1997a: 451.

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manuscript illuminations, Saul notes the same long nose and large eyelids, and the fact that Richard’s hair is shown as much longer, although he does not make any reference to ‘feminine’ characteristics.⁷³ Moving on to the Wilton Diptych, which was probably completed in the mid1390s, Saul ascribes Richard’s lack of a beard to ‘an idealized likeness’, perhaps aiming to gloss over the age difference involved in his forthcoming marriage to Isabel of France by depicting him with ‘boyish looks’.⁷⁴ Yet the conclusion drawn—that Richard was considered to be ‘slightly epicene’ by his contemporaries—provides no evidence of Richard II’s ‘feminine’ appearance as judged at the time, based as it is solely on a modern historian’s standards as to what constitutes a feminine appearance.⁷⁵ Indeed, even within the limits imposed by this impressionistic method, only two out of seven representations are found to be ‘slightly feminine’, although it might be assumed that the Wilton Diptych would share in this categorization if it were admitted as evidence. The assessment of Richard’s ‘feminine’ appearance is made all the more insecure by the fact that one of these representations—the Westminster portrait—has itself been subjected to centuries of insensitive restoration.⁷⁶ As a photograph taken at the time of one major restoration in 1866 makes clear, the portrait was by then very indistinct.⁷⁷ In completing their work, the restorers gave the king red cheeks, full lips, and a fine, pointed beard. Yet when the present portrait is viewed under infra-red reflectography, it becomes clear that although the thin nose and heavy-lidded eyes were indeed present in the original portrait, the king’s beard covered both chin and cheeks, not just the edge of the chin. It was altogether fuller than the goatee now in evidence. The line of the king’s jaw is more defined, the lips are less full, and there is no particular reason to believe that the cheeks would have been red. Successive restorers have, in effect, corrected the portrait to fit the established reputation of the king. Contemporary portraits of Richard II do not make it possible to assert that the king’s physical appearance made it self-evident to his contemporaries that he was something less than a man. The impression that the origins of this accusation lie somewhere quite different is reinforced by a number of texts which ascribe him youthful mores, or allege a love of fleshly pleasure and youthful counsel, but do not link these troublesome tendencies to any physical attribute. Richard ⁷³ Saul 1997a: 451 and plates 12, 15. ⁷⁴ Ibid., 451 and below, Ch. 12, nn. 51–2. ⁷⁵ Saul 1997a: 450–1. ⁷⁶ Alexander 1997: 197–206. ⁷⁷ Ibid., image 16.

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the Redeless, another work produced just after Richard’s fall, berates the faults of youthful counsel with an eye to instructing the king’s successors.⁷⁸ This text attacks wilfulness and the love of the flesh which guides men away from reason in their youth, and causes them to value outward appearances, showy dress, and pleasing words more than the truth.⁷⁹ The way to avoid these errors, and the addiction to the world which leads a king to attempt to rule by might when he should only rule by love, is to take good counsel: not, that is, the ‘foure score and odde’ faults that youth ‘weneth alwey that it be witt euere’, but rather the counsel of mature men, who carefully consider each matter to construe its truth.⁸⁰ Clearly, the accusation runs, Richard failed to do this. The pleasure-obsessed wilfulness of his courtiers’ clothing is but a function of the king’s own unruliness (‘Now Richard the redeless reweth on you-self,/That lawlesse leddyn youre lyf and youre peple bothe . . .’).⁸¹ His reign was the rule of riotous, uncontrolled young men, or men spoiled in their youth, who concern themselves only with their clothes in order to attract political favour, along with the favours of ladies.⁸² Reading Richard the Redeless strengthens the impression that the king’s critics associated him with the faults of youth, not because he had a particularly youthful appearance or bearing, but because youth invoked a certain set of political vices which his enemies wished to ascribe to him. Similar themes were also invoked by the poet and moralist John Gower in certain modifications which he made to his complaint work Vox Clamantis to express displeasure with Richard’s rule. There are a number of reasons for dating these revisions, also, to around Richard’s deposition, rather than to about 1393 as previously believed.⁸³ Gower ⁷⁸ RR, I. 43–6. For readings of Richard the Redeless which see it as a critique of real excesses in clothing at Richard’s court, see Stow 1995: 235; Eberle 1985. Castor 2000: 9–15 focuses on the attack on livery and retaining. For accounts which concentrate on the poem’s general lessons about kingship, see Barr 1992; Middleton 1978; Ferguson 1955; Mohl 1944. ⁷⁹ RR, I. 50–2, 83, 87, 92, 101; II. 112–18; III. 116–25, 173–81; Fletcher 2005: 6; Fletcher 2006: 36. ⁸⁰ RR, I. 66–9. ⁸¹ Ibid., 88–9. ⁸² RR, III. 156–9. ⁸³ The interpolation ends by declaring that Richard’s fate arises out of wrongdoing, and although a remarkable prescience on Gower’s part is not impossible, it seems likely that he was availing himself of a convenient tactic for a political prophet, confidently predicting events which had already come to pass. Moreover, in all four manuscripts where the revisions have been made, the Vox Clamantis has appended to it the Cronica Tripertita, Gower’s vitriolic attack on Richard II’s rule and justification of the 1399 coup, together with a number of other poems in favour of Henry IV’s regime. One of these manuscripts was even given, after 1399, to Archbishop Arundel, with an epistle

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begins his interpolation by asserting that the king ‘an undisciplined boy, neglects the moral behaviour by which a man might grow up from a boy’.⁸⁴ He proclaims that ‘youthful company (iuuenilis concio) so guides the boy (puerum) that he has taste (sapit) for nothing useful, unless it be his whim’.⁸⁵ It seems likely that Gower is explicitly drawing on Thomas Arundel’s sermon in this passage. He seems to elaborate upon it, declaring that the youths (iuuenes) associated with the king simply follow any course of action that he chooses.⁸⁶ These vain youths cultivate vain honour.⁸⁷ They abet the king in his boyish mores, whereby he wields the authority of virtue the less.⁸⁸ Even older men tolerate many scandals ‘at the boy’s pleasure’ (pueri placitum) on account of their cupidity.⁸⁹ The virtuous withdraw, and the vicious come in, and the king’s court teems with vice.⁹⁰ Sin springs up on every side of the boy, and he, who is easily led, takes on every evil.⁹¹ To boys this is simply glorious sport, not wrongdoing, ‘but his fate does arise out of wrongdoing’.⁹² Thus Gower alleges that the boy king’s refusal to follow moral behaviour prevents him growing into a man. This extended boyish morality is, according to Gower, the consequence of the king’s wilfulness. Once again, the fault of the king is to mistake worldly goods for the highest good, vain honour for true honour. The atmosphere of sin and vice presages the fall of the ludic boy king. Once again, it is the moral faults associated with youth which take centre stage, to such an extent that the king’s youthfulness is extended beyond its normal term. It seems that whatever the real character of Richard’s court, Gower is not so much describing a youth culture he found disreputable as using youth to organize a political critique, the origins of which are, as yet, unclear. Richard the Redeless and the revised Vox Clamantis were not the only post-deposition commentaries on the reign of Richard II to ascribe the king’s faults to his youth or his youthful counsellors. Recounting of dedication. See Gower, VC, lx–lxiv, 1–2. The 1393 date is only a suggestion on the basis of modifications omitting praise of Richard II which Gower explicitly dated to that year in some manuscripts of his Confessio Amantis. See e.g. The Major Latin Works of John Gower, trans. E. W. Stockton (Seattle, 1962), 13; Ferster 1996: 111. ⁸⁴ Gower, VC, bk. vi, ll. 555–6: ‘Rex, puer indoctus, morales negligit actus,/In quibus a puero crescere possit homo.’ ⁸⁵ Ibid., ll. 557–8: ‘Sic etenim puerum iuuenilis concio ducit,/Quod nichil expediens, sit nisi velle, sapit.’ ⁸⁶ Ibid., ll. 559–60. ⁸⁷ Ibid., ll. 561–2. ⁸⁸ Ibid., ll. 563–4. ⁸⁹ Ibid., ll. 565–6. ⁹⁰ Ibid., ll. 567–8. ⁹¹ Ibid., ll. 569–70. ⁹² Ibid., ll. 570–1: ‘set ei sors stat aborta doli.’

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the events of Henry IV’s coronation, Adam of Usk tells a fabulous story of how Richard had planned to raise the young earl of Kent to be king of Ireland on that very day, putting to death several of the leading men of the kingdom.⁹³ This leads him to reflect that Richard ‘with his youthful counsellors’ should be fittingly compared to Rehoboam, son of Solomon, ‘who because he followed the counsel of youths, lost the kingdom of Israel’.⁹⁴ In a similar fashion, the St Albans chronicle, in his account of the parliament of September 1397, describes the Speaker, John Bussy, heaping excessive praise upon the king, showing ‘not human honours to the king, but divine ones’.⁹⁵ The ‘youthful king’ (rex iuvenis) does not repress these words as he should, but instead, ‘embracing honours and loving adulation’, he proceeds to seek vengeance against his enemies.⁹⁶ In these texts, the vices which Richard’s youthful counsellors promoted are focused on the vanity and susceptibility to flattery which lead to pride, tyranny, and hence self-destruction. All of them allude to the faults of youth, not in order to attack an alternative masculinity or youth culture characteristic of the Ricardian court, but because youth’s associations served both to condemn certain political faults, and to present a satisfying moral story of how Richard’s fall came about through pride and evil counsel. It is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to consider how this broadening of focus beyond Thomas Arundel’s sermon has affected our perspective on the themes he deployed. Certainly, it seems fair to note that one writer at least found in the contrast between youth and manhood an occasion to remark on the former king’s timidity in war. Others, too, saw the allegedly youthful nature of his court as a reason to dwell on excesses of courtly display and expenditure. Yet, having admitted all that, these themes still seem largely peripheral to texts whose focus lies elsewhere. Instead, the central elements of these texts are the ethical and political faults which they ascribe to Richard and his court through the associations of youth. Youth brings susceptibility to bad counsel, which seems first of all to be moral counsel, leading to sin. But in the end, this counsel is of a practical kind also, for sin, especially pride, leads to unwise decisions which bring the king’s downfall in ⁹³ Usk, 74. ⁹⁴ Ibid. ⁹⁵ Taken an observation of normal practice at Richard’s court by Saul 1995: 854–5; Saul 1997a: 239. ⁹⁶ Annales, 210.

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their train. Bad counsel and wilfulness are not only sinful, leading to damnation, they also show a lack of prudence, leading to worldly failures. Of course, this focus might be a result of the particular concerns of the clerical, or lay clerkly, authors of these texts. But it certainly seems that the themes which boyhood, youth, and manhood invoked were more complex than is suggested by an interpretation of these texts purely in terms of the unmilitary tendencies or courtly non-conformism of the court of Richard II. The importance in these texts of the susceptibility of youth to bad counsel, and of the dangerous consequences of youthful counsel, might suggest another possible reason why the king’s enemies attacked him in these terms: that he really did surround himself with youthful advisers. This initially promising trail soon runs cold, however, for as R. H. Jones long ago pointed out, Richard’s advisers were never exclusively youthful.⁹⁷ The king’s chamberlain, Sir Simon Burley, was around 52 years of age when he met his death in the Merciless Parliament of 1388.⁹⁸ Burley was at least two years older than the oldest Appellant, Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.⁹⁹ Chancellor Michael de la Pole, meanwhile, would have been in his mid-50s when he was impeached in 1386.¹⁰⁰ Amongst the king’s sometime opponents, Richard’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was aged 33 at the time of the Merciless Parliament.¹⁰¹ Gloucester was some thirteen years younger than the next youngest son of Edward III, Edmund, duke of York, who remained loyal to the king until his deposition.¹⁰² Moreover, Thomas of Woodstock was only seven years older than the king’s close friend and ally, Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford.¹⁰³ Thomas Arundel, the future archbishop of Canterbury, was less than two years older than Gloucester, and he would have been 33 at the time of his first intervention in politics in 1386.¹⁰⁴ Although Gloucester’s fellow Appellant, Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, would have turned 40 in 1386, and had passed 50 by the time of his execution in 1397, he was two years younger than one of the king’s most trusted officers in his later years, Edmund Stafford, bishop of Exeter.¹⁰⁵ Sir John Bussy and Sir William Bagot, notorious associates of Richard II in the late 1390s, were active in the service of John of Gaunt in the late 1370s, and so were probably in their 40s or ⁹⁷ ¹⁰⁰ ¹⁰² ¹⁰⁴

Jones 1968: 93. ⁹⁸ Leland 2006. ⁹⁹ GEC, vol. xii, pt. ii, 375. GEC, vol. xii, pt. i, 437. ¹⁰¹ GEC, vol. v, 719. GEC, vol. xii, pt. ii, 895. ¹⁰³ GEC, vol. x, 227. Aston 1967: 4. ¹⁰⁵ GEC, vol. i, 244; Tuck 2006.

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older at the time of their prominence in the ‘tyranny’ of 1397–9.¹⁰⁶ It would be wrong to think of Richard II’s reign as a dispute between generations. Indeed, this is not even quite what is alleged by Archbishop Arundel, John Gower, and Richard the Redeless. Gower, in particular, condemned the wilful, sinful, youthful counsel which predominated at the court to such an extent that even older men acquiesced in it. His accusation was less that his counsellors were exclusively youthful than that the courses of action followed by the king were those characteristic of youths. What was it, then, which made so resonant the themes of the inconstancy of youth, of youthful counsel, and of the unmanly mores of the king and his court? It cannot be said that the significance of youth and manhood derives straightforwardly from either the physical attributes of the king, or from the age of his counsellors. Some doubts have already been raised as to how they relate to Richard’s traditional reputation for a love of courtly culture, absolutist ideas and peace with France. It will be the work of the bulk of this book to investigate what lay behind the use of these themes by returning in detail to the politics of the late fourteenth century. Yet, before we do so, there is one further issue which needs to be addressed. We cannot hope to understand how the attacks of Richard’s critics related to the political controversies of these years without first inquiring into the broader cultural context in which they staged their rhetoric. It remains to determine how exactly these themes relate to late medieval concepts of manhood and youth, to reveal which received ideas they invoked, and which they left to one side. Even at first glance, Richard’s critics seem to present a very particular version of manhood, in which youthful, boyish, or feminine mores are characterized by inconstancy in speech and inconstancy in morals, and a taste for bad counsel, which is in turn a result of a preference for worldly pleasure and individual will instead of the circumspect pursuit of reason and salvation. We have already suggested that this might have something to do with the clerical or clerkly perspective of these writers of monastic chronicles, sermons, and politico-moral treatises. Was this the only way of seeing manhood in late medieval England? Were there manly attributes which they put to one side, but which their contemporaries might have placed centre stage? One way to approach these questions is to broaden the inquiry to consider the full range of meanings of manhood and youth in late ¹⁰⁶ Gillespie 2004; Clark 2004.

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fourteenth-century England. One initially promising approach to this task is to turn to theoretical texts available in the late fourteenth century for ready definitions of ‘manhood’, ‘youth’, and related terms, an account of their properties and an explanation of their interrelationship. Medical, theological, didactic, and encyclopaedic texts do indeed provide such an account.¹⁰⁷ Much useful work has been done on these texts, both by gender historians and as part of research into the ‘ages of man’.¹⁰⁸ Yet from the point of view of an historian interested in the practice of politics, an inquiry into these theoretical writings, although essential, is not in itself sufficient. Ideally, it would be desirable to find some way of discovering what happened to academic medical ideas when they were removed from a technical context, and what impact (if any) the didactic norms presented in sermons and encyclopaedia had at the level of the late fourteenth-century English gentry and nobility, or of civic and ecclesiastical elites. Even if Archbishop Arundel, John Gower, and the rest could be shown to have used the same elaborate theoretical ideas of manhood, it needs to be established whether this was merely a matter of blinding their audience with authority, or whether their arguments might have been expected to strike a genuine chord. One possible approach to this problem is to begin by investigating the use of language, as a source of clues to the unspoken, commonplace ideas of a society.¹⁰⁹ Language is one set of social practices which is neither wholly reducible to society (it is not a ‘reflection’ of society) nor totally independent of it (it is not an immobile structure uninfluenced by the society in which it is used).¹¹⁰ The fact that these social practices are shared to some extent amongst those who are competent to speak a language makes it a valuable counterweight to the evidence of texts which set out to define norms of manhood and youth. Although the evidence of language is no panacea, no superior collection of abstract ideals which straightforwardly encodes the assumptions of an entire society, it does provide a valuable and necessary additional source to be placed alongside more self-conscious writing. Once this approach has been selected, it remains to determine which language should be studied, since England in the late fourteenth-century ¹⁰⁷ See below, Ch. 4. ¹⁰⁸ e.g. Cadden 1993; Bullough 1973; Bullough 1994; Burrow 1986; Sears 1986. ¹⁰⁹ See also Watts 1996: 53–4; Fletcher 2005: 9–16. ¹¹⁰ Cameron 1990.

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was at least a trilingual society. Focused as it is on the ‘centre’ of politics, this study is concerned first and foremost with English, as the lingua franca shared by the political classes, from the nobility and ecclesiastical hierarchy to gentry and civic elites. Nonetheless, Latin and AngloFrench texts used or composed in England will be used to provide an extra sidelight on insular usage. Tellingly, Latin or French texts produced in England in the fourteenth century often have the feel of having been translated from English.¹¹¹ It is often possible to show that they are using a semantic logic which would not be accepted in non-insular versions of those languages. That said, if a usage is found only in Latin or French, it cannot be assumed that it was current in English too. Sermons delivered to clerical audiences, for example, might make use of Latin wordplay which would not have worked in English.¹¹² If an English usage is found in Latin or French texts written in England, however, it is clearly of interest to an inquiry into the commonplace assumptions which language can encode and help to reproduce. The next two chapters will consider the language of manhood in detail, in particular in those aspects which seem to draw it away from the implicit account of manhood given by Richard’s critics. Chapter 2 focuses on the association of manhood with physical strength and, more particularly, with the constancy and courage in battle which led to the accumulation of honour. It considers the involvement of manhood in a system of honour in which the status of manhood had to be constantly defended by a consistent response to each potentially shaming challenge. Chapter 3 turns from this material to consider the interaction between charitable ‘humanitas’ and ‘manly’ action as magnificent action, including largesse, appropriate to maintain a certain rank. It suggests that the critics of Richard II, and moralists as a whole, pushed to one side the problem that expenditure in accordance with one’s means did not necessarily correspond with the requirements of one’s ‘estate’. Chapter 4 then returns to medieval theoretical texts, the terms of reference of which lie closer to those of Richard’s critics. These medical and didactic texts used the inconstancy which youths share with women to distance them from manhood, and to put forward certain moral standpoints on correct masculinity. Once this cultural ¹¹¹ On the use of French in England from the thirteenth century, see Wilson 1943; Rothwell 1968; Rothwell 1978; Short 1979–80; Kennedy 1998; Trotter 2000. ¹¹² e.g. Brinton, Sermons, 7–8.

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background has been filled in, it will be possible to return to the politics of Richard II’s reign with a better knowledge of the variable meanings of manhood and youth available to his opponents, to his allies and to the king himself, and to start to uncover how these became such potent themes in the final decades of the fourteenth century.

2 The Language of Manhood I: Strength, Violence, and Honour It is clear that Richard II’s unmanly reputation is not simply an invention of later historians. The king’s youth and changeability, his vanity and susceptibility to bad counsel, his vulnerability to the evils of a decadent court and his taste for pleasing appearances—all of these themes are to be found in a group of contemporary texts, some of which invoke youth, others manhood and boyhood, and one of which asserts that the king was feminine in appearance. It remains to be seen, however, how exactly these themes relate to late medieval concepts of manhood, so that we can determine which received ideas they invoked, and which they left to one side. The present chapter begins the work of sketching out fourteenthcentury commonplace ideas through a study of words, in particular how Middle English speakers ordinarily used words like ‘manhood’, ‘manly’, and expressions like ‘as a man’. It focuses in particular on one strand of the language of manhood, whose underlying values were surprisingly neglected by Richard’s post-deposition critics, and whose associations were organized around strength, physical courage, honour, and vengeance. Before the language of manhood can be used as evidence for commonplace assumptions current in late medieval England, one fundamental question must be raised. What, if anything, was the ‘man’ in Middle English uses of ‘manhood’, ‘manly’, and their cognates? Was it a human being, an adult, an adult-male or something else? This deceptively simple question cannot always be met with a simple answer. It is important to bear in mind the limitations of an intuitive model of language as a system for assigning names to things.¹ What matters in much of language is not the mental recognition of the link between a word and ¹ Wittgenstein 1958; Fogelin 1976: ch. 10.

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a thing, but the mastery of the rules governing the correct use of a particular word.² It would thus be wrong to imagine that every time Middle English users said that a particular action displayed ‘manhood’ or that a particular act was performed ‘manly’ they summoned up in their minds an image of a ‘man’ who possessed these qualities. That said, ‘manhood’, ‘manly’, and their cognates might be said to be referential in a way that not all words are, since they can be defined by reference to ‘the qualities of a man’. ‘Manhood’ sometimes seems to behave in a similar fashion to, say, ‘childish’ in modern English, in which a symbol is invoked (a child), along with a series of associations particular to the use of that word. It is not self-evident that a particular child is necessarily childish, but nor would it be correct to say that there is no symbolic association between children and childishness. Only by looking closely at language in use does it become possible to determine if the same can be said for ‘manly’ and ‘manhood’ in any particular instance, and what a ‘man’ might be in these differing contexts. Whilst it is clear that ‘man’ and ‘manhood’ could be used quite neutrally in certain circumstances to denote, for example, ‘humanity’, the broader connotations of these words, including gendered ones, often come into play even in relatively straightforward instances of usage. Certainly, writers could refer to the ‘manhede’ of Christ simply in contrast to his ‘godhede’, ³ or note that Merlin, too, had some ‘godhede’ mixed in with his manhood.⁴ ‘Manhood’ could denote human flesh—as in the ‘manhede’ that Christ took on for us,⁵ that Mary passed on to Christ,⁶ or that Adam, Eve, and Abel had in common.⁷ All this could be done without invoking the qualities associated with an adult male, ² Austin 1975; Fodor, Bever, and Garrett 1974: ch. 4. ³ e.g. Seinte Katerine, ed. S. R. T. O. d’Ardenne and E. J. Dobson, EETS  7 (Oxford, 1981), ll. 360–65 [early thirteenth century]; Handlyng Synne, ll. 655–6, 661–2 [c.1303]; PP C-Text, XIX.238–40 [?about 1387]; The Orchard of Syon, eds. P. Hodgson and G. M. Liegey, EETS 258 (London, 1966), 160 [about 1425]. Dates for Middle English texts, unless otherwise stated, are taken from Kurath and Kuhn 1954 as updated in the online edition of the MED at . ⁴ The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. W. A. Wright (London, 1887), pt I., ll. 2782–3 [c.1300]. ⁵ Handlyng Synne, ll. 718–19; The South English Legendary, ed. C. D’Evelyn and A. J. Mill, EETS 235, 236, 244 (London, 1956–9) [c.1300]. ⁶ Cursor Mundi, ed. R. Morris, EETS 57, 59, 62, 66, 68, 99, 101 (Oxford, 1874–92), ll. 10639–42 [about 1325]; Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt, ed. R. Morris, EETS 23 (London, 1866), 118 [1340]. ⁷ PP C-Text, XIX.220–1.

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for example. Yet on other occasions, wider associations are invoked even where they are not, strictly speaking, relevant. Thus in the section of the Middle English Dictionary which lists uses of the word ‘man’ ‘with emphasis on adulthood’, most of the examples cited stress not just adulthood, but adult-maleness. True, when in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, after the death of Arcite, ‘ther wepeth both child and man’, the public referred to does indeed include both men and women.⁸ But, by contrast, in the Pardoner’s Tale, when the taverner reports that Death has in this last year slain ‘Bothe man and womman, child, and hyne, and page’, ‘man’ seems to be first of all contrasted with ‘woman’, secondly with ‘child’, and finally with those with the status of a labourer (hyne) or a page.⁹ The ‘man’ seems to be an adult male, not just an adult, and a high status one at that. Middle English use of ‘man’ often slips into referring exclusively to males, forgetting that women might also be covered by that term.¹⁰ The examples given by the MED of individuals growing to reach ‘mannes state’ or ‘mannes might’ all explicitly concern males. Growing or being made a ‘man’, meanwhile, seems to involve rather more than just passing into adult age. Translations of I Corinthians 13:11, for example, do have the potential to be gender neutral, involving an opposition only with ‘child’ (‘whanne I was maad man [var: a man], I auoydide tho thingis that weren of a litil child’).¹¹ However, as the example of Archbishop Arundel’s sermon has already demonstrated, this text could equally well invoke wider, gendered connotations. The use of expressions such as ‘he shall be a man’, speaking of a male child, could also bring in broader associations than adulthood alone. Thus in the devotional tract known as the Book to a Mother, composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, the writer condemns parents who do not raise their children in virtue.¹² If their child follows God’s commandments they are sorry and say ‘He schal neuere be man’, but if he is a great swearer and bragger, they say ‘He schal be a man, for he liche his fadur is.’¹³ To argue that being ‘a man’ is gender-neutral in this passage would involve putting ⁸ Riverside Chaucer, ‘Canterbury Tales’, fragment I, l. 2830. ⁹ Ibid., fragment VI, l. 687. ¹⁰ As with the formally gender-neutral use of the Latin ‘homo’ as distinct from ‘vir’. See Clark 1998: 15–16. ¹¹ The Holy Bible . . . by John Wycliffe and his Followers, eds. J. Forshall and F. Madden (Oxford, 1850), iv. 363 [c.1384]. ¹² Book to a Mother: An Edition with Commentary, ed. A. J. McCarthy (Salzburg, 1981), iii. ¹³ Ibid., 78–9.

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aside not just the sex of the child under discussion (‘for he like his father is’) but also a number of far more elaborate, if dimly perceived, associations attached to being ‘a man’, notably vigorous oath-swearing and verbal aggression. When we move away from the use of the word ‘man’ to consider the use of ‘manly’ (which is often an adverb in Middle English) and ‘manhood’, this particular set of associations comes into sharper focus. The most general use of the word ‘manly’ is to describe vigorous or speedy activities or individuals. Thus in the opening scenes of the alliterative romance William of Palerne,¹⁴ the emperor of Rome rides so ‘manly’ (as an adverb) that he loses his way.¹⁵ Later, the emperor sends messengers ‘manly’ to his daughter to let her know that he is coming with his company, and so they speed ‘manly’ to her.¹⁶ This use of ‘manly’ to denote speed alone is, however, relatively rare. The fondness for this usage shown by the author of William of Palerne is perhaps not unrelated to its convenience for making up alliterative lines. It may be that this use drew on the associations of the Middle English ‘wight’, which could be a human being or any living creature, and whose primary characteristic was life, or energy, and which seems to have been more gender neutral than ‘man’.¹⁷ Strength and energy in battle are the most common qualities with which ‘manly’ and ‘manhood’ are associated. These connotations emerge most straightforwardly in situations of physical fighting, which are found frequently, although far from exclusively, in the Middle English romances which were composed, translated, re-copied, and re-adapted throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.¹⁸ Thus, in one episode in Of Arthour and of Merlin,¹⁹ in which Gawain and his fellows resist ¹⁴ The English William of Palerne was commissioned by Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, 1335/6–1361, and so was probably composed sometime in the 1340s or 1350s. See William, 14–15. ¹⁵ William, ll. 207–8. ¹⁶ William, ll. 1330–3. Cf. William, ll. 2690, 4185. ¹⁷ MED, ‘wight’ (noun), ‘wight’ (adjective), ‘wighti’ or ‘wightili’ (adverb). ¹⁸ For a discussion of the ‘popularity’ of these texts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Fletcher 2004: 330–1 and works cited there, nn. 31–7. ¹⁹ Of Arthour and of Merlin is an adaptation of that part of the French prose Arthurian cycle known as Merlin. See Arthour, ii, 2. It exists in two distinct versions, one found in the Auchinlech MS of c.1330, the other in two MSS dating from the late fourteenth or fifteenth century. See Orfeo, ix–x; Arthour, ii, 1–2, 40–2; Guddat-Figge 1976: 228, 264.

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the invading pagans, he scatters all his enemies, fighting ‘so manlich’, that of the thirty thousand pagans, only twenty escape.²⁰ Or, in Richard Coer de Lyon,²¹ the hero king shows might and energy in battle when he assaults a Sicilian town, fighting ‘so manly’ that none of his men perish.²² This manly vigour, courage, and strength can sometimes be seen in just the appearance of a fighting man. Thus in William of Palerne, when the hero first rides out to fight the Spanish army, all in the city of Palermo are amazed ‘at so courageous a countenance’, and then, when he comes to the barons, knights, and nobles, they rejoice ‘that so manly a man would fight on their side’.²³ In the battle which follows, another warrior is distinguished by being manly, the young nephew of the king of Spain’s steward, ‘the manlokest man that men schold of heren [i.e. hear about]’.²⁴ Clearly, however, he is not the ‘manlokest’ man of all, for William soon kills him, sending his horse and that of the steward to his own lover. Although the language of manhood appears in a variety of battle situations, it is strongly associated with physical courage shown in adversity. When in Guy of Warwick, the hero fights the dragon of Northumberland, he shatters his lance on the creature’s hide, before it fells him from his horse.²⁵ His sword does no damage, and the dragon soon encircles him with its tail and breaks three of his ribs. Guy does not give in, however, but instead delivers himself ‘manliche’: & Gij with strengthe smot him tho: Atvo he him karf smartliche, ²⁰ Arthour, ll. 4839–4849. Cf. Richard, ll. 1908–12; Alisaunder, ll. 7400–1; William, ll. 3317–8, 3323–5. ²¹ Richard Coer de Lyon now survives in 7 MSS, spread between c.1330 and the late fifteenth century. See Orfeo, ix–x; Richard, 2–7; Guddat-Figge 1976: 82–3, 182, 205–6, 215, 215–17, 263–4. ²² Richard, ll. 1908–12. Cf. Alisaunder, ll. 7400–1. ²³ William, ll. 3317–8, 3323–5, quote at l. 3325: ‘tha so manli a man wold mele in here side’. ²⁴ William, l. 3419. Cf. the king of Nubie in C14 Guy, ll. 3505–8 (Caius MS). ²⁵ Guy of Warwick survives in two distinct Middle English traditions based on separate translations of an original Anglo-Norman romance. The first English version is found in the Auchinleck MS, and a second MS of c.1400. See Guddat-Figge 1976: 80. A number of fragments also survive. See Zupitza 1873: 623–4; Guddat-Figge 1976: 73, 144, 213; Fragments of an Early-Fourteenth Century Guy of Warwick, ed. M. Mills and D. Huws (Oxford, 1974). The manuscripts of the second tradition date from the fifteenth century or later. See C15 Guy, vii; Guddat-Figge 1976: 94. For Guy of Warwick’s popularity, see Crane 1915; Richmond 1975; Richmond 1996; Fewster 1987: 104–28.

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(‘And Guy smote him there with strength, cutting him in two, and delivered himself manliche.’)

Fighters act ‘manlich’ or ‘as a man’ in situations where death is a strong possibility, when shameful flight or surrender might begin to seem tempting options, but when they instead fight on with energy and courage. An appeal to ‘manship’ or ‘manly’ behaviour is often used in speeches designed to fire up the troops when this kind of energetic behaviour in adversity is called for. At one point in William of Palerne, the queen of Sicily implores her barons not to surrender to the approaching Spanish, but to maintain ‘youre manchip manlie a while’ until God should send them good tidings.²⁷ Similar sentiments are invoked in King Alisaunder, when Tholomeus rallies his troops telling them to ‘smite manlich’ on their enemies when the time comes,²⁸ and in Richard Coer de Lyon, when the king addresses his mariners before a battle, urging them on with a play on words, saying: Maryners, arme wele your shyppes, And holde vp your manshyppes, By the water-halfe ye than assayle And we by the londe saunce fayle. (‘Mariners, arm well your ships, and hold up your manships, then attack by water, and we will attack by land without fail.’)²⁹

Sometimes, part of the meaning of ‘manship’ seems to be the duty owed to a lord by his ‘men’. ‘Don manhood’ denotes ‘doing homage’ in a ²⁶ C14 Guy (Auchinleck), ll. 7256–7258. Cf. Beues, ll. 2819–22; Degare, ll. 357–60; Arthour, ll. 3997–4000. Three manuscripts of the earlier version of Bevis of Hamptoun survive, one from c.1330 (the Auchinleck MS), one from the late fourteenth century and another from 1457. See Beues, vii; Guddat-Figge 1976: 82, 182. A second version is found in two fifteenth century MSS. See ibid., 94, 238–9. Sir Degare is found in the Auchinleck MS, one late-fourteenth century and two fifteenth century MSS. See ibid., 182, 94, 267–8. ²⁷ William, ll. 2674–7. Cf. William, ll. 3329–42. ²⁸ Alisaunder, ll. 3563–4: ‘And whan hij cometh sodeynlich/Smyte we on hem manlich.’ Kyng Alisaunder survives in two relatively complete MSS versions, three fragments and several leaves from a black letter text dated to c.1525. See Alisaunder, ii. 1–8. The earliest evidence of the romance is a fragment of c.1330. ²⁹ Richard, ll. 1857–60. Richard Coer de Lyon now survives in seven MSS, spread between c.1330 and the late fifteenth century. See Orfeo, ix–x; Richard, 2–7; GuddatFigge 1976: 82–3, 182, 205–6, 215, 215–17, 263–4.

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number of texts from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.³⁰ On several occasions when ‘manly’ occurs in a fighting situation, it does so when the courage shown takes the form of collective assault under the leadership of a lord. Particularly when ‘manship’ rather than ‘manly’ is used, this seems to be associated, in part at least, with the ‘man’ of a service relationship. However, the invocation of this specific meaning does not exclude the more common associations of ‘manly’ action. In Richard Coer de Lyon, for example, when the warrior king rides into the Saracen ranks with his axe, ‘many an English knight followed him and they manly helped him to fight’.³¹ On one level, their activity is appropriate for liege men, but it is also appropriate for ‘manly’ activity in general. Quite apart from any links to the values of service to a lord, the association of the language of manhood with energy, strength, and physical courage in adversity were already ancient ones by the fourteenth century. Many of the associations of ‘manly’ are also those of the Latin ‘viriliter’. A medieval audience would have needed to go no further than certain popular passages in the Vulgate Bible to be furnished with straightforward examples of these. In the final chapters of Deuteronomy, and the first chapter of the Book of Joshua, the aged Moses is said to have told the Jews to ‘viriliter [agere]’ in making war on their enemies, knowing that they will be protected by God.³² The Books of Chronicles contain several similar calls of ‘viriliter age’ or ‘viriliter agite’, used to rouse the fighting spirits of the people of God.³³ The Books of Maccabees show a number of more general uses of ‘viriliter’, for example, when Maccabeus’ men ‘fought manly’ (‘pugnaverunt viriliter’) against invading forces, or when twenty of his young men respond to a blasphemy by attacking the fortress of Gazara ‘viriliter’, scaling it, ‘with fiercely burning spirit’.³⁴ The use of this language in the Vulgate would perhaps have been most familiar to medieval readers from its use in Psalms 26:20 and 30:31, which were translated into English on a number of occasions in the fourteenth century. These texts recall the ³⁰ MED, ‘manhood’ (3d). ³¹ Richard, ll. 5103–4: ‘Hym ffolweyd mony an Ynglyssche knyght,/They manly halp hym for to ffyght.’ ³² Deut. 31:6; Joshua 1:18. ³³ 1 Chronicles 19:13 ( Joab addresses troops before battle), 22:13 (David speaks to Solomon, citing Moses); 28:20 (David speaking to Solomon); 2 Chronicles 32:7 (Hezekiah addresses the people in preparation to defend Jerusalem against the Assyrians). ³⁴ 1 Macc. 6:31; 2 Macc. 10:35.

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Lord’s protection on former occasions, and pray for it again now, calling for the listener to ‘do manlike’.³⁵ That the associations of ‘manly’ activity were ancient, however, does not diminish their significance for understanding fourteenth-century commonplace assumptions. On the contrary, translation practice reveals much about the continuing significance in fourteenth-century England of certain of the symbolic associations grouped around ‘vir’. If ‘viriliter’ had been rendered as ‘boldly’ or ‘courageously’ then it would seem reasonable to deduce that the translator did not recognize the link between acting ‘viriliter’ and the qualities of a ‘vir’. Instead, fourteenthcentury translators of these passages chose to keep the symbolism of the vocabulary they rendered into English, giving ‘dos manlike’, ‘manly do’ or ‘do manneleche’ for ‘viriliter agite’.³⁶ These translations retained the association between ‘vir’ and ‘viriliter’ when they could equally well have substituted a phrase that kept the simple meaning whilst losing the symbolic link to ‘man’.³⁷ This tendency to retain the associations of ‘manly’ action with a ‘man’ is seen in a more marked fashion in Guy of Warwick, in which the language of manhood is even introduced where a translated source did not use it. When Guy fights the minions of Duke Otoun in an ambush ‘ . . . he defended himself as a man and all that he smote underwent misery.’³⁸ Yet the Anglo-Norman texts on which the Middle English is closely based give in the equivalent lines: ‘ . . . Guy defended himself like a lion . . . ’.³⁹ Much later, Guy is attacked by the men of one Earl Florentin for having killed his son, even though the hero is sitting unarmed and at dinner as the earl’s guest. Guy seizes an axe and defends himself: Thus Gij him wereth manliche, And hij him aseyle hetelich. ³⁵ The Earliest Complete English Prose Psalter, ed. K. D. Bülbring, EETS 97 (London, 1891), 29, 35 [c.1350]; Yorkshire Writers, ed. C. Horstman (repr. Cambridge, 1999), ii. 158, 162 [about 1400]. ³⁶ See also Genesis to Baruch 3.20 in the earlier version of the Wycliffite Bible, 5 vols., ed. C. Lindberg, Stockholm Studies in English 6 (1959); 8 (1961); 10 (1963); 13 (1965); 29 (1969) at vol. iv, p. 180 (Psalms 26:14), 182 (Psalms 30:25) [c.1384]. ³⁷ Cf. Genesis to Baruch, ed. Lindberg, vol. ii, 174 ( Joshua 1:18); vol. iii, 251 (I Para [Chronicles] 19:13), 262 (I Para 28:20), 254 (I Para 22:13), 303 (II Para 32:7); vol. v, 246 (I Macc. 6:31–2), 290 (II Macc 10:34–5). ³⁸ C14 Guy (Caius; lost in Auchinleck), ll. 2095–6: ‘And he him defended as a man/All that he smote woo theim beecam.’ ³⁹ Gui, ll. 2067–8: ‘Mais Gui cum leon se defent;/Qui qui’il fiert, mort l’abat sanglant.’

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The knightes he slough there, The best that in that court were. (‘Thus Guy fought manlich, and they assailed him fiercely. He slew the best knights that were at court.’)⁴⁰

The Anglo-Norman merely has ‘Guy defended himself in such a manner’ that he killed the most hardy knights of the court.⁴¹ Thus it seems that in these situations of energetic, fearless defence in a dangerous situation, the early fourteenth-century English translators of Guy of Warwick felt it appropriate to introduce the terminology of acting ‘as a man’ or ‘manliche’. Although ‘manly’ action was first and foremost associated with strength and courage in a fighting context, there was often more at stake in acting manly than the simple outcome of a particular combat. A failure to behave ‘manly’ brought with it a threat to honour and a danger of shame which could persist after the battle was over. The shame which would come with submission to the enemy is sometimes left implicit in ‘manly’ fighting in defence when honourable vigour is opposed to shameful inactivity or flight. Elsewhere it is explicitly invoked as the consequence of failure to behave ‘manly’. This can be seen in William of Palerne, for example, when the king of Spain calls on his knights to fight hard, declaring that it is more noble (mensk) to die ‘manliche’ than to flee ‘couwardli’,⁴² or in Guy of Warwick, when the hero rallies his men, declaring: ‘Better it is to dye manly/Than to flee with shame and vilanye.’⁴³ On such occasions, romance texts express the opposition between ‘manly’ action and shame, a state tied up with inferior social status and subjection as well as with cowardice. By choosing to fight or die like a man, rather than to live in a condition which is by implication not that of a man, those who act manly lay claim to a certain status which is not just that of an adult male. To fight manly is to be ‘free’ or noble, to be not-a-villein or not-a-coward. Manly deeds must be done when status is under threat, whether shame is prevented through steadfast fighting or undone through revenge. ⁴⁰ C14 Guy (Auchinleck; not in Caius), ll. 6907–10. ⁴¹ Gui, ll. 7009–7012: ‘En tele manere Gui se defent,/E cels l’assailent mult fierement,/Treis chevalers i ad ocis,/De la curt les plus hardiz.’ ⁴² William, ll. 3898–3901. ⁴³ C14 Guy (Caius), ll. 2119–20. Cf. Beues, ll. 211–14, from the text printed by Richard Pynson, ?1503, now in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce Fragment e.13 (STC, entry 1988).

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The opposition between ‘manly’ action and the shame associated with cowardice often led to its invocation in the context of tit-for-tat vengeance or in response to dishonouring defeat. Thus, when William of Palerne kills the king of Spain’s steward, the Spanish think ‘manly to avenge themselves to please their lord’.⁴⁴ Or, at the beginning of Richard Coer de Lyon, when an anonymous challenger at a tournament fells his first challenger, everyone is afraid to fight him until ‘a hardy knight, stout and savage’ undertakes to right this dishonour, taking his shaft ‘with great rage’, and declaring: Now he has on off oure felde! Wurthe we neuer for men telde Sith he hath don vs this despyte, Yiff he agayn passe quyte, That he ne haue ffyrste a knok! (‘Now he has felled one of us we would not be worthy to be held to be men, since he has done us this shame, if he passes away without first receiving a blow.’)⁴⁵

In such contexts, ensuring that one is still held to be a ‘man’ is the essential function and motive force of revenge. To be a man is to be worthy of respect accorded to a certain status and to brook no slight to this worthiness of respect. You should turn and fight ‘as you are a man’, defend yourself ‘as a man’, die manly rather than flee in shame. This status is thus hard won by acting ‘manly’ in the sense with which we began: strongly, fearlessly, courageously. The manhood of lords and kings, in particular, is subject to constant challenge in this way, since such men set themselves up as providers of an energetic, forceful, effective response for those who appeal to them. In Richard Coer de Lyon, for example, whilst Richard stays with his troops in Sicily, Englishmen are attacked by the Greeks and the French as they go trading. The French king denies Richard ‘ryght’, and news then arrives of the death of many knights over the past few days. The messenger, whose brother was also killed, urges Richard: Awreke vs, Syr, manly, Or we shall right hastely Flee peryll, i vnderstonde, And tourne ageyne to Englonde. ⁴⁴ William, ll. 3403–4: ‘And as blive boldli the burnes of Spayne/thought manli make wreche here lorlde to queme . . . ’. ⁴⁵ Richard, ll. 487–491. Cf. William, ll. 3403–4.

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(‘Avenge us, Sir, manly, or we will right hastily flee peril and turn again to England.’)⁴⁶

Or, in Lybeaus Desconus, when a maid who appeals to Arthur on behalf of her imperilled lady is unimpressed by the knight the king offers her, she threatens Arthur’s manhood in the sense of reputation, saying: Thys word schall sprynge wyde: Lord kyng, now ys thy prede And thy manhod y-schent, Whan thou schalt sende a chyld That ys wytles and wylde To dele thoghty dent . . . (‘This word will spread wide: Lord king, now is your pride and your manhood destroyed, when you send a child, who is witless and wild, to deal out mighty blows . . . ’)⁴⁷

On an individual level and on a level of lordship, manhood must be held up by providing a consistent, energetic response to a threat, when the threat carries with it the dual dangers of death or shameful defeat. It sometimes seems as if it is through this logic that ‘manhood’ or ‘manship’ comes to be the same thing as honour in the sense of renown, such as when Guy of Warwick considers whether to intervene in a dispute, and his foster-father Heraud advises that he should, since he would win renown (‘los and priis’) and ‘manschip to the & al thi kinne’.⁴⁸ This kind of manhood is such an insecure quality that it is produced more by its defence than by its steady accumulation. Vengeance is the consistent, energetic response to a potentially shaming threat which protects respect by displaying those qualities which are the foundation of the status of a fighting man.⁴⁹ Most of the examples so far examined of ‘manly’ strength and action, or of the defence of ‘manhood’ or ‘manship’, have concerned scenes of battle, where those who wish to confirm that they should be ‘held to be men’ are above all fighting men of noble or at least knightly status. ⁴⁶ Richard, ll. 1801–4. ⁴⁷ Lybeaus (Cotton), ll. 172–180. Lybeaus Desconus survives in five MSS, all dating from the mid-fifteenth century or later. See Lybeaus, 1–7; Guddat-Figge 1976: 169–72, 218–26, 249–52, 241–2. However, a reference to Lybeaus in Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas (Riverside Chaucer, ‘Canterbury Tales’, fragment VII, l. 900) suggests an earlier date of composition. ⁴⁸ C14 Guy (Auchinleck), ll. 1911–12. ⁴⁹ Compare the account of honour and vengeance given in Bourdieu 1972: 24–44.

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It might seem fair to imagine that radically different definitions of manhood would be found in contrasting texts and contexts, in sermons and moral treatises. However, when this is put to the test, a rather different result emerges. Although the stress on particular aspects of manhood can be quite different in such texts, even moral and religious writers do not generally offer an interpretation of manhood which actively contests those explored above. Instead, they tend to adapt the association of manhood with strength, constancy, and honour to their own ethical ends. Rather than setting up a rival interpretation in direct opposition to the values examined so far, these writers tend to accept most of the characteristics of manhood, even as they criticize some of their excesses. In a strategy whose roots go back at least to twelfth-century monasticism, preachers and moral writers frequently attempted to redirect the powerful affective force of the language of manhood to religious ends by the use of a military metaphor.⁵⁰ ‘Manly’ is often used by preachers in a defensive context familiar from romance, in an allegory in which the enemies are the embodiments of sin. In the Fasciculus Morum, for example, an early fourteenth-century mendicant preaching manual, sinners are told that by sinning they lose Christ and, in so doing, give themselves totally into the power of their enemies, just as when the leader of the king’s army falls with his banner, all are in danger of death.⁵¹ In a similar fashion, men who fight against the power of demons ‘have Christ as their leader as long as they withstand manly (viriliter) with the weapons of their virtues and their good life (virtutum et bone vite) and subject to these the demons whose banner is mortal sin.’⁵² The use of the arms of ‘virtutum et bone vite’ is made effective if they are wielded ‘viriliter’—boldly, courageously, manly, resisting the temptation to flee, which in this case is the temptation to sin. In preaching and hagiography, the code of manly rejection of shameful flight which animates Middle English romance was re-deployed to encourage spiritual patience in the face of the onslaught of the agents of mortal sin. Sometimes, the combat described seems to be primarily ⁵⁰ For this strategy in the twelfth century, see e.g. Murray 2004. ⁵¹ Fasciculus Morum., 32–3. ⁵² Ibid., 33–4: ‘Sic certe homines adversus demonum potestates bellantes Christum [principem] habent dum armis virtutum et bone vite viriliter resistunt se submittunt, quorum vexillum peccatum mortale est.’

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an internal one. For example, on one occasion when Thomas Brinton, bishop of Rochester (1373–89), makes use of the metaphor of manly combat in his sermons, it is the devil, the flesh, and the world which are to be resisted. Brinton asserts that we are revived and nourished by faith in three ways: ‘by overcoming manly (viriliter) three kingdoms, that is of the devil, of the flesh and of the world’.⁵³ It is types of sin, rather than physically incarnated demons, which are vanquished in this way. On other occasions, evil takes the form of strongly embodied supernatural presences which must be physically fought. Thus, in the fifteenth-century English translation of a thirteenth-century sermon manual, the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besanc¸on, a tale is told in which Saint Anthony is assailed in the desert by a multitude of fiends until he is nearly dead.⁵⁴ Healed by his brethren, the saint returns to the desert only to be attacked once again. Then suddenly a marvellous light appears, and he is again healed of all his wounds. Understanding that this is Almighty God, Saint Anthony appeals to Him, asking where He was earlier when He might have lent assistance against the first brood of demons. Jesus replies that He was there, but He held back to see the battle, and so now Anthony ‘has manlelie ouercommen thine enmys’. In just the same way as the knights of romance, Anthony’s manly action leads to the promotion of his reputation: his ‘name’ will be known throughout the world, and he will be ‘wurshuppid’. In these sermons, preachers tactically accepted the assumptions behind the language of manhood. They used it to describe fighting courageously in defence, and attached a strong positive value to such ‘manly’ activities. By appropriating this vision of manhood and deploying it in a metaphor for the fight against sin, or in the battles of saints with demons, sermon writers stressed the element of constancy in manly fighting for their own didactic purposes, and even went so far as to recommend the need to struggle against evil to obtain a kind of moral renown. They did not put forward an alternative system of ‘manhood’ or ‘manly’ action, in which acting ‘as a man’ is, for example, based on reason or virtue alone. Instead, in deploying these themes they implicitly subscribed to the value system of force, courage, honour, and standing one’s ground which animated Middle English romance as much as the Old Testament and apocrypha. ⁵³ Brinton, Sermons, 106: ‘Sed quomodo per fidem sumus recreati pariter et nutriti? Certe tripliciter. Tria regna videlicet diaboli, carnis, et mundi viriliter superando.’ Cf. ibid, 223. ⁵⁴ Alphabetum, 54–5. Cf. Fasciculus Morum, 178–81.

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The strong associations of the language of manhood with situations of chivalric combat might make one wonder whether the ‘man’ which was invoked by ‘manly’ strength and constancy, or the defence of ‘manhood’, was not simply an adult-male human, but an adult-male human of noble status. There is a need to be careful here since, as was suggested at the outset, it would be wrong to imagine that the fundamental reference of manhood can be straightforwardly defined by isolating that thing—a ‘man’—in which all its qualities are united. Although it would seem true to say that the archetypal performer of manly deeds was a courageous knight in a tight spot, this does not mean that only such an individual could behave manly or possess manhood. That a given individual could be held to be a ‘man’ was at least equally determined by whether he displayed the properties of manhood as by whether he could be said to correspond to some concrete referent which is always and unambiguously a man. A ‘man’ is strong, energetic, and courageous. He stands his ground, and lets no slight pass without an appropriate act of vengeance. Questions of social status, age, or even biological sex can, on occasion, be made to defer to these concepts of manhood. On the one hand, one can lay claim to all that is implied by manhood—adulthood, maleness, a certain social status—by displaying its characteristic qualities. On the other, one can be as mature in years, as biologically male, and as nobly born as one liked and still not be judged by these facts alone to be acting ‘manly’ or to possess unassailable ‘manhood’. It would thus be unwise to be too restrictive in seeking to define the social reference of the associations of manhood, and the social groups over whom they had an influence. There are, indeed, a number of reasons to believe that the values of manly strength and honour were not restricted to the lay nobility and gentry. Certain characteristics of the legal records of manslaughter trials, for example, suggest the wide diffusion of these ideas within late medieval society. Local juries were capable of doctoring their testimony in cases which the initial coroners’ reports reveal to have been killings in hot blood, legally defined as murder, so as to fit within the legal definition of self-defence.⁵⁵ They implicitly accepted that vengeance in the face of a threat or taunt was in a certain sense legitimate even for men who had no claim to knightly status. Sermon writers, too, identified the social spread of the values of manhood even as they criticized what they saw as a misapplication of ⁵⁵ Green 1972.

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manly values. In one fifteenth-century English homily in a Gloucester Cathedral manuscript, the preacher has cause to attack the practice whereby: he that is a ffracer, a braser, a grete bragger, a grete swerer or a grete fyghtter, soche men ben callyd ‘manly men’ . . . He that is a ryatour and a grete hawnter of tavernys or of ale howsys, and a grete waster of his goodes, then is he callyd ‘a good fellow’.⁵⁶

It is not difficult to imagine how this kind of behaviour could result from the application of sentiments such as ‘better it is to die manly than to flee in shame and villainy’ to a social level remote from the heroes of romance. Did the ‘grete bragger’ do anything but celebrate the renown which is his ‘manhood’? Did the ‘grete fightter’ do anything but refuse to back down when he is challenged? There is nothing in this that is unique to the knightly classes, even if rather different associations seem to be invoked at the same time, notably with swearing oaths, which we earlier saw picked out in the Book to a Mother as an undesirable characteristic of a socially defined ‘man’.⁵⁷ For present purposes, the potentially flexible social reference of the language of manliness is of relatively peripheral importance, given that the focus of this inquiry is on the role of manhood in the politics of Richard II’s reign, and not in manorial, urban, or even county gentry society. Since the king was of a social group which most characteristically performed manly actions, there is little need to argue about the importance of such values for his social milieu. If anybody could accumulate manhood by deeds in war, and legitimately avenge himself by taking action against those who threatened his honour, it was a king. That said, that the implicit ‘man’ of the language of manhood sometimes seems not only to be an adult male but also a noble, does go some way to explain the particular resonance of the assessment of a king’s deeds in terms of youth or manhood. For someone of that status, perhaps more than anyone else, the ideals encoded in the referents of ‘manly’ action were important for his everyday life and, as we shall see, for his attempts to achieve recognition of his political authority by pursuing the status of a man. With regard to the political controversies of a reign which opened when the king was only 10 years old, and in the light of Richard’s later ⁵⁶ Gloucester Cathedral Library MS, Fifteenth-century homilies, Sermo Dom. V post Trin. cited in Owst 1961: 45. ⁵⁷ See above, pp. 27–8.

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unmilitary reputation, it is particularly interesting to note the importance of martial deeds as a means for the knightly youths of Middle English romance to establish their manhood. In Guy of Warwick, Of Arthour and of Merlin, or Fouke le Fitz Waryn, for example, youth figures as a testing time in which the boy must make an effort to go out and prove himself a man.⁵⁸ In these works, the young knight responds to the taunts of his female relatives or his future lover by riding out to join his older male relatives in battle, winning renown as befits a mighty man in his youth. Perhaps the best examples of chivalric deeds as both a passage into manhood and a struggle to avert shame occur in the mid to late fourteenth century Lybeaus Desconus, which was satirized by Chaucer in the Tale of Sir Thopas. In Lybeaus, the story concerns simultaneously the hero’s coming out of childhood, his return to a lost social status, and the preservation of the ‘manhood’ (that is, honour and reputation) of King Arthur and his court. Lybeaus is a bastard son of Gawain who has been brought up in the forest by his mother to keep him away from chivalry. He finds his way to court nonetheless and has himself knighted. In the process he extracts a boon, and asks that he be granted the first fight to which someone challenges the king. This Arthur grants, though with the reservation that he thinks ‘thu arte to yonge/To do a gode ffyghtynge’.⁵⁹ At this point a maid arrives and, presented with young Lybeaus for a saviour, threatens Arthur with the loss of his manhood (reputation) for sending this ‘child’.⁶⁰ Thereafter, the risk of shame to the court seems to be greater than the possibility of honour. The hero is careful to send those whom he defeats to submit to Arthur after each encounter.⁶¹ Finally, when he reaches the town of Snowdon, the possibility of glory is less marked than the risk of shame, for he must first joust with the steward Sir Lambard with the penalty for defeat being to be pelted with the town sewage. When Lybeaus returns to court, Arthur and his knights do not so much sing in celebration as breathe a sigh of relief: They thanked God with al his myghtis, Arthur and all his knyghtis, That he hade no shame.⁶² ⁵⁸ See e.g. C14 Guy (Caius; Auchinleck is similar), ll. 1223–4, 1227–30, 1231–2; Arthour (Auchinleck), ll. 4613–22; Fouke, 12. ⁵⁹ Lybeaus (Lambeth), ll. 103–6 (cf. Cotton, ll. 94–6) ⁶⁰ Lybeaus, ll. 172–80. ⁶¹ Lybeaus (Lambeth), ll. 301–408, 550–61; Lybeaus (Cotton), ll. 361–88, 520–31. ⁶² Lybeaus (Lambeth), ll. 2175–7.

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The process of maintaining this kind of ‘manhood’, preserving Arthur’s renown, is tied up with the process by which Lybeaus comes of age. Lybeaus’ deeds put the lie to Arthur’s doubts about whether he was too young to fight even as they save the king’s own ‘manhood’. Thus, when Lybeaus comes across two giants holding hostage a maid, he declares: . . . Be Seint Jame! To saue this maiden from shame Hit were enpure enpri[c]e; But for-to fught with bothe in same, Hit is no childes game: They be so grym and gryse! (‘By Saint James, to save this maiden from shame, it would be a great deed; but to fight both at the same time is no child’s game, they are so grim and grisly!’)⁶³

By succeeding in what is ‘no child’s game’, freeing the maid and killing the giants, Lybeaus shows himself to be no child. He does so by joining the men in the constant, military exercise of averting shame and preserving ‘manhood’. Although the values encoded in the language of manhood should not be taken as an unproblematic guide to what it was that qualified one to consider oneself as a ‘man’ in late medieval society, it is clear that for many the status of an adult male was difficult to distinguish from his ‘manhood’ in the sense of his honour and renown, defended if necessary by violent action. Although the exploration of the precise role of the associations of manhood in the reign of Richard II will have to await the re-examination of the politics of this period which will be the work of the final two-thirds of this book, it might be useful at this point to offer some preliminary conclusions about how the picture of manhood which has emerged so far compares with the use of related themes by the king’s critics. So far, the present inquiry into the language of manliness has drawn away in a number of regards from the associations of youth and manhood invoked by Thomas Arundel and the rest. There is nothing in Arundel’s sermon of the associations between acting manly and standing one’s ground in battle. There is nothing of the link between manhood and honour defended by vengeance. John Gower made no mention of Richard’s attitudes to war in his attacks on the king, nor does the author of Richard the Redeless. Even when the monk of Evesham accuses Richard of being ‘luckless and timid in wars against his enemies, directing his ⁶³ Lybeaus (Lambeth), ll. 622–7. Cf. Lybeaus (Cotton), ll. 592–603.

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anger against his own people’ this is as part of a discussion in which the chronicler is most concerned with the inconstancy of the king’s morals and the way this leads him to burden the population. Where the values we have so far seen encoded in the language of manhood do coincide with the themes invoked by Richard’s enemies, it is in their common insistence on constancy, in the sense of steadfastness and reliability of response. Like contemporary preachers, Richard II’s critics concentrated on the mental and moral constancy which manly strength might bring. The fact that post-deposition attacks on Richard II placed relatively little stress on those aspects of manhood which linked it to physical strength and honour seems all the more striking when it is remembered how his court has traditionally been portrayed as a centre of active opposition to the pursuit of military renown for its own sake. We have already seen how Richard’s unmanly reputation has recently been re-interpreted as a clash between rival masculinities, in which the king is criticized as a dissenter from the martial view of manhood which has been discussed in the present chapter.⁶⁴ Yet when Richard’s critics attacked him in terms of his failure to achieve manhood, they appealed little to such values. Where these associations are invoked, they arise as a digression from other, more central issues focused on the sins of youth and their political consequences. The feeling that the criticism of Richard II in terms of warfare is a derivative elaboration of themes first selected for other reasons is intensified by recent discoveries about one of the most famous texts which makes this accusation against the king.⁶⁵ This theme is most fully developed by a continuator of the Eulogium chronicle, who alludes to Thomas Arundel’s sermon before reporting the coronation of Henry IV, and then passing on to a denunciation of Richard II’s rule.⁶⁶ Richard, the chronicler alleges, took care to exceed all his predecessors in riches, and to attain the glory of Solomon, and was feared by his subjects after his eleventh year (that is, in 1387–8), although he lacked offspring.⁶⁷ In the initial version of this chronicle, the passage stopped there. In a later version, however, the condemnation of the deposed king is expanded further, adding that the king also lacked ‘warlike spirit’, before further expanding on the king’s glory, his jewels, clothes and regal array, and ⁶⁴ Rubey 1998. ⁶⁵ See Stow 2004: 675. ⁶⁶ Eulogium, 384. ⁶⁷ Ibid.: ‘Rex Ricardus in divitiis omnes praedecessores suos studuit excedere, et ad Salomnis gloriam pervenire; coepitque plus illis infra regnum post annum ejus xj m formidari quamvis prole careret.’

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the splendour of his table and the palaces he built.⁶⁸ Thus the brief reference to lack of warlike spirit is a subsidiary development in a discussion of the king the central theme of which remains his worldly glory before his fall, and the untrustworthiness of fortune. Considering Richard’s later reputation for unwarlike effeminacy, it seems strange that when his opponents came to allege his lack of manhood, they did not begin by stressing his unmanly behaviour in war. This seems stranger still when the possible capital to be made out of the crusading exploits of his supplanter is considered.⁶⁹ Instead Richard’s critics focused on inconstancy, his excessive expenditure, and his susceptibility to traditional vices: pride, cupidity, and the flesh. If the relatively low priority given by Richard’s critics to timidity in warfare seems surprising, it at first seems less worthy of note that these same clerical or clerkly writers failed to attack him for an inadequate attention to the manly pursuit of vengeance. Writers such as John Gower or the monk of Evesham were perhaps more likely to recommend a metaphorical battle against the carnal impulse to ire than to condemn those who failed to avenge themselves ‘manly’. Nonetheless, at the risk of anticipating what will be said below, it is worth observing that Richard’s actions in the final decade of his reign could well be seen as closely corresponding to the values of manly vengeance and the aversion of shame in a way which draws into question the insistence of his enemies on his lack of constancy. The king bided his time for nearly ten years before moving against those who had opposed him in the political crisis which erupted in his late teens. Historians have in the past found difficulty in understanding this long-held grudge, preferring to ascribe his behaviour to mental instability, extreme ideas of kingship, or to a new conspiracy against the king arising from disagreements over foreign policy.⁷⁰ Yet, in acting in this way, Richard behaved in accordance with a set of values which were implicit in the late medieval language of manhood. This correspondence between the king’s actions and certain ⁶⁸ Ibid.: ‘ . . . et animo bellicoso. In thesauris et jocalibus, in vestibus et ornamentis regalibus, in quibus vehementer excessit, in splendore mensae, in palatiis quae aedificavit, nullus inregibus eo gloriosior diebus suis.’ ⁶⁹ Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land made by Henry, Earl of Derby, ed. L. Toulmin-Smith, Camden ns 52 (London, 1894); Du Boulay 1971. ⁷⁰ For madness see Stubbs 1883: ii. 490; Steel 1941: 41–2, 203–4. For a personality disorder, see Saul 1997a: 459–64; McHardy 2000: 19. For the influence of extreme ideas of kingship, see Jones 1968; Taylor 1971; Saul 1995; Saul 1997a; Saul 1999a. For disagreements over war, see Tuck 1973: ch. 6; Goodman 1971: ch. 4; Saul 1999a: 370–3; Bennett 1999b.

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contemporary ideals of manhood does not, by modern standards, make him an any more attractive character, but it perhaps makes him more understandable. It is indeed curious that Richard’s critics did not attack him as certain moralists attacked contemporary manly mores, arguing that he showed an excess of manly vigour, or an erroneous belief in what were in fact widely accepted associations between manhood and personal honour. It certainly makes it seem all the more worthwhile to consider carefully how much the picture of Richard’s arbitrary, wilful, inconstant personality might owe to attempts by his opponents to sideline actions which, in fact, accord well with the disturbing, constant, steadfast pursuit of manly revenge. In later chapters we shall return to the question of Richard II’s attitude to military activity and to the imperatives of honour and vengeance. For the moment, however, it is useful to note that the neglect by Richard’s critics of this warlike strand of the language of manhood already gives reason to treat with caution the initially tempting hypothesis that his reign can be seen as a clash between opposed ideals of masculinity. In alleging that Richard was a boy not a man, his opponents made use of an interpretation of manhood similar to that manipulated by those preachers who sought to retain the element of constancy and steadfastness found in manly behaviour whilst rejecting the association with personal honour and vengeance. Was it then Archbishop Arundel, John Gower, and the rest who were dissenters from certain of the values associated with manhood, particularly those which seem to be echoed in Richard II’s own vengeful actions or imprudent military projects? Judgement on these issues will have to wait for a detailed examination of the politics of the reign. Before proceeding to that analysis, it remains to complete our inquiry into the language and theory of manhood. In the next chapter, the focus moves on to a second strand of the language of manhood which associated the qualities of a ‘man’ with decorum, largesse, and the notion of ‘humanitas’. It will be seen that here too Richard’s critics assumed a position on the ideal qualities of manhood which was far from uncontroversial.

3 The Language of Manhood II: ‘Humanitas’, Decorum, and Largesse When moralists redeployed the association of ‘manly’ action with strength and constancy in order to recommend resistance against sin, they sought to impose one interpretation on the various constellations of ideas which formed around manhood, ideas which might be interpreted in quite different ways by those with different agenda. Contestation over the correct interpretation of manhood also arose as part of a more active clash, or confusion, between two further overlapping conceptions of the ideal qualities of a ‘man’: the humane impulsions of Christian and classical ‘humanitas’, and the honour-seeking liberality appropriate to the status of a noble householder. This clash is particularly important for our present purposes, given the role played by courtly magnificence in Richard’s subsequent unmanly reputation. Once again, a study of the broader associations of manhood gives reason to believe that the king and his court behaved rather more in accordance with commonplace assumptions about the appropriate behaviour of a man of his class than his critics were prepared to admit. In Book I of his Confessio Amantis, which deals with the sin of pride, John Gower includes a short discussion of ‘manhiede’, the nature of being a man, as opposed to an animal. His remarks follow on from the tale of Nebuchadnezzar who, for his pride, was transformed into an ox. Nebuchadnezzar was forgiven by God only when he promised to spend the rest of his life without vainglory. For Gower, this is the occasion to underline how ‘manhiede’ leads us to flee the behaviour characteristic of a beast, and instead to show proper decorum and humility. Gower’s Confessor counsels Amans the lover to learn to so ‘lede thi manhiede’ that he will not act like a beast, but to take on ‘humblesce’. If this is done then his life will be ‘honeste’ and he

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will stand more surely.¹ This form of ‘manhiede’ seems to correspond to the virtue of ‘humanitas’ which, according to John of Salisbury (d.1180), philosophers defined as ‘the virtue which consists in the sense of compassion which man, before all gifts, and before all other animals, has received as a dowry from his parents, grace, to wit, and nature’.² Alexander of Hales (d.1245), citing Seneca, asserted that ‘humanitas’ was ‘the virtue innate in human nature’, in particular the best aspects of that nature.³ For the author of the thirteenth-century Tractatus de Grammatica, this was the property of being a man (homo) in the same way that ‘Socritas’ was the property of being Socrates.⁴ This kind of ‘manhood’ is that behaviour which distinguishes men from beasts and drives them to charitable action. It corresponds with Cicero’s use of ‘humanitas’ to invoke the common feelings of mankind, and to the more generalized classical usage to denote gentle, humane conduct to others, opposed to ‘severitas’.⁵ When ‘manhood’ in this sense was transferred from the realm of moral philosophy, however, it picked up associations which went beyond the virtues of charity and compassion. This can be seen, once again, in Middle English romance. In the early fifteenth-century romance Sir Degrevant, ‘manhood’ is used to denote a form of noble liberality which is also charity.⁶ It both shows the hero’s Christian virtue, and publicly demonstrates his status. In the initial description of Degrevant, we are told that: He louede well almosdede Powr men to cloth and fede ¹ Gower, CA, ll. 3043–8. ² The Letters of John of Salisbury, ed. W. J. Millor, S. J. and H. E. Butler (Oxford, 1955), vol. i, no. 267: ‘Philosophi . . . diffiniunt humanitatem esse virtutem que consistit in miseracionis affectu quam pre ceteris virtutibus et pre ceteris animalibus homo a parentibus gracia videlicet et natura, dotem accepit.’ For this and the examples cited below, nn. 3–4, see MLD, s.v. ‘humanitas’. ³ Alexander of Hales, Quaestiones disputatae ‘antequam esset frater’, Bibliotheca Franciscana scholastica medii aevi XIX–XXI (Florence, 1960), 661. ⁴ Pseudo-Grosseteste, Tractatus de Grammatica, ed. K. Reichel, Veröffentlichungen des Grabmann-Instituts XXVIII (Munich, 1976), 39. ⁵ Lewis and Short 1879: s.v. ‘humanitas’. Cf. Old French ‘umanité’, see Hindley, Langley and Levy 2000: s.v. ‘umanité’. ⁶ Sir Degrevant survives in two MSS—one, the ‘Thornton MS’ (Lincoln Cathedral A.5.2), dated to c.1430, and the other, the ‘Findern MS’ (Cambridge University Library MS Ff.i.6), a miscellany in various hands of the mid-fifteenth century. It has been tentatively dated on linguistic grounds to the fourteenth century or early fifteenth century (Degrevant, ix–xv, lxxii).

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Wyth menske and manhede; Off met he was fre; (‘he loved well alms deeds, to clothe and feed poor men, with nobility and manhood; and he was free with his food.’)⁷

Although it is alms that is under discussion in this passage, the social status of the giver is also invoked. ‘Manhood’ is twinned with ‘menske’ (honour/nobility), and being ‘fre’ with his ‘mete’ denotes behaviour which is open-handed but also non-servile.⁸ This kind of generosity protects the giver’s status in a fashion comparable to fighting ‘manly’ to protect or accumulate ‘manhood’ in the sense of honour or renown. Although it is true that ‘manhood’ of this kind can be done by men, and even by women, of any estate, the way in which the appropriate level of generosity is set by the social status of both the giver and the receiver tends to draw it towards the associations of nobility. Since nobles can dispense and ought to receive more manhood than those of lesser status, they come to be, in a sense, more manly. On a number of occasions in romance, the language of manhood is used to denote ceremonial honour and liberal hospitality which is proportional to the status of the giver and receiver. Thus, during the wanderings which follow an ambush by his enemy, Duke Otoun, Guy of Warwick is received with honour by Duke Reyner, who: . . . loued him and had full deer; And fange him full worshipfully, And did him honur full manly. [var: ‘& ded him miche manschipe.’] (‘loved him and held him full dear, and received him worshipfully, and did him honour full manly’)⁹

At a later point in the same romance, when Duke Loyer instructs Otoun as to the treatment of Guy’s boon-companion Tirri, now a captive, he tells him: Ac yif Tirri schal with the go, In fre prisoun schalt him do. Thou do him kepe worthschipliche ⁷ Degrevant, ll. 81–4. Cf. William, ll. 194–7. ⁸ MED, ‘menske’, 1; ‘fre’, 1a, 2a (noble, of free condition); 2b (generous, openhanded). ⁹ Guy (Caius), ll. 1685–8; Guy (Auchinleck), ll. 1685–8. Cf. William, ll. 3205–9.

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(‘You shall take Tirri with you, and put him in ‘‘free’’ prison. You should keep him worshipfully, with great plenty manshiplich . . . ’)¹⁰

In this instance the treatment required duly acknowledges Tirri’s ‘free’ status, and hence will be both ceremonially appropriate and generous, but it will also be ‘right’ in the sense of doing what ought to be done and avoiding shameful misdeeds. Thus although the ‘manly’ action of liberality and hospitality in some ways relates to the ‘humane’ actions of almsgiving, in other ways it recalls the avoidance of shame in military and chivalric settings. To act manly in a social as opposed to a military context is to do everything in accordance with honour, doing as ought to be done, affirming one’s own status by duly recognizing that of others. Tirri’s later close confinement thus constitutes a shame which Guy duly avenges by slaying Otoun. The involvement of ‘manhood’ with honour, as much as the influence of Christian humanitas, permits the association between the attention to decorum and right ceremonial action, hospitality and liberality, all of which are involved in acting ‘manly’. Although ‘humanitas’ as charity is invoked in this kind of ceremonial hospitality, ‘manly’ also denotes attention to proper decorum and the generous giving of gifts which serves a function as a marker of status.¹¹ It invokes the behaviour appropriate to the reception of one individual of noble status by another. This use is, indeed, almost identical to the use of ‘humanitas’ in two diplomatic letters sent by Richard II to German or Dutch-speaking princes around 1394. On one occasion, Richard thanked an unidentified German prince for the ‘humanitas’ which he had shown Henry Bolingbroke, at that time earl of Derby, during his journey to crusade in Prussia.¹² On another, he apologized to William, duke of Guelders, that following the death of Queen Anne he did not feel that he could receive him with as much ‘humanitas’ as he would have liked.¹³ On one level this is compassion, the basic hospitality to be shown to fellow human beings, but it is also more ¹⁰ Guy (Auchinleck), ll. 5880–3. ¹¹ Cf. fourteenth century Anglo-French and late medieval French use of ‘humanité’ to denote hospitality. AND, s.v. ‘humanité’; Godefroy 1880–1902: s.v. ‘humanité’. ¹² Perroy, DC, no. 199 [c. January 1394]: ‘ . . . eciam nostri honoris intuitu maximam humanitatem honoris ostendere curavistis, pro quo nedum vestre nobilitatis gratitudini plene referimus intima graciarum . . . ’ ¹³ Perroy, DC, no. 204 [after June 1394]: ‘ . . . pensantes quod ita recenter post obitum eius non possemus amicicie vestre tantam humanitatem ostendere quantum cupimus . . . ’

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than that: the fitting reception to be dispensed between individuals of a particular status. Like fighting manly, there is a social marker attached to this kind of ‘manhood’ that goes beyond humanity or adult-maleness to indicate correct ceremonial action appropriate to men of a noble status. Thus in one passage of the devotional manual Handlyng Synne (1303), young men are advised to avoid idleness in their youth, and to learn a craft. Those who do not need to learn a craft, because they have an inheritance to support them, should instead learn ‘manhede and curteyse’.¹⁴ Such men should desire ‘manhede’ in order ‘to govern himself and his following’.¹⁵ ‘Manhede and curtyese’ denote both a knowledge of correct action amongst those of a certain status and its practice in the expenditure, gift-giving, and hospitality, appropriate for a head of household, and especially one of the knightly class. An association with chivalric status could be invoked when ‘manhood’ was used to connote due attention to decorum and honourable action even when hospitality or generosity were not at issue. This sense seems to fit best in the use of ‘manhood’ found, for example, in the translation by John Trevisa (d.1402) of the Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum. In the relevant passage, the clerk, Clericus, marvels that the knight, Miles, should say that kings ought to correct bishops in temporal governance. Miles replies that he speaks in this way because he has been roused as if from sleep, or in the original Latin, like a dog from sleep. Clericus rebuffs him, saying ‘Lete the hound wake & berke’, but Miles lashes back: For ye kunne nought vse manhed suffraunce & pacience of princes, y trowe Ye shal fele berkyng & bityng.¹⁶ (‘Since you do not know how to exercise the manhood, sufferance and patience of princes, I swear you shall feel barking and biting.’)

Given that Clericus is in the process of being rude, it seems appropriate that clerics in general should be upbraided for lacking ‘manhed’ in the ¹⁴ Robert of Brunne’s ‘Handlyng Synne’, ed. F. J. Furnivall (London, 1901), ll. 5055–6: ‘Certes yyt behuoeth hym lere/Manhede and curteyse yn fere.’ This passage is not present in Robert’s French source. ¹⁵ Ibid., ll. 5057–8: ‘A man hys manhede shal yerne/hymself and hys meyne to gouerne.’ ¹⁶ Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum, sermon by FitzRalph and the Bygynnyng of the World, trans. John Trevisa, ed. A. J. Percy EETS os 167 (London, 1925), 19.

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sense of due decorum. The retort is all the more fitting in that Miles has just been compared by his opponent to a dog, incapable of appropriate speech. ‘Manhood’ is supposed to be a property that distinguishes human beings from animals, but at the same time it is clear that certain human beings possess it more readily than others—in particular adult males of the knightly class. For Aristotle and the writers of ‘mirrors for princes’, appropriate generosity was the golden mean between profligacy and niggardliness, and its measure was the means at one’s disposal.¹⁷ This is not quite the same as ‘manhood’ in the sense in which it overlaps with ‘humanitas’. The measure of ‘manhood’ is not the means available but the status of the giver. At first this might seem to be splitting hairs: were not riches and status the same thing? In some societies this may be so, but in late medieval England it most certainly was not. In an ideal late medieval world, riches ought to follow status, but this was often not the case. A high status individual with limited means was an impoverished high status individual, not an individual of lower status. A noble with an age-old title to an earldom, for example, such as Robert de Vere,¹⁸ or raised to that title by royal blood, such as Thomas of Woodstock, could expect or require lands or rents to support his ‘estate’.¹⁹ But if he did not have revenues to that value he did not cease to be an earl. A king living in hard-pressed times was still obliged to show royal largesse and to maintain his estate. If a man’s status outstripped his means, he could well find himself in a situation where he spent more than he had in order to show the ‘manhood’ which befitted his rank. Moralists did not like to admit that expenditure in accordance with status might outstrip an individual’s means. In his devotional tract The Two Ways, composed towards the end of the 1380s, Sir John Clanvowe condemned those who for their ‘worsshipe’ in the world wasted their resources, giving to those who already had enough.²⁰ In a similar vein, one sermon in a manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral damns the desire of great lords to spend more than they need to. The expenses of these men ¹⁷ Aristotle, Ethics, 1120a 1–1123b 8; LGR, I.ii.17–20; Secreta Secretorum: Nine English Versions, ed. M. A. Manzaloui, EETS 276 (Oxford, 1977), 21, 32–5; Watts 1996: 25. ¹⁸ GEC, x. 193–227. ¹⁹ Goodman 1971: ch. 5. ²⁰ ‘The Two Ways’ in The Works of Sir John Clanvowe, ed. V. J. Scattergood (Cambridge, 1975), ll. 485–91.

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exceed measure, for they want to spend more than they have, and so they run into debt: And the speciall cawse is for to mayntayne theyre pride. For he wolde be callid manly and worchypfull; and also in holdynge of grete festes, feding riche men.²¹

The preacher went on to rail against the excess which went beyond reason and ‘measure’.²² Yet, even as moralists complained about unreasonable excess, they admitted its motivation: the maintenance of ‘worship’, of being held to be ‘manly’, of the honour and status of the man in question. How could a nobleman whose status outstripped his means ever hope to avoid the sin of ‘excess’? The attractions of manly expenditure were found to be particularly troublesome when, like the manly values of physical courage and honour, behaviour patterns associated with manhood appeared in social strata lower than the nobility. In the prologue to Thomas Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes (1411), the old man—no aristocrat he—admonishes the youthful narrator not to stray into the errors which he himself committed in his own youth.²³ The old man’s companions of that time now shun him, saying that they always knew that his ‘fool largesse’ would destroy him: And yit they lyen, also god me blisse; They me comforted ay in myn excesse, And seyde I was a manly man with-alle: Hire hony wordys tornen me to galle.²⁴

As with the great lords rebuked by sermonizers, this kind of manly action only becomes bad if it is pursued without measure. Yet, as Hoccleve was aware, there was more than a hint of hindsight in this conception of excess. It was only when too much had already been spent that ‘manly’ liberality could be re-assessed as ‘fool largesse’. It is difficult to see how either the easy, unselfconscious assertion of status which is part of ‘manhood’—or even the unselfish concern for the plight of other men which is central to classical and Christian ‘humanitas’—could be ²¹ Lincoln Cathedral Library MS A.6.2, f. 21b, cited in Owst 1961: 310–11. Cf. Brinton, Sermons, 221–2. ²² Ibid. ²³ For this dating see Pearsall 1994: 386–8. ²⁴ Regement, ll. 718–21.

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squared with careful attention as to how the books would be balanced at the end of the month. Even as writers with a moral agenda sought to equate the level of one’s resources with the correct level of gift-giving and conspicuous expenditure, the link with status and honour was still invoked, if only to condemn this association. When, in the B-Text of Piers Plowman (c.1379), Repentance quizzes Coveitise to discover if he has ever redeemed his sinful behaviour, he asks finally: ‘Artow manlich among thi neghebores of thi mete and drynke?’²⁵ The reply reaffirms the link between liberality, nobility, and humanity, all of which Coveitise admits that he lacks when he states that he is held . . . as hende [i.e. noble] as a hounde is in kichene; Amonges my neghebores namely swich a name ich have.²⁶

Although Coveitise is not a nobleman, but a miserly merchant, talk of charitable giving still invokes the language of nobility (‘hende’) and reputation (‘name’). This is so even though, symbolically, the opposite of being ‘manlich’ is not an inferior social status but an animal, a dog in the kitchen, scrabbling for scraps. The suggestion that this kind of ‘manlich’ action is above all characteristic of a noble head of household is reaffirmed even when Dame Study quotes from the Book of Tobit in order to argue that appropriate alms are proportional to the giver’s means. In this passage Tobit advises his son to match almsgiving to his means, saying ‘If you have much, give abundantly; if however you have little, take care to share [a little] freely.’²⁷ Dame Study renders this as: Whoso hath muche, spende manliche—so meneth Tobye— And whoso litel weldeth, loke hym therafter For we have no lettre of oure lif, how long it shal dure.²⁸

At first this seems a simple, universal human value, but then Study continues: Swiche lessons lordes sholde lovye to here, And how he myght moost meynee manliche fynde.²⁹ ²⁵ PP B-Text, passus V, l. 256. ²⁶ Ibid., ll. 257–8. ²⁷ Tobias 4:8–9: ‘Si tibi sit copia, habundanter tribue; si autem exiguum, impertiri libenter stude.’ ²⁸ PP B-Text, passus X, ll. 89–91. ²⁹ Ibid., ll. 92–3, glossed in Schmidt’s edition as ‘And how he might hospitably provide (employment) for the largest (possible) number of household retainers.’

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Thus excessive expenditure is characteristic of a noble householder who has built up or is building up a following. Dame Study condemns this as a misconception of what true ‘humanitas’ should be—that is: proportional to one’s means—but at the same time admits the possibility of a different perspective, even as she condemns it: that manly generosity is necessary to maintain a following, whatever one’s resources. For Dame Study, manly largesse which aimed to create or defend status and to build up a following should not be conflated with Christian charity. But other voices could suggest a different view. Lady Mede, in the A-version of Piers Plowman, is as candid about this link as one might expect the embodiment of the influence of material reward to be. She replies to the attacks of the king’s Conscience, noting how she has helped him in the past, doling out gold where he directed, and expressing wonder that he should say ill of her now: Yet I may, as I mighte, [menske] the with geftis, And maynteyne thi manhod more than thou knowst; And thou hast famid me foule before the king here. (‘Yet I may, as I might, honour you with gifts, and maintain your manhood more than you know; but you have defamed me here before the king.’)³⁰

This kind of ‘manhood’ is the most appropriate behaviour for a young nobleman building up his following in the world. Although the charity that ‘humanitas’ demanded might indeed be served, these activities gave cause for Conscience to rebuke his kingly master. It would be wrong to think that moralists and ‘mirrors for princes’ had solved the problem of the due measure of manly expenditure by the simple expedient of locating it in one’s means. The disquiet revealed by the dispute between Conscience and Mede is easier to detect in the mid to late fourteenth century than the confident invocation of ‘measure’. Poets weighed the impulse to liberality against the desire to save up riches on earth and concluded not with the Aristotelian mean but with the futility of all earthly concerns. The Parlement of the Thre Ages, for example, an alliterative poem of the late fourteenth century returns an ambivalent verdict after exploring the association of this kind of ‘manhood’ with youth.³¹ This poem takes the form ³⁰ PP A-Text, passus III, ll. 171–3 [probably late 1360s].

³¹ PTA, xxxvi.

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of a debate between Youth, Middle Age and Age about the respective merit of their characteristic life-styles. Youth is the embodiment of the fashionably dressed young man who attracted the wrath of moralists and the more gentle mockery of Chaucer in his portrayal of the Squire.³² Hearing Youth swear all his wealth and his worship to his lady, solemnly pledging himself not to wear a hat until he has jousted and done deeds ‘doghety in armes’ for her love, Middle Age exclaims against the ‘fantome and foly’ which motivates Youth. He lectures him, asking where are the lands and company over which he is lord?³³ For all his royal array, all his pomp and pride, Youth has no rents and no cash, because all his money goes into his clothes and his horse’s accoutrements.³⁴ Youth, says Middle Age, should buy bullocks with his gold bridle, rather than wasting his money in such display.³⁵ This line echoes the complaint of the poet of Richard the Redeless against the youthful courtier who dresses himself in credit ‘the courte for to plese’, and hung from his hips ‘more than he wynneth’ in order to please dukes.³⁶ Yet, coming from Middle Age, these arguments are undermined. Instead, the Parlement finds worldly parsimony at the heart of ‘measure’. The only reason for Middle Age’s scandalized reaction to Youth’s attitude is his concern for his purse.³⁷ Youth remains unconvinced, and instead gives an extended account of the joys of battle, of falconry, of the love of ladies at court, of romance literature, and of revelry in general.³⁸ Middle Age’s cultivation of his estates is futile, and his money will be spent after his death by those he least loves.³⁹ Although the intervention of Age overrules both in the end, this is not by advocating measure, but by preaching the vanity of worldly preoccupations.⁴⁰ In the light of the vocal complaints of moralists against the excesses of their contemporaries, one wonders how many heeded these warnings. Even Bishop Thomas Brinton, in his laudatory posthumous account of the Black Prince’s morals, praised the latter who was ‘so liberal with his labourers and servants that he made himself poor’.⁴¹ According to ³² PTA, ll. 122–5. Mann 1973: 116–19; Tristram 1976: 27–9. See also below, Ch. 4, pp. 66–7, 69–71. ³³ PTA, l. 185. ³⁴ PTA, ll. 186–8. ³⁵ PTA, ll. 189–93. ³⁶ RR, III. 132, 147–8. ³⁷ PTA, ll. 136–7, 149. ³⁸ PTA, ll. 195, 197–203, 208–40, 246–9, 250–2, 253–6. ³⁹ PTA, ll. 257–60. ⁴⁰ PTA, ll. 265–650. ⁴¹ Brinton, Sermons, 355: ‘... fuit adeo liberalis quod eos ditauit et se ipsum fecit pauperem respectiue’.

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the chronicler Adam of Usk, a petition in Henry IV’s first parliament that ‘he would not grant anything to any person undeservedly’ was met with a swift rebuke from the bishop of St Asaph, who argued that this petition was rude and unjust, ‘because it encourages the king to be niggardly, which is contrary to all regality, which is better served by a generous degree of largesse (largitatis affluencia)’.⁴² If the motive force behind ‘manly’ gift-giving, ‘manly’ hospitality and even ‘manly’ decorum was the need to behave in accordance with one’s own status and that of the one who received gifts, what place could there be for ‘measure’ in all this? At what point, for example, could a king legitimately abstain from ceremonial activity and hospitality on the grounds that he did not want to spend more than he had? What effect would that have on his status? Would it not impugn his honour, his ‘manhood’, if he were to risk being held as noble ‘as a hound in the kitchen’? These issues remained fundamentally unresolved in the last decades of the fourteenth century. All parties agreed that the ‘manhood’ of largesse and magnificent expenditure was a necessary virtue for an established, adult householder, even more for a young noble attempting to establish himself, and still more for a king. For Giles of Rome, the virtue of magnificence was particularly appropriate for a king, and writers of ‘mirrors for princes’ never failed to stress that ‘fraunchise’ was a mean between parsimony and ‘foole largesse’.⁴³ This theme was revived in Richard II’s reign by Roger Dymmok as part of his attack on the Lollard Conclusions of 1395.⁴⁴ Even for those Aristotelian writers for whom the means at one’s disposal were the measure of due largesse, a noble ought to give more than his social inferiors since he ought to have more to give.⁴⁵ Thus, even for these writers, generosity and magnificence were finally proportional to status, since wealth ought to be proportional to status also. Yet, this did not solve the problem of what to do if the means available were insufficient to meet the expenses required by one’s estate. The distinction between magnificence in accordance with means and magnificence in accordance with status remained invisible until the resources at a man’s disposal ceased to correspond with his estate. Then the trouble ⁴² Usk, 82. ⁴³ LGR, I.ii.17–20 and works cited above, n. 17. ⁴⁴ Eberle 1985: 173–5; Rogeri Dymmok liber contra XII errores et hereses Lollardorum, ed. H. S. Cronin (London, 1922), 292–5. ⁴⁵ Keen 1984: 151.

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would begin as the dictates of Aristotelian ethics clashed with the requirements of honour. As we shall see, the unacknowledged clash between these two groups of commonplace ideas was of central importance in the politics of the late fourteenth century. The potential for contradiction between them was intensified in the case of a king, for how much one ‘had’ was a political quantity, not a simple given. Post-deposition accounts of Richard II’s reign thus tried to avoid the difficulties created by the tension between the requirements of the king’s estate and the desire to contain royal expenditure in a fashion not dissimilar to The Parlement of the Thre Ages. Rather than addressing directly the issue of the legitimacy or otherwise of the king’s household establishment, they instead place his magnificence in a moral schema centred on the king’s pride and obsession with worldly concerns.⁴⁶ In these accounts, Richard’s youth, or youthful counsel, is brought to the fore in order to present a straightforward story of how the king was brought low. By shifting the agenda to the vanity of the things of the world, they moved attention away from the rectitude or otherwise of the king’s claims to manly status and onto reassuring moral truths. Perhaps the most famous of these narratives of Richard II’s pride before his fall occurs in the same, late continuation of the Eulogium chronicle which added a lack of bellicose spirit to reflections on the glory of the king in his day, the splendour of his building projects, his table and his regal array.⁴⁷ The chronicler purports to describe a ceremonial throne-sitting which took place after the investiture of the treasurer, Roger Walden, as archbishop of Canterbury. This anecdote is far from being an objective account of everyday practice at court in the late 1390s. Walden’s appointment was a result of the exile of the sitting archbishop, Thomas Arundel, in November 1397.⁴⁸ In the Eulogium continuator’s account, it forms part of a narrative of the tyrannical acts which presaged Richard’s downfall. Thomas Arundel’s dismissal was an integral part of the accusations lodged against the king on his deposition.⁴⁹ According to the Eulogium writer, after Walden’s admission had been celebrated, ⁴⁶ For the continuation of this tradition in the fifteenth century, see Walker 2000. ⁴⁷ Eulogium, 378. Used as evidence for normal practice at Richard’s court in Saul 1995: 854; Saul 1997a: 339; Stow 1989: 158; Taylor 1999: 21. For a recent critique, see Stow 2004: 675. ⁴⁸ Eulogium, 378; HBC, 211. ⁴⁹ RP, iii. 421–2, item 50; Chronicles, 183–4.

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the king sat silently enthroned in his chamber after vespers, and all whom he gazed upon were obliged to prostrate themselves before him.⁵⁰ This instance of tyrannical behaviour is placed just after the expulsion of Archbishop Arundel from England, and precedes an account of the events leading to Richard’s deposition.⁵¹ It serves a clear narrative function, illustrating the king’s pride and vanity before his fall. It is important to note that even where post-deposition writers condemned what they portrayed as the vainglory of Richard II’s court, they did not portray royal magnificence as a sin in itself, but only insofar as it derived from bad counsel and hence from moral failure. They follow a similar logic to chronicle accounts, such as those presented by Adam of Usk and the St Albans chronicle, which portray a king led by youthful counsel into vainglory and tyranny.⁵² For the Evesham chronicler, for example, Richard’s troubles began when he was brought by ‘the counsel of the young and foolish, and especially John Bussy’ to arrest his old enemies in 1397.⁵³ These men led the king into cupidity, the mother of vices, and so he began to despoil his people. As Richard returns in captivity after Henry Bolingbroke’s coup, the king’s clothes, supposedly worth thirty thousand marks, serve as a symbol of his vain, worldly prosperity, contrasted with the plain garb of Christ.⁵⁴ We have already seen how similar themes returned in the obituary of the king which the chronicler places next in his narrative.⁵⁵ In this passage, the king’s inconstant mores and youthful counsellors lead him into extravagance ‘beyond measure’, accompanied by timidity against external enemies and ferocity towards his own people.⁵⁶ Pride, cupidity, and intemperance lead to sins which lead him to raise taxes ‘upon the pretext of defeating the enemy’ which instead are spent ‘on his foolish wantonness’.⁵⁷ In this text, the king’s extravagance is but one aspect of his moral corruption. His expenditure must be ‘beyond measure’, and unrelated to genuine military projects, because it arises from bad counsel, and leads to his tyranny and fall. ⁵⁰ Eulogium, 378. ⁵¹ On these events, see below, Ch. 12. ⁵² See above, Ch. 1, pp. 18–19. ⁵³ HVRS, 137: ‘ . . . rex, iuuenum et insipiencium, et specialiter Iohannis Busch’ ductus consilio . . . ’. Mistranslated in Chronicles, 54, which ascribes the youth and folly directly to the king. Bussy was at least in his 40s at the time. See above, Ch. 1, n. 106. ⁵⁴ HVRS, 156. ⁵⁵ See above, Ch. 1, pp. 14–15. ⁵⁶ Ibid. ⁵⁷ HVRS, 167.

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These accounts of Richard II’s tyranny and splendour neatly sidestep the question of how the honour and ‘manhood’ due to a king were to be reconciled with measure in expenditure in times of financial stringency or the collapse of political consensus. The strategies which they pursue recall those of John Gower and Richard the Redeless when they portray a court misled into moral failure through youthful counsel, or of Archbishop Arundel when he depicts a 32-year-old boy king who preferred flattery and wilfulness to the will of God.⁵⁸ By presenting an account of Richard’s tyranny in terms of vice and its consequences, these writers evade a possible counterargument in terms of the respect and magnificence appropriate to a king, which any reference to the strand of the language of manhood investigated in the present chapter would have brought to the fore. Embedded in a narrative of how pride precedes a fall, their allegations of the king’s extravagance benefit from the kind of hindsight that Hoccleve’s old man ascribed to his own youthful companions. Richard’s court must have exceeded measure, and must be evidence of vainglory, since he was subsequently brought low. This makes it seem all the more important to re-examine the king’s household establishment and to consider how it was perceived before his deposition, to see if another perspective on the king’s manly expenditure was possible, before his fate made it easy to portray his pursuit of courtly manhood as nothing but youthful folly. In the matter of household expenditure as in that of war, Richard II’s critics presented a very partial account as they manipulated the themes of youth and manhood to condemn the king. In the past their remarks have been taken at face value as hostile assessments of what has been assumed to have been a genuinely unusual court culture. We shall have cause to return to the question of how far Richard’s court really did depart from established norms. Before the circumstances of his reign can be examined in detail, however, there is still one final group of norms which needs to be explored. So far, we have concentrated on associations of manhood which were at best peripheral to the account of the king’s manhood presented by his post-deposition critics. The account of manhood found in the medical theory, encyclopaedia, didactic works and ‘mirrors for princes’, examined in the next chapter, comes rather closer to that deployed by Richard’s critics. Although the conception of manhood they present overlaps in a number of regards with those ⁵⁸ See above, Ch. 1, pp. 1–3, 16–18.

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investigated so far, notably in a common stress on strength and vigour, it also differs significantly in the central qualities which they emphasize. In these works, writers attempted to draw manhood away from honour and violence, liberality and decorum, and towards virtue, constancy, and reason. It is this perspective which underlies the rhetoric of those who sought to portray Richard II as a boy not a man, even at his deposition at the age of 32.

4 Medico-Moral Theories of Manhood: Strength, Constancy, and Reason When we turn to late medieval medical, philosophical, and didactic writings, the precise place assumed by Richard II’s critics within the broad spread of contemporary ideas about manhood begins to emerge with greater clarity. In their ascription to men of constancy, reason, and virtue, and in their belief in the susceptibility of women and youths to inconstancy, unreason, and the temptations of the flesh, these theoretical texts come close to the account of youth and manhood presented by the king’s critics. Where they confirm the commonplace associations of manhood with strength and vigour, however, they draw away from the concerns of Archbishop Arundel and the rest. Thus it appears that when Richard’s enemies portrayed him as a boy not a man, they did so with reference to one particular set of associations, in which the corruptible inconstancy which unites the youth with boys and women distinguishes him from the steady virtues he ought to share with manhood. His critics were rather less concerned, except by way of a digression or expansion of this moral schema, to allege any default in the energy, force, and physical power which even moral and didactic texts associated with both manhood and youth. The nature of this emphasis further weakens the initially tempting hypothesis that Richard II’s critics deployed the themes of manhood and youth because he really was a notorious dissenter from aristocratic patriarchal masculinity. If it was this which lay behind their attacks on the king, why did they not make more of his failure to exhibit the virtues in strength and vigour which ought to have been his as a man? It invites further investigation of the reasons why Richard’s enemies decided to present the very partial account of manhood which they did, focusing less on the neglect of manly strength, honour, and martial deeds, and more on the inconstant sins of youth as these were outlined in didactic works, encyclopaedias, and ‘mirrors for princes’.

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Manhood and strength are as closely linked in theoretical discourse as they are in the language of manhood. This association was most succinctly put in a passage in the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, often cited by historians of gender, which was passed down to the later middle ages both in the original and through its use in medical works, encyclopaedias, and sermon manuals.¹ Isidore asserted that ‘vir’ derives from the superior ‘force’ or ‘strength’ (vis) which man possesses relative to woman. This he contrasted with ‘mulier’ which he derived from ‘mollitie’ (softness), or rather from ‘mollier’ (softer) with one letter removed and another changed. In the later middle ages, theoretical elaborations of the nature of a ‘man’ most often discussed this central definition in the framework of humoral medical theory.² Ideas of gender, health, and human development took as their point of departure a conception of the human body based around four humours (phlegm, blood, choler, and melancholy) and four qualities (hot and cold, wet and dry). These ideas derived ultimately from writings ascribed to Hippocrates, which were elaborated by the second-century writer Galen, and transmitted to the late medieval West through the medium of Latin translations of tenthand eleventh-century Arabic works.³ They reached the political classes of fourteenth-century England both indirectly, through universityeducated medical practitioners and preaching, and directly, through the medium of encyclopaedias, ‘mirrors for princes’, and literary works.⁴ Notably, an explanation of humoral theory is found in Book VII of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis.⁵ This passage is dependent on Brunetto Latini’s Tresor, which was itself widely available in French in the fourteenth century, and which is found amongst the books of ¹ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), bk. XI, ch. 17. Discussed in e.g. Bullough 1973; Bullough 1994; Jacquart and Thomasset 1988: 14; Laqueur 1990: 27. On the transmission and use of Isidore throughout the middle ages, see Bischoff 1961. For the 967 MSS of the Etymologies, see Caton 1966. ² For an introduction to the theory of humours, see Getz 1991: xx, xxxii–xxxvii; Rawcliffe 1995: 29–40. ³ On the transmission of classical medical models, see Talbot 1967: esp. chs. 1–4; Sears 1986: 25; Jacquart and Thomasset 1988: ch. 2; Cadden 1993: ch. 1. ⁴ On the teaching of medicine in universities, see Talbot 1967: esp. ch. 5; Getz 1992. On the reception of the encyclopaedias of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Thomas of Cantimpré, and Vincent of Beauvais, first in monasteries, secondly in schools and in preaching, and finally in vernacular translation for lay readers, see Twomey 1997. On medical theory in encyclopaedias, see e.g. Talbot 1967: 86–7. On the use of medical theory in preaching, see Sears 1986: ch. 6. Over a thousand MSS from this period contain some kind of medical material. See Robbins 1970; Voigts 1984. ⁵ Gower, CA, bk. VII.

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Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, on his death in 1397.⁶ Even if not every member of late fourteenth-century political society could have given a detailed and rigorous explanation of humoral thought, its assumptions nonetheless underlay their conception of the human body. When encyclopaedists took up Isidore’s ascription of superior strength to the ‘man’, they did so in the context of humoral theory, linking this to superior reason and ‘constancy’.⁷ Bartholomaeus Anglicus, for instance, in his De Proprietatibus Rerum, began his discussion of the difference between men and women with reference to Isidore, before quickly placing his etymology of ‘vir’ in a humoral context.⁸ John Trevisa’s translation observes that ‘the male passith in kinde worchinge [i.e. is superior in natural functioning], for generalliche kende worchinge is strengere in the male thanne in the female, for in him is more vertue and strengthe. And therfore a man hatte [i.e. is called] vir in latyn, and hath the name of passinge strengthe. So seith Isidore.’ He continued that this meant that men are stronger and bigger in body than women. He then went on to assert, following Constantine the African, that men’s hearts are larger than women’s. In consequence men are able to produce more ‘spirit’ and blood, and so for ‘grete habundance of blood a man is more boolde and hardy than a womman’. Men also surpass women in reason and discretion. Bartholomaeus then went on to align manhood with constancy, asserting that men are more ‘steadfast and stable’ than women, on account of their hotness and dryness.⁹ Later, he repeated his earlier quotation from Isidore, that the name of ‘man’ comes from ‘myght and vertu and strengthe’, deducing that in consequence ‘a man is the hed of a womman’ and has rule over his wife.¹⁰ Thus on account of having greater ‘strength’ than women, which is derived from greater heat, the male derives his greater boldness, reason, steadfastness, constancy, and his title to rule. ⁶ Gower, note at 522. On Gloucester’s books see Dillon and St John Hope 1897. On known and surviving MSS of the Tresor see Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor, ed. F. J. Carmody (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1948), xlvi–lvii. ⁷ See Sears 1986: 127–32; Burrow 1986: 87–91; Goodich 1989: ch. 7. ⁸ The English translation completed by John Trevisa between c.1394 and 1398 survives complete in eight MSS and in three further fragments. See On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum ed. M. C. Seymour et al. (Oxford, 1975–1988), iii. 1, 10–26. On the extensive evidence for MSS of the Latin version in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Seymour 1974. On the use of Bartholomaeus’ encyclopaedia in the late middle ages, see Twomey 1997: 340–5; Seymour et al. 1992: 14–15; Getz 1992: 376–7; Edwards 1985; Kibre 1946: 284–5; Se Boyar 1920. On use of De Proprietatibus in sermons Bataillon 1988: 159; Edwards 1985: 122; Berlioz and Polo 1994: 190. ⁹ DPR, VI.12: ‘De masculis’. ¹⁰ DPR, VI.13: ‘De viro’.

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The widespread role of heat in establishing the superiority of men over women in medieval medical theory has often been noted.¹¹ What is interesting for our present purposes is how this medical theory of the nature of adult males repeats many of the associations of manhood found in the use of language. Strength and energetic movement to action, steadfastness, and constancy—all these are said to derive from physiological causes associated with the male sex. At the same time new elements are added, notably reason.¹² The constancy in the face of sin that moral writers attempted to extract from manly action is overtly picked out as one of the physical characteristics of manhood. Strength was, in many medical and encyclopaedic accounts of the ‘ages of man’, the characteristic which ‘youth’ and ‘manhood’ had in common, just as it differentiated the female from the male, and the ‘youth’ from the child. Although the range of ages associated with ‘iuventus’ varied, certain characteristics were associated with this term or its vernacular equivalents with relative consistency.¹³ One of the most important of these characteristics was power or strength. In this regard ‘youth’ was closely allied to ‘manhood’, for ‘iuventus’ was often seen as the age at which ‘virtus’, ‘robur’, or ‘fortitudo’ is at its highest.¹⁴ For Isidore, for example, ‘iuventus’ derived from ‘iuvare’ (to help), since it was the age in which the individual becomes able to assist others on account of his strength.¹⁵ In the most common version of the medical theory of the ages of man, the human being passes in the course of life from an initial warm and wet state into a warm and dry state, thence into a cold and dry state, and finally into a cold and wet state.¹⁶ In the Isagoge of ‘Johannitius’, a standard textbook in medical schools from its translation into Latin in the twelfth century onwards, these four stages are named ‘adolescentia’, ‘iuventus’, ‘senectus’, and ‘senium’.¹⁷ In this account ‘iuventus’ is the prime of life, a period during which the ¹¹ Bullough 1973; Jacquart and Thomasset 1988: 51, 59–60, 68, 117; Cadden 1993: 62–3, 171–2, 181, 184–5; Bullough 1994; Rigby 1995: 246. ¹² See further Burrow 1986: 48–9. ¹³ On medieval theories of ‘the ages of man’ see Burrow 1986; Sears 1986; Goodich 1989. ¹⁴ Burrow 1986: 12–35, 45–7, 85, 87–8, 90–1; Sears 1986: 84–6, 101, 104, 116, 126, 139–142, 149; Goodich 1989: 70–3. ¹⁵ Etymologies, XI.2. ¹⁶ Sears 1986: 26–30; Burrow 1986: 12–35. ¹⁷ Cholmeley 1912: 141. On the Isagoge’s use in medical schools see Getz 1992: 375; Talbot 1967: 66. Discussed in Burrow 1986: 22. Cf. Constantinus Africanus’ (d.1087) version of the same humoral progression, in which the four stages are named ‘pueritia’, ‘iuventus’, ‘senectus’, and ‘senium’. See Sears 1986: 29.

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strength which has been growing in ‘adolescentia’ remains constant at its peak.¹⁸ A similar four-age schema occurs in the influential Canon of Avicenna, which was translated into Latin towards the end of the twelfth century. Here the four ages are ‘aetas adolescendi’, ‘aetas consistendi’ (the age of standing still), ‘aetas minuendi cum virtus non amittitur’ (the age of diminishing in which power/virtue is not lost), and finally ‘aetas minuendi cum manifesta virtutis debilitate’ (the age of diminishing with clear weakness of power/virtue).¹⁹ Behind these ideas is a model of life as the process of the consumption of moisture by heat. Bartholomaeus Anglicus tells us that heat is the first working cause, changing things from one form to another.²⁰ It is heat which produces all activity and life.²¹ Heat produces from food the four humours on which life is based. By heat, food is turned into phlegm (cold and wet), phlegm into blood (hot and wet), blood into choler (hot and dry), and choler into black bile (cold and dry).²² The process of transformation of moisture by heat, carried out on an everyday basis in the digestion of food, occurred on a grander scale throughout life. The equivalence is not exact, since the humours begin with the cold and wet (phlegm) whereas the ages most often end with it.²³ Writers explained this paradox by arguing that the complexions of the ages are, in all except its prime, the consequence of an imperfectly operating body, whereas the process of conversion from one humour to the next is an unalterable natural process. Albert the Great makes a distinction between the consumption of moisture by heat ‘naturally’ in the course of life, which cannot be replenished, and ‘accidentally’, in the day-to-day conversion of food into humours.²⁴ Thus Vincent of Beauvais, quoting Avicenna and Constantine the African, explains that ‘pueritia’ is cold relative to ‘iuventus’ since the excess of (natural) moisture in the former ¹⁸ Burrow 1984; Burrow 1986: 7–11. Similar schema recur frequently in the vast number of vernacular medical manuscripts extant from England for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. See ibid., 27–29. ¹⁹ Avicenna, Canon (Venice, 1486), Bk. 1, Fen. i, Doctr. 3, Ch. 3. See Sears 1986: 29–30. Used by e.g. Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale (Venice, 1494), XXXI.75, although he refers to the second age as the ‘aetas pulchritudinis’. On reception of Vincent, see Twomey 1997: 340; Berlioz and Polo 1994: 184–5, 190–1, 204. Cf. also the De Aetate of Albertus Magnus, where the second age is known either as ‘aetas virilis’ or as ‘iuventus’. See De aetate sive de iuventute et senectute in Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, ed. A. Borgnet, vol. 9 (Paris, 1891), tractatus I, ch. II. Quoted and translated in Burrow 1986: 24. See also Sears 1986: 100. ²⁰ DPR, IV.1. ²¹ Ibid. ²² DPR, IV.6. ²³ See Sears 1986: 12–15, 25–30, esp. 27; Burrow 1986: 12–25, 28–9. ²⁴ Albert, QDA, bk. VII, qu. 29.

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state stifles heat, which burns more strongly when dryness is achieved. When heat begins to fade, with the consumption of the natural moisture which has been being consumed throughout life, then the coction of food operates less well, leading to superfluity, which occurs in old men in the form of phlegm. They no longer have enough natural heat to transform all their food fully into each of the four humours.²⁵ Thus ‘iuventus’ is the peak at which the human body operates most perfectly, its heat transforming food into life-giving humours without leaving any troublesome superfluity. When the characteristics of youth and manhood were considered in terms of what they shared, it was strength which bound them together. In the medico-philosophical mode of thinking propagated by scholastic thought and its popularization in encyclopaedia and preaching, this was held to derive from their superior heat. Children as well as women were imagined to differ from both men and youths in their greater coldness. Yet, when youth was considered from the point of view of how it differed from manhood, youths were seen as sharing with women a characteristic wetness and hence inconstancy. This inconstancy, although at first physical, was, it soon becomes apparent, also intellectual and moral. The Isagoge distinguished simply between male and female: ‘The male differs from the female in that he is hotter and more dry; she, on the contrary, is colder and more moist.’²⁶ Moisture led to instability for, as Bartholomaeus Anglicus noted, ‘By kynde moisture is meueable and fleting and euel iboundid of othir thingis.’²⁷ The link between women and inconstancy owed much to its popularity in scholastic commentaries on Aristotle, produced in the thirteenth century and popularized in encyclopaedic works, which made woman’s inconstancy not only physical but also moral, and above all sexual. In his Quaestiones de animalibus, Albert the Great argued that, because women’s complexion is wetter than men’s, and the wet is readily mobile, women are thus inconstant, always seeking something new: Thus when she is engaged in the act under one man, if it were possible, she would like at the same time to be under a different one. Therefore there is no faith in woman.²⁸

Elsewhere, Albert ascribes the tendency of women to prefer someone other than the lover of the moment to the ‘weakness’ or ‘corruption’ ²⁵ Vincent, SN, XXXI.83. ²⁶ ‘The Isagoge’ trans. in Cholmeley 1912: 136–66, at 143. ²⁷ DPR, IV.iv. ²⁸ Albert, QDA, bk. XV, qu. 11.

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of their ‘reason’ or ‘judgement’.²⁹ Thus both woman’s weakness, which goes on to imply weakness of reason, and her wetness imply an untrustworthy inconstancy which contrasts with the stability associated with men in the language of manhood and medical theory, even as it recalls the moist, unstable nature of youth. Coldness implied lack of energy, and moisture inconstancy, in opposition to the hotness and dryness, and hence vigour and constancy, characteristic of man. Behind this lay not only the definitions of Isidore but also the assertion of Aristotle and his followers, that women were not to be thought of as distinct beings from man, but as imperfect, undeveloped versions of him.³⁰ Thus both women and male youths could be seen as men who were not fully formed. The failings of woman were conceived of relative to the properties of a mature man, and as such they had much in common not only with youths and children but also with old men. All of these were held to suffer from an excess of moisture, and in the case of age the cause was even identical to that found in women: a defect of heat. The same problems might occur in an instability of humours attendant on neither age nor sex but on some other cause of imbalance of regimen. Cold in itself has effects opposed to vigorous, ‘manly’ activity. It causes slowness, heaviness of wit and makes the parts of the body turn inwards, the very opposite of the energetic springing forth of romance heroes with their swift response to vengeance in the defence of honour.³¹ In developmental schema found in the encyclopaedia, medical, and didactic works which deal with the ‘ages of man’, youths were imagined to share their inconstant physical constitution with women.³² Youth is most often portrayed as a period of hotness and wetness, preceding manhood as a period of hotness and dryness.³³ Youths thus come to resemble women in the inconstancy which results from their moisture, even as they are separated from them by the vigour and strength associated with heat. As with women, this inconstancy is physical and moral, and above all sexual.³⁴ According to the encyclopaedist Thomas of Cantimpré in his De natura rerum, the overabundance of viscosity and humidity present in youth has dire effects for the power which ²⁹ Albert, QDA, bk. V, qu. 4. Cf. bk. V, qu. 6. ³⁰ Jacquart and Thomasset 1988: 17–18; Laqueur 1990: ch. 2; Bullough 1973: 487. ³¹ DPR, IV.2. ³² See esp. Goodich 1989: 83–91, 106–14. ³³ Sears 1986: 14–15, 25–30; Burrow 1986: 12–31; Goodich 1989: chs. 4–6. See e.g. DPR, VI; Vincent, SN, XXXI.83. ³⁴ See esp. Goodich 1989: 121–6.

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should be characteristic of this time of life, for just at the very moment that the body ought to possess its greatest strength, the passions are aroused and draw away the natural virtues so that the body and the soul are weakened and one becomes effeminate.³⁵ Similar sentiments are expressed by Vincent of Beauvais who notes the laziness of young men whose intellects sleep. These effeminates delight in song and dance, braiding their hair, refining the voice until it is as caressing as a woman’s, competing in bodily softness with women, beautifying themselves with filthy fineries. Born feeble and spineless, they remain so throughout their lives, taking others’ chastity by storm, careless of their own.³⁶ The association of youth with luxuria—that is intemperance, but with specific associations with lechery and fleshly sin—is also found in fourteenth-century sermons. Thomas Brinton, for example, argues in one sermon that, since the soul is so light that the devil cannot defeat it by speed, he uses tricks, sending forth three golden apples to hold up at three stages those who run in the stadium of life. The first apple represents fleshly lust, the second pride, and the third avarice. The devil throws out the first at the start, the second in the middle, and the third at the finishing post, tempting youths (iuuenibus), men (viribus), and old men (senibus) respectively.³⁷ This section, in a sermon delivered to a clerical audience, is embedded in a military metaphor, arguing that just as strength in battle is causative of victory, so it is appropriate that it should be constant and lasting, and hence we should be constant and lasting throughout life in resisting sin.³⁸ Youth is the stage at which constancy fails through the flesh. Nonetheless, even as the inconstancy of youth is called upon, his potential for vigorous action is also invoked in moral combat, just as moralists use the language of manhood in a military metaphor to encourage spiritual steadfastness.³⁹ We have already seen how, in one strand of the language of manhood, manly action was equated with energy, strength, and constancy—firstly physical, and secondly, by a metaphor, moral. It is becoming clear that scholastic writers, and the encyclopaedists, didactic, and sermon ³⁵ Thomas of Cantimpré, De natura rerum. Text. ed. H. Boese (Berlin, 1973), I.80. Cited in Goodich 1989: 121. The MSS of De natura rerum are discussed in Ballester 1975. See also Seymour 1992: 13–14; Twomey 1997. ³⁶ Vincent, SN, XXX.82. Cited in Goodich 1989: 121. ³⁷ Brinton, Sermons, 41 ³⁸ Ibid., 42. ³⁹ Cf. Middle English Sermons edited from B.M. MS Royal 18.B.xxiii, ed. W. O. Ross, EETS os 209 (London, 1940), 268–71; ‘On the Seven Ages’ in BL MS Additional 37049, f. 28v, discussed in Burrow 1986: 46–7; Sears 1986: 139–40.

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writers who drew on them, shared these commonplace associations, sometimes opposing manhood to the weakness, inactivity, and softness which they associated with women, sometimes contrasting manly action to the moral instability, intemperance, and luxuria characteristic of both femaleness or youth. It is, however, rare to find all these associations together in one place. Normally, a given text merely provides one or two instances of manhood, femininity, or youth, associating them with perhaps one or two conventional qualities which linked them to wider structures. Yet there is one theoretical text which puts forward all these doctrines explicitly. It discusses the inconstancy of the mores of women and youths, their lack of reason and their susceptibility to luxuria, all of which a man must shun. It does so in remarkably similar terms to those of Richard II’s critics when they asserted that he was not a man. This text is none other than Giles of Rome’s De Regimine Principum, which has long been held to be Richard II’s favoured manual of kingship.⁴⁰ De Regimine Principum was composed c.1277–80 for the future Philip IV of France.⁴¹ It is a carefully structured treatise, grounded in ethics, with a clear trajectory from the individual to the political.⁴² Giles asserts that the most needful things for a king to understand are ethics, economics, and politics, and divides his work into three books accordingly.⁴³ The first concerns the rule of the self, and the second concerns the rule of the household, that is women, children, and servants. The third book deals with the rule of the city or kingdom, in peace and in war. Ethics comes first since, for Giles, the king’s aim must be to act virtuously.⁴⁴ The king determines whether a particular action is virtuous through reason, and rules his people by the same principle.⁴⁵ Kingship is inseparable from reason, because ‘the name of the king is the name of the office, and his right to office is that he governs his people according to law and reason’.⁴⁶ If the king rules otherwise, thinking temporal goods to be the only goods, he will be a tyrant. When Giles deals with women and children, he makes it clear that it is on account of their inferior reason they ought to be ruled rather ⁴⁰ I have used Henry de Gand’s French translation of De Regimine Principum, which was produced c.1285 under the title Li Livres du Gouvernement des Rois, since it was in this form that the political classes of fourteenth-century England would most likely have encountered Giles’s treatise. ⁴¹ Mandonnet 1910. ⁴² Kempshall 1999: ch. 5; Dunbabin 1988. See Briggs 1999 for the widespread reception of this text in England in the late middle ages. ⁴³ LGR, II.ii.8. ⁴⁴ LGR, I.ii.2. ⁴⁵ LGR, I.i.12. ⁴⁶ LGR, I.ii.7.

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than rule. For example, Giles talks of women when discussing natural lordship, asserting that ‘nature proves’ that, just as man (li hons) is by sense and understanding natural lord to mute beasts, man is natural lord to women because he commonly has more sense and understanding than woman. He cites Aristotle to the effect that the counsel of woman is of little value, and that ‘it rarely happens that woman is wiser than man’.⁴⁷ Giles then goes on to assert that the old ought to be natural lords to the young, since the old must be wiser than the young by nature. Elsewhere, Giles notes that princes who follow the pleasures of the body against reason are not worthy to rule for the same reason that children ought not to be lords, for they do not have reason in them. Thus those who pursue the delights of the body against reason, even if they are old, are ‘children in sense’.⁴⁸ Similarly, it is possible for those who are young in age, who have sense and know how to use reason, to be a lord and govern others. However, in the normal run of things, Giles considers the counsel of children and women to be inadequate, for it is imperfect due to the imperfect reason and understanding incumbent on their softness.⁴⁹ Women’s counsel in particular ought only to be sought in an emergency, since being incomplete, it reaches its final stage more quickly than the counsel of a man.⁵⁰ Giles constantly equates women and youths, using reason as his overt justification. He explicitly asserts what is only implied in medical theory, asserting that ‘the mores and manners of women are also like the mores and manners of children’ because ‘the child is not a perfect man, nor does he have perfectly the use of reason’.⁵¹ Woman also is like the man who is not perfect, and woman does not perfectly have the usage of reason.⁵² Contained in this equivalence is an assertion of what makes a perfect, that is complete, man. Children and women are thus defined by both being not men, whom Giles asserts are defined by their superior reason. At first, Giles’s concern with reason seems to take us away from the notions of manhood found in language and medical theory, which were more often concerned with energy, strength, and constancy than with reason. But when Giles turns to temperance, and to the specifics of the mores of women and youths, it emerges that despite his claim that lack of reason is the feature which unites them and distinguishes them from men, he also believes that they share other unmanly characteristics. ⁴⁷ Ibid. ⁴⁸ Ibid.: ‘il est enfes en sens et n’est pas digne de seignorir, car il pert l’usage de reson.’ ⁴⁹ LGR, II. i. 20. ⁵⁰ Ibid. ⁵¹ LGR, II.i.14 ⁵² Ibid.

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In particular, Giles asserts that they have in common a tendency to inconstancy, implying a model of manhood congruent with those which we have already examined. Once the right course of action has been determined, a mean between two extremes, it can still only be followed after first vigorously suppressing the ‘desires of the body’ and luxuria, the opposite of temperance.⁵³ For the man who is continent has great temptations and resists them, as he obeys reason.⁵⁴ Since the pursuit of virtue is a question of vigorous resistance against temptation, women and youths are the least well equipped to perform this, for they lack the necessary constancy. According to Giles, women ‘are too changeable and hold their will and their purposes with too little firmness and too little stability, and this occurs through the feebleness of their complexion . . . And just as women have hearts which are soft and little stable, so their will and their words are little firm and their desires are too changeable.’⁵⁵ Youths, on the other hand, ‘are easily changeable . . . and the reason is that the soul follows the complexion of the body; and because the humours of the body of young people are very changeable, so they have desires and wills which are very changeable’.⁵⁶ Above all kings and princes must shun this inconstancy, since, as they have the rule of others, ‘they must not change easily, because they must be firm and stable’. In dealing with temperance, and with the intemperance of women and youths, Giles returns to familiar ground: those who are not men are united by their inconstancy. Furthermore, the effects of changeability extend to other familiar areas of unmanliness, for youths and women share a tendency to instability in speech. Giles asserts that youths lie too easily and affirm everything to be true.⁵⁷ Because they have experienced little, they do not know themselves. They believe that they know everything, and want to appear to know everything, so they assert what they do not know. As for women, their words are as unstable as their will and desires, again on account of shame, so that they speak exaggeratedly ‘without reason and without measure’.⁵⁸ Furthermore, youths are gullible, because they think others as innocent as themselves, and because ‘they are not very wise, they examine things little and easily believe them’.⁵⁹ The instability of women and youths leads them both into excess and away from moral and military virtue. In considering intemperance Giles ⁵³ e.g. LGR, I.iv.2. ⁵⁶ LGR, I.iv.2.

⁵⁴ LGR, I.ii.4. ⁵⁵ LGR, II.ii.15. ⁵⁷ Ibid. ⁵⁸ LGR, II.i.15. ⁵⁹ LGR, I.iv.2.

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notes independently of youths and women that they tend to extremes. Women ‘in their manners do wilfully too much’,⁶⁰ and youths tend to excess on account of their great desires which are untempered by reason and understanding.⁶¹ According to Giles, women through ‘intemperance in the pleasures of the body’ wilfully follow the ‘evil movements of the heart’.⁶² Youths too ‘wilfully follow the movements of their heart and wilfully accomplish all their desires and especially the pleasures of drinking’.⁶³ By portraying temperance as manly and luxuria as soft and feminine, Giles adopts the same strategy as the preachers who implored their listeners to resist the devil, the flesh, and the world, like men.⁶⁴ Thus, in considering intemperance in clothes, Giles asserts that robes which are ‘too soft (moles) and too pleasing to the senses (delitables)’ should be avoided for two reasons. First, he who wears such clothes ‘is intemperate and not a vigorous man, since he is too soft (mous) and too feminine (feminins) and wilfully inclines to jollity and to do the works of luxuria’. Secondly, ‘he who desires clothes which are too soft and too delightful fears to carry arms which are hard and bitter’. When children are of an age when it is appropriate for them to undergo any works of battle, they should be taught to avoid excessively soft robes, ‘so that they will not be too fearful of carrying arms’.⁶⁵ Richard II’s critics pursue remarkably similar strategies to those used by Giles of Rome in his account of the faults of youthful rulers, composed 120 years before they wrote or preached. Those who condemned the king at his deposition stressed the inconstant nature which left both youths and women susceptible to the temptations of the world. Archbishop Thomas Arundel alleged that Richard was inconstant in speaking, easily promising with a word, easily forgetting what had been promised. Giles noted that youths and women both lied easily, on account of their constitutional inconstancy. Arundel, Gower, the monk of Evesham, and Richard the Redeless portrayed a king who had taste for nothing but pleasing things and flatteries, and so acted wilfully, not in accordance with reason. For Giles, it was lack of reason that excluded youths and women from authority, for it prevented them from following the way of virtue. For Richard II’s critics, the king wanted only his own arbitrary whim, paying no attention to measured counsel. For Giles, it was youths and women who were easily misled by their wills, on account of their great desires which were unrestrained by understanding. The monk ⁶⁰ LGR, II.ii.15. ⁶³ LGR, I.iv.2.

⁶¹ LGR, I.iv.2. ⁶² LGR, II.ii.15. ⁶⁴ See above, Ch. 2, pp. 36–7. ⁶⁵ LGR, I.iv.2.

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of Evesham and the Eulogium continuator went on to say that this made Richard harsh with his own people and ineffective in war. Giles described how the youth who fell into intemperance came to shun deeds of arms. It might be tempting to argue that in the writings of Giles of Rome, and in those of preachers and encyclopaedists who pursued similar themes, we have found the origin of Richard II’s unmanly reputation, and that this view of his personality can thus be simply rejected. Yet, although it is certainly clear that this reputation is in need of radical reassessment, an awareness of the cultural background to these themes still does not in itself explain why Richard’s critics believed that they were likely to furnish a convincing form of rhetoric, nor why so many writers adopted them after the king’s deposition. Given that not every parliamentary preacher had such an impact, it still needs to be asked why Arundel’s sermon proved so effective. Although this question cannot be answered fully without the detailed re-examination of the politics of late fourteenth-century England which will be the work of the remaining chapters of this book, a number of important clues have already arisen which it might be useful to summarize before we proceed. First, it is interesting to note the issues which Richard’s critics did not discuss, or granted only peripheral importance. They seem relatively uninterested in the issue of Richard’s enthusiasm or otherwise for war, except insofar as it provided the opportunity for them to attack his attitude towards his own people. He taxed his people, although he did not use it (as he should have done) in war, but rather in his personal vainglory. Given the centrality of issues of honour and shame to the language of manhood, particularly in circumstances of violent confrontation, it is surprising that if, for example, Richard had shown any enthusiasm for peace with France, these English writers made little capital out of such a preference. The terms used by the king’s critics in condemning him as a boy not a man were thus not those which his traditional reputation would suggest. It consequently seems all the more urgent to submit that reputation to renewed investigation, in particular with regards to Richard’s allegedly peace-loving nature. Second, although issues of courtly magnificence and expenditure do again take a place in these critiques of Richard’s comportment, they do not form the point of departure for attacks on the king either. Rather, what comes first are issues of counsel and decision-making, trustworthiness of word and action in accordance with reason. This seems all the more telling given the role played by manly largesse

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in establishing the standing of a household head, and the difficulty moralists experienced in linking appropriate liberality to measure rather than to status: to what could be expended rather than what ought to be expended. It thus seems worth considering the king’s household anew, to consider the role that size of his establishment played in demonstrating his fully-established manhood. Finally, it should by now be clear that Richard II’s critics presented only a very partial view of the broader associations of manhood and youth when they attacked him, and that the terms they used were not those which his traditional reputation would lead us to expect. The remainder of this book will reconsider the political controversies of 1377–99, in the hope of uncovering precisely why the king’s critics thought it propitious to attack him in the terms they did. The initial aim of this inquiry is thus to illuminate, as far as possible, how the themes of Richard’s youth and manhood became important in each phase of his reign, such that they could be used so effectively at his deposition. But although the explanation of rhetoric is the first purpose of this analysis, it is also hoped that once this first step has been taken, it will then be possible to go somewhat further. A knowledge of the broad range of the associations of youth and manhood, both those invoked by the king’s critics and those which they neglected, makes it possible to suggest how ideas of manhood might have played an active role in the politics of this period: not just as a rhetoric, that is, but as an influence on the priorities of political actors. It is hoped that the focus on manhood and youth will make it possible not only to reconstruct the multiple bases of Richard II’s unmanly reputation, but also to begin to outline a new account of the politics of his reign.

5 The Royal Authority and the King’s Childhood, 1376–82 Richard II came to the throne in the midst of a period of passionate controversy over war, taxation, and the reform of the royal government in which the virtue of the king and his counsellors took centre stage. In the last year of Edward III’s reign, aspirations to regulate royal revenues and the appointment of ‘those about the king’ were expressed, and these were to haunt his grandson throughout his reign. With Richard’s accession at the age of 10, these issues became inextricably mixed with the problem of the new king’s youth. The king’s ‘tender age’ made it possible to justify the imposition of mechanisms which would have been difficult to defend under an adult ruler. In such circumstances the changeable tendencies and moral malleability associated with youth gained a political charge. This early association between the king’s youth and the cause of reform brought to the fore a number of issues which were to remain important up to and including his deposition in 1399. The story of Richard II’s early years has been told in the past, but rarely with attention to the development of the themes of the king’s virtue and youth in these years, nor with an adequate acknowledgement of how the debates of this period confused the issue of whether and under what conditions the king could be acknowledged to be a man. Many of the themes which were to re-emerge in the controversies of the 1380s and 1390s had already come to the fore in the year before Richard came to the throne. In the spring of 1376, the royal administration had met with exceptional resistance to renewed demands for taxation, tied to unpopular policies towards the French war and the Church.¹ The complaints raised in the ‘Good Parliament’ focused ¹ Holmes 1975; Bayley 1940; Given-Wilson 1986: 146–60; Fletcher, ‘Virtue and the Common Good: Moral Discourse and Political Practice in the Good Parliament, 1376’, in Charisma and Religious Authority, ed. K. Jensen and M. Rubin (forthcoming).

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first on the waste and misappropriation of taxation granted for past wars. This waste was thought to be the fault of bad ministers, evil counsellors, and the general corruption of the court.² It was repeatedly stated that disloyal counsellors and officers had secured for themselves royal resources which ought to have been devoted to the king’s wars.³ The sins of these men and women lay in counselling the king for their individual interests, and doing so to the exclusion of other voices ‘so that none would be so strong to say the truth, nor to make a remedy, nor to govern the land by reason’.⁴ Rather than using royal resources for proper military purposes, they misdirected them to their own advantage, so that the king was forced to overburden his people with fresh imposts. For at least the third time in his reign, a bishop compared Edward III (who was by then in his mid-60s) to Rehoboam, son of Solomon, who had neglected the counsel of old men and instead followed that of the playfellows of his youth, burdened his people in the pursuit of war, and so divided his kingdom.⁵ It is important to recognize that the Commons and their supporters did not conceive of these issues in purely financial terms. The vigour of their assault on the court was given focus and legitimacy by a wider ethical view of kingship. For preachers, chroniclers, and the Commons themselves, the faults of Edward III’s advisers and intimates were at once moral and political.⁶ The moral corruption of evil counsellors meant that the significance of their malign influence on the king went beyond the simple short-term misallocation of resources. As ‘mirrors for princes’ taught, the company of women and youthful counsellors could threaten the kingdom far more fundamentally by endangering the virtue of the king, compromising his ability to rule in accordance with the common good.⁷ The solutions proposed by the Commons were thus aimed to bring about reform in both an administrative and ² Anonimalle, 85. ³ Holmes 1975: 100–136; Anonimalle, 81–2, 85–7, 91; CA, 72–4, 76–9, 84–5, 95–7. ⁴ Anonimalle, 91. Cf. Brinton, Sermons, 316–17 discussed in Fletcher, ‘Virtue and the Common Good’ (see n. 1 above). ⁵ Brinton, Sermons, 321. Cf. a letter written to Edward III by Archbishop Stratford in 1341 (Chrimes and Brown, 58–60; Goodman 1999: 63) and a sermon by Bishop Fitz Ralph of Armagh which was written down in the 1350s but preached sometime before (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 144, ff. 18v–19r: ‘in processione tacta pro rege et principibus in vulgari’). ⁶ See further Fletcher, ‘Virtue and the Common Good’ (see n. 1 above). ⁷ Dunbabin 1988: 482–93; Watts 1996: 22–31; Kempshall 1999: esp. ch. 5; Fletcher 2006: 34–5.

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a moral sense. In the Good Parliament, the cure for the kingdom’s ills was found in a body of picked counsellors who were to be constantly attendant on the king.⁸ Edward was to be ‘governed’ by them, ‘and not at all give any faith or credence to bad counsellors and evildoers’.⁹ The lords took care to insist that the right to select counsellors pertained to the king, but it was nonetheless in parliament that the counsellors swore ‘faithfully to counsel and govern him and his kingdom according to their ability’.¹⁰ These counsellors were to be the agents of both financial and moral reform. The death of Edward III and the accession of his 10-year-old grandson gave new urgency to the Good Parliament’s programme. The failure to establish a formal regency on Richard II’s accession made it all the more important to ensure the good character of the king’s counsellors and associates, so that they might protect him against the bad counsel and worldly temptations which threatened soft, malleable youths above all.¹¹ The new ‘Continual Council’ appointed in July 1377 was not ‘a council of regency’ in the sense that it ruled in the place of the king.¹² Formally, at least, it was to provide Richard with ‘counsel’ just as an adult king took counsel.¹³ The terms of the appointment of the councillors specified that their role was to aid the chancellor and the treasurer in the necessities of the king’s estate and the kingdom, especially concerning the need to attend to the defence of the kingdom following the expiry of the truce with France in June 1377.¹⁴ Their letters of commission made no reference to the king’s age, purporting to be an expression of the king’s own will, to last ‘as long as we desire it’ (a nostre volente). This failure to acknowledge the king’s youth worked against any programme to regulate royal resources or the king’s intimates. Without the formal acceptance of Richard’s non-capacity it would be difficult to justify the imposition of such measures without impinging on his status and rights as king. In such circumstances those who were prominent in the counsels of the king seemed set to benefit, since the failure to acknowledge his youth made it possible to use the king’s authority as they saw fit. ⁸ CA, 100–1; Anonimalle, 91–3; Holmes 1975: 105, 158–9. ⁹ Anonimalle, 91. ¹⁰ Ibid.; RP, ii. 322. ¹¹ See above, Ch. 4. ¹² Tuck 1973: 36. ¹³ Cf. the council established at the accession of the infant Henry VI. See Watts 1996, ch. 4. On the normal place of royal counsellors under an adult king, see Wolffe 1971: 144–5; Watts 1991; Watts 1996: 25–31, 81–101. ¹⁴ CPR, 1377–81, 19; Foedera, vii. 161–2; TNA C 81/1339/10.

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From the point of view of the partisans of the Good Parliament, the form of government established in July 1377 simply perpetuated the unsatisfactory arrangements of Edward III’s last years. Once again, a king who was considered incompetent was to rule with full authority nonetheless, the plaything of powerful influences at court. In particular, the failure to establish a formal regency worsened existing concerns about the influence of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. Since the death of Richard’s father, the Black Prince, in June 1376, Gaunt had been the eldest surviving son of Edward III. It was Gaunt who had headed the resistance to the demands of the Good Parliament. He was also the chief identifiable agent of the reaction which followed, in which Peter de la Mare, the Commons’ Speaker, was imprisoned and William Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, a prominent member of the council established to supervise the king’s government, was disgraced.¹⁵ Rumours circulated that the duke of Lancaster planned to seize the throne on his father’s death.¹⁶ In the first parliament of the reign, he felt obliged to perform his loyalty in public, refusing to be appointed to a committee to advise the Commons, ‘before he was excused of the things which the Commons (la commune) had evilly said about him’.¹⁷ It seems that in the last months of Edward III’s life, moves were made to secure Gaunt’s support for Richard’s succession, including a proposal to confirm him as next in line to the throne, passing over the heirs of Lionel, duke of Clarence.¹⁸ John of Gaunt’s absence from the appointed Continual Councils of July 1377 to January 1380 has sometimes been ascribed to suspicion of his ambitions.¹⁹ It has been argued that the failure to establish a regency was a consequence of a desire to prevent Gaunt, as the king’s eldest surviving uncle, from seizing control of the royal government.²⁰ Although it is perhaps more likely that Gaunt and the king’s other uncles felt no need for such formal appointments to exercise their influence, it is impossible to deny that fears about his dominance were real.²¹ Excusing himself before the Commons in October 1377, Gaunt was being wilfully naïve when he protested that his pre-eminence made it unnecessary for him to try to seize the throne. Stories of the duke’s desire to become king dramatized what those who originated and repeated ¹⁵ ¹⁸ ²⁰ ²¹

Holmes 1975: 158–60, 193–4. ¹⁶ Goodman 1992: 71. ¹⁷ RP, iii. 5. M. J. Bennett 1998. ¹⁹ Saul 1997a: 28. See e.g. Tuck 1973: 33–4; Saul 1997a: 28–9; CA, 118–34. Tuck 1973: 34; Goodman 1992: 70–3; Gundy 2000: 69–72, 90–108.

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them were prepared to believe was true. If John of Gaunt was thought to be king in all but name, it did not take much imagination to begin rumours that he would soon want the name also. There was a grain of truth in such gossip, for without the establishment of mechanisms which acknowledged the king’s youth, there was a very real risk of handing de facto power to those about the king, and Gaunt above all, without the restraints which a formal regency would have brought. This state of affairs did not survive the first parliament of Richard’s reign. In this assembly, the Commons were able to secure the formal acknowledgement of the king’s youth. When parliament met in October 1377, the Continual Council was reappointed to sit ‘only as long as our said lord [the king] is of tender age’.²² With this, the remit of the Continual Council was expanded from military matters to a more wide-ranging role which took up the aims of the Good Parliament. At the same time, the Commons sought to ensure that the king would be raised in the kind of manly mores which both the writers of romance and Giles of Rome would have found reason to approve, showing steadfastness in battle and in the fight with sin.²³ In his opening speech, Peter de la Mare, now at liberty and Speaker once more, sought to elide the chivalric vigour (vertu) of England’s knighthood with the kingdom’s virtue in the sense of morality. He argued that it was because the good and virtuous were humbled, and honour given to vice, that no man now had the power to do good deeds. It was for this reason that the kingdom had recently suffered ‘great damages and shame’ at the hands of its enemies, and would suffer more again, if God did not remedy its government. De la Mare put forward his demands not just in response to a specific crisis but in order to combat a general atmosphere of corruption in which vice was promoted and knighthood, as a class and a set of values, put to one side, a state of affairs all the more dangerous because the king was ‘at present innocent and of tender age’.²⁴ As in the Good Parliament, the first solution proposed for the ills of the kingdom was the appointment of sufficient persons of diverse estates to be ‘continually resident in council’ (continuelment residentz du conseil) to attend to the necessities of the king and kingdom with the officers of the king.²⁵ This was not just for the necessities of war, but more generally to ‘work on the amendment of the aforesaid ills’. In a second clause, de la Mare went still further, asking that ‘the persons who are ²² RP, iii. 6. ²⁵ RP, iii. 5–6.

²³ See above, Chs. 2, 4.

²⁴ RP, iii. 5.

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to be about the person of our lord the king himself, who is of tender age’ should be selected from amongst ‘the most virtuous, honourable and sufficient of the kingdom’ so that the king ‘would be governed and raised nobly and in good virtues to the pleasure of God, by which all the kingdom will be able to be saved and amended’.²⁶ For the Commons, for Giles of Rome, and, indeed, for late medieval English society as a whole, it was the virtue of the king which ultimately guaranteed the good operation of the polity.²⁷ The importance of the virtue and the moral formation of the king as the basis for the good running of government was underlined in the version of the Commons’ demands given in a schedule attached to the parliament roll.²⁸ Here the first of the eight requests was that ‘those who will be about the person of our said lord should be named from amongst the most sufficient of the kingdom, without affection, and to have their charge before the Lords and Commons in order to govern our lord as much in virtue, in manners, as in honour’.²⁹ In the meantime, the king and his household were to be moderated in their expenses, drawing only on the revenues of the Crown.³⁰ The way to ensure that the king was wisely directed in allocating his resources was through the impeccable virtue of those about him, and hence, in good time, of the growing king himself. It is this which accounts for the optimism of certain chroniclers at this early stage in Richard’s reign. They saw the young king as giving cause for hope, if only he could be brought up with the kind of virtues which would ensure the kingdom’s salvation.³¹ Richard’s youth brought opportunities as well as dangers, since it provided a chance to inculcate the qualities which would enable him to turn around the fortunes of the kingdom in the future. To fulfil this hope, he would have to become the apogee of the ‘man’ of contemporary language and theory, combining military and moral strength and so bringing victory in war and peace at home.³² If the Commons were keen to seize the opportunities offered by Richard’s youth, there were others who were less enthusiastic about the regulation of the king’s informal counsellors, tutors, and associates. Neither the king’s administrators nor the Lords in parliament were ²⁶ RP, iii. 6. ²⁷ Watts 1996: esp. 22–31; Dunbabin 1988: 482–93; Kempshall 1999: ch. 5; Fletcher 2006; Fletcher, ‘Virtue and the Common Good’ (see n. 1 above). ²⁸ RP, iii. 14. ²⁹ Ibid. Cf. RP, iii. 25–6. ³⁰ RP, iii. 6. ³¹ Gransden 1972; Gransden 1982: 135; CA, 150, 163. For similar hopes in the poetry of Richard’s early reign, see Fletcher 2006. ³² See above, Chs. 2, 4.

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at first prepared to countenance the Commons’ more wide-ranging demands concerning ‘those about the king’. Although both the royal government and the magnates were prepared to go some considerable distance in addressing the Commons’ financial concerns during the king’s tender age, they remained steadfast in their defence of the boy king’s formal rights to choose his own servants, counsellors, and intimates. Thus, in Richard’s first parliament, it was conceded that the Continual Council would investigate the grants of Edward III, interrogate the king’s ministers, and examine the accounts of tax levies.³³ The royal government was even prepared to take the exceptional step of using the Ordinances imposed on Edward II in 1311 as a blueprint for the definition of the councillors’ duties concerning the supervision of royal revenues and the appointment of the king’s chief officers in parliament.³⁴ All this could be allowed, if only for the king’s tender age.³⁵ The councillors’ duties to review the ill-advised grants of the former king and to remove Edward’s inappropriate counsellors were also based on the Ordinances, as was the requirement that the conseillers and officers of the king be appointed by the advice of the Lords in parliament, again as had been requested, ‘until he [the king] is of full age to know good things from bad things’.³⁶ Nonetheless, few concessions were made on the appointment of ‘those about the king’ beyond the declaration in parliament of the personnel of the Continual Council. Instead, the Lords asserted that it would have been ‘too burdensome and severe’ (trop chargeante et dure) that any person should be put about the king who did not please him, or that any of his officers or servants should be removed, other than by his express will.³⁷ It soon became clear, however, that the Commons were not content simply to be told the names of the king’s officers and Continual Councillors. Instead, they stubbornly petitioned for the naming in parliament of those involved with the supervision and education of the king. Indeed, by October 1378 they seem to have developed the belief that this had already been agreed. In the parliament of that month, the Speaker, James Pekeryng, asked to be told not only who would be the great officers of the kingdom and the king’s councillors, but also the ‘governors of his person’ (governours de sa persone) as long as he was of ³³ RP, iii. 16, items 48, 51; 17, items 53, 57; Lewis 1933: 383–5. ³⁴ Edwards 1953. ³⁵ RP, iii. 15–16. ³⁶ Edwards 1953: 207–8; RP, iii. 16. ³⁷ RP, iii. 7, item 26.

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tender age.³⁸ The reply of Richard Scrope, steward of the household, was consistent with the Lords’ position in the previous parliament. He made no mention of the ‘governors of the king’s person’, noting that the king had had the officers elected by the advice of the Lords, and that ‘he will make his conseillers as he pleases, as soon as he can attend to this; of which names you will be told, if it pleases the king’.³⁹ The king’s formal right to appoint those about him was once again protected, although the Commons must have been left wondering what this meant in reality. It is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to consider the significance of this insistence on the king’s freedom to select his officers, servants, and associates. In practice, it must have been obvious that it was not the 10 or 11-year-old king who was making these decisions. Officers and Continual Councillors were to be selected by the advice of the Lords in parliament, but it is difficult to tell how the king’s immediate associates came to be chosen. From spring 1379, however, evidence begins to emerge that not only the king’s officers and formally appointed councillors, but even the ‘governors of his person’ were being selected in extended magnate councils assembling at around the same time as parliament. It appears that after the parliament which met in April 1379, John Lord Cobham was appointed ‘by the assent of the uncles of the lord king, of the prelates and other magnates of his council to remain in the household of the king for the secure wardship of the king’s person’, a role for which he was paid wages between 6 June 1379 and 18 February 1380.⁴⁰ The earl of Warwick seems to have been appointed to a similar role after the next parliament, which sat in January 1380.⁴¹ The St Albans chronicler asserts that during that assembly the Commons petitioned that ‘one of the barons should be ordained to the royal wardship, who knew exceedingly how to give a prudent answer, and who was mature in mores, powerful in strength, tractable and of discretion’.⁴² He continues that the earl of Warwick was duly selected to stay with the king, and to draw a yearly wage for doing so.⁴³ ³⁸ RP, iii. 35–6, item 20. ³⁹ RP, iii. 36, item 21. ⁴⁰ TNA E 403/475, m. 8, cited in Tuck 1973: 44. ⁴¹ Goodman 1971: 135; CA, 255; Walsingham, 342–4. ⁴² Ibid. ⁴³ There is no evidence of Warwick drawing this wage, which has led some to doubt that he was really appointed ( Tuck 1973: 44). This could be a result of the lack of enthusiasm of the royal administration to place this kind of appointment on a formal footing, however, or he may have been paid through some other means than the exchequer. In any case, his appointment would be significant even

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Paradoxically, this evidence of the appointment of ‘those about the king’ dates from the same period as the first formal declaration that the king had no need for such unusual supervision. In the parliament of January 1380, the Commons lodged the familiar complaint that taxation would be unnecessary if the king ‘had been well and reasonably governed in his expenses within the kingdom as otherwise’.⁴⁴ This time, however, the proposed solution to the king’s financial plight was the dismissal of the Continual Council, conceived of purely as a burden on the king’s resources, and its replacement by alternative mechanisms. The Continual Councillors were thus discharged, on the grounds that the king was ‘now of good discretion and handsome stature’ and that his age was now nearly the same as that of Edward III at his coronation. It was claimed that, at that time, Edward had retained no conseillers except the five principal officers of his kingdom.⁴⁵ But as soon as parliament was dismissed, it was made clear that the 13-year-old king was not believed to be of a sufficient age to be trusted without supervision. The St Albans chronicle states that Warwick’s appointment as the king’s guardian (ad tutelam regiam) after this parliament was intended to compensate for the dismissal of the Continual Council, whose job, the chronicler asserts, the tutelage of the king had been.⁴⁶ Indeed, this would have fitted with normal practice for male nobles, who continued to be in the ward of a ‘tutor’ until they assumed their lands at the age of 21.⁴⁷ In fact, the parliament of January 1380 did not mark the beginning of the king’s independence, but instead formalized a change in the model of the regulation of his estate which had been initiated in the previous year. Instead of a Continual Council established for the king’s tender age, individuals were appointed to ensure that he would be well-guided and raised in good morals. At the same time, commissions of inquiry were set up with sweeping powers to audit royal finances. In the parliament of April 1379, just before Cobham was appointed to attend to the ‘wardship’ of the king, a commission was set up with comprehensive powers to survey the king’s estate, his revenues and expenditure, including his household.⁴⁸ A further commission was appointed in the parliament of January 1380, with a remarkably similar if he did not in the end carry out his allotted role for long enough to earn his stipend. ⁴⁴ RP, iii. 72. ⁴⁵ Ibid. ⁴⁶ Walsingham, 344. ⁴⁷ Walker 1973. ⁴⁸ RP, iii. 57; Goodman 1971: 8; Tuck 1973: 43–4.

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remit.⁴⁹ Like its predecessor, this body was established in response to the Commons’ complaints of the insupportable burdens they had suffered on account of the king’s wars, exacerbated by ‘default of governance’. Again, it was to survey the king and his estate, including the household and all the expenses and receipts of the king’s officers since the coronation.⁵⁰ The intention was to discover if by the negligence of the said officers or otherwise (although no other suggestion was made) the king’s resources had been wasted.⁵¹ It would be wrong to dismiss these mechanisms as mere sops to the Commons’ concerns about royal finance. No records survive of the accounting activities of either these commissions or of the Continual Councils which preceded them.⁵² However, it does seem that either these bodies or the political atmosphere which gave rise to them did have an effect on royal expenditure. For example, between Richard II’s coronation and June 1378, the household Dieta account averaged around £36 12s. a day.⁵³ In the year to 30 September 1379 it had fallen to £31 4s., and it stayed at about this level (averaging £32 11s.) until September 1381.⁵⁴ This kind of expenditure was similar to that of a slow year in the immediately preceding period, such as in 1373–4, when the Dieta ran at an average of £32 3s. It was, however, noticeably less than the average of £40 4s. per day for the final sixteen years of Edward III’s reign.⁵⁵ Thus although it is difficult to trace any evidence of specific actions concerning the royal finances taken by these commissions or the Continual Councils, it appears that these bodies did exert a substantial downward pressure on the expenditure of the royal household. The years following Richard II’s accession were characterized by the confusion of the problems posed by the rule of a boy king with a continuing debate over royal counsel and royal finance. From 1377 to 1379, it was arranged that both were to be dealt with through the mechanism of the Continual Council. Yet, when large demands for supply continued without any marked increase in military success, recourse was taken to the fiction that the five principal officers and a single tutor would suffice to aid the king, who had by now reached the age of 13. It seems unlikely that anyone believed that this was the case, nor that the dismissal of the Continual Council would lead ⁴⁹ Ibid.; Tuck 1973: 44–5. ⁵⁰ RP, iii. 73. ⁵¹ RP, iii. 93. ⁵² Tuck 1973: 45; Goodman 1971: 8. ⁵³ Given-Wilson 1986: appendix I. ⁵⁴ Ibid. ⁵⁵ Calculated from Given-Wilson 1986: appendix I, excluding the war period from June 1369 to June 1371.

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to anything but increased anxiety over who was close to the king and thus able to exercise influence over him. Without some other means of acknowledging the king’s limited capacity, the perception of the king’s government quickly became that it was under the control of ‘those about the king’ in general, and the duke of Lancaster in particular. The widespread conviction that it was not Richard but John of Gaunt and others who were ruling the kingdom was clearly expressed by the rebels in the Great Revolt of 1381, with their declarations that they would accept no king called John, and that they themselves were loyal to King Richard.⁵⁶ The insurgents were able to assert that the king’s power was not in his own hands, and it was those who had usurped government from him who were to blame for the kingdom’s ills. These problems were not resolved by the formal termination of the king’s tender age, since mechanisms remained in place which tacitly implied that he was still too young to rule. Moreover, although it was not yet apparent, such a state of affairs risked undermining his ability to assert his full authority for the future. It would make it difficult for him or his officials to establish at a later date that it really was the royal will which motivated a particular action, and not that of those about him guiding an easily led, childlike king. Thus, far from being a genuine coming of age, the dismissal of the Continual Council in January 1380 threatened to prolong the king’s tutelage indefinitely.

∗ Quite when Richard himself began to play an active role in the rule of his kingdom is not easy to establish. In the absence of council minutes, it is difficult to follow the decision-making process of the royal administration in detail.⁵⁷ The problem of determining who was responsible for which decision is further complicated by the nature of royal government in late medieval England.⁵⁸ By the late fourteenth century the range of activity carried out in the king’s name went far beyond what he could ever oversee in person. Thus, in one sense, the administrative arrangements of Richard’s early years, by which actions ⁵⁶ See e.g. CA, 286, 290; Anonimalle, 133, 136, 139, 144; RP, iii. 99. ⁵⁷ Brown 1969: 1–9. ⁵⁸ For what follows see Watts 1996: 81–101; Brown 1989: 2, 5, 16, 17, 20; Brown 1964; Brown 1955: 16–56.

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were taken in the king’s name without he himself having ordered them, were merely an extreme case of how royal government functioned in ordinary times. That said, in normal times there was also much business which did require the king’s express consent, for example on matters of war, on the disposition of major escheats to the Crown, and on appointments to important offices. Although, in many cases, somebody had to act as king even when the king’s person was not felt to be fully competent, much business, even relatively trivial or routine matters, could and frequently did involve the king personally. Which invites the question: when did this begin to happen in Richard II’s reign? In the immediate aftermath of the Great Revolt of 1381, a phenomenon occurs in the records of the chancery which it is tempting to interpret as evidence that the calls of the rebels for the king to rule in person were being heeded. Beginning in June and July 1381, a far greater number of orders than before were enrolled on the patent rolls with the warrant ‘by the king himself ’ (per ipsum Regem).⁵⁹ This implied that letters under the great seal had been issued following a direct instruction from the king to the chancellor.⁶⁰ Since Richard’s coronation, this warrant had been relatively infrequent, suggesting an unwillingness to make use of the king’s personal authority in this way.⁶¹ What might this change in practice signify? The boom in direct warrants in the summer of 1381 was first remarked upon by Anthony Tuck and interpreted as evidence of an increase in the king’s general administrative activity.⁶² He saw it as paralleling the ‘assertion of a personal initiative’ in the revolt itself which past commentators had noticed in the chronicles, but which they had assumed was restrained in the aftermath of the uprising.⁶³ Recent commentators on this phenomenon have been more sceptical about what it can tell us about the king’s involvement in royal government. Mark Ormrod and Nigel Saul have noted that it is impossible to tell whether the actions warranted ‘by the king himself’ originated in the king’s personal impulses or in the instructions of ministers using the king as their instrument.⁶⁴ Yet although these commentators have been right to doubt the extent to which this development can be seen as reflecting the king’s personal initiative, they have arguably underplayed the importance of the change in administrative practice to which it bears witness. Although it would be unwise to see the surge in direct ⁵⁹ CPR, 1381–5, 14–34, 69–76. ⁶⁰ Brown 1964: 133, 136, 141–2, 143, 145. ⁶¹ CPR, 1377–81, passim. ⁶² Tuck 1971: 6; Tuck 1973: 54. ⁶³ Steel 1941: 78–81. ⁶⁴ Ormrod 1990: 21; Saul 1997a: 108.

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warrants of the summer of 1381 as a conscious assertion by the king of his personal authority, they are significant in a different way, as an indication of a new centrality of the king in the royal government in the immediate aftermath of the revolt. Whether or not Richard was making the decisions, many orders were now being made through him, even if he only confirmed commands whose origins lay elsewhere. Even if the use of the warrant ‘by the king himself’ only indicates that the king was travelling around in the presence of the great seal, it still shows that he was moving about with the chancellor in the judicial tour which followed the rising of 1381. The king’s personal presence during the suppression of revolt would have served to demonstrate that it really was the king, not his officers, not John of Gaunt, who was restoring peace, and thus compelled obedience. It replied to the rebels’ demand to have only one king in much the same fashion as Richard himself had done at Smithfield, saying, ‘I will be your king, your captain and your leader. Follow me.’⁶⁵ In the summer of 1381, the king’s own will was made available for the first time as a normal means of carrying out the full range of royal business. Between June and December 1381, his authority was used to authorize not only judicial commissions to deal with the aftermath of revolt, but also nineteen items of secular patronage (confirmations of charters, grants of annuities, lands, and offices) and forty-nine ecclesiastical grants (presentations and nominations to benefices, ratifications of estate in a given benefice, licences to elect, licences to take up a papal provision).⁶⁶ Much of this business was of a routine nature. It cannot be said that patronage to household men, for example, represents the lion’s share of business warranted ‘by the king himself ’, much less, as Tuck does, that ‘the activity of the king and his household’ thus illustrated was ‘bound to give rise to criticism when parliament next assembled’.⁶⁷ Nonetheless, the surge in direct warrants suggests that, after the rising, a conscious decision was taken to reinsert the king into the system in a way which had been avoided before that moment. The king’s new emergence as a site of authority was not without its dangers. It risked raising in the minds of contemporaries the kind of doubts which it has subsequently raised in the minds of historians. ⁶⁵ CA, 297; Walsingham, 438. ⁶⁶ CPR, 1381–5, 16, 18–21, 24–39, 41–48, 55, 58–60, 62. ⁶⁷ Tuck 1973: 54. Only five instances of such grants are given by Tuck, citing CPR, 1381–5, 18, 20, 24, 34, 41.

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Observers were aware that the king, although he seemed to be assuming his authority, was still of an age which made it an occasion for amazement if what he did really was independent, and the right thing to do. They too imagined the king surrounded by self-serving counsellors, ready to bend his will to their own ends. The chroniclers, in narrating Richard’s performance at Smithfield repeatedly note how his boldness and ingenuity belied his young age.⁶⁸ Yet this also suggests that they continued to assume that his age would normally imply a lack of these qualities. Contemporaries, as much as historians, were not convinced that the king was old enough to rule independently at the age of 14. It is thus perhaps not surprising that although the theme of the king’s personal authority re-emerged, albeit briefly, in the parliament which opened in the November after the rising, this assembly was dominated by the familiar theme of the reform of the king and kingdom. Rather than taking up the rebels’ call for deliverance through royal authority, the proceedings of this assembly located the solution to the kingdom’s ills in the imposition of measures which had been central to the Commons’ agenda since 1376. The new chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, opened the proceedings with a sermon in English which returned to the need to ensure ‘the good and virtuous (vertuouse) government of the king and of the kingdom’.⁶⁹ The Commons responded by returning to the demands of 1376–80 for the reform and regulation of the royal administration, starting with the person of the king himself. They asserted that if the governance of the kingdom was not amended in a short time, it would be completely lost and destroyed forever. This was the result of the failure of governaille about the person of the king and in his household, on account of the excessive number of people in that household, and in his courts.⁷⁰ The remedies proposed for these ills were familiar ones. Bad officers were to be removed, and ‘the most sufficient and wise lords and bachelors who can be found in the kingdom’ were to replace them ‘around the person of the king for and of his conseil’.⁷¹ Once again, the virtues of those about the king were to ensure his guidance in virtue, and thus the salvation of the kingdom. In line with the Commons’ demands since the Good Parliament, the reform of the kingdom was to begin with the king and his entourage, carried out by a body appointed for that purpose in parliament. A commission was established to vet those ⁶⁸ Walsingham, 438; CA, 296–7; Knighton, 218. ⁷⁰ RP, iii. 100. ⁷¹ Ibid.

⁶⁹ RP, iii. 98.

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about the king, ‘to ordain the estate of our said lord honourably and fittingly, as much concerning the good and fitting people about his person as the good and worthy officers of his household’.⁷² They were to expel bad officers, and to consider how to reduce the number of people in the household, so that the king could ‘live honourably of his own’ without excessive taxation. No new Continual Councillors were appointed, but the Council and commission veteran, Richard, earl of Arundel, and the banneret Michael de la Pole, were selected in parliament to be with the person of the king in his household from then on, ‘to counsel and govern his person etc.’⁷³ The appointment of these two men represented a renewed encroachment on Richard’s rights to appoint those about him, a point further underlined by the dismissal from the household at the Commons’ request of the king’s confessor, Thomas Rushook.⁷⁴ The king’s right to appoint his intimates, strongly asserted in 1377 but gradually eroded in the years which followed, was now finally abandoned. Although men had been appointed to be with the king before, this had been done out of parliament and off the record in magnate councils. Now Richard found that as he grew older the formality with which those about him were appointed actually increased. His rights seemed to be defended with less and less vigour as he came closer to being able to exercise them himself. The parliament of 1381–2 also saw a renewal of the pressure on royal household finance which had begun in the late 1370s. This time, however, the consequences were more profound than they had been under the Continual Councils. In the course of 1382, a refusal to provide adequate funds for arguably justified costs destabilized the accounts of the royal household for over a decade thereafter. In January of that year, a long diplomatic process culminated in the king’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of Emperor Charles IV. This, together with the queen’s coronation, produced an unusually high level of household expenditure. The household Dieta for this year reached £15,600, some £4,000 in excess of the annual level of the previous two years. The keeper of the wardrobe of the household, William Pakington, expended a total of £18,895 in the twelve months from 1 October 1381.⁷⁵ Yet, in the same period, only £13,058 was passed to Pakington from the exchequer, actually some £2,000 below the average for 1377–81,⁷⁶ and only another £500 came in from other sources, such as sales of ⁷² RP, iii. 101. ⁷³ RP, iii. 104. ⁷⁵ TNA E 361/5, rot. 19d. ⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁴ RP, iii. 101, item 18.

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wine.⁷⁷ When the exchequer came to enrol the keeper’s accounts for this year, they included not only the moneys Pakington had received between 1 October 1381 and 30 September 1382, but also those for the term following (that is, from 1 October 1382 until Easter 1383). This seems to have been done in order to ensure that his account for 1381–2 almost balanced. He was recorded as being owed £174 by the exchequer, whereas in fact his expenditure had exceeded the moneys passed to him by some £5,836. Thereafter, Pakington accounted for his moneys received six months out of phase with moneys expended. Quite what this strange accounting device meant in practice is difficult to determine. Chris Given-Wilson interpreted it as evidence of a ‘six-month stop’, which is to say that the household was paying its creditors six months late.⁷⁸ Although it is by no means clear that such a regular arrangement was put in place, it does seem probable that a large number of the household’s creditors would have been either put off for extended periods, or else entirely disappointed. Be that as it may, what is important to note is that this situation did not arise from any systematic over-expenditure on the part of the king. On the contrary, it came about when the exchequer failed to pass even a normal level of funds to the household at a time when the king was engaged in the increased expenditure produced by his marriage to Anne of Bohemia. Thus what ought to have been an important staging post on the king’s road to manhood instead provided the occasion for his finances to be further disrupted. The king’s wedding should have been the moment when he received his new wife with due manhood, in the sense in which it overlaps with classical ‘humanitas’, both demonstrating generosity and confirming the status of the giver and the receiver.⁷⁹ It ought to have established him as a married man in charge of his own household, within which further acts of manly hospitality might be performed. But instead, the financial consequences of the king’s marriage lent further ammunition to those who believed, incorrectly, that royal household expenditure grossly exceeded what was normal, when it was in fact markedly below the average for earlier years. The reforms of the parliament of 1381–2 amounted to the public re-assertion, over a period of months, of the non-capacity of Richard ⁷⁷ E 361/5, rot. 19d records £2,644 of ‘foreign receipt’, but £2,141 is not a real ‘receipt’ at all, but leftover stock from the previous term. ⁷⁸ Given-Wilson 1986: 104–5. See also Steel 1954: 41–3. ⁷⁹ See above, Ch. 3, esp. pp. 47–9.

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II.⁸⁰ His youth was never explicitly mentioned during this assembly, yet formal modifications to the personnel of his household were imposed upon him, and the estate of his household was made subject to inquiry by a commission which sat during parliament. One petition lodged during this assembly even went so far as to recall the demand for resumption under Edward II by requesting that henceforth no grant of land, rent, wardship, marriage or any kind of escheat should be granted to anyone until the king was out of debt, and free of the charges of war.⁸¹ Although this petition was strongly rejected on the grounds that ‘it did not seem at all fitting, nor an honourable thing for the king nor for his dignity, that he should bind himself in such a way’, it was nonetheless conceded that he would henceforth abstain from such grants without the assent and accord of the lords and others of his council.⁸² It was made clear that Richard, although nominally ruling only by the advice of his officers and one or two appointed tutors, was to be treated as unable to rule unsupervised, implicitly though not explicitly on account of his youth. ∗ The events of 1376–82 established the importance of many of the themes which would be used against Richard II at his deposition even before the king reached the age of 15. Before he came to the throne, the image of King Rehoboam, who taxed his people into ruin by the advice of his youthful companions, had already been invoked against his grandfather, and Continual Councillors had been appointed, if briefly, to monitor the king’s estate. After Richard’s coronation, the moral failings of the king’s officers and counsellors continued to be blamed for the waste of royal resources and the kingdom’s failures in war. Appeals were made to the principle that those about the king ought to display chivalric and ethical virtues which they could then impart to the young king so that good rule would be ensured in the future. On the grounds of the king’s youth, attempts were made to place controls on the royal ⁸⁰ See RP, iii. 101–2, items 20–28 for the Commons’ broader ambitions to reform the chancery, restore law and order, ordain for the keeping of the sea, reform the courts of the king and other lords, and inquire into the state of the navy, the exportation of money, and reasons for recent falls in the price of merchandise. ⁸¹ RP, iii. 115, item 74. On this demand in Edward II’s reign see Harriss 1975: ch. 7. ⁸² RP, iii. 115, item 74.

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government and to vet the people about him. The moment had yet to arrive when the faults of the administration would be laid at the king’s door, as a wilful youth who refused to cultivate the virtues of a man. Nonetheless, as the king grew older the process would soon begin through which this would come about, as restrictions on the king’s government continued despite his own growing sense of his personal authority. This process became visible for the first time in the period following the king’s marriage. In these months it seems that the king attempted to assert his authority, and found himself resisted. The most famous of these moments of self-assertion was the king’s dismissal of Chancellor Richard Scrope in summer 1382. It furnishes a revealing example of how the king’s youth could threaten the legitimacy of royal authority even after such powerful performances of his royal status as the suppression of the rising of 1381 and the king’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia. Richard Scrope was dismissed on 11 July 1382, and his office then remained vacant until 20 September.⁸³ It seems that during this time the 15-year-old king personally assumed the chancellor’s role, an assumption of royal prominence in government comparable to the emergency measures which followed the Great Revolt.⁸⁴ Scrope’s dismissal is mentioned by the Westminster chronicler, dated to 12 July, although no further details are given.⁸⁵ The St Albans chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, is alone in giving a full account, which only survives in a version of his chronicles completed after 1394, at the earliest.⁸⁶ According to Walsingham, Scrope was dismissed for his attitude towards the distribution of the lands of the earl of March, ⁸³ HBC, 84. ⁸⁴ TNA C 81/1339/38. This signet warrant of 28 August requires the keepers of the great seal not to grant any presentment to a benefice without express commandment from the king, and orders them to reverse an earlier grant which they had made on their own authority. ⁸⁵ Westminster, 28–9. ⁸⁶ Walsingham, 620–4. The earliest manuscript in which the account of Scrope’s dismissal is found (MS Harley 3634) was put together after Hugh Calveley’s death in 1394. (See Galbraith 1932: 18; St Albans, xli; Stow 1984: 83–4.) It is not possible to be certain that the section of this manuscript which deals with this episode was written down before the Harleian MS had been split from MS Bodley 316, of which it formerly formed a part, and which later found its way into the possession of Thomas of Woodstock (CA, xv–xvi, xxiv–xxvii). Thus it is not possible to date this section firmly, as it is with the Bodley MS, to before Woodstock’s death in 1397. Nonetheless, V. H. Galbraith suggested, on the grounds of the hand, that this later section was ‘probably of the same date’ as the section which begins in the Bodley MS and ends in the Harleian MS (St Albans, 30). It seems reasonable to suggest that the account of the events of 1382

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which had fallen into the king’s hands on the sudden death of the earl, leaving a minor heir, in December 1381.⁸⁷ Walsingham uses the king’s dispute with Scrope to suggest how Richard, despite all his youthful demands for control, was nothing but a boy. As the account opens, the chronicler suggests the changeability and wilfulness of the youthful king in easily granting the requests of suitors. The king ‘wanted to pillage himself’ and ‘being a boy, not delaying at all, granted their pleas and sent them to the chancellor, ordering him to deliver the said charters to them wholly, having sealed them with the great seal, according to the judgement of their will’.⁸⁸ Walsingham asserts that the suitors ‘knew the debts with which the king was burdened, but were not faithful to him’. These petitioners (like evil counsellors in general) counselled the king only in accordance with their own avarice, not the utility of the realm, ‘putting private profit before public necessities’.⁸⁹ Scrope is cast as the protector of the common good, desiring the profit of the king and kingdom. He refused these demands and so was dismissed. Historians have tended to adapt Walsingham’s account in accordance with their own priorities, extracting those elements which seem to them unconvincing whilst retaining the underlying picture of the character of the king. Anthony Tuck, for example, makes no mention of the king’s alleged intention to ‘pillage himself’, but he does see the events surrounding Scrope’s dismissal as an occasion for concern over ‘the question of the control and direction of patronage’.⁹⁰ Tuck notes that the king made a raft of grants in June 1382 which Scrope attempted to block, bringing about his dismissal.⁹¹ Yet, in fact, this is only half the story. The stewardship of the earl’s lands had first been distributed in January 1382 amongst nine individuals.⁹² It seems that this arrangement was seen as a stop-gap measure, for these appointments were made during pleasure, and in March 1382 evidence emerges of some redistribution of the custody of these lands.⁹³ On 10 June 1382, one William de Forde was commissioned to survey all the Mortimer lands in the king’s hands. Forde was explicitly appointed by the king and council in order to maximize the revenues coming into the king’s hands from the March was composed soon after 1394; however it would be unwise to rest any argument on the dogmatic assertion of a date either before or after Richard II’s deposition, for example. ⁸⁷ Tuck 1973: 88. ⁸⁸ Walsingham, 620. ⁸⁹ Walsingham, 620–2. ⁹⁰ Tuck 1973: 88–9 followed by Saul 1997a: 111–12. ⁹¹ Tuck 1973: 88. ⁹² CPR, 1381–5, 65 (16 and 19 January). ⁹³ CPR, 1381–5, 104 (11 and 20 March).

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inheritance.⁹⁴ He was given power to negotiate with all those willing to take at farm or bargain for the land ‘for the king’s advantage’.⁹⁵ If it seemed good to the council, such bargainers were to have letters patent in due form. In late June and July, grants began to be enrolled on the authority of the treasurer, on occasion explicitly referring to an agreement made with William de Forde.⁹⁶ It seems that, disappointed by the returns obtained by relying on petitioners to come to the king to sue for stewardships, the royal administration went out into the country to find out for itself how much money was to be made. If Walsingham is correct in his assertion that Richard Scrope’s dismissal related to the March inheritance, then it seems likely that the chancellor’s objection was directed at this plan to distribute the earl’s lands piecemeal to a variety of different individuals. Historians have concluded that Scrope was attempting to protect the interests of the nobility in ensuring the integrity of the estates of one of their number during a minority.⁹⁷ This does indeed seem reasonable. The protection of the earl’s inheritance was the aim of the final December 1383 settlement of his lands in the hands of Roger Mortimer, the earls of Arundel, Warwick, and Northumberland, and John Lord Neville of Raby.⁹⁸ Yet it has not been adequately acknowledged that this flatly contradicts Walsingham’s account of events. If it was on these grounds that the chancellor objected to certain grants in June and July 1382, he was championing the rights of the earl of March’s heir against the attempts of the royal administration to distribute his inheritance to the financial advantage of the Crown, not opposing the king’s wilful tendency to ‘pillage himself’. All of this puts Scrope’s dismissal, and the king’s role in it, in quite a different light. According to Walsingham, Scrope considered that ‘no charters would be confirmed or sealed for them from any kind of donation from the king, who had not yet exceeded the years of a boy (qui nondum pueriles annos excesserat); lest he should suffer his ingratitude ⁹⁴ It is perhaps worth noting that ‘council’ in this context must, after the dismissal of the Continual Council in January 1380, be being used in the narrow sense of the king’s senior officials, possibly supplemented by certain executive officers with particular areas of expertise. See Baldwin 1913: ch. 5, and below, Ch. 9, esp. pp. 183–4. ⁹⁵ CFR, 1377–83, 296. ⁹⁶ CFR, 1377–83, 313–14, 361. See also ibid., 305, 308 (twice), 319, 320, 324, 327, 331, 333, 343, 343–4, 348, 352, 357, 358 (twice), 358–9, 361–2, 368, 371. ⁹⁷ Saul 1997a: 112; Tuck 1973: 88; Davies 1978: 188, 196. ⁹⁸ CFR 1383–91, 22–3; Tuck 1973: 88; Saul 1997a: 112.

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in the future’.⁹⁹ This form of argument, although it would have fitted in with the demands of the Commons in 1381–2 for the cessation of grants, failed to acknowledge that these demands had been refused, and that it had been conceded only that the king would distribute his resources by the advice of the lords and his officers.¹⁰⁰ Distribution of royal resources by the counsel of the lords and royal officers was, in fact, precisely what was being done with the lands of the earl of March in July 1382. Scrope’s objection was not to importunate suits pressed upon the king acting alone or with narrow counsel, as Walsingham asserts and historians implicitly accept, but to grants made by the treasurer following indentures completed by a commissioner acting under the authority of both the king and the council.¹⁰¹ Whether or not Richard Scrope actually did deliver anything like the statement which Walsingham ascribes to him is difficult to tell. Even Walsingham only imputes it to him as a probable opinion. What is perhaps more likely is that petitioners in the latest round of arrangements for the March inheritance, rejected by Scrope, ascribed words such as these to him in order to move the king in their favour. Walsingham voices their complaints quite convincingly, saying that when they returned empty handed they reported to the king that the chancellor was stubborn and refused to do anything for them at the king’s command, and that Richard ought to check such behaviour speedily if his honour was not to be cheapened with his people so that his order would not carry weight with them.¹⁰² Such arguments would have hit home well indeed with a king who in the last three years had still found himself restricted in practice even as he was supposed to be coming into his personal authority. Yet Walsingham did not want these concerns to be seen as legitimate. Instead, he dismissed Richard as an inconstant youth, easily misled by evil counsel: Therefore the king, ‘who discerned like a child,’ (qui sabiebat ut paruulus) paid more attention to the false machinations of informers than to his chancellor of faithful allegiance, and sent in a spirit of fury (in furoris spiritu) some people who demanded his seal from the chancellor and brought it to him.¹⁰³

Citing the same Biblical text as did Archbishop Arundel at Richard II’s deposition, Walsingham condemned him for youthful attention to the bad counsel which neglects the common good. He concluded his ⁹⁹ Walsingham, 622. ¹⁰¹ CFR, 1377–83, 296.

¹⁰⁰ RP, iii. 115, item 74. ¹⁰² Walsingham, 622.

¹⁰³ Ibid.

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account on the same theme, stressing, like Giles of Rome, the lack of reason which produces the faults of youth, and ended with a sarcastic allusion to the supposed unconcern of these petitioners for the common good. No one dared say anything ‘because of the malice of those about the king and their king’s irrational youth (regis irracionabilem iuuentutem)’. Thus the profit of the king and kingdom was trampled underfoot because of the ‘foolishness of the king (insipiencie regis) and the malice of those living with him’.¹⁰⁴ It would be unwise, to say the least, to follow Walsingham’s account for the facts of this case. Nonetheless, his account of events is resonant in a different way, as one likely interpretation of Scrope’s dismissal. Certainly the chronicler’s account of the king’s self-despoliation is dictated by a pre-existing schema about a youth’s tendency to be diverted from his own profit and the common good by the intervention of evil counsel. But this was a schema he shared with every Speaker of the Commons from 1376 to 1382. Although Walsingham’s interpretation of the specifics of why Richard Scrope came to be dismissed is simply wrong, it is quite possible that these events were interpreted in a similar manner by contemporaries who were not familiar with the details of the case. Whether or not Scrope was indiscreet enough to allude to the king’s boyhood in the confused environment of Richard’s early emergence into a new but insecure personal authority, it would have benefited frustrated petitioners to assert or insinuate that the chancellor had made such a maladroit remark. This in turn could well have led to his dismissal. None of the terms in which Richard II is described in Walsingham’s account of the dismissal of Richard Scrope stray outside a commonplace picture of a wilful, changeable youth, strong in vigour and furious in anger, but inconstant and susceptible to flattery. His work does not represent an early insight into the king’s personality, nor is it accurate in terms of the detail of particular political controversies. Yet Walsingham does convincingly capture the early importance in the politics of Richard II’s reign of the themes of youth, ‘those about the king’, and the king’s personal authority, and their possible usefulness for those who wished to oppose the royal will. After 1382, as Richard himself started to emerge as the most vehement opponent of his own restriction, the process began by which his youth would cease to be presented as something which those about him might abuse, and become instead a facet of his character. Far from fading away ¹⁰⁴ Walsingham, 622–4.

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as the king approached and passed legal markers of adult status, the king’s youth became increasingly important between Richard’s fifteenth birthday in January 1382 and his declaration of his full estate, aged 22, in May 1389. Yet even before the king himself emerged as an agent, many of the lines which later political struggles would follow had already been mapped out. The arrangements of Richard’s reign insisted on the king’s full, personal authority, whilst at the same time making it perfectly clear that the king was not able to exercise this authority without supervision. The repercussions of this state of affairs were to be felt long into his reign, as those who were satisfied with the acts of the king’s government appealed to his full authority, and those who wished to contest it invoked his youthful mores.

6 The Emergence of the King’s Firm Purpose, 1382–84 When Richard II began to assert himself at the age of 15, it was still ambiguous whether or not he could be said to be in his full authority. In the summer of 1382, the king had begun to show his impatience with the restrictions which remained in place after the dismissal of the Continual Council in January 1380. From his marriage to Anne of Bohemia onwards, Richard and a party about him increasingly sought to assert that the king’s tender age was firmly in the past, and to have him assume his full authority in reality, rather than just in name. This process was to prove far from straightforward. Richard’s power remained insecure, contestable. It was still possible to act as if a given policy was not motivated by the king’s will, but by bad counsellors taking advantage of his malleable youth. Since he had notionally been in his full powers since the age of 10, the problem for Richard and those close to him was how someone who was already formally in his full powers could be accepted as genuinely being so. In his mid to late teens, the king pursued a number of strategies to assert his authority. Many of these have already been identified and examined in detail by historians. For example, Richard seems to have done what he could on limited resources to promote certain individuals who were close to him, above all Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, Sir Simon Burley, and Michael de la Pole.¹ In the same period, attempts were made to procure funds for the use of the king’s chamber, where the king and those about him could more freely dispose of them.² These developments have tended to be seen as the machinations of a court clique concerned to secure the fruits of patronage, or else as the products ¹ Goodman 1971: 9; Palmer 1971a: 477–8; Tuck 1973: 72–86; Saul 1997a: 112–27, 129. On the limited nature of these resources, see Wolffe 1971: 72. ² Tuck 1973: 63–8; Given-Wilson 1986: ch. 6, esp. 85–6.

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of Richard II’s absolutist political ideas. Yet they can also be placed in a different context, as efforts by the king and those about him to assert his adult authority. The present chapter and the next focus on another, neglected strategy which the king pursued as part of a broader campaign to promote his full estate. It will be argued that, after the king’s marriage, Richard and those about him attempted to assert his status as an adult male in a way which coincides with one important strand of contemporary ideas about manhood. They sought to gain control of the political agenda by the aggressive promotion of an expedition with the king at its head. In this way, the king and the nobility, by manly deeds, would defend Richard’s manhood in the sense of his renown, pursuing his right in accordance with honour. This was not just a strategy to secure grants of taxation, as has generally been assumed, but was pursued out of a genuine desire to arrange a royal expedition. This particular aspect of the politics of these years is all the more important for our present purposes on account of the response it provoked from the king’s opponents. Those who, for a variety of reasons, wished to resist the project of a royal expedition could take recourse to the theme of his inconstant youth as a way to belittle and dismiss this and other aspects of the king’s self-assertion. Ironically, these strategies of negation have proved more lasting in their influence than the king’s first desire to win his manhood. They form another important layer in the unmanly reputation of Richard II. As soon as parliament had ended in late February 1382, the king called a Great Council to Windsor at which the greater part of the prelates and lords of the kingdom were present. It was later declared that at this assembly the king ‘took his firm purpose (prist son ferm purpos) to go in his own person to France with his royal host’.³ It appears that the lords were stirred by such sentiments and, perceiving both the scarcity of money in the kingdom and the benefit to be derived from such a voyage, they offered to serve freely (de lour liberaltee) in his company for one year. This engagement does not seem to have been thought adequate to furnish a suitably large army for the king’s first expedition, however, and so letters were issued to summon parliament once again, for 7 May. These letters declared the king’s intent to cross the sea with a sufficient company.⁴ They rehearsed the need to meet the attendant expenses, to make arrangements for the government of the kingdom in the king’s ³ RP, iii. 122, item 3.

⁴ CCR, 1381–5, 121; cf. RP, iii. 122, item 3.

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absence, and to pay his creditors, presumably those owed money for the expenses of the royal wedding and the queen’s coronation. The king’s involvement in these matters is suggested by the warrant under which the letters of summons were issued, that of his personal seal, the signet.⁵ In his opening speech to this, the last parliament before his dismissal, Chancellor Richard Scrope set out the reasons why the Commons should support the king’s intention to go to France.⁶ Throughout, the king’s honour, to be demonstrated by the magnificence of this first royal expedition, remained central to the argument. When the Commons asked to know the sum required, they were told that less than £60,000 would not suffice for such a great expedition, which would be the first which the king had led against his enemies. Scrope continued that, ‘no man would dare counsel our said lord to go on the said expedition’ with less than the number of men this sum would secure, a total of 6,000 men-at-arms and archers paid for six months.⁷ This figure had not been pulled out of a hat. A single lay subsidy would raise in this period around £38,000, a single clerical tenth about £18,000, coming to a total of £56,000, approaching the amount which was now requested.⁸ Yet the proposal for a royal expedition foundered on the Commons’ unwillingness to grant this amount of money in direct taxation, less than a year after the rising of 1381. First, a committee of merchants was established to consider how the sum requested could be raised. The knights of the shire asserted that they could not think how such costs could be met, except by these merchants. The merchants replied that they did not dare lend the sum in question, lest they be accused of deceiving the king. Their reticence is understandable given the fate of Richard Lyons, who had been accused of such deception in the matter of loans in the Good Parliament, and who was finally murdered by the rebels of 1381.⁹ In May 1382, no loan or lay subsidy was forthcoming.¹⁰ The little additional money which was granted, a wine export tax, was not to be spent on any royal expedition but on the keeping of the sea.¹¹ It seems that the Commons, still nervous after the Great Revolt, remained true to their demand for an end to ‘excessive wars’.¹² Parliament then dissolved, less than three weeks after meeting.¹³ ⁵ TNA C 81/1339/44. ⁶ RP, iii. 122, item 3. ⁷ Ibid., item 9. ⁸ Sherborne 1977: 141. ⁹ Knighton, 216–19; Holmes 1975: 102–3. ¹⁰ RP, iii. 123, item 13; 124, item 14. ¹¹ Ibid., item 15. ¹² A demand lodged in the parliament of 1381–2. See RP, iii. 102, item 26. ¹³ Parliament met on 7 May and was over by 22 May. See RP, iii. 122; CCR, 1381–5, 133 (writs de expensis).

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The first grand declaration of the king’s assumption of the leadership of his kingdom in war ended in a damp squib, passed over in silence by contemporary chroniclers.¹⁴ Considering this abject lack of success, it is perhaps not surprising that historians have attached little importance to the proceedings of this parliament in general and the proposal for a personal expedition in particular.¹⁵ Yet the tendency to dismiss out of hand this first manifestation of the king’s ‘firm purpose’ fails to take into account the opportunities being presented at that time by the evolving political situation on the continent. The city of Ghent had been in rebellion against the pro-French count of Flanders since 1379, and was now engaged in negotiations for an English force to come to their aid.¹⁶ The letters of the count’s spies assert that the English government was involved in detailed discussions with envoys from the city in early April 1382, and that the reason for summoning parliament was the arrival of a messenger with letters from Ghent.¹⁷ Although the parliamentary summons was issued too early for this literally to be the case, it seems reasonable to believe that an intervention in the Low Countries headed by the king was the intended outcome of this assembly. This venture came to seem all the more attractive when, early in May 1382, the Gantois won a resounding victory at Beverhoutsveld and occupied Bruges.¹⁸ Negotiations between Ghent and the English continued throughout the May parliament.¹⁹ The situation was ripe for intervention, had money been available, and there is certainly no reason to doubt the sincerity of the royal administration in pursuing this opportunity. But all these hopes were frustrated by the blank refusal of the Commons to provide supply, except for the minimal requirements of defence. The king’s ‘firm purpose’ to pursue his first expedition to ¹⁴ No mention of the parliament is made in Westminster or Knighton. Possibly it was thought of as a continuation of the 1381–2 parliament, since the sheriffs were asked, as far as possible, to return the same MPs (Lewis 1933: 366, 384–5). The Evesham chronicler (HVRS, 71) and the Eulogium continuator (Eulogium, 355) do mention the parliament, although neither reports the proposal for a royal expedition. ¹⁵ See e.g. Aston 1965: 138 where it is seen purely as a device ‘to encourage and cajole reluctant representatives to assent to taxation’; Palmer 1972: 23, 227 where it is alluded to as the occasion on which funds for a royal expedition to Flanders were requested and denied, but the fact that this was the first such request, and the possible significance of this for domestic politics are not mentioned. The May 1382 parliament is not mentioned in e.g. Goodman 1971; Tuck 1973; Saul 1997a. ¹⁶ On the Flemish revolts see Quicke 1947: 330–2; Vaughan 1962: 19–38. ¹⁷ Printed in Palmer 1972: 245–8. For dating to 1382, see ibid., 227–8. ¹⁸ Vaughan 1962: 23–4; Quicke 1947: 321–3. ¹⁹ Perroy 1933: 174–5.

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the continent was rejected out of hand by an under-attended parliament which sat for a little over a fortnight.²⁰ At this stage, it is not easy to establish precisely whose policy the king’s personal expedition was. Since the chronicles tell us nothing useful about the parliament of May 1382, and since there are no council minutes for these years either, we are left in the realms of speculation. Nonetheless, it can be said that one likely suspect, John of Gaunt, was in all probability not the originator of these schemes, simply because of the way they clashed with his own. The project of a royal expedition to Flanders threatened to divert resources away from Gaunt’s plans for an invasion of Spain, by which he hoped both to deal with a dangerous French ally and to promote his own claim to the throne of Castile.²¹ It seems unlikely that the duke would have wanted to open up an extra front by providing military assistance to Ghent. So, if it was not Gaunt who lay behind the project of a royal expedition to Flanders, might it have been the king and those about him? Or at the very least, did they lend support to a policy which had received an unexpected boost from widespread hostility to the duke’s Spanish ambitions? Certainly, the manner in which the ‘way of Flanders’ emerged in opposition to Gaunt’s plans suggests that something of this kind was going on. In the parliament which met in October 1382, the Commons were invited by the new chancellor, Robert Braybrooke, bishop of London, to consider the possibility of an expedition to Spain or to Flanders, ‘or at least one of them, that is to say that of Spain, having nevertheless appropriate regard for Flanders’.²² It seems likely that the duke of Lancaster’s assertiveness lay behind this order of priorities. Flanders was presented as an optional extra which could not be allowed to consume resources which might otherwise be directed against Castile. The Spanish expedition, on the other hand, was presented as the end to all of England’s troubles, for if Gaunt became king of Castile, the rest of the wars would all be ended.²³ The duke asked for a loan of £43,000 to pay the wages of four thousand men for six months, to be repaid in three years time. Yet despite Gaunt’s membership of the committee of lords assigned to advise the Commons what best to do, it seems to have been sceptical of his proposals.²⁴ The committee noted that a Spanish expedition seemed to be a very ²⁰ RP, iii. 124, item 16 and Statutes, ii. 25 censure those who failed to attend. ²¹ On John of Gaunt’s claim to Spain see Russell 1955: chs. 8, 10, 13, 15; Goodman 1992: chs. 5, 6, 7. ²² RP, iii. 134, item 13. ²³ RP, iii. 133, item 12; Russell 1955: ch. 14. ²⁴ RP, iii. 134, item 14.

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good idea which would bring the war to a good and speedy end. But it continued that the great number of people demanded was nonetheless somewhat small for waging war against so strong a kingdom.²⁵ The opposition between the project of a royal expedition to France or Flanders and Gaunt’s plans in Spain comes out clearly in the account given by the Westminster chronicler of the Convocation of Clergy which sat in late 1382 and early 1383. In this assembly, some suggested that past subsidies ‘had not been applied to the interests of the kingdom but to those of its enemies’.²⁶ The chronicler goes on to assert that at a second meeting after Christmas the king was granted a second half-subsidy, ‘on this condition, that the king would prepare war against those who pressed most against the kingdom’.²⁷ He elaborates that ‘it was feared that if the duke of Lancaster, who was constant in his aspiration to the Spanish kingship, once laid hold of these funds he would speedily be off to Spain instead of against the French, from whose resistance greater peril loomed over the realm’.²⁸ The fear of the dominance of John of Gaunt’s personal interests over royal government and military policy had only gained in sharpness in the aftermath of the rising of 1381. It seems that the rest of the committee appointed to advise the Commons in October 1382 recognized the dangers inherent in allowing Gaunt to have his way and favoured instead a campaign headed by the 15-year-old king. The project of a royal expedition initially met with more success in the autumn parliament of 1382 than John of Gaunt’s Spanish plans. It was later noted that, in this assembly, the king had ‘taken purpose to go (avoit pris purpos d’aler), with the aid of God, in his person to France, to recover it as his right heritage’, and that he had consequently been granted a full lay subsidy.²⁹ In early December 1382, the royal government began preparations for the king’s departure.³⁰ In the middle of that month, orders were given for the arrest of ships in Devon and Cornwall ‘for the passage of the king to parts of France’.³¹ Bows and arrows were ordered throughout England, and steps were taken to reinforce Calais.³² At the same time, although Henry Despenser, the bishop of Norwich, was authorized to recruit all the king’s subjects ²⁵ RP, iii. 136–7, item 23. ²⁶ Westminster, 28. ²⁷ Westminster, 32. ²⁸ Westminster, 34. ²⁹ RP, iii. 144, item 3; RP, iii. 134, item 15. ³⁰ Aston 1965: 139. ³¹ TNA E 403/493, m. 8 (13 Dec): ‘pro passagio Regis versus partes Franc’. ‘Partes Franc’ could refer to Flanders or to an embarkation point at Calais. ³² Aston 1965: 139.

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for his own projected Crusade to Flanders, specific exception was made of those who had been retained to serve the king.³³ Yet even as these preparations were being made the situation in Flanders was swiftly worsening. With the arrival of the young Charles VI at the head of his own royal host, the scale of the English intervention which would be required suddenly increased. The French went on to defeat Ghent at Roosebeke on 27 November 1382.³⁴ It seems that soon after news of this event reached England, a Great Council was called to consider what was to be done. The plan remained essentially the same, although now it was believed that more funds would be needed. At this assembly, as Chancellor Braybrooke later told the parliament of February 1383: it was finally for many reasons the opinion of all, for the rescue of Ghent, and to bring about the recovery of the country of Flanders, that our said lord the king should pass in his person with his royal host, so that he could have his honour saved.³⁵

It seems that the funds granted in October 1382 were thought inadequate for the job in hand, and so the Great Council moved quickly to summon parliament to raise the extra funds which the new situation necessitated.³⁶ In the event, the project of a royal expedition was scuppered once more in the parliament of February 1383, not because of any weakening of the king’s firm purpose to cross to the continent, but because of the pressure exerted by two separate developments. The first of these was the emergence of an alternative, cheaper means of providing for the relief of Ghent. The bishop of Norwich’s independent project to lead a Crusade to Flanders seemed to offer a way of undertaking an expedition to the Low Countries without incurring the enormous expense of a royal campaign.³⁷ The Commons had been willing to grant a single subsidy for a personal expedition by the king, but if it was going to cost more than that then they would, no doubt, have preferred the cheaper option proposed by Bishop Despenser, particularly as the success of his attempts to raise funds became clear.³⁸ Moreover, it appears that there was a second factor which made a royal expedition impracticable. In his reply to the chancellor’s appeal for funds, the ³³ Foedera, vii. 372–3. ³⁴ Vaughan 1962: 24–8; Quicke 1947: 332–5. ³⁵ RP, iii. 144, item 3. For date see Aston 1965: 138–9. ³⁶ RP, iii. 123, item 9. ³⁷ Perroy 1933: ch. 5; Aston 1965; Housley 1983. ³⁸ Ibid.; Knighton, 324.

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Speaker, James Pekeryng, admitted that if an expedition could be undertaken in person by the king, who had the true right to the crown of France, then that expedition would be better employed than under any person in the world. ‘But since that could not be done, as had been declared amongst them for many good reasons’, their opinion was that the bishop of Norwich’s proffer ought to be supported instead.³⁹ Why could a personal expedition not be undertaken? It has sometimes been suggested that the administration merely put up this project as a straw man, a plan so expensive that the Commons would be forced to reject it out of hand and to find some alternative.⁴⁰ If this were true, it is strange for Chancellor Braybrook to have argued, as he did, that a royal expedition would be cheaper since men would be inspired to serve at lower wages than they would under other circumstances.⁴¹ The preparations for the king’s departure already undertaken over the winter make it clear that this was a genuine project. Was it then the case that the Commons suspected that the proposed expedition to Flanders would be diverted to pursue Gaunt’s interests in Spain? Although not impossible, this would have involved the duke in straightforward misappropriation of a grant which was always requested for the relief of Ghent. Gaunt’s Spanish projects are nowhere even alluded to in the parliament roll. The monk of Westminster asserts that the lords raised arguments against the bishop’s proffer because of ‘base jealousy’, and that the Commons, ‘who had observed how often in past ventures the apathy of the nobles had damaged the kingdom’s interests’ sided with the bishop.⁴² He continues that the duke of Lancaster, infuriated by this, ‘let fall certain remarks whose effect, when gossip had noised them abroad, was to set the commons in a ferment (communitas cepit commoveri)’. In consequence, the duke was once again forced to flee ‘to other regions’.⁴³ Perhaps the suspicion that Gaunt might appropriate a royal expedition for his own ends aided the Commons in selecting what was in any case the cheaper option.⁴⁴ Certainly there is no need to accept ³⁹ RP, iii. 145, item 9. ⁴⁰ See e.g. Saul 1997a: 104, n. 63. Palmer 1972: esp. 48–9 takes a slightly different line, arguing that between 1383 and 1386, the royal government sought excessively large grants of funds, which it did not expect the Commons to provide (although it would have been happy to use these funds if they had been available) so that in refusing them the Commons would give the government a mandate to pursue peace. ⁴¹ RP, iii. 144, item 3. ⁴² Westminster, 34. ⁴³ Westminster, 36. ⁴⁴ For such suspicions in the Convocation of Clergy, see above, p. 102.

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the account given by the late and frequently inaccurate continuation of the Eulogium chronicle, the source of the accusation that Richard lacked ‘warlike spirit’.⁴⁵ According to this commentator, the lords proposed an expedition to France and the bishop of Norwich put forward his papal bulls. ‘The king did not want to travel (Rex laborare noluit); the Commons wanted the bishop to cross the sea,’ so the bishop’s proffer triumphed.⁴⁶ The tendency amongst historians has been to accept this assessment, putting down the king’s failure to intervene to his wellknown distaste for war. Yet, it should be noted that not even the Eulogium chronicler ascribes the failure to mount a royal expedition to some character flaw on the part of the king. There was, in fact, a good reason for not undertaking a royal expedition in that season, set out by the Commons and recorded in the parliament roll, namely the threat from Scotland.⁴⁷ If a peace or truce was not made at the next negotiations on 24 June 1383, Speaker Pekeryng asserted, it was to be feared that fighting would break out between the two kingdoms ‘which would be the most perilous and most damaging war that we could have’. It was commonly noted, he continued, that the Scots were ‘so strong and proud’ (si fortz et orgoillouses) that they would assent to no peace or truce if it was not damaging to the king and his kingdom. In consequence it seemed to the Commons that, until the March of Scotland was quieted, neither the king nor his uncles should leave the kingdom, since it was for fear of them that the Scots did not attack.⁴⁸ In the months which followed, Pekeryng’s fears were realized, down to the date he suggested. In June, the Scots attacked and took Wark Castle.⁴⁹ In the process they broke a truce which ought to have lasted until 2 February 1384.⁵⁰ Order was restored soon after in an agreement which reasserted that date as the end of the truce.⁵¹ Nonetheless, the Scots were to attack again in November 1383. In the years which followed the expiry of this accord, in 1384 and 1385, the English twice faced a renewal of the threat from Scotland, on the second occasion materially supported by their French ⁴⁵ On the Eulogium continuator see Stow 2004; Fletcher 2005: n. 28; and above, Ch. 2, pp. 42–3; Ch. 3, pp. 56–7. ⁴⁶ Eulogium, 356. For this meaning of ‘laborare’, which was common in the later fourteenth century, see MLD, s.v. ‘laborare’. ⁴⁷ On the deterioration of the situation on the Scottish border in the 1370s and 1380s, see Campbell 1965: 191–2, 206–9; Tuck 1968: 35–43; Grant 1992. ⁴⁸ RP, iii. 145, item 10. ⁴⁹ Westminster, 40; Walsingham, 706; Goodman 1992: 96. ⁵⁰ Foedera, vii. 312–14. ⁵¹ Foedera, vii. 403–4 (12 July 1383).

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allies. Clearly the fears of the Commons were well founded. It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the presence of the king and his uncles in England did indeed prevent a more substantial Scottish incursion in 1383. Thus it does not seem that the proposed royal expedition was abandoned in early 1383 because of any lack of enthusiasm on the part of the king. Instead, this project was sidelined partly by the threat from Scotland, partly as a result of the expanded scale of the expedition and reduced chances of success after Roosebeke, and partly because of the success in the preparation stage of the Crusade of the bishop of Norwich. ∗ In some ways, it is perhaps understandable that historians have generally been dismissive of the king’s ‘firm purpose’ to take an expedition to the continent in his mid teens. Contemporary commentators on the events of 1382–3 entertained similar doubts about the young king’s involvement with such projects, which they most commonly regarded as a cynical ploy by John of Gaunt to wrest control of military funds for his own ends. Yet it is important to note that this shared scepticism yields little evidence concerning what Richard himself might actually have intended to do. It is rather more suggestive of a surprising degree of overlap between late medieval commonplace ideas about the inconstant tendencies of youth and the assumptions of modern historians about the likely character of a teenage king. This phenomenon comes out most clearly in the most widely accepted account of one particularly significant moment in the establishment of Richard II’s later unmanly reputation, namely his actions during the bishop of Norwich’s Crusade. Although a number of commentators have begun to suggest otherwise, Richard’s actions during the summer of 1383 are still widely characterized as bearing witness to a wilful disinterest in the military events unfolding in Flanders. It is usually held that the king spent the time of the campaign touring the abbeys of England with his young wife, whilst Bishop Despenser first took Gravelines, Bourbourg, and Dunkirk, before becoming bogged down outside Ypres, and finally appealing home for help as the French royal host marched into Flanders. Most historians have held that the king’s reaction to the news of this

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impending disaster was to prevaricate until it was too late to intervene.⁵² In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear that another interpretation of events is also possible.⁵³ Contrary to most generally accepted accounts of this episode, there is much evidence that the king was keen to take an army to the continent, but was prevented from doing so at the last. The impression that Richard delayed his intervention until it was too late relies partly on the influence of the account presented by Thomas Walsingham, partly on some confusion concerning dates and places, and partly on the misinterpretation of a crucial document issued as the king prepared to embark. Once this episode is allowed to emerge as a renewed frustration of the king’s desire to take an expedition to the continent, his actions in the stormy councils and parliaments which followed it also become more explicable, as Richard grew ever more strident in the assertion of his authority as king. Thomas Walsingham, in a version of the St Albans chronicle completed in 1394 at the earliest, presents a story of the events of 1383 which could have been taken straight out of romance.⁵⁴ It is worth dwelling on the narrative he gives at some length, since it makes use of themes which were important both in the early 1380s and at the time of Richard’s deposition. Throughout his account of events, the chronicler makes much of the king’s inconstancy and youth, in contrast to the vigorous, directed activity which he ought to have pursued.⁵⁵ Walsingham begins by juxtaposing the siege of Ypres with the tour of English abbeys which Richard and Queen Anne performed around that time, ‘going around’ with an excessive number of people.⁵⁶ This activity dramatized the familiar complaint of the Commons that it was an ill-run household which produced the king’s inability to pursue war out of his own resources.⁵⁷ The excessive burden of the household was not only an occasion of lamentation for the damage it did to the country, it was the reason why taxation was not available for the king to ⁵² Aston 1965: 146–7; Tuck 1973: 91; Palmer 1972: 49; Saul 1997a: 104. Goodman 1992: 97 does not discuss the cause of delay, but he does believe that it was already too late when the council ‘showed good sense in restraining Richard’s chivalrous inclination to hasten across the Channel’. The events of 1383 are not discussed in Gillespie 1997b. ⁵³ See Wilks 2000, which argues for Richard’s active desire to intervene in 1383. Unfortunately this suggestive lecture, published posthumously, was never written up with full scholarly apparatus. ⁵⁴ On the dating of this version of Walsingham’s chronicle, see above, Ch. 5, n. 86. ⁵⁵ Walsingham, 688–70, 700–4. ⁵⁶ Ibid., 688. ⁵⁷ Given-Wilson 1986: 14–15, 78–9, 104–6, 113, 127; Harriss 1975: ch 7.

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wage war in person. The chronicler then went on to show how Richard II demonstrated youthful inconstancy at every stage in the summer of 1383. The king is portrayed trying to reward the abbey of Bury, where he stayed for ten days whilst the siege continued on the continent.⁵⁸ There, ‘with his intention changed like a child’, Richard reversed an earlier undertaking not to accept papal provisions, and instead has the papally appointed abbot blessed by his confessor, by which act ‘the inconstancy of the king, and of his consilium’ became known far and wide.⁵⁹ According to Walsingham, the king then passed from Bury to Thetford, and thence to Norwich, where gifts were again required for both the king and the queen. Nor did they prudently maintain these gifts in their hands, but they prodigally granted them out to foreigners in the queen’s entourage, with the result that the kingdom was poorer when they returned than when they had set out. This gives Walsingham the occasion to remark that in this way: ‘everything corresponded to the proverb of Wisdom being true: ‘‘Woe to the land of which the king is a boy.’’ ’⁶⁰ It is important to note that, by 1383, it was already a politically charged assertion to state that Richard was a ‘boy’. He was by then 16, the age of the Black Prince at the battle of Cr´ecy. As used by Walsingham, the account of Richard’s boyish behaviour serves as a taunt to a youth faced with the opportunity to prove himself a man. The juxtaposition of the pressing needs of battle with the idle, wandering, inconstant pastimes of youth is a familiar one from romance, for example when Gawain is challenged by his mother in Of Arthour and of Merlin or as Felice goads her suitor, the young Guy of Warwick.⁶¹ Will young Richard rise to the challenge, and prove himself a man? Or will the inconstancy which aligns youth with femininity triumph over the heat which aligns it with manhood?⁶² This being Walsingham, Richard fails, and dramatically so, in a way which underlines the inconstancy which late medieval commonplace ascribed to youth. After the lamentation directed against a king who is a ‘boy’, Walsingham turns to the war in Flanders. He reports that after taking Bourbourg, the French besieged the bishop of Norwich at Gravelines, offering him ⁵⁸ Walsingham, 688–70. Royal letters confirm Richard’s presence at some period including 2 and 9 June. See CPR, 1381–5, 280. Walsingham stays he stayed for ten days. The bishop of Norwich invested Ypres on 9 June, and withdrew from 10 August. See Perroy 1933: 193–6; Vaughan 1962: 29–30; Saul 1997a: 105. ⁵⁹ Walsingham, 690. ⁶⁰ Ibid. ⁶¹ See e.g. passages cited above, Ch. 2, n. 58. ⁶² See above, Ch. 4.

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a ransom to abandon the town, raze it to the ground and go freely home. In these desperate circumstances, the bishop sent a message home, whose tenor the chronicler purports to present to us. According to Walsingham, Despenser reported his desperate situation and the strength of the French king, before declaring that: now was the time, if ever [Richard] wanted to fight the king of France, to come, or to send those who dared to fight with him; because unless the king of France intended to sail to England, he could not come closer.⁶³

Walsingham has the king meet this challenge not with the constancy and vigour of a man, but with the frenetic energy and ultimate inconstancy of a youth. The chronicler asserts that the king received the bishop’s letter at dinner at Daventry, in the course of his ‘vagabond’ wanderings through the country and the religious houses. He portrays the king reacting with furious, chaotic energy, upsetting a table as he got up ‘with all fury and haste’ (cum omni furia et festinatione). Richard then set off at once, changing horses many times, ‘as if he were about to kill the king of France that night’. Passing through the abbey of St Albans, the king took a palfrey which he subsequently failed to return. This detail lends a ring of authenticity to this account, since St Albans was indeed on the road from Daventry to London. When the king arrives at Westminster, Walsingham has him sink seemingly inexplicably into lethargy. Exhausted by his ride, he decides to sleep. Having slept, however, he decides that rest is good, and so determined ‘to deal more softly with his enemies’. Thus, after great words and great pomp, nothing was done. In this way, Walsingham puts across his own implied explanation for the king’s failure to come to the aid of the bishop of Norwich. His youthful disposition inclined him both to vigorous action, but also to the constitutional changeability which quickly lapses into inactivity. Later historians, although sceptical of Walsingham’s propagandistic purposes, have nonetheless tended to agree with the general outline he gives of Richard’s behaviour in these months. Margaret Aston, in an influential article, began with Walsingham’s account of these events, before making several essential corrections to it. First, she used the Westminster chronicle to transfer the responsibility for informing the king from the bishop of Norwich to John of Gaunt and his younger brother, Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham. ⁶³ Walsingham, 702.

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In this account, the king’s uncles wrote to Richard and began to raise troops ‘about the 24 August’.⁶⁴ Aston deduced from a record in the Issue Rolls of the exchequer that the correct date was in fact 26 August, on which day one John Maynard was sent to Norfolk with letters to the king.⁶⁵ This led her to wonder why the king delayed until mid-September before returning to London. According to the monk of Westminster it was on 14 September that the king finally arrived in London to attend a Great Council at which the possibility of a royal expedition was mooted, championed by Lancaster and Buckingham, but opposed by the rest of the lords.⁶⁶ Aston accepts that this meeting was the one to which Richard had been summoned from Daventry. Why did he not come sooner? Aston concluded that Richard waited until the situation was desperate before making the unavoidable gesture of responsibility, which was by then far too late.⁶⁷ There are, however, a number of reasons to doubt this interpretation of events. To begin with, John Maynard’s first choice of destination was not ideal. On 25 and 26 August the king was not in Norfolk, but at Bishopthorpe, near York.⁶⁸ He had not been in East Anglia since July, although he had spent much of June and July thereabouts.⁶⁹ Richard seems to have made his way north in August, most likely to attend to defence and the maintenance of order after the conclusion of a tentative truce with Scotland on 12 July.⁷⁰ If Maynard was indeed sent to Norfolk, it would have taken him some time to track Richard down, and a few more days for the king to make his way south. It seems, moreover, that Richard did not delay his return south until 14 September, since a letter survives warranted ‘by the king himself’ at Westminster on 8 September.⁷¹ This letter has been remarked upon by historians before, although not for the date and place of its issue. It is commonly held to be remarkable for the intensity of the language ⁶⁴ Westminster, 48; Aston 1965: 144–5. ⁶⁵ TNA E 403/496, m. 19; Aston 1965: 146. ⁶⁶ Westminster, 48. ⁶⁷ Aston 1965: 146. ⁶⁸ CPR, 1381–5, p. 311 (25 Aug); TNA C 81/1340/8 (26 Aug). ⁶⁹ Saul 1997a: 470. e.g. spending 4–6 July being entertained at Ely by Bishop Arundel. See M. J. Bennett 1999a: 191. ⁷⁰ Foedera, vii. 403–4. At Nottingham: CPR, 1381–5, 299 (1 Aug.), 297–304; CCR, 1381–5, 396 (8 Aug.). At Hull: CPR, 1381–5, 304 (10 Aug.); CCR, 1381–5, 394 (10 Aug.), 391 (12 Aug). At Lincoln: CCR, 393–4 (14 Aug.). At Newcastle: C 81/1340/7 (19 Aug.) which could date from 1383 or 1385. ⁷¹ TNA C 76/68, m. 24; Foedera, vii. 407–8.

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in which it condemns war, and to be so enthusiastic for peace that it commissioned John of Gaunt to offer a personal duel between the two kings as a way to bring hostilities to an end.⁷² Yet this interpretation is misleading in a number of regards. First, the letter does not condemn war outright, but rather the horrors of war as brought about by the misdeeds of Charles VI and his predecessors. It then offers a challenge to meet in the open field in arms. After briefly conferring power on John of Gaunt, to whom it is addressed, to treat with the French king if necessary, it goes on to declare that, lest prolonged negotiations extend the horrors of war, recourse might be taken to either personal combat between the kings, or a duel between the two kings and their respective uncles, ‘or otherwise, an agreeable day and place should be assigned, at which, through the general battle of our armies, in accordance with divine will, an end can be put to such evil’.⁷³ Far from being designed as an instrument of peace, this document is in fact loosely based on Edward III’s first challenge to Philip of Valois in June 1340. This earlier letter also began by lamenting the damage done to the people by an army in the field, before going on to demand that Edward’s challenge for the throne of France be resolved, either through single combat, or through the battle of one hundred on one hundred, or else ‘with force against force’ (poer countre poer) in the field within ten days.⁷⁴ Richard II was not seeking peace out of a lack of enthusiasm for war, he was demanding combat in the field in imitation of Edward III in his warlike youth. But if the king was so determined to go on an expedition to France that he issued such a bellicose declaration on 8 September, what was he doing in Daventry in the middle of that month, when he received report ‘that the king of France had appeared with a huge army near his territory’ which brought him back to Westminster?⁷⁵ The answer is suggested by Daventry’s crucial location as a resting point on the old Roman road from London to Holyhead. If Richard was making his way north, rather than continuing the perambulations of the midsummer, then another likely destination presents itself: North Wales and Cheshire. It seems probable that his mission was military, to raise troops in his power-base in the earldom of Cheshire, which was to be the basis of Robert de Vere’s operations against the Appellants in 1387, and perhaps to bring together others from the lands in Wales of the earl of Arundel, who ⁷² Palmer 1972: 49–50; Saul 1997a: 135. ⁷³ Foedera, vii. 407–8. ⁷⁴ Foedera, v. 198–9. ⁷⁵ Westminster, 48.

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had been suggested to the bishop of Norwich as a secular lieutenant in June.⁷⁶ It also seems likely that the news which made him rush back was an advance warning of the imminent arrival of the French, perhaps an appeal from the bishop of Norwich similar to that presented by Walsingham, for it was on 12 September the French advance guard arrived before Bourbourg.⁷⁷ The perilous situation which had involved the royal government in military preparations since mid-August had taken a disastrous turn for the worst.⁷⁸ There was no longer any time for John of Gaunt to proceed, meet the French, and deliver the challenge as proposed on 8 September. Instead, the king would have had to depart forthwith. After rushing through St Albans to Westminster, it seems that the king had messengers sent out to various parts of the country with letters under the privy seal, ordering the magnates to arm themselves in a limited time to go in the king’s company to France.⁷⁹ Some time later, the clerks of the privy seal were paid for having ‘with great haste’ written various letters, presumably on this occasion, directing the earls, barons, knights, and other retainers of the king to prepare ‘with all speed’ to set out in the royal host to Calais.⁸⁰ Within days these enthusiastic preparations were to prove in vain, not through the king’s youthful changeability, but through the steadfast refusal of supply which had prevented a royal expedition in the first place. The monk of Westminster preserves the only account of the deliberations of the council which met when Richard returned from Daventry. According to the chronicler, this assembly considered ‘that it was impossible in so short a time as a week or two for the king to have an army ready; that it was undignified for him to appear in the open field, facing the full might of the king of France, except in magnificent array; that this would be expensive; and that the royal treasury did not contain the means to fulfil his aim.’ He concludes: ‘In this way the king’s intention was frustrated.’⁸¹ It seems, then, that a royal expedition was averted in the late summer of 1383 not by the king shying away from war through an aversion to battle, or through his youthful inconstancy. Rather, the royal expedition which ⁷⁶ Westminster, 40; RP, iii. 155, item 20. On the significance of Cheshire as Richard’s power base, see R. R. Davies 1971; Gillespie 1975; M. J. Bennett 1999a: 188, 192, 197–8; Bennett 1983: 11, 38–9, 73–4, 127–8, 165, 167–70, 208–16, 225, 244. On Cheshire as a recruiting ground in general, see ibid., 162–91. ⁷⁷ Perroy 1933: 197; Aston 1965: 146. ⁷⁸ Ibid., 144. ⁷⁹ Aston 1965: 144; E 403/496, m. 15. ⁸⁰ Ibid. ⁸¹ Westminster, 48.

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would, in addition to its strategic attractions, have given Richard II the opportunity to act as a man, was frustrated in the late summer of 1383 by the same considerations—the Scottish threat, the fear of a repeat of the rising of 1381, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining large tax grants—as had been advanced in May 1382 and February 1383. ∗ The failure of the lords to support a royal expedition to relieve the bishop of Norwich’s Crusade illustrates the continuing weakness of royal authority when Richard II was in his mid-teens. It demonstrated that the public involvement of the king’s will in a particular project was not enough to secure its approval. It makes it clear that Richard was still far from governing his kingdom as an accepted adult king would have done. Nonetheless, it would not be true to say that the king was as powerless in the autumn of 1383 as he had been when he began to emerge as a potential centre of authority in 1381–2. It does appear that there had been a considerable loosening of formal controls of the king’s disposition of resources in the eighteen months which followed the first declaration of the king’s firm purpose to lead an expedition to the continent in May 1382. In this same period, increased evidence emerges of Richard’s personal intervention in government. Thereafter, in the months following the bishop of Norwich’s crusade, the king’s assertion of his power became more strident, sometimes in direct reaction to his recent frustrations. Then, as before, the project of a royal expedition remained closely linked with the other ways in which the king sought to have his authority recognized. Between May 1382 and the autumn of 1383, many of the residual restraints on the king’s counsel-taking had finally fallen away. Since the parliament of 1381–2, Richard had theoretically been constrained, if loosely, in the distribution of his revenues, with grants to be authorized by the counsel of the lords and the council.⁸² In autumn 1382, these concessions seem to have been renewed, this time in an equivocal but not entirely negative reply to a petition asking that ‘good governail be put about your person, so that you can live fittingly and royally ⁸² RP, iii. 115, item 74. See above, Ch. 5, p. 90.

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within the revenues of your kingdom’.⁸³ This met with the response ‘for the king by his commandment’ that the king would take advice from the lords of his kingdom, and by their advice do what seemed to him needed to be done in that case, saving his honour.⁸⁴ In the following February, however, renewed attempts to put this form of counsel-taking on a more formal footing met with stiff resistance. A petition was submitted to the parliament of that month asking that ‘certain lords be assigned to place around your honourable person, by your advice, very redoubtable lord, the most wise, honestes and discreet persons in your kingdom, to counsel you’.⁸⁵ It went on to request that the king’s household be so organized that he could live within the revenues of the kingdom, so that poor, oppressed commons could be saved from ruin. It was clear that the presence of these ‘wise, honestes and discreet persons’ was to contribute to ensuring economical household government through their guidance of the king. This recalled the attempts to control ‘those about the king’ proposed in the parliaments of 1376, October 1377, April 1379, January 1380, and 1381–2.⁸⁶ Yet in early 1383, these demands were rejected, in an attempt to reverse some of the developments of the king’s early years. The reply asserted that the king would take about his person such sufficient persons, lords, and others, ‘as seemed best to him for his honour and profit’.⁸⁷ As for the rule and governance of the household, ‘the king would do with that, by the advice of the lords and others of his council, such good ordinance as seems to him best to be done, saving his honour’.⁸⁸ After the failure of the bishop of Norwich’s crusade, there were still signs that many were not content to see the 16-year-old king assigned this independence of action, nor to leave counsel-taking on an informal footing. Yet their aspirations were now openly rejected. According to the monk of Westminster, in the course of this parliament of autumn 1383 ‘a great dissension arose between the king and the temporal lords; for, as it seemed to them, the king adhered to unsound counsel (insano consilio) and on account of this he did not admit good regimen around himself; and so they laboured to take the full burden of government on themselves’. The lords argued that the king’s predecessors had ruled by their counsel ‘and as long as their government had been accepted ⁸³ RP, iii. 139, item 42. ⁸⁵ RP, iii. 147, item 18. ⁸⁷ RP, iii. 147, item 18.

⁸⁴ RP, iii. 148, item 21. ⁸⁶ See above, Ch. 5. ⁸⁸ Ibid.

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the kingdom of England had abounded with magnificent prosperity’.⁸⁹ According to the Westminster chronicler, however, the king would have none of this, asserting ‘that he refused to be ruled or led solely by their counsel, but that it pleased him to be modestly and tractably governed through his council (per suum concilium), that is to say through the picked and tested men of the kingdom (per viros electos et probatos de regno)’.⁹⁰ The interpretation presented above of Richard’s actions during Bishop Despenser’s expedition suggests new reasons why the discontent of some of the nobility might have reached such a pitch in autumn 1383. What are the consequences of accepting that the king had wanted to meet the king of France in the field in person, coming to the aid of the bishop of Norwich, but that this had been forestalled by a council assembly in mid-September? Possibly some amongst the nobles objected to that council, considering that they had done badly in advising that time was too short for the king to go in person. Possibly others were angered at the failure to send aid to the bishop at an earlier stage. Perhaps still others were angry at those who had counselled the king to go to France in the first place. One did not have to be a principled advocate of peace to see why the king’s schemes came to nothing in late summer 1383. It was simply necessary to note the threat from Scotland. It might have been argued that those who rashly advised the king to intervene in person in Flanders endangered not only the duke of Lancaster’s Spanish schemes, but also the security of England, considered in the light of the increase in activity on the northern border since the beginning of 1383. It is interesting to note that the Westminster chronicler is unequivocally supportive of the king in these debates, saying that he acted ‘most sagely and prudently’, since if some evil occurred through the rule (regimen) of the lords, the commons might ascribe this to their negligence, and the estates of the kingdom would be divided. The dissension between the king and lords in the autumn of 1383 seems to be a consequence of renewed attempts to impose the kind of restraints on the counsel of the king which had been requested in later 1382 and early 1383, intensified by anger surrounding the failure of Bishop Despenser’s Crusade. Yet in autumn 1383 the king was successful in rejecting the re-imposition of the formalized counsel-taking which had first been justified by his tender age. ⁸⁹ Westminster, 54.

⁹⁰ Ibid.

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At the same time as Richard rejected the external imposition of counsel, evidence begins to emerge that he was intervening with new confidence in the detailed business of government. The king’s personal intervention can be seen clearly on a number of occasions in the detailed business of the parliament of October 1383. One petition presented in that assembly asked that the customers desist from asking an additional nineteen pence on each sack of wool, since this amounted to an additional subsidy without the assent of parliament.⁹¹ At first, this request was granted, if it pleased the king. Yet, then, for the first time in the reign, Richard made it clear that it did not please him, and the petition was rejected ‘because it does not please the lord king to concede it at that time’.⁹² A further note records that the king finally agreed to release denizens from this charge, but not foreign merchants. It appears that Richard was becoming involved in negotiations as to how individual petitions from the Commons were to be answered. Elsewhere, a further request was granted, allowing a period of one month for those who had seisin of lands which had come into the escheators’ hands to appeal, before letters patent could be issued to petitioners to remove the present holders from possession.⁹³ This too was cancelled by a royal veto: ‘because the lord king did not want to confirm this response’.⁹⁴ The increasing mobilization of the king’s personal authority can be seen around the same time in a certain number of letters issued under the king’s personal seal, the signet. These show Richard himself intervening in his government, hurrying along procedures, and reversing past decisions, on a number of occasions in late 1383 and early 1384.⁹⁵ More significantly still, in the form of several grants made at this time, it was implied that the king’s ‘tender age’ lay in the past. One warrant, issued on 5 January 1384 in favour of Simon Burley, granted him the office of constable of Dover Castle, of the king’s grace and for the good service which Burley ‘did for us in our tender age’.⁹⁶ A second warrant, granting the same office with more details of Burley’s rights ⁹¹ RP, iii. 159, item 35. ⁹² Ibid. ⁹³ RP, iii. 161. ⁹⁴ Ibid. ⁹⁵ TNA C 81/1340/40 (7 Dec 1383), 61 (21 Jan 1384), 66 (26 Jan 1384) are signet warrants requesting the chancellor to act quickly on earlier privy seal letters. C 81/1341/59 (25 May 1384) reverses the ratification of estate in a church which the king had previously granted to another, asserting that the king did not remember that ratification. ⁹⁶ C 81/1340/49: ‘ . . . nous ad fait de nostre tendre age . . . ’. Cf. CPR, 1381–5, 366–7.

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and obligations, dated 24 January 1384, notes his good service in similar terms.⁹⁷ Almost three weeks later, on 10 February 1384, a grant was made to William Takell, esquire, ‘who served us in our tender age and since has often served us in our wars’.⁹⁸ These grants suggest that Richard, as he reached the age of 17, now considered his childhood to be firmly in the past. It seems that, by the beginning of 1384, the king himself was beginning to emerge as a genuine source of political will. He was able to resist renewed attempts to impose external counsel upon him. He could reject particular items of legislation to which he objected and freely intervened in the everyday processes of government. He made it clear that his tender age was a period of time to be located in the past. Although he was still unable to get his way in the matter of the royal expedition, it would not be long before his personal will became a force to be reckoned with in the tense debates over royal government and the war which were to characterize the period which followed the failure of Bishop Despenser’s crusade.

∗ In the past, the foreign policy of the period from autumn 1383 to the impeachment of Chancellor Michael de la Pole in October 1386 has commonly been seen as characterized by the pursuit of ‘appeasement’.⁹⁹ In these three years, it is held, the royal government actively pursued peace with France, abandoning its last remaining allies in the Low Countries. As the disastrous consequences of this attitude became clear, the way was left open for the more aggressive pursuit of war under the Commission of 1386–7 and during the rule of the Appellants. If this account of events could be shown to be true, then it would clearly pose something of a problem for the argument that Richard and those about him were attempting to promote his full estate through a royal ⁹⁷ C 81/1340/64. Cf. CPR, 1381–5, 370–1. ⁹⁸ C 81/1341/6: ‘ . . . qi nous seruist en nostre tendre age et depuis nous ad seruiz souent en noz guerres . . . ’. ⁹⁹ See e.g. Palmer 1972: esp. ch. 3; Goodman 1971: chs. 3, 4, 6, 7; Saul 1997: ch. 7. Although Gillespie 1997b argues for the king’s enthusiasm for warfare in Scotland in 1385, he does not relate this to any desire to pursue war with France. Palmer 1971c, Phillpotts 1990, and Curry 2000 see Richard presenting a tougher stand against France only in the 1390s.

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expedition, whether the responsibility for such a policy lay with the king or his officials. Yet, in fact, when the same sources are revisited without the presupposition that the king and his administration were always in favour of peace, then a rather different picture emerges. There is much evidence to suggest that the royal administration was actively hostile to the proposals for peace which John of Gaunt and others negotiated with the French during this period. Rather than being committed partisans of an accord whatever the price, the king and his government continued to press for grants of taxation for war, pursuing peace negotiations only when the Commons refused to grant adequate supply. It appears that in these years, too, the pursuit of war was of a piece with Richard’s other attempts to have his personal authority recognized. In the parliament which met in the immediate aftermath of the failure of the bishop of Norwich’s campaign, the royal government remained committed to continental Europe as the most fitting arena for Richard II’s first expedition as king. Although the Scottish threat was the first concern of the parliament of October 1383, the royal government continued to press for the financial backing necessary for an expedition across the Channel, and it was this which was associated with the king’s leadership. The new chancellor, Michael de la Pole, opened proceedings with a remarkable appeal for the Commons’ support in the king’s wars. He began by expounding in detail why the Scots needed to be resisted, before moving on to a thoroughgoing defence of the need to pursue aggressive war against the kingdom’s enemies in France, Spain, and Flanders. De la Pole first put forward an argument which seemed to apply more to France than to Scotland, asserting that it was reasonable to attack, since ‘we’ were challengers in this case, and reason demanded that the challenger attack and the defender defend. He then argued that it was profitable attack, so that battle would not take place in the English kingdom. Finally, he declared that ‘it is more honourable to attack than to defend, since commonly cowards never attack’. He asserted the need to avoid the shame (vilenie) of being the challengers and yet being attacked, through the failure to pursue one’s right. If they did so they would be held for cowards. ‘Either we must pursue our right by strong hand and assault, or abandon it shamefully.’¹⁰⁰ The Commons’ response to Michael de la Pole’s stirring appeal was not perhaps as generous as he might have hoped. They were only ¹⁰⁰ RP, iii. 149–50.

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prepared to make limited provision for military activity against the Scots, French, Spanish, and Flemish in the coming season. A single lay subsidy was granted by this assembly, which was to be divided into two halves.¹⁰¹ The first half, to be paid on 20 January 1384, was unconditional. It seems likely that it was intended for the expedition to Scotland which was led north by John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock in late February 1384.¹⁰² The second half was conditional not on any agreement with Scotland, but with France. If no peace or truce with the king’s French adversary was concluded by Easter (10 April), then, ‘considering the good intention and will (bon courage et volentee) of our lord the king, and the necessity of the defence of the kingdom’, a second half subsidy would be collected on 29 May 1384.¹⁰³ It seems likely that the reference to the ‘good courage and will’ of the king was a concession to his continuing ‘firm purpose’ to lead an army to France. It seems that if Lancaster and his brother could secure no acceptable treaty with the French, and once the needs of defence had been met by a campaign in Scotland, a new opportunity for Richard to pursue his manhood in a royal expedition to France would present itself after Easter 1384. Once again, however, the Commons’ enthusiasm for the cause of a royal expedition did not extend to providing sufficient funds for such a venture. A half subsidy was hardly enough for an expedition to France, much less for the scale of expedition which would be called for if the king were to go in person to meet the assembled forces of Charles VI. Working with the estimate of the cost of a royal expedition presented to the Commons in May 1382, and taking the yield of half a lay subsidy and half a clerical tenth together to be about £28,000, a half subsidy would only have supported a force of fewer than 3,000 men for six months.¹⁰⁴ This was not enough to pay for an army large enough to have any hope of defeating the French, who in the months just past had mobilized some 15–20,000 men to crush the Crusade of the bishop of Norwich.¹⁰⁵ This left the royal administration in a difficult situation. In 1384, without the money to fund a full expedition, they had no alternative but to press for peace, holding the second half-subsidy in reserve for the needs of defence. ¹⁰¹ RP, iii. 151, item 13. ¹⁰³ RP, iii. 151, item 13. ¹⁰⁵ Vaughan 1962: 30.

¹⁰² Westminster, 66; Knighton, 332–4. ¹⁰⁴ RP, iii. 122, item 9; Sherborne 1977: 141.

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The king and his government thus came to peace negotiations in the winter of 1383–4, not with enthusiasm, but in the knowledge that the inadequacy of the funds at their disposal made it impossible to pursue a more aggressive policy. During parliament, on 4 November 1383, the duke of Lancaster and eleven others were commissioned to treat for peace with the king of France, and with the count and cities of Flanders.¹⁰⁶ It does not seem that they went on bended knee. When the negotiations began in December, it seems that the English began the proceedings with ‘many and great demands’ which the French argued were unreasonable.¹⁰⁷ It cannot have helped that the French themselves had reason to wish that no permanent peace be concluded. After Charles VI’s uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, became count of Flanders in January 1384, needing only to suppress Ghent to secure his control of his inheritance, the French now had the perfect departure point from which to invade England.¹⁰⁸ With the Anglo-Scottish truce coming to an end, the possibility of coordinating a two-pronged attack, which might put an end to the English menace for years to come, was not to be rashly thrown away by concluding a peace or a long truce. Perhaps the only person who might have profited from such a deal was John of Gaunt, since it would have left him free to pursue his long-nurtured ambitions in Spain. Thus, with the exception of the duke of Lancaster, the enthusiasm of any of the parties to the draft peace negotiated in early 1384 is to be doubted. This draft, although its exact terms are unknown, seems to have proposed conceding to the French king the full sovereignty and homage he required over the lands held by the English king, even if this sovereignty was subject to certain unspecified ‘modifications’ put forward by the English.¹⁰⁹ A general truce was concluded to allow the delegates to consult their respective kings. This was agreed on 26 January 1384 to last until 1 October.¹¹⁰ It would have had the effect of cancelling the second half subsidy granted by parliament in November 1383, which had been conditional on there being no truce with France. It is generally asserted that the English administration, and in particular Chancellor Michael de la Pole, were enthusiastic, even desperate, to have this draft accord ratified as a final peace in the parliament which ¹⁰⁶ ¹⁰⁷ ¹⁰⁸ ¹⁰⁹ ¹¹⁰

Foedera, vii. 412, 413–14. As remarked in the notes of one of the French envoys. See Du Bosc, 328–9. Vaughan 1962: 16–38; Palmer 1972: 52. RP, iii. 170, items 17, 18; Du Bosc, 328–9. Foedera, vii. 418–21; Du Bosc, 328–30.

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sat at Salisbury on 29 April 1384.¹¹¹ Indeed, it is usually held that the very purpose of this parliament was the ratification of the provisional peace treaty, which the government was anxious to have confirmed.¹¹² But when the proceedings of this parliament are revisited in detail, it appears that this interpretation rests on an overly one-sided reading of the royal administration’s intentions, one which stresses their commitment to peace when in fact their attitude was rather different. In fact, the chancellor seems to have advocated a treaty only reluctantly, because the Commons were unwilling to finance war. In his opening speech to parliament, de la Pole first presented the Commons with the draft accord which Lancaster and his colleagues had concluded, before going on to ask them to counsel the king as was best for his honour and for the profit of the king and kingdom.¹¹³ The Commons, however, refused to say anything one way or the other, requesting that the king decide himself as seemed best for his honour and profit, and for the comfort and aid of the kingdom.¹¹⁴ They were then pressed ‘on behalf of the king’ (de par le Roi) in a way which revealed the royal administration’s attitude to the treaty. Did they want peace or war, it was asked, ‘for there is no other middle way, because the French will not assent to treaties which are good or profitable to the king and the kingdom’.¹¹⁵ To this the Commons could only reply that they desired a ‘good and honourable’ peace. Yet they considered many terms of the proposed treaty obscure, and did not think the king should offer homage and service too lightly for Calais, and other lands conquered by the sword. De la Pole faced the Commons with the dishonourable consequences of their own position, noting that there was no way that these lands could be held in any other fashion, and asked them how they would act if they were the king. The Commons’ only reply, avoiding responsibility for making a decision one way or the other, was to say that they had heard that the lords and prelates had advised that they would prefer peace to war, and that they agreed with them. Nonetheless, this parliament granted two half-subsidies, the first to be deployed as the king and his Council saw fit, the second conditional on the non-completion of the peace with France, or if the wars in Scotland continued.¹¹⁶ ¹¹¹ See e.g. Saul 1997: 135–7; Palmer 1972: 50–1. ¹¹² Ibid.; Tuck 1973: 92. ¹¹³ RP, iii. 166, item 3. ¹¹⁴ RP, iii. 170, item 16. ¹¹⁵ RP, iii. 170, item 17: ‘qar y n’ad autre moiene voie, a cause qe as trieves qe serroient bones ou profitables au roi et son roialme ne veullient les Franceys ore assentir.’ Emphasis added. ¹¹⁶ RP, iii. 167–8.

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The debates of the Salisbury parliament of April 1384 have traditionally been used to furnish further supporting material for the unmanly reputation of Richard II, as the changeable mores of the youthful king and the unsavoury nature of his court are pitted against the warlike impulses of many amongst the lords. Yet, in fact, the vehement and occasionally violent controversies of this assembly can equally well be seen as a product of the anxiety of a political community unwilling to fund a royal expedition, but still disturbed by the dishonourable consequences of the refusal to allow Richard to set out on his first campaign. Presenting parliament with an agreement which they themselves declared to be unacceptable, the king’s officials found themselves in a dangerous position. They hoped thereby to force the Commons into admitting the necessity of war by declaring the dishonourable nature of Lancaster’s proposed agreement, and thus accepting the need to provide money for war. Yet when this risky gamble failed to pay off, the result was intense dissatisfaction on all sides, most famously expressed by the king’s former tutor, Richard, earl of Arundel. The earl’s tirade was directed, at least in part, against the kingdom’s showing in war, a fault which he laid at the door of the royal administration. According to the Westminster chronicler, Arundel began by noting that any kingdom lacking ‘provident government’ (provida gubernacione) stood in peril of destruction.¹¹⁷ He then asserted that it was well-known that the kingdom had begun to lose strength for a long time because of bad rule (propter malum regimen) and had now almost wasted away. Unless the kingdom was quickly succoured then he feared that it would suffer crippling losses, and risked failing entirely with the loss of the power of those who might come to its aid. His account of the loss of power, of strength, echoed the complaints of Peter de la Mare about the poor state of the knighthood of the kingdom in 1377.¹¹⁸ Seen from the perspective of a king who wished to pursue war, but had been repeatedly frustrated, Richard’s response to these remarks makes more sense than has been admitted in the past. Enraged, he looked on the earl with a ‘fierce expression’ and proclaimed: ‘If you lay it on me, and it is supposed to be my fault that there is bad rule (malum regimen) in the kingdom, you lie in your teeth (in faciem tuam mentiris). Go to the devil!’¹¹⁹ In seeing this as the irrational, ¹¹⁷ Westminster, 68. ¹¹⁸ See above, Ch. 5, pp. 78–9; Fletcher, ‘Virtue and the Common Good’. ¹¹⁹ Westminster, 68.

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ill-tempered outburst of an unstable king, historians have reproduced the contemporary topos of the changeability of youth.¹²⁰ Yet it should be noted that, by April 1384, Richard had been prevented from waging war against his enemies in person three times already: in May 1382 and in February and September 1383. On each of these occasions he had been denied the chance to display his strength and defend his honour against his enemies, and to assert thereby his manhood and his full estate. Now either a humiliating treaty had to be ratified, or the calamity predicted by de la Pole in the last autumn, and now alluded to by the earl of Arundel, would come down on the kingdom. There was nothing Richard could do. It was hardly surprising that he blew up in Arundel’s face. If it is accepted that the peace proposals put to the Salisbury parliament lay directly contrary to the emerging will of the king himself, and if it is also recognized how closely these negotiations were associated with the personal foreign policy aims of the duke of Lancaster, then a new interpretation also emerges of the second famous confrontation to take place during this assembly. The quarrel between Richard and John of Gaunt which took place there sheds further light on the growing significance of the 17-year-old king himself, and how this could be more threatening to internal peace than productive of unity. Both Thomas Walsingham and the Westminster chronicler report the accusations of a Carmelite friar at the time of this parliament that Gaunt was plotting to kill the king and seize the kingdom.¹²¹ They report that the king believed the friar, and the consequent threat to the life of the duke. But why should Richard have believed the accusations? The Westminster chronicler puts it down to the repeated insistence of the friar, which led the king to order the duke to be put to death without further investigation. ‘The nobles in attendance on him’ persuaded him that it was wrong to condemn anyone without trial, which advice the king followed.¹²² Walsingham sees things differently, asserting that the ‘boy king’ (rex puer) assembled about him not the nobles but ‘his accustomed counsellors’, namely two clerks of his chapel.¹²³ Both chroniclers suggest a weathervane-like credulity on the part of the king which was consistent with late medieval ¹²⁰ McKisack 1959: 434; Goodman 1971: 11; Tuck 1973: 92; Stow 1989: 157; Saul 1997a: 130. ¹²¹ Westminster, 68–80; Walsingham, 722–6. ¹²² Westminster, 68–70. ¹²³ Walsingham, 722.

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commonplace concerning the pliable inconstancy of youth. In the Westminster chronicle, the matter is resolved with surprising ease when John of Gaunt ‘magnificently’ (splendide) excused himself of this slander.¹²⁴ In Walsingham’s account, the duke’s excuses are rendered at greater length, with the duke insisting that he was the king’s uncle, tutor and foremost in the kingdom after the king, and therefore could not profit from the king’s death, since the king’s enemies could not make the duke richer in their lands than he was in Richard’s. He was, he added, ready to meet any who contradicted him to fight as a knight (more militis). And so, Walsingham says, the king believed the duke.¹²⁵ Richard’s concentration may have been further focused by the arrival in his chamber of another of his uncles, the 29-year-old Thomas of Woodstock, swearing that he would kill anyone, the king not excepted, who wanted to lay a charge of treason on his brother.¹²⁶ Yet it still remains to be explained, outside of commonplaces about the changeability of youth, how Richard one moment believed that Gaunt was poised to overthrow him, and the next was convinced of his loyalty. Placed in the context of the negotiations in which John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock had just been involved, as well as that of past accusations against the duke, the allegations of Gaunt’s treason begin to make more sense. He had just headed the delegation which had brought back a draft final peace avowedly contrary to the honour and profit of the king. As if that were not enough, it would have been clear to all that the duke’s interests lay in securing the situation in northern France and Scotland so that he could attend freely to Spain, even as it was in English interests to attend to Ghent before that final toehold in the Low Countries was lost. Out of such circumstances rumours could be spawned, and made convincing to the ears of the king and those about him. Gaunt had been the victim of such rumours in 1382 and 1383, not to mention during the revolt of 1381, and the Convocation of October 1382 had been wary of granting supply which it thought would be appropriated for the duke’s Spanish schemes. By April 1384 the king had more reason than ever to wish to believe these rumours true. They gave him the licence to seize the independence of action he sought. ‘If it is supposed to be my fault that there is bad rule in the kingdom . . . ’: with such words Richard asserted that the direction of policy was wrong (including, it seems likely, the proposed ¹²⁴ Westminster, 76.

¹²⁵ Walsingham, 724.

¹²⁶ Walsingham, 726.

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dishonourable peace) and showed himself impatient with the restraints which had obliged him to acquiesce in these decisions. This happened just at the time that Richard, in his signet warrants and his intervention in petitioning, was portraying his tender age as a thing of the past. If the duke of Lancaster was shown to be a traitor, maybe the king would then be able to act freely. In truth, Richard did not yet have the influence to put this into practice, and it was easy for Lancaster and his brother to return from fighting in the north and intimidate him into submission. Yet even Walsingham sees the behaviour of Thomas of Woodstock as heavy handed, exclaiming that the earl’s forcible entry into the king’s chamber, and the threats he doled out, would have received capital punishment ‘if the king held the reins of the kingdom as is fitting’.¹²⁷ The vigorous confrontations over royal power and over foreign policy which took place after the failure of Bishop Despenser’s Crusade demonstrated both the king’s new assertiveness and the difficulty he was experiencing in having his authority recognized. At the age of 17, the king was still obliged to cede to the will of John of Gaunt, and to tolerate the criticisms of the lords in council and of his former appointed tutor, the earl of Arundel. Between 1382 and 1384, the king was unable to have a royal expedition put into practice simply by dint of his commitment to that project. The falling away of formal mechanisms to compensate for the king’s tender age had still not been accompanied by a general acceptance that he could rule with the same freedom as an adult king. Nonetheless, the fact that Richard was fully king, with no one besides his chief officers as formal advisers, increasingly obliged those who criticized the royal government to put aside the king’s tender age in favour of a loyal language of royal authority, due process, and counsel. Although it might be implied that there was more need than usual for the king to listen to the advice of others on account of his relative youth, this was only stated explicitly in later, non-official accounts of the events of the early 1380s, such as the chronicle of Thomas Walsingham. Although hostile observers of the king’s actions in 1382–4 might privately have seen things in a similar light to these later chronicle accounts, overt reference to the king’s age was no longer acceptable in the mainstream of political debate. Even the earl of Arundel only indirectly invoked the problems brought by a youthful king with his dark allusions to bad regimen ¹²⁷ Ibid.

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and the need for good gubernatio. After the Salisbury parliament, the king’s will and personal authority would continue to grow in importance. Once again, as we shall see in the next chapter, the project of a royal expedition would be central to Richard’s attempts to have himself acknowledged as a man.

7 The Pursuit of Manhood, 1384–86 When Richard II finally did lead an expedition against the French, it was to Scotland that the royal host was directed. When the admiral of France, Jean de Vienne, arrived north of the border in May 1385, the king was at last able to ride out in response to the defiance of his enemies. Given contemporary assumptions about the nature of manhood, the king might have hoped that the expedition would have helped to confirm his full estate. In the language of manhood, the doing of manly deeds in battle led to the accumulation of honour and renown, which were also denoted by the word manhood.¹ The king’s manhood could then be further demonstrated by the performance of ‘manly’ actions in the sense which overlapped with ‘humanitas’, by acting ‘manly’ in the distribution of gifts and in the recognition of status.² It would soon become apparent, however, that commonplace ideas of manhood were ill adapted to the socio-economic realities of the mid-1380s. Instead of confirming his estate as a man, the king’s expedition to Scotland ultimately left his authority more unstable than it had been when he set out. His desire to distribute manly largesse on his return from campaign led to renewed calls for the kind of restrictions which had been characteristic of his tender age. In the following year, the situation worsened still further as the king once more pursued a royal expedition to the continent as a riposte to the renewed threat of a French invasion. By attempting to force through such a project, Richard made disaffected sections of the political community anxious to enforce the kind of regularized counsel which had been characteristic of his early years. As the king reached an age at which his status as a man was becoming difficult to deny, it became paradoxically more and more necessary for his subjects to insist upon his youth as a means of containing his assertiveness. ¹ See above, Ch. 2.

² See above, Ch. 3.

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It was the desire of the French to capitalize on the strategic advantages they had recently obtained in the Low Countries which provided Richard with the chance to lead his kingdom into battle for the first time. With Flanders almost entirely in the hands of Charles VI’s uncle, Philip the Bold, the French now had an ideal point of departure for the invasion of England.³ They were not about to throw away their advantage by concluding a peace or long truce. Thus when John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock returned to meet the French delegation as arranged on 1 June 1384, they were, as they later complained, not met by anybody until August.⁴ The Westminster chronicler notes the length of time the king’s uncles spent waiting at Calais, and that when the French finally did appear, they ‘talked pompously, continually dwelling on irrelevant subjects and neglecting entirely, as if they cared little about them, those which bore on peace’.⁵ These negotiations went on until late September, but secured only an extension of the truce until May 1385, without any further provision for negotiations.⁶ As Lancaster and Buckingham reported on their return, it seemed that the French were determined to have war rather than peace.⁷ With the failure of negotiations, a new opportunity presented itself for the king to lead a personal expedition. In the parliament which met in November 1384, Michael de la Pole once again spelt out the need to provide for the cost of the defence of the kingdom.⁸ It was impossible, he asserted, to obtain a reasonable and honourable peace because of the infidelity of the French.⁹ Furthermore, the king was ‘now in good and very ready will’ (bona et promptissima . . . voluntate) to embark in person ‘for the defence of the kingdom and of his aforesaid lieges . . . equipped in the manner which befits royal excellence (prout regiam decet excellenciam) with a sufficient army’.¹⁰ After the failure of all other alternatives, the Commons had no choice but to agree to finance a royal expedition with a generous grant of two full subsidies.¹¹ The objective of this expedition was initially intended to be France. The Westminster chronicler asserts that the subsidies of autumn 1384 were granted ‘on the understanding that the king should cross to France in force during the coming year; otherwise he was to have only half of the total grants’, although he continues that this condition was later ³ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁹

Vaughan 1962: 31–8; Palmer 1972: 71–2. ⁴ Du Bosc, 330, 336–7. Westminster, 88–9. Palmer 1972, 51–2; Foedera, vii. 438–45; Westminster, 98–9. Westminster, 98–9. Cf. Walsingham, 728. ⁸ RP, iii. 184, item 2. Ibid., item 4. ¹⁰ Ibid., item 3. ¹¹ RP, iii. 185, item 10.

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waived.¹² The chronicler is wrong in this last regard at least, because on 15 May 1385 the king renounced the second subsidy on the grounds that he did not intend to cross the Channel.¹³ The terms of the renunciation imply that the king’s first destination was indeed the continent, but that he chose to stay in England on ‘certain information’ that enemies from France and elsewhere intended to invade before he could possibly cross the sea with a sufficient army. It had become clear by this point that the young Charles VI and his advisers were not content to wait for the arrival of an English force. Instead, the French were preparing to launch a two-pronged invasion of England. The first wave, under Jean de Vienne, was to come from the north with the aid of the Scots; the second, under Charles and his uncles, was to follow in the south. It was as preparations reached a peak for the departure of the admiral on 20 May that the English king’s plans were redirected to Scotland.¹⁴ It is hard to accept historians’ somewhat blasé assessment of the threat which Jean de Vienne posed, much less to believe that contemporaries saw things with such complacency.¹⁵ This was the apocalypse which Michael de la Pole had heralded in the parliament of November 1383, in which the king’s enemies would come to fight him on his own soil.¹⁶ Although the exact numbers would not have been known in England, the admiral of France was retained to serve with over 1,800 men-at-arms and archers, as part of a total force of some 5,000 men.¹⁷ This army was not to stand alone, but was to reinforce Scottish forces which had already done enough damage to warrant the expedition of John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock in early 1384.¹⁸ This substantial force could not simply have been left to the northern earls to face unassisted.¹⁹ Moreover, as a significant threat to English security, a Franco-Scottish invasion finally provided a suitable occasion for the personal expedition by which the king might win his manhood. It was ¹² Westminster, 102–5. ¹³ RP, iii. 398; Foedera, vii. 471–2. ¹⁴ Vaughan 1962: 36; Lewis 1985: 734–5; De Loray 1877: 180–9; Mirot 1951. ¹⁵ For negative views of the 1385 campaign, see McKisack 1959: 438–40; Palmer 1972: 60. Both Tuck 1973: 97 and Saul 1997a: 143 grant Jean de Vienne’s expedition little importance, misdating it to 1384. Lewis 1958: 11, considered the muster of the royal host disproportionate for merely ‘retaliating for a border raid’. Even Gillespie 1997b, who is more positive about Richard’s tactical decisions on this expedition, nonetheless considers that it ‘produced no victories to impress his subjects with his martial prowess’ (ibid., 145). Only those who have approached events from the perspective of Scotland or the French invaders have granted it much importance. See Grant 1992; Campbell 1965: 206–11; Mirot 1951; De Loray 1877: ch. 9. ¹⁶ RP, iii. 149–50. ¹⁷ De Loray 1877: 185–6; Mirot 1951: 261–3. ¹⁸ See above, Ch. 6, p. 119. ¹⁹ Contra Palmer 1972: 60.

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thus that, a fortnight after Jean de Vienne’s departure, writs were issued for the last feudal summons ever made in England, for the magnates to assemble at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 14 July.²⁰ A certain amount of controversy has arisen over the exact motive for this summons. On the one hand, J. J. N. Palmer argues that the feudal muster was a purely financial measure, designed to provide the justification for raising a scutage to replace the subsidy forfeited when the royal expedition was diverted to Scotland.²¹ On the other, N. B. Lewis holds that the main motivation for the summons was to boost the numbers of the expedition to provide a much needed fillip for the prestige of the monarchy for the king’s first campaign, arguing that the subsidy was not in fact conditional on an expedition to France.²² In fact, there is no necessary opposition between these two positions. The feudal levy did make it possible to force magnates to act as involuntary recruiting agents, as Lewis suggests, and thus summon a suitably large host for the king’s first expedition. Yet it was also intended to be a means of raising supply through a scutage, as Palmer notes. A contradiction only arises if we start searching for issues of fundamental motivation, in other words whether we agree with Lewis that this was a genuine attempt to promote the young king’s renown, or, with Palmer, portray it as a cynical ploy to raise money. That the king’s prestige and renown was more important, even though the possible financial benefits of such a summons was a consideration, is suggested by the relative fortunes of the expedition and the scutage. Although the scutage failed, the expedition went ahead. No chronicler mentions this tax, yet no chronicler failed to remark on the size and magnificence of the forces mustered. This army of 15,000 men was raised with one subsidy alone, despite the financial strain which this must have involved, and without a penny of the scutage being successfully collected.²³ The chroniclers are almost unanimous in their assessment of the scale of the Franco-Scottish threat, the importance and stirring magnificence of the king’s expedition, and its effectiveness in averting a FrancoScottish invasion from the north. They furnish a striking contrast with those post-deposition chronicles which alleged that Richard II lacked warlike spirit, or who claimed that he taxed his people without ²⁰ Foedera, vii. 473, 474–5. ²¹ Palmer 1968. ²² Lewis 1958; Lewis 1985. ²³ This size of force was some two-and-a-half times that which the Commons had been told could be kept in the field for six months on the proceeds of a single lay subsidy and clerical tenth. See above, Ch. 6, nn. 7–8.

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waging war.²⁴ The most positive accounts of the 1385 campaign are unremitting in their praise for the expedition, and are certain of the ferocity of the king’s opponents. The Kirkstall chronicler tells how Jean de Vienne vowed that he would never return to France until he had ridden through England as far as Dover. But King Richard came out to face them, and at the sight of the ‘boldly marshalled ranks of the English’ both French and Scots ‘turned to flight like madmen, and seeking refuge beyond the sea of Scotland, were not seen by the English again. Lord John de Vienne together with the French returned by sea to France, his object foiled and unfulfilled.’²⁵ The Westminster chronicler, too, is enthusiastic, if geographically inaccurate, in his account of the king’s advance: ‘And always their foes fled before them, the Scots to westward and the French to eastward; thus they were split into two groups of which neither dared approach the other.’²⁶ Henry Knighton reports the fear produced by the coming of Jean de Vienne, whom he claims arrived with three hundred ships full of fighting men.²⁷ Knighton also reports the splendour of the king’s army—‘the flower of English knighthood . . . all moved by a single desire to join battle’—even if their desire for a fight proved to be in vain. ‘For the enemy, seeing so brilliant a company coming upon them, withdrew to a great distance, and the king pursued them far into Scotland, driving them from region to region for twenty days in that land.’²⁸ The tone of these writers demonstrates the importance of the royal expedition in the eyes of contemporaries. Even Thomas Walsingham could not help but recognize both the extent of the French threat in Scotland, and the effectiveness of the king’s army in causing the enemy to flee as ‘seeing themselves unequal’ they fled into the woods.²⁹ Walsingham notes Richard’s enthusiasm for his army, not mockingly, but sharing his wonder.³⁰ All the chroniclers express appropriate terror at the threat that a French army might arrive on English soil. All of them are carried along by the stirring response of the king and its impressive effectiveness in driving the enemy away. The royal expedition of 1385 also had other powerful resonances, for it was not just what a king should do, but also what a man should do. The analysis of the language of manhood reveals that one way to act ‘manly’ was to revenge a slight and not let it pass, to stand one’s ground ²⁴ See above, Ch. 1, p. 15; Ch. 2, pp. 42–3. ²⁶ Westminster, 128. ²⁷ Knighton, 334. ²⁹ Walsingham, 760. ³⁰ Walsingham, 756.

²⁵ Kirkstall, 64, 109. ²⁸ Knighton, 336.

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and to die fighting for one’s right rather than live on in shame.³¹ Such sentiments and the rhetoric of manhood which went with them were powerfully invoked by the feudal summons of 1385. The writs issued to the magnates refer to the ‘damages, scandals and perils’ which would result from the rebellion of the Scots, ‘our enemies and rebels to us’, if they were tolerated any longer. The solution to this is to muster at Newcastle ‘with horses, arms and all service due to us, to go out from there against the said Scots, to restrain manly and powerfully (viriliter et potenter), their rebellion, perfidy and evil, with God’s help’.³² The ecclesiastical summons then comes to a close, repeating its appeal for all service to be rendered ‘to crush manly and powerfully their [the Scots’] hardened malice and rebellion’.³³ The lay summons, on the other hand, goes on to invoke a number of themes associated with manhood and manly action. It notes the ‘arduous cause’ in which their service is invoked, and asks them to be ‘prompt and ready’ to go out with the king, recalling the speedy, energetic vigour characteristic of manly acts. It asks them ‘strenuously to pursue the honour of our king and the rights of our crown’. Finally, the summons appealed to ‘the constancy of your faith’, asking them to bring beyond the service due such men and horses ‘as you are able more powerfully, more honourably and more fittingly to do’, so that all might be liberated from the perfidy and rebellion of enemies.³⁴ The threat from an enemy, the need for an energetic, speedy, strong response lest all be lost, the need to protect the honour of the lord; such a scenario recalls many scenes in which manhood is invoked in romance and deployed through metaphor in sermons. The summons of 1385 also more specifically invoked an earlier monarch’s efforts to win his renown in his youth. It did not escape the attention of the royal administration that the previous feudal summons had been issued for a king’s first expedition, this time that of Edward III in 1327, at which time the king had been 15 years old. The writ issued on this occasion, again for service in Scotland, is in many ways more straightforward than that of 1385, noting the treaty of peace with the Scots, their assembly with hostile intent, and the king’s intention to correct this ‘audacity’, before requiring those summoned to assemble ³¹ See above, Ch. 2, esp. pp. 29–35. ³² Foedera, vii. 473, 474–5. ³³ Foedera, vii. 473: ‘ . . . ad induratas malitiam et rebellionem ipsorum potenter et viriliter conterendum.’ ³⁴ Foedera, vii. 475.

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with horses and arms and all service owed in accordance with their faith and homage.³⁵ It does not contain the appeal made in 1385 for service over and above that strictly owed. Yet, it shares with the later summons the intention to crush the enemy ‘strongly and manly’ (potenter et viriliter). It seems likely that the 1385 summons was compiled with that of 1327 to hand. The logic which underlay this quotation from the early years of Edward III seems to be the same as that which lies behind the echo of Edward’s 1340 challenge to Philip of Valois in Richard’s proposed challenge to Charles VI in September 1383.³⁶ In referring back to the days when Edward III had proved his manhood, Richard and those about him hoped to bring to mind the honour won by those who had served his grandfather. By doing so in terms of the manly action required by the potentially shaming attacks of the French and the Scots on English soil, the 1385 summons combined the power of this reference back to the youth of Edward III with the resonance of commonplace assumptions about the deeds which might enable the king and his nobility to prove their ‘manhood’ once again. ∗ The account of the significance of the Scottish campaign of 1385 presented above runs against the tendency of historians, with certain notable exceptions, to suggest that the enthusiasm for a royal expedition had some source other than the king himself.³⁷ It thus seems worth pausing to consider the evidence which has been used to suggest that Richard was drawn into fighting in the north only unwillingly. The doubts of modern commentators concerning the king’s enthusiasm for war have been based primarily on certain disagreements which arose between Richard and John of Gaunt, first in the months before Jean de Vienne’s arrival in Scotland, and then again, just before the return of the royal host to England. In fact, on close examination, the available sources do not suggest that these disputes arose from a distaste for war on the king’s part, but rather from continuing controversies as to where Richard’s military efforts ought to be directed. The accusation of an unmanly aversion to fighting only ³⁵ Foedera, iv. 281–3. ³⁶ See above, Ch. 6, pp. 110–11. ³⁷ See e.g. Aston 1965: 141; Palmer 1972: 81–2; Goodman 1999: 102; Saul 1997a: 139–41. For a more positive assessment of Richard’s attitude, see Gillespie 1997b.

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emerges when those who had different ideas about the best strategy to pursue attempted to belittle dissenting opinions. The clashes between Richard and his uncle which characterize these months are better understood in the context of the emergence of the king as an independent centre of authority, an ongoing development which increasingly placed him in opposition to the policies and interests of the duke of Lancaster. According to the monk of Westminster, John of Gaunt, at a council in late 1384 or early 1385, declared that it was his opinion that the best course of action for the king in the coming autumn would be to go to France and defeat his enemies there rather than risk affording them the opportunity of entering England. This seems to be a very similar argument to that advanced by Michael de la Pole in the parliament of October 1383, when he warned of the damage to be done if the king waited to fight his enemies in his own kingdom.³⁸ It seems that the duke of Lancaster now invoked the language of manhood, arguing that the king ought to go to France ‘so that he could crush his enemies there manly with an armed hand’.³⁹ Yet Gaunt’s appeal met with the same response as earlier calls for a royal expedition to the continent. The king ought not to leave the country, but should remain there to defend it against the attacks of its enemies. Finding himself supported only by his brothers, Gaunt stormed out of the council session. In the process he brought upon himself accusations of treason for the fifth time in five years, for in leaving he swore that neither he nor any of his dependants would give the king any assistance unless he meant to cross to France. This seems a bizarre oath, since the likely alternative was a campaign against Scotland. For the greatest magnate in the land to refuse his services in that region would have been strange indeed. In fact, when Jean de Vienne did arrive, John of Gaunt and his brother, Thomas of Woodstock, were the first to make preparations against the enemy.⁴⁰ Nonetheless, the Westminster chronicler sees this argument in early 1385 as lying at the root of the subsequent plot hatched against Gaunt at a tournament held at Westminster Hall in mid-February of that year.⁴¹ In fact, the disagreements of early 1385 did not stem from an argument for and against war per se, but from a dispute about the exact ³⁸ See above, Ch. 6, p. 118. ³⁹ Westminster, 112: ‘ut ibi manu armata hostes suos viriliter debellaret’. ⁴⁰ Knighton, 334; Westminster, 120. ⁴¹ Westminster, 110.

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strategy which it would be best to pursue. The problems at issue were those of balancing different military priorities within the context of limited resources. Should the king go to France and risk an attack from Scotland in his absence? Or should he remain and keep his flexibility of response at the price of having the field of battle dictated by his enemies? Gaunt did not hope to pre-empt a French invasion, as has sometimes been asserted, since his plan was for a royal expedition in the autumn.⁴² It also appears that the duke did not intend to invade northern France or Flanders in support of Ghent.⁴³ According to the continental chronicler Jean Froissart, the duke proposed an expedition to Gascony, designed to repel the attacks of the duke of Bourbon, before going on to Spain.⁴⁴ This plan would have done little to avert the threat of an invasion of England in the coming summer. Although Froissart’s unsupported testimony should always be taken with a pinch of salt, such a plan does not seem absurd, given the English government’s continuing commitment to protect Gascony and Gaunt’s general desire to pursue his claims to Castile. No source contradicts this account. It seems likely that we ought not to see Gaunt as simply the advocate of the king’s involvement in war, duly opposed by a peace-mongering court party. Rather, the duke proposed a certain use of military resources, perhaps even an expedition to Gascony, whilst others preferred to concentrate resources closer to home. In explaining the disputes between Gaunt and the king in early 1385, historians have tended to portray these events as a clash between a court party (characterized by youth, absolutism, patronage, and plotting) and an aristocratic party (characterized by the manly pursuit of war), even when this involves discarding evidence which detracts from this picture. For example, although the Westminster chronicler names the earls of Oxford, Salisbury, and Nottingham as being closely involved with the February 1385 plot against Gaunt, both Anthony Goodman and Anthony Tuck exclude Salisbury from possible responsibility, the former without remark, the latter on the grounds that ‘he was neither a young man nor particularly close to the king’.⁴⁵ Tuck’s first grounds ⁴² Westminster, 112. Contra Goodman 1992: 102; Saul 1997a: 140. ⁴³ Contra Palmer 1972: 81. ⁴⁴ De Loray 1877: 192–3; Froissart, Oeuvres, xi. 199–212, 405–12. ⁴⁵ Goodman 1992: 102; Tuck 1973: 95. Saul 1997a: 133–4 broadly follows Tuck, although he suggests both that the Evesham chronicle asserts that the plotters had been brought up with the king, and that the Westminster chronicler might have meant the earl’s heir or his brother. I have been unable to find any reference to ‘young men ‘‘brought

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for this rejection of the earl’s involvement takes at face value Thomas Walsingham’s account that the plot sprang from ‘the young king and his young men’.⁴⁶ Yet it would seem better to see this remark as an attempt to play, once again, on the theme of the king’s youth. The Westminster chronicler, who gives the plotters’ names, nowhere mentions their youth.⁴⁷ The second grounds, that Salisbury was not ‘close’ to the king, assumes a distinction between a sharply defined ‘in’ group and ‘out’ group. There is no reason to believe that Salisbury was particularly ‘far’ from the king either. In the context of the general distrust of Gaunt shown by annual rumours of his treason, and the justified belief that he intended to divert royal resources to his own ends in Spain, why should not an unaligned nobleman become involved in action against the duke following his overt defiance of the king? It is curious, for example, that when the archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, subsequently fell out with the king over this plot, he argued not that the complaints against Gaunt were unjust, but that the king’s actions ‘set a bad example’ and that it was wrong to act simply on a grudge rather than through due process of law.⁴⁸ Even Gaunt himself, on submitting to the king, argued first and foremost ‘that it was shameful (inhonestum) for a king in his own kingdom, where he was lord of all, to avenge himself by means of private murder when he was himself above the law (supra legem) and had power to vouchsafe life and limb with a nod, or, if he were so minded, to take them away’.⁴⁹ The disagreements over strategy which took place before the expedition of 1385 deserve to be seen in the same light as a second quarrel between John of Gaunt and the king which took place towards the end of the 1385 campaign. Recent historians have been more sparing than their predecessors in their assessment of Richard’s behaviour in this second dispute, which culminated in the royal army returning up with the king’’ ’ in the passage cited from the Evesham chronicler (HVRS, 84–5) which rather suggests that Gaunt’s death was plotted ‘per aliquos, lateri regis astantes’ (‘by others about the king’). The earl of Salisbury would have been about 57 in 1385. See GEC, xi. 388–91. ⁴⁶ Walsingham, 750. ⁴⁷ Westminster, 110–16. ⁴⁸ Westminster, 116. Cf. HVRS, 85, in which the archbishop reprimands the king for the ‘mala gubernacione facta et continuata circa ipsum et regnum’ and asserts that unless he permitted himself to be governed, bad rule would lead to the subversion of the kingdom (‘asserens, quod, nisi aliter se permitteret gubernari, huiusmodi malum regimen in subuersionem sui et regni tenderet infra breue’). ⁴⁹ Westminster, 114.

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from Scotland to be back in England by 20 August.⁵⁰ According to the monk of Westminster and Thomas Walsingham, John of Gaunt argued that the king and his army should cross the Firth of Forth and overrun all the Scottish territory, since he had the army assembled to do so.⁵¹ This advice was furiously rejected by the king. Such a strategy would have shown a flagrant disregard on Gaunt’s part for anything except the advantage to be obtained from having an army in the field in Scotland, since, whilst the English had advanced north, the French and Scottish had in fact evaded them to the south-west and had begun raiding into English territory.⁵² It was also around this time that the planned southern prong of the French invasion was due to arrive on English shores; a somewhat inappropriate moment for the king to begin a punitive raid across the Firth of Forth. This was an argument over the direction of military policy, not a division between a war party and a peace party. Far from being opposed to war, Richard and those about him had their own strategic and tactical ideas concerning the ideal distribution of the limited military resources available, be it against the Scottish or the French. Once again, it is only by taking the insinuations of the king’s opponents at face value that the claims about Richard’s lack of warlike spirit have been allowed to stick. ∗ The royal expedition of 1385 was an important moment in Richard II’s campaign to promote his full authority as a man. At 18 years of age he had successfully led his first expedition, putting the enemy to flight. He then returned home in time to prepare for the second prong of the French invasion. In the event, this force failed to materialize, as a result of the unexpected capture of Damme by the Gantois on 16 July, just as Richard made his way north.⁵³ By the time the threat from Ghent had been neutralized, Jean de Vienne had already been dealt with by the English. Thus it appeared that the youthful king had advanced out ⁵⁰ For positive assessments of Richard’s rejection of this advice, see Tuck 1973: 97–8; Gillespie 1997b. Saul 1997a: 145 is unsure as to who favoured which strategy at this point, preferring the testimony of Froissart that Gaunt wished to return south. Froissart is the only contemporary writer who conceives of the disagreement in these terms. ⁵¹ Westminster, 128–31; Cf. Walsingham, 762–4. ⁵² Ibid., 764; Knighton, 336–7; De Loray 1877: 198; Campbell 1965: 209–10. ⁵³ Palmer 1972: 60–1, 71–2.

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‘manly’ in response to the audacity of his enemies, and they had fled before his might. That the French and Scots were not engaged may have dampened the impact of the expedition somewhat, and the king remained hungry for a new engagement in the coming year.⁵⁴ Yet, in the meantime, Richard thought it fitting that he should act as a manly man in dispensing largesse. Returning from the Scottish campaign he raised his uncles, Thomas of Woodstock and Edmund of Langley, to dukedoms.⁵⁵ Michael de la Pole was made earl of Suffolk, and Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford was granted the title of marquis of Dublin. It also appears that the king’s former tutor, Sir Simon Burley, was raised to be earl of Huntingdon, and that Ralph Lord Neville was made earl of Cumberland.⁵⁶ As Richard set out to protect and accumulate his own manhood by deeds in war, he dispensed it, like the kings who receive the heroes of romance ‘manly’ as they return victorious. It is common to portray these ennoblements as indicative of the absolutist leanings of the king. Anthony Tuck reports that in Michael de la Pole’s patent, Richard stated that: ‘We believe that the more we bestow honours on wise and honourable men, the more our crown is adorned with gems and precious stones.’⁵⁷ Tuck therefore concluded that Richard believed that the aristocracy ‘existed to shed lustre on the crown’ and concluded that ‘the practical implication of this view’ was that the nobility did not need ‘any independent territorial standing or any great wealth or military reputation to justify their ennoblement: title depended upon royal favour, and upon the particular noble’s relationship with the crown’.⁵⁸ In fact, the translation (or rather summary) used to come to this conclusion somewhat distorts the original Latin. This passage, which opens the patent of ennoblement in the parliament roll, would be better translated: We firmly believe that we do not merely adorn but also increase the eminence of royal dignity with happy auspices when we dispense the highest of honours among the noble, judicious and vigorous. For we believe our royal crown to gleam with as many more gems and shimmer with as many precious stones, as it is strengthened by virtuous and vigorous men, especially those superior in ⁵⁴ Westminster, 126–30; Saul 1997a: 145. ⁵⁵ The king’s uncles were ultimately given the dukedoms of Gloucester and York. However, they may first have been raised to be duke of Aumale and Canterbury respectively. See Given-Wilson 1999: 117–19. ⁵⁶ Palmer 1971a. ⁵⁷ Tuck 1973: 84 citing RDP, v. 62, 64–5. Followed by Saul 1997a: 248. ⁵⁸ Tuck 1973: 84.

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counsel, summoned to the burden of honours in the care of the kingdom, for the direction of the public good.⁵⁹

Far from suggesting that nobility is entirely derived from the Crown, this passage asserts that the royal dispensation of honours does not just mark or put a badge on royal dignity (insignare), but enlarges, increases or enhances it (aug¯ere) by the recipient’s own internal virtue.⁶⁰ The nobility does not exist ‘to shed lustre on the crown’. Instead, the lustre of the crown is increased by the shining virtues of a nobility who are, individually in themselves, sparkling with nobility, vigour, and discretion. Far from suggesting that military reputation is irrelevant, ‘strenuus’ is the one property twice mentioned as an essential characteristic of the men who ought to be honoured. Wealth is not alluded to, although good counsel and a concern for the public good are heavily underlined. The reason for this stress on merit becomes clearer as the passage continues, expressing a desire to give the title of earl of Suffolk to the ‘vigorous and wise (discrete) man Michael de la Pole’, rather than suppressing the name and dignity of that earldom ‘to apply it to the convenience of our fiscal uses’.⁶¹ Rather than portraying these ideas as absolutist in tone, it would be more helpful to see them as working in accordance with the system of honour seen operating in the language of manhood. Manhood (honour) is accrued by manly (strong, energetic, speedy, constant, correct) acts of the lord and his men. These are recognized with manhood (ceremonial honour) and the increase of the manhood (renown and social status) of that lord and his following.⁶² Similar forms of logic are found in Michael de la Pole’s patent. The estate of the full man was conjured up by the invocation of the characteristics he was supposed to display and the activities he was supposed to pursue, as shown by the nobles on campaign. This was more particularly so when the king was attempting to lay claim to that estate himself, a manly man who knew how to recognize the manhood of his nobility. ⁵⁹ RP, iii. 207: ‘Regalis dignitatis fastigium felicibus auspiciis nedum insignare set augere confidimus, dum inter personas nobiles, discretas, et strenuas, honorum culmina dispensamus. Credimus namque nostram coronam regiam tanto pluribus micare gemmis, et preciosis coruscare lapidibus, quanto viris virtuosis et strenuis, presertim consilio prepollentibus, in partem solicitudinis regie ad fasses honorum evocatis, ad directionem boni publici roboratur.’ ⁶⁰ MLD, s.v., ‘aug¯ere’, ‘insignare’. ⁶¹ Ibid.: ‘elegimus pocius dignitatem et nomen tanti comitatus honori nostri diadematis continuando adicere, quam ejus suppresso nomine ipsius patrimonii comoda nostris usibus fiscalibus applicare’. ⁶² See above, Chs. 2, 3.

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Yet the values encoded in the language of manhood were not the only factors at work in the politics of the mid-1380s. The fact that the king had just shown his manhood in his first expedition did not dispel the concerns which had preoccupied the Commons since 1376. In 1385, it was still by no means clear that it was either wise or desirable for the king to dispense manly largesse in this way. It might show his magnificence, but it did little to dispel widely held concerns about royal expenditure, nor to reassure those who believed that it was royal openhandedness which was leading to unmeasured taxation. Although the king had done everything to prove his manhood—going on campaign in response to an enemy threat, causing them to flee, returning, and duly rewarding his meritorious companions with material gifts and ceremonial honour—this did not mean that Richard could now simply assume his man’s estate, and get on with the business of ruling in the fashion of Edward III in his prime. On the contrary, in the very parliament which might have set the king’s full estate on a new and firmer footing, in the wake of his glorious suppression of the Scots and the repulsion of Jean de Vienne, things began to go badly wrong. Just as the king, now aged 18, might have thought that his manhood was secure, new attempts were made to impose restraints on his household and on his control of royal resources which recalled the arrangements of his early teens. The parliament of October 1385 was marked by violent reaction against the grants of lands and promotions to noble titles which had accompanied the expedition of that summer.⁶³ It saw the renewal of demands for the king to revoke grants unwisely made, arguing that he would thereby be able to live of his own without pillaging his subjects.⁶⁴ The justification in Michael de la Pole’s ennoblement for keeping the earldom of Suffolk alive rather than turning it over to ‘fiscal uses’ seems to be an attempt to anticipate these demands. J. J. N. Palmer suggests that this unrest led to the suppression of the earldoms which had been granted to Simon Burley and Ralph Neville during the Scottish campaign.⁶⁵ The surviving petitions of this parliament reveal a renewed concern that the king’s revenues be maximized and his expenditure controlled, and a surprising acquiescence on the part of ⁶³ Palmer 1969; Palmer 1971a; Goodman 1971: 12; Tuck 1973: 99–101; Roskell 1984: 59–64; Saul 1997a: 146–7. ⁶⁴ Cf. RP, iii. 115, item 74 (1381–2); 139, item 42 (Oct. 1382). ⁶⁵ Palmer 1971a.

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the government in the latter category of demands.⁶⁶ Calls were made for the regulation of the king’s estate which had not been given a hearing since 1382. These included petitions for the complete cessation of all grants made from the revenues of the king for the period of one year, and for the review and amendment of the state of the king’s household once each year, or more often if necessary, by the chancellor, treasurer, and keeper of the privy seal.⁶⁷ Both these requests were granted, perhaps because of the parlous state of the royal finances after financing a major expedition to Scotland on the proceeds of a single subsidy. It seems from later accusations made against Michael de la Pole that a committee of nine lords was appointed during this parliament ‘to view and examine the estate of the king and kingdom’.⁶⁸ This does not seem to have led to the establishment of a body intended to sit after parliament had disbanded. Instead it appears that, following the form established in the parliament of 1381–2, these lords continued their deliberations during the session, and then presented their findings in full parliament.⁶⁹ All this de la Pole acknowledged at his trial in October 1386, only denying that he alone was responsible for the implementation of their recommendations.⁷⁰ The personnel of the committee included many individuals involved in the conciliar mechanisms of the early part of the reign, including the bishop of Winchester, the earls of Salisbury, Stafford, and Northumberland, Richard Scrope, John Devereux and ⁶⁶ RP, iii. 213–14; Roskell 1984: 60–1. ⁶⁷ RP, iii. 213, items 32, 42. ⁶⁸ RP, iii. 216, item 6. ⁶⁹ It does not seem that, as J. J. N. Palmer argues (Palmer 1971a), the document known as Lavis des seignurs touchant le bon governement du roy et du roialme (found in BL MS Cotton Cleopatra F.III and printed in PPC, i. 84–6 and in Chrimes and Brown, 160–2) should also be dated to 1385 and seen as the origin of this committee. Palmer’s dating relies on a clause which lays down that only the chamberlain, steward of the household or keeper of the privy seal might be ‘reportours’ to the king on any important matter ‘saving the right which the earl of Oxford claims touching the said office of chamberlain’. From this he deduces that the document cannot date from after Robert de Vere’s elevation to be marquis of Dublin in December 1385. Yet this reference is to the claim of the earls of Oxford to the hereditary chamberlainship and has no bearing on the highest title of the individual who was earl of Oxford at that time. Moreover, this document constantly refers to the king’s ‘conseil’ as a permanent body to be consulted on all manner of matters and which seems to extend beyond the five chief officers of the king. Such a body would be characteristic of the period before January 1380, or after October 1386, but not of the intervening time. It would seem better to see this document as an ordinance formalizing the regulated government with a permanently extended council which emerged from the Merciless Parliament. See below, Ch. 9, n. 8. ⁷⁰ RP, iii. 216, item 7.

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John Cobham.⁷¹ They were joined by Thomas Brantingham, bishop of Exeter, who had been treasurer from 1369 to 1371, and then again from 1377 until January 1381, and by John Fordham, bishop of Durham, who had been keeper of the privy seal from 1377 until December 1381.⁷² A roll now in the British Library preserves their report.⁷³ The main solution they offered for the king’s financial difficulties was as reminiscent of 1377–82 as the committee members themselves: the taking of good counsel in the disposition of favours and offices. Revenue would be increased and expenditure reduced if accountable officers were selected by the advice of the king’s ‘conseillers and officers’, and not by the requests of individuals. It was suggested that savings were to be had by the taking of counsel in a variety of areas, notably concerning grants made from the annual revenues coming into the exchequer, assignments to the hanaper and the value of wards and marriages. The panacea of good counsel was once again to be imposed on the king. All this seems quite remarkable given the results that Richard might have hoped to obtain from the successful prosecution of his first expedition. Returning from a campaign which had achieved what it set out to do, the king saw himself obliged to accept the kind of restrictions on his freedom of action which had not been on the agenda since 1382. Paradoxically, these new calls for formal counsel-taking can also be seen as a consequence of the king’s growing desire to assume his full role. Mechanisms imposed in Richard’s early reign to compensate for the king’s youth had also served to deal with problems which had arisen under adult kings. Continual Councils, appointed tutors, and successive commissions of inquiry had served to reassure the Commons that the king was making the best use of his resources, which were not being wasted by the selfish aims of individuals, excessive patronage, and household expenditure. As the king grew older it thus became increasingly difficult to insist upon the kind of formalized regulation which the Commons thought necessary to ensure that royal resources were not being wasted. Yet the underlying problems which these mechanisms had been intended to solve remained as troubling as ever. Thus when, during the campaign of 1385, Richard began to behave like a manly man in granting out honours, the effect of his actions was not to establish his authority, but to make the Commons feel that the time was ripe for the imposition of fresh restraints. The lavish grants which ⁷¹ Lewis 1926; RP, iii. 57, 73–4, 101, 134. ⁷³ BL Harley Roll K.28 printed in Palmer 1969.

⁷² HBC, 101–2.

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Richard dispensed on the expedition of 1385 provoked not, as he might have hoped, widespread recognition of his personal rule, but still more threatening attempts to restrict his freedom of action.

* In Richard’s late teens, with a king increasingly sure of his full estate, and a continuing socio-economic crisis, the English polity seemed set for renewed confrontation if the military situation did not improve. In the event, the situation worsened considerably in the spring of 1386 as a new French invasion force began to assemble.⁷⁴ The royal government was not initially unprepared for this eventuality, since in response to the concessions which had been made to the Commons in October 1385 it had secured the substantial grant of one-and-a-half subsidies. Half of this grant, that is over £26,500, was to be paid to John of Gaunt for his expedition to Spain.⁷⁵ From the remaining money, the government was to fund the keeping of the sea, the protection of the march of Scotland and an expedition to aid Ghent. The king again declared his intention to participate personally in any expedition which might result.⁷⁶ With this financial backing, the royal government seem to have been uninterested in peace. It was the English who cancelled a meeting between Charles VI and Richard II which had been scheduled for March 1386.⁷⁷ Yet as the French muster at Sluys gathered momentum in the spring of 1386, things began to go seriously wrong.⁷⁸ At first, English military preparations unfolded steadily to resist the coming invasion, reaching a peak in April and May, when letters were sent out summoning the king’s retainers to set out in his company to resist his enemies.⁷⁹ Between May and July the French invasion seemed imminent, and indeed it would have been were it not for the illness of the duke of Burgundy. However, at the beginning of July, even as Philip the Bold approached full recovery, the English government received the incorrect report that the duke was dead.⁸⁰ It seems that the royal government relaxed just as the French invasion plans approached their belated completion. In mid-July ⁷⁴ ⁷⁵ ⁷⁸ ⁷⁹ ⁸⁰

See Sherborne 1990; Palmer 1972: 72–3; Mirot 1951. Sherborne 1990: 100. ⁷⁶ RP, iii. 203–4. ⁷⁷ Palmer 1972: 68. An earlier version of what follows appears in Fletcher 2005: 32–7. Sherborne 1990: 100–3; TNA E 403/511, m. 33; E 403/512, m. 3. Palmer 1972: 73–4.

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the king made his way to Bristol to supervise the proposed expedition of Robert de Vere to Ireland, and John of Gaunt finally departed for Spain.⁸¹ In early August it became clear that the French invasion had not been cancelled, only delayed,⁸² but by this time the English government was running out of money, and so it began to take steps to secure new funds and organize fresh troop musters.⁸³ On 3 August messengers were paid for having delivered letters calling a Great Council for 10 September to consider how to resist the French invasion.⁸⁴ However, events moved too quickly for such a leisurely process of consultation, and it appears that between 6 and 11 August a council of some kind met at Oxford to discuss the unfolding emergency.⁸⁵ On 11 August, letters were sent out from this assembly to troop arrayers throughout the kingdom, reporting certain rumours ‘now newly heard’ that Charles VI would land in England in a short time. These letters warned of the damage which Charles would do to the English king and his subjects ‘unless he is resisted manly’, and called on the ‘industry and manhood’ of their recipients defending the coasts.⁸⁶ It was at this council, also, that the king himself once more sought to take manly action by personally leading an expedition to the continent. It seems that this was the assembly later alluded to by Michael de la Pole, in which the king had declared once again, on his own account (de sa propre motion et corage), his intention to go in person across the sea with his royal power to make war on his enemies.⁸⁷ It seems that those present tried to calm the king’s manly impulses, insisting that he take better advice and broader counsel.⁸⁸ This was by no means an unreasonable response to the king’s demands, even if it gives little evidence of appropriate concern for the seriousness of the unfolding ⁸¹ Saul 1997a: 471; Palmer 1972: 70; Russell 1955: 417. ⁸² Sherborne 1990: 103–4. ⁸³ Ibid., 102–3. ⁸⁴ E 403/512, m. 20. ⁸⁵ In the October parliament Michael de la Pole asserted that the decision to summon that assembly had been taken in a council at Oxford. See RP, iii. 215. The last time Richard was at Oxford before this parliament, on the evidence of signet warrants, was between 6 and 11 August. See C 81/1353/4–13. ⁸⁶ TNA C 76/71, m. 23: ‘Quia certes rumores aidiuimus iam de nouo qualiter aduersarius noster Francie . . . se parat ad veniendum infra breu super regnum nostrum Anglie, ad idem regnum hostiliter inadendum . . . nisi ei virilius resistatur. Nos volentes hiis dampnis et periculis fauente domino precauere ac de vestris industria et humanitate tali necessitate causaute specialtier confisimus, assignauimus vos ad ordinandum pro salua custodia costerarum regni nostri . . . ’ It seems likely also that ‘industria et humanitate’ would have been read by contemporaries as ‘industry and manhood’, since to translate it as ‘industry and humanity’ in the context brings quite the wrong associations. ⁸⁷ RP, iii. 215. ⁸⁸ Ibid.

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military emergency. It seems unlikely that this assembly was a full council of the magnates and prelates, since such a body had been summoned only days before to meet a month later.⁸⁹ The evidence of charter witness lists issued at this time indicate that Thomas of Woodstock, Robert de Vere, and the earls of Nottingham, Devon, Suffolk, and Kent were in attendance.⁹⁰ If either of the archbishops, the earls of Arundel, Warwick, Northumberland, Salisbury, Stafford, or Derby had been present they did not involve themselves in the witnessing of charters. Nonetheless, it seems likely that those who were at hand to advise the king were also keenly aware of the financial rigours and political concessions which had been necessary to pay for the Scottish expedition less than a year ago. The Commons would have felt that the grant of one-and-a-half subsidies which they had made in October 1385 was more than generous. It seems that those consulted at Oxford did not wish to take responsibility for encouraging the king in ‘excessive’ wars. They thus gave the opinion that a larger body ought to be consulted before Richard could begin to prepare a continental expedition. Yet notwithstanding what any larger body might advise, it appears that the king’s mind was already made up. From the preparations for departure put in train after the Oxford meeting, it is clear that Richard was determined to ride out against his enemies for a second time, this time free from the overbearing presence of John of Gaunt, now that the duke had finally departed to Spain. On 25 August, forty pounds were expended on buying armour for the king.⁹¹ On the same day, burgesses were called to Westminster for 17 September, probably with a view to borrowing money against a grant of taxation to be made in the parliament scheduled for 1 October.⁹² Transport ships were seized and campaign horses purchased.⁹³ On 6 September, still four days before the long-scheduled Great Council, messengers were paid for taking great seal letters to arrayers of men-at-arms and archers and for signet letters of the king to the nobles of the kingdom requiring them to be at Westminster on 30 September.⁹⁴ This seems to have been a full military summons, since from that date noble retinues began to assemble in the area of London. From 2 October, they began to be paid for their ⁸⁹ See above, n. 84. ⁹⁰ From the witness lists to charters dated 7 and 8 August. C 53/161, m. 6. ⁹¹ Ibid. ⁹² E 403/512, m. 20. ⁹³ E 403/512 (6 and 17 Sept); CPR, 1385–9, 208 (20 Aug); E 101/42/21; Sherborne 1990: 105. ⁹⁴ E 403/512, m. 20.

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services, specified as being to remain for one month from Michaelmas within sixty miles of London.⁹⁵ As a defensive measure the muster at London seems odd. It would have required the English government to have received specific information in August that the French intended to land near London during the month of October and no later. This may well have been the case, for on 15 October the council announced that it had ‘certain news’ that the enemy would land by 1 November.⁹⁶ However, it seems likely that the king had an additional motive, that he was attempting to pre-empt any parliament or Great Council by assembling troops and transport and seeking out loans, hoping to present the political community with a fait accompli.⁹⁷ Whether the 10 September Great Council ever met is not clear. By that date it had already become an irrelevance, as far as the king was concerned, since he had already decided the policy he wished to pursue. All the Michaelmas parliament was expected to do was to grant the necessary funds for the army to proceed—not to wait in England for the coming of the French, but to go to them. Richard was promoting yet another opportunity to take the war to his enemies, rather than waiting shamefully for them to arrive in his own kingdom. This was how Chancellor Michael de la Pole outlined the government’s plan to parliament in October 1386, as the troops massed around London.⁹⁸ It was better to fight on enemy soil than at home, better to pursue a right which the king had to the French crown. These arguments had been made on previous occasions. De la Pole now cited two others which had not been voiced before, two reasons to go to war which go some way to revealing Richard’s frustration with his long tutelage. As his second reason for embarking, the chancellor argued that the king, ‘who was now more in his own governance (sa governance demesne) than he had been accustomed to be’, had taken up the project of an expedition in order to dispel the slander that he did not want to labour in his own person.⁹⁹ Then, as a fourth argument, the king’s chief official made an overt appeal to Richard’s manhood: The fourth reason and the last: to win honour and manhood.¹⁰⁰

Though this final, clinching reason is recorded in French, the English which lies behind it is clear. In the phrase ‘pur conquerre honour et ⁹⁵ E 403/515, mm. 1–12. ⁹⁶ Sherborne 1990: 107. ⁹⁷ Ibid., 108. ⁹⁸ RP, iii. 215. ⁹⁹ Ibid. ¹⁰⁰ Ibid.: ‘La quarte encheson et la darrein, pur conquerre honour et humanite.’

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humanité’, humanité corresponds to no accepted usage in medieval French or Anglo-Norman. The king’s expedition could not have been intended to conquer human nature, nor hospitality, nor pity.¹⁰¹ It is clear that ‘humanité’ is an Anglicism. It is a substitute for ‘manhood’, which was a term difficult to translate directly into French.¹⁰² It is not honour and humanity which Richard wished to conquer, but the most natural pairing for honour, given what has been seen about the terminology of manhood: ‘honour and manhood’.¹⁰³ In one sentence, this sums up what Richard might have hoped that a royal expedition to the continent would do for him. It would win him the honour consonant with a king in full estate. It would enable him to govern himself, unencumbered by a choice of counsellors imposed upon him. Yet none of this was to happen. The request for the unprecedented grant of four subsidies for the royal expedition was treated with astonishment by the Commons.¹⁰⁴ They instead demanded the immediate dismissal of the treasurer, and also of the chancellor, Michael de la Pole, so that they could impeach him for his misdeeds in office.¹⁰⁵ De la Pole was to be held responsible for the failure to implement the restrictions on the royal administration stipulated in the parliament of 1385. The French could wait. Moreover, by failing to take due counsel with all parts of the nobility before preparing for war, Richard had apparently forced a substantial part of the lords into alliance with the Commons. Nobles such as the earls of Arundel and Warwick seem to have held the chancellor responsible for this failure to consult widely. The growing influence of men such as Robert de Vere, Simon Burley, and Michael de la Pole would not reassure them that the king’s counsels would broaden now that Richard was asserting his ‘own governance’.¹⁰⁶ Richard II later interpreted the resistance he met in this parliament as clear evidence of treason, a refusal to obey a king who was, to his own ¹⁰¹ AND, s.v. ‘humanité’; Godefroy 1880–1902: s.v. ‘humanité’; Hindley, Langley and Levy 2000: s.v. ‘umanité’. ¹⁰² The translation suggested in the recent edition of the parliament rolls—‘to prevail and conquer honourably and humanely’—has no warrant in the text it purports to translate: ‘honour et humanité’ are nouns and objects of the verb, not adverbs. See The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. C. Given-Wilson et al. [CD-ROM] (Leicester, 2005) at RP, iii. 214. ¹⁰³ See above, Chs. 2, 3. ¹⁰⁴ Knighton, 354–5. ¹⁰⁵ Analyses focusing on the truth of the accusations against de la Pole include Sherborne 1990; Roskell 1984; Palmer 1971a; Palmer 1969. ¹⁰⁶ Goodman 1971: 9; Palmer 1971a: 477–8; Tuck 1973: 72–86; Saul 1997a: 112–27, 129.

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mind, unambiguously in his full authority.¹⁰⁷ The request to dismiss de la Pole recalled the purges of the king’s officers during the Good Parliament and after the rising of 1381. It was reminiscent also of the moves to enforce regulated counsel on the king which had dogged Richard throughout his early years. It is this which explains Richard’s angry reply, as reported by the chronicler Henry Knighton, that he would not dismiss the least boy in his kitchen at the behest of the Commons.¹⁰⁸ Moreover, by refusing to consider royal requests before the chancellor had been put on trial, the Lords and the Commons put to one side the king’s business, namely raising supply to meet the French threat. Richard was to return to this in the sixth question which he put to an assembly of judges in the summer 1387, when he asked whether, once the business of parliament had been set down by the king’s command in the chancellor’s speech, the Lords and Commons could set this aside and proceed on their own articles.¹⁰⁹ It may also have been this which lay behind Richard’s exasperated response to the demands delivered by Thomas of Woodstock and Thomas Arundel, bishop of Ely, who now made his first appearance in politics. According to Knighton, the king replied to their demands by declaring that: We now fully see that our people and commons (populus noster et communes) intend to resist, and are labouring to rise against us, and in such a danger there seems no one better but our cousin the king of France both to ask counsel and aid (consilium et auxilium) from him against the plotters, and to submit ourselves to these rather than to be submitted to our subjects.¹¹⁰

If Richard did indeed reply along these lines, it seems clear that he was attacking his opponents with bitter irony. Since the Lords and the Commons would not grant supply to fight the king of France ‘there seemed no better’ than Charles VI himself to appeal to for the duties of ‘consilium et auxilium’ owed to a lord. It was these duties which the Lords and Commons had been asked for in the face of the French invasion and these which they had denied the king. In Knighton’s account, Thomas of Woodstock and Thomas Arundel chose to put a complexion on Richard’s words which absolved them from this implied accusation, taking literally his bitter reply. They asserted that the ‘consilium’ of the French king would inevitably lead to destruction, for he was the king’s chief enemy and the kingdom’s greatest adversary.¹¹¹ Richard of course ¹⁰⁷ See below, Ch. 8, pp. 163–4. ¹⁰⁸ Knighton, 354. ¹⁰⁹ RP, iii. 233. ¹¹⁰ Knighton, 356–8. ¹¹¹ Ibid., 358.

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knew this. It would have been the point of these remarks, tied to the implication that those who now resisted him, and whom he was later to stigmatize as being worthy of traitors’ deaths, were even worse. In Knighton’s narrative, the bishop and the duke then went on to lecture the king on the deeds of his father and grandfather, how they had laboured to conquer the kingdom of France by right, which was now Richard’s right. The king had just asserted that very same right through the mouth of Michael de la Pole as a justification for demanding the supply to take an army to France, a course of action which Bishop Arundel and Thomas of Woodstock had been fatally embroiled in blocking. Their pious assertions are an attempt to steal Richard’s moral high ground, and so to absolve themselves and their allies for failing to come to their lord’s defence. After the first proposal for a royal expedition in May 1382, the king and those about him attempted at every opportunity to pursue a personal expedition led by the king. They were blocked on that occasion and in February 1383, and again at the end of the campaign of the bishop of Norwich. Only in 1385 was it possible to mount a full scale expedition, and only then in response to a clear and immediate threat, through the use of such methods as the archaic practice of a full feudal summons, and at the expense of provoking a crisis in the parliament which followed. When the king tried to force through a full personal expedition to the continent in 1386 by summoning an army without first securing the necessary supply or sufficiently robust support from the lords, the result was the impeachment of Michael de la Pole and the imposition of new restraints on the king. The Commons would not be forced to grant four subsidies to a government which it thought had been adequately provided with funds for the past season. The Lords, aside from their own concerns about the social upheaval which would be caused by excessive taxation, and their doubts about the king’s ministers, would not be forced into a policy for which the king had not secured adequate support in advance by appropriate counsel-taking. Ironically, the uncompromising pursuit of a personal expedition, which was largely motivated by the king’s desire to secure for full estate, instead united the Lords and Commons in parliament behind the re-imposition of restrictions on the king. A royal campaign ought to have offered Richard the chance to prove his manhood in line with one strand of contemporary commonplace, in which the status of a man was asserted through the manly (military) deeds by which manhood (renown, honour, and social status) was achieved. If the king could

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prove he was a man by these means he might have hoped to put aside the formal and informal restraints which could be justified only on the grounds of his youth. The king’s aspirations to assume his manhood had a firm basis in contemporary commonplace ideas about how a youth might become a man; they could not be simply dismissed by his opponents.¹¹² When Thomas Arundel and Thomas of Woodstock opposed the king together for the first time, they did not even risk invoking the king’s ‘firm purpose’ to pursue a royal campaign, instead seeking to present themselves as the true guarantors of the honour of the king and kingdom, inherited from Edward III’s day. Strategies such as these set the scene for the return of the theme of the king’s youth into public discourse. As yet it remained in the background, an implicit justification for resisting the king’s plans, perhaps, never an overt excuse to put his will aside. In the months which followed, it would come to the fore once more, as he attempted to resist with violence the restraints imposed upon him. Once Richard’s desire to assert his manhood had been swept to one side, the picture of his youthful, untrustworthy inconstancy could finally be mobilized as one of his opponents’ most effective weapons. ¹¹² See above, Ch. 2.

8 The Return of the King’s Youth, 1386–88 The king’s attempts to promote his honour and manhood with an expedition to the continent met with their final defeat in the autumn of 1386. He never did bear arms in France or Flanders. Instead Richard’s efforts to force his plans on an unwilling Commons and nobility provoked the imposition of conciliar mechanisms similar to those devised for his tender age. In the months that followed, the king’s efforts to throw off these restrictions brought him first to search for military support and then to secure judicial decisions condemning his opponents as worthy of punishment as traitors. One year after the imposition of a new Continual Council, Richard’s actions provoked an armed counter-strike from his opponents. Taken by surprise, the king was initially obliged to back down and promise justice. He accepted the ‘Appeal’ presented by the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel and Warwick in November 1387, and agreed to submit the matter to judgement in a meeting of parliament to be held the following February. Yet it soon became obvious that Richard and those about him were not to be brought to heel so easily. On 20 December, the Appellant lords, now joined by the earls of Derby and Nottingham, were obliged to meet forces loyal to the king in battle, defeating Robert de Vere at Radcot Bridge. After these dramatic events, the prospect of Richard’s deposition was briefly raised, before it was finally decided that a violent purge of the king’s officers and the royal household would have to suffice, accompanied with the imposition of fresh conciliar mechanisms. As the political community struggled to find an acceptable way of looking at these events, the king’s youth emerged once more as one strategy to justify resistance to a legitimate but intransigent monarch. By the time the Appellants presented their written Appeal to the ‘Merciless Parliament’, not quite a month after the king’s twenty-first

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birthday, Richard II’s youth had assumed a central position in the justification of their recent actions.¹ The first article of the Appeal as presented on 3 February 1388 set out how five named ‘traitors’, ‘seeing the tender age of our said lord king and the innocence [or youth] of his royal person’, had caused him to accept as truth all those falsehoods which they had contrived, so that they might persuade him entirely to commit his affection to them, and to hate his loyal lords and lieges, by whom he should have been guided.² It was by taking advantage of Richard’s tender age that the traitors had been able to subject him to themselves by oaths, to restrict access to him and to ensure that they alone should have the ‘government’ of the kingdom.³ Finally, the Appeal closed with the declaration that nothing therein was to be seen as a result of default or deshonest´e on the part of the king ‘considering the tenderness of the age of the king our lord before this time (devaunt ces heures), and the innocence of his royal person’.⁴ On one level, this fresh invocation of the king’s youth allowed him to be absolved from blame. Yet at the same time it removed him from power, allowing actions which the king perfectly approved to be rejected as not truly his will. It is clear that, when they used these terms, the Appellants were not referring back to a distant period where it might have been uncontroversial to speak of the king’s ‘tender age’. Even when they spoke of the king’s youth in the past it was the events of the previous sixteen months which were at issue. According to the Appeal, it was the influence secured by certain individuals over the youthful king which had made him unwilling to accept the new Continual Council imposed in November 1386.⁵ It was this which had led him in the summer of ¹ RP, iii. 229–36. The three senior Appellants—the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Arundel, and the earl of Warwick—first presented an Appeal against five ‘traitors’ on 14 November 1387 to a delegation sent by the king. The Appeal was lodged for a second time on 30 December 1387, on which occasion the three initial Appellants were joined by the earls of Derby and Nottingham, before finally being put to parliament on 3 February. The November Appeal must have been in a different form from that finally presented, since the accusations lodged in February 1388 also narrate the events of late November and December 1387. See e.g. RP, iii. 235, arts. 37–9. ² RP, iii. 230, art. 1: ‘veantz la tendresse de l’age nostre dit seignur le roy et la innocencie de sa roial persone’. In one MS of Knighton’s chronicle, ‘innocencie’ is corrected to ‘iuuentute’ in the margin. See Knighton, 456–8. ³ RP, iii. 230, arts. 1–4. ⁴ RP, iii. 238: ‘considerantz la tendresse del age le roi nostre dit seignour devaunt ces heures, et la innocencie de sa roiale persone’. ⁵ RP, iii, 231–2, arts. 15–17.

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1387 to secure judicial opinions condemning those who had procured this body as worthy of punishment of traitors, so obliging the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel and Warwick to raise arms.⁶ It was the king’s youthful susceptibility to evil counsel which led him to attempt to muster troops against these lords, even though he had agreed to a judicial hearing of their complaints, culminating in the rout of royalist forces at Radcot Bridge.⁷ It is important to note that this use of the king’s youth was not a continuity from the beginning of the reign but the revival of a theme which had faded out from public discourse in the early 1380s. In Richard’s early reign, the last official reference to the king’s incapacity on the grounds of youth was the declaration that this incapacity was at an end, made in the parliament of January 1380. The 13-year-old king was now old enough to rule without a permanent extended council beyond his five principal officers. Thereafter, although it might be implied that there was more need than usual for the king to listen to the advice of others on account of his relative youth, this was not stated explicitly outside of later, unofficial accounts of the events of the early 1380s, such as the chronicle of Thomas Walsingham. Why, then, was it felt necessary to introduce this strange piece of special pleading, bringing the youth of the king to the fore in the weeks which followed his twenty-first birthday? The present chapter revisits the events leading up to the Merciless Parliament in an attempt to explain the revival of this theme as an accepted element in political controversy. It places this curious discursive development in the context of others—such as the use of treason—which have led to certain distortions in historians’ views of these events and of the characters and aims of the protagonists. It hopes thereby to come to a better understanding of how between October 1386 and February 1388 the king’s ‘firm purpose’ to conquer honour and manhood in continental war was eclipsed by the image of a changeable youth, seduced by his evil counsellors into vice and misrule. ∗ To explain the return of the king’s youth, it is first necessary to go back to the imposition of new conciliar mechanisms which followed the ⁶ RP, iii, 232, arts. 17–21; 233–4, arts. 24–28; 235, arts. 33–5. ⁷ RP, iii. 235–6, arts. 37–9.

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impeachment of Michael de la Pole in the autumn parliament of 1386. Rather than grant the four subsidies which the king had requested for an expedition against the French, the Commons had instead granted two half-subsidies, both conditional on the establishment of a ‘great and continual council’ to survey the estate of the kingdom for one year.⁸ The personnel of this new Continual Council included familiar faces from the councils and commissions of Richard’s early reign alongside more senior figures who had generally been excluded from formal membership of these earlier bodies. The Continual Councillors thus included the dukes of Gloucester and York, the two archbishops, and the king’s chief officers, headed by the new chancellor, Thomas Arundel, bishop of Ely. They were joined by such conciliar regulars as William Wykeham, Richard Scrope, and John Devereux, and by the king’s former appointed tutors, Richard, earl of Arundel, and John Lord Cobham. The new Continual Council, usually referred to by historians as the ‘Commission’, was not envisaged as an independent executive body, taking the king’s powers into its hands in order to effect reform. Its duties substantially duplicated those of the commissions of Richard’s early reign. The Commons petitioned that this new body should ‘correct and amend the faults by which your Crown is so tarnished’, as much with regards to the law as to the lost resources of the Crown.⁹ In the parliament roll, it was established ‘for the good and due execution of laws, and the relief of the estate of the king and his people in time to come’.¹⁰ Its detailed duties substantially echoed the responsibilities of the commissions of 1379–80 and of 1385, with the addition of a new remit for inquiry into the administration of law which was more characteristic of the reform committee of 1381–2.¹¹ It was a ‘governing council’ in the contemporary sense of ‘gubernatio’, ‘gouvernaile’, ‘gouvernement’, or ‘gouvernance’, that is to say: steering and direction, the art of the helmsman.¹² It was to examine the five principal officers, the direction (‘gouernayle’) of the royal household and all other courts. It was to ensure that all revenues were exploited, ⁸ RP, iii. 220–1, item 18 (appointment of the commissioners ‘d’estre del continuel conseille de nostre dit seigneur le roi’); item 20 (Commons request king to appoint his officers and ‘aussi autres seigneurs de vostre graunt et continuel counseil’ in parliament). ⁹ RP, iii. 221, item 18. ¹⁰ RP, iii. 221, item 20; CPR, 1385–9, 244. ¹¹ CPR, 1385–9, 244; Knighton, 372–80. ¹² MLD, s.v. ‘gubernatio’, ‘gubernare’, ‘gubernaculum’, ‘gubernator’; AND, s.v. ‘governaille’, ‘governer’, ‘governance’, ‘governement’.

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and no grants had been given to individuals ‘undeservedly’. The new Continual Councillors were to inquire concerning injustices, notably ‘maintainers and undertakers of quarrels and perverters of juries’. They were to investigate, as much within the household as without, how the profits of the king and kingdom had been reduced, or the common law disturbed or delayed. It is clear that this new body took its duties seriously. Its responsibility for inquiry into the activities of royal officials amounted to the establishment of an equity court independent of the king’s prerogative jurisdiction over such matters.¹³ Old debts and the discounting of tallies were investigated. A stop was put on assignments on certain customs, with the avowed intention of directing the profits to the defence of Calais. Edward III’s jewels were inventoried and committed to the exchequer. The lands of the earldom of Stafford were assigned during the minority of its heir to the upkeep of the royal household. The new Continual Council showed itself no less concerned to expand the king’s existing revenues as to prevent their erosion by the misdeeds of officials. A series of specific commissions were issued to inquire into the king’s revenues in each county.¹⁴ They were to survey his lands with profits attached to them, inquire into waste and concealment, assess the true value of the alien priories and of lands in the king’s custody during the minority of their heirs. They were to make public proclamation inviting offers from those willing to pay higher rents for these sources of revenue. The Continual Council of 1386–7 also began to address the knotty problem of household debt. Expenditure was decreased at the same time as more money was passed from the exchequer, with the result that significantly greater sums were passed to the household than were expended in the year from 1 October 1386. Total expenditure on the wardrobe of the household in 1386–7 stood at only £11,922, the lowest for any year between 1360 and 1413.¹⁵ During the same period, the enrolled accounts record that some £15,068 was passed from the exchequer to the keeper of the wardrobe of the household.¹⁶ Following the expedient provoked by the expenses of the royal wedding in 1382, by which sums received were accounted for six months out of phase with sums expended,¹⁷ the account for the year from 1 October 1386 ¹³ ¹⁴ ¹⁵ ¹⁷

Ormrod 1996: 310–11. For what follows see ibid., 315. Ibid., 314–16; CPR, 1385–9, 317–18. Given-Wilson 1986: appendix I. ¹⁶ TNA E 361/5, rot. 20d. See above, Ch. 5, pp. 88–9.

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first enrolled sums received from Easter to 30 September 1386, and then from 1 October 1386 to Easter 1387.¹⁸ Then, unusually, they continue a further term, recording sums received between Easter and 30 September 1387.¹⁹ Thereafter, however, the ‘normal’ post-1382 procedure was restored. The account for 1 October 1387 to 30 September 1388 begins with a second list of sums received from the exchequer between Easter and 30 September 1387 before going on to record monies received up to Easter 1388.²⁰ The cash injection of 1386–7 presumably increased the keeper’s reserves and allowed the more speedy repayment of his debts, paying off those left over from the military crises of 1385 and 1386. However, it did not provide enough cash to cover those incurred for the royal wedding and queen’s coronation. This last financial anomaly was not resolved until some time after the death of the keeper, William Pakington, by a final transfer of £6,966 to his executors on 26 July 1393.²¹ At the same time as the problem of household debt was taken on, greater formality was imposed on the king’s disposition of his resources. Signet letters were no longer sent directly to the chancellor. Instead, during the Commission’s tenure of office, business that would have been issued on the authority of the signet or of the king’s direct instructions in 1382–6 was issued under the authority of a privy seal letter.²² It is possible to exaggerate the constitutional importance of this development.²³ The king would have continued to send signet warrants to the keeper of the privy seal, or would have directly instructed the keeper in person, who would then issue a privy seal letter to the chancery.²⁴ Yet the curtailment of direct and signet warrants to the great seal was important in the sense that it was symptomatic of the greater concern to ensure that the king’s authority was not abused by those close to him. At the same time, grants which risked reducing the king’s resources by the smallest amount, such as four pence a day issued from the customs of Southampton, or a tenement worth ten marks yearly, ¹⁸ E 361/5, rot. 20d. The totals for each term are £5,213 and £8,779 respectively. ¹⁹ Total: £4,571. ²⁰ Ibid. The total enrolled for Easter to 30 September 1387 is £1,718. ²¹ E 361/5, rot. 21. ²² Ormrod 1996: 317–18. ²³ It is by no means clear that signet warrants to the chancellor were thought of as offensive in themselves. The parliamentary petitions which are cited to suggest this condemn direct intervention by signet or by privy seal in common law procedures, not the king’s ordinary powers of patronage. See RP, iii. 23, 44, 247; Cf. Tout 1920–33: iii. 417; iv. 41–2; v. 195–210; Tuck 1973: 130–1. ²⁴ Brown 1964: 132–5.

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were granted only ‘by the assent of council’.²⁵ Although these measures were ostensibly aimed at restricting the possibility for misappropriation of the king’s authority by his officials and by those with privileged access to him, so long as his appointed councillors felt able to overrule his decisions the practical effect was to limit the king’s control over his own resources. Although the Commission was not, in principle at least, an executive council, in some ways it was an even more insidious attack on the king’s freedom of action. A return to the compulsory extended counsel of Richard’s childhood, conceded by full royal authority and without reference to his youth, it risked undermining the king’s position in a way that a grant hedged by references to his tender age did not. When the king was aged 11 or 12, such mechanisms did nothing to exclude the possibility that the king would one day be competent to rule unsupervised, when he was of full age and discretion. Imposed upon a man of almost 20 they began to take on an altogether more controversial aspect. If Richard’s youth were a thing of the past, then these kinds of conciliar mechanisms more closely resembled those forced upon adult kings in times of political and fiscal crisis. Even as it was conceded ‘by [the king’s] royal authority, certain knowledge, pleasure and free will’, the true, involuntary nature of the new Continual Council was exposed from the first by the terms of the grant of taxation which accompanied it.²⁶ If this body did not sit for its full one-year term, or if its powers or personnel were in any way modified, then the collection of all levies granted by parliament would be stopped immediately.²⁷ Even as he accepted these conditions, the king made sure that his dissatisfaction was well known through the protestation that this measure should not detract from his liberties nor those of the Crown.²⁸ It was Richard II’s tenacious resistance to the Continual Council of 1386–7 which ultimately stimulated the re-emergence of the theme of the king’s youth as a means to justify his restraint. Before passing on to describe this resistance and its consequences, however, it is worth pausing to consider a number of texts which took up the theme of youth and rule before the storm finally broke in the autumn of 1387. These texts suggest that youth was already beginning to creep back into the overt language of politics as early as June of that year. Significantly, the ²⁵ CPR, 1385–9, 249, 268. ²⁷ RP, iii. 220–1, item 18.

²⁶ RP, iii. 221, item 20. ²⁸ RP, iii. 224, item 35.

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youthful faults they single out for criticism are quite distinct from those which the Appellants would later identify. They were concerned not with the changeability which made youth susceptible to evil counsel, but with the heedless aggression characteristic of Rehoboam, and of Edward III in his day. ∗ The theme of youth emerges for the first time in 1387 in a sermon preached at St Paul’s Cross, London by a Dominican friar named Thomas Wimbledon.²⁹ This sermon was first delivered in June or July of that year.³⁰ It was possibly delivered again during the Merciless Parliament, and perhaps once more in 1389.³¹ It survives in some fifteen manuscripts, suggesting that it was of considerable interest to contemporaries.³² Its main theme, ‘Redde rationem villicacionis tue’ (‘Render account for your charge’), would have had particular resonance in the ²⁹ The identity of the preacher is not easy to establish. See Owen 1962; Knight 1967: 43. There are references in the accounts of Merton College to one ‘Wimbledon’, a fellow in 1386–8. In the Catalogus Vetus of Merton College, a note added in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century next to the name ‘Wimbledon’ declares: ‘Famossimus predicator fuit in toto regno Anglie’. Given that there were many priests named Wimbledon in England in the 1380s, however, it seems likely that the author of this late remark was boosting the glory of his institution by laying claim to the famous preacher. It is unlikely that ‘Thomas Wimbledon’, who received a licence to preach from the bishop of Winchester in 1385, and who was chaplain to Sir John Sandys (See Hist. Parl., iv. 301–3), could be the same person as ‘Wimbledon’, fellow of Merton College. He could not be both a chaplain and a resident fellow of Merton. See Emden 1957: iii. 2120. I. K. Knight simply notes—‘About this Thomas Wimbledon nothing is authentically known’ (Knight 1967: 43). ³⁰ Wimbledon, 41. All but two manuscripts refer in the text at ll. 895–8 to the coming of the Antichrist in the year 1400, ‘whiche noumbre of yeeris is now fulfillid not fully twelue yeer and an half lackynge’ which clearly indicates mid-1387. See Knight 1967: 43, contra the faulty maths of Owen 1962: 378. ³¹ Later notes in various manuscripts suggest that the sermon was preached twice, once in 1388. Considerably later marginal annotations assert that it was preached on Quinquagesima Sunday [28 Feb] 1389. See Knight 1967: 41–2. Horner 1998: 270–1, uses Owen’s (incorrect) dating of the sermon to 1388 to argue for delivery and composition in and for the Merciless Parliament, which opened in the week before Quinquagesima Sunday of that year. Tempting as this hypothesis may be, it does not detract from the fact that the sermon dates itself internally to 1387, and that no annotation or internal evidence assigns its delivery to a date during the Merciless Parliament. ³² Wimbledon, 3–26.

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year after the dismissal of the chancellor for misdeeds in office, whilst the Commission investigated royal officers and pursued its mission to ensure that royal resources were not wasted. The preacher’s concern with the responsibilities of rule led him to a discussion which would inevitably have summoned up in his audience’s mind the troubles which the kingdom was experiencing as the king approached his twenty-first birthday. In the first section of his sermon Wimbledon used the parable of the vineyard as a pretext to outline the work which needed to be done in Christian society (‘the chirche’) by the three ‘offices’: priesthood, knighthood, and labourers.³³ In discussing knighthood, he set out their duties as ‘reulinge the peple’, defending them from thieves and fighting against ‘tyrauntis and enmys’.³⁴ Wimbledon then considered the questions that God would ask of each ‘office’ concerning its ‘bailly’ (charge) on the Day of Judgement.³⁵ Coming to the ‘the secunde baylif’, referred to as both ‘temperal lordis that hauen gouernayle of peplis’,³⁶ Wimbledon asked them to consider: why have you come into your office?³⁷ If the office was taken more for ‘thyn owne worldly profyt than for helpe of the comunyte, thou art a tiraunt, as the phylosophre seyth’.³⁸ Wimbledon then turned to the example of Rehoboam, son of Solomon.³⁹ When Rehoboam was first king, the people of Israel came to him and complained of the burden his father had laid upon them, and asked it to be lightened. The new king took counsel of the ‘old wise men’ who advised him to agree. But Rehoboam ignored their advice and instead followed the counsel of children who were his playfellows, and said to the people when they came back: ‘My little finger shall be greater than my father’s back; my father grieved you somewhat, but I will do even more.’⁴⁰ When the people heard this, they rebelled against him, and took another king. Since then the kingdom has never been whole again. Wimbledon drew the moral. It was good for every ruler, ‘be he lord or king’, that he be not led by fools, nor by any other who ³³ Wimbledon, 61–3, quote at ll. 38–9. ³⁴ Wimbledon, l. 89 (a variant in 3 MSS). ³⁵ Ibid., ll. 145–7. ³⁶ Wimbledon, l. 141. ³⁷ Wimbledon, ll. 308–10. ³⁸ Wimbledon, ll. 313–17. ³⁹ Wimbledon, ll. 328–9. ⁴⁰ Wimbledon, ll. 334–9. ‘My lest fyngere is grettere than my fadres rygge’ is a rendering of I Kings 12:10. The passage is confusing since the Vulgate somewhat prudishly garbles ‘my little finger shall be greater than my father’s loins’ (as the Authorized Version renders the Hebrew) to give ‘minimus digitus meus grossior est dorso patris mei’—i.e. greater than my father’s back.

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had no love for the community.⁴¹ For no matter how high he may be, he shall come before one higher than himself to render account for his ‘bayle’.⁴² This central passage in Wimbledon’s sermon is in one regard a general reflection on the nature and duties of those who have ‘gouernel of other men’. Much of it seems to be addressed to the nobility and gentry rather than the king: the abuse of office, the pursuit of personal gain over common profit, and how this leads the people to rebel.⁴³ But the audience was clearly meant to understand that these lessons applied at the very top of the kingdom also. Richard was a young king, the successor to a grandfather who had taxed the people greatly for his wars. Indeed, the pertinence of the fate of Rehoboam was intensified by the fact that Edward III himself had been invited by preachers to ponder this example once in the crisis of 1340–1, again during the Good Parliament of 1376 and on at least one occasion in between.⁴⁴ Far from reducing the burden of war on the people, Richard and those about him had attempted to force through an expedition to the continent, funded by four subsidies, by presenting it to parliament as a fait accompli. His actions accorded well with the tyranny of youths who, spurred on by their hot and wet, vigorous yet inconstant nature, value more highly their military glory than the community which has to foot the bill. It is telling that it was around this time, or perhaps a little later, that Geoffrey Chaucer produced his clearest denunciation of such unthinking bellicosity in the Tale of Sir Thopas and the Tale of Melibee.⁴⁵ Sir Thopas wittily spears the chivalric illusions which had led Richard II into such trouble with a skilful burlesque of romance and its obsessions. By reference to Flemish scenes of conflict,⁴⁶ the poem draws a satirical parallel to the very fields of battle in which the king and those about him were keen to intervene. The Tale of Melibee, meanwhile, tells the story of a ‘young man called Melibeus, myghty and riche’ who is dissuaded from the pursuit of vengeance, advocated by the ‘yonge folk’ who call out for ⁴¹ Wimbledon, ll. 342–5; ‘be he lord or king’ is a contemporary marginal addition in one MS only, BL Harley 2398. Other MSS refer simply to every ‘leders’, ‘lorde’, or ‘reuler’ of communities. ⁴² Wimbledon, 83, ll. 345–7. ⁴³ For further discussion of this aspect of Wimbledon’s sermon, see C. Fletcher, ‘Morality and office in fourteenth-century England and France’ in Fourteenth-Century England V, ed. N. Saul, forthcoming. ⁴⁴ See above, Ch. 5, n. 5. ⁴⁵ On dating see Riverside Chaucer, 923. ⁴⁶ Scattergood 1981: 293–4.

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war, only by the wise if rebarbative advice of his wife, Dame Prudence.⁴⁷ Her scholastic interrogations strip away Melibeus’ specious justifications for pursuing vengeance, making it clear that his base motivation, like the knights of romance, was to let no slight pass without revenge, and so to avoid all threat to his honour and manhood.⁴⁸ It has been argued that these two texts form part of a wider critique put forward by Chaucer of the untamed values of honour and revenge which we have seen encoded in one strand of the language of manhood.⁴⁹ Insofar as this has been related to contemporary political society it has been natural to see this critique as reflecting feelings traditionally associated with the court of Richard II. Such sentiments, found also in the work of John Gower and John Clanvowe, have been thought to accord with the preferences of a king and court who had a critical attitude to the cult of manhood.⁵⁰ Yet, given what we have already seen about Richard’s attitude to war and to his own ‘manhood’, the criticism which these writers present of the abuses of contemporary knighthood could equally be seen as an attempt to recommend a more measured attitude to a king who seemed depressingly attached to the logic of manhood in its primary, unmoralized form. Melibee and Sir Thopas, like the anti-violence passages of the Two Ways and the Confessio Amantis, are not a celebration of a system of values dominant at court, but examples of the evil dispositions of youth which Richard would do well to avoid. On top of the unmeasured love of battle, Melibee also had a further contemporary resonance, for forbearance in the face of provocation and shame was precisely what Richard failed to exhibit during the humiliations of 1386–7. The need to advise the king of the dangers of unmeasured reprisals against his opponents grew more apparent from the autumn parliament of 1386 onwards. It was clear that the establishment of a new Continual Council was unacceptable to the king from the start. Grudgingly accepting its imposition in November 1387, his dissatisfaction with the actions of the ‘Commission’ seems to have increased as its reforms ⁴⁷ Riverside Chaucer, ‘Canterbury Tales’, fragment VII, ll. 967–1888; quotations at ll. 967, 1034–5. ⁴⁸ Blamires 1979: 245–69. ⁴⁹ Ibid.; Mann 1991; Crane 1994: 11, 19–23; Yeager 1987: 108–121. Contrast Keen 1998; Rigby 1996: ch. 2, which see Chaucer as rather more ambivalent than the idea of a straight condemnation would suggest. For this strand in the language of manhood, see above, Ch. 2. ⁵⁰ Stillwell 1944: 435–8; Blamires 1979: 264; Scattergood 1981: 293; Rubey 1998: 161–7; Saul 2002: 131–45.

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were put into action. Chroniclers and Appellant pronouncements later alleged that Richard travelled into far flung parts of the kingdom, physically isolating himself from the Continual Council.⁵¹ This was something of an exaggeration, as Anthony Tuck has demonstrated, although Richard soon made his discontent clear in other ways.⁵² The king passed Christmas 1386 at Windsor, before departing, after Candlemas, for the midlands, spending Easter at Nottingham. After celebrating St George’s day at Windsor, he seems to have remained in the Thames Valley in May, staying at Reading and Woodstock.⁵³ This activity did not represent an insuperable geographical divide between the king and his government, and throughout the year he remained in regular contact with members of the Commission.⁵⁴ Nonetheless, the king’s movements were sinister for other reasons, notably his attempts to raise political and military support against those who had forced this body upon him. His absence from Westminster was significant as much in what it could be made to say about his moral estrangement from his imposed counsellors as for the administrative inconvenience caused by his physical distance from them. Thomas Wimbledon’s sermon suggests that the king’s dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs was already widely known in London by June or July. In these months, the king departed for the west midlands, moving up through Coventry to Staffordshire, and spending 12 to 16 July in Chester, where it is likely that he began retaining men for aid in his planned coup against the Commission.⁵⁵ Then, at the beginning of August, the king stayed at Shrewsbury, where he met with the judges of the King’s Bench and Common Pleas, putting to them a series of questions concerning the Commission’s legality in Common Law. It was becoming clear that, far from listening to the advice of Dame Prudence, Richard was determined to have his opponents condemned as traitors, and to secure the military backing to have this sentence put into effect. Richard’s objection to the enforcement upon him of a new Continual Council stands out in the questions which he put to the judges at Shrewsbury, and then again at a second assembly held at Nottingham at the end of that month.⁵⁶ He asked whether the new statute, ordinance, ⁵¹ ⁵³ ⁵⁵ ⁵⁶

RP, iii. 230, art. 4; Knighton, 410; Westminster, 186. Saul 1997a: 471. ⁵⁴ Tuck 1973: 109. Given-Wilson 1986: 213–14; Westminster, 186. See esp. Chrimes 1956; Clementi 1971.

⁵² Tuck 1973: 227–8.

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and commission made in the last parliament were derogatory to the ‘regality and prerogative’ of the king, to which the judges replied that they were, and especially because they were ‘against the wishes (uoluntates) of the king’.⁵⁷ It is sometimes argued that in this question Richard objected to the imposition of the Commission because it was against his wishes in the sense that it displeased him.⁵⁸ However, as S. B. Chrimes long ago noted, since Richard had been forced to accept the new Continual Council by the threat of deposition, the point of this question was that the Commission had been imposed under duress.⁵⁹ Later, in 1397, the king again stressed the element of compulsion in the imposition of the Commission.⁶⁰ Even the Appeal as presented in the Merciless Parliament made it clear that this was the king’s position, citing a letter to the Londoners in which Richard set out how those supporting the Commission had ‘forced him to make it against his will’.⁶¹ Richard objected to unusual restraints imposed on an adult king in his choice of counsellors and officers and in the disposition of his resources. This applied both to the establishment of the Continual Council itself and to its subsequent activities. His ‘Questions to the Judges’ proceeded from the principle that the king could not be constrained by force to accept any decision without that imposition amounting to treason. Both Richard’s questions and the judges’ replies adhered to Common Law ideas of treason which, under the Statute of Treasons of 1352, could legitimately be added to its statutory scope if the judges’ decisions were confirmed in parliament.⁶² It seems likely that the king hoped to do precisely that. In 1387 the king, now aged 20, displayed the same confrontational spirit which had inflamed crises in each of the previous five years. With a preliminary judgement casting the shadow of treason over his opponents, Richard moved to recruit retainers, to raise troops in ⁵⁷ RP, iii. 233: ‘Presertim eo quod fuerant contra uoluntates regis.’ Cf. Westminster, 198; Knighton, 394–6. ⁵⁸ See e.g. Goodman 1971: 20; Tuck 1973: 116; Saul 1997a: 174. ⁵⁹ Chrimes 1956. ⁶⁰ RP, iii. 349, 350, 374. See Clementi 1971: 102. ⁶¹ RP, iii. 234, art. 26: ‘et auxint procureront nostre seignour le roy encontre sa volunte assentier a ceo faire, et ensement constreyneront nostre dit seignour le roy de les faire encontre sa volunte’. ⁶² Chrimes 1956: 382–7. Bellamy 1970: esp. ch. 5, 103–5 notes that even after the 1352 Statute of Treasons there was no slavish adherence to its terms in practice, especially after 1381. Indeed, it was the Appellants themselves who did the most to expand the scope of treason in this period, having a willing parliament at their disposal. See ibid., 95–7.

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Cheshire and North Wales, and to sound out the Londoners for the possibility of military support.⁶³ The king was preparing to dispel the fiction of his voluntary acquiescence which had made possible the imposition of the Commission. He made it explicit that he had been forced to follow their recommendations under compulsion, and that his will could not be simply put to one side. Those who had enforced such measures on an adult king even as the French threatened to invade deserved punishment as traitors since, for Richard, that was what they were. His behaviour might have been used as an illustration of the uncontrolled youthful vigour which Edward III had shown in his own early reign. Yet, instead, his actions in these months came to be portrayed as exhibiting the malleable susceptibility to bad counsel to which youth was prey. The process by which this came about was initiated by the king’s invocation of treason, and the increasingly desperate measures it obliged his opponents to adopt in order to legitimize their resistance to royal authority. It is worth going into the development of the Appellants’ self-justification in some detail, since it reveals the origin of another substantial plank in Richard II’s unmanly reputation: the alleged secret peace policy of 1387. ∗ When the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel and Warwick first took up arms in response to the king’s efforts to have the contrivers of the new Continual Council condemned as traitors, they had not fully formulated their final version of the events of the past year. It seems that, at this stage, they still did not make overt reference to the king’s youth in their public declarations. Instead the three lords adapted the strategies of recent years in response to the king’s introduction of the language of treason and illegitimate constraint. In a letter sent to the Londoners on 13 November 1387, Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick asserted their loyalty to the king before proceeding to set out their own version of the functions of the Continual Council of 1386–7.⁶⁴ It had been granted by the king in parliament, they asserted, to ‘have the governance of his council and of the kingdom and beyond for one whole year’. In this letter, the exact terms of ⁶³ Tuck 1973: 111–12; Given-Wilson 1986: 213–14; Westminster, 186, 208. ⁶⁴ Knighton, 410–2.

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the Commission are less important than the assertion that it was granted by the king with full counsel, and of his own free will. The Commission, it was asserted, had been undermined only when the five ‘traitors to the king and the kingdom’—Michael de la Pole, Robert de Vere, Archbishop Alexander Neville of York, Chief Justice Robert Tresilian, and Nicholas Brembre, a former mayor of London—took the king away from the council ‘into diverse parts’ with the aim of dismembering the Crown. Protecting a Commission granted by the king in parliament, and later subverted by evil counsellors, the three senior Appellants hoped to appear as the faithful defenders of the honour and profit of the king and kingdom, not treasonous plotters acting to save their skins. One strategy adopted by the Appellants and their supporters to counter the accusation of treason was the imputation to the king and his friends of shameful enthusiasm for peace with France. Beginning with the letter to London of 13 November and (to judge by chronicle accounts) pro-Appellant pamphlets of this time, this accusation developed into a full blown conspiracy theory in the Appeal as it was presented to parliament in February 1388. The letter to the Londoners suggests somewhat vaguely that the ‘traitors’ had falsely counselled the king to act against his oath to the disinheritance and dismemberment of the crown, ‘to the point of losing his inheritance across the sea to the great shame and destruction of the whole kingdom’.⁶⁵ The monk of Westminster says simply that there were reports at this time that ‘prompted by some of the counsellors who surrounded him, the king of England proposed to relinquish to the king of the French, for a lump sum mutually agreed, all his overseas castles, towns, and other possessions’, except Aquitaine, for which he would do homage to the French king.⁶⁶ The chronicler even rationalizes this, attributing the king’s enthusiasm for peace to a desire to avoid imposing new taxes. He continued that, although this came to nothing, this project ‘formed a reason for the lords’ uprising’. Thomas Walsingham, meanwhile, spins a yarn in which the Appellants capture a messenger of the king of France, named Lustratus, carrying news that Charles VI was ready to receive the king and the duke of Ireland at Boulogne, to take possession of the castles and receive Richard’s homage.⁶⁷ By the Appeal of February 1388 the rumours of dishonourable concessions to the French had assumed an altogether more fearsome aspect. It was alleged that the ‘traitors’ had contrived a ⁶⁵ Knighton, 410.

⁶⁶ Westminster, 204.

⁶⁷ Walsingham, 842.

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plot to bring about the murder of their enemies with the support of the French king in return for the dishonourable surrender of Calais, Cherbourg, Brest and all the castles held by the English in the north of France.⁶⁸ The post-Merciless Parliament account of Thomas Favent furnishes still more sensational details.⁶⁹ He alleges that Sir John Golafre was sent to France to arrange a deal whereby, in return for the surrender of the fortresses, the three lords and the other commissioners were to be summoned to Calais on the pretext of negotiations and murdered there. Favent also asserts that letters were intercepted inciting the king of France to raise an army and come to England against the three lords, the commissioners and all who supported their appointment, to put them to death, and consequently to destroy the English people and language. Historians have tended to attenuate these accusations of the king’s treasonous dealings with the French, dismissing their more florid flights of fancy but accepting their basic premises. Although they stop short of accepting the story of a plot to kill Richard’s opponents with French help, historians follow the Appellants in ascribing any moves made towards peace in 1386–8 to the initiative of the king and those about him. J. J. N. Palmer, for example, argues skilfully that the king may not have plotted to enlist French help to kill these nobles, but that he was committed to a policy of peace, which was pursued without the knowledge of the Continual Council.⁷⁰ Yet this seems at best unlikely. It is difficult to see how the king could have carried out an independent foreign policy without his officers becoming aware of it. Palmer cites as evidence of Richard’s covert policy signet letters ordering the issue of safe-conducts in 1387.⁷¹ But given that these letters were sent to the chancellor, it is difficult to imagine how the great seal safe-conducts could have been issued without the knowledge of the council in general and of Chancellor Thomas Arundel in particular.⁷² It seems difficult to defend the proposition that the negotiations with France were part of a secret royal policy, not least because one of the most prominent Appellants—Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester—was deeply involved in Anglo-French diplomacy both before and after 1387.⁷³ Gloucester’s personal involvement in the negotiations of 1387 is witnessed by the fact that, when Richard failed ⁶⁸ RP, iii. 230, 234; Knighton, 484. ⁶⁹ Favent, 6. ⁷⁰ Palmer 1972: 105–21. ⁷¹ Ibid., 107; Favent, 6. ⁷² See e.g. TNA C 81/1354, item 1. ⁷³ For a critique of the warlike picture of the duke presented by continental chronicles, see below, Ch. 12, pp. 254–7.

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to appear at Calais in late November as had been arranged, the duke of Burgundy wrote to the duke, not to the king, inquiring whether it was still intended to arrange a long truce.⁷⁴ All this occurred a fortnight before the defeat of the king’s allies at the battle of Radcot Bridge, and so it would not be true to say that in writing to Gloucester, Burgundy was simply addressing himself to the man he considered to be the de facto head of the English government.⁷⁵ If peace discussions had been secret, and Thomas of Woodstock opposed them, it would seem perverse to write to him rather than to an as yet undefeated ‘royalist’ party. It is often pointed out that Gloucester waited until 12 June 1388 before replying to these letters.⁷⁶ But it is only observed parenthetically, if at all, that this was just eight days after the Merciless Parliament had come to an end,⁷⁷ and only two days after the departure of the earl of Arundel on an expedition which has been portrayed as an attempt to re-launch an aggressive war policy on the continent.⁷⁸ It makes little sense to argue that Gloucester’s willingness to negotiate stemmed from the failure of a putative Appellant war policy, since the funds for this policy had only just been released and the military season had only just begun when he re-opened communications.⁷⁹ It was just as the earl of Arundel set off that Gloucester declared that the king, and also, by implication, the duke himself, were ready to accept ‘every good and reasonable treaty’, and so set in train the negotiation process which culminated in the three-year truce agreed at Leulingham in June 1389.⁸⁰ It does not seem unreasonable to believe Gloucester’s excuses for not replying sooner: that the king and his council had been ‘greatly occupied, and we amongst them, concerning great necessities touching my said lord the king and his kingdom’.⁸¹ If we cease to ascribe all peaceful diplomatic initiatives to the king and all calls for a more aggressive war policy to the Appellants, it can be seen that the diplomatic and military policies of 1386–9 simply carried on those of the years before. The Commission and the Appellants, ⁷⁴ CPR, 1385–9, 502–3. ⁷⁵ Ibid. Gloucester’s reply dates Burgundy’s letter to Compi`egne, 7 December. ⁷⁶ Palmer 1972: 117, 122; Tuck 1973: 131; Saul 1997a: 205. ⁷⁷ On 4 June. See RP, iii. 252, item 50. ⁷⁸ Goodman 1971: 130–2; Palmer 1972: 133; Saul 1997a: 197–8. ⁷⁹ Contra Palmer 1972: 142. Saul 1997a: 205 asserts that Gloucester only replied ‘after the failure of Arundel’s expedition’, which had, in fact, set out only two days before. ⁸⁰ CPR, 1385–9, 502–3. ⁸¹ Ibid.

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just like earlier administrations, combined opportunistic campaigns with diplomatic negotiations in which the leading magnates of the kingdom were consistently prominent. The idea that they were any more committed to warfare than the king and his intimates seems to be a consequence of accepting the Appellants’ rhetoric in a watered-down form, preserving in its essentials their picture of an incapable, youthful king in the hands of luxurious, unmilitary favourites. As Anthony Goodman notes, the earl of Arundel’s naval expeditions of 1387 and 1388 continued and built upon the policies of previous years, notably the naval activities of Lord Darcy and Thomas Trivet.⁸² The earl of Arundel was able to take advantage of the weakening of Franco-Castilian naval power, partially the result of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance and of English expeditions in the Iberian peninsula,⁸³ and no doubt also of the massive expenditure involved in preparing the invasion fleets raised in 1385 and 1386.⁸⁴ Arundel’s sea-based, raiding campaigns had the flexibility to develop into incursions inland if the opportunity presented itself, whilst not committing the government or the Commons to the large-scale expenditure which had been attached to the major land campaigns of the late 1370s and which would have been involved in a royal expedition to the continent. It is likewise difficult to imagine that earlier administrations would have reacted any differently to events in France in 1388. The expedition to aid Jean de Montfort, duke of Brittany, was simply an opportunistic reaction to that magnate’s unexpected rebellion against the king of France, itself an unexpected side-effect of his feud with the Constable, Olivier de Clisson.⁸⁵ To suggest that it only failed to turn into a full scale chevauch´ee because of de Montfort’s failure to provide horses seems to imply remarkable gullibility on the part of the English government, who had already experienced Duke John’s unreliability in 1380–1.⁸⁶ In fact, much as with their allies in the Low Countries in 1382–4, the English lost the possible advantage to be derived from these threats to French power by their failure to act with sufficient speed. By the time the earl of Arundel set sail, de Montfort had already come to terms.⁸⁷ It seems unlikely that the possibility of a supporting expedition from John of Gaunt out of ⁸² Goodman 1971: 129. ⁸³ Ibid. ⁸⁴ Palmer 1972: 80. See also Rey 1965: 401–6. ⁸⁵ On de Montfort’s rebellion, see Palmer 1972: 98–102, 122–41, esp. 125; Goodman 1992: 122–30, esp. 129–130; Henneman 1996: 124–7. ⁸⁶ On the campaign of 1380–1, see Saul 1997a: 52–5. ⁸⁷ Henneman 1996: 127.

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Gascony had ever been a real one.⁸⁸ England’s potential allies in the Low Countries, Ghent and the duke of Guelders, received no more material support in 1387–8 than they had under the chancellorship of Michael de la Pole.⁸⁹ The story of the secret royal peace policy of 1387 emerged from the need for the Appellants to justify resistance to the king which otherwise risked appearing treasonous. It also had another practical attraction for pro-Appellant propagandists, since it corresponded nicely with the faults into which a dissolute youth might fall when under the influence of evil counsel. One of the most striking accounts of the corrupt mores and military weakness of the king’s counsellors occurs in Thomas Walsingham’s chronicle in a passage which immediately follows a narrative of the earl of Arundel’s victories at sea in the summer of 1387.⁹⁰ It has long furnished a powerful supporting element in Richard II’s unmanly reputation.⁹¹ According to Walsingham, ‘those about the king’, identified as Robert de Vere, Michael de la Pole, Simon Burley, and Richard Stury, ‘envied such worthiness’ and gave a distorted account of Arundel’s acts to the king, alleging he had only attacked merchants, whose affection it would have been better to preserve.⁹² Walsingham, though, would have none of this, alleging that: . . . these ones were certainly more knights of Venus than of Bellona, more vigorous in the chamber than on the field, fortified more with the tongue than with the lance, wakeful in speaking, sleepy in the performance of martial deeds.⁹³

These men, he continued, did not concern themselves with the use of arms as befits a knight, nor did they pursue what is most fitting for high-born kings in peace, namely hunting or the chase, or similar things by which royal honour increases.⁹⁴ This passage is a witty, punning insult against the ‘chamber’ knights whose activities in the bedchamber might also be used to summon up ⁸⁸ Palmer 1972: 125–6. ⁸⁹ Ibid., 52–62, 95–6, 123–5. ⁹⁰ Walsingham, 812. ⁹¹ This passage is often cited but seldom read in context. See e.g. Tout 1920–33: iii. 408; Given-Wilson 1986: 163–4; Tuck 1973: 114; Saul 1997a: 333; Stow 1989: 160; Barron 1993: 16; Gillespie 1997b: 139. Ormrod 2004 inquires into how a monastic chronicler could put forward such a positive view of war, but still accepts the ascription of anti-war views to Richard and his associates (esp. ibid., 298). ⁹² Walsingham, 812–14. ⁹³ Walsingham, 814. ⁹⁴ Ibid. For the untruth of the accusations see Stow 1989: 168.

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the corrupting effects of luxuria which threatened youth above all.⁹⁵ For those who supported the king’s opponents, it was also a very useful insult, for without this kind of rhetoric the Appellants stood in grave danger of being portrayed as traitors. If Richard II were a youth misled by immoral courtiers, who directed the resources of the kingdom away from military endeavour, and who corrupted the king’s military and ethical virtue into the bargain, then it was clear that the Appellants’ armed intervention to save Richard from himself could not be classed as treason. As a cause of political tension, Thomas Walsingham did not even mention the Commission, let alone the king’s objections to it. Instead he placed the royal honour at centre stage, and the disrepute into which his evil counsellors were bringing it. For Walsingham, the origin of the entire Appellant crisis was the repudiation by Robert de Vere of his wife, who was the king’s cousin and the duke of Gloucester’s niece. This inspired Gloucester’s righteous anger, which in turn led de Vere to plot against ‘the earls of Arundel, Warwick, Derby and Nottingham and other men who were loyal to the throne’. De Vere then involved the king in this plot, leading to the judicial condemnation of the lords and the move to raise troops. For Walsingham, there was no need to mention the king’s objections to the new Continual Council: the root of discord lay in the scandal raised by the duke of Ireland’s sex life.⁹⁶ It is important to note that the faults ascribed to Richard II’s court by Thomas Walsingham, writing in the aftermath of the Merciless Parliament, are very different from the qualities of youth picked out by Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Wimbledon. Chaucer and Wimbledon condemned warlike youths whose vigour was not yet allied to the constancy and consideration of the perfected man. Walsingham concentrated on how this lack of constancy led to the bodily sins to which youth was particularly prey. This contrast has everything to do with where these texts stand relative to the events of November and December 1387, the Appeal of February 1388, and the Appellants’ need to evade the accusation of treason. Chaucer and Wimbledon attacked the bellicose ethos which had led Richard to unprecedented tax demands in order to fund a renewal of war in 1386. Walsingham and the Appellants disguised their resistance to Richard’s expensive pursuit of chivalric manhood by directing onto ‘those about the king’ the accusations of treason and endangering the ⁹⁵ See Fletcher 2006 and above, Ch. 4.

⁹⁶ Walsingham, 822–4.

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kingdom’s performance in war which could equally well have been lodged against the Appellants themselves.

∗ The story of a treasonous plot by the king’s evil counsellors was one of the more effective strategies which the Appellants mobilized to justify their resistance to Richard II in the autumn of 1387. On its own, however, even this strategy soon proved inadequate in the face of the king’s intransigence. When it finally became clear that Richard had no intention of returning quietly to the counsels of the three lords, the Appellants were forced to find new strategies to justify their continuing resistance to his will. When Gloucester, Arundel, Warwick, and their retinues arrived in the vicinity of London, they began by presenting themselves as the king’s loyal counsellors, simply requiring to be reunited with their monarch to reveal the errors of his evil advisers, and so bring about renewed peace. After a series of delicate negotiations, the loyalty of the three lords, and the king’s acceptance of it, was performed in an elaborate ceremonial reception at Westminster Hall.⁹⁷ They kneeled before the king, and Richard took each one by the hand ‘as was the custom at that time when friends came to a friend’.⁹⁸ Letters of protection issued two days later declared that the accusations of treason made against them had been lodged by bad counsellors who knew well that their calumnies were untrue.⁹⁹ Yet, it soon became clear that nothing, least of all the king’s will, had been changed by this meeting with his loyal counsellors. The military recruiting process which the king had initiated some months before was not interrupted by the ceremonial reconciliation between Richard and the Appellants. With moves in the coming months to raise troops in London, in Calais, and in Cheshire it became embarrassingly difficult to deny that the king, far from being blissfully ignorant of the machinations of his counsellors, was unambiguously and unrepentantly in alliance with them.¹⁰⁰ In the skirmishes around Radcot Bridge on 20 December, the duke of Ireland raised the banner of St George, and the Appellants, now joined by ⁹⁷ ⁹⁸ ⁹⁹ ¹⁰⁰

Westminster, 210–15; Knighton, 412–14; Favent, 9–10. Quote from Knighton, 414. See also Westminster, 212. CLH, 320–1; Knighton, 414; Westminster, 214–16. Westminster, 216; Palmer 1972: 111; RP, iii. 232, arts. 19, 20.

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the earls of Derby and Nottingham, fought on.¹⁰¹ Worse, letters were found in Robert de Vere’s baggage which made it clear that the king thoroughly approved of his friend’s activities.¹⁰² This put the Appellants in a difficult position. Since 1386, Richard had gone back on his word not once but twice, and it must have seemed likely that, once the pressure was off, he would have lodged yet another plea of duress. The Appellants seem to have considered briefly the possibility of deposition.¹⁰³ When internal divisions made this impossible they appear instead to have decided to revive the theme of the king’s youthful suggestibility, and the lack of virtue of his luxurious intimates, which had remained implicit but unspoken in the controversies of the last eight years. It was for this reason that youth was explicitly invoked in official discourse for the first time since January 1380 in the Appeal presented to the Merciless Parliament in February 1388. This was ironic, since in the events which led up to Radcot Bridge, the king had given ample proof not of the changeability conventionally ascribed to a youth, but rather of a disturbingly manly constancy of will in the face of repeated attempts to force him to back down. It was Richard II’s refusal to be saved from himself which obliged the Appellants to take refuge in the contestable assertion of his continuing youth. Without this overt appeal to the king’s incapacity, those who wished to condemn neither the king nor his opponents experienced considerable difficulty in trying to reconcile these events with the accepted limits of political action in late fourteenth-century England. The chronicler Henry Knighton, for example, begins his account of these events by portraying a king manipulated by the five ‘traitors’ into repudiating the Commission appointed in November 1386. In a narrative seemingly derived from an Appellant pamphlet, he even goes so far as to ascribe the Questions to the Judges to the ‘traitors’, not the king, with no explanation of how Richard came to summon the council at Nottingham.¹⁰⁴ In this account, the Questions lead straight to the raising of arms by the three lords, with no need for any misconduct by the king. As events unfold, however, Knighton is caught by his ¹⁰¹ Knighton, 420; Westminster, 220–2. ¹⁰² RP, iii. 235; Walsingham, 840, 846. ¹⁰³ Walsingham, 848; Westminster, 218; Clarke and Galbraith: 125–81; Goodman 1971: 31. ¹⁰⁴ The existence of a ‘pamphlet’ source is suggested when Knighton refers to ‘the aforesaid seducers of the king’ having never mentioned them in such a way before. See Knighton, 392.

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desire to absolve all parties from blame. When the king first accepts the correction of the Appellants, but then decides to act against them anyway, the chronicler is obliged to take recourse to the increasingly unlikely explanation that the king had changed his mind once again, once more under the influence of evil counsellors.¹⁰⁵ His account of the motives for the king’s subsequent actions is still less convincing. It was, Knighton says, because the king started to miss Robert de Vere’s company that he asked him to return in arms from Cheshire.¹⁰⁶ The Westminster chronicle tells a rather more plausible story, in which news of de Vere’s approach provoked the three lords to talk of deposition.¹⁰⁷ But even this begs the question of whether they could genuinely have been surprised by these developments, since they had, after all, remained in arms after their meeting with the king. In the face of such unsettling developments, it was a good deal easier to blame everything on the king’s youthful changeability and susceptibility to bad counsel than to try to explain away his firm purpose to defeat his enemies. Thus Thomas Walsingham alleges that the Appellants remained in arms after their first meeting with the king for fear of the treachery of the traitors and the ‘king’s changeability’ (propter regis mobilitatem). When they later found proof that Richard was well aware of Robert de Vere’s activities, this confirmed their suspicion of ‘the king’s inconstancy and mutability’ (de regis inconstancia et mutabilitate).¹⁰⁸ In the final Appellant version of the events of 1386, the French threat, Richard’s objections to the Commission and his desire to win honour and manhood in war were pushed to one side in favour of a familiar story of the evil, wasteful influence of those about the king, who easily misled him in his youth. Thomas Favent’s Historia . . . Mirabilis Parliamenti gives the impression that dealing with these hateful favourites was precisely why the parliament of October 1386 had been summoned in the first place. It makes no mention of the king’s desire to pursue his honour and manhood in a continental campaign. Favent instead asserts that the king, ‘whilst he flowered in the primitive valleys of his adolescence’, was misled by the five ‘traitors’, whom Favent names as ‘the governors and closest counsellors of the king’.¹⁰⁹ The degree of hindsight involved in this version of events is indicated by the inclusion amongst them of Alexander Neville, archbishop of York, who actually sat on the Commission of 1386–7. It is clear that Neville is only ¹⁰⁵ Knighton, 416. ¹⁰⁶ Knighton, 418. ¹⁰⁸ Walsingham, 836, 840. ¹⁰⁹ Favent, 1.

¹⁰⁷ Westminster, 218.

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included by Favent amongst the miscreants of 1386 because he was later amongst the five ‘traitors’ attacked by the Appellants in November 1387. Already in 1386, according to Favent, these five were ‘living in vice, deluding the said king, and not looking out for the business of the king or the kingdom’, so that the king was made destitute and the kingdom struck by excessive taxation.¹¹⁰ It was because of this that ‘the nobles of the kingdom prompted the king to call a parliament to direct the kingdom to the way of peace, to cut short these perversities’.¹¹¹ Youthful susceptibility to bad advice had led the king astray in such a fashion that the Appellants were finally obliged to assemble in arms and deliver him from the traitors about him. The fresh use of the youth of Richard II had disturbing implications for public perceptions of the character of the king. Before 1382, when the king was younger, it might reasonably have been expected that the appointment of worthy individuals about him would encourage his future upbringing in chivalric and moral virtues. By 1387 it was becoming difficult to believe that this was still an option. The king had already shown that he very much knew his own mind. This, indeed, was half the problem, given the dubious attitude he had shown to counsel-taking during the invasion crisis of 1386, trying to force a royal expedition to the continent on an unwilling political community. In the Appeal of February 1388, the king’s youth was still the means by which he was misled into error, in such a way that he could still be restored to reason simply by being reunited with good counsellors. Yet it was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain this picture, as it became clear that the king was entirely in agreement with those who were supposed to be misleading him. Revived in the king’s late teens and early 20s, the king’s youth risked becoming, not a means to exclude him from blame, but an explanation of how he had attained his present corrupt state. If the king’s youth was still an issue as he reached the age of 21, then it had to be suspected that Richard’s once malleable personality had been set in the form it would keep for the rest of his days. In such circumstances, virtuous guidance could not be enough. Only imposed restraints could serve this purpose, even as the justifications for imposing them began to run out. Once invoked at so late a stage, the king’s youth would have some trouble fading into the background. By February 1388 the process was well advanced by which the king’s unmanly mores would come to be the fault of Richard himself. The ¹¹⁰ Favent, 1–2.

¹¹¹ Favent, 2.

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invocation of the king’s youth was already beginning to suggest that the king had failed to cultivate the virtues by which he might become a man. It is clear that the portrayal of Richard’s behaviour as changeable and wilful owes much to the mobilization of these traditional characteristics of youth in an attempt to counter the king’s claims to the status of a man. Chronicle accounts of the king’s behaviour which modern historians have found unpredictable or inexplicably aggressive do not have their basis in a vision, however distorted, of the objective reality of the king’s personality. The picture they present is constructed out of late medieval commonplace ideas about the characteristics of youth, notably its association with both energy and inconstancy. That said, the use of the theme of youth should not be dismissed as mere rhetoric either. Its importance derived from real political disputes in which the king’s youth was a central issue, if often an implicit one. The king and his supporters took their stand on his full authority, pursuing strategies to promote his manhood in order to have it accepted. Those who wished to oppose the king’s actions were ultimately obliged to justify their actions by invoking his youth. After the events of 1386–8, the themes of the king’s youth and manhood entered a new stage as the king, now in his 20s, continued to be restricted by mechanisms characteristic of his tender age. In the process, a further layer would be added to the king’s unmanly reputation.

9 The Establishment of a Conciliar Regime, 1388–90 On 3 May 1389, Richard II, now aged 22, attempted to reassert his control over the government of his kingdom by invoking his rights as an heir who had reached manhood. Contemporary chroniclers of these events all agreed that Richard justified his assumption of government by analogy with the right of an adult male to govern his own household and inherited lands, and they are equally unanimous in regarding his seizure of power as essentially successful.¹ It seems that it was said throughout the country that the king had challenged an assembly of lords to recognize that, just like any heir who had passed his twentieth year, Richard ought to have control of his paternal inheritance. Those in attendance could not deny that at 22 he ought to enjoy his full estate. Every writer who recounted these events had the king allude to his long period of tutelage, which he implied had continued to that very day, and which he now declared to be at an end. The present chapter reconsiders how far these actions really did enable Richard to assume the authority which would normally have been his as an adult monarch. Was Richard able to recoup the losses he had sustained in 1386–8 as easily as these accounts imply, simply by the belated assertion of his full age? Already it is clear that this was not the first time that he had taken on his formal authority. What then was the meaning of this new assumption of government, and what were its practical effects? When we return to these questions, new answers begin to emerge to a number of related problems, in particular the continuing vitality of the theme of the king’s youth into the early 1390s. To assess the consequences of the events of 3 May 1389, it is first necessary to consider precisely what Richard was hoping to achieve by his actions on that day. It is clear that the first practical manifestation ¹ Knighton, 528–30; Walsingham, 864–6; Westminster, 390–2.

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of the king’s assumption of government was the reassertion of his right to appoint his own officers and intimates. All the chronicles report that Richard dismissed Thomas Arundel from the chancellorship and put William Wykeham, bishop of Winchester in his place. They note the widespread changes effected amongst the king’s principal officers, the justices, and the household, and the removal of those appointed ‘by the said lords who ruled the kingdom and the king’.² Richard appears to have been concerned to undo the damage done in 1386–8 to his right to appoint those about him. Between 1382 and 1386, the king had defended this right with some success, but in the years that followed it had been fatally compromised, first by the appointment of a new Continual Council in the autumn of 1386, and then, more fundamentally, by the purge of the household carried out during the Merciless Parliament. The latter assembly had witnessed a level of violence against household men, royal officers, and legal advisers, the closest recent parallel to which was the actions of the rebels of 1381.³ The vehemence of this attack was motivated not only by the immediate fear and hatred of those involved in the Questions to the Judges and their military sequel, but also by well-established anxieties about the misdeeds of ‘those about the king’, anxieties which had been intensified by the events of Richard’s youth. Although on one level the events of the Merciless Parliament can be seen as the violent denouement of a political crisis which had been building since October 1386, on another they were the ultimate realization of the calls for the regulation of the king’s officers and intimates which had led Richard to provoke this crisis in the first place. It was thus not only the king’s general freedom to choose his agents and associates which needed to be reasserted in May 1389. As the events of the spring of 1388 had unfolded, it had quickly become apparent that the ambitions of the Merciless Parliament were not limited to the removal of certain obnoxious individuals, nor even to a short period of reform in parliament. Instead, it was envisaged to replace the evil influence of ‘those about the king’ with his supervision by a permanent, extended council appointed in parliament, similar to the Continual Councils of 1377–80 and 1386–7. After the initial purge of the household, two ² Knighton, 530; Walsingham, 866; Westminster, 392. The justices of the two benches and the barons of the exchequer were also replaced. See HBC, 92, 102; CPR, 1381–92, 29, 31, 591; Tout 1920–33: iii. 455–6. ³ For the events of the Merciless Parliament, see Goodman 1971: 42–8; Tuck 1973: 121–31; Leland 1994; Saul 1997a: 191–6; Given-Wilson 2005.

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bishops and three lords—William Wykeham and Walter Skirlaw; John Cobham, Richard Scrope, and John Devereux—were appointed ‘for the continual governance of the king’ (pro gubernacione regis continua).⁴ Of these men, all except Skirlaw had sat on the ‘Commission’ of 1386–7,⁵ and Scrope, Cobham, Devereux, and Wykeham were all familiar faces from the Continual Councils and investigative commissions of the late 1370s and early 1380s.⁶ Then, at the end of the parliamentary session, an extended council was put in place on the model of the Continual Council of 1386–7. The second petition of the Commons refers explicitly to such a body, requiring that no one ‘involve themselves with any manner of governance about the person of our lord the king, nor mix themselves up in the needs of the kingdom, nor in the conseil of our lord the king, except those lords who are assigned and ordained in this present parliament, unless it is by ordinance of the Continual Council, and by assent of our lord the king . . . ’.⁷ The Westminster chronicler asserts that at the end of the session, the bishops of Winchester and London, the earl of Warwick, John Cobham, and Richard Scrope were appointed to be ‘in constant attendance upon the king’ such that ‘he should do nothing without their consent’.⁸ In May 1388, in the wake of the purge of the household, and the imposition of a new Continual Council, it must have seemed a long time since the Lords in parliament had argued, some eleven years before, that it would be ‘too hard and burdensome’ (trop chargeante et dure) formally to appoint the king’s associates.⁹ ⁴ Westminster, 232. ⁵ CPR, 1385–9, 244. ⁶ RP, iii. 7 (Devereux in 1377); 57 (Cobham in 1378); 73–4 (Wykeham in 1380); 100 (Wykeham, Cobham, Scrope on 1381 committee); Palmer 1969: 101 (Wykeham, Scrope, Cobham, and Devereux on 1385 reform committee). ⁷ RP, iii. 246, item 23; Ormrod 1996: 321. ⁸ Westminster, 332. It is also likely that the document known as L’avis des seignurs touchant le bon governement du roy et du roialme is to be dated to around this time. For an argument against the dating of this document to 1385, see above, Ch. 7, n. 69. It seems more probable that it was prepared at the time of the Merciless Parliament or soon afterwards for three reasons. First, the demand lodged in L’avis for the king to give appropriate audience to what seems to be a permanent, sitting council suggests a reaction to Richard’s failure to do exactly that in 1387. Second, it seems unlikely that the request for an inquiry by ‘certain lords’ into the revenues and charges of the exchequer, and for the estate of his household to be examined, pertains to any time much later than the crisis years of 1386–8. Finally, it seems reasonable to relate the strictures of L’avis concerning compulsory counsel-taking in the granting of offices, the distribution of lands, wardships, marriages, and so forth, and the king’s role in the legal system, to the concerns about the king’s freedom of action and the unrestricted influence of those about him which came to a head in 1386–8. ⁹ RP, iii. 7, item 26.

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The chronicle accounts suggest that it was above all this state of affairs that Richard tried to overturn by his actions twelve months later. They are clear that in May 1389 the king rejected such impositions as incompatible with the estate of an adult male landholder, and that the lords could not deny this claim. Closer examination of the evidence, however, soon yields a number of reasons to doubt that Richard’s assumption of his adult powers was as straightforward a deliverance from these restraints as the chroniclers implied. To begin with, it is interesting to note that the letters sent to the shires announcing Richard’s assumption of government did not mention his full age, but concentrated instead on his commitment to be governed by his council. The king, it was declared, had, by the assent of a Great Council, ‘assumed and taken up the entire rule (regimen) and full governance of our aforesaid kingdom onto our own person’, hoping to rule the kingdom better than hitherto ‘in our own person with the deliberation of our council (cum deliberacione consilii nostri)’.¹⁰ Neither Richard’s full estate nor his long tutelage were directly invoked in these documents, even if the end of such a state of affairs might be thought to be implied by his assumption of ‘rule (regimen) and full governance’ which had not been his before. Instead his intention to govern in his own person with the deliberation of his council was underlined. It was this combination—king with council—which was to bring peace, tranquillity and prosperity to the kingdom, and to ensure that there would be ‘a fuller display of justice than has hitherto been accustomed to occur in our time’. This is not quite what the chronicle accounts would have led one to expect, portraying as they do a king asserting his personal authority on the grounds of his adult age, and throwing off unusual restraints. Although this contrast might at first seem rather minor, a matter of mere diplomatic form, it does draw attention to a number of ways in which the king’s authority still remained compromised by the events of 1386–8. Why did this official announcement of the king’s assumption of government make none of the references to Richard’s full age, nor his deliverance from tutelage, with which the chronicle accounts abound? One reason may have been that, although persuasive for an assembly of magnates, or even for the population at large, this appeal to the rights of adult male heirs to assume their estate at a particular age created more problems than it solved. For Richard there could be no simple ¹⁰ CCR, 1385–9, 671; RP, iii. 404.

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declaration of age and with it a clean break from the past. He had already turned 21 some time before, on 6 January 1388. A man of knightly rank would have expected to take control of his inheritance at this age at the latest. Yet instead, within weeks of his twenty-first birthday, the king’s youth had come to renewed prominence as a way of debarring him from full responsibility for and control of his government. Moreover, as we have already explored in detail, the king had anyway been formally in his full authority since the moment of his accession. Until January 1380, he was theoretically only assisted by Continual Councils, and thereafter by a mixture of mechanisms which gradually fell away in the mid 1380s, before they were re-imposed by force in 1386–8. It seems likely that it was the very complexity of the king’s abortive passage into his full authority, together with the way this had been most forcibly blocked just as he reached the legal age for the inheritance of lands, which made it inconvenient for the official declaration of his assumption of government to allude to any ‘coming of age’. The difficulties which arose for those who chose to see May 1389 as a coming of age become clear in the chronicle accounts which did portray the king’s actions in these terms. These writers were obliged either to suppress the events of the previous three years, to suggest a certain royal resentment of prolonged constraint, or else to side with those who argued that the king was still not fit to govern and perhaps never would be. Of the three fullest accounts of these events, the chronicle of Henry Knighton is the most keen to avoid controversy and to depict a king and nobility in mutual harmony. According to this writer, Richard concluded his assumption of government by thanking the lords for their ‘counsel and rule’ which had ‘governed and sustained both my person and my inheritance and kingdom of England, both at home and abroad’. The lords then greeted the king’s desire ‘to rule and regulate our own person and our inheritance’ and to appoint his officials, not just with acquiescence, but with thanks to God ‘who had provided them with so wise a king to watch over them in the future’.¹¹ All the problems of the kingdom were solved, as a previously inactive king took power from those who had ably protected it in his name. This fantasy narrative attempts to suppress controversies which emerge clearly in more nuanced accounts of the same events. In the Westminster chronicler’s narrative of the same events, Richard implies that the tutelage to which he had been submitted since the beginning of his reign had done little for the ¹¹ Knighton, 530.

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kingdom’s good, declaring to the lords that: ‘You are very well aware of how I, and indeed the whole kingdom, have been governed by others (per alios gubernatus) throughout the twelve years since I was made king.’ Richard then went on to observe that the people had been harassed by diverse impositions in that period, and that the kingdom had not been strengthened by this in any way.¹² As with Knighton, this account could be read as an attempt to sweep the events of 1386–8 under the carpet. It almost seems to accept the Appellant version of 1382–7 in which the king, in his youth, was misled by those about him. Yet at the same time, in the Westminster monk’s narrative, it could equally well be the Appellants, the king’s uncles, earlier Continual Councils or even the Commission of 1386–7 which had weakened the kingdom. Finally, in the openly hostile account of Thomas Walsingham, an unambiguously anti-Ricardian story is told, in which the king is ‘led by the counsel of certain whisperers’ to summon the council which would confirm his full estate.¹³ When the lords respond to Richard’s assertion of full age by saying that nothing should detract from his rights, the king replies: Look! You know that I have long been ruled by tutors, and that I have not been permitted to do anything, not the smallest thing, without them. I am now removing them from my council, and, like an heir of legal age, I will summon to council whom I wish, and conduct my own business.¹⁴

The king therefore commands the chancellor to hand the seal to him. In Walsingham’s narrative the king then suddenly rises and departs, then quickly comes back, sits down again and gives the seal to William Wykeham, who unwillingly accepts it. Walsingham does his best to undermine the king even here, portraying him rushing impulsively in and out of the council chamber, standing up and sitting down, still, he thus insinuates, a changeable wilful youth. It is not long before slanderers (detractores) are falsely persuading the king that the duke of Gloucester is raising troops against him, as ‘whisperers’ spread mutual suspicion.¹⁵ Nonetheless, whatever their attitude to what they see as Richard II’s ‘coming of age’, the chroniclers agree that the king was successful in undoing the changes of personnel which had been imposed in 1388, and in throwing off the unusual restrictions which had accompanied ¹² Westminster, 392. ¹³ Walsingham, 864: ‘ . . . rex, ductus quorundam consilio susurronum . . . ’. ¹⁴ Walsingham, 866. ¹⁵ Ibid.

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them. Historians have for the most part concurred, regarding May 1389 as the beginning of a new era of royal personal rule, a clean break with the events of the preceding three years. They have considerably refined this story by describing in detail the process by which, over the previous twelve months, the king had regained a measure of authority at the expense of his opponents. Once ‘those about the king’ had been dealt with, the Appellants, unsuccessful in war and limited in ideas, lost the backing of the gentry and moderate nobility who had supported them in 1387–8.¹⁶ In this account, Richard had already regained the initiative by the time of the parliament which sat at Cambridge in the autumn of 1388. There, he won the support of the Commons by answering their concerns about noble intervention in local justice, the control of an assertive labouring population and the distribution of liveries to retainers, and so prepared the ground for a successful bloodless coup with his ‘coming of age’ in May 1389.¹⁷ In this view, Richard’s declaration of his personal rule marked the beginning of a period of domestic calm and good administration, which persisted as long as he avoided the (implicitly anomalous) style of government which he had pursued before 1386. Given that it does not seem that the events of May 1389 can be regarded simply as a ‘coming of age’, it seems worth reconsidering how far these events really did result in a genuine reversal of the settlement imposed in the spring of 1388. In fact, there are a number of indications that the political and constitutional settlement which emerged from the Merciless Parliament was still in place even in the early 1390s.¹⁸ In 1388–9 the organization of the king’s council had been given a new formality and permanence which persisted into the years that followed. In about 1388 or 1389, John Prophete was appointed to the post of ‘clerk of the council’, and was paid regularly for his services until 1395.¹⁹ Definite judgements about the administrative reforms undertaken under Prophete are difficult to make given the paucity of surviving council materials.²⁰ Yet it does seem that, from about 1389, council proceedings were put on a more formal footing, tellingly based on the model of the arrangements of 1377–9.²¹ Far from disappearing ¹⁶ Goodman 1971: 46–54; Palmer 1972: 88–141; Tuck 1973: 131–56; Saul 1997a: 196–204. ¹⁷ Tuck 1969: 225–43; Storey 1971: 131–52; Saul 1990. ¹⁸ Ormrod 1996 is suggestive in this respect, although does not investigate in detail the ‘rather hazy’ arrangements which followed the Merciless Parliament. Ibid., 321. ¹⁹ Brown 1969: 9–15. ²⁰ Ibid., 2–3. ²¹ Ibid., 1, 4, 6–16; PPC, i. 6–18.

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when the king asserted his rights as an heir of full age, surviving evidence of an expanded ‘Continual Council’, with the taking of minutes and payments to permanent members, continues to come to light some time after Richard’s attempted coup. The work of Anthony Tuck did much to illuminate the operation of these structures, which he took to be normal or, at the very least, desirable.²² He noted that Edward Dalingridge and Richard Stury were described as being ‘continually on the king’s council’ from autumn 1389.²³ They were still being paid for their services in 1392–3, receiving wages for 207 and 159 days respectively.²⁴ The surviving minutes of a permanently expanded council are also concentrated in 1392 and 1393.²⁵ They show the attendance of a fluctuating but still clearly defined body of men with a formal or semi-formal role as councillors, many of whom had continued in office since 1388. The very noting of those present at each council session served to regulate the king’s government, to establish which individuals were responsible for which decision.²⁶ Was this, then, the beginning of Richard’s ‘constitutional rule’: a quiet acceptance of compulsory formal counsel-taking in return for a role in government, a mature agreement to rule only by the advice of the lords? Historians often portray the conciliar mechanisms of the early 1390s as a return to normality or a reform of accepted customary institutions.²⁷ In more stable times, when the king was able to appoint his own officials, and when his policies were not subject to such criticism, they might have been. There was nothing necessarily unusual about the king’s council containing a number of useful extra hands besides the king’s five principal officers, the ‘council’ in its most restricted sense.²⁸ The regular taking of minutes could potentially serve the king’s interests, acting as oversight of those officials, not of the king. But in the context of the controversies and violent confrontations which had characterized Richard II’s early reign, they assumed a quite different aspect. They had ²² Tuck 1973: 138–43. ²³ Ibid., 141. ²⁴ Ibid.; Baldwin 1913: 132–4. ²⁵ Ibid., 489–504. ²⁶ Cf. Watts 1996: ch. 5, esp. 138–40. ²⁷ Saul 1997a: 251–2; Barron 1985: 36; Tuck 1973: 139–43, esp. 139; Goodman 1971: 52–3, 56, 58; Goodman 1999: 68–73. The exception is Ormrod 1996. However even here restraints on household expenditure are seen as positive moves to ‘impose a tight rein on [Richard’s] habitual generosity’ (318) or to limit the king’s ability ‘to alienate sources of revenue as gifts to his friends and clients’ (317–18), even though Ormrod elsewhere expresses scepticism about the effectiveness of such measures (314, 320). See also Watts 1991: esp. 279–84. ²⁸ Baldwin 1913: ch. 5; Brown 1989: ch. 2, esp. 34–5.

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been put in place not so much to protect the king against his officials as to protect his alleged interests and those of the kingdom against Richard’s own desires. These conciliar mechanisms were precisely the kind of impositions which the king had been struggling against since 1382, and which he had resisted with violence and preliminary judgements of treason in 1387. Even if Richard did tactically accept these mechanisms for a time, it needs to be recognized that this would have amounted to the acceptance of the kind of unusual supervision which had only briefly seemed legitimate during the first two-and-a-half years of his reign. From the start, there are reasons to doubt that Richard’s acceptance of these mechanisms was voluntary. In circumstances in which the king’s officials were also his creatures, such as in 1397–9, the council, extended or otherwise, could become a tool for his rule, not a restraint on it.²⁹ Nonetheless, it is clear that this was not true of the mechanisms which remained in place after Richard’s attempted ‘assumption of government’. To begin with, it is clear that Richard’s appointments in May 1389 represented no fundamental break with the settlement put in place during the Merciless Parliament. After serving on the Commission of 1386, William Wykeham had twice been appointed to be ‘in constant attendance on the king’ during that parliament itself, and he was now appointed as chancellor also.³⁰ The appointment of Thomas Brantingham as treasurer, meanwhile, although it did represent a return to pre-1388 arrangements, did not last for long.³¹ John Gilbert, the man appointed in October 1386 and sacked in May 1389, was back in office as early as 20 August.³² An ordinance survives from this date, which confirms the treasurer’s role in the appointment of revenue collecting officials. In particular it asserted that such officers who had a life grant in their offices ‘by the king’s grant in his tender age’ would have that concession repealed as requested in parliament.³³ More than a mere functionary, William Wykeham had long been a prominent figure on conciliar bodies from the Good Parliament onwards. After his appointment as chancellor in 1389, he continued to behave as if his role were not simply to act as a conduit for the king’s ²⁹ Barron 1985: 36; Goodman 1999: 73–6. ³⁰ Westminster, 232, 332. ³¹ Brantingham had been treasurer twice before, in 1369–71 and 1377–81. See HBC, 102. ³² HBC, 102. ³³ PPC, i. 9–11.

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will, but to oppose it where necessary.³⁴ On 15 and 16 October 1389, Wykeham and the council came into open breach with the king. They refused to countenance the allocation of increased wages to Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, on his appointment as captain of Berwick and warden of the East March.³⁵ When Richard presented Mowbray’s request for 6,000 marks in time of truce, and for 12,000 marks with the wages of his men-at-arms and archers in time of war, the chancellor replied, ‘in the name and by the will of all the other lords of the council’, that it did not seem expedient to discuss such matters before the earl’s earlier indenture expired on 1 June 1390. He stated that the reasoning was that ‘he could not put it on their account in the first parliament to come that they should freely and voluntarily burden the king and his kingdom with a greater sum of money than would be necessary and fitting’.³⁶ It seemed that this would require a subsidy, to the great damage of the people. The king is said in the council minute to have advanced many (unrecorded) reasons for agreeing to the earl’s petition. But the chancellor stood his ground, saying ‘for all the lords there present’ that they would not dare to consent to anything except as they had said, and that it seemed to them that this was more honourable to the king and useful for his kingdom. At this Richard could do nothing but withdraw ‘with an angry expression’ (vultu quodammodo indignanti), saying: ‘Let him be in peril if this turns ill.’ Visiting the king at Kennington the next day, the chancellor simply repeated the council’s position. It was left to Richard to make concessions, replying that Nottingham should have his indenture for five years after the date contained in his indenture, and that it was not apparent to him why this could not be done well enough, and that he wanted this to be done in the same form for Henry Hotspur’s indenture for Carlisle and the West March. To this, ‘with a few others dissenting’, the council agreed. This incident can be explored in some detail because a rare minute survives describing events, and justifying the council’s position. It seems likely that similar clashes have left no such trace, although there ³⁴ Tuck 1972: 139–40; Partner 1982: 19–20. ³⁵ Tout 1920–33: iii. 458, 469–70. ³⁶ PPC, i. 12c. Tuck 1968: 45 states that the objection was to Nottingham being appointed as warden of the East March at all. It seems likely that this was also a factor. The earl of Northumberland is recorded as present at the council and the final settlement was reached by a concession to Northumberland’s son. Yet it seems unlikely that Northumberland would have been able to impose his will against the rest of the council were it not for the argument over money, which comes to the fore in the minute.

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are indications that clashes there were. From 15 November 1389, for example, a letter survives from the king to Chancellor Wykeham instructing him to give up the great seal to a third person, in order that this individual might seal letters, which the king had already requested, concerning the dispute between the earl of Salisbury and John Montague.³⁷ Wykeham had apparently ignored the king’s earlier command, so Richard renewed it with a warrant under the queen’s signet, in the absence of his own, signing in his own hand ‘R.S. saunz departir’.³⁸ It seems that six months after what has been seen as the beginning of Richard’s personal rule, he still had to go to considerable lengths to get his way. Worse, it appears that, although the king had briefly won deliverance from the counsels of the Appellants and their allies by his actions in May 1389, even this state of affairs did not last for long. The first surviving council minutes, which date from 13 August 1389, suggest that the duke of Gloucester, the earls of Arundel and Warwick and the new archbishop of York, Thomas Arundel, were not amongst those present.³⁹ It seems from subsequent moves made to reconcile the king with the three senior Appellants that they failed to attend on this earlier occasion because they were not welcome. A note amongst the minutes of a meeting on 13 September records the intercession of the earl of Northumberland to appeal for ‘good friendship, unity and good will’ (bon amour, unitee et agree) between the king and the three senior Appellants.⁴⁰ Yet by the end of the year it seems that outward accord had been re-established, and the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Arundel, and Archbishop Thomas Arundel all appear amongst those present at a Great Council held at Reading on 10 December.⁴¹ Although, in May 1389, Richard had asserted his right to rule as an heir of full age, and nobody had been able to deny his rights on principle, the gains which he made from this proved more limited and more short-lived than he might have hoped. It seems that Richard’s personal rule, in the fashion of Edward I or Edward III at the same age, was still not acceptable to the lay and ecclesiastical elite, even when it was supported by a council with an expanded remit. It is clear that this was not because Richard was manifestly incompetent, far from it. It was not that the king’s will was unformed and malleable, but rather that it was ³⁷ TNA C 81/1354, item 15, printed in Maxwell-Lyte 1926: 321. ³⁸ i.e. ‘R[icardus] S[ecundus], without fail’. ³⁹ PPC, i. 6–9. ⁴⁰ PPC, i. 12. ⁴¹ PPC, i. 17.

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a cause for concern and an object of fear. Richard’s attempts to procure judicial condemnations for treason against those who imposed a new Continual Council upon him in 1386, his willingness to deploy military force in support of these condemnations, and his readiness throughout the crises of 1386–8 to go back on public acts made under duress: all this would have made wary not only the king’s overt opponents but also relative neutrals. It was for these reasons that even after May 1389, Richard was still denied the form of rule he sought, unrestricted by unusual restraints. The Great Council held at Reading in December 1389 was perhaps the pivotal moment in the bedding down of these arrangements. Significantly, it served to establish the central role of the duke of Lancaster in the new ‘normal’ form of government, in what seemed a return to the dominance he had enjoyed at the beginning of Richard’s reign. In fact, John of Gaunt’s return had been in the offing for some months. As early as 11 August 1389, moves had been made to prepare shipping to be sent to Bordeaux for his journey home.⁴² On 30 October, a letter was dispatched requesting the duke’s urgent return to take up his role in government.⁴³ On 28 November his answer was received, replying that he would return as soon as possible, by February at the latest.⁴⁴ By 10 December, Gaunt was back in England for the first time in three-and-a-half years. The Westminster chronicler reports that the king rode out two miles to meet him, and received him ‘very honourably’ (satis honorifice) with the kiss of peace.⁴⁵ The importance of this event is witnessed by royal household expenses, which had been running at a modest average of £180 a week,⁴⁶ but which now jumped by over 50 per cent to £281, before falling back to £157 in the following seven days.⁴⁷ The monk of Westminster asserts that the duke’s first action was to restore peace between the king and the ‘lords’.⁴⁸ For his part, Gaunt agreed to put aside his old score with the earl of Northumberland.⁴⁹ It was then decided that parliament should be summoned for the coming January.⁵⁰ On 13 December, John of Gaunt visited Westminster Abbey and was received, quite literally, like a king. The monks processed, singing the responsory ‘Honor, virtus’ normally sung at ceremonial crown-wearings.⁵¹ ⁴² ⁴⁵ ⁴⁶ ⁴⁸ ⁴⁹ ⁵⁰

Foedera, vii. 641. ⁴³ Ibid., 648. ⁴⁴ PPC, i. 14c. Westminster, 406. Cf. the briefer account in Walsingham, 894. From 3 October to 4 December. ⁴⁷ TNA E 101/402/5, ff. 2v–7v. Walsingham, 894; Westminster, 406–8. Ibid. See Towson 2004; Walker 1991: 68–79; Tuck 1968: 41. PPC, i. 17–18a. ⁵¹ Westminster, 408; Richardson 1960: 130.

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This new Lancastrian settlement was bedded down in the parliament summoned at the Reading Council. A month after John of Gaunt’s triumphant return, and eleven days after Richard reached the age of 23, this assembly opened with the declaration that the king was of full age. That this was still a controversial assertion is shown by the energy then expended in demonstrating that it was nothing of the sort. In his speech as chancellor, William Wykeham declared that the principal cause of the summons had been that ‘the king had been for a long time of tender age’, but that he was ‘now of such an age, God be thanked, that he is of greater sense and discretion than he had been before’.⁵² This stress on sense and discretion ties in with the chronicle accounts of May 1389. The Westminster chronicler sees reason displayed in Richard’s actions at that time, asserting in passing that the king behaved ‘with discretion leading the way’ (previa discretione) in changing his officials.⁵³ Knighton even had the lords thank God who had given them such a wise king.⁵⁴ Walsingham, meanwhile, sought to deny Richard both qualities with his picture of a frenetically mobile boy king.⁵⁵ In his speech to parliament, Wykeham attempted to have it accepted that the days when Richard could be said to be flourishing in the valleys of his adolescence, or that evil counsellors had taken advantage of his tender age, were now unambiguously in the past. Wykeham attempted to portray the king in accordance with the ideals which moral writers assigned to manhood and which Richard’s critics would deny him at his deposition. The chancellor stressed once more the king’s good will and his desire to bring about peace and tranquillity, right and justice, and to lead his people and the land better.⁵⁶ The central element of this new government—in Wykeham’s sermon, at least—was less the king’s regulation by appointed councillors than his acquisition of good discretion. As a basis for a new settlement, this stress on reason could not have rung true. When the king had been 21 his will had been set aside on account of his youth. Aged 23 he was supposedly of more sense ‘than he was before’. Despite Wykeham’s insistence that it was because Richard was of ‘such an age’ that he now had his reason perfected, it was clear that his ‘greater and better will and full purpose’ were more the result of the king’s qualified acceptance of the present relationship of force than the passing of two summers. Those with long memories would have ⁵² RP, iii. 257. ⁵³ Westminster, 392. ⁵⁵ Walsingham, 864–6. ⁵⁶ RP, iii. 257.

⁵⁴ Knighton, 530.

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found Wykeham’s harping on the king’s new discretion strange indeed, coming as it did almost ten years to the day since a 13-year-old Richard had been declared to be ‘of such good discretion and handsome stature’ that he could rule with no permanent councillors but the five principal officers of the kingdom.⁵⁷ The first formal business of January 1390 was to stage the reconfirmation of the legitimacy of the king’s principal officers and the new Continual Council. The chancellor, treasurer, ‘and all the lords of the great council of the king (del grant conseille du roi), except for the clerk of the privy seal’, asked the king to discharge them from their offices.⁵⁸ The Commons were requested by the duke of Lancaster to declare any grievances against them. After a day’s deliberation they replied that they had none. The prelates and lords of parliament likewise asserted that the officers had well and duly performed their duties. The king did the same, and then re-appointed them, giving the great seal to Wykeham, the treasurer’s keys to the bishop of St David’s, ‘and in this way he took back the councillors into his council, together with the duke of Lancaster and the duke of Gloucester’. By a kind of ritual alchemy, this ceremony sought to transform mechanisms initially imposed upon the king, and which he had spent his teens fighting against, into a settlement publicly accepted by the king and the whole political community. Such formality was dictated by the continuing need to perform Richard’s acceptance of the status quo, to seal off the possibility that he might later declare, as he had done repeatedly in 1387, that all this was not, after all, his will. The ceremonial re-appointment of the king’s officers and councillors, including Richard’s uncles, reasserted the state of affairs which the king had sought to overturn with violence in the eleventh year of his reign. It is clear that in the first parliament of 1390 there was no dismissal of the Continual Council, as there had been when the king turned 13. Instead, on 8 March, a week after parliament had dissolved, detailed ordinances were set down for the day-to-day operation of this body.⁵⁹ The lords of the council were to meet no later than eight or nine o’clock in the morning. The needs of the king and kingdom were to be examined before all else, and in the presence of ‘the great of the council’ (les greindres du conseil) and other officers. Matters touching the offices of chancellor and treasurer were to be duly apportioned to ⁵⁷ RP, iii. 73, item 12.

⁵⁸ RP, iii. 258.

⁵⁹ PPC, i. 18a–18b.

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them. Matters which called for the especial grace and leave of the king would be shown to him to know his opinion and will. Significantly, it was declared that no gift which ‘might turn to the decrease of the profit of the king’ could be decided without the counsel and assent of the dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester and the chancellor, or of two of them. The two years that followed the Merciless Parliament saw no simple transfer of power from the Appellants to the king. In May 1389, in a fashion comparable to his dismissal of Richard Scrope in 1382, the king had attempted to assert his primacy. Yet although he briefly succeeded in re-asserting the control over his household which was essential for establishing his status as a man of his class, this control was soon compromised. His actions were soon subject to greater restriction than they had been in 1382–6; his discretion was subject to formal controls which had been acceptable at the beginning of his reign only on account of his childhood, and had been explicitly repudiated after January 1380. At the same time, John of Gaunt returned to a position of pre-eminence which he had not occupied since the early 1380s. For these reasons, the king’s youth remained an active issue even as it was asserted that he had now achieved the discretion characteristic of a man. The very fact that Richard’s tender age still needed to be denied demonstrated its continuing importance, always available to be picked out later by those, such as Thomas Walsingham, who believed that the king never had taken on the attributes of manhood. That said, although it is clear that May 1389 was no true ‘coming of age’, it would be wrong to assert that Richard had achieved nothing between the Merciless Parliament and the reappointment of the king’s councillors in the parliament of January 1390. By accepting continuing restriction on his actions he had succeeded in remaining king. The threat of deposition now seemed to have passed. In the years that followed, this curiously contradictory state of affairs produced correspondingly contradictory phenomena. Declarations of the king’s authority and manly ‘discretion’ accompanied refusals to comply with royal requests. Magnificent ceremony which performed the king’s accepted status as a man co-existed with continuing restriction on his freedom of action. The king’s youth took on a new didactic form, in which preachers and poets recommended to the king the potential virtues of young manhood, whilst alluding darkly to the consequences of youth’s characteristic vices. Like the earlier project to raise the child king in good virtues, an implied

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threat underlay the new acceptance of the young king’s ceremonial centrality. If Richard failed to cooperate, it would be the work of a moment to argue that he had failed to cultivate the virtues by which a boy became a man, in order to justify his renewed restraint, or even his removal.

10 Majesty and Restriction, 1390–92 Historians have often noted the ceremonial intensification of the early 1390s. It is clear that this period witnessed a new stress on the formal authority and status of the king, seen in public ritual, increased household expenditure and the form of public address.¹ Most writers have regarded these developments as a result of Richard II’s personal initiative, the public expression of an elevated conception of his office which had been intensified by recent humiliations.² This explanation builds on a view of the power politics of these years in which the king’s ‘assumption of government’ in May 1389 is regarded as essentially successful, or at least requiring only limited consolidation. Given what we have seen already about the restricted nature of the king’s gains in 1388–90, it thus seems worth reconsidering whether the new emphasis on the monarch’s regality can be ascribed to the king’s initiative alone. If Richard II was still subject to unusual restriction in this period, then it seems important to look again, to consider whether the insistence upon his pre-eminent position and legitimate power might be explained by something other than the simple exercise of the king’s will. The present chapter elaborates a new interpretation of the politics of the early 1390s departing from two central propositions. First, it argues that the stress on ceremony characteristic of this period was not solely a product of the king’s initiative. Certainly, Richard himself did insist on his regal status, for example in the use of personal badges and portraiture to stress that he, and not anybody else, was the legitimate, hereditary king.³ His adoption of the badge of the white hart, with collar and chain, served to emphasize his personal title to rule.⁴ The choice of this particular insignia recalled the story of Caesar’s deer, in ¹ See e.g. Barron 1985; Saul 1995; Saul 1997a: ch. 14; Gordon, Morinas, and Elam 1997; Bowers 1995: 119–45. ² Eberle 1985; Saul 1997a: 342–3, 354–8, 459–62; McHardy 2000. ³ Scheifele 1999. ⁴ In October 1390. See HVRS, 132.

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which a hart meekly presents itself to the rightful prince, its ability to recognize legitimate royal power demonstrated by the collar around its neck, inscribed ‘Caesar Gave This To Me’ (Caesar Hoc Mihi Donavit).⁵ From the mid-1390s, Richard began impaling his arms with those of Edward the Confessor, an innovation which also stressed the authority which he derived from his forebears.⁶ Yet it is important to recognize that the drive to emphasize Richard’s legitimacy did not come from the king alone. His former opponents and the wider political community were also involved in this process. The uneasy settlement of the early 1390s invited constant reassertion of the king’s ceremonial primacy, his regality and dignity, precisely because the king was still subject to certain unusual restraints. This leads on to the second proposition: that even though the king was not the only one to promote the celebration of his regal status in the early 1390s, the insistence on the king’s full estate ultimately did improve his ability to assert himself. Richard II is often held to have been exceptionally attached to the symbolic power associated with ritual and ceremony, which is opposed to the tangible or real power which ought to have been his primary concern.⁷ Yet there is a need to be careful of drawing too stark a contrast between symbolic and tangible power. This binary opposition owes much to the ancient rhetorical dichotomy between appearance and reality, beloved of the chroniclers who narrated Richard’s fall.⁸ In practice, symbolic and real power are not polar opposites but part of the same continuum.⁹ The performance of the status of the king and his acceptance by the political community, in ritual forms stretching from court ceremonial to everyday routine, also precipitated forms of real power, compelling obedience without recourse to violence or the threat of violence. These two processes—the widespread desire to build bridges by promoting the king’s formal authority, and the real results this produced in the practice of politics—came together in a new promotion of the king’s manhood. This was now a more broadly supported aspiration than it had been in the 1380s. Like the bishop of Winchester’s stress on Richard’s sense and discretion in January 1390, both the growth of the king’s household establishment and the dramatization of his ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹

Bath 1976: 73–80; Bath 1981: 27; Scheifele 1999: 258. Gordon 1992: 664; Harvey 1961: 5–6; Clarke 1936: 272–92. Theilmann 1990: 263–4; Barron 1993; Saul 1999a: 50; Scheifele 1999: 261. See above, Ch. 3, pp. 56–8. For a useful introduction to these issues, see Arnold 2005: 14–15.

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authority in political ritual served to demonstrate that he was now being accorded the status of a man in his full age, dispensing largesse and staging his magnificence in accordance with the ‘manhood’ due to a man of his station.¹⁰ For the new settlement to work, all parties were obliged to acknowledge that the king should be allowed to be manly and worshipful in the expenses befitting his estate. Although this did not, as yet, mean that they were willing to abandon the conciliar mechanisms which remained in place, nor to let the king do entirely as he wished, the ultimate result of this celebration of his manhood was a growing acceptance that Richard ought to exercise the authority normally accorded to a man. The ritual performance of the king’s power, which was necessary precisely because his authority had been compromised by the events of 1386–8, nonetheless produced real results for Richard’s ability to assume his full authority and his tangible powers as king.

∗ It is perhaps easiest to understand the complex relationship between the king’s assumption of a central position in the polity, and the slow expansion of his possibilities for action, by examining one aspect of this partial return to normality, namely royal household expenditure, before turning to the linguistic and ceremonial performance of his role as king. Although it has been common to regard the gradual increase in household expenditure in the early 1390s as resulting from Richard’s assumption of the reins of government, and his consequent ability to spend freely in accordance with his elevated conception of his office, there is in fact a need to proceed with caution in interpreting the evidence in this way. This can be seen most clearly by focusing on the Dieta account of the wardrobe of the household. This part of the royal household was responsible for the day-to-day victualling of the king and those attendant upon him, in contrast to the great wardrobe, whose expenditure was mainly on clothes and other textiles, the chamber, which received around £500 to £1,000 a year from the exchequer for the king’s private expenses, and the privy wardrobe, which served as a storehouse for weapons and armour.¹¹ Contrary to the impression ¹⁰ See above, Ch. 3.

¹¹ Given-Wilson 1986: 76–85.

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Figure 10.1. Weekly Dieta expenditure

given by citing yearly totals or average daily expenses for a given year, the costs of the wardrobe of the household varied considerably from month to month.¹² Expenditure in the autumn, for example, from 1 October to Advent (1 December), was always substantially below that for the rest of the year. Moreover, although expenditure in this ‘off-peak’ period did go up in the course of the early 1390s, it did not increase by the same proportion as the ‘peak season’ expenditure of the household.¹³ This suggests that the increase was less significant in the day-to-day costs of the household (that is, when it was not entertaining the increased numbers associated with special occasions) than it was in the expenditure at the great festivals of the year (Christmas, Candlemas, Easter, St George’s Day) and at special events, such as Great Councils, parliaments, tournaments and ceremonial receptions, which took place predominantly (although not exclusively) in spring and summer. It ¹² The account books which survive for the keeper of the household make it possible to see in certain years exactly how much was spent on the Dieta on a certain day. Expenditure could vary considerably during a particular week, peaking either on Sunday or on a day of particular significance, a saint’s day, for example, the opening of parliament or a tournament. These figures have been simplified into weekly totals in Table 1. ¹³ See Table 2.

196

Table 10.1. Dieta account of the wardrobe of the household: weekly totals.a 1383–4

1389–90

1392–3

1393–4

1395–6

1 Oct 8 Oct 15 Oct 22 Oct 29 Oct 5 Nov 12 Nov 19 Nov 26 Nov 3 Dec 10 Dec 17 Dec 24 Dec 31 Dec 7 Jan 14 Jan 21 Jan 28 Jan 4 Feb 11 Feb 18 Feb 25 Feb 4 Mar (3 Mar)c 11 Mar (10 Mar) 18 Mar (17 Mar) 25 Mar (24 Mar)

192.41 180.01 170.72 179.91 295.58 188.19 188.10 206.90 192.76 156.55 186.75 187.86 529.78 420.15 204.12 201.25 147.09 223.39 180.68 201.87 242.15 252.11 161.97 176.72 167.80 161.61

143.73 208.44 154.6 147.28 288.28 166.73 152.38 181.07 164.59 234.92 218.79 188.2 531.25 421.58 191.78 218.65 202.61 313.49 231.48 270.25 225.4 252.04 210.18 183.88 202.61 246.58

266.89 239.6 233.14 283.87 334.99 215.05 221.89 245.76 207.56 234.01 219.71 229.96 632.19 546.29 247.09 281.34 326.24 396.17 386.68 274.35 262.53 249.77 216.59 219.46 239.13 289.11

203.24 333.2 219.7 230.88 350.18 254.87 291.49 269.08 238.96 265.89 255.18 219.83 761.77 728.4 282.06 273.6 275.28 348.8 327.76 302.58 332.94 345.2 255.25 260.17 257.01 295.28

244.56 253.3 219.59 238.73 373.86 229.66 231.07 221.29 240.4 290.44 229.1 282.01 785.93 733.74 309.62 304.88 319.18 322.03 343.46 388.76 331.21 317.14 290.5 266.4 305.63 409.65

Week of . . . Edward the Confessor

All Saints

Advent

Christmas St Hilary

Candlemas
Shrove Tuesdayb

Richard II

7 days beginning:

218.01 379.58 178.43 381.53 198.43 206.77 208.34 266.65 304.43 175.11 163.86 172.22 196.60 235.26 219.13 240.93 253.36 232.61 164.99 187.99 202.21 189.39 200.42 242.13 187.07 192.37

385.77 214.13 199.9 466.04 194.61 536.9 466.49 282.05 271.94 197.72 230.22 221.55 283.17 267.16 254.15 225.06

418.18 316.32 248.31 505.03 277.09 263.07 232.65 338.3 288.07 247 258.94 353.64 291.75 258.79 310.59 270.65 313.94 303.83 316.77 290.21 219.09 251.04 298.09 220.57 204.19 252.91

257.18 291.89 463.07 330.37 405.6 263.74 260.03 250.06 265.44 288.02 240.92 241.44 264.44 257.25 258.41 289.06 334.44 1123.01d 410.75 150.16 157.09 105.58

574.08 308.95 229.47 578.09 298.06 383.97 309.56 567.53 360.56 485.84 360.32 431.82 527.68 455.16 426.22 390.75 555 397.13 653.83 1197.96e 899.08 400.3 376.11 432.08 369.51 347.18


Easter Sunday St George’s Day


Pentecost

John the Baptist

St Anne

Assumption

197

a Compiled from the surviving detailed accounts of daily Dieta expenditure for these years: E 101/401/2; E 101/402/5; E 101/402/10; E 101/403/10; E 101/403/22. Sums quoted in decimalized pounds b The expenditure for the seven days including Shrove Tuesday, Easter Sunday, and Pentecost is in bold. c Dates for leap years (1383–4 and 1395–6) in brackets. d Queen Anne’s Funeral. e Meeting with Philip the Bold at Calais.

Majesty and Restriction, 1390–92

1 Apr (31 Mar) 8 Apr (7 Apr) 15 Apr (14 Apr) 22 Apr (21 Apr) 29 Apr (28 Apr) 6 May (5 May) 13 May (12 May) 20 May (19 May) 27 May (26 May) 3 Jun (2 Jun) 10 Jun (9 Jun) 17 Jun (16 Jun) 24 Jun (23 Jun) 1 Jul (30 Jun) 8 Jul (7 Jul) 15 Jul (14 Jul) 22 Jul (21 Jul) 29 Jul (28 Jul) 5 Aug (4 Aug) 12 Aug (11 Aug) 19 Aug (18 Aug) 26 Aug (25 Aug) 2 Sep (1 Sep) 9 Sep (8 Sep) 16 Sep (15 Sep) 23 Sep (22 Sep)

198

Table 10.2. Daily average Dieta expenditure of the wardrobe of the household

£28.57 £25.56 £35.81 £38.09 £35.78

Index

Advent to Candlemas (2 Feb)

100 89 125 133 125

£35.58 £39.60 £48.76 £53.71 £56.17

Index

3 Feb to St George (23 April)

Index

24 April to 26 July

100 111 137 151 158

£32.39 £36.59 £43.49 £44.38 £52.38

100 113 134 137 162

£31.33 £40.24 £40.51 £39.69 £60.61

Index 100 128 129 127 193

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1383–4 1389–90 1392–3 1393–4 1395–6

Oct to 30 Nov

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199

was these events which made the most significant contribution to the increase of the costs of the wardrobe of the household, not the yearround loosening of the purse strings which might have been expected with the arrival in power of a spendthrift king. In the same period, everyday household expenditure outside of the ceremonially active part of the year was slightly greater but not qualitatively different from what it had been during the king’s teenage years.¹⁴ What caused this seasonal increase in household costs? Most of the increased expenditure in the ceremonially active part of the year can be accounted for by the demands of external diplomacy.¹⁵ In the period following the truce of Leulingham in June 1389 a continuing series of negotiations—revived in June 1388 by the duke of Gloucester—produced a corresponding requirement to expend money on diplomatic activity.¹⁶ The sharp increase in Dieta expenditure in the spring and summer of 1396 is largely accounted for by the negotiations leading up to the meeting of the two kings at Ardres and Richard’s marriage to Isabel of France.¹⁷ It seems fair to suggest that much of the increased expenditure of the great wardrobe on clothes and ‘finery’ in this period relates to similar causes.¹⁸ Yet there was also another reason for the increase in household expenditure, particularly in the early 1390s. It was not just external diplomacy which pushed up household expenditure, but also internal diplomacy. No mere product of extravagance, the ritual intensification of these years was to an extent symptomatic of a political community trying to heal itself. It was this which caused expenditure to rise above that characteristic of Richard’s teenage years. For the new settlement to work, the king had to be granted all the honours appropriate to an adult male in his full estate, able to dispense manly hospitality as befitted a man of his status.¹⁹ To understand this process, it is useful to look at a single year in detail, and to examine the kind of events which led to increased household expenditure.²⁰ In autumn 1389, the immediate aftermath ¹⁴ See Given-Wilson 1986: 81–3, 103–6. ¹⁵ Staniland 1997; Fletcher 2006: 36–7. ¹⁶ Moranvill´e 1889; Mirot and Deprez 1898–1900. ¹⁷ See Tables 1, 2; Given-Wilson 1986: 82; E 361/5; Palmer 1971c. See also below, Ch. 11, pp. 243–4. ¹⁸ Given-Wilson 1986: 83. For diplomatic gift exchanges in this period see Stratford 2000: 218–37. ¹⁹ See above, Ch. 3. ²⁰ The following figures have been calculated for the Dieta account for 1389–90 in TNA E 101/402/5, ff. 2r–23v and for 1383–4 in E 101/401/2, ff. 10r–36v.

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of Richard’s ‘assumption of government’, the household was actually spending slightly less than it had in 1383–4, in which year Dieta expenditure had reached a comparatively modest total of £11,442.²¹ The first sign of increased expenditure came in early December 1389, at the time of the council at Reading, the return of John of Gaunt and the ceremonial reconciliation between the king and his enemies. Expenditure then settled down. Christmas 1389 was much the same as Christmas 1383. The normal two-week increase in expenditure came to an end at Epiphany, which was both Richard’s birthday and the last day of Christmas. A total of £953 was spent, only three pounds up on 1384. Thereafter, in the course of the parliament which made much of the king’s freshly forged reason and ‘discretion’, and the Great Council which formalized the restrictions on the king’s disposition of his resources, expenditure once again increased significantly above earlier norms.²² The seasonal celebration of Candlemas 1390, which fell during parliament, showed a weekly expenditure of £313, 40 per cent more than on the equivalent week six years before. This first burst of increased expenditure was not a result of the king’s assertion of elevated ideas of kingship, but rather of the return of John of Gaunt, the renewed declaration of Richard’s mature wisdom, and his acceptance of conciliar regulation of his actions. In the aftermath of parliament and the beginning of Lent 1390, Dieta expenditure sank almost to the level of six years before. Easter Week of 1390 saw much the same costs as in 1384. It was only with St George’s Day that the Dieta began to differ rather more significantly from the earlier period, with £466 (rather than £381) being spent in a week, before costs settled down again in the seven days following. Then, in May, expenditure jumped with the first of the two tournaments to be held at Smithfield in 1390. This event served as a celebration of the united chivalric values of the nobility, performed in the eyes of the populace.²³ In terms of international diplomacy, it served as a response to those held at St Ingelvert in April and May.²⁴ Surprisingly, given that this was supposed to be a period of d´etente with France, the tournament also provided the occasion to celebrate the anti-French activities of William, ²¹ Given-Wilson 1986: appendix I. Only one year in the last seventeen years of Edward III’s reign (1368–9) shows lower Dieta expenditure. Henry IV never spent as little, his most restrained Dieta year being the £14,114 spent in 1410–11. Such a low level was, however, common in Richard’s early reign. See above, Ch. 5, esp. p. 83. ²² See above, Ch. 9, pp. 188–90. ²³ Westminster, 432–4. ²⁴ On St Ingelvert see Froissart, xiv. 105–50; RSD, i. 672–82; Gaucher 1996.

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duke of Guelders, who arrived one week into festivities, and was raised to a Knight of the Garter.²⁵ The first Smithfield tournament and the expanded celebrations of St George’s Day gave a new opportunity to celebrate the unity of the kingdom, and more particularly of the chivalric class, just as they served to celebrate the king’s military allies on the continent. The second tournament, held in October, repeated the same process, displaying the harmony of the nobility and the king for all to see as they processed under the same colours, wearing the king’s livery of the white hart for the first time.²⁶ Again, foreign guests and the native nobility were received with magnificence, at the price of the exclusion of the citizens of London.²⁷ This time, William of Ostrevant, son of the count of Hainault and Holland, was made a Knight of the Garter, much to the chagrin of the French.²⁸ The tournament also gave the king the chance to show his youthful chivalric ambition, winning the honours on the first day.²⁹ These peaks in household expenditure did not stem from any unusual enthusiasm for ceremony on Richard’s part, but rather from the combined needs of internal and external diplomacy. At the same time as alliances were built up in the Low Countries, efforts were made to perform the unity between the king, the English nobility, and the wider political community. It is important to note that the public performance of the unity of the king and his nobility did not correspond to a genuinely harmonious relationship between Richard and those whose counsels he had been obliged to accept after 1389. On the contrary, a close examination of these events begins to suggest underlying tensions in the form of government which had been consolidated with the return of John of Gaunt. One of the central concessions which Gaunt had received in exchange for returning to guarantee domestic peace in England had been the duchy of Aquitaine.³⁰ It seems likely that this grant had been a condition of his return. Gaunt had spent the period between the completion of the treaty of Bayonne and his return to England in the duchy, laying the groundwork for his appointment.³¹ He now set about securing his position by continuing the negotiations with the French ²⁵ Westminster, 434; HVRS, 132. ²⁶ ‘La Crie des Joustes’ printed in Cripps-Day 1918: xli–xlii; Froissart, xiv. 253–69; Clarke 1937: 277; HVRS, 132. ²⁷ Lindenbaum 1990. ²⁸ Westminster, 450; RSD, i. 688; Froissart, xiv. 264–5; Lindenbaum 1990: 9. ²⁹ Westminster, 450. ³⁰ See further below, Ch. 11. ³¹ Goodman 1992: 194–5.

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which his brother had restarted in June 1388.³² Yet, just months after the king had raised his uncle to this new dignity, Richard’s actions already showed an attitude towards these negotiations which was at best ambivalent. Although the organization of tournaments was a normal activity for periods of truce, it is surprising that the king should take this opportunity to honour potential military allies in the Low Countries, and to associate his own chivalric aspirations with this activity. It was said at the time that the king organized the second of the Smithfield events so that the duke of Guelders might see him accoutred for combat.³³ All of this sat badly with John of Gaunt’s desire to negotiate a permanent peace with France. Perhaps more troubling than the chivalric events of 1390 were the king’s activities during that summer. Greater attendance in the royal household in June and July is shown by expenditure notably in excess of the same weeks in 1384, whilst the household stayed around Easthampstead, Notley, Woodstock, Devizes, Woodstock again, and finally Lutterworth.³⁴ Not all of the occasions on which the royal household was expanded by increased attendance on the king’s person can be established with certainty, but the occasion of the royal household’s stay at Devizes is relatively easy to identify. At this time the Westminster chronicler reports that the king proceeded to the tomb of Edward II at Gloucester.³⁵ Here he met with prelates, clerks, and lawyers to compile testimony of miracles performed there, as part of a canonization process which Richard had initiated some time between 1385 and 1389.³⁶ This concern for the cult of his great-grandfather was all the more worrying given that the Questions to the Judges had explicitly condemned the invocation in the parliament of October 1386 of ‘the statute by which King Edward [II], the son of King Edward’ had been judged in parliament.³⁷ If this was a reference to the Ordinances of 1311, as seems likely, then it would have been made all the more poignant by the way these had served as a model for the Continual Councils of Richard’s early reign.³⁸ The king’s very public attention ³² Phillpotts 1990: 367–9. ³³ Westminster, 436, 450. ³⁴ E 101/402/5, ff. 19v–23v. ³⁵ Westminster, 436–8. ³⁶ Theilmann 1990: 256–7; Given-Wilson 1994: 567–8; Saul 1997a: 323. ³⁷ RP, iii. 233. ³⁸ Clementi 1971 argues for a reference to the Ordinances. This is contested by Valente 1998: 857, n. 4, who sees in this a reference to a statute deposing Edward II. It is true that this clause is ambiguous but, nonetheless, later repudiations of ‘any statute or ordinance’ made in the time of Edward II more clearly target the Ordinances of

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to his great-grandfather’s memory can hardly have reassured onlookers that Richard was content to accept the restrictions on his freedom of action which continued in place. Fresh from this public veneration of his condemned and restricted ancestor, Richard made his way to Woodstock, and from there to a hunting party organized by John of Gaunt at Leicester on 24 July.³⁹ It was at this gathering that, as the Westminster chronicler reports, ‘a council was held’ at which John of Gaunt asked for John of Northampton, the former mayor of London, to be allowed to return from exile.⁴⁰ This gave Richard an opportunity to point up the gap between the loyal forms used by those about him and the practical limits on his power. In the chronicler’s account, the king replied, a little vaguely: ‘O my dear uncle, it is not in my power to do that now, I think.’⁴¹ Gaunt then obligingly strolled into Richard’s trap, insisting, ‘On the contrary, you could do that and more. God forbid that your power should be so restricted that you could not extend grace to your liege subjects at opportune moments when the matter calls for such action.’ To which the king replied, ‘If I can do what you say, I know what I should do for my own friends who are now overseas.’ There is no warrant in this text to see this exchange as marking a new understanding between the king and the duke.⁴² Rather, the chronicler’s account of this conversation fits in well with Richard’s complicated position in the summer of 1390. With one hand the king obediently accepted invitations to his uncle’s hunting parties, whilst with the other he promoted the cult of Edward II. He granted the duchy of Aquitaine to John of Gaunt, and let the diplomatic process grind along under the duke’s supervision, but he also organized two tournaments in a year, the second in honour of one of the most recalcitrant opponents of French interests in the Low Countries. This left his opponents wrong-footed, if not, as yet, immediately threatened. Richard began to suggest—almost in passing—that he considered himself to be acting 1311. See below, p. 208. The burning relevance of the Ordinances to the politics of the 1380s would suggest that they fit the events of October 1386 just as well as the threat of Edward’s deposition. See above, Ch. 5. ³⁹ Westminster, 440; Knighton, 534. The household stayed at Lutterworth, ten miles from Leicester, on 23 and 24 July. See E 101/402/5, ff. 23r–v. ⁴⁰ Westminster, 440. ⁴¹ Ibid.: ‘ . . . non est in potestate mea hoc facere modo, ut estimo.’ ⁴² Contra Saul 1997a: 241–2; Goodman 1992: 147; Goodman 1971: 56–7.

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under unusual restraints. In return his subjects vocally protested their loyalty. ∗ Paradoxically, this uncomfortable situation has contributed to a view of the early 1390s as a time of growing absolutism. Some of the most telling evidence in this regard has been assembled by Nigel Saul as part of his work on the vocabulary of kingship. Saul draws attention to a change in the opening formulae of the common petition in parliament, which he argues become fuller from around 1390, including previously rare terms of address such as ‘prince’, ‘your highness’, and ‘your majesty’.⁴³ He observes that these terms also crept into individual petitions to the king around the same time, or perhaps a little earlier.⁴⁴ All of this seems undeniable. However, what we have seen already about the circumscribed nature of the king’s power after 1389 provides grounds to reconsider the interpretation which Nigel Saul places on these developments. Saul interprets the use of these terms as evidence of particular ideals of kingship promoted by Richard and his circle.⁴⁵ He sees the use of ‘prince’ rather than ‘lord’ as marking a break from earlier, feudal forms of address, to one which emphasized the prince’s superiority over and distance from his subjects.⁴⁶ Saul uses this to revive R. H. Jones’s argument for the influence of Roman law on the kingship of Richard II.⁴⁷ He argues that by encouraging his subjects to refer to him as ‘your majesty’, the king was hoping to portray himself as a godlike, distant, all-powerful ruler.⁴⁸ But if Richard remained restricted in a number of important ways into the early 1390s, then it seems worth reconsidering whether he would have been able to exercise the control over political discourse on which Saul’s argument relies. The impression that matters are not straightforward as Saul suggests is strengthened when the context of the use of this terminology is re-examined. A narrow focus on the simple fact of the use of certain terms is not in itself enough to explain their political significance without an analysis of the circumstances of their deployment.⁴⁹ When the use of this language is reconsidered in context, with attention to who used it, and for what purposes, a quite ⁴³ Saul 1995: 857. ⁴⁴ Ibid., 858. ⁴⁵ Ibid., 861. ⁴⁶ Ibid., 863–4. ⁴⁷ Ibid., 868–9. ⁴⁸ Saul 1999a: 46; Saul 1995: 862. ⁴⁹ Wilson 2001: esp. 406.

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different interpretation suggests itself for the development of the more elaborate vocabulary of kingship which emerges in this period. One of the first parliamentary petitions to address the king as ‘your highness’ was submitted for consideration during the parliament of November 1390, some four months after the hunting party at Leicester. This phrase is found in no more ‘Ricardian’ a source than a petition lodged by the dukes of York and Gloucester to secure annuities of £1,000 a year for themselves and their heirs.⁵⁰ This document begins by addressing ‘our very gracious and very redoubtable lord the king’ (nostre tresgracious et tresredoute seigneur le roi), a common form in the fourteenth century. It details their request and then concludes with the appeal ‘and because of this they petition you, that it might please your highness, by the assent of your parliament’ to grant what they asked.⁵¹ In this petition, submitted by the king’s uncles, ‘your highness’ does not occur headlined, for example in the opening term of address. It is used in passing in the concluding phrase. In this regard, the dukes’ request bears comparison to earlier petitions, such as one granted on 1 December 1389 in favour of the son and heir of Sir William Echyngham.⁵² This petition argued that although the elder Echyngham had enfeoffed Robert Bealknap of certain lands, and although they had consequently been confiscated at the latter’s forfeiture during the Merciless Parliament, they ought not to have been. It concluded by requesting ‘that it might please your royal highness to order the chancellor that these matters be investigated and that as a consequence of these right be done to the aforesaid suppliant, according to the law, for God and as a work of charity’.⁵³ Signing off a complex petition ‘your royal highness’ is found where simply ‘vous’ might be expected, buried in a familiar formulaic appeal to God and to charity. At around the same time as ‘your highness’ makes its appearance in petitions to the king, this expression and related terminology are also found in a rather more public context, namely the opening formulae of the ‘common petition’ submitted to the king in the name of the Commons in parliament. Rather than beginning ‘May it please the ⁵⁰ RP, iii. 278, item 12. ⁵¹ Ibid.: ‘Et purce ils vous supplient q’il plese a vostre hautesse, par assent de vostre parlement, granter et comander qe . . . ’. ⁵² CPR, 1388–92, 210–11. ⁵³ TNA C 81/1394, item 92: ‘Qe plese a vostre roiale hautesse comander a Chaunceller qe celle matere purra estre/anquiz et outre ces droit fait al suppliant auauntdit solonc la loy pur dieu et en oeuvre de charite.’

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very excellent, very powerful lord, our lord the king’, as it did in the Merciless Parliament,⁵⁴ or ‘To the very excellent, very gracious, and very redoubtable lord, our lord the king’ as it did in 1385,⁵⁵ the enrolled version of the common petition for the parliament of November 1390, begins ‘May it please the very powerful prince and very redoubtable lord, our lord the king’.⁵⁶ Then, in the following year, the common petition for November 1391 was addressed ‘to the very excellent, very redoubtable and very powerful prince, and very gracious lord, our lord the king’ and requested ‘your highness and royal majesty’ to grant the petitions there submitted.⁵⁷ ‘Prince’ was added where it did not occur before, alongside more familiar forms of address, and the king was addressed as ‘your highness and royal majesty’. These texts are far from explicit in the ideology they invoke. Terms such as ‘prince’, ‘highness’, and ‘majesty’ occur alongside a number of rhetorical devices of recent and older date. Since these terms were indeed relative novelties, and were accompanied by no gloss on their meaning, it seems unlikely that most of those who read or heard them recited would have been aware of the references to high academic ideas of sovereignty which they have been found to contain. In interpreting the significance of these terms for contemporaries, the focus should not be on their etymological roots, nor their more sophisticated connotations, but on what their most obvious associations would have been for, say, the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament. Erudite usage and academic commentary can provide important clues concerning the broader associations of these words, but to find out how they would normally have been interpreted by those who wrote, read, or heard them recited, it is important to begin by considering how contemporaries would have put them into use outside of a technical context.⁵⁸ Even without a detailed knowledge of their connotations in Roman law, the use of terms such as ‘majesty’ and ‘prince’ in the contexts in which they occur in these petitions seem intended to invoke certain ideas of a more commonplace kind, in particular the respect owed to the position of the king, the honour and obedience due to him, and his ⁵⁴ RP, iii. 246. ⁵⁵ RP, iii. 200. Cf. RP, iii. 221 (1386); 265 ( Jan 1390) which are similar. ⁵⁶ RP, iii. 279: ‘Plese a tres puissant prince et tres redoute seignour nostre seignour le roy’. ⁵⁷ RP, iii. 290: ‘A tresexcellent et tresredoute et trespuissant prince, et tresgracious signour, nostre seignour le roi, supplient voz povres liges, communes de vostre roialme d’engleterre, qe plese a vostre hautesse et roiale mageste . . . graciousment granter les petitions souzescriptz.’ ⁵⁸ Sinclair 1999.

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ceremonial centrality in late medieval political culture.⁵⁹ This is as much apparent in the piling on of ‘feudal’ epithets as in the appearance of novelties. ‘Very redoubtable’ (tres redoutable) stresses how the king, like any lord, should be feared and respected in his judgements because of the power at his disposal. ‘Very powerful’ (tres puissant) stresses the military power at his command. ‘Very gracious’ underlines his royal ability to grant grace to those petitioning him, ‘very excellent’ his superior virtues. Even the latent connotations of the ancient term of address to ‘the lord, our lord the king’, rich with allusions to divine as well as secular power, come out anew when placed together with this insistence upon the justness and rightness of royal authority. From 1390, ‘prince’ and ‘majesty’ also make their appearance, not superseding earlier terms of address, but supplementing them in a general piling up of epithets which begins as early as 1385. From the mid to late 1380s, it is possible to identify a new stress on the formal centrality of the king in the terms of address found in a number of individual and collective petitions. In the past it has been natural to assume that this arose from the king’s initiative, since he seems the most obvious party to benefit from the emphasis on his status, and since it has generally been assumed that he was in a position to dictate such a change after his ‘assumption of government’ in May 1389. Yet in the light of what we have already seen about the continuing circumscription of Richard II’s freedom of action in the early 1390s, it seems worth reconsidering the significance of these developments. As the form of the petition of the dukes of Gloucester and York for their annuities has already suggested, appeals to the king’s majesty did not necessarily originate with Richard or his supporters. Instead such references to the king’s pre-eminent status could serve to emphasize the obedience of those who, both in their actions in 1386–8 and in the continuing restrictions they imposed on the king, had behaved anything but obediently to the king’s will. This ambivalence, in which the practical restraint of Richard II’s freedom of action coexisted with fulsome declarations of the extent of his prerogative, can also be detected in a number of more overt statements of the king’s powers made in the same period. At the end of the parliaments which opened in November 1390 and November 1391, the Commons submitted petitions concerning the king’s rights which ⁵⁹ Walker 1995: 51–2.

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have generally been assumed to have originated with Richard himself.⁶⁰ In the first of these assemblies, a petition from the prelates, the temporal lords, and the Commons was enrolled immediately before the grant of the wool subsidy.⁶¹ This requested the king in full parliament ‘that the regality (regalie) and prerogative (prerogative) of our said lord the king and of his Crown be altogether saved and kept’. If anything had been attempted against these, it should be redressed. Furthermore, it was asked, ‘that our said lord the king be as free (frank) in his time as his noble progenitors, formerly kings of England, had been in their time’. Unsurprisingly, this very general petition ‘seemed to our lord the king to be fitting and reasonable’. The second declaration came with the grant of a half subsidy on 2 December 1391. In this document it was felt necessary to declare the king’s full age once again, a little over a month before his twenty-fifth birthday. The preamble to the tax grant noted the tenderness to the poor commons of the king, ‘who in this present parliament, being in his full age, and in his full will and desire, by his good judgement (son bon sen), and the great discretion of him and of his lords and the Commons’, had promised to maintain the good laws and customs in his kingdom, and to do justice without consideration of persons.⁶² The Commons then declared, once again, their desire ‘that our lord the king should be and remain as free in his regality, liberty and royal dignity in his time, as any of his noble progenitors formerly kings of England were in their time’.⁶³ The petition then continued that the king’s regality and freedom should be upheld ‘notwithstanding any statute or ordinance made before this time to the contrary, and indeed in the time of King Edward II, who lies at Gloucester’. Any such statute was to be annulled. What are we to make of these two appeals for the king to enjoy his full powers? It is important to note that neither of these declarations of the king’s dignity and freedom called for a restoration of specific powers which were presently in abeyance. On the contrary, in the very parliaments in which these petitions were accepted, further evidence was given of the king’s continuing restriction. The autumn parliament of 1390 was not only characterized by appeals to the king’s prerogative; it also sought to ensure that Richard would not try to reverse the redistribution of lands which had followed the execution or exile of ⁶⁰ Saul 1997a: 255. ⁶² RP, iii. 285, item 10.

⁶¹ RP, iii. 279. ⁶³ RP, iii. 286, item 13.

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his friends in 1388.⁶⁴ All sales of these lands were to be maintained as valid, notwithstanding any grants which might have been made outside of parliament, presumably by the king. The Commons might well address the king as ‘prince’ and appeal with unimpeachable generality for his regality and prerogative to be untouched, but these protestations of loyalty to the basic assumptions of monarchical government were accompanied by no new willingness to dismantle the settlement imposed in the aftermath of the events of 1386–88. Much the same could also be said of the declaration of the king’s rights lodged in November 1391. By rejecting restrictions on the regality and liberty of the king which had been imposed during the reign of Edward II, this second petition disavowed the precedent of the Ordinances of 1311, which had served as one model for the Continual Councils of 1377–80, and which appear to have been invoked again in 1386.⁶⁵ It was duly granted, just like its counterpart in 1390. This was an important concession to Richard’s own rejection of the restrictions imposed on his great-grandfather. But even this petition need not be seen as motivated by the king’s own unusual conception of his authority. From the events of the Great Council which followed this parliament, it seems that the political community only recognized Richard’s traditional rights in return for specific restrictions on his freedom of action. The Great Council of February 1392 was called in order to rein in Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon, in his continuing struggle against the growing influence of the king’s half-brother, John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, in the south-west.⁶⁶ Devon had gone so far as to threaten violence to a Justice of the Peace in a messy dispute involving the murder of one of Holand’s tenants.⁶⁷ The official record of proceedings asserts that, after the assembled bishops and temporal lords had secured Devon’s pardon, they went on to assure the king that they would henceforth be good subjects to him, and would do nothing by force either secretly or openly, except by the law.⁶⁸ In return for this general acceptance of the rule of law, the king promised that he would do no ill to any lord or any other of his lieges for anything they had done in the past, which would have included their actions in 1387–8 as well as more recent offences. ⁶⁴ RP, iii. 280, item 21. ⁶⁵ See above n. 38. ⁶⁶ TNA E 28/3 cited in Baldwin 1913: 489–504 at 490. See Cherry 1979; Tuck 1973: 148–9; Gundy 2001: 62–3. ⁶⁷ Cherry 1979: 89–90; Select Cases Before the King’s Council, 1243–1482, ed. I. S. Leadam and J. F. Baldwin (Cambridge, 1918), 77–81. ⁶⁸ Baldwin 1913: 495 citing E 28/3.

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In the minute of the clerk of the council, this concession is followed by a note that the king then raised the issue of his friends’ exile, but was forced to back down once again, promising that he would not make restitution to any person who had forfeited in parliament. It is thus interesting to note that the Westminster chronicler, at least, believed that the refusal of the lords to countenance the return of Alexander Neville and Robert de Vere was the first business of this assembly.⁶⁹ As he tells it, the lords were concerned about the destabilizing potential of the belief that the king still did not accept the outcome of the recent events, and so insisted that Richard agree to confirm these banishments ‘so that the murmur of the people would be silenced’. The king accepted that the exile of his friends should be permanent, and in return the lords renewed their oaths to support him against all enemies, internal or external. The chronicler asserts that it was at this point that ‘the king was accorded full power to rule his kingdom as he pleased (ad libitum) for all future time’. Whether or not the chronicler’s account is correct, he gives valuable evidence of the continuing perception that the king and the nobility were still engaged in negotiation about the extent of Richard’s ability to rule freely. The king did achieve the recognition of his judicial supremacy and his formal rights. Yet he could still only achieve this at the price of real political concessions: giving up for good the possibility of securing pardon for his exiled friends. What has already been said about the continuation of conciliar mechanisms after 1389 ought to give pause as to the extent of Richard II’s freedom of manoeuvre even as late as 1392. There are a number of other reasons for believing that the king was still subject to unusual conciliar supervision at this time. On 27 September 1391, William Wykeham had been replaced as chancellor by Thomas Arundel—scarcely an appointment designed to accommodate the king.⁷⁰ During the summer of 1392, the refusal of a loan by the citizens of London provided the occasion to transfer the chancery, the exchequer, the courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, and even the inmates of the Fleet prison, to York, Thomas Arundel’s archiepiscopal city.⁷¹ This move has been interpreted as the manifestation of the king’s desire for revenge against a city which had let him down in 1387 and 1381 and whose citizens continued to refuse ready credit.⁷² Although this could help to explain ⁶⁹ Westminster, 484–6. ⁷⁰ Aston 1967: 353. ⁷¹ CPR, 1391–6, 63, 65, 67; Barron 1971; Harvey 1971; Saul 1997c. ⁷² Barron 1971: 174–81; Saul 1997c: 79–80; Westminster, 496.

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Richard’s acquiescence in the move, it does not explain why York should be chosen as an alternative capital. The move north appears more obviously contrived to suit the convenience of Thomas Arundel than that of the king. As Nigel Saul has demonstrated, Richard did not himself take up residence in York, but instead continued his normal summer itineration of south and south-central England.⁷³ All this suggests that there is more truth than has generally been acknowledged in the Westminster chronicle’s suggestion that it was Arundel, in league with the treasurer, John Waltham, who persuaded the king to move the capital north.⁷⁴ The separation of the king from the chancellor in the summer of 1392 gives a revealing snapshot of what Richard could do in the absence of Archbishop Arundel. The king was able to grant certain small items of lay and ecclesiastical patronage by the privy seal, the keeper of which remained with him in the south. At the supplication of the queen, he issued a pardon for homicide.⁷⁵ To the bishop of Ely, he pardoned the offence of allowing convicted clerics to escape from his prison.⁷⁶ He presented to a church in the diocese of York in the king’s gift, and to another church in the diocese of Bath and Wells.⁷⁷ The privy seal, also, warranted a number of alienations in mortmain.⁷⁸ He granted the office of ‘skawage’ in the port of London and the ‘wardenship of the common beam and balance’ in the house called ‘le Herber’, also in London.⁷⁹ In short, he did nothing very controversial. There was certainly nothing that ‘might turn to the decrease of the profit of the king’ which, as had been arranged in March 1390, would have required the approval of the king’s three uncles and the chancellor, or at least two of them.⁸⁰ There was nothing, for example, like the grant on 22 July, at Windsor—on which day Thomas Arundel was near at hand at Eton—of a custody of a park amongst the estates of the recently deceased earl of Stafford, all of which had earlier been reserved for the upkeep of the king’s household.⁸¹ Despite the insistence in the parliaments of November 1390 and 1391 on the king’s regality and rights, despite the disavowal of the example of the Ordainers and the protestations of the lords in the council of February 1392, it is nonetheless clear that the king continued ⁷³ ⁷⁵ ⁷⁸ ⁸¹

Saul 1997c: 73–8 ⁷⁴ Westminster, 492; Aston 1967: 356. CPR, 1391–6, 145. ⁷⁶ Ibid., 146. ⁷⁷ Ibid., 152, 157. Ibid., 147, 152, 161–2. ⁷⁹ Ibid., 144, 147. ⁸⁰ PPC, i. 18a–18b. CPR, 1391–6, 127; Aston 1967: 388; Ormrod 1996: 315.

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to be circumscribed by an unusual level of supervision well into the 1390s. As late as February 1395, when the king had secured the submission of the Gaelic chiefs in Ireland, he still felt it necessary to write to the council in Westminster, asking their permission to pardon the rebels, since this would lead to a loss of royal resources, by letting chiefs retain lands which would otherwise have been confiscated.⁸² This permission was somewhat grudgingly given. Noting that the king knew the circumstances in that particular case better than they, the council asked that those who were pardoned should still forfeit as much as they could to pay for the king’s expedition, so that his charges could be met ‘without charging the people of your kingdom’ and the rest of these profits distributed ‘in the maintenance of your royal estate’.⁸³ That the councillors repeatedly referred to the king as ‘your majesty’ does little to detract from the significance of their supervisorial role in the distribution of his resources. Conciliar supervision to ensure that the king did not ‘despoil himself’ had not finished with the end of the term of the Commission of 1386, nor even with the king’s declaration of age in May 1389. It was still going strong as late as the mid-1390s.⁸⁴ Even after the disavowal of the precedent of the Ordinances of 1311 and the assertion of the king’s judicial prominence, he remained very far from free to exercise his royal powers in the way that a monarch of full age would have done in less troubled times. The disavowal of armed rebellion; the use of terms such as ‘majesty’, ‘highness’, and ‘prince’; the calls for the king to enjoy the same rights as his predecessors; the acknowledgements of his full age and discretion; the refusal of the precedents of Edward II’s reign: all these were no more than uncontroversial affirmations of the norms of royal government in late medieval England. They were made with such intensity precisely because the political settlement which emerged from the events of 1386–9 did not, in fact, reflect these norms. As we have seen, a number of mechanisms continued in existence to insulate the king from bad counsellors and to control ‘those about the king’, implicitly on the grounds that Richard was still a youth whose soft, malleable nature needed to be protected from evil influences. The king’s officials felt able to reject his decisions, even to wrangle with him when he refused to accept their intervention, and Richard could not pardon his exiled friends. The whole uneasy settlement was sealed by ritual performances of the unity of the king, his appointed officials and his ⁸² PPC, i. 55–7.

⁸³ PPC, i. 62–3.

⁸⁴ Cf. Ormrod 1996: 317–18.

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nobility, in parliament, Great Council, tournament and hunting party. Yet already the cracks were beginning to show. Richard’s acceptance of these arrangements could still not be taken for granted. After all, he had succeeded in remaining king, and as such he was in a position, if he chose to do so, to become a focus for the aspirations of those dissatisfied with the uneasy political settlement which had emerged from the events of the late 1380s. This was made to seem all the more likely by the king’s own expressions of his discontent. If, as his behaviour increasingly suggested, Richard had not truly accepted the status quo, then it was only a matter of time before the trouble would begin.

∗ The fact that Richard II had succeeded in remaining king gradually allowed him to assume the central place normally assigned to the monarch in late medieval political society. His practical primacy became increasingly fortified every time he played the role of king in the carefully structured political rituals of the 1390s. In this way he gained ground from the repeated declaration that he ought to enjoy his full authority, even where these declarations were made only to sweeten the pill of his continued restriction. This process reached its apogee on 21 August 1392, when the tournaments, parliaments, councils and hunting parties of recent years were put into the shade by a far more impressive performance, the king’s ceremonial reconciliation with London.⁸⁵ It has often been assumed that a glorious civic triumph was simply an obvious way for the Londoners to make their peace with a king who, they somehow sensed, was always impressed by finery.⁸⁶ Yet, in fact, there was something unusual about greeting the king in this fashion. Throughout Europe, cities performed triumphs of this kind on the first reception of a new monarch—the king or prince after his accession to power, his consort after her marriage.⁸⁷ Richard’s ceremonial acceptance by the city had already been carried out on the normal two occasions: his coronation in 1377 and the reception of the new queen in 1382.⁸⁸ Why the need for a third performance? Caroline Barron long ago elucidated ⁸⁵ Westminster, 502–8; Suggett 1947: 209–13; Smith 1972. ⁸⁶ Barron 1971: 150; Saul 1997a: 342–3, 352, 385, n. 68; Eberle 1999: 245–6. For an argument against this view see Kipling 1985: 85, 87. ⁸⁷ Ibid., 94. ⁸⁸ Ibid., 88.

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the immediate reasons in the disgrace into which London had fallen in 1392 and the longer-term grudge which Richard held against the city following its failure to support him in 1387–8.⁸⁹ The city’s need for the king’s forgiveness is undeniable. But the ritual reception of the king and queen also served to underline the city’s acceptance of Richard, the first since he had been 15 years old. After all, it was Richard’s authority as king, not just the Londoners’ loyalty as his subjects, which had been in doubt in the preceding five years. Richard’s third reception by the Londoners served to re-stage and renew his legitimacy as king, even as it sought to dictate how he ought to behave—as a forgiving Christ-king, that is to say, using his restored power not to pursue vengeance, but to bring peace. In the pageant of 1392, as in 1377 and 1382, London was figured as a heavenly Jerusalem, coming down to greet the monarch just as the Holy City comes down to Christ in the Apocalypse of St John.⁹⁰ On all three occasions, a central role in the proceedings was played by a castle occupied by angels, from which (in 1377 and in 1392) a mechanical angel descended, offering the king a heavenly crown.⁹¹ In 1377, Richard had proceeded through the streets of London at the head of a procession, dressed in white and accompanied by music, placing the king in the role of Christ leading the heavenly host.⁹² In 1392, before entering the city, one account of the king’s reception has Richard say, ‘They will now be my people and I shall henceforth be king to them,’ echoing Christ’s words as he welcomes his people to the new Jerusalem.⁹³ Coming to a tableau of St John the Baptist in the wilderness, Richard was pointed out by the saint with the words ‘Behold, the lamb of God’.⁹⁴ He was again placed in the role of Christ at the head of the heavenly host, and the citizens of London were figured as his heavenly people.⁹⁵ The king’s reception by London did not only urge him to be merciful, it also emphasized that he did indeed have the power to forgive without mediation. This theme is particularly marked in an elaborate Latin poem composed in celebration of these events by Richard Maidstone (d. 1396), a former confessor of the duke of Lancaster.⁹⁶ According to this account ⁸⁹ Barron 1971. ⁹⁰ Apocalypse 21:2–3; Kipling 1985: 88–9. ⁹¹ CA, 155; Herbert 1834–7: ii. 218; Suggett 1947: 212; Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 276–99; Westminster, 504–6; Kipling 1985: 85–6, 88. ⁹² Anonimalle, 107–8; Voaden 2004: 66–8. ⁹³ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 218–19. ⁹⁴ Ibid., ll. 359–80. ⁹⁵ Ibid., ll. 55–64, 79–83, 161–71, 247–70, 355–8. ⁹⁶ On Maidstone, see Smith 1972: 1–8.

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the king, immediately after meeting the citizens outside the city, was promptly waylaid by an exiled murderer who asked for the king’s pardon.⁹⁷ As Maidstone tells it, the condemned man’s intervention fits perfectly into the London ceremony. As the royal couple were about to enter London, the murderer approached the king with a wooden cross; at the end of their procession through the city, Richard and Anne were presented with tablets depicting Christ crucified.⁹⁸ This pressed upon the king the example of the merciful Christ, but also implied that Richard did indeed have the power to imitate Him. The king was styled as a monarch in his full adult powers, not a restricted child. In the role of Christ he was implored to be humble, as a mortal man he was invited to think of his future judgement; but he was still accepted as a righteously angered king implored for clemency. Although Richard Maidstone regards the king as being in his full power, he still insists upon his youth, if not his tender age. The king comes out of the poem as both youth and man, still displaying the pliability and susceptibility to persuasion of the former, uniting it with the rigour and gravitas of the latter.⁹⁹ An essential part of this is the figuration of the king’s relationship to his city as an erotic one comparable to that with his queen.¹⁰⁰ In his account of the 1392 festivities, Maidstone elaborates upon the ceremony’s standard Apocalyptic theme of the king as Christ coming to the new Jerusalem as a husband to his bride. He portrays the king’s recent quarrel with London as a lovers’ tiff, the result of the idle talk of gossips. This serves as the starting point for a development of the association between youth and sexuality. Richard II is described as a ‘lover more handsome than Paris’, whose true love for the city means he thinks not at all of revenge.¹⁰¹ This talk of vengeance leads Maidstone back to the crises of 1387–8, as he remarks: ‘All England knows how many evils, how many deaths, [the king] has sustained from a tender age without demanding revenge, for how can he strive to serve God unless he desires always to be peace-making, clement and careful to destroy nothing good?’¹⁰² It would be wrong to think that Maidstone is here giving an objective account of Richard’s attitude to these events. Rather, he is giving a lesson on how the king ought to behave. Richard should put aside ⁹⁷ ⁹⁸ ¹⁰⁰ ¹⁰²

Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 185–92. Ibid., ll. 188, 381–4; Suggett 1947: 212. ⁹⁹ Burrow 1984. Strohm 1992: 105–111. ¹⁰¹ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 25–8. Ibid., ll. 29–32.

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vengeance, since only by doing so will he serve God and hence secure his salvation. Maidstone’s praise of the king remains conditional on Richard’s willingness to take up the praiseworthy attitude which the poet presents, just as his assumption of the role of Christ in his reception by the city directed him towards a Christ-like position of forgiveness. The didactic content of Maidstone’s praise becomes more detailed as he goes on. The king fosters the church, maintaining the institutions that the Fathers established.¹⁰³ It seems also that Richard has learned to avoid bad counsel, for Maidstone states that the king ‘flees the ungrateful, the cupiditous, the foolish and the cruel, and takes to himself those things that befit a king’.¹⁰⁴ This leaves the poet to the conclusion that: ‘Such an adolescent (adolescens) does not remain anywhere in the world who knows how to keep his rule (regna tenere sua) like Solomon.’¹⁰⁵ That is to say, Richard is no longer an adolescent (since none remains in the world), and he is able to rule his kingdom (and implicitly himself) just like Solomon, even though he still retains the adolescent quality of love and hence of clemency. Like the sermon of William Wykeham in January 1390 and the parliamentary petition for the king’s full powers of November 1391, the king’s tender age is in the past because of the ‘discretion’ he now displays. His present good behaviour is his implicit title to rule, even though this can never be expressed overtly. The role played by the erotic relationship between the king and queen in the structure of their ceremonial reception by the city serves to underline how the king combines the malleability and susceptibility to love characteristic of youth with the physical and mental strength of the man.¹⁰⁶ Even before the royal couple enter London, Maidstone has the keeper of the city address the queen: ‘Let the queen soften royal severity that the king may be forbearing to his people. A woman mellows a man with love: for this God gave her; to this, O blessed woman, may your sweet love aspire.’¹⁰⁷ At the end of the procession through the city, the keeper presents her with a tablet of Christ crucified and returns to gendered themes. He once more asks for Anne’s intervention with an entreaty which suggests the limits of the conventional qualities of ¹⁰³ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 33–4. ¹⁰⁴ Ibid., ll. 35–6. ¹⁰⁵ Ibid., ll. 37–8: ‘Talis adolescens toto non restat in orbe,/Qui sciat ut Salomon regna tenere sua.’ ¹⁰⁶ See above, Chs. 2, 4. ¹⁰⁷ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 229–32: ‘Flectere regales poterit Regina rigores,/Mitis ut in gentem Rex velit esse suam./Mollit amore virum mulier, Deus huic dedit illam;/Tendat ad hoc vester, o pia, dulcis amor.’

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manhood and invokes the transcendent potential of their conferment onto a woman: ‘What a man does not dare, a woman alone can do.’¹⁰⁸ As the procession moves on to Westminster Hall, and the king assumes his throne, Anne prostrates herself before him, stressing Richard’s manly qualities and her own feminine subjection.¹⁰⁹ ‘Beloved’, Maidstone has her say, ‘my king, my husband (vir), my strength (vis), my life . . . ’.¹¹⁰ Her terms of address project onto the king both the estate of a man and husband, and its attendant strength. She draws attention to the honour that London has done him, greater than that done to any mortal king, and begs him in consequence to be humble.¹¹¹ The king does not deny his ‘most sweet wife’, but agrees to forgive them.¹¹² When the queen has placed her ‘tender limbs’ in her own throne,¹¹³ the king closes with a speech which warns the Londoners of the degeneracy which has come of excessive prosperity.¹¹⁴ Yet still, this positive outcome, with its rehearsal of the king’s manhood, is achieved in Maidstone’s poem only whilst summoning up the continuing dangers of his youth. Providing the king played the role of the merciful young king, who scorns evil counsellors and honours the institutions of fathers, all goes well. But the very examples which Maidstone chooses to praise the king’s youthful beauty summon up the sins of other archetypal youths. Richard is compared to Paris, to Troilus, and to Absalom.¹¹⁵ These were all standard types of beauty but also (in the first two cases) of the disruptive effects of youthful desire upon the political order and (in the last) of rebellion against fathers.¹¹⁶ Absalom is a particularly telling example of a youth who, determined to take the place of his father, King David, rebels against him, and is then undone by his own youthful pride in his beauty, caught in a tree by his long hair.¹¹⁷ Maidstone makes this clear as he describes how the king’s beauty ‘captivates the senses of the onlooker’ and continues: ‘Indeed if Nature had more generously bestowed beauty upon him, envious Venus might perhaps have shut him away in her chambers.’¹¹⁸ These remarks echo the danger inherent in Venus: when she is well led by Nature, all goes well, but left to her own devices she becomes dangerous.¹¹⁹ The next line ¹⁰⁸ Ibid., l. 442: ‘Quod vir non audet, sola potest mulier.’ ¹⁰⁹ Strohm 1992: 108. ¹¹⁰ Maidstone, Concordia, l. 469: ‘‘‘Dulcis,’’ ait, ‘‘mi Rex, mihi vir, mihi vis, mihi vita,/Dulcis amor, sine quo vivere fit mihi mors.’’ ’ ¹¹¹ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 471–8. ¹¹² Ibid., ll. 495–6. ¹¹³ Ibid., ll. 499–500. ¹¹⁴ Ibid., ll. 501–40. ¹¹⁵ Ibid., ll. 26, 113. ¹¹⁶ Smith 1972: 139. ¹¹⁷ II Samuel 15–18. ¹¹⁸ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 117–18. ¹¹⁹ Tristram 1976: 49–54.

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reassures us that danger is now distant, since ‘As he rests in the midst of his retinue above the crowded fields, he is encircled by the nobles of his kingdom, as was proper (ut decuit).’¹²⁰ So the king is literally surrounded by his proper counsellors. Nonetheless, Maidstone still feels the need to invoke the threat of destruction for those not so well supported, physically and morally. He derives much moralistic pleasure from the fall of two carts in the queen’s entourage, which causes one of the royal ladies to expose her ‘womanly thighs’, to the laughter of the multitude. For the poet the moral was clear: ‘All luxus and evil love will tumble down.’¹²¹ London’s third ceremonial reception of the king and Maidstone’s account of it are shot through with the ambivalence and tensions of the political world of the early 1390s. The very fact that this reception took place at all attested to the interruption of Richard’s authority, and the failure of his first two ceremonial entries to establish him as king. This ceremony served, perhaps with greater elaboration than before, to assert that he was now supposed to be the legitimate king in his full authority, endowed with a power of pardon. Maidstone’s account of events makes clear how Richard’s youth (he was now 25) could be positive when allied to manly vigour, since it allowed him to temper justice with mercy. Yet at the same time, his examples of youthful beauty are nothing if not double edged. Maidstone’s remarks about Richard’s forbearance in the face of past misdeeds are more didactic than descriptive. Richard was king, that much was sure, but even in Maidstone’s apparently laudatory poem and London’s apparently humble submission, profound tensions remained. Like William Wykeham’s sermon of January 1390, parliamentary petitions and the protests of the lords in council, Maidstone’s poem reads like an inversion of Thomas Walsingham’s picture of Richard II as a feckless, inconstant youth. In describing the events of 1392, Walsingham portrays the king much as he does in his account of the 1380s. The chronicler asserts that when ‘the nobles of the kingdom who sat on the king’s council’ heard of the forgiveness which Richard had lavished on London, which stood contrary to what they had decided, ‘they felt greatly offended among themselves and condemned the king’s fickleness (leuitatem) and inconstancy (inconstanciam)’.¹²² Once again, Walsingham insists on Richard’s youth in order to deny the validity of royal actions. In doing so, he brings to the surface political tensions which those who insisted upon the legitimacy of royal authority were ¹²⁰ Maidstone, Concordia, ll. 119–20. ¹²² Walsingham, 930–2.

¹²¹ Ibid., l. 256.

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anxious to suppress. As we have seen, there is some reason to believe that Walsingham is correct in his account of the reaction of the king’s permanent councillors to the reconciliation with London. It tallies with the monk of Westminster’s assertion that it was the chancellor and treasurer who engineered the move north.¹²³ It also fits with certain suggestive entries in the exchequer Issue Rolls which reveal that, perhaps a month after Richard’s agreement to forgive the Londoners, some time before 29 September, a council meeting at Nottingham issued writs summoning a parliament to York for 3 November.¹²⁴ It is not clear that the king was present at this council meeting, since he seems to have remained in the Thames Valley, staying at Woodstock and Oxford from 5 to 27 September.¹²⁵ On 24 October messengers were paid for carrying letters, again from Nottingham, delaying this parliament to a time and place to be determined ‘by the lord king and his council’.¹²⁶ On 30 October payments were recorded for the announcement of the return of the king’s courts from York to London, and on 23 November expenses were registered for the distribution of writs summoning parliament to Winchester for the following February.¹²⁷ It is tempting to speculate that Richard’s acquiescence in the Londoners’ requests for forgiveness, which appealed to the king’s authority, was not in accordance with the council’s intentions, hence its slowness in starting the move down from York. Perhaps the move to York itself helped to undermine support for the present regime, tempting some, including the Londoners, to invest their stock in Richard’s renewed authority. Certainly this would fit with the way that the king continued to worry at the difficult intersection between the loyal language of the political community and the practical restraints still in place on his freedom of action. Time would tell that ceremonial acceptance of the king’s primacy could not go without a real investment of power in his person. The restriction of the king began to disintegrate as Richard started to use the formal acceptance of his kingly sovereignty to expand his real possibilities for action. ∗ The ceremonial intensification of the early 1390s should not be regarded as simply the result of the promotion of an absolutist ideology or ¹²³ Westminster, 492; Aston 1967: 356. ¹²⁴ TNA E 403/541, m. 2. ¹²⁵ Saul 1997a: 472. ¹²⁶ E 403/541, m. 2. ¹²⁷ Ibid., mm. 4, 6.

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innovative courtly culture on the part of Richard II. The ritual activity and increased household expenditure of this period can largely be accounted for by a widespread desire to heal the rifts created by the events of the 1380s through a reassertion of the central role of the king. The acceptance of the king’s central status also served to accept and perform Richard’s manhood through the household hospitality and ceremonial activity which were the mark of an established man of noble estate.¹²⁸ This insistence on royal authority was promoted as much by the king’s opponents as by those, such as the Londoners, who wished to oppose the actions of the conciliar regime which had been consolidated in the first months of 1390. By acting in this fashion the king’s subjects were not just responding to signals emanating from Richard himself. On the contrary, the language of royal power came as easily to those who were seeking to restrict his freedom of action, either in the disposition of his resources or in his desire to pardon his exiled friends, as it did to those who wished to implore him to make full use of his royal authority. That said, there were inevitable practical consequences involved in the acceptance of the king’s full estate. By accepting the king’s political centrality and a household establishment which corresponded with his status as a man, those who wished to retain unusual restraints on Richard’s freedom of action found themselves with fewer and fewer resources at their disposal. They were left only with the hope that by lauding the king’s power, they could persuade him to act as they wished. As the king gradually assumed his full authority, there would come a moment when it would become clear whether he really had put aside manly vengeance for the events of 1386–8, or whether he was merely waiting for the right moment to avenge the humiliations of his youth. ¹²⁸ See above, Ch. 3.

11 The Drift to Power, c.1390–97 In the previous two chapters, it was argued that the early 1390s, often thought of as a period of political stability and normal government, were neither as calm nor as free from controversy as historians have suggested. The violent actions of both the king and the Appellants in 1386–8 had, on the contrary, created a state of tension in which the king’s rejection of vengeance and the nobility’s loyalty to the monarch needed to be performed repeatedly in councils, parliaments, tournaments, and the cyclical festivals of the ritual year. Even after the king’s assertion of his full age in May 1389, the formal mechanisms for counsel-taking which remained in place were modelled on those of the minority, and on those forcibly imposed on earlier kings during periods of crisis. The existence of these mechanisms implied by their presence that the king could not be trusted to rule unsupervised. Richard’s officials felt empowered to overrule the king’s express will in his disposition of his resources, and the king repeatedly expressed, and was denied, his desire to pardon his supporters in exile. With the return of John of Gaunt, this uneasy settlement was formalized under the reassuring gaze of a magnate who had been a major focus of resentment in the mid-1380s, but who now seemed to be the best available guarantor of order. The present chapter will turn to the process by which the ambiguous settlement of the early 1390s slowly came undone. After 1392, the king’s youth once again faded out from political debate. It even ceased to be present as a background issue which might be used to carry didactic messages to the king, or as an implicit justification of resistance to his will. As Richard took on his full authority as king, so he also took on the attributes of manhood: in the pursuit of war, in the magnificence of his household establishment, and in the central role he played in internal politics and external diplomacy. Now, more than ever, he took on the role of the man as suggested by the language of manhood, defending his honour against the kingdom’s enemies, giving out manly largesse as befitted his estate, and receiving his subjects and foreign dignitaries with

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the ceremonial recognition of status which emperors or kings dispensed ‘manly’ to the heroes of romance. As the king gradually assumed his adult authority, so his eldest uncle returned to the position of national scapegoat which had been his lot in earlier controversies. Just as, in the 1380s, the duke’s desire to use the resources of the English monarchy to pursue his ambitions in the Iberian peninsular had led to widespread distrust and the recurring accusation of treason, so, in the 1390s, his defence of his claims in Gascony ultimately served to draw opprobrium upon him once again. This opened up a space in which those dissatisfied with the status quo might appeal over the duke’s head to the king, a development which brought growing tensions not just in Aquitaine but also within English local society. This, together with the fading significance of the controversies of 1386–8, gradually brought about a situation in which the king’s personal rule seemed preferable to the pre-eminence of John of Gaunt. In these circumstances, once Richard’s position had been confirmed by his second military expedition and his second marriage, he could finally begin to assume his full estate as king. The story told below differs considerably from the most generally accepted account of the role of foreign policy in the politics of the 1390s, in which the king’s enthusiasm for peace is seen as the driving force behind efforts to reach a settlement, even at the cost of losing the support of his domestic nobility.¹ We have seen that the grounds for believing that Richard II was an enthusiastic proponent of peace with France in the 1380s are dubious at best. The present chapter will pursue these themes into the 1390s, in order to demonstrate, first, that the king was far from unequivocally supportive of the peace negotiations in general or of his uncle’s rule in Gascony in particular and, second, that the project of the French marriage was an unexpected epilogue to failed negotiations, in which the agents of the king of France suddenly showed themselves willing to offer more advantageous terms than had been on the table in 1389–94. ¹ See Goodman 1971: esp. 30–1, 48; Tuck 1973: esp. 19–20, 192, 114; Barron 1985: 33–4; Tuck 1990: esp. 122; Saul 1997a: esp. chs. 7, 10, 17; M. J. Bennett 1999b. For earlier criticism, see Phillpotts 1990; Curry 2000. Contrast Palmer 1972; Palmer 1971b; Palmer 1971c which argue for Richard’s hard-headed pursuit of English interests in the 1390s. Yet Palmer still assumes that the king was an enthusiastic exponent of earlier peace policies, and of the project of securing a permanent peace by alienating Gascony to John of Gaunt and his heirs. See Palmer 1966a; Palmer 1966b; Palmer 1972.

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∗ On 2 March 1390, in the parliament in which Richard II formally accepted the imposition of certain unusual conciliar mechanisms, John of Gaunt was raised to be duke of Aquitaine for life.² Unfortunately for Gaunt, however, this grant was in contravention of guarantees issued by Henry III, when the duchy was bestowed on Prince Edward in 1252, that it would only ever be held by the king of England or his eldest son.³ The 1390 grant caused immediate disquiet in Gascony, although not just for the threat it represented to their formal rights. On 30 November 1390, in response to Gascon protests, Gaunt was obliged to revoke an act of resumption made by his officials which had taken back into the duke’s hands lands and revenues granted out before his appointment.⁴ The Gascons were also calmed by the reassurance that Gaunt’s tenure as duke represented only a temporary suspension of normal arrangements which would stand for his life only.⁵ It appears that this was enough to satisfy them, for the time being at least. When William Scrope arrived as Gaunt’s seneschal in September 1390, they expressed their willingness to accept their new duke once he had confirmed their liberties. In the meantime Scrope was explicitly to serve as the king’s representative, not the duke’s.⁶ Nonetheless, on 12 March 1391, even though Gaunt had not by this stage confirmed their liberties, the Gascons did recognize him as their duke and Scrope as his seneschal.⁷ Yet despite this outward appearance of harmony, there are a number of indications that many in Aquitaine remained dissatisfied even after their formal acceptance of John of Gaunt. The Westminster chronicler reports that, at Christmas 1391, another Gascon delegation came to see Richard II at Langley, and once more asserted their customary right to be governed only by the king of England or his eldest son.⁸ Earlier writers have tended to dismiss this as a confusion on the chronicler’s part with the events of 1390, since the Gascons had already accepted John of Gaunt as their duke,⁹ but there are reasons to believe that the monk’s account is in fact correct. First, the Evesham chronicler also states that ² RP, iii. 263–4. See above, Ch. 9, pp. 188–9. ³ Phillpotts 1990: 379. ⁴ Goodman 1992: 195; Foedera, vii. 662, 687–8; TNA E 30/1232, m. 3. Opposition focused on Bordeaux, but included Bourg and St Sever, much of the Gascon nobility, and senior clergy. See Phillpotts 1990: 379. ⁵ Bouillons, 233–4. ⁶ Phillpotts 1990: 379. ⁷ Palmer 1966a: 91; Palmer 1972: 157; E 30/1232, m. J. ⁸ Westminster, 484. ⁹ Ibid., note; Palmer 1972: 154–6; Goodman 1992: 195–6.

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the Gascons came to the king at Langley at that time, asserting their right to be ruled only by the king of England or his first-born son.¹⁰ They refused to have the duke as their lord, but only as the king’s lieutenant. Moreover, the king did spend Christmas 1391 at Langley, whereas he had spent Christmas 1390 at Eltham.¹¹ There is no reason to doubt that these two chroniclers are correctly reporting a fresh delegation from the Gascons, perhaps one fortified with improved documentation. The monk of Westminster asserts that at Langley they presented ‘written statements, variously sealed, embodying these and other matters’ by which the king declared himself to be convinced, at least of their determination not to accept the duke of Lancaster as their lord or ruler.¹² The chronicler continues that the king consulted his counsellors, confirmed their documents under the royal seal and then sent on the deputation to the duke himself, informing him of his decision. Gaunt, it seems, was not amused: On seeing and examining the documents and learning of the king’s will, after many words irreverently addressed to the Aquitanians, he read through and at once tore up their [or his] letters patent concerning the duchy of Aquitaine conceded to them [or him] by the king.¹³

Such actions were reminiscent of the bad old days of the 1380s, when Gaunt seemed to be more of a disruptive influence, stubborn in defence of his own interests, than a fatherly guarantor of peace. A rift was opening in which it became possible to believe—or to choose to believe—in a difference of opinion between the king and the duke. Within weeks of this action, Richard was being asked at the council of February 1392 to confirm the exile of his friends ‘in order to silence the murmur of the people’.¹⁴ Gascony provided another focus for the growing feeling that ¹⁰ HVRS, 132. ¹¹ Saul 1997a: 471–2. ¹² Westminster, 484. ¹³ Ibid.: ‘Quibus perceptis et visis ac audita domini regis voluntate post multa verba dictis Aquitannensibus irreverenter prolata litteram suam patentem super ducatum Aquitannie sibi a domino rege concessam coram eis perlegit statimque confregit.’ This text is translated by the chronicle’s editors as stating that John of Gaunt (rather oddly) tore up his own letters patent. See also Goodman 1992: 196. However, in medieval Latin, both ‘sibi’ and ‘suus’ are commonly used to refer to people other than the grammatical subject of the sentence. See e.g. du Cange 1884–7: vii. 488, 684. Context is more important in determining who is referred to than grammatical status. So, in the passage under consideration, the context of Gaunt’s ‘irreverent’ address to the Gascons makes the first translation presented here seem more likely. The writer thought it unambiguous that the Gascons were the bearers of patents likely to be torn up. ¹⁴ Westminster, 484. See above, Ch. 10, pp. 209–10.

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all was not well between the king and those who claimed to act in his best interests. The king’s intervention in Gascon affairs seems to have coincided with renewed interruptions in the negotiations with the French. These discussions, which the duke of Gloucester had restarted in June 1388, had been preceding haltingly since the completion of the Truce of Leulingham in June 1389. They had stuttered entirely to a stop in July 1390 when the French began to insist that the king of England perform liege homage to Charles VI.¹⁵ A meeting scheduled for October 1390 apparently never took place. Negotiations only restarted when Sir Thomas Percy, underchamberlain of the household and one of John of Gaunt’s most highly paid retainers, together with a prominent council member, Sir Lewis Clifford, arrived unexpectedly in Paris in February 1391.¹⁶ Percy and Clifford sealed a document with the duke of Bourbon which proposed a meeting between the two kings on 24 June 1392.¹⁷ But in early 1392, soon after the king’s reception of the Gascon delegation, the English again began to vacillate. The French court received a communication requesting a preliminary meeting, in which a delegation headed by the duke of Lancaster would settle certain subsidiary questions.¹⁸ This conference duly took place at Amiens on 31 March 1392. Events in Gascony and in discussions with the French had their counterpart in England in the form of growing dissatisfaction with the negotiations in general and Gaunt’s role in them in particular. The proposals which emerged from the Amiens conference were to meet with something of a mixed reception on the duke’s return. On 25 May 1392, an extended Great Council was held at Stamford at which the fruits of ¹⁵ Moranvillé 1889: 359, 367–9. ¹⁶ Sir Thomas Percy, the younger brother of the earl of Northumberland, was first mentioned as a king’s knight in 1378. By the late 1380s, however, his first association seems to have been the duke of Lancaster. Gaunt retained him from February 1386 with a £100 fee ‘to be with us and our counsel against all others for his life’. He served with Gaunt in Spain in 1386–8 and was prominent in negotiating the treaty of Bayonne. Percy was made underchamberlain of the king’s household on Gaunt’s return on 22 February 1390, at about which time he was retained by the king for life; he became steward of the household on 24 March 1393. Percy was also a member of the duke of Gloucester’s council. See Given-Wilson 1986: 282; Walker 1990: 19, 91, 108, 277; Brown 2004. Sir Lewis Clifford had been prominent during the king’s childhood on account of his links with the household of the Black Prince and his wife, Joan of Kent. He returned to prominence with the conciliar mechanisms which survived Richard’s ‘assumption of government’ in May 1389. See Given-Wilson 1986: 161, 184–5, 282. ¹⁷ Moranvillé 1889: 369–70. ¹⁸ Ibid., 370–1.

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his labours were placed before ‘a council as large as a parliament’ swollen with knights and gentlemen summoned from every county.¹⁹ Around the time of this assembly, the duke of Guelders delivered an address, or circulated letters, which the Westminster chronicler paraphrases. The duke, he asserts, proclaimed his wonderment at the fine bearing of the assembled knights. Presented with this proof of England’s military might, ‘he therefore urged the king to put his trust in the Lord and in his own right and not to come to any agreement with those arch-deceivers, the French’. Richard should not be dismayed by the ‘grand words’ of the French (verba illorum tam ampullosa), for if he ever came to campaign in France, the duke would be ready to join him in the field, ‘to fight it out manly (viriliter) against his enemies, not at all shaken by fear’.²⁰ Such stirring sentiments had the power to move the Westminster writer, at least: ‘His ardent spirit was highly praised by vigorous and courageous men (viri stenui et cordati), but the indolent and cowardly (desides vero et vecordes) disparaged it.’ Once again the issue was raised of Richard’s possible manly response to French defiance, just as the king began to associate himself with Gascon opposition to the concessions which a permanent peace would have involved. The duke of Lancaster, it seems, went down rather less well with the assembled nobility and gentry. The council began, the Westminster chronicler reports, with the duke presenting the three concessions necessary to secure peace with France: the abandonment of the French title; the surrender of claims to Normandy and Artois; and a third more complicated concession arranging that certain lands in Gascony should be held by the duke of Berry during his lifetime, and then transferred with the entirety of Aquitaine to the duke of Lancaster after his death, on the understanding that the duke and his heirs would do the customary homage to the French king for the whole of Aquitaine.²¹ The chronicler’s account seems to assume what was never explicitly stated, that the grant of Gascony to Gaunt was not just for life but for his heirs also.²² Although it is possible that the Westminster chronicler’s ¹⁹ Knighton, 544; HVRS, 133; Walsingham, 920–2. Quote from Westminster, 488. ²⁰ Ibid.: ‘ . . . ipsumque cum ejus hominibus armorum in ejus adjutorium sibi occurrere lato in campo viriliter contra suos adversarios dimicantem paratum invenire, nullo pavore concussum.’ ²¹ Westminster, 490. ²² J. J. N. Palmer’s central argument—that the cause of the failure to reach a final peace between England and France in the 1390s was the principled rejection by the Gascons of a secret agreement to alienate Aquitaine in perpetuity to Gaunt and his

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account of Gaunt’s words at Stamford represents a proposal made orally by the French at Amiens, it seems more likely that it is a slip, or rather a distorting abbreviation.²³ Such a proposal, if it were ever made, would have run contrary to repeated assurances given to the Gascons that the grant to John of Gaunt would be for life only.²⁴ It seems likely that, in attempting to compress a complicated clause proposed at Amiens, the chronicler introduced the idea that not just Gaunt, but his heirs, would be the future lords of Gascony.²⁵ Nonetheless, this does not mean that the concerns which the chronicler raised were unimportant. The Westminster account makes it clear that others shared his mistake, and with it his suspicions. He asserts that these terms were not at all to the liking of the assembled communitas ‘who said that it was absurd, besides being extremely damaging to the king and the Crown that, for the benefit of a single person, [the king] should suffer the permanent loss of such extensive and fair domains which . . . had been so long hereditarily subject to the kings of England’.²⁶ It is clear that Richard II’s attitude was more favourable to the warlike sentiments expressed by the duke of Guelders than to the murky compromises emerging from John of Gaunt’s negotiations with the French. The king’s intervention in the debates at Stamford served to scupper his uncle’s proposals, and so make a final settlement less likely. In the monk of Westminster’s account, Richard used his influence not to recommend concessions to the French, but to moderate them. The chronicler asserts that the king would have liked to make some of these concessions and to refuse others.²⁷ He thus instructed new envoys with what must have been a toughened-up version of the instructions issued before Amiens.²⁸ It seems that rumours of Richard’s dissatisfaction with his uncle reached Gascony about the same time. In July 1392, the royal government issued renewed assurances to the people of Aquitaine, responding to rumours about the king’s approval of Gaunt’s title. The letters asserted that, contrary to these reports, the grant of Aquitaine for life had been made with the king’s full will and approval.²⁹ It seems that Charles VI’s ministers were so distressed by the English reaction to the results of the Amiens conference that they felt it heirs—has not commanded general acceptance amongst historians. See Vale 1973; Phillpotts 1990: 366; Saul 1997a: 215. ²³ Phillpotts 1990: 371. ²⁴ Phillpotts 1990: 367. ²⁵ Palmer 1966a: 86–8; Moranvillé 1889: 371. ²⁶ Westminster, 490. ²⁷ Ibid. ²⁸ Ibid., note; Foedera, vii. 721–2. ²⁹ Foedera, vii. 727–8.

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necessary to write directly to the earls of Rutland and the earl Marshall, soliciting their support for a peace agreement.³⁰ The mood of the French government could not have been improved by Charles VI’s first public attack of madness in August 1392. It seems possible that the English had an early intimation of Charles’s declining condition, for on 28 June a reply was dispatched to an earlier English inquiry, in which Charles insisted, rather more than mere form required, upon his continuing good health.³¹ It would be naïve to think that Richard’s solicitude stemmed from any particular concern for the welfare of his fellow monarch. Nor would it be correct to read a heartfelt commitment to peace into a conventional allusion in the English response to the need to avoid the shedding of Christian blood.³² Richard’s intervention at Stamford and his continuation of an active and considerably more intimate correspondence with the duke of Guelders suggest that he was more than willing to risk bloodshed if it suited English interests.³³ Meanwhile, Gaunt’s lieutenants were meeting with new resistance to their government of Gascony. In August 1392, Bordeaux withdrew its obedience from William Scrope alleging offences against the town’s liberties.³⁴ J. J. N. Palmer believed that these moves were a response to rumours surrounding the peace negotiations at Amiens, perhaps that the alienation of Aquitaine from the English crown might prove permanent.³⁵ If such rumours were circulating, as the public denial of them suggests they were, then they would have been made more telling by the particular abuses of the duke and his officials. In September 1391, when he had finally confirmed the Gascons’ privileges as agreed, Gaunt had departed from the text asked of him. He asserted that Aquitaine would be governed by his officers, as opposed to the king’s, and that their expenses would take precedence over earlier grants from duchy revenues.³⁶ It is likely that these central grievances lay behind the deputation of Christmas 1391. Thereafter, complaints snowballed. The Gascons refused to accept Henry Percy as Scrope’s replacement on ³⁰ Letters of reply survive dated 26 June [1392] from Leeds Castle. See AN J 644, 35 and J 644, 35/10, printed in Froissart, Oeuvres, xviii. 570–3. ³¹ AN J 644, 35/7 printed in Froissart, Oeuvres, xviii. 573–5. ³² As Kervyn de Lettenhove and Moranvillé interpreted the exchange of correspondence between Charles and Richard. See Froissart, Oeuvres, xx. 78; Moranvillé 1889: 367. A copy of Richard’s reply is AN J 644, 35/12 printed in Perroy, DC, no. 150. ³³ Perroy, DC, nos. 163, 168, 178, 201, 203 and esp. no. 204 where he speaks of his feelings on his wife’s death. See further below p. 239. ³⁴ E 30/1232, mm. 2, 4; Palmer 1972: 157; Palmer 1966a: 91; Phillpotts 1990: 380. ³⁵ Palmer 1966a: 91. ³⁶ Bouillons, 293–4; Phillpotts 1990: 379.

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his arrival in the duchy at the end of 1393.³⁷ By March 1395, they had assembled an impressive array of grievances, including perversions of justice, the seizure of private houses for quarters, the regulation of brothels, the sheltering of debtors and runaway serfs, the taxing of pilgrims, and the farming of offices.³⁸ It would thus be wrong to think that their objections to Gaunt’s rule stemmed purely from legal, honorific, or diplomatic issues concerning the nature of his tenure and the link between Gascony and the English Crown. After all, they had been willing to accept his rule, saving their liberties, whatever Henry III might have granted. It was their specific objections to the direct government of John of Gaunt and his officials which led them to return to the insecure legal foundations of his title. As time wore on, the king showed himself increasingly willing to undermine Gaunt’s position as duke of Aquitaine, in response to demands from his Gascon subjects, and as part of a more aggressive stance towards the French. Some time between March 1391 and their withdrawal of obedience in August 1392, the mayor and jurats of Bordeaux wrote to Gaunt, mentioning earlier royal letters which had sought to dispel rumours that the grant of the duchy of Aquitaine had not been made with the king’s full approval.³⁹ Similar rumours were denied in July 1392.⁴⁰ But then, sometime in late 1393 or early 1394, the Gascons sent a further delegation to the king, to which he declared: that if the said grant were to be made now, he would not make it, but since it had already been made, he wanted to keep to it.⁴¹

Unsurprisingly, this response threw a destabilized Aquitaine into still greater turmoil. A meeting in Bordeaux cathedral on April 1394 heard, so it was later claimed, a reading of a document in which the king stated that the donation had been made against his will.⁴² The meeting culminated in the swearing of solemn oaths to accept only the rule of the king of England. The document they heard recited was not included in the record of the disputes between Gaunt and the Gascons compiled after the resolution of their differences in March 1395.⁴³ ³⁷ E 30/1232, m. 2. ³⁸ Ibid.; Bouillons, 259–67, 269–72. ³⁹ ANLP, no. 150. ⁴⁰ Foedera, vii. 727. ⁴¹ Phillpotts 1990: 380 citing E 30/1232, m. 7: ‘que Rex dixit eis que si dicta donacio esset fienda, non faceret, sed ex quo facta fuerat, volebat que teneret’. ⁴² E 30/1232, mm. 5–6; Palmer 1972: 157–8; Phillpotts 1990: 380. ⁴³ Phillpotts 1990: 384, n. 36. The document is E 30/1232. See Palmer 1966a: 90, n. 1; Palmer 1972: 154, 164, n. 8.

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While it is unlikely that the king wrote anything so frank, since even in his oral reply he had been careful enough to note that he wished the grant to stand, there is no reason to doubt that Richard had expressed fresh reservations about the establishment of his uncle as duke of Aquitaine. An ambiguous reply on the part of the king would have been of a piece with many ways in which Richard cooperated when he had to, whilst making it clear that he was not free to act as he wished. When the duke of Lancaster left England in order to attend to Aquitaine in person, the king made little effort to ensure that his uncle’s rights were respected in his absence. Departing in September 1394, it took John of Gaunt until the following March even to be granted entry to Bordeaux.⁴⁴ After the king’s return from his first expedition to Ireland, on 22 and 23 July 1395, a council at Eltham heard once more the evidence concerning the donation of the duchy of Aquitaine to the duke of Lancaster.⁴⁵ Despite the protests of Gaunt’s brother, the duke of Gloucester, this assembly concluded that the king ought to revoke this grant.⁴⁶ This revocation does not, in fact, seem to have been enacted, for Gaunt’s title in Aquitaine was confirmed once again in July 1397.⁴⁷ The king’s final decision in 1395 has been torn off from the manuscript describing these events and so does not survive.⁴⁸ Yet that Richard had allowed things to get this far made clear his deliberately ambiguous attitude to his uncle’s estate in Gascony. When Gaunt arrived back in England at Christmas 1395, the St Albans chronicle recounts that he was received by the king ‘as was fitting, with honour; but, as some assert, not with love’.⁴⁹ The king’s attitude towards the grant of Aquitaine was one indicator of his growing public alienation from John of Gaunt, now that the duke’s support was no longer necessary to guarantee domestic stability. In March 1390, Richard had been obliged to entertain his uncle’s Gascon ambitions to secure continued approval for his rule. After 1392 this began to seem less and less necessary. As the king drifted back into the position of power which was the normal lot of an adult monarch, the cracks began to appear in the conciliar settlement which had been bedded down with the return of John of Gaunt. ⁴⁴ Bouillons, 257–8. ⁴⁵ TNA E 28/4, printed in Baldwin 1913: 504–5. ⁴⁶ Ibid.; Palmer 1972: 162–3. ⁴⁷ Phillpotts 1990: 367. ⁴⁸ Baldwin 1913: 505. ⁴⁹ Annales, 188.

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∗ There are suggestions that in the English counties also, doubts over the king’s approval for the regime currently in place made it possible for excluded factions and individuals to contest the status quo on a local level. It seems, moreover, that the king actively encouraged such behaviour. From 1389 to 1395 Richard II appears to have pursued a policy of retaining men of importance at a county level from across the country.⁵⁰ This began with a small increase in retaining in 1389, which faded a little in 1390 and 1391, before peaking between 1392 and 1394.⁵¹ Some commentators have seen this activity as a sensible attempt to secure the personal allegiance of those retained, following the failure of adequate support to materialize in the military upheavals of 1387.⁵² Others have argued for the tendency of such a policy to encourage instability in the localities, by upsetting existing power structures and by associating the king with particular factions on a local level.⁵³ The work of a number of historians has suggested that, in 1389–95, the king did not baulk from providing support for the opponents of those who had, in turn, opposed him in 1387–8, and even, on occasion, to promote the quarrels of those who had cause for discontent with the renewed prominence of John of Gaunt. Whatever the wisdom of his actions, there is much evidence to suggest that, at the local level in the early 1390s, Richard II was already preparing to avenge himself ‘manly’ for the humiliations of the 1380s. Although the present state of research does not permit a global picture to be presented with anything like confidence, the local studies which have so far appeared suggest that it would be unwise to characterize the period between 1389 and about 1394 as an era of uninterrupted peace. In certain localities, the king’s animus was focused against his opponents of 1386–8. In Worcestershire, for example, the king’s attacks focused on the earl of Warwick, perhaps the most vulnerable of the former Appellants.⁵⁴ In particular, the king gave his backing to the court knight John Russell, retained in 1387, against Nicholas Lyllyng, ⁵⁰ Given-Wilson 1986: 220–1; Given-Wilson 1987b: 94–5; Saul 1997a: 261–9. ⁵¹ Numbers retained by year for 1387–96 (calculated from Given-Wilson 1986: 282–6): 1387 (none); 1388 (three); 1389 (seven); 1390 (three); 1391 (five); 1392 (eleven); 1393 (nine); 1394 (eleven); 1395 (six); 1396 (two). ⁵² Given-Wilson 1986: 217–26; Given-Wilson 1987b: 87–8, 94–6; Saul 1997a: 265–9; Saul 1999a: 50; Barron 1985: 35. ⁵³ Castor 2000: 9–20; Gundy 2001: 64–6. ⁵⁴ Gundy 2001: 61.

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Warwick’s chief steward. Russell was able to use his central connections to secure Lyllyng’s condemnation in the parliament of January 1393, an operation which would have been difficult to achieve without the king’s support.⁵⁵ The activities of the king’s retainers in the county ultimately forced the earl to protect his rights by exercising in person his hereditary office as sheriff of Worcestershire.⁵⁶ More disruptive to order, however, were local disputes which suggested that the king was not as reconciled to the pre-eminence of John of Gaunt as public ceremony suggested. In Staffordshire, for example, the extinction of a number of baronial families in the direct line, coupled with repeated minorities of the earls of Stafford, opened up a vacuum of lordship in one of the duke’s traditional areas of influence, into which royal influence flowed.⁵⁷ These newly forged local links soon put the king and the duke on opposite sides of local disputes, such as that between Sir William Chetwynde and Sir Roger Lestrange over the manor of Shenstone. Across the border in Derbyshire, Gaunt found himself unable to defend his steward of the High Peak, Thomas Foljambe, against the encroachments of Sir Nicholas Clifton, an associate of the king’s half-brother, John Holand. More disturbingly still, Gaunt could not prevent his retainer Sir John Ipstones from being cut down in the London street over a dispute with a family of Stafford clients, the Peshales, nor to stop Ipstones’s murderer being pardoned on the intervention of Sir Baldwin Raddington, controller of the royal household. It is against this background of local discontent and central confrontation that the ‘Cheshire rebellion’ of 1393 ought to be seen. In this gentry uprising, opposition to John of Gaunt’s power in the localities came together with suspicion of his role in negotiations with France. The leaders of the revolt both condemned the present conduct of the peace negotiations and believed it plausible that the king would support them in this action. The St Albans chronicle was sure that the northern uprisings were sparked by the conviction of the men of Cheshire that the dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, in alliance with the earl of Derby, were bent on abandoning the king’s claim to the French throne.⁵⁸ Convinced of Richard’s commitment to peace, historians have ⁵⁵ Goodman 1971: 149–50; Gundy 2001: 62. ⁵⁶ Gundy 2001: 63–4. ⁵⁷ Castor 2000: 193–234; Walker 1990: 209–12, 228. For what follows, see ibid., 227–30. ⁵⁸ Walsingham, 944. The St Albans chronicle which, up to 1392, is generally ascribed to Thomas Walsingham, does not survive in any pre-1400 manuscript for the narrative beginning with New Year 1393. See Galbraith 1932: 30; Walsingham, xxxi–xxxii,

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been quick to dismiss the story of the king’s involvement.⁵⁹ Yet, these claims were taken sufficiently seriously for it to be proclaimed during the revolt’s suppression that the insurrection was contrary to the wishes of the king.⁶⁰ When it is taken into account that at precisely this time Richard was giving the Gascons reasons to doubt that he fully supported the policies of his uncles, it begins to seem more than likely that he was issuing similar signals to his Cheshire subjects. The close relationship of the men of Cheshire with the king’s personal interests had been shown in the field in 1387 and would be rewarded richly after the king’s assault on the former Appellants in 1397.⁶¹ It does not seem unreasonable to portray this as a royalist revolt led by men disgruntled with both the king’s restriction by his uncles and others, and with the shameful and seemingly self-interested diplomatic policies they were pursuing. The dissatisfaction of the northern rebels with the conduct of negotiations with France were intensified by a long accumulation of grievances against local Lancastrian dominance. Simon Walker investigated in detail how disaffection with the lordship of the duke of Lancaster had encouraged men in the north-west to join Robert de Vere in his march against the Appellants in 1387. They were sometimes men who had fallen from favour, sometimes those excluded from the duke’s affinity, sometimes individuals with specific quarrels, often violent quarrels, with the Lancastrian establishment.⁶² Similar grievances bubbled up again in 1393, now combined with concerns about the possibility of an imminent settlement with France and grievances over the expense of renewing Cheshire’s liberties.⁶³ Two of the revolt’s leaders, Sir Thomas Talbot and xxxv–xli. There is some scholarly controversy as to whether it is possible to ascribe to Walsingham the various versions of the St Albans chronicle which present an account of 1393 to 1406, including that published in the Rolls Series as Annales and more recently in part in Walsingham, 937–62, or the different but related chronicles published by Galbraith as the St Albans Chronicle, 1406–1420 and as Historia Anglicana in the Rolls Series. See St Albans, ix; Stow 1984: 78, 82; Clark 2002: 844–7; Walsingham, xxxv. Given the evidence that James Clark brings to bear of a number of hands active in historiographical and other literary work at St Albans in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, together with the variety of manuscript versions produced and the stylistic differences to which he draws attention, it has seemed safest here to refer to any given version of this chronicle covering the period from January 1393 onwards as simply ‘the St Albans chronicle’. ⁵⁹ See e.g. Bellamy 1965: 265; Tuck 1973: 167; Saul 1997a: 219. ⁶⁰ Foedera, vii. 746. ⁶¹ R. R. Davies 1971; Gillespie 1975; Bennett 1983: 11, 38–9, 73–4, 127–8, 165, 167–70, 208–16, 225, 244; M. J. Bennett 1999: 188, 192, 197–8. ⁶² Walker 1990: 168–71. ⁶³ Tout 1920–33: iii. 482–3.

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(again) Sir Nicholas Clifton, were Lancashire knights of some standing who had found no place in the Lancastrian administration, and had instead pursued careers in the military service of the king.⁶⁴ Now they stood to see their ambitions blocked even in military matters if the dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester concluded a peace with the French. Part of the disorder in Cheshire seems to have occurred in reaction to the inroads that Gaunt’s men were making into this county. In March 1392, for instance, Adam Kingsley, a former servant of the Black Prince, had been removed from the office of escheator in favour of Thomas Maistreson, a Lancastrian retainer. Meanwhile, the duke’s most prominent servant in the county, Sir Richard Aston, was locked in a dispute with another of the rebels, Sir John Massy, at Puddington.⁶⁵ In such circumstances disaffection with the duke’s expanding ambitions naturally gelled with rumours about his dishonourable dealings with the French. Richard II had already shown himself willing to give a hearing to those who found themselves alienated by his uncle’s dominance before the Cheshire revolt. His later treatment of the rebels continued to give evidence of a similar attitude. Thomas Talbot had entered the king’s retinue in 1392, and John Massy had been appointed sheriff of Chester in October 1389.⁶⁶ After the revolt, Talbot was treated with exceptional leniency by the king.⁶⁷ On 19 May 1394, three days after Talbot submitted, proceedings against him were suspended until further notice.⁶⁸ On 28 September he was transferred to Windsor Castle, from where he was mysteriously allowed to escape.⁶⁹ His annuity was fully restored with arrears in April 1397.⁷⁰ Sir Nicholas Clifton, meanwhile, was retained by the king before 19 January 1396, at which point he was granted the keepership of the castle and lordship of Bolsover in Derbyshire.⁷¹ John Massy, too, was soon released from the Tower.⁷² The duke of Lancaster, who had first felt obliged, along with his brother the duke of Gloucester, to call for Talbot to be brought to justice in the parliament of January 1394, was still demanding action against him as late as January 1397.⁷³ It would be wrong to draw a sharp distinction between Richard II’s actions in favour of his local supporters in England and his handling of ⁶⁴ ⁶⁷ ⁶⁹ ⁷⁰ ⁷² ⁷³

Walker 1990: 171–3. ⁶⁵ Ibid., 172. ⁶⁶ Ibid., 172–3. Tuck 1973: 167. ⁶⁸ Bellamy 1965: 268; Tuck 1973: 167. CCR, 1392–6, 208, 294, 316; CPR, 1391–6, 560; 1396–9, 109. Tuck 1973: 167. ⁷¹ Bellamy 1965: 268; CPR, 1391–6, 662. On 7 July 1394. See Bellamy 1965: 268; CCR, 1392–6, 305. RP, iii. 316–17, item 20; 338, item 7.

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events in Aquitaine. The situation in Cheshire, in particular, presents close parallels with that in Gascony. Despite their insistence upon their legal and constitutional relationship with the English crown, the Gascons were willing to accept John of Gaunt’s title in principle. Their hostility to his rule only boiled over into rebellion when the duke displeased them for other reasons, and when the king himself began to give ambiguous signals about his approval for his uncle’s rule. Similarly, in Cheshire, when the idea began to circulate that Richard was unhappy with the more extreme concessions being proposed in the present negotiations and that he did not necessarily approve of the prominence of John of Gaunt at both the central or local level, what had been rumbling disorder erupted into what might be characterized as a revolt. In both cases, Richard’s semi-public ambivalence about the present political settlement gave legitimacy to those who were as dissatisfied with it as he was. ∗ The objections to Richard assuming his full authority fell away with every year’s distance from the events of 1386–8. In parliament and great council, tournament and ceremonial reception, he performed the role of king uncontroversially enough, dispensing forgiveness when such was required. He only caused trouble by suggesting that he still wished to pardon his friends, and that he did not wholly approve of certain of his uncle’s policies. With the death of Alexander Neville in May 1392 and of Robert de Vere in November of the same year, it was clear that the most threatening of the king’s former friends would never return from exile.⁷⁴ At the same time, the proposals emerging from the peace negotiations with which the duke of Lancaster was most strongly associated began to seem less and less attractive. The madness of Charles VI, the first manifestations of which came in the summer of 1392, made significant concessions to the French look more like unmanly cowardice than reasoned calculation. The compromises necessary to secure a final peace, which immediately following the invasion crises of 1385 and 1386 might have appeared unavoidable, had become shameful capitulation to the ‘grand words’ of the French by 1393. ⁷⁴ HBC, 476; Westminster, 492. Michael de la Pole had died on 5 September 1389; HBC, 483.

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In such conditions, the project of a royal expedition re-emerged, and with it the renewed possibility for Richard to promote his honour and manhood in war. Although circumstance ultimately directed this enterprise to remedying the long-running problem of disorder in Ireland, at first it was equally likely that the king would soon embark against the recalcitrant but vulnerable French. After the unsatisfactory negotiations of 1392, the parliament which met at Winchester on 20 January 1393 had entertained the possibility of an expedition led by the king in person for the first time since 1386.⁷⁵ At the end of parliament, one half-subsidy was assigned for diplomacy, and a second for a personal expedition by the king to Scotland or Ireland if a French treaty was not concluded, reserved to be expended at the treasurer’s discretion if it was. If no truce or treaty could be completed, a third half-subsidy was to be raised for an expedition, again to be led by the king in person, to France or to Scotland. The events of that year must have made war seem the most likely outcome. Cheshire had risen in a loyal rebellion directed at the dukes of Lancashire and Gloucester and the earl of Derby, who wished to betray the king’s claims in France. The Westminster chronicler observed caustically that the peace negotiations lasted for a year or more but brought scanty profit for the English.⁷⁶ Of the proposals which finally did emerge, negotiated by the duke of Lancaster at Leulingham in June 1393, the St Albans chronicler said only that though the finalization of terms may have been made impossible by the illness of Charles VI, ‘the king of England would have been unwilling to agree to some of the conditions laid down by the French, even if the French king had been present, fit and healthy’.⁷⁷ Thus, when parliament met once more in January 1394, five days before the third half-subsidy would have been collected if war with France had been pursued, it must have seemed that little had changed since the council at Stamford. The result was further anti-Lancastrian unrest. Presented with Gaunt’s new draft agreement, and reminded that as the war had been begun with their assent, they would be held to pay for its continuation, the Commons replied with a series of objections to the proposed peace.⁷⁸ They asserted that it was unacceptable that the king should do homage and fealty to the French king for Aquitaine, since this would subject all Englishmen to the French.⁷⁹ They could not see why the dukes of Berry and Burgundy should still have a ⁷⁵ RP, iii. 301–2. ⁷⁶ Westminster, 514. ⁷⁷ Walsingham, 940. ⁷⁸ RP, iii. 309; Westminster, 516–18. ⁷⁹ Ibid.

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life interest in some of the best provinces in Gascony, with reversion to the duke of Lancaster, which would be ‘highly injurious to the English Crown and a ruinous disinheritance of the king of England for all time’.⁸⁰ They therefore refused an agreement on those terms. The Westminster chronicler did not hold back from continuing that, if these terms had been proposed by lesser men (mediocres) they would immediately have incurred the notoriety of treason, and not without merit (prodicionis notam non immerito incurrisent), ‘but the duke of Lancaster does as he likes without notoriety (absque nota)’.⁸¹ Thus even the Westminster chronicler was prepared to insinuate that the duke’s activities would have been seen as treasonous were it not for his privileged position. It seems that at the start of this parliament, the earl of Arundel explicitly associated himself with these attacks on John of Gaunt. Arundel had already incurred Gaunt’s disfavour by remaining in his castle at Holt whilst the Cheshire revolt raged close by.⁸² Perhaps he sympathized more with the rebels than the St Albans chronicler was prepared to admit. According to the accusations later lodged against him in parliament, the earl said to the king, in the presence of various other lords, ‘that he had certain matters on his heart that he could not conceal out of conscience, for the honour and profit of the lord king and his kingdom’.⁸³ He attacked John of Gaunt’s closeness to the king, complaining that he often went arm-in-arm with the king, that Richard wore his uncle’s livery, and that the duke often spoke so harshly in council that none dared contradict him. He objected to the grant of Aquitaine to Gaunt, to sums paid to him for his Spanish campaigns, before concluding with various (unspecified) remarks ‘touching the treaty of peace’. Arundel cast John of Gaunt in the traditional role of the evil counsellor, who restricted the king’s access to dissenting advice, impoverished the king and enriched himself. Unfortunately for Arundel, this sally against Gaunt failed to command widespread support amongst the lords. Arundel found himself obliged to submit publicly to Gaunt, and to ‘byseche yow of your gode lordship to remyt me your mautalent [i.e. ill-will]’.⁸⁴ Arundel’s accusations have not received much favour with historians, who have regarded the earl’s remarks as crude and ill-judged.⁸⁵ Given the ⁸⁰ Westminster, 518. ⁸¹ Ibid. ⁸² Walsingham, 948. ⁸³ RP, iii. 313–14, quote at 313. ⁸⁴ RP, iii. 314. ⁸⁵ Tuck 1973: 169; Goodman 1971: 61; Saul 1997a: 242.

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general anti-Lancastrian feeling that the monk of Westminster reports, however, and the way Richard had been associating himself with this feeling in Gascony and in the English localities, there is reason to take the earl’s attack seriously as an expression of growing dissatisfaction with Gaunt’s pre-eminence. The earl’s opportunism may have fallen flat, but his belief that the king might be appealed to in these terms is nonetheless revealing. Arundel was wrong to believe that such a gambit would bring the king to put aside his long-nourished rancour over the events of 1387–8. But this does not mean that he was necessarily misguided in his belief that Richard would be willing to entertain fresh accusations against the duke of Lancaster. By January 1394, Gaunt’s standing was at such a low that support for his policies brought guilt by association. Rumours were even circulating that the duke of Gloucester had been duped into supporting his brother by promises of land, claims which lost him the ‘voice of the people’.⁸⁶ In the following August, as the king prepared to leave for Ireland, John of Gaunt wrote to the king complaining that he had heard that an individual of simple estate, the duke did not know whom, had come into the king’s presence and spoken against his honour.⁸⁷ Gaunt went on to protest that he never wished to do anything against the king’s honourable estate, nor to act otherwise than a good liege ought in all loyalty to do, hoping that the king did not believe the words spoken to the contrary. The letter also remarked that on the day before, he had met with his brothers the dukes of York and Gloucester, and his nephew the earl of Rutland. As in the mid-1380s, the king’s uncles were meeting together in his absence to discuss rumours against one of their number, rumours which they feared the king was only too ready to believe. ∗ The final stage in Richard II’s efforts to assume his full authority as a man opened with the death of Queen Anne, his companion since the age of 15, on 7 June 1394.⁸⁸ Richard seems to have been powerfully moved by her death. He never returned to the manor of Sheen, where she had passed her final illness, and arranged to have it demolished the ⁸⁶ Westminster, 518. ⁸⁷ ANLP, no. 29. See Goodman 1971: 62 for dating (24 Aug. 1394). ⁸⁸ HVRS, 136; Usk, 18.

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following year.⁸⁹ Soon after her death, he wrote to the duke of Guelders, putting off a reception of the duke on the grounds that, suffering from the heaviest sadness (gravissimo merore) and bitterness of heart, ‘we could not show as much manhood (humanitas) in return for your friendship as we would like’, and as the king’s estate and that of the duke demanded.⁹⁰ Richard’s bitterness must have been intensified by the fact that, if the marriage was a success in companionate terms, it had been a political disaster from the start. The royal marriage and coronation in January 1382 ought to have been the beginning of a process by which the king, now a married man, established his reputation and authority, notably by the personal expedition which was first proposed in that year. Instead, ceremonies which should have promoted the king’s status as a man had been the occasion for further humiliation. As we have seen, the royal marriage caused the expenses of the wardrobe of the household to outstrip exchequer receipt by over £5, 800, a situation which unbalanced royal household finances for more than a decade.⁹¹ Such an arrangement could only have added to the frustrations of a king who was constantly upbraided in parliament for excessive household expenditure, whilst Dieta expenditure actually remained at a relatively modest level. Perhaps more importantly, the union between Anne and Richard had remained childless over nearly twelve years since its first likely consummation. All these faults were ascribed by chroniclers, even after 1399, not to the king, but to the queen. It was she who was ‘without offspring’ (sine prole) and who, despite her personal virtues, brought with her a scandalous Bohemian court, which wasted the king’s resources.⁹² From a misogynist perspective in which the failure to produce children was seen to be the fault of an inadequate vessel, Anne’s death opened up the possibility of arranging a more fruitful marriage. Now more in his full powers than he had been before, Richard marked his wife’s death with a ceremonial gravity which both dramatized his grief and asserted his status as a wronged, legitimate ruler. Two months after her death, Anne’s funeral was held. It was the occasion for the highest weekly expenses of the household Dieta in the surviving accounts up to that date. A little over £1, 123 was spent in seven days, some 47 per cent more than Christmas week 1393, although still considerably less than ⁸⁹ ⁹⁰ ⁹¹ ⁹²

Usk, 18; Colvin et al. 1968: ii, 998. Perroy, DC, no. 204. See also above, Ch. 3, p. 48. E 361/5, rot 19d–21. See above, Ch. 5, pp. 88–9. HVRS, 136; Usk, 4–6; Walsingham, 690.

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the sums attendant on a royal marriage, for example.⁹³ On the day of the interment itself, some £475 was spent on household Dieta alone. The symbolic importance of this event can readily be imagined. Chroniclers remarked on the ‘great solemnity’ and expenses of the funeral.⁹⁴ The king was burying his first queen in the presence of his nobility. Yet, far from demonstrating the unity of the political community, the queen’s funeral served to underline continuing tensions within its ranks. According to the St Albans chronicle, the earl of Arundel arrived late for the procession and then immediately asked to be excused. The king apparently struck him down with a rod, polluting the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey.⁹⁵ Record evidence reveals that Arundel was indeed imprisoned in the Tower and, on release, bound over for £40, 000.⁹⁶ Such events, like an inversion of Richard Maidstone’s account of the king’s reconciliation with London, served to emphasize how Richard was having much righteous difficulty in exercising mercy towards those who had opposed him in 1386–8, in the face of their continuing importunate activities.⁹⁷ His wife buried, Richard returned to a project which would further confirm his manhood and full estate, this time based on his leadership in war: the expedition to Ireland for which funds had been granted in the February.⁹⁸ This exploit was to prove a speedy success, certainly in propaganda terms, and arguably on a military and political level also.⁹⁹ The post-1399 narratives of Adam of Usk and Jean Froissart, which portray the Irish situation as hopeless, certainly do not represent the run of opinion at the time of the king’s first expedition there.¹⁰⁰ Instead, news of the deeds of the king and nobility was quickly circulated in ⁹³ E 101/402/20, f. 29r. ⁹⁴ HVRS, 134; Walsingham, 960. ⁹⁵ Walsingham, 960–1. ⁹⁶ CCR, 1392–6, 307, 368; Goodman 1971: 62; Tuck 1973: 169. ⁹⁷ A similar message was sent out by the reburial of Robert de Vere on the return of his corpse to England in September 1395. The St Albans chronicle alleges that many nobles stayed away from this event. It should be noted that the redactions of this chronicle which refer to Richard touching de Vere’s fingers at this point (‘curavitque thecam . . . aperire, faciem considerare digitoque tractare’), as opposed to contemplating the rings on his fingers, are all later additions. Compare HA, ii. 219 (which follows the mid-fifteenth century Arundel MS) with Annales, 184–5. See Stow 1984: 91. The accusation, attached to the account of 1386, that de Vere had a ‘familiaritas obsoenae’ with the king is also a later addition. See Stow 1984: 86. Given-Wilson notes that the passing reference to the accusation of sodomy at Richard’s deposition, found in Adam of Usk’s chronicle, is an adaptation of the deposition articles lodged against Emperor Frederick II. Sodomy has been substituted for heresy. See Usk, 62–3. ⁹⁸ E 101/402/20, ff. 29v–30v. ⁹⁹ Johnston 1980; Saul 1997a: 279–80. ¹⁰⁰ Usk, 18; Froissart, Oeuvres, xvi. 5. See below Ch. 12, pp. 255–6.

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letters which enjoyed popularity into the fifteenth century, copied out at unnecessary length by the compilers of formulary books. One such letter, whose authorship is unknown, breathlessly records how the king had ‘very wisely’ put three watches on the enemy Irish, headed by the earl of Rutland, the earl Marshall, and Lord Percy.¹⁰¹ Rutland ‘strove well and hardily’ and had ‘handsome days [of fighting] to his great honour’ both in standing guard and in riding against the enemies. The earl Marshall, meanwhile, who had been being lodged closest to the enemy, almost caught the chief rebel, MacMurrough, in bed with his wife. The letter makes much of the slight to MacMurrough’s personal honour and political authority. The earl was able to seize both MacMurrough’s seal as king of Leinster and a small coffer belonging to his wife, containing ‘certain feminine things of no great value’. The earl then finished off a good day’s work by burning fourteen villages and seizing some four hundred animals. The letter concludes, ‘and so . . . you have by the grace of God news of the enterprise of our most redoubtable lord the king, for better and better.’ These letters served to place Richard II in the same role as the kings of romance, with his honour and manhood defended and his opponents humiliated by the deeds of his knights, like Richard Coer de Lyon or King Arthur.¹⁰² Another letter, written by Richard II himself, describes how the royal army and the king in person had pursued MacMurrough into his woodland hideout, dislodged the enemy and burned down his house.¹⁰³ On that day and those that followed, Richard reports, many skirmishes took place, before the enemy was finally forced to take refuge in the wood of ‘Laveroc’, from where they did not dare to move. Finally, he tells how MacMurrough came to submit with his eldest son, their heads bare, disarmed and unbelted, with the points of the swords in their hands, pommels upwards, putting themselves at the king’s mercy without condition. Receiving their submissions and those of the O’Brien, O’Toole, and other Irish captains, it seemed to the king that Leinster had been conquered and placed truly in peace by means of divine providence. In England, the initial success of Richard’s expedition to Ireland was soon exploited to raise further parliamentary taxation. In the parliament of January 1395, which had been called to raise funds to support the ongoing expedition in Ireland, Archbishop Thomas Arundel justified this deal by setting out the three reasons why the Commons should ¹⁰¹ ANLP, no. 142.

¹⁰² See above, Ch. 2.

¹⁰³ ANLP, no. 154.

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honour the king.¹⁰⁴ First, because he honoured God and Holy Church; second, because of ‘his good and gracious (graciouse) governance of the kingdom, and because he does full justice and equity to everyone’; and finally, because ‘the king is, and has always been, full of pity and mercy, without doing harm or wilfully taking vengeance (vengeance prendre voluntrement)’. Following this the archbishop rehearsed the manner of the king’s passage to Ireland; the great vigour (fervence) he had to conquer the rebels in those parts; and how, by God’s help, ‘he had honourably governed himself since his departure and since his arrival in those parts’.¹⁰⁵ Summing up, the archbishop declared that ‘for these reasons all his lieges ought to honour, cherish, and obey him, and dispose their power to aid him’, not only in words but in deeds, that is to say with their goods.¹⁰⁶ Previous commentary on this sermon has focused on the passing reference to obedience with which it concludes.¹⁰⁷ Yet what stands out most from this address is less obedience than the ‘honour’ owed to Richard by his lieges. It is recognition of the king’s status and its confirmation by his virtuous deeds which is invoked, not the sworn, unquestioning obedience of a subject to his anointed sovereign. It is not a coincidence that this appeal occurs in the context of the first military expedition led by the king since the events of 1386–8. The appeal in October 1386 to the ‘honour and manhood’ of the king had failed because of the dubious nature of the proposed enterprise, the size of the sum demanded and the king’s failure to take counsel widely. In January 1395, with the threat from France much reduced, an expedition to Ireland, which had been funded from the outset by parliamentary subsidies granted for that purpose, and which had already achieved some success, furnished a far better occasion for receiving Richard with honour. A 28-year-old who was already demonstrating his good comportment (‘coment . . . il luy avoit honorablement governez puis son departir’) and his vigour (fervence) in a personal expedition seemed a far better form of youth—one who combined the energy of youth with the good self-government of manhood—than the narrowly counselled 19-year-old of 1386. It would seem better to ascribe the grant of a full subsidy, unusually without a specific purpose, to sentiments such as these. After all, it was only as a result of Richard’s recent achievements in ¹⁰⁴ RP, iii. 329. ¹⁰⁵ Ibid.: ‘il luy avoit honorablement governez puis son departir’. ¹⁰⁶ Ibid: ‘et qe par tant toutz ses liges luy deussent le pluis honurer, cherir, et obeire’. ¹⁰⁷ Walker 1995: 52; Saul 1997b: 29–30.

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Ireland, coupled with his good government and rejection of vengeance, that the Commons had a duty to ‘honour, cherish, and obey’ him.

∗ The Irish expedition, like the king’s reception by London in 1392, was a re-performance of a rite of passage which should have been necessary only once. The death of his first wife provided Richard with the opportunity to re-stage a further marker of the king’s full age by opening the way for a second marriage. In early 1395, and probably before the king left for Ireland, negotiations had already been opened to secure a Spanish bride, probably Yolande, daughter of the king of Aragon.¹⁰⁸ Gravely shaken by this turn of events, Charles VI’s government took urgent measures to prevent such an eventuality.¹⁰⁹ After first applying pressure on Aragon, they made enthusiastic overtures to the English, proposing first a match with one of Charles VI’s relatives, and then the hand of the French king’s own daughter. Charles’s former tutor, Philippe de Méziètres, composed an appeal to the English king which portrayed the advantages of a French match in terms of the peace of Christendom, the end of the Schism and the re-conquest of the Holy Land.¹¹⁰ At the same time, Charles VI wrote to Richard in a similar vein, warning the English king against those who would distract him from peace.¹¹¹ As J. J. N. Palmer noted, in an aspect of his work which has been largely neglected, Richard was no heedless pawn of French interests in pursuing the possibilities offered by a second marriage.¹¹² Instead he risked over-reaching himself by an ambitious Spanish match, and ultimately secured an advantageous French match on his own terms. In July 1395 the process was begun which would culminate in a meeting between Charles VI and Richard II at Ardres, and the king’s marriage to Isabel of France on 4 November 1396. This process also set in train the significant increase of household expenditure which has been seen to characterize Richard’s last years. Once again, there is a need to be careful about the chronology of these developments.¹¹³ Before Easter and St George’s Day 1396, the ¹⁰⁸ ¹⁰⁹ ¹¹⁰ ¹¹²

Palmer 1971c: 2–8, 13–15; Palmer 1972: 166. For what follows, see Palmer 1971c: 2–13; Palmer 1972: 168–72. Mézières, Letter. ¹¹¹ ANLP, no. 172. Palmer 1971c; Palmer 1971b. ¹¹³ See Tables 1 and 2.

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Dieta account of the royal household looks much like those of 1392–4. Christmas 1395 was a little more expensive than earlier years, but still not enormously so. Costs in the seven days from 24 December were up 3 per cent on 1394, 24 per cent on 1393, 48 per cent on 1392, a gradual development rather than a sudden jump. After Easter, however, matters took a different turn. Holy Week 1396 cost some 25 per cent more than two years before, almost 40 per cent more than 1393. After St George’s Day, the household Dieta increases still more remarkably. The total expenditure from 24 April to the nativity of St John Baptist (24 June) came to over £3,571, that is 45 per cent up on 1394.¹¹⁴ Costs peaked between 8 and 22 August, which the household spent at Calais whilst Richard met with Philip, duke of Burgundy to discuss final arrangements for the king’s marriage.¹¹⁵ An average of £152 a day was spent, coming to over £1, 066 per week. Thereafter, as the household travelled around the south-east waiting to cross to meet the French king again, expenses dropped back to a daily average of almost £57, a large sum, but not unusual for the summer months. Although the detailed accounts do not survive, it is very probable that expenses increased once more with the interview at Ardres in October. It seems certain that the cost of the king’s second marriage in November 1395 would have equalled or exceeded that of the diplomacy of the summer. Yet the expenses of diplomacy did not immediately lead to criticism of royal expenditure. There is no suggestion in the two very detailed accounts of the meeting between the two kings that contemporaries saw the magnificent pavilions, clothing, and gift exchanges of these meetings as anything but appropriate to the status of the protagonists. The interview at Ardres provided a further occasion for Richard to show the magnificence befitting a man of his estate. Neither the surviving account found in Oxford, Oriel College MS 46,¹¹⁶ nor that found in the frequently anti-Ricardian St Alban’s chronicle, suggest anything except fascination with the diplomatic status games of October 1396. Both accounts record in detail the clothing of both kings and their entourages. The English king appears to have won that particular diplomatic competition, since although these sources assert that Charles VI wore the same clothes at each meeting, they record that Richard wore at least three different costumes.¹¹⁷ At the game of gift exchange, on the ¹¹⁴ 24 April to 24 June: £2541.74 (1393); £2462.05 (1394); £3571.63 (1396). ¹¹⁵ See also Stratford 2000: 227. ¹¹⁶ Printed in Meyer 1881. ¹¹⁷ Annales, 189–90, 191, 192–3; Cf. Meyer 1881: 212, 213, 215–16, 217–18.

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other hand, Richard did not always emerge the victor. Entertaining the duke of Orléans to lunch during a Sunday lull in meetings between the kings, each of Richard’s gifts was met with a more valuable counter-gift. Lunch completed, the victorious duke returned to Ardres, ‘with a proud countenance’.¹¹⁸ For the most part, however, the gifts from each side seem to have been matched. The only obvious exception was the array of Isabel herself, who had, according to the monk of St Denis, been fitted out with chains of gold, bracelets, necklaces, rings, and golden crowns, and an elaborate collection of clothes, draperies, jewels, covered carriages, saddles, and reins of gold and silver.¹¹⁹ It seems likely that both the Oriel and St Albans accounts draw on a semi-official narrative of the proceedings at Ardres, designed to show how ‘our king’ had maintained his status in the face of the grandest monarch in Europe.¹²⁰ This document appears to have been produced to publicize the magnificence of the proceedings, for both its contemporary readers carefully record the values of objects exchanged, their appearance and history. The approving use of it made by the St Albans chronicler and the anonymous letter writer was reflected in a general enthusiasm in England for events across the Channel. On their return from Calais, the king and his new queen were received with such excitement that many died in a crush at London Bridge, straining to see Isabel pass from Southwark to Kennington.¹²¹ All in all, the reception of the queen and the ceremonial surrounding it was carried out with all the appropriate pomp, and the appropriate approval from spectators, which Richard had failed to stimulate with his first marriage. It was a fresh, more successful performance of the king’s assumption of the status of a married man and household head than its predecessor in 1382. By the time former royal clerk Thomas Haxey lodged his famous petition in the parliament of January 1397, complaining of the expense incumbent on the superfluity of bishops and ladies in the king’s ¹¹⁸ Meyer 1881: 217. Cf. Annales, 192. See Stratford 2000: 227–8. ¹¹⁹ RSD, ii. 450. ¹²⁰ These two English accounts of the meeting at Ardres appear to draw on a single source, itself produced to publicize the magnificence of proceedings. The Oriel writer introduces an absurdity by failing to copy his source correctly, claiming that a golden ‘hanaper’ worth nearly 700 marks given to Charles VI had been commissioned by Richard ‘in his forty-fourth year’, a time which would have been some way in the future. The hanaper had in fact been ordered, as the St Albans chronicler correctly records, by Edward III in the forty-fourth year of his reign, although he agrees with the valuation. See Meyer 1881: 213; Annales, 190. ¹²¹ HVRS, 136.

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company, household expenditure had shown a substantial increase over some months.¹²² As we have seen, this had been primarily the result of diplomacy and the royal wedding. There was no reason why household expenses should not have returned to a more modest level in the new year, perhaps expanded within measure to permit for the new queen’s household. Commentators on events at Ardres, whether well or ill-disposed to Richard, saw the splendour of his array and of the gifts exchanged in the summer and autumn of 1396 as fitting kingly magnificence, essential for the honour of the kingdom, not foolish largesse. The king might well have believed that he could afford such expenses, in the light of the dowry he received from his new father-in-law. Richard was to receive 300,000 francs d’or (£50, 000) at the solemnization of the marriage, and a further 100,000 (£16, 666 12s. 8d.) each year thereafter until an enormous total of 700,000 (£116, 666 12s. 8d.) had been paid. It is clear that the first sum was received on 20 November 1396, and the next two instalments also arrived on time.¹²³ Certainly, it was not yet true to say that the king was being driven to tax his people through the excesses of his household estate, as would be alleged at his deposition.¹²⁴ It was only in the last two years of Richard’s reign that traditional accusations of how prodigality led to financial tyranny start to ring true. Before then, it was simply not the case that the king had been obliged to burden his people because of grants he made to unworthy persons, and because he dissipated all grants of supply ‘prodigiously upon the ostentation, pomp and vainglory of his own person’.¹²⁵ It is thus perhaps not surprising that Haxey’s petition against excessive household expenditure provoked the king’s righteous anger. Richard ‘took great offence that the Commons who are his lieges could falsely take or presume on themselves any ordinance or governance of the person of the king, or of his household, or of any persons of the estate which it pleased him to have in his company’.¹²⁶ This was an explicit re-statement of the doctrine asserted by the lords in parliament in 1377: that it would be ‘too hard and burdensome’ (trop chargeante et dure) to meddle with the selection of those about the king.¹²⁷ This doctrine had been gradually eroded in the early 1380s and comprehensively attacked in the purge of the household in 1388. Even after May 1389, ¹²² RP, iii. 338–9. On Haxey’s career see McHardy 1997. ¹²³ AN J 644/22. ¹²⁴ RP, iii. 419, item 32. ¹²⁵ Ibid.; Given-Wilson 1986: 135–6. ¹²⁶ RP, iii. 339. ¹²⁷ See above, Ch. 5, p. 80.

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Richard had experienced only limited success in asserting his control over his household personnel. Now, in 1397, Haxey’s petition actually provided the opportunity to have his control of the royal household formally accepted as an aspect of his estate as an adult king. The Commons in their submission disavowed any intention to give offence to ‘the king’s royal majesty, nor against his royal estate or liberty’ and especially ‘concerning his own royal person and the governance of his household, or of the lords and ladies in his company . . . knowing and understanding well that such things did not pertain to them, but only to the king himself and to his ordinance’.¹²⁸ Yet even here their submission was not as full as might have been hoped. The Commons asserted that all they had wished was to beg the lords to ask the king ‘to consider his honourable estate and do thereon whatsoever pleased him’. In practice, this differed little from pressuring the king directly concerning the expenses of his household. Nonetheless, the king graciously forgave them, further submitting that he would never use the proceeds of any tenth or fifteenth ‘for his body nor his own person’ (pur son corps ne persone demesne).¹²⁹ By the time the king reached his thirtieth birthday on 6 January 1397 he might have felt that he had achieved the acknowledgement of his authority as a man which he had been seeking since his teens. His household had assumed dimensions comparable to that of Edward III’s in the 1360s, spending about £20, 000 a year, a daily average of a little more than £50, with occasional increases owing to the requirements of diplomacy.¹³⁰ There was no longer any possibility of believing that the king was as manly with his meat as a hound in the kitchen.¹³¹ His honour in dealings with the French had also been successfully defended, and it had not been necessary to compromise the legal situation of England by a final peace. Although Richard had accepted a twenty-eight-year truce, there was no reason to believe that the occasion would not arise to break it if matters turned in England’s favour. In Gascony and in the localities, the king was beginning to assert himself against John of Gaunt and the more vulnerable of his opponents of 1386–8. The king’s second expedition and second marriage had served as effective rites of passage, where their first performance had failed to establish the king as a man. By January 1397, Richard might have felt that the hospitality he dispensed, both during the regular festivals of the year and in the ceremonial ¹²⁸ RP, iii. 339. ¹²⁹ Ibid. ¹³⁰ Given-Wilson 1986: 268–71. ¹³¹ See above, Ch. 3, esp. pp. 52, 54–5.

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attached to diplomacy, were appropriate to his status as a king who was accepted as a man. The political community was pleased to see Richard in his first Irish expedition showing the vigour which inhered in his youth and the reasoned self-government of manhood. He seemed to have put aside revenge for the events of 1386–8. Unfortunately, however, the period of Richard’s calm enjoyment of his full estate was to prove brief indeed. The king would soon risk everything once again by acting more in accordance with the dictates of honour and manhood than the counsels of Dame Prudence. 1397 was to be an eventful year.

12 A Boy not a Man? 1397–99 By the time of the January parliament of 1397 it must have seemed that there was every reason to expect that the themes of Richard II’s youth and manhood would now fade slowly into irrelevance. The conciliatory political ceremonial of the early 1390s had enabled Richard to assume the position of centrality in political life which was the natural role of an accepted adult king. By entertaining the complaints of those discontented with the status quo, he had been able once more to become the focus of his subjects’ aspirations. By playing the role of mediator between his uncles and assemblies of gentry unimpressed by the peace proposals negotiated by John of Gaunt, the king had been able to reassert his control over foreign policy. After the death of his first wife, his first expedition to Ireland, and the sudden proposal by the French of a truce and a marriage match, it had become possible for Richard to cement his pre-eminence by the successful restaging of rites of passage which had proved ineffective on their first outing. Finally, the enormous dowry which the French marriage brought provided him with ample private financial resources for perhaps the first time in his reign. In such circumstances, Haxey’s petition, calling for a reduction in the number of bishops and ladies at court, a form of complaint which had not been heard since the Merciless Parliament, provided as much an opportunity as a provocation. It enabled Richard to have it publicly declared that the Commons had no right to interfere in such matters. Yet in the course of 1397 it became clear that the king was far from content to let matters rest as they were. Richard would not accept that his new found pre-eminence was conditional on forgetting the violent controversies of the late 1380s. By the end of the summer, the events of Richard’s youth had been placed firmly back on the agenda. This was not as a result of his opponents’ initiative, but of the king’s own actions. In early July or late June 1397, the king had the duke of Gloucester

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and the earls of Arundel and Warwick arrested.¹ That September, they were tried in parliament and sentenced to death and forfeiture for their actions ten years before. The earl of Arundel was executed.² His brother, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, himself accused of crimes committed in 1386–8, was sentenced in his absence to perpetual exile.³ The duke of Gloucester was murdered in captivity at Calais.⁴ Warwick’s sentence of death was commuted to exile when he broke down in tears ‘like a wretched old woman’.⁵ Parliament was then prorogued whilst the fifth major accused, Sir Thomas Mortimer, was sought out in Ireland.⁶ Historians have had some difficulty explaining why Richard II chose to move against his enemies in the summer of 1397. Some have seen the king’s actions as a reaction to a new plot, itself inspired by opposition to the king’s supposed enthusiasm for peace with France,⁷ but what has been seen already about Richard’s attitude to war gives reason to doubt this interpretation. We shall consider below what value should be attached to the continental chronicles which first promoted it. Aware of the difficulties with these sources, a number of writers have also tried to explain the king’s actions as a development of an extreme conception of the office of kingship.⁸ Yet, as Simon Walker and Caroline Barron have noted, Richard’s expressed ideas are no more than an uncompromising version of ideas which were commonplace in fourteenth-century England.⁹ They are not the expression of a new ideology recently imported from outside English political culture. Thus it still needs to be explained why Richard came to assume the extreme position which he did. This has led a number of historians to supplement the first two approaches by returning to an older view, in which the king’s actions are ascribed to mental instability.¹⁰ The present chapter tries a different approach. It considers the king’s pursuit of vengeance in 1397–9 in the light of one set of values which ¹ Annales, 201; HVRS, 137; Kirkstall, 118–20. ² RP, iii. 377; HVRS, 142–4; Annales, 214–16; Usk, 30. ³ RP, iii. 351; Annales, 209–13; HVRS, 140–1, 148; Usk, 24–6, 34. ⁴ RP, iii. 378; HVRS, 144; Annales, 221;Usk, 32; Traison, 133; Foedera, viii. 20. ⁵ RP, iii. 379–80; HVRS, 145. Quote from Usk, 34. ⁶ RP, iii. 351–2, 355, 380–1; HVRS, 146; Usk, 36. Mortimer had been responsible for the death of the prominent Cheshireman, Thomas Molineux, at the battle of Radcot Bridge in December 1387. See Gillespie 1975; Walker 1990: 167–8. ⁷ Tuck 1973: ch. 6; Goodman 1971: ch. 4; Saul 1997a: 370–3; Bennett 1999b. ⁸ Jones 1968; Taylor 1971; Walker 1995; Saul 1995; Saul 1999b. ⁹ Walker 1995: 50–7, 60–2; Barron 1990: 148–9. ¹⁰ Saul 1997a: 459–64; McHardy 2000: 19. Cf. Stubbs 1883: ii. 490; Steel 1941: 41–2, 203–4.

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we have seen operating in the language of manhood, in which the status of a man is secured by stability of purpose and by letting no slight pass. It argues, as others have in the past, that Richard created the conditions for his deposition through the unmeasured pursuit of vengeance which left his subjects unsure if he would ever feel himself finally vindicated. Yet it presents this not as the result of an unusual conception of his office, nor of mental instability, but of a misguided conviction that his position could only be established by avenging the insults of 1386–8. Once again, the associations of manhood proved to be a poor guide to the best way to secure royal authority in late fourteenth-century England. Although, in the summer of 1397, there was initially some doubt over whether the charges brought against Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick would concern fresh offences or earlier crimes, it soon became clear that the 30-year-old king intended to punish his enemies for the misdeeds they had committed when he had been in his teens and early twenties. In a letter to Albert of Bavaria, count of Holland and Zeeland, some time after 1397, Richard gave an account of the past twenty years in which the actions of those who had sinned against him in the 1380s were central.¹¹ The king thanked God, who had protected him from internal enemies ‘from the cradle’ (ab . . . cunabulis). These domestici, noble men and barons, whom he had advanced to the summit of honours and whom he had taken in sincere embrace, these men had conspired treacherously, whilst he had been of tender age (dum in annis teneris agebamus), to disinherit the crown and usurp his royal rights. They had raised themselves in arms against the king’s will. They had condemned those faithful to the king to a public death. They had usurped all royal jurisdiction, in order to prosecute those close to him. Hardly leaving the king anything beyond his royal title, they had gone so far as to threaten his person. The king wrote in a similar vein to Manuel Palaeologus, emperor of Constantinople, remarking that he imagined the whole world had now heard how his magnates and noble subjects had attempted many things against his royal prerogative and the royal right ‘whilst we were of tender age and subsequently thereafter’, and how they had even threatened malice against the king’s royal person.¹² To both dignitaries, Richard claimed that his efforts to be merciful ¹¹ BL Cotton Galba B.i, f.22 printed in Harvey 1961: 27. ¹² In the mid-fifteenth century register of Bishop Thomas Bekynton, edited in The Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, ed. G. W. Williams (London, 1872), i. 285–7. Quote at 287: ‘ . . . dum in annis teneris ageremus, et postmodum consequenter . . . ’.

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had been met only with continuing defiance, so that he could restrain himself no longer. To Albert of Bavaria, Richard opined that his efforts to exercise clemency had been met only with continuing obstinacy, so that avenging severity had become unavoidable. By acting in this way, the king claimed to have restored perpetual peace to his subjects.¹³ To Manuel Palaeologus, Richard declared that, not wishing to suffer their rebellion and impudence any longer, he had extended his arm against his enemies, and had trodden under foot the necks of the proud and the haughty. Thus he had returned his people to peace.¹⁴ Richard’s later explanations of his actions in the summer and autumn of 1397 portrayed them as the final denouement of a struggle which had begun at the very beginning of his reign. The crimes of his domestic enemies, their treacherous refusal to tender honour for honour, affection for affection, had culminated in their attempts to disinherit the crown whilst he was still of tender age. It was clear from both these letters and the specific accusations made against the lords that it was the events of 1386–8 that concerned Richard most of all. The subsequent and suspiciously vague ‘obstinacy’ of these traitors served only to disqualify them from the mercy which might have come with time. This pushed to one side the troublesome problem that such forgiveness actually had been accorded by royal pardon on a number of occasions since 1388, a fact that the earl of Arundel did not hesitate to point out at his own trial.¹⁵ ProRicardian chroniclers are unanimous in locating the origins of the king’s actions in 1397 in these earlier crimes, not in any new conspiracy. For the Kirkstall chronicler, it was when the king ‘remembered and recalled to mind the injustices inflicted upon himself and his kingdom by a number of English lords in the year of Christ 1388,’ that he decided to right these injustices, and moved against the three lords.¹⁶ For the chronicler of Dieulacres Abbey, it was simply absurd that a subject should rebel, and obvious that such a crime should not remain unpunished; it was for this reason that Richard moved against the duke and the two earls.¹⁷ Was this account of events actually true? Did Richard simply seize the opportunity to move against his enemies of 1386–8 because he ¹³ Harvey 1961: 27: ‘ . . . pacem reddentes nostris subditis pro perpetuo per Dei gratiam duraturum.’ The reference to ‘peace’ is stressed by Saul 1997a: 387; Saul, 1999a: 52–3. ¹⁴ Official Correspondence, ed. Williams, 287: ‘ . . . ac pacem per eos turbatam subditos nostris reddidimus, futuris temporibus, Deo propito, duraturam.’ For comment, again stressing the reference to ‘peace’, see Saul 1999a: 53. ¹⁵ RP, iii. 377, 248; CPR, 1391–6, 406. ¹⁶ Kirkstall, 118–20. Quote at 118. ¹⁷ Clark and Galbraith 1930: 168.

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now felt strong enough to do so, or did he perhaps have new reasons to move against them? There are a number of suggestions that, before the king arrested the duke and the two earls, he suspected them, or chose to suspect them, of some fresh move against his authority. The Evesham chronicler asserts that Richard first became angered with Arundel and Gloucester when they failed to attend a council he had called in February.¹⁸ When the duke of Gloucester was interrogated after his arrest, it appears that he was asked if he had countenanced any fresh assembly in arms since 1388, for in his confession he denied that he had been party to any such ‘gaderyng’.¹⁹ However, if the king did begin by believing that there was a fresh conspiracy afoot, it seems that he soon returned the focus of his assault to the events of 1386–8. A ghost of the delicate manoeuvrings which this shift of emphasis required can be detected even in hostile accounts of these events. The St Albans chronicler later claimed that, after the king had arrested the duke and the two earls, Richard had it publicly proclaimed that this was not for old offences, but for new transgressions committed against the king, but that this turned out to be false.²⁰ This allegation seems to be based on a similar but subtly different accusation found in the articles lodged against Richard at his deposition. These articles allege that the king had it proclaimed that he had arrested the three lords ‘not for any assemblies or ridings committed by them within the kingdom of England, but for various extortions, acts of oppression, and other things against his regality and royal majesty afterwards (postmodum) done and perpetrated by them’.²¹ Yet the king then prosecuted them for these assemblies and ridings anyway. This phrasing leaves in a possibility which the St Albans chronicler excludes—that the offences against royal majesty done ‘later’ than the military assemblies of autumn 1387 were those committed in the Merciless Parliament of 1388, not during any new plot hatched since then. This was, in fact, a fair representation of what the king had proclaimed in letters sent out on 18 July 1397, soon after the lords’ arrest.²² These letters noted that there were many who believed that the king had acted in this way because ‘the duke and the earls of Arundel and Warwick, had formerly (nuper) made certain gatherings or ridings in our kingdom of England’ and so feared that they might be condemned for this reason. It was declared that the three nobles had been arrested, not for any gatherings and ridings of this ¹⁸ HVRS, 137. ²¹ RP, iii. 418.

¹⁹ RP, iii. 379. ²⁰ Annales, 206–7. ²² Foedera, viii. 6–7.

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kind, but for ‘extortions and oppressions . . . against use, our regality and royal majesty’ which would be declared later. These letters did not seek to separate out what had happened formerly (that is, in 1386–8) from what had happened recently, but instead attempted to distinguish the military activities of the autumn of 1387 from the Commission of 1386–7 and the events of the Merciless Parliament. This was intended to reassure those who had ridden against the king in November and December 1387. There was no allusion to any new ‘gatherings or ridings’. It is important to note that no contemporary English source, not even amongst hostile accounts produced after Richard’s deposition, suggests that the events of 1397 had anything to do with the king’s marriage to a French princess, or with the attendant truce.²³ There are grave reasons to doubt the story told by a number of continental writers, who portray Richard II’s actions as a pre-emptive strike against a noble party opposed to the recent truce with France. Amongst the continental writers who asserted that the king was committed to peace with France, and that this contributed to his alienation from his nobility, only one, Philippe de Mézières, can be shown to have composed his account of Richard’s love of peace before his deposition. Philippe’s writings, which aimed to promote the cause of peace and a future joint crusade, are best viewed as a projection on reality rather than a description of it. They show little knowledge of English domestic politics. The first of these works, the Songe du Vieil Pèlerin, was composed in 1387–9 in an attempt to persuade Charles VI of the necessity of Anglo-French peace.²⁴ Philippe portrays King Richard as the young white (innocent) boar who would make peace if only he were not restrained by the black boars, sons of Edward III. Yet the chief black boar who so inhibits the king’s freedom is John of Gaunt, not the duke of Gloucester or the earl of Arundel, both of whom go unmentioned.²⁵ De Mézière’s famous Epistre à Richard II, on the other hand, was composed in 1395 in an attempt to persuade the king away from a marriage alliance in Spain, which he had been pursuing, and towards a settlement with the French.²⁶ Again, Philippe’s portrayal of the king as desiring peace, but sadly constrained by evil uncles, ought to be seen as an attempt to promote an accord, not an observation of Richard’s real opinions.²⁷ ²³ For modern accounts which accept this version of events, see above, n. 7. ²⁴ Jorga 1896; Bell 1955; Contamine 2001. ²⁵ SVP, i. 110; ibid., 394–403. ²⁶ Mézières, Letter. ²⁷ Curry 2000: 42.

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Besides Philippe de Mézières, the only sources which see the English king’s love of peace promoting domestic disharmony are continental compositions put together after his deposition. Those sections of Jean Froissart’s Chroniques which portray the tensions of Richard II’s last years as a result of his plans for peace date from 1396 at the very earliest, when Froissart restarted work on the final book of his chronicles.²⁸ Unlike the first three books of the Chroniques, for whose redrafting and reworking considerable evidence survives, book four is, from 1391 onwards, extant only in the final version which ends with the deposition of Richard II, Wenceslas of Bohemia, and Pope Benedict XIII, and so must have been completed some time after 1400.²⁹ Froissart’s policy of major revision of his chronicles ought certainly to lead us to suspect that any earlier drafts would have been very different. Peter Ainsworth’s work on the Chroniques suggests that Froissart’s account of Richard’s downfall was inspired by his portrayal of the English as a warlike people who could be mastered only by a warlike king, notably Edward III.³⁰ It seems likely that it is this which lies behind Froissart’s composition of a clearly invented speech, supposedly delivered by the duke of Gloucester in private to an unnamed knight, in which Richard is accused of pursuing profitless schemes in Ireland, being ‘too heavy in the arse’, and over-fond of the company of ladies.³¹ This speech has a clear function in Froissart’s narrative, since it is Gloucester’s warlike impulses which led him to plot against the king, and, in turn, for the king to have him murdered, thus starting the process which would end with Richard’s deposition. It seems reasonable to suggest that the earliest passages in which Froissart contrasts the duke of Gloucester’s warlike attitude with the king’s enthusiasm for peace—which relate to the failed negotiations at Amiens in 1392—were also included after he had settled on his final account of the logic of Richard’s fall.³² The first of these passages appears to have been dropped in with little regard to the surrounding text, between the count of Armagnac’s campaigns in Lombardy and Pierre de Craon’s flight to Brittany. It strangely reintroduces the topic of an English embassy which had been mentioned some time before, telling us, ²⁸ Froissart, Oeuvres, vol. i, pt. ii, 117–19, 122–8. ²⁹ Evidence for the process of remaniement ends, according to Kervyn de Lettenhove, at the end of the expedition of the duke of Bourbon to Africa, corresponding to vol. xiv, p. 280 of his edition, i.e. just before the account of English ambassadors arriving in Paris to arrange the Amiens conference. See Froissart, Oeuvres, vol. i, pt. ii, 131–5. ³⁰ Ainsworth 1990: 254–302, esp. 274–7. ³¹ Froissart, Oeuvres, xvi. 3–5. ³² Froissart, Oeuvres, xiv. 314–15, 384–5.

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a propos of nothing at all, that Gloucester and many of England’s barons wanted war.³³ When Froissart has first-hand information, collected during his visit to England in 1395, he makes no remark on the duke’s opposition to peace with France.³⁴ Although he portrays Gloucester as violent and aggressive in the promotion of John of Gaunt’s claims in Aquitaine, he at no point suggests that the duke was opposed to the proposal for a marriage between the king and a daughter of Charles VI, the second hot topic of July 1395.³⁵ Whenever Froissart portrays Gloucester as enthusiastic for war, it plays a clear structural role in the elaboration of his literary project in the form it took after 1400, which casts doubt on its usefulness as evidence of real controversies in the English political community in the 1390s. Froissart, given his tendency to invent detail, cannot in any case be trusted as a sole authority for events unless he is supported from other sources.³⁶ Jean Froissart’s story of Richard II’s last years is given little support by works produced in the aftermath of the king’s downfall by French writers who enjoyed access to the English court after 1396. The metrical history composed by Charles VI’s valet de chambre, Jean Creton, sheds little light on events before 1399, when he joined Richard’s second expedition to Ireland.³⁷ The author of the influential Cronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux, meanwhile, is deeply untrustworthy. He does not hesitate to invent details when it suits him, nor to distort his sources to portray individuals in a favourable or damning light.³⁸ Indeed, the Traïson’s garbled account of the origin of disagreements between Richard II and his nobility actually strengthens the hypothesis that it was the events of ten years before that were at issue in 1397.³⁹ This writer traces the bad feeling (ennui) between the duke of Gloucester and the king to a bizarre exchange in 1396, in which the duke gratuitously insults his nephew for surrendering castles before he had conquered any himself.⁴⁰ Despite a superficial reconciliation, the duke then goes on ³³ For the first mention of the English embassy, see ibid., 284–8. ³⁴ Froissart, Oeuvres, xv. 140–82. ³⁵ On Gloucester’s violent support for his brother, its motivation by avarice, and the fear he was held in, see ibid., 154, 163, 165–6, 182. Cf. TNA E 28/4 printed in Baldwin 1913: 504–5. ³⁶ See essays in Palmer 1981. ³⁷ Traison, 1; Creton, 221–2, 410; Froissart, Oeuvres, xvi. 1–28, 156–67; Palmer 1978–9; Walker 2000: 120. The narrative found in the St Denis chronicle is entirely derived from the Traison. See Palmer 1978–9: 173, ³⁸ Ibid., 163–79, 398–413. ³⁹ Traison, 1–8. Palmer 1978–9: 160, 164–6. ⁴⁰ Traison, 1–2.

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to collect together the conspirators of 1387 (some of whom were by then dead) and plots the king’s downfall.⁴¹ J. J. N. Palmer exposed how the Traïson author in his account of the ‘St Albans plot’ has simply transposed the events of 1386–8 to 1397.⁴² In his use of the surrender of Cherbourg, which had actually taken place in 1393, as the (only) bone of contention between the duke and the king, the author engaged in a similar transposition.⁴³ He is making use of the earlier attempt, in 1387–8, to smear the king’s allies by associating them with proposals to hand over Calais, Cherbourg, and Brest, portraying these proposals as part of a treasonous plot to have Gloucester and the rest executed.⁴⁴ The Traïson makes the supposedly new dispute over Cherbourg the only cause of rancour between Gloucester and the king, without any reference to the Commission or the Merciless Parliament. In fact, by presenting a distorted account of the upheavals of 1387–8 as if they were happening for the first time in the mid-1390s, his chronicle strongly suggests the primary importance of these events rather than any new controversy. Although Richard II would doubtless have been satisfied to find fresh evidence of conspiracies against him, and may even have suspected some new treasonous activity, it is clear that the unpunished offences of ten years before were the fundamental motivation for his strike against his opponents. It seems unlikely that there was any particular stimulus for the king to act at the precise moment he did, beyond the fact that, after his slow return to power in the course of the 1390s, Richard now found himself in a position to move against his enemies. His actions in the parliament of January 1397 had already suggested that he was planning something of the sort. In that assembly, Richard had finally been able to secure the return to England of Robert Bealknap, John Holt, and William Burgh, who had been exiled to Ireland for their participation in the Questions to the Judges of 1387.⁴⁵ Now, in the summer of 1397, the ‘usurpations’ of 1386–8 returned to centre stage. When William Rickhill was dispatched on 17 August to interview the duke of Gloucester in prison at Calais, it was these events that were his primary concern.⁴⁶ Gloucester’s confession of 8 September takes the form of a series of responses to unrecorded questions, the first of which dealt with the Continual Council of 1386–7.⁴⁷ The king’s uncle acknowledged that by procuring the Commission, he had ‘restreyned ⁴¹ Traison, 3–5. ⁴² Palmer 1978–9: 400–5. ⁴³ Palmer 1972: 172–3. ⁴⁴ See Palmer 1972: 116–17, and above, Ch. 8, pp. 165–70. ⁴⁵ RP, iii. 346; Annales, 195–6. ⁴⁶ Foedera, viii. 13. ⁴⁷ RP, iii. 379.

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my lord of his fredom and toke upon me amonge other power reall [i.e. royal power]’. He admitted that he came armed into the king’s presence, excusing himself that he had done this ‘for drede of my lyf ’. He confessed to taking the king’s letters from his messengers, spoke of him ‘in sclaunderous wyse in audience of other folk’, and took advice to find out if he could ‘for feer of my lyf gyve up my hommage to my lord’. He had ‘communed and spoken in manere of deposal of my liege loord’ and had consented to it for two or three days. Finally, he recalled that he had said to Richard, that if he wanted to be king, he would not petition to save the life of Simon Burley. It was the alleged usurpations of 1386–8 which were to form the backbone of the accusations against him, not any fresh treason, much less his attitude to the recent truce with France. ∗

Perhaps the finest statement of Richard’s belief in the continuing importance of the uncertainties of his youth is to be found in the

Figure 12.1. The Wilton Diptych (after c.1395)  The National Gallery, London

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Wilton Diptych.⁴⁸ The Diptych gives a rare insight into how, for the king, these events remained a matter of raw political concern, not a distant point of reference to be forgotten or disowned, as the ceremonies of the early 1390s had sought to suggest. It has often been remarked that this portable altar piece, which consists of two hinged oak panels each measuring 47.5 by 29.2 centimetres, was intended as an object of private contemplation.⁴⁹ Yet, concentration on the Diptych’s heraldic symbolism at the expense of certain aspects of its composition has arguably distorted modern readings of the messages that Richard was intended to find in it. To unpick some of these neglected messages, it is helpful to describe the piece once more. The left-hand panel of the Wilton Diptych shows Richard II, kneeling in a barren landscape, his hands open to receive or deliver something. His hands and posture suggest acceptance of a state of affairs or a judgement, recalling the iconography associated with saints receiving a vision, or with the Virgin of the Annunciation.⁵⁰ The king is backed by three patrons, St Edmund, St Edward the Confessor, and St John the Baptist. Although the heraldry of the piece suggests that it was completed in 1395 at the earliest,⁵¹ the king, to a modern eye, appears younger than his then age of almost 30. Certainly, he is shown as clean shaven, whereas his funeral effigy, commissioned in 1395, shows a marked beard.⁵² The three saints, meanwhile, are depicted at graduations of age which suggest the three ages of the Magi, with appropriately developed beards.⁵³ In the right-hand panel, in a fertile pasture scattered with flowers, the Virgin and the Christ child are surrounded by eleven angels, all of whom wear the king’s livery of the white hart. One of the angels holds a banner, a red cross on a white background, which is topped with an orb, about one centimetre in diameter. A recent re-examination of this orb revealed that it contains a tiny painting of a green island with trees in the background and a white castle in front.⁵⁴ ⁴⁸ For earlier commentary on the Diptych, see esp. Clarke 1937: 272–92; Harvey 1961; Whittingham 1971; Gordon 1993; Gordon, Monnas, and Elam 1997. ⁴⁹ Gordon 1993: 74; Harvey 1961: 16–17; Mathew 1968: 47. ⁵⁰ Garnier 1982: 176–7. This lends weight to the suggestion of Barron 1997: 12 that the Diptych may represent an earlier vision experienced by the king. ⁵¹ Clarke 1937: 272–92; Gordon 1992: 664. ⁵² Gordon 1993: 22–3; Whittingham, 1971. ⁵³ Gordon 1993: 53–7. Compare their beards with the illustrations to ‘On the Seven Ages’, BL MS Additional 37049, f. 28v, reproduced in Burrow 1986, facing p. 117. ⁵⁴ Gordon 1993: 57, plate 21; Gordon 1992.

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The king’s youth, the patron saints, the Virgin and Child, the heraldry, the badges and the red cross banner have so far been the focus of commentary on this piece, rather to the neglect of the angels, except insofar as they wear the king’s livery. John Harvey took this symbolism to imply that they represented the members of a secret society to restore the royal prerogative. He speculated, somewhat wildly, that the Diptych could have stood in the corner during their clandestine meetings.⁵⁵ Gervase Mathew interpreted the angels, more moderately, as stand-ins for the squires of the king’s own court.⁵⁶ Yet, it is not at all clear that wearing the king’s livery necessarily made them the king’s men, in the strict sense of being bound to obey him, especially when distributed amongst near social equals. Richard had himself accepted the livery of John of Gaunt, suggesting a preferential affinity and one to which the earl of Arundel could object, but not a duty of obedience.⁵⁷ If we suspend for a moment our judgement about the relationship between the angels and the king, and return to their gestures and posture, different interpretations suggest themselves. Although it has not been noted by modern commentators, the banner seems to be an object of debate, of intercession and of imminent judgement, amongst the heavenly company on the right-hand panel. Critics have noted that the hands of the Christ Child suggest that he is about to receive it, or has just relinquished it.⁵⁸ They have also noted that every figure in the altar piece save one is either looking at or gesturing towards the king.⁵⁹ Yet the individual meanings and overall effect of these interlocking glances and hand movements has been relatively neglected. Two of the angels in clear space on the right gesture towards the young king. One kneels by the Virgin, her arms open, apparently in prayer or intercession.⁶⁰ She looks back at her companion, introducing movement, a moment of change or surprise.⁶¹ The latter points at the king with one hand, whilst by placing the other hand on her neighbour’s shoulder, she constrains or encourages her intercession.⁶² The three angels whose heads form a line to the left of the Virgin, ⁵⁵ Harvey 1961: 18–19, 22–4. ⁵⁶ Mathew 1968: 199. ⁵⁷ See above, Ch. 11, p. 237. ⁵⁸ Gordon 1993: 57–8; Gordon 1992: 666–7. ⁵⁹ Gordon 1993: 22. ⁶⁰ Garnier 1982–9: i. 223–5. The use below of feminine pronouns for angels is an arbitrary one since they are, theologically speaking, neither male nor female. There is no more reason to take them to be male, as do Harvey 1961 and Mathew 1968: 47–9, 199–201. ⁶¹ Garnier 1982–9: i. 147–8. ⁶² On hands placed on shoulders, see ibid., i. 190–3.

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and the Virgin herself, seem to look benevolently down on Richard. The four angels to her right, however, above the two pointing angels, seem more ambivalent. One, immediately behind the Virgin, does not look at or gesture towards the king, but instead gazes down to the bottom right of the panel. Her arm is placed over the shoulder of her neighbour, who looks at the king with folded arms. This gesture is in itself difficult to interpret. It might indicate simply inactivity, but it could also indicate acceptance, powerlessness, or even false belief or concealed treachery.⁶³ On the left of this panel, the angel holding the banner regards the Virgin and Child expectantly. An angel vertically below her is down on one knee. She looks up at the heavenly couple whilst indicating Richard with an open-handed posture, here clearly a gesture of prayer and intercession.⁶⁴ The banner hangs in space. The multiple interlocking gestures and gazes of the angels suggest that they are awaiting judgement as to whether it will be passed to Richard. The sponsoring saints support him, the court of heaven seems more ambivalent, but the majority of the angelic jury—twelve including the Virgin—seem to be in favour of the king. After all, they all wear the king’s livery, save only the mother of Christ. Will Richard be handed the banner? What will happen next? The banner of the Wilton Diptych has been variously interpreted as symbolizing the banner of the Resurrection, of Crusade, and of St George.⁶⁵ Although these different readings are not mutually exclusive, the discovery of the island in the orb strongly supports the third interpretation, and thus suggests that the banner represents Richard’s kingdom.⁶⁶ Dillian Gordon, building on the tradition of the kingdom of England as the dowry of the Virgin, suggests that Richard has just yielded up the banner to the Virgin and Child, who are about to pass it back.⁶⁷ Gordon consequently interprets the message of the Diptych as essentially legitimist, stressing an idea of kingship derived from heavenly authority.⁶⁸ But if that were all there is to it, it becomes difficult to explain why the Diptych is as enigmatic as it is, not just in its symbolism, but also in the gestures, gazes, and movements around its central banner. It does not just suggest the legitimacy of the king’s authority, it also ⁶³ Ibid., i. 169, 170, 216–18, 221; ii. 152–3. ⁶⁴ Ibid., i. 223–4. ⁶⁵ Morgan 1997; Keen 1997; Taylor 1971: 197; Gordon 1992: n. 22. ⁶⁶ Gordon 1993: 57; Gordon 1992; Harvey 1961: 21. ⁶⁷ Gordon 1992: 667. See also Harvey 1961: 19–21. ⁶⁸ Gordon 1993: 60. For similar interpretations, see Taylor 1971: 195; Harvey 1961: 18–19, 22–4; Mathew 1968: 49; Saul 1997b: 27; Scheifele 1999: 255.

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dramatizes the incertitude of this authority at a particular moment, its reliance on the grace of God during the king’s youth. As a private altar piece for the king’s personal contemplation this makes more sense than the one-sidedly absolutist interpretations which have been projected onto it in the past.⁶⁹ The Diptych does not so much represent the smooth transfer of the kingdom to the king when he was a young man, for example at his coronation (why not paint the banner already in his hands?) but his precarious reliance on the grace of heavenly powers.⁷⁰ Although we know that the king will be granted his authority in the end, this is not yet certain at the moment the Diptych portrays. This would have been worthy matter indeed for the king’s private contemplation, urging on him the humility which ought to stem from both the divine origins of his station and the ever present possibility of the fall of kings—a possibility which he had come close to experiencing first hand in his youth. ∗

It would be wrong to confuse Richard’s continuing concern with the events of his teens and 20s with a conscious refusal, as John Gower would later have it, to cultivate ‘the moral behaviour by which a man might grow up from a boy’.⁷¹ The whole purpose of re-igniting the controversies of the late 1380s was to put them behind him, and finally to remove any suggestion that royal authority might be dissipated, as Richard saw it, by means of restrictions imposed upon him. This was not an attempt to style a new masculinity in opposition to aristocratic norms, nor even an appeal to an oppositional youth culture.⁷² On the contrary, the reference back to the king’s youth was linked to a fresh re-statement of his authority as an adult male, and even with an appeal to his duties as a stern father to his rebellious subjects. The stress on the king’s personal legitimacy and the idealization of his central position found perhaps its most extreme expression ⁶⁹ Harvey 1961: 5; Taylor 1971: 195; Ferris 1987; Scheifele 1999: 255, 271; Saul 1997b: 27. ⁷⁰ For this explanation of Richard’s youth, which goes back to the nineteeth century, see Whittingham 1981: 145; Gordon 1993: 60. Other explanations include the suggestion that it was intended to minimize the difference in age between himself and Isabel of France, his prospective bride. See Saul 1997a: 451; Ferris 1987. ⁷¹ Gower, VC, bk 4, l. 556. See further above, Ch. 1, pp. 17–18. ⁷² For this argument, see above, Ch. 1, pp. 3–6.

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in a sermon delivered by Chancellor Edmund Stafford, bishop of Exeter, to the parliament in which Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick were condemned.⁷³ The bishop began by declaring that the king had summoned the present parliament for the honour and reverence of God and of Holy Church, for the safe-keeping (salvation) and amendment of his kingdom.⁷⁴ He then took as his theme Ezekiel 37:22, ‘There shall be one king for all’ (Rex unus erit omnibus), stating that no kingdom could be ruled except by a single king and governor. It would be wrong to regard this as a controversial doctrine in itself.⁷⁵ Subsequent antiRicardian chroniclers recorded the theme without adverse comment.⁷⁶ It is difficult to imagine that anyone present could have denied this essential truth of monarchical government. Yet, the very uncontroversial nature of this theme made more disturbing its specific application in September 1397. Stafford’s argument was based on the assertion that, earlier in the reign, a state of affairs had arisen in which there had been, in practice, more than one king in the land. The parliament would soon hear the accusations that the duke of Gloucester and his allies had usurped royal powers for themselves, most notably in the Commission of 1386–7 and in the Merciless Parliament of 1388, events which the political community had spent the previous ten years determinedly trying to forget. Bishop Stafford expanded on his theme by stating that, for the good governance of any king, three things were required. First, he should be powerful enough to govern. Second, the laws by which he must rule should be kept and executed justly. Third, his subjects should be duly obedient to the king and the laws. Again, none of this was controversial in theory, but what was more disturbing was the use that Stafford made of these commonplace doctrines. For the first thing to be true, the bishop asserted, the king had to have his regality, prerogatives, and other rights annexed to the Crown. The king did not have the power to alienate these rights, and if he did then the law repealed such an alienation. The king had thus assembled the estates of parliament to see if the rights of the Crown had been reduced, so that the king might be in liberty and power as his progenitors had been before him, ‘notwithstanding any ordinance to the contrary’. This last clause was ⁷³ For commentary, see Walker 1995: 52; Saul 1997b: 30. ⁷⁴ RP, iii. 347. ⁷⁵ Stafford’s theme is not discussed in Walker 1995: 52; Saul 1997b: 30. In Saul 1999a: 53 it is taken to imply nothing less than ‘unquestioning acceptance of his rule and submission to his will’ and to be ‘incompatible with dissent’. ⁷⁶ Usk, 20; HVRS, 138.

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remarkable in its implications: that even in September 1397 the king still considered himself to have been obliged to alienate rights of his crown in accordance with some ordinance or statutory concession which was still in force. The second article is even more striking. Stafford asserted, uncontroversially enough, that it pertained to the good governement of every kingdom, that the laws should be justly kept and executed. For the principal governement of every king must begin from the constitution of the laws, by which he must govern his people. He must ordain such laws and will then be able to reward the good and punish the evil. The reason for this assertion became clearer as Stafford continued: As the father teaches his son how he must abstain from vices and evil deeds, by presenting him with a threat, thus the king, who is a good father to all the people, will make the laws by which the people will be able to learn how they should behave towards him and their neighbours.⁷⁷

Thus the king must attach penalties to these laws, by the threat of which they (the people) would abstain from doing ill. He could not remit the penalties of the law without doing wrong to the damaged party.⁷⁸ Rather than suggesting that the king was free to define the law as he wished, the bishop was in fact arguing that the king was restrained by law once it had been ordained, to an extent that restricted his powers of grace. Stafford ended this remarkable attack on mercy with the traditional request for all those who knew of faults against the law to inform the king.⁷⁹ The king was to chastise his people as a father chastises his sons, lest they be led into vices and evil deeds, and for this reason it was not fitting that he should soften the application of his laws. Thus the king’s attack on his opponents of 1386–8 was justified. Rather than interpret Stafford’s sermon in these terms, historians have instead concentrated on the last of his distinctions, whose insistence on ‘obedience’ they read as an abstract statement of Richard II’s ideas of kingship.⁸⁰ Yet this final passage is in many ways the most anodyne part of the bishop’s text. Stafford noted that for good governance of any kingdom, the subjects should be obedient to the king and his laws, and the king should make just and honest laws universally, by which the ⁷⁷ RP, iii. 347. For the suggestion of a link to the Roman Law doctrine of patria potestas, see Walker 1995: 52. ⁷⁸ RP, iii. 347. ⁷⁹ Ibid. ⁸⁰ Walker 1995: 52; Saul 1997b: 30.

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great as well as the lesser must be governed. Thus if anyone had been unable to secure justice by common law they were, as was traditional, to petition for due remedy in the present parliament. It is difficult to read in this statement the absolutist manifesto which historians have found in it. This passage has been placed together with such diverse allusions to the desirability of obedience as Michael de la Pole’s explanation of the rising of 1381,⁸¹ an Anglo-Irish ‘mirror for princes’ presented to the king soon after March 1392,⁸² and Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s parliamentary sermon of 1395,⁸³ to be used as evidence of Richard II’s own extreme interpretation of the powers of his office.⁸⁴ Yet, in fact, none of these texts suggest the theory of total submission to royal authority which has been fathered upon them. The very diversity of their origins draws attention to the uncontroversial nature of their common assertion: that disobedience in the sense of rebellion and usurpation is unacceptable—whether that be in the Great Revolt of 1381, in Ireland in the early 1390s, or in the crises of 1387–8—not that any expression of dissent was in itself an act of treason. With this they share common ground with Stafford’s sermon, pro-Ricardian chroniclers and Richard’s letters to foreign dignitaries, not because they relate to the same body of innovative or extremist theory, but because these ideas were entirely mainstream. In fact, the reference to ‘obedience’, like the quest for ‘peace’, served to disguise the more disturbing aspects of the king’s actions, namely his pursuit of revenge in contradiction to the ceremonial reconciliations of the early 1390s. It is telling that not even writers who were hostile to Richard II in his last years interpreted the bishop’s words in the way that historians have done. Instead, they saw this sermon as a prelude to the Commons’ task in that parliament, one concerned above all with the punishment of those who had usurped the king’s powers in 1386–8.⁸⁵ It was the king’s unique authority that was at issue, how the Commission and its sequel had infringed that authority, and even how it continued to do so. To focus on the question of obedience as if it were a matter ⁸¹ RP, iii. 150. ⁸² Printed in Genet, Four Tracts, 22–30. For a discussion of its authorship, see ibid., 23–30. For comment on its content, see Taylor 1971: 193–4; Walker 1995: 52; Eberle 1999: 241–5. ⁸³ RP, iii. 329. ⁸⁴ All three of these texts are discussed for their reference to obedience, without considering their diverse contexts, in Walker 1995: 52–3; Saul 1997b: 29–30; Saul 1999a: 45–7. ⁸⁵ Usk, 20; HVRS, 138. On this narrative, see Given-Wilson 1993.

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of abstract policy on the king’s part risks obscuring the matter at issue—the ‘usurpations’ of 1386–8—a matter which contemporaries had no difficulty in identifying. Bishop Stafford’s sermon based its argument on the assertion that the king, grown into man’s estate, ought to exercise his authority as any of his predecessors had done. The visual counterpart of this view is to be found in a second piece of Ricardian imagery which dates from the 1390s: the great, seated portrait of the king still to be found in Westminster Abbey.⁸⁶ This image has been defaced by centuries of restoration, and was only recently revealed in its original aspect through the use of the technique of infrared reflectography.⁸⁷ It emerges as a fitting symbol of the king’s restored authority. The portrait itself is greater than life-sized, more than two metres tall.⁸⁸ The clear drawing of the sitter’s legs, with drapery running across them, contributes to a sense of space and monumentality for which it is difficult to find parallels.⁸⁹ The king is portrayed as a man in his full age, a square jaw adorned with the beard of a man in the peak of life, somewhat like that of John the Baptist in the Wilton Diptych. In contrast with the Diptych, which showed the king surrounded by his saintly sponsors, Richard sits alone, the orb and sceptre of his office in his hands. His robe is adorned with crowned letter R’s, emphasizing that the sitter is not just any king, he is King Richard.⁹⁰ Like Stafford’s sermon, it shows a king who is a man, not a boy, wielding authority in his own right as he ought to do, adorned with the symbols of his kingly authority. Even by the time the bishop of Exeter spoke, the king had already gone some way to undermine the political capital he had accumulated by the beginning of 1397. In effect, Stafford attempted to lay a patina of unerring, paternal justice over the king’s manly pursuit of unmeasured vengeance. He had to work hard to portray a king led by the iron rule of law, in opposition to the wilful use of grace. Yet already, it would not have required much imagination for Richard’s enemies to have portrayed him differently: as a changeable youth, revoking the pardons ⁸⁶ Alexander 1997: 200–1. ⁸⁷ Alexander 1997: illustration 115. ⁸⁸ Gordon 1993: 93. The panel measures 213.5 × 110cm. ⁸⁹ Alexander 1997: 205; Binski 1995: 203–4. ⁹⁰ Alexander 1997: 205–6. It is perhaps this concern with Richard’s personal right to be king that is satirized in the post-deposition story of Richard’s desire to be re-anointed with the holy oil of St Thomas. See Annales, 297–9; Eulogium, 380. For accounts which take this story at face value, see Saul 1995: 872; Taylor 1971: 195; Sandquist 1969.

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he had earlier granted; as a tyrannical Rehoboam, spurred on by his youthful counsellors to the violent oppression of his people; or as a youthful Melibeus, misled by the strength of his own impulsions to put his personal honour and desire for vengeance over the way of law and justice.

∗

It was not only the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel and Warwick who had an interest in consigning the events of 1386–8 to oblivion. With every year that had passed since his disastrous eleventh year, Richard had gradually come to seem the best guarantor of the kingdom’s stability through his abandonment of revenge and his relatively unproblematic performance of the monarch’s normal role. This settlement was underpinned by the public forgetting of the events of Richard’s youth. The king’s new concern to punish his chief enemies of 1386–8 thus threatened the delicate consensus which had accumulated around his person in the course of the 1390s, by giving all those who had been involved in these events reason to fear that his vengeance would fall on them also. From the outset, the distinction in the king’s letters of July 1397 between ‘gatherings or ridings’ and ‘extortions and oppressions’ must have seemed a disturbingly fine one, if it was grasped at all. As the proceedings against the duke and the two earls unfolded it became increasingly difficult to separate the attack on the Commission and the Merciless Parliament from the military events which had been their backdrop and necessary condition. The distinction between ‘ridings’ and ‘extortions and oppressions’ had not even been preserved in the appeal lodged on 15 August 1397, on which the accused were to be tried in parliament. The first, third, and fourth articles of this document concerned only ‘extortions and oppressions’, focusing on the threats to the king’s life which accompanied the imposition of the Commission, the condemnation of Simon Burley despite the king’s intervention to the contrary, and the proposal to surrender liege homage at Huntingdon in December 1387.⁹¹ All this might have been usurpation and even treason enough, without the need to invoke the military activities in which a substantial ⁹¹ RP, iii. 374–6.

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proportion of the English gentry had been involved.⁹² But the second article of the 1397 appeal rather let the cat out of the bag. It alleged that, on 13 November 1387, the duke and the earl of Arundel ‘to accomplish their traitorous purpose and malice’ and ‘to have [the king’s] honourable person amenable to their will, and the governance of your estate, majesty and dignity’, had assembled for war, together with the earl of Warwick and Thomas Mortimer, in Haringay Wood, Middlesex.⁹³ If these armed activities formed part of the treason of the accused, how could those who had ridden with them feel safe from the same accusation? Those who were convinced by the reassurances of July 1397 must have felt less and less secure as parliament proceeded. It became clear that ‘whoever raises the people and rides against the king to wage war against the people’ was indeed to be subject to judgement as a traitor.⁹⁴ The earl of Arundel was condemned not only for procuring the Commission and countenancing the king’s deposition, as had been outlined in the appeal, but also for ‘levying war’ against him.⁹⁵ When the Commons were presented with the confession of the duke of Gloucester, they declared that he was to be judged as a traitor, not for his involvement with the Commission or the execution of Simon Burley, but because it was ‘notoriously known’ that he had assembled at Haringay in order to make war against the king, and had come with this force into the presence of the king, ‘against his allegiance and the king’s will’.⁹⁶ This was despite the fact that the duke’s confession, although it admitted coming armed into the king’s presence, made no reference to the military build up which preceded these events, nor to the skirmish at Radcot Bridge which followed.⁹⁷ It was in these terms, also, that the earl of Warwick was condemned.⁹⁸ Even as the king came to exercise what he perceived as the fullness of his royal authority, his actions began to create the conditions of his deposition. The slip in the terms of Richard’s assault on his enemies soon unsettled Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, for one. Mowbray, like Henry Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, had been late to rally to the three senior Appellants of 1387–8, and quick to realign himself with the king.⁹⁹ He was even amongst those who supported the new ‘appeal’ against the king’s opponents in August 1397. But when ⁹² For the distribution of pardons for participants by county, see Goodman 1971: 34–41. ⁹³ RP, iii. 376. ⁹⁴ RP, iii. 351. ⁹⁵ RP, iii. 378. ⁹⁶ Ibid. ⁹⁷ RP, iii. 379. ⁹⁸ RP, iii. 380. ⁹⁹ Favent, 11, 21; Goodman 1971: 28–9, 154–5, 157–60; Saul 1997a: 247.

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parliament assembled in September, he failed to appear.¹⁰⁰ Others besides Mowbray would have felt threatened by the king’s declaration in this assembly of a general pardon, excluding fifty named persons, whom he refused to identify. Richard’s public insistence that he wished to keep these names secret, lest their associates be alarmed, must have rung very hollow indeed.¹⁰¹ The St Albans chronicler was most probably correct in his assessment of the impact of this reservation on popular opinion, when he asserts that it was widely believed that the king did this in order to condemn those who offended him in the future, by claiming they were amongst the fifty.¹⁰² Caroline Barron long ago investigated in detail the destabilizing effect of the king’s insistence that individuals had to apply one-by-one for this pardon, thus admitting that they were part of these insurrections, but not knowing if they were to be one of the fifty excluded.¹⁰³ In the months that followed, Richard, despite his declared commitment to peace, increasingly assumed the role of a partisan figure, more a spreader of discord than a promoter of order. He raised loans which he did not repay by the agreed date.¹⁰⁴ He extracted open submissions from the seventeen counties around London admitting their faults in 1386–8 and putting themselves on the king’s mercy.¹⁰⁵ He made his earldom of Cheshire into a principality, strengthened by the addition of confiscated lands in North Wales.¹⁰⁶ He built up a core of Cheshire archers as a personal bodyguard.¹⁰⁷ Traditional complaints against the immunity of the Cheshiremen from prosecution were sharpened by their physical presence in the parliament of September 1397, at one point threatening the assembly with their bows.¹⁰⁸ Richard provided more and more reason for seeing him as a tyrant, who ruled the kingdom for his own interests, rather than as an impartial governor working for the common good.¹⁰⁹ Perhaps the worst of all this was that it was never clear when Richard’s vengeance would stop, and it was a result of this fundamental uncertainty that the king’s pursuit of his enemies slowly began to undermine the basis of his rule. In the process, the king provided yet ¹⁰⁰ RP, iii. 383–4. ¹⁰¹ RP, iii. 418; Usk, 20; HVRS, 138. ¹⁰² Annales, 210–11. ¹⁰³ Barron 1968: 6–10. ¹⁰⁴ Barron 1968: 2–6. As correctly alleged by Henry IV in RP, iii. 419, item 32. ¹⁰⁵ Barron 1968: 10–12. ¹⁰⁶ Davies 1971. ¹⁰⁷ Gillespie 1974. ¹⁰⁸ HVRS, 138; Usk, 22–4; Annales, 208; Given-Wilson 1986: 222–3; Saul 1997a: 375. For earlier complaints against Cheshire malefactors see RP, iii. 42 (1378), 62 (1379), 81 (1380), 139 (1382), 201 (1384). ¹⁰⁹ R. R. Davies 1971: 279; Gillespie 1979: 29; Castor 2000: 17, 20.

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more ammunition for those who would portray him as an inconstant youth or a wilful tyrant. Riding to the second session of parliament which was to be held at Shrewsbury in January 1398, Thomas Mowbray confided to Henry Bolingbroke his fear that the king would never forgive them for their actions at Radcot Bridge, and that their pardons were worth nothing.¹¹⁰ The king, he alleged, even intended to reverse the posthumous pardon of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, by which Edward III had restored the properties of the house of Lancaster after the fall of his father, Edward II. This would have had disastrous consequences for both Mowbray and Bolingbroke.¹¹¹ When Bolingbroke betrayed Mowbray, reporting this conversation and accusing him of treason, it gave Richard the opportunity to move against them both. At the Shrewsbury session of parliament, a trial process began which would culminate in the declaration of their exile at a meeting at Coventry in September 1398, initially organized for the two to resolve the matter by trial by combat.¹¹² Within a year of their departure, Mowbray’s fears were to prove well founded. When John of Gaunt died in February 1399, Bolingbroke sent his representatives to take livery of his father’s inheritance. Instead of proceeding as had been agreed at the moment of Bolingbroke’s exile, the king had it declared that Duke Henry was not a person able to empower such attorneys, prosecuted his representative for treason, and closed the door to any future approaches.¹¹³ The king perhaps believed he was teaching a moral lesson to one of those who had refused to countenance the return of his exiled friends. Although Richard never formally disinherited Henry, always leaving open the possibility of a future return, his behaviour further contributed to the conditions of his deposition. When Henry arrived in arms in England in the summer of 1399, whilst Richard was absent on campaign in Ireland, the failure of the country to rally to the king must largely be explained by the widely accepted legitimacy of the duke’s cause. It was difficult to deny that he had, to all intents and purposes, been disinherited.¹¹⁴ Given the instability of Richard’s position, and his proven unwillingness to abide by concessions made under duress, it was but a few short steps from the acceptance of the rightness of Henry’s cause to the deposition of the king. In acting as he did in the pursuit of his enemies, the king made it possible to argue once more that he was showing the characteristic ¹¹⁰ RP, iii. 382–3. ¹¹¹ Given-Wilson 1994. ¹¹² RP, iii. 383. ¹¹³ Fletcher 2004: 337–9. ¹¹⁴ Fletcher 2004: esp. 340–1.

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inconstancy of youth, rather than the steady purpose of a man. It is this interpretation of his actions which comes out in those hostile readings of his rule, those presented by John Gower, Archbishop Arundel’s sermon, and the Evesham chronicle, for instance, which portray the king as a boy not a man, or as a corrupt, effeminate youth. Yet, at the same time, it also made it possible to present him in a different light, as a second and seemingly contradictory type: the uncontrolled, warlike youth whose excessive, manly will leads to tyranny and violence. Both of these lines of attack came through in the articles of Richard’s deposition. In these articles, the king’s youthful inconstancy emerges in his untrustworthiness. Richard’s word was held to be untrustworthy for his treatment of Henry Bolingbroke and Archbishop Arundel, for his failure to honour the pardons he had granted to the Appellants and their associates, and for the loans he had not repaid.¹¹⁵ He was held to have gone back on his coronation oath in a number of regards, perjuring himself.¹¹⁶ He was in general ‘so inconstant in his behaviour’, in his dealings with those within his kingdom and outside it, ‘that virtually no living person who came to know him could or wished to trust him’.¹¹⁷ But when the deposition articles turned to wilfulness, the nature of their accusations began to draw away from the critique presented by those writers who portray the king as boyish, feminine, or as a morally corrupt youth. Wilfulness, and the hatred of the truth-teller were held to be central to a number of the king’s alleged misdeeds both in these texts and in the articles of deposition. Yet, in the latter, the nature of this wilfulness was somewhat different.¹¹⁸ Richard, one article asserted, did not wish to follow the laws and customs of the realm, but ‘according to his arbitrary will’ (secundum sue arbitrium voluntatis). Thus when the laws were explained to him by the justices and others of his council, he often said ‘with a stern and forbidding countenance’ (vultu austero et protervo), that ‘his laws were in his mouth, or sometimes in his breast: and that he alone could alter and create the laws of his realm’.¹¹⁹ He thus denied justice to a great number of his subjects. Another article alleged that the king extracted oaths from the sheriffs, obliging them to throw into prison those who spoke evil of him, and that he did this ‘in order ¹¹⁵ RP, iii. 418–19, items 21, 24, 29, 30, 31; p. 421, items 49, 50. See Barron 1968: 2–7. ¹¹⁶ RP, iii. 418–20, items 20, 26, 28, 34, 35, 44. ¹¹⁷ RP, iii. 420, item 42. ¹¹⁸ RP, iii. 419–21, items 30, 33, 36, 37, 40, 50. ¹¹⁹ RP, iii. 419, item 33. For the meaning of this Roman law tag (that the king should study the laws carefully), see Kantorowicz 1957: 28, n. 15.

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to fulfil and accomplish his arbitrary will in certain things’ (ut liberius adimpleri et sequi posset in singulis sue arbitrium voluntatis).¹²⁰ It asserted that when the lords and justices offered their opinion in council, the king often rebuked them ‘so bitterly’ (tam acriter) that they did not dare to speak the truth for the estate of the king and the kingdom.¹²¹ Here, his fault was not excessive malleability, the kind of thing which could be put down to the changeable physical nature of youths, but excessive rigour, and uncompromising refusal to change his mind. This is not the picture of the king presented by those post-deposition critics who harked on the king’s youthful mores. In Richard the Redeless, wilfulness is the result of the youthful counsel.¹²² Plainly dressed Wisdom is expelled from the court, at the point of the porter’s fashionable boots, because the king preferred the company of wilful, beardless youths.¹²³ The picture is not of an isolated, individualistic king shouting down the lords and justices in council, but of a misled youth who listens to the wrong kind of counsel in a corrupt court. It is this that Archbishop Arundel argued, too, when he asserted that the boy king loved pleasing things and flattery, and had taste only for advice which followed his will.¹²⁴ Similarly, John Gower argued that the youths at court were only too ready to encourage the king in his error, and so led him into boyish vice.¹²⁵ The monk of Evesham, meanwhile, asserted that the king should blame those counsellors who misled him into pride and covetousness. He saw the origin of the king’s inconstant mores in the youthful counsel he followed, which led him into sin, and finally into the need to burden his people with taxation.¹²⁶ All these writers portray the king’s faults as moral before they are political, the result of a changeable will misled by evil counsel. The articles of his deposition, on the other hand, have a different focus, and present Richard’s misdeeds as essentially political: his failure to reconcile his will with the advice of the wise and the interests of the kingdom. In the deposition articles, it is not Richard’s susceptibility to flattery and moral corruption which comes to the fore, but his stubbornness, and his habit of making his own ¹²⁰ ¹²³ ¹²⁵ ¹²⁶

RP, iii. 420, item 37. ¹²¹ RP, iii. 420, item 40. ¹²² RR, I.47–75. RR, III.224–38; I. 112–14. ¹²⁴ See above Ch. 1, pp. 1–3. See above, Ch. 1, pp. 17–18. See above, Ch. 1, pp. 14–15; Ch. 3, p. 57.

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opinion all too clear before hearing the advice of his counsellors.¹²⁷ The kind of wilfulness ascribed to Richard here suggests a different youthful error from changeability: a kind of excess of manly constancy. Like the young Melibeus in the Tale of Melibee his fault is too much steadiness of will and the wrong kind of counsel. Seen in the light of fourteenth-century assumptions about the nature of youth and manhood, Richard II’s actions in 1397–9 make more sense than they have done previously. It is not possible to account for his pursuit of his former enemies in terms of a plot against the king’s putative peace policy, since no such policy existed at any time in his reign. Nor do the king’s ideas of kingship furnish an explanation in themselves, since they were merely an extreme expression of ideas which were, in fact, perfectly commonplace. It is thus necessary to find another reason why he came to take the extreme position which he did. Richard’s actions become easier to understand if considered in the light of the late medieval commonplace ideas. A knowledge of fourteenth-century concepts of manhood makes it possible to escape the trap of attempting to explain the king’s actions by reference to mental instability, an approach which effectively interprets in terms of modern psychological theory what is in fact a character type based on medieval notions of youthful vigour and changeability. Viewed from the perspective opened up by an investigation of the language and theory of manhood, the king’s behaviour becomes more explicable, if no more attractive to modern eyes. Richard’s honour had been compromised by attacks on his friends and on his own authority which he had not been able to rectify even after his declaration of age in May 1389. At the same time, his title to the authority which would normally have been his due, as a king in man’s estate, had been attacked both in the purge of his household and in continuing constraints on his freedom of action. Since 1388, Richard had found no outlet, symbolic or otherwise, for these offences to his honour and status. His return to power had been a matter of forgetting these humiliations, of grudging participation in ceremonies which asserted his unity with men whom he hated. The translator of the Tale of Melibeus and Prudence would have advised Richard to forgive and forget, as did a number of preachers and poets ¹²⁷ For the right way to take counsel, see Watts 1996: 25–28.

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from 1387 on, praising the king for his mercy in the hope that he would be merciful. Yet, the king remained attached to the primary logic of manhood which taught that, once slighted, that slight must be avenged, if one is to be held to be a man. In doing so he left the field open for those who would argue that in his pursuit of vengeance, he was not a peace-making father to whom obedience ought to be rendered, but a changeable, misled youth, or a tyrannical, wilful Rehoboam.

Conclusion The importance of the themes of youth and manhood for the politics of Richard II’s reign went far beyond their usefulness to the king’s critics as they attacked his actions in the ‘tyranny’ of 1397–9. These themes had been important in multiple distinct but overlapping ways in every period of his reign, both on account of the king’s own attempts to be recognized in the status of a man, and his opponents’ attempts to resist them. Arguably, these themes were so rhetorically powerful precisely because their significance could not be traced to any single source. Thus although Richard II’s unmanly reputation is far from being an accurate representation, nor even a tendentious distortion, of the king’s true character and preferences, it is not unrelated to the events of his reign. It is a political phenomenon in itself, created by the interaction between late medieval cultural commonplace and the politics of 1377–99. Youth and virtue were already charged political terms when Richard came to the throne at the age of 10. These themes, and the reformist hopes which went with them, did not fade away with the death of Edward III, but instead found a new legitimacy in mechanisms put in place for the king’s ‘tender age’. In the late 1370s, the king’s malleable youth could still seem an opportunity as much as a danger. If the young king could be surrounded with good counsellors and raised in the military and moral virtues characteristic of manhood, then the kingdom could be steered back to prosperity. Such a possibility was, however, radically undercut by the dismissal of the Continual Council soon after the king’s thirteenth birthday in January 1380. With the king nominally in full control of his own government, the political community oscillated between the desire to make use of the king’s personal authority, and the implausibility of Richard’s will being genuinely his own when he was still in his early teens. This state of affairs had fatal consequences for the attempts to promote the king’s personal authority which began with the Great Revolt of 1381 and Richard’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia. The

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English political system was poorly adapted to deal with a king in his formal full authority who, if he had been simply a knight, would have been a minor. Thus, when Richard attempted to impose his will through the normal counsel-taking route for an adult king, notably in his pursuit of a royal expedition, he found his initiative repeatedly blocked. He found it impossible to establish that his will really was his own, and not that of dominant personalities about him, since it was still tacitly held that he was only a youth, even though his tender age was officially behind him. By 1386, the 19-year-old king appears to have reached the conclusion that the only way to have his will acted upon was to pre-empt the counsel-taking process, summoning troops before the moneys to pay them had been granted. In doing so, he forfeited the political capital which ought to have been his as he approached the age at which a noble heir would have come into his lands. Richard II’s actions against the fresh imposition of a Continual Council in October 1386 set him on the road to disaster. By having those who forced this body upon him condemned as worthy of punishment as traitors, Richard obliged his opponents to look for new ways of justifying their resistance to royal authority. At first they attempted to portray themselves as the king’s loyal counsellors wishing only to be reunited with their monarch so that peace might come to the kingdom once more. Yet once this reunion had been effected, it remained all too clear that the king was still entirely in agreement with those who were supposed to be misleading him. The Appellants and their supporters thus felt it necessary to invoke the theme of the king’s youth, which had not been evoked in public political discourse since 1380. Even as the king reached the age of 21, they made use of his youth to argue for the imposition of conciliar mechanisms upon him, and for the prosecution of those who were supposed to have misled him into error by taking advantage of the malleability of his youth. Although the king was able to return slowly to power after the nadir of the Merciless Parliament, the controversies of the 1380s had already established the terms under which his rule was to be discussed, his likely faults, and the virtues he must learn to show if he were to remain king. The ritual reconciliations of the 1390s were shot through with references to those qualities that Richard allegedly displayed, which served more as lessons on how he should behave than as observations of his actions. Although still youthful, he was now in his full sense and discretion, he was surrounded by the counsel of his nobility, and he put aside vengeance and embraced mercy. In this blend of eulogy and

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didacticism, the events of the 1380s lay repressed but not forgotten, and the king’s actions were still circumscribed in a fashion they would not have been in normal times. Although Richard was increasingly allowed to assume his full estate as king, in household expenditure befitting his estate and in his centrality in ceremonial and in political practice, the half-hidden possibility remained that the king might be condemned as a changeable and tyrannical youth. Richard’s post-deposition critics took up the terms of debate familiar from these controversies and re-adapted them to the circumstances of his removal. They did so by giving a firm answer to the question which had lain in the background in the politics of the 1380s and early 1390s. To the question ‘Royal authority or the king’s youth?’ they replied that Richard II most certainly was an inconstant, immoral youth, not a legitimate, virtuous king. It is tempting to speculate that the ground had already been laid for them by the St Albans chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, whose account of the king’s behaviour in the 1380s makes much use of the conventional theme of the inconstancy of youth to sideline the king’s growing assertiveness. Walsingham’s Richard is both inconstant and wilful, his own worst counsellor. Although this version of the St Albans chronicle was completed in 1394 at the earliest, and it is not possible to prove that it was composed before 1399, it is nonetheless a skilled exercise in the use of themes which were of central importance at the time of the events he describes. A talented satirist is only effective if his caricature finds an echo in some social phenomenon of his day, and Walsingham’s chronicle brilliantly manipulates important themes in the political controversies of the years he describes. The events of the 1380s and 1390s put at the disposal of Richard II’s opponents a form of rhetoric in terms of the king’s youthful faults—his inconstancy, his vigour which ended in dissipation, his susceptibility to flattery and the seductions of the flesh—the ultimate origins of which can be traced back to ‘mirrors for princes’, sermons, and even moralized medical theory concerning the potential evil dispositions of youth. Yet manhood and youth are not only relevant to Richard’s reign because they provided convenient rhetorics with which to attack the king. In fact, these themes were of particular importance because they made it possible to obscure certain alternative perspectives on manhood by which the king had attempted to legitimize his authority. In the values underlying the terminology of ‘manhood’ and ‘manly’ action, a young man of noble status proved his manhood by responding to the challenges of his enemies, averting the threat of shame, and

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so winning and defending his ‘manhood’ in the sense of honour or renown. Richard II’s attitude to chivalry and warfare was entirely in accordance with this approach to manhood. Not only did he campaign in Scotland and twice in Ireland, but he spent the period after his first marriage in 1382 attempting to promote his manhood with a personal campaign to the continent. It was the uncompromising vigour with which he pursued this project that brought about the crisis of October 1386. The king’s actions in the summer and autumn of that year, when he attempted to force an expedition on an unwilling kingdom, corresponded all too closely to the actions of an ill-counselled youth. It seems likely that this, along with the king’s actions in the coming year, inspired Thomas Wimbledon to compose his sermon warning of the faults of Rehoboam in 1387, and perhaps led Geoffrey Chaucer to see the vital importance of the themes brought to the fore in Melibeus and Prudence, and so to undertake its translation in the Tale of Melibee. Like Melibeus, the king had failed, through recourse to inadequate counsel, to restrain what he perceived as his manly duty to avenge himself. Time would only serve to confirm the importance of these themes as the king first began to undermine the status quo in the localities before finally, in 1397–9, bringing about his own downfall through his pursuit of manly vengeance. Approaching Richard II’s reign in terms of manhood makes it possible to discern with greater clarity not just the rhetoric being used by his opponents but also the way in which commonplace ideas of how a ‘man’ should act could inform the practice of politics. This approach makes the king appear far more conventional in terms of the basic assumptions of his age than he has been portrayed by either his defenders or detractors amongst modern historians. If Richard II was no ‘misfit in his own class’ whose distaste for warfare led him to pursue peace with France, neither was he an innovator in his attitude to the magnificence of his court. The expenditure of the royal household was in itself, in accord with a second strand of the terminology of manhood, a means by which the young king could demonstrate his status as an established household head. In his early reign, the resources at his disposal were drastically limited by the fiscal controversies of those years. Richard’s household only expanded to a scale comparable to Edward III during the early 1390s. In this second period, the king’s household not only provided a theatre for the performance of his manly status, it also provided a context in which the wounds inflicted in 1386–8 could be healed. Although political ceremony allowed Richard II to assert his

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personal legitimacy, this should not be read as a mark of the king’s doctrinal absolutism, but as one part of an attempt to establish peace under an accepted adult monarch in which most of the political class were willingly complicit. Finally, whilst royal household expenditure did expand enormously from the summer of 1396, this is initially accounted for by the diplomacy leading up to the king’s second marriage, and the expenses of the reception and coronation of Isabel of France. Even after the autumn parliament of 1397, when something like a financial tyranny did begin to develop, the increased costs of the royal household do not relate to any innovative courtly style, much less to an alternative youth culture, but rather to the political crisis generated by Richard II’s moves against his perceived enemies. When the events of Richard’s reign are re-examined in the light of the wider associations of manhood, he emerges not as a champion of an alternative masculinity but as an unimaginative if vehement adept of certain conventional qualities associated with being a ‘man’: the deeds in war and the household establishment which would show him to be a worthy claimant to his full estate and authority. Arguably, he would have been far less dangerous had his ideas been original or unusual. His opponents found it difficult to deny the validity of his desire for a royal expedition, his insistence on the illegitimacy of imposed conciliar mechanisms, and his rejection of attempts to control his choice of officers and intimates. They resorted to a rhetoric of youth which contradicted their nominal acceptance of the king’s full authority. In his desire to support his adult status with a fitting household establishment, Richard’s conception of his estate may have clashed with the reforming values of those who would make means, not status, the determining factor of due largesse; but his attitude was the perfect reflection of the ideals of his class and the norms of his age. When Richard’s actions are reconsidered in the light of the broad spread of late medieval ideas of manhood, what comes to the fore is the central importance of his honour and estate, not only in the pursuit of war and a fitting household, but also in the attention to the status of a ‘man’ which found its expression in the unwavering pursuit of vengeance. In the end, it was the king who invoked the sufferings of his youth, which the political community would have preferred to have forgotten. Richard hoped thereby to build his manhood on the reassuring base of righteous vengeance and patria potestas. His fault, as it had been in the 1380s, was to confuse late medieval commonplace about manhood with the political realities of his day, believing that asserting his status as a man

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would help him to govern as one. In his final tyranny, he went beyond the uncompromising position he had earlier assumed on conventional terms, creating the conditions of his deposition by his pursuit of manly vengeance. Of course, not everybody could seek to prove his manhood by pursuing a major military campaign, by keeping the household estate which befitted their noble station, nor even by avenging slights to their honour. If there is one thing that the case of Richard II reveals, it is the status-bound nature of ideals of manhood. The language and theory of manhood often contained the tacit assumption not only that a man was normally an adult male, but also that this adult male was normally of noble status. Yet it would be wrong to imagine that manhood as it has been presented in this book is a structure of ideas which did not apply to non-nobles or celibate clerics. This account of manhood is not simply one masculinity in an open market, competing freely with a broad array of different ideals of adult-maleness. The assumptions found in the language and theory of manhood were accepted even by those who attempted to reform them, by redirecting the strength and constancy associated with manhood into spiritual warfare. As Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and late medieval preachers were aware, it was not only noblemen who attempted to assert their manhood by the violent defence of their personal honour, or by the manly expenditure which won them friends and associates. In one sense the norms of manhood examined in this book constitute something like what R. W. Connell has called a ‘hegemonic masculinity’, not because they designate a particular role or way of life as ideal, but because they constitute a structure of ideas whose use in practice would vary by social position, but whose inflexions were still conditioned by the same underlying assumptions. To explore these remarks in detail is beyond the scope of this study, focused as it is on a particular instance of late medieval social practice. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the account of manhood offered here, and the applied case study of its role as a rhetoric and structuring principle of action in the reign of Richard II, might also prove useful for those who are interested in different social worlds than the turbulent high politics of 1377–99.

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Index Absalom 217 Albert of Bavaria, count of Holland and Zeeland 251–2, 265 Albert the Great 64, 65–6 Alexander of Hales 46 Amiens, negotiations at 225–8, 255 Anne of Bohemia, queen of England 48, 88, 89, 91, 99, 107, 155, 186, 213, 216–17, 238–9, 249, 275 the Annunciation 259 Appeal (of 1387–8) 151–3, 163, 165–6 Appeal (of 1397) 267–8 Appellants (of 1387–8) 4, 117, 151, 164–8, 170–4, 182, 186, 190, 221, 233, 249–54 see also Beauchamp, Thomas; Bolingbroke, Henry; Fitzalan, Richard; Mowbray, Thomas; Woodstock, Thomas of Aquitaine, see Gascony Aragon 243 Ardres, meeting at (1396) 243, 244–5, 246 Armagnac, count of 255 Aristotle 50, 55–6, 65, 66, 69 Of Arthour and of Merlin 28–9, 30n., 40, 108 Artois, county of 226 Arundel, earl of, see Fitzalan, Richard Arundel, Thomas, bishop of Ely, later archbishop of York, later archbishop of Canterbury 56–7, 148–9, 154, 166, 177, 186, 210–12, 250 sermon (January 1395) 241–3, 265 sermon (September 1399) 1–4, 6, 14, 19, 22, 27, 41, 271, 272 Aston, Sir Richard 234 Avicenna 64 L’avis des seignurs touchant le bon gouvernment du roy et du roialme 141n., 178n.

Bagot, Sir William 20 Bartolomaeus Anglicus 61n., 62, 64–6 Bayonne, treaty of 201 Bealknap, Robert 205, 257 Beauchamp, Thomas, earl of Warwick 20, 81, 93, 151, 153, 164, 170, 171, 178, 186, 231–2, 250, 251, 253, 263, 267, 268 Benedict XIII, pope 255 Berry, duke of, see Jean, duke of Berry Berwick 185 Besanc¸on, Etienne de Alphabetum Narrationum 37 Beues of Hamptoun 30n., 33n. Beverhoutsveld, battle of 100 Bishopthorpe 110 Bolingbroke, Henry, earl of Derby, later duke of Hereford, later duke of Lancaster and King Henry IV of England 1–2, 48, 151, 170, 171, 232, 236, 268–70 Bolsover 234 Book to a Mother 27–8, 39 Bordeaux 187, 228, 229, 230 Boulogne-sur-Mer 165 Bourbon, duke of, see Louis II, duke of Bourbon Bourbourg 106, 108, 112 boys speech of 2 and status (low) 148 and vice 18 and wilfulness 2, 18, 92 see also ‘youth’, ‘children’, ‘Richard II: portrayed as a boy’. Brantingham, Thomas, bishop of Exeter 142, 184 Braybrooke, Robert, bishop of London 101, 103, 104, 178 Brembre, Nicholas 165 Brest 166, 257 Brinton, Thomas, bishop of Rochester sermons 37, 54, 67 Bristol 144

306 Brittany 255 duke of, see Monfort, Jean de Brunetto Latini 61–2 Burgh, William 257 Burgundy, duke of, see Philip the Bold Burley, Sir Simon 9–10, 20, 97, 116–17, 138, 140, 147, 169, 258, 267, 268 Bury St Edmunds 108 Bussy, Sir John 19, 20, 57 Calais 102, 112, 121, 128, 155, 166, 167, 171, 244, 245, 250, 257 Carlisle 185 Castile, see Spain the chancellor 76, 85, 86, 91, 141, 156, 189, 190, 205, 211 see also Scrope, Roger; Coutenay, William; Braybrooke, Roger; Pole, Michael de la; Arundel, Thomas; Stafford, Edmund Charles IV, emperor 88 Charles VI, king of France 111, 119–20, 129, 133, 143, 144, 148, 165–6, 225, 227–8, 243, 244, 254, 256 madness of 228, 235, 236 Cherbourg 166, 257 Chaucer, Sir Geoffrey 170, 280 The Tale of Melibee 4, 160–1, 267, 273–4, 278 The Knight’s Tale 27 The Pardoner’s Tale 27 portrayal of the Squire 54 The Tale of Sir Thopas 27, 40, 160–1 Cheshire 111, 162, 164, 171, 173, 232–5, 236, 237, 269 Chetwynde, Sir William 232 children and flattery 2, 94 and inconstancy 2–3 and manhood 40–1 and rule 2–3, 69

Index and speech 2 see also youth the church, concept of 74, 159, 216, 242, 263 Cicero 46 Clanvowe, Sir John 50–1, 161 Clifford, Sir Lewis 225 Clifton, Sir Nicholas 232, 234 Clisson, Olivier de 168 Cobham, John Lord 81, 142, 154, 178 Commission, the (of 1386), see councils: Council, Continual (1386–7) commissions of reform, see financial administration; councils common good, the 12, 75, 92, 94, 95, 139, 159, 160, 269 constancy, see manhood Constantine the African 62, 63n., 64 Constantinople, emperor of, see Manuel Palaeologus continental chronicles see Creton, Jean; Froissart, Jean; St Denis, chronicler; Traïson et mort . . . Convocation of Clergy 102 Cornwall 102 councils∗ the council 80, 92–3, 108, 113, 115, 121, 153–8, 161–2, 165, 167, 179, 182–7, 189–90, 210–12, 219, 224, 237, 263–4, 271–2 Councils, Continual (to 1380) 75, 76, 77, 78–82, 83–4, 97, 153, 178, 202, 209, 275 Council, Continual (1386–7) 118, 151, 152, 153–8, 161–6, 170, 172, 173, 177, 178, 184, 212, 254, 257–8, 263, 265–6, 267, 268, 276 Councils, Continual (1388 and after) 177–80, 181–7, 189–90, 276

∗ It is not always easy to distinguish between the three kinds of ‘council’ listed below. Throughout this book ‘the council’, ‘Continual Council’, and ‘Great Council’ have been used to denote, respectively, meetings of the king’s chief officers; extended bodies appointed to supervise the king’s government; and larger, one-off gatherings of the king’s officers, prelates, and magnates. In practice, however, there was considerable overlap between these three forms. Readers are referred to the referenced sections for further discussion and examples.

Index Councils, Great 81, 98, 103, 110, 112, 115, 144–6, 154, 186–8, 209–10, 225–7, 236 other council assemblies 144–5, 176, 203, 253, 271–2 see also counsellors counsel see children; counsellors; government; Richard II; women; youth counsellors appointed counsellors 76, 77, 78–82, 87–8, 114–15, 117, 148, 153–8, 161–6, 177–8, 181–2, 183, 188–9, 275, 279 evil counsellors 75–6, 87, 92, 94–5, 114, 152–3, 156, 159–60, 165, 171–4, 177–8, 181, 217, 237, 271–2 informal counsellors 76–7, 80–1, 83–4, 147, 156, 176–8, 224, 246 court, see counsellors; the household; officers, royal; Richard II: court of Courtenay, Edward, earl of Devon 145, 209 Courtenay, William, archbishop of Canterbury 136, 154 sermon (1381) 87 Coventry 162, 270 Craon, Pierre de 255 Cr´ecy 108 Creton, Jean 256 Crown, the 10, 15, 79, 85, 93, 132, 138–9, 154, 157, 165, 208, 214, 227, 228–9, 235, 237, 251, 252, 263–4 Cumberland 138 Dalingridge, Edward 183 Damme 137 Darcy, Philip Lord 168 Daventry 109–10, 111 De Quadripartita Regis Specie 265 De Regimine Principum, see Giles of Rome Derbyshire 232 Despenser, Henry, bishop of Norwich Crusade of 102–4, 105, 106–7, 112, 115, 118 the devil, the flesh, and the world 37, 71 Devereux, Sir John 141, 154, 178

307 Devizes 202 Devon 102, see also Courtenay, Edward de, earl of Devon Dieulacres Abbey, chronicle 252 Dunkirk 106 Dymmok, Roger 55 Easthampstead 202 Echyngham, Sir William 205 Edward I 223 Edward II 80, 90, 202–3, 208, 209, 212, 270 Edward III 74–7, 111, 132–3, 140, 149, 150, 160, 164, 254, 255, 270, 278 Edward, earl of Rutland, later duke of Aumale, later duke of York 228, 238, 241 Edward, prince of Wales (‘the Black Prince’) 54, 77, 108, 149, 225, 234 Eltham 224, 230 Ely, bishop of, see Arundel, Thomas; Fordham, John encyclopaedia 60–2 see also Bartolomaeus Anglicus; Brunetto Latini; Gower, John; Thomas of Cantimpr´e; Vincent of Beauvais Eton 211 Eulogium continuator, the 3, 42–3, 104–5 Evesham Abbey, chronicle 3, 14–15, 41–2, 57, 223–4, 253, 263, 265, 271, 272 excess, see measure Fasciculus Morum 36 Favent, Thomas 166, 173–4 feudal summons 129–30, 132–3, 149 financial administration 74–5, 76, 78–80, 82–3, 87–8, 90, 92–4, 108, 113–14, 139–43, 154–7, 178n., 184–5, 210, 212, 221 see also councils; counsellors Fitzalan, Richard, earl of Arundel 20, 88, 93, 111–12, 122–3, 151, 153, 154, 164, 167, 167–9, 170, 171, 186, 237–8, 240, 250–4, 263, 267, 268 Foljambe, Thomas 232

308 Flanders 100–4, 115, 118–20, 124, 128, 135, 160 counts of, see Louis de Mˆale; Philip the Bold Forde, William de 92–3 Fordham, John, bishop of Durham, later bishop of Ely 142, 211 Froissart, Jean 135, 240, 255–6 Gascony 135, 165, 201–2, 203, 222, 223–30, 235, 235–6, 237, 238, 247 Gaunt, John of, duke of Lancaster influence in early reign 20, 77–8, 84, 101–2, 104, 106 and Spain 101–2, 104, 115, 118, 135–6, 143–4, 145, 237 during the bishop of Norwich’s Crusade 109–11 and Scotland 119, 129, 134 in negotiations with France 111, 112, 118, 120–4, 128, 201–2, 225–6, 232, 234, 235, 236, 249 early confrontations with the king 123–4, 133–7 possibility of an attack on France (1388) 169 role in government (1389 on) 187, 189, 190, 200, 221, 222 hunting party at Leicester (1390) 203 and Richard Maidstone 214 as duke of Aquitaine 201–2, 203, 222, 223–30, 256 and the localities 231, 232–3, 233–4 and the ‘Cheshire rebellion’ 232–5, 236 criticized by earl of Arundel 237–8, 260 by anonymous individuals (1394) 238 portrayal by Philippe de M´ezi`eres 254 death 270 Ghent 100–1, 103, 104, 124, 135, 137, 143, 169 Gilbert, John, bishop of Hereford 184 Giles of Rome 68, 78–9, 95 De Regimine Principum 12, 68–72 Gloucester 202, 208, 267 duke of, see Woodstock, Thomas of

Index Golafre, Sir John 166 government, concept of 2–3, 83, 87, 113–16, 122, 136n., 146, 152, 154–5, 159–60, 164, 176–8, 179–81, 242, 246, 247, 263–5, 268 and virtue 68–9, 74–6, 78–9, 82, 87 see also financial administration; taxation governance, see government. Gower, John Vox Clamantis 3, 17–18, 22, 41, 262, 271, 272 Confessio Amantis 45–6, 161 grace 46, 116, 190, 203, 207, 241, 261–2, 264, 266 see also mercy, pardon Gravelines 106, 108–9 Guelders, duke of, see William, duke of Guelders Guy of Warwick 29–30, 32–3, 35, 40, 47–8, 108 Handlyng Synne 49 Haringay Wood 268 Haxey, Thomas 245–7, 249 Henry III 223, 229 highness, as term of address 204–6, 212 Hoccleve, Thomas The Regement of Princes 51, 58, 280 Holand, John, earl of Devon 209, 232 Holand, Thomas, earl of Kent, later duke of Surrey 19, 145 Holt Castle 237 Holt, John 257 honour of the king 78–9, 87–8, 90, 94, 99, 103, 112, 114, 118, 121–2, 128, 132, 136, 150, 151, 152, 165, 169–70, 185, 206–7, 216–17, 237, 238, 241–3, 245, 246, 247, 252, 258, 268, 273–4, 279 of John of Gaunt 187, 238 of the earl of Rutland 241 shown to the Appellants 251, 252 of God 263 see also manhood: and honour; ‘worship’

Index household, the 13, 15, 42–3, 58, 72–3, 79, 82–3, 86, 87, 88–90, 97, 107–8, 114, 140–1, 151, 154–6, 176–8, 187, 190, 193–4, 194–204, 211, 239–40, 243–4, 245–7, 249, 273, 277, 278–9, see also financial administration Huntingdon 138, 267 inconstancy 2–4, 14–15 in speech 2–3, 14 see also childhood; women; youth; Richard II inheritance, noble 82, 176, 179, 180, 276 Ipstones, Sir John 232 Ireland 212, 222, 230, 240–3, 247, 249, 255, 256, 265, 278 see also Vere, Robert de Isabel of France, queen of England 199, 243, 245, 256 Isidore of Seville 61–3 Jean, duke of Berry 226, 236 Jerusalem 214–15 ‘Johannitius’ Isagoge 63, 65 John of Salisbury 46 justice, concept of 151, 155, 179, 182, 188, 208, 218, 229, 242, 252, 265, 266, 267, 271 Kennington 185, 245 Kent, earl of, see Holand, Thomas Kent, Joan of 225n. Kingsley, Adam 234 Kirkstall Abbey chronicle 131, 252 Knighton, Henry 131, 147–8, 172–3, 177, 180, 188 Kyng Alisaunder 29n., 30 Lancaster duke of, see Gaunt, John of; Bolingbroke, Henry earl of, see Thomas, earl of Lancaster Langley 223, 224 Langley, Edmund of, earl of Cambridge, later duke of York 20, 138, 154, 190, 205, 207, 238 largesse, see liberality Leicester 203

309 Leinster 240–1 Lestrange, Sir Roger 232 Leulingham 167, 199, 225, 236 liberality 46–7, 50–5, 279 see also manhood, measure, youth Lionel, duke of Clarence 77 Lombardy 255 London 146, 163, 164–5, 171, 210–11, 213–19, 245 Louis de Mˆale, count of Flanders 100 Louis, duke of Orl´eans 245 Louis II, duke of Bourbon 225, 255n. Lutterworth 202 Lybeaus Desconus 35, 40–1 Lyllyng, Nicholas 231–2 Lyons, Richard 99 MacMurrough, Art 241 Maidstone, Richard 214–18, 240 Maistreson, Thomas 234 majesty 11, 204, 206, 207, 212, 247, 253–4, 268 manhood and adulthood 27, 49 see also and youth and animals, see and being human and ceremony, see and decorum, and hospitality and chivalry, see and nobility and compassion 46–7, 48–9, 51–2 and constancy 2, 29–30, 33, 35–7, 42, 62, 63, 66, 78, 131–2, 144, 215, 271–3, 280 and courage 25, 28–33, 36–7, 131–2, 144, 215–16 and charity 46–7, 51–3 and decorum 47–50, 89, 127 and divinity, see and being human and dryness 65–6 and heat 62–3, 65, 66 and honour 18, 25, 34–7, 38–41, 47–53, 55, 58, 72, 89, 98, 131–2, 139, 146–7, 160–1, 193–4, 221, 273–4, 277–80 and hospitality 47–9, 52–3, 89, 193–4, 199, 220, 220–1, 239, 247–8, 278–9 and humanitas 45–6, 48–9, 50, 52, 89, 127, 239 and being human 26–7, 45–6, 49–50, 52 and largesse, see and liberality

310 manhood (cont.) and liberality 39, 45, 46–53, 55, 72–3, 89, 127, 137–8, 193–4, 221, 247, 278, 280 and lordship, see and service and nobility 27, 38–9, 47–53, 280 as the prime of life 63–5 and reason 2–3, 17, 21, 62, 63, 68–9 and renown, see and honour and revenge 25, 33–5, 38, 160–1, 220, 248, 250–1, 274, 278, 279–80 and rule 62, 68–9, 70 and service 30–1, 49, 132–3 and shame 30, 33–7, 40–1, 47–8, 72, 132, 277–8 simplest meaning of, vii–viii, 25–7, 38–9 social reference of 38–9, 280 see also, and nobility and speech 2 and status 33–5, 46–53, 72–3, 89, 149–50, 280 and steadfastness, see and constancy and strength 28–33, 36–7, 61, 63, 65, 132–3, 134, 217, 226 and swearing 27–8, 39 and vigour 28–9, 31–3, 39, 132–3, 134, 144, 218, 226, 271–2, 279 and viriliter 31–2, 132–3, 134, 226 and virtue 18, 35–7, 44, 275 and women 27, 35, 40, 47, 61 and youth 39–41, 150, 215–16, 271–2 ‘Manner of King Richard’s Renunciation, The’ 3 Manuel Palaeologus, emperor of Constantinople 251–2, 265 Mare, Peter de la 77, 78 masculinity approaches to vii, ix, 4–6, 280 see also manhood; Richard II: and masculinity Massy, John 234 Maynard, John 110 measure 14–15, 50–5, 57 medicine 14, 61–6, 70, 277 mercy 214–18, 240, 241–2, 251–2, 264, 269, 274, 276 see also pardon Merton College, Oxford 158n. M´ezi`eres, Philippe de 243, 254

Index Middle Age 54 ‘mirrors for princes’ 50, 55, 61–2, 75, 265, 277 see also Giles of Rome; Gower, John; Hoccleve, Thomas Molineux, Thomas 250n. Mone, Guy, bishop of St David’s 189 Montague, Sir John 186 Montague, William, earl of Salisbury 135–6, 141, 186 Montfort, Jean de, duke of Brittany 168 Mortimer, Roger, earl of March minority of 91–3 Mortimer, Sir Roger 93 Mortimer, Sir Thomas 250, 268 Mowbray, Thomas, earl of Nottingham and earl Marshall, later duke of Norfolk 135, 145, 151, 170, 171, 185, 228, 241, 268–70 multilingualism 22–3, 31–3 Neville, Alexander, archbishop of York 154, 165, 173–4, 210, 235 Neville, Lord John 93 Neville, Lord Ralph, later earl of Westmoreland 138, 140 Norfolk 110 Normandy 226 Northampton, John of 203 Northumberland, earl of, see Percy, Henry Norwich 108 bishop of, see Despenser, Henry Notley 202 Nottingham 162, 172, 219 earl of, see Mowbray, Thomas O’Brien, Brien 241 O’Toole, Felim 241 obedience 11, 12, 86, 206, 207, 242, 264–5, 274 officers, royal 80–1, 83, 87, 142, 147, 148, 151, 154, 158–60, 176–7, 183–4, 189, 279 see also councils; counsellors the Ordinances (1311) 80, 202, 209, 211, 212 Oxford 219 council at 144–5 see also Vere, Robert de, earl of Oxford

Index Pakington, William 88–9, 156 pardon 209, 210, 211–12, 215, 218, 220, 221, 232, 235, 252, 266–7, 269, 270, 271 Paris (city) 225, 255n. Paris (the Trojan) 217 The Parlement of the Thre Ages 53–4 parliaments the Good Parliament (1376) 74–5, 76, 77, 78, 87, 99, 160, 184 1377, October 77, 78–80 1378, October 80–1 1379, April 82 1380, January 81, 82–3, 84 1381–2, 99n., 87–90, 94 1382, May 98–101 1382, October 101–2, 103, 113–14 1383, February 103–5, 114 1383, October 114–15, 118–19, 265 1384, April 120–5 1384, November 128 1385, October 140–3 1386, October 146–9, 153–8, 161, 173 the Merciless Parliament (1388) 151–2, 158, 163, 167, 177–8, 182, 184, 205, 253–4, 257, 263, 266, 267 the Cambridge parliament (September 1388) 182 1390, January 188–9, 200, 216 1390, November 205, 207–9, 211 1391, November 207–8, 209, 211, 216 1393, January 236 1394, January 236 1395, January 241–2 1397, January 245–7, 249, 257 1397–8, 262–70 1399, September 1, 253, 271–2 peace concept of 79, 121, 128, 169, 174, 179, 187, 188, 214, 215, 224, 228, 237, 241, 243, 252, 265, 269, 274 negotiations for, see Gaunt, John of: in negotiations . . . ; Richard II: attitude to negotiations . . . ; Woodstock, Thomas of: and negotiations . . . ; Richard II: and war

311 The Peasants’ Revolt (1381) 84, 85–6, 87, 91, 99, 102, 265, 275 Pekeryng, Sir James 80–1, 103–4 Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland 93, 141, 185n., 186, 187 Percy, Henry (‘Hotspur’) 185, 228–9 Percy, Sir Thomas later earl of Worcester 225, 241 Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy 120, 128, 143, 167, 236, 244 Philip VI, king of France 111, 133 Piers Plowman 52–3 Pole, Michael de la, earl of Suffolk 20, 88, 97, 117–19, 120–1, 123, 128, 129, 134, 138–9, 141, 145, 146–7, 149, 165, 169, 265 preaching, see sermons prince, as term of address 11, 204, 206–7, 209, 212 Prophete, John 182 Puddington 234 Questions to the Judges, see Richard II: Questions to the Judges Radcot Bridge 151, 153, 167, 171, 233, 250n., 268, 270 Raddington, Sir Baldwin 232 Reading 162 Great Council (December 1389) 186–7, 200 reform, see councils; counsellors; financial administration; government; taxation Rehoboam, son of Solomon 19, 75, 159–60, 267, 274, 278 Richard II, king of England reputation viii, 3, 7–8, 10, 12–14, 72–3, 106, 164 historiography concerning 7–13 portraits of 15–16, 258–62, 266 contemporary attacks on viii–ix, 1–4, 6–7, 14–22, 41–4, 56–8, 71–3, 271, 277, see also Arundel, Thomas; the Eulogium continuator; Gower, John; Richard the Redeless; Walsingham, Thomas and masculinity 6–8, 11, 19, 60, 161, 262, 279–80

312 Richard II, king of England (cont.) court of 4, 6–7, 8–13, 42–3, 45, 56–9, 97–8, 108, 135, 161, 169–70, 239, 245–6, 249, 260, 278, see also the household; Richard II: and ceremony and ceremony 192–5, 199–204, 207, 212–13, 213–20, 221, 239–40, 244–6, 249, 259, 265, 273, 277, 278–9 and manhood 58, 72–3, 79, 82, 89, 98, 108–9, 123, 128, 129–30, 131–2, 134, 137–40, 142, 144, 146–7, 149–50, 151, 153, 161, 170–1, 172, 173, 174–5, 188, 190, 193–4, 214–18, 220, 221, 226, 241, 242, 247–8, 249, 250–1, 262, 266, 273, 275–80 political ideas 8, 10–12, 97–8, 138–9, 192–3, 204–10, 220, 250–1, 258–67, 273, 278–9 and retaining 10, 143, 162, 163–4, 231 mental health 8, 11, 43, 250–1, 273 and revenge 43–4, 136, 161–2, 210, 214–15, 220, 242, 248, 249–52, 257–8, 265–9, 273–4, 278, 279–80, see also mercy and anger 122, 175, 185 as a boy 1–2, 6, 18, 92, 93, 108, 262, 271, 272 as changeable, see and inconstancy as a child 1–2, 94, 108, 275 and counsel 2, 15, 16–20, 57–8, 71, 76, 108, 114–15, 122, 123–5, 135–6, 138–9, 142, 148, 152, 153, 157, 164–5, 169–71, 172–5, 177–81, 215–16, 217–18, 224, 242, 271–3, 275–8 and clothing 11, 15, 17, 57, 199, 244–5, 272 and covetousness 272 and cupidity 15, 57 and discretion 82, 115, 157, 180, 188–9, 193, 208, 216, 276 as a father 264, 279 as feminine in appearance 3, 14, 271 and foolishness 95 and Francophilia 7, 9 and furious activity 109 and mercy 214–18

Index and inconstancy 2, 14–15, 71, 92, 94, 107–9, 123–4, 153, 173, 218, 269–71, 277 and innocence 152 and pride, see and worldly vanity and prudence, see and discretion and reason, see and discretion and sin, see and clothing; and cupidity; and worldly vanity; and wilfulness and sodomy 240n. speech 2, 14, 71 as a tyrant 56–8, 269–72 as unmeasured 14–15, 17, 57–8 and vigour 242, 248, see also and furious activity; and anger and wilfulness 3, 17, 18, 71, 92, 269–73, 277 and wisdom, see and discretion and worldly vanity 2, 15, 17–18, 19, 42–3, 56–8, 72, 272 and youth 16–17, 19, 78–80, 87, 89–90, 91, 95–6, 98, 106–9, 112–13, 123–6, 135–6, 150, 151–3, 157, 159, 161, 164, 170, 172–5, 176, 180, 181, 188, 190–1, 212, 214–18, 221, 242, 249, 249, 251–2, 258–62, 266–7, 271, 273, 275–80 accession 74 coronation 213, 214 regency (absence of ) 76, 77, 275–6 upbringing 76, 78–9, 82, 87, 174, 275 tutors of 80–3, 122, 124 ‘tender age’ 74, 78, 80, 82, 84, 116–17, 152, 188, 190, 215, 251–2, 275 early role in government 84–7, 89–90, 91, 94, 113–17, 124–5, 133–4, 176 first marriage 88–9, 91, 98–9, 155–6, 239, 240, 275, 278 early relations with the nobility 8–10, 93, 98, 114–15, 122–3, 123–4, 133–7, 147 creation of noble titles 138–40 and war 4, 6–11, 13, 15, 19–20, 42–3, 57, 72, 149–50, 160–1, 254–7; early plans for a royal expedition 98, 99–101, 102–3, 104–5, 276, 278, 279; and the bishop of Norwich’s

Index crusade 106–113, 117–19, 120–3; expedition to Scotland 127–38, 278; in 1386: 143–50, 151, 174; renewed plans for a royal expedition (early 1390s) 236; see also attitude to negotiations with France; expeditions to Ireland attitude to Continual Council (1386–7) 161–4, 279 Question to the Judges 147–8, 151, 153, 162–4, 172, 177, 202, 257, 276 alleged secret negotiations with Charles VI (1387) 165–71 and the Appeal 171–5, 276 proposed deposition (1387) 151, 172, 258, 268 ‘assumption of government’ (May 1389) 176–7, 179–81, 183–4, 186–7, 190, 192, 199–200, 212, 221, 273 relations with the council (1389 and later) 184–6, 189–90, 210–12, 221 ‘full age’ 180–2, 188, 208, see also ‘assumption of government’ and tournaments 201–2, 203 and Edward II 202–3, 208, 209 and his exiled friends 203, 208–10, 235, 257–8, 270 relations with London 210–11, 213–19 return to political centrality 193–204, 213–19, 221–49, 267, 276–7 intervention in the localities (1390s) 231–5, 238 and Aquitaine 222, 223–5, 229–30, 233, 235, 238 attitude to negotiations with France 222, 225–8, 232–3, 234–6, 236, 247, 250, 254–7, 273 and death of Queen Anne 238–40, 249 expeditions to Ireland 222, 230, 240–3, 247, 249, 255, 256, 265, 270 second marriage, and negotiations 199, 222, 243–6, 247, 249, 254, 255–7, 279

313 later attitude to early reign 249–62 actions against former Appellants (1397–9) 249–54, 257–8, 266–70, 279 exactions of 1397–9 269–70, 275, 279 articles of deposition 253, 271–2 Richard Coer de Lyon 29–31, 34–5, 241 Richard the Redeless 3, 16–17, 41, 272 Rickhill, William 257 Roman law 12, 204, 206, 264n., 271n., 279 romance 78, 108, 160–1 see also Of Arthour and of Merlin; Beues of Hamptoun; Guy of Warwick; Kyng Alisaunder; Lybeaus Desconus; Richard Coer de Lyon; Sir Degrevant; William of Palerne Roosebeke, battle of 103, 106 rule, see government, concept of Rushook, Thomas, bishop of Chichester 88 Russell, Sir John 231–2 Rutland, earl of, see Edward, earl of Rutland St Albans Abbey 109, 257 chronicle 3, 19, 57, 230, 232–3n., 236, 237, 240, 244–5, 253, 269, see also Walsingham, Thomas St David’s, bishop of, see Mone, Guy St Denis, chronicler of 245, 256n. St Edmund 259 St Edward the Confessor 193, 259 St George, banner of 171, 261 St Ingelvert, tournament at 200 St John the Baptist 214, 259, 266 St Paul’s Cross, London 158 Salisbury, see parliament: April 1384 Salisbury, earl of, see Montague, William Sandys, Sir John 158n. Scotland 105–6, 110, 115, 118–20, 121, 127–37, 143, 236, 278 Scrope, Sir Richard 81, 91–5, 99, 141, 154, 178, 190 Scrope, Sir William, later earl of Wiltshire 223, 228 Seneca 46

314 sermons 35–7, 50–1, 61, 65, 75, 277, 280 see also Arundel, Thomas; Brinton, Thomas; Courtenay, William; de Besanc¸on, Etienne; Fasciculus Morum; Stafford, Edmund; Wimbledon, Thomas Sheen 238–9 Shenstone 232 Sir Degrevant 46–7 Shrewsbury 162, 270 Skirlaw, Walter, bishop of Bath and Wells, later bishop of Durham 178 Sluys 143 Smithfield, tournaments 200–2, 203 Solomon 19, 31n., 42, 75, 159, 216 Southampton 156 Southwark 245 Spain 101–2, 104, 118–19, 124, 135, 143, 168, 237, 243, 254 speech, control of, see boys; children; women; youth; Richard II; inconstancy Stafford, Hugh, earl of Stafford 141 lands during minority of his heir 155, 211 Stafford, Edmund, bishop of Exeter 20 sermon (September 1397) 262–7 Staffordshire 162, 232 Stamford, council at 225–7, 236 Stury, Sir Richard 169, 183 Suffolk, earl of, see Pole, Michael de la Takell, William 117 Talbot, Sir Thomas 233–4 taxation 74–6, 82, 88, 98, 99–105, 107–8, 116, 118–20, 121, 128–9, 130, 140–1, 143, 145, 147, 148–9, 154, 157, 159–60, 165, 185, 236, 241–2, 246, 247, 272 see also financial administration Thetford 108 Thomas, earl of Lancaster 270 Thomas of Cantimpr´e 66–7 Tractatus de Grammatica 46 Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux 256–7

Index treason 153, 165–6, 169, 170, 172–4, 184, 187, 237, 251–3, 257–8, 265, 267–8, 270, 276 see also Richard II: Questions to the Judges the treasurer 56, 76, 93, 94, 141, 142, 147, 184, 189, 211, 219, 236 Tresilian, Robert 165 Trevisa, John translation of De Proprietatibus Rerum 62 translation of Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum 49 Trevor, John, bishop of St Asaph 55 Trivet, Sir Thomas 168 Troilus 217 Usk, Adam of 3, 18–19, 54–5, 57, 240, 263, 265 Vere, Robert de, earl of Oxford, later marquis of Dublin, later duke of Ireland 9, 12, 20, 50, 97, 111, 138, 141n., 144, 145, 147, 165, 169, 170, 171–2, 173, 210, 233, 235, 240n. Vienne, Jean de 127, 129–31, 132–3, 137, 140 Vincent of Beauvais 64–5, 67 Virgin Mary 258–62 Vox Clamantis, see Gower, John Walden, Roger, archbishop of Canterbury 56–7 Wales 164, 269 Walsingham, Thomas 81, 82, 91–2, 93–5, 107–9, 112, 123–4, 125, 131, 135–6, 137, 153, 165, 169–70, 173, 177, 181, 187n., 188, 190, 218–19, 232–3n., 277 Waltham, John, bishop of Salisbury 211 Wark Castle 105 Warwick, earl of, see Beauchamp, Thomas Wenceslas of Bohemia, emperor 255 Westminster Abbey 240 chronicle 91, 102, 104, 114–15, 121–2, 123–4, 128–9, 131,

Index 134–6, 137, 165, 173, 178, 180–1, 187, 188, 202, 203, 210, 211, 219, 223–4, 225–7, 236, 237, 238 portrait of Richard II 16, 266 Westminster Hall 171 white hart, livery of 192, 201, 259, 261 wilfulness 2–3, 14, 17–18, 20, 21 see also boys; women; youth; Richard II William, duke of Guelders 48, 169, 200–2, 226, 228, 239 William of Ostrevant 201 William of Palerne 28–30, 33–4, 47n. Wilton Diptych 4, 16, 258–62, 266 Wimbledon, Thomas 158–60, 162, 170, 278 Winchester 219 bishop of, see Wykeham, William Windsor 162, 211, 234 women and cold 63, 65, 66 and counsel 3, 69, 160–2, 216 earl of Warwick compared to 250 and excess 70–1 as incomplete men 66, 69 and inconstancy 4, 62, 65–6, 70 and sin 65–6, 70, 71, 218 and softness 61, 70, 216 subordination to men 69, 217 and reason (lack of) 62, 65–6, 68–9, 70, 71 unstable speech 70 and weakness 62, 65–6, 250 and wetness 65–6, 250 and wilfulness 71 Woodstock 162, 202, 203 Woodstock, Thomas of, earl of Buckingham, later duke of Gloucester 12, 50, 62 early involvement in politics 109–10, 125, 129, 134, 138 in the crisis of 1386 145, 148–9, 154 and negotiations with the French 124, 128, 166–7, 199, 201–2, 225, 232, 234, 254, 258 and the Appeal of 1387–8 151, 153, 164, 170, 171

315 later relations with the king 181, 186, 189, 190, 205, 207 protecting interests of John of Gaunt 230, 238, 256 and the ‘Cheshire rebellion’ 232, 234, 236 portrayed by continental writers 255–7 arrest, trial, and murder 249–51, 253, 257–8, 263, 268 Worcestershire 231–2 ‘worship’ 37, 50–1, 194 Wykeham, William, bishop of Winchester 77, 141, 154, 177, 178, 184–5, 186, 188, 189, 193, 210–12, 216, 218 York 210–11, 219 archbishop of, see Neville, Alexander; Arundel, Thomas duke of, see Langley, Edmund of youth and changeability, see and inconstancy and clothing 17, 54, 71 and counsel 2–3, 15, 16–21, 57, 70, 75, 160–1, 169, 170, 215, 277 and effeminacy 67 and excess 70–1, 160–1 and heat 63, 66 as incomplete men 66, 69 and inconstancy 14–15, 23, 65, 66–7, 70, 71, 170, 174, 215, 273, 277 and lechery 66–7, 217–18, see also and love; and sin. and liberality 53–4 and love 17, 54, 215, 216 and malleability 63–5, 66–7, 70, 71, 74, 76, 97, 164, 174, 186, 212, 216, 272, 275, 276 and manhood 39–41, 63–5, 215–16 and military deeds 54, 159–61 see also manhood: and youth as the prime of life 63–5 and reason (lack of) 68–9, 71, 95, 160–1 see also youth: and wilfulness

316 youth (cont.) and revenge 160–1 and rule 16–17, 69, 70 and sin 2, 15, 16–19, 21, 67, 70, 71, 169–70, 173–4, 277 and softness 67, 71 and strength 63–5, 67, 160 subordination to the old 69 and tyranny, see Rehoboam

Index and vigour 63–6, 109, 160–1, 164, 170, 175, 242, 273 and wetness 63, 65–6 and wilfulness 2, 17–18, 20, 21, 71, 160–1, 277 and the world, see youth: and sin see alsoThe Parlement of the Thre Ages; Richard II: court of; Richard II: as a youth. Ypres 106, 107