six years old.

The whole nation mourned for him as one of
the most renowned and beloved princes it had




KIM'. JOHN OF FRANCE AT THE BATTLE OF POITIERS.



ever had ; and he was buried with great lamenta-
tions, in Canterbury Cathedral. Near to the
tomb of Edward the Confessor, his monument,
with his figure, carved in stone, and represented
in the old black armour, lying on its back, may
be seen at this day, with an ancient coat of mail,



a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a
beam above it, which most people like to believe
were once worn by the Black Prince.

King Edward did not outlive his renowned
son, long. He was old, and one Alice Perrers,
a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him so



RICHARD THE SECOND.



11



fond of her in his old age, that he could refuse
her nothing, and made himself ridiculous. She
little deserved his love, or — what I dare say she
valued a great deal more — the jewels of the late
Queen, which he gave her among other rich pre-
sents. She took the very ring from his finger on
the morning of the day when he died, and left
him to be pillaged by his faithless servants.
Only one good priest was true to him, and
attended him to the last.

Besides being famous for the great victories
I have related, the reign of King Edward the
Third was rendered memorable in better ways,
by the growth of architecture and the erection
of Windsor Castle. In better ways still, by the
rising up of Wickliffe, originally a poor parish
priest : who devoted himself to exposing, with
wonderful power and success, the ambition and
corruption of the Pope, and of the whole church
of which he was the head.

Some of those Flemings were induced to
come to England in this reign too, and to settle
m Norfolk, where they made better woollen
cloths than the English had ever had before.
The Order of the Garter (a very fine thing in its
way, but hardly so important as good clothes for
the nation) also dates from this period. The
King is said to have picked up a lady's garter at
a ball, and to have said, Honi soit qui mal y
pense — in English, " Evil be to him who evil
thinks of it." The courtiers were usually glad
to imitate what the King said or did, and hence
from a slight incident the Order of the Garter
was instituted, and became a great dignity. So
the story goes.



CHAPTER XIX.

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND.

ICHARD, son of the Black Prince,
a boy eleven years of age, succeeded
to the Crown under the title of King
Richard the Second. The whole
English nation were ready to ad-
mire him for the sake of his brave
father. As to the lords and ladies about
the Court, they declared him to be the
most beautiful, the wisest, and the best — even
of princes — whom the lords and ladies about the
Court, generally declare to be the most beauti-
ful, the wisest, and the best of mankind. To
natter a poor boy in this base manner was not a
very likely way to develop whatever good was in
him ; and it brought him to anything but a good
or happy end.




The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's
uncle — commonly called John of Gaunt, from
having been born at Ghent, which the common
people so pronounced — was supposed to have
some thoughts of the throne himself ; but, as he
was not popular, and the memory of the Black
Prince was, he submitted to his nephew.

The war with France being still unsettled, the
Government of England wanted money to pro-
vide for the expenses that might arise out of it ;
accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax,
which had originated in the last reign, was
ordered to be levied on the people. This was
a tax on every person in the kingdom, male
and female, above the age of fourteen, of three
groats (or three fourpenny pieces) a year ; clergy-
men were charged more, and only beggars were
exempt.

I have no need to repeat that the common
people of England had long been suffering under
great oppression. They were still the mere
slaves of the lords of the land on which they
lived, and were on most occasions harshly and
unjustly treated. But, they had begun by this
time to think very seriously of not bearing quite
so much ; and, probably, were emboldened by
that French insurrection I mentioned in the last
chapter.

The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax,
and being severely handled by the government
officers, killed some of them. At this very time
one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from
house to house, at Dartford in Kent came to the
cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed
the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who
was at home, declared that she was under the
age of fourteen ; upon that, the collector (as
other collectors had already done in different
parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and
brutally insulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The
daughter screamed, the mother screamed. Wat
the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the
spot, and did what any honest father under such
provocation might have done — struck the col-
lector dead at a blow.

Instantly the people of that town uprose as
one man. They made Wat Tyler their leader;
they joined with the people of Essex, who were
in arms under a priest called Jack Straw ;
they took out of prison another priest named
John Ball ; and gathering in numbers as they
went along, advanced, in a great confused army
of poor men, to Blackheath. It is said that
they wanted to abolish all property, and to
declare all men equal. I do not think this very
likely; because they stopped the travellers on
the roads and made them swear to be true to



7 8



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.



King Richard and the people. Nor were they
at all disposed to injure those who had done
them no harm, merely because they were of
high station ; for, the King's mother, who had
to pass through their camp at Blackheath, on
her way to her young son, lying for safety in the
Tower of London, had merely to kiss a lew
dirty-faced rough-bearded men who were noisily
fond of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety.
Next day the whole mass marched on to London
Bridge.

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which
William Walworth the Mayor caused to be
raised to prevent their coining into the city ; but
they soon terrified the citizens into lowering it
again, and spread themselves, with great uproar,
over the streets. They broke open the prisons ;
they burned the papers in Lambeth Palace; they
destroyed the Duke of Lancaster's Palace, the
Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the most beauti-
ful and splendid in England ; they sef fire to the
books and documents in the Temple ; and made
a great riot. Many of these outrages were com-
mitted in drunkenness ; since those citizens, who
had well-filled cellars, were only too glad to
throw them open to save the rest of their pro-
perty ; but e\en the drunken rioters were very
careful to steal nothing. They were so angry
with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup
at the Savoy Palace, and put it in his- breast,
that they drowned him in the river, cup and all.

The young King had been taken out to treat
with them before they committed these excesses ;
but, he and the people about him were so
frightened by the riotous shouts, that they got
back to the Tower in the best way they could.
This made the insurgents bolder ; so they went
on rioting away, striking off the heads of those
who did not, at a moment's notice, declare for
King Richard and the people ; and killing as
many of the unpopular persons whom they sup-
posed to be their enemies as they could by any
means lay hold of. In this manner they passed
one very violent day, and then proclamation
was made that the King would meet them at
Mile-end, and grant their requests.

The rioters went to Mile-end to the number
of sixty thousand, and the King met them there,
and to the King the rioters peaceably proposed
four conditions. First,, that neither they, nor
their children, nor any coming after them, should
be made slaves anymore. Secondly, that the
rent of land should be fixed at a certain price
in money, instead of being paid in service.
Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy
and sell in all markets and public places, like
other free men. Fourthly, that they should be



pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows,
there was nothing very unreasonable in these
proposals ! The young King deceitfully pre-
tended to think so, and kept thirty clerks up, all
night, writing out a charter accordingly.

Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than
this. He wanted the entire abolition of the
forest laws. He was not at Mile-end with the
rest, but, while that meeting was being held,
broke into the Tower of London and slew the
archbishop and the treasurer, for whose heads
the people had cried out loudly the day before.
He and his men even thrust their swords into
the bed of the Princess of Wales while the Prin-
cess was in it, to make certain that none of their
enemies were concealed there.

So, Wat and his men still continued armed,
and rode about the city. Next morning, the
King with a small train of some sixty gentlemen
— among whom was Walworth the Mayor —
rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his
people at a little distance. Says Wat to his
men, " There is the King. I will go speak with
him, and tell him what we want."

Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began
to talk. " King,;' says Wat, " dost thou see all
my men there ? "

" Ah," says the King. " Why ? "

" Because," says Wat, " they are all at my
command, and have sworn to do whatever I bid
them."

Some declared afterwards that as Wat said
this, he laid his hand on the King's bridle.
Others declared that he was seen to play with
his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just
spoke to the King like a rough, angry man, as
he was, and did nothing more. At any rate he
was expecting no attack, and preparing for no
resistance, when Walworth the Mayor did the
not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword
and stabbing him in the throat. He dropped
from his horse, and one of the King's people
speedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler.
Fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph
of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally
find an echo to this day. But Wat was a hard-
working man, who had suffered much, and had
been foully outraged ; and it is probable that he
was a man of a much higher nature and a much
braver spirit than any of the parasites who
exulted then, or have exulted since, over his
deieat.

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent
their bows to avenge his fall. If the young
King had not had presence of mind at that dan-
gerous moment, both he and the Mayor to boot,
might have followed Tyler pretty last. But the



RICHARD THE SECOND.



79



King riding up to the crowd, cried out that
Tyler was a traitor, and that he would be their
leader. They were so taken by surprise, that
they set up a great shouting, and followed the
boy until he was met at Islington by a large
body of soldiers.

The end of this rising was the then usual end.
As soon as the King found himself safe, he
unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had
done ; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were
tried (mostly in Essex) with great rigour, and
executed with great cruelty. Many of them
were hanged on gibbets, and left there as" a
terror to the country people ; and, because their
miserable friends took some of the bodies down
to bury, the King ordered the rest to be chained
up— which was the beginning of the barbarous
custom of hanging in chains. The King's false-
hood in this business makes such a pitiful figure,
that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as
beyond comparison the truer and more respect-
able man of the two.

Richard was now sixteen years of age, and
married Anne of Bohemia, an excellent princess,
who was called " the good Queen Anne." She
deserved a better husband; for the King had
been fawned and flattered into a treacherous,
wasteful, dissolute, bad young man.

There were two Popes at this time (as if one
were not enough !), and their quarrels involved
Europe in a great deal of trouble. Scotland
was still troublesome too ; and at home there
was much jealousy and distrust, and plotting
and counter-plotting, because the King feared
the ambition of his relations, and particularly of
his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, and the duke
had his party against the King, and the King
had his party against the duke. Nor were these
home troubles lessened when the duke went to
Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that
kingdom ; for then the Duke of Gloucester,
another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, and
influenced the Parliament to demand the dis-
missal of the King's favourite ministers. The
King said in reply, that he would not for such
men dismiss the meanest servant in his kitchen.
Put, it had begun to signify little what a King
said when a Parliament was determined ; so
Richaid was at last obliged to give way, and to
agree to another Government of the kingdom,
under a commission of fourteen nobles, for a
year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the head
of this commission, and, in fact, appointed
everybody composing it.

Having done all this, the King declared as
soon as he saw an opportunity that he had never
meant to do it, and that it was all illegal ; and



he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration
to that effect. The secret oozed out directly,
and was carried to the Duke of Gloucester.
The Duke of Gloucester, at the head of forty
thousand men, met the King on his entering
into London to enforce his authority ; the King
was helpless against him ; his favourites and
ministers were impeached and were mercilessly
executed. Among them were two men whom
the people regarded with very different feelings;
one, Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was
hated for having made what was called ' ; the
bloody circuit " to try the rioters ; the other, Sir
Simon Burley, an honourable knight, who had
been the dear friend of the Black Prince, and
the governor and guardian of the King. For
this gentleman's life the good Queen even begged
of Gloucester on her knees ; but Gloucester
(with or without reason) feared and hated him,
and replied, that if she valued her husband's
crown, she had better beg no more. All this
was done under what was called by some the
wonderful — and by others, with better reason,
the merciless — Parliament.

But Gloucester's power was not to last for
ever. He held it for only a year longer ; in
which year the famous battle of Otterbourne,
sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was
fought. When the year was out, the King,
turning suddenly to Gloucester, in the midst of
a great council said, "Uncle, how old am I?"
" Your highness," returned the Duke, ' ; is in
your twenty-second year." "Am I so much?''
said the King, " then I will manage my own
affairs ! I am much obliged to you, my good
lords, for your past services, but I need them
no more." He followed this up, by appointing
a new Chancellor and a new Treasurer, and
announced to the people that he had resumed
the Government. He held it for eight years
without opposition. Through all that time, he
kept his determination to revenge himself some
day upon his uncle Gloucester, in his own
breast.

At last the good Queen died, and then the
King, desiring to take a second wife, proposed
to his council that he should marry Isabella, of
France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth : who,
the French courtiers said (as the English cour-
tiers had said of Richard), was a marvel of
beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon — of
seven years old. The council were divided
about this marriage, but it took place. It secured
peace between England and France for a quarter
of a century ; but it was strongly opposed to the
prejudices of the English people. The Duke ot
Gloucester, who was anxious to take the occa-



So



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.



sion of making himself popular, declaimed against
it loudly, and this at length decided the King to
execute the vengeance he had been nursing so
long.

He went with a gay company to the Duke of
Gloucester's house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex,
where the Duke, suspecting nothing, came out
into the court-yard to receive his royal visitor.
While the King conversed in a friendly manner
with the Duchess, the Duke was quietly seized,
hurried away, shipped for Calais, and lodged in
the castle there. His friends, the Earls of Arun-
del and Warwick, were taken in the same trea-
cherous manner, and confined to their castles.
A few days after, at Nottingham, they were im-
peached of high treason. The Earl of Arundel
was condemned and beheaded, and the Earl of
Warwick was banished. Then, a writ was sent
by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, re-
quiring him to send the Duke of Gloucester
over to be tried. In three days he returned an
answer that he could not do that, because the
Duke of Gloucester had died in prison. The
Duke was declared a traitor, his property was
confiscated to the King, a real or pretended
confession he had made in prison to one of the
Justices of the Common Pleas, was produced
against him, and there was an end of the matter.
How the unfortunate duke died, very few cared
to know. Whether he really died naturally ;
whether he killed himself; whether, by the King's
order, he was strangled, or smothered between
two beds (as a serving-man of the Governor's
named Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be
discovered. There is not much doubt that he
was killed, somehow or other, by his nephew's
orders. Among the most active nobles in these
proceedings were the King's cousin, Henry
Bolingbroke, whom the King had made Duke
of Hereford to smooth down the old family
quarrels, and some others : who had in the
family-plotting times done just such acts them-
selves as they now condemned in the duke.
They seem to have been a corrupt set of men ;
but such men were easily found about the court
in such days.

The people murmured at all this, and were
still very sore about the French marriage. The
nobles saw how little the King cared for law,
and how crafty he was, and began to be some-
what afraid of themselves. The King's life was
a life of continued feasting and excess; his
retinue, down to the meanest servants, were
dressed in the most costly manner, and caroused
at his tables ; it is related, to the number of ten
thousand persons every day. He himself, sur-
rounded by a body of ten thousand archers, and



enriched by a duty on wool which the Commons
had granted him for life, saw no danger of ever
being otherwise than powerful and absolute,
and was as fierce and haughty as a King could
be.

He had two of his old enemies left, in the
persons of the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk.
Sparing these no more than the others, he tam-
pered with the Duke of Hereford until he got
him to declare before the Council that the Duke
of Norfolk had lately held some treasonable talk
with him, as he was riding near Brentford; and
that he had told him, among other things, that
he could not believe the King's oath — which
nobody could, I should think. For this treachery
he obtained a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk
was summoned to appear and defend himself.
As he denied the charge and said his accuser
was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, accord-
ing to the manner of those times, were held in
custody, and the truth was ordered to be decided
by wager of battle at Coventry. This wager of
battle meant that whosoever won the combat
was to be considered in the right ; which non-
sense meant in effect, that no strong man could
ever be wrong. A great holiday was made ; a
great crowd assembled, with much parade and
show ; and the two combatants were about to
rush at each other with their lances, when the
King, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw
down the truncheon he carried in his hand, and
forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford was
to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of
Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the
King. The Duke of Hereford went to France,
and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolk made
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and afterwards
died at Venice of a broken heart.

Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went
on in his career. The Duke of Lancaster, who
was the father of the Duke of Hereford, died
soon after the departure of his son; and, the
King, although he had solemnly granted to that
son leave to inherit his father's property, if it
should come to him during his banishment, im-
mediately seized it all, like a robber. The judges
were so afraid of him, that they disgraced them-
selves by declaring this theft to be just and
lawful. His avarice knew no bounds. He out-
lawed seventeen counties at once, on a frivolous
pretence, merely to raise money by way of fines
for misconduct. In short, he did as many dis-
honest things as he could ; and cared so little
for the discontent of his subjects — though even
the spaniel favourites began to whisper to him
that there was such a thing as discontent afloat —
that he took that time, of all others, for leaving



RICHARD THE SECOND.



Si



England and making an expedition against the
Irish.

He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of
York Regent in his absence, when his cousin,
Henry of Hereford, came over from France to
claim the rights of which he had been so mon-
strously deprived. He was immediately joined
by the two great Earls of Northumberland and
Westmoreland ; and his uncle, the Regent, finding
the King's cause unpopular, and the disinclina-
tion of the army to act against Henry, very
strong, withdrew with the royal forces towards
Bristol. Henry, at the head of an army, came
from Yorkshire (where he had landed) to London
and followed him. They joined their forces —
how they brought that about, is not distinctly
understood — and proceeded to Bristol Castle,
whither three noblemen had taken the young
Queen. The castle surrendering, they presently
put those three noblemen to death. The Regent
then remained there, and Henry went on to
Chester.

All th'S time, the boisterous weather had pre-
vented the King from receiving intelligence of
what had occurred. At length it was conveyed
to him in Ireland, and he sent over the Earl of
Salisbury, who, landing at Conway, rallied the
Welshmen, and waited for the King a whole
fortnight ; at the end of that time the Welshmen,
who were perhaps not very warm for him in the
beginning, quite cooled down and went home.
When the King did land on the coast at last, he
came with a pretty good power, but his men
cared nothing for him, and quickly deserted.
Supposing the Welshmen to be still at Conway,
he disguised himself as a priest, and made for
that place in company with his two brothers and
some few of their adherents. But, there were no
Welshmen left — only Salisbury and a hundred
soldiers. In this distress, the King's two bro-
thers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henry
to learn what his intentions were. Surrey, who
was true to Richard, was put into prison. Exe-
ter, who was false, took the royal badge, which
was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the rose,
the badge of Henry. After this, it was pretty
plain to the King what Henry's intentions were,
without sending any more messengers to ask.

The fallen King, thus deserted — hemmed in
on all sides, and pressed with hunger — rode here
and rode there, and went to this castle, and
went to that castle, endeavouring to obtain some
provisions, but could find none. He rode
wretchedly back to Conway, and there surren-
dered himself to the Earl of Northumberland,
who came from Henry, in reality to take him
prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms ; and
Child's History of England, 6.



whose men were hidden not far off. By this
earl he was conducted to the castle of Flint,
where his cousin Henry met him, and dropped
on his knee as if he were still respectful to his
sovereign.

" Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the King,
"you are very welcome" (very welcome, no
doubt ; but he would have been more so, in
chains or without a head).

" My lord," replied Henry, " I am come a
little before my time ; but, with your good plea-
sure, I will show you the reason. Your people
complain with some bitterness, that you have
ruled them rigorously for two-and-twenty years.
Now, if it please God. I will help you to govern
them better in future."

" Fair cousin," replied the abject King,
" since it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me mightily."

After this, the trumpets sounded, and the
King was stuck on a wretched horse, and carried
prisoner to Chester, where he was made to issue