his Valour and Conduct The Duke of Lancaster needed not the force of Eloquence to perswade him the loss of his Uncles his Banishment the Imprisonment of his Children and the loss of his Estate were powerful Exciters enough to lay hold on any Opportunity to revenge all his Wrongs To all which was added the perswasive Temptation of a Crown and sure there could be no more powerful Motives than by one way at once to satisfie both his Ambition and Revenge These Considerations and the depending on the Peoples Affections to a Change being wearied with Oppression made him venture to land with a very small Force in Yorkshire At first he gave out That he came only to recover his Inheritance and quickly found his utmost Expectation answer'd for his small Troop presently encreas'd to an Army Many of the Nobility that came in to him took an Oath of him That no bodily harm should be done to King Richard as if a Conquest and a Crown wou'd preserve that Sincerity that was inconsistent with it or that the Modesty profess'd when something was to be obtain'd should continue after the Acquisition The Duke finding every thing more successful than almost he could hope pursued that Fortune which so prosperously invited him and hasted with his still-encreasing Forces to London where he found a Reception suitable to usual Joy that discontented People shew in Alterations He was receiv'd in Triumph without Victory and with all the Testimonies of Zeal and Duty which flattering Crowds cou'd pay their lawful Prince and Soveraign Pageants and rich Presents entertain'd him and all the fulsome Praises that could be invented and as many contumelious Reproaches on their King All Testimonies of Allegiance seem'd lost the modest Mask was now taken off and War proclaim'd against King Richard and his Adherents The Duke of York in the mean time tried to raise Forces but found a general Resolution in all People not to be Enemies to the Duke of Lancaster The Favourites that were active and bold in Prosperity shew'd that neither their Skill nor their Duty was to struggle with Difficulties nor had they either Interest or Reputation if they had attempted it They were always dead Weights upon their Prince and like the nature of it hung heaviest upon weak Conditions Bushy and Greene were pursued to Bristol and there taken fatal place to hasty Favourites They were eagerly pursu'd by the flattering Fury of the People and perhaps there were some among them that before in the Prosperity of these Favourites made as passionate Professions of a contrary Devotion Bagott escap'd into Ireland and sav'd himself from the present Execution The Lord Scroop Lord Treasurer with Bushy and Greene that were taken lost their Heads These sudden Executions were but the usual Consequences of violent Changes All new-gotten Power is commonly endeavour'd to be preserv'd by Destruction and the Execution of the Unfortunate is call'd a Justice King Richard was at this time in Ireland where the news came to him of the Duke's landing in England and his successful Proceedings The news increas'd by coming and every Circumstance grew enlarg'd so that it appear'd the blackest and most portentous Storm that ever gather'd in the full Sun-shine of a Prince which his Favourites assur'd him cou'd be subject to no Eclipse The contrary appear'd to this unfortunate King who was then engag'd in Troubles in Ireland After some time he prepar'd for England having first imprison'd the Sons of the Dukes of Lancaster and Glocester in Trim-Castle and took with him the Dukes of Surrey Aumarl and Exeter and the Bishops of London Lincoln and Carlisle The Earl of Salisbury was sent before to raise an Army which he did in Cornwal but the King failing to come within the time he promis'd they all discourag'd went home This delay was attributed to the Counsel of the Duke of Aumarl who perhaps had more mind to see things determin'd by the Fortune of others than by hazarding his own After this the King Lands in Wales where he found the stream turning from him and every Place of strength submitting to the Duke of Lancaster He knew not what Course to steer but wandred to Conway-Castle where the Earl of Worcester Steward to the King's Houshold as if finding a fitting time to remember the proclaiming his Brother the Duke of Northumberland Traytor broke his Staff of Office openly in the Hall before the King's Servants and with Advice to them to be as base as himself went avowedly to the Duke The rest followed his Example and those that seem'd the most eagerly Loyal became now the most violently Rebellious And 't is improbable that those who with unlimited Flattery for their Interest and Ambition had perswaded their Prince into the dangerous Attempt of Absolute Power should in any turn of Fortune or shock of Danger retain any limited Principles The true Interest of a Prince retains the Interest of others but the Interest of private Men excludes the Prince's We have heard 't is true of some that have been successful in such unjust and dangerous Attempts but the Examples have been very few that have not been fatal at last and there are so many of the contrary that the Comparison would convince any That the just Limits within a Nation 's Constitution are much more safe as well as glorious King Richard had now cause to make such sad Reflections and by the want of Power instructed to lament the attempting of too much He saw himself forsaken by those whom he should have forsook before He now felt severely the want of that Trust and Confidence that he had destroy'd and seem'd not forsaken of his People but to have forsook them before He had forc'd them all to be in the nature of Traytors and compell'd them to purchase as it were the name of Subjects while there were none that seem'd so to him but those that needed Pardon the most such as had counsell'd him to the Ruin that now fell upon him He had been so long accustomed to follow the Counsel of others that he knew not now the way to use his own He had too long followed the mean and easie ways of Indirectness Virtuous and steddy Actions in the undisturbed part of Life give power in Extremity and the memory of what was Great and Good gives boldness to such a Mind to claim Success in the worst condition But the memory of Injuries and Injustice done to others shakes Hopes and Expectations in a dangerous Estate This he shewed by discharging his Army rather than bravely using them as if he believ'd it impossible to recover Power now since he had used it so ill before The next thing that seem'd best was to have retired till a better occasion was offered for nothing is more various or violent than the stream of Mens minds with greediness affecting Change and hurried by Expectations that are seldom answered to be eas'd from all former Grievances and Oppressions and every one that
so like a Cloud that seem'd to threaten any storm and the instability of this World in general is seldom the Contemplation of the Fortunate and Ambitious This made him attempt that which was the highest Testimony of his believ'd Security in lessening the Queens Attandance and Maintenance The Spencers were not satiated with all the late Spoils of the King's Enemies nor with the Sale of his Favours to his Friends Places and Honours were purchas'd as in a common Market and every thing enclos'd or expos'd as they pleased Yet it seem'd all this was not enough or certainly they wou'd not have endeavoured to supply the want by the Queens Prejudice and raise the most probable storm to disturb their prosperous Course For the Queen had been always the great support of the King and the Composer of his difficult Affairs She repair'd those Breaches the Errors of others had made one that still labour'd for Peace and was successful in it It might seem strange that Favourites could find ways to waste as much as would support and supply the Publick and then seek ways as extravagant to get it and yet more strange that a King shou'd be a Party in the dangerous ways that led to his own Ruine and careful to preserve them by the Hazard of himself When Gaveston and the Spencers seem'd forsaken by God and Man they were never by their unfortunate Prince but by him the whole was judged more guilty and less wise than his Favourites In the fatal stream of Fortune the Prosperous and Ambitious think of nothing but Enjoyments detest a sober much more a melancholy Consideration of those strange and sudden Alterations and Changes that this World is subject to but think their Greatness and Prosperity has chain'd up Accidents and that Fortune who had flatter'd them as much as they had done their Prince wou'd always be as obedient as she had been seemingly fond of them Affliction gives Thoughts admittance but the swell'd Minds of the successfully Ambitious seldom endure to think The First Accident that shew'd this Truth was the Troubles that rose in France which grew so high that all the Kings Territories were adjudged forfeited and many places of importance seized The storm was so violent that there was no hopes of becalming this Roughness but by the King 's going in Person to pay his Homage or at least the Queen to mediate with her Brother But the Spencers thought it unsafe to be separated from the King who yet was the only Fence against that Sea of Discontent whose Tide every day appear'd to swell and they that had destroyed all Trust had reason enough to be jealous Such men so constantly guided by pleasing Weaknesses might not perhaps descern the Queen might be a dangerous Instrument to employ that had been so disobliged but commonly those that do injuries are the least apprehensive that they will be remembred or commonly having no fear of those they oppress they never consider the future possibility of Revenge But if they had apprehended danger to themselves in the Queens going yet they chose the less Evil nothing appearing so terrible as parting with the King. Thus the Queen was sent away with an indifferent Train and acted seemingly so well that she brought things to a fair accommodation but upon such Terms as did necessitate the Prince her Son to be sent over to her With him she had what she desired a Foundation to build her Revenge upon which had been long rak'd up in warm Embers which now she began to discover And the beginning of this Fire breaking out was made known to the King by the Bishop of Exeter who secretly withdrew into England but she was stayed by the most powerful Causes Love and Revenge For she that now seem'd free from all Ties to her King and Husband placed her loose Affections upon Roger Mortimer who had lately escaped out of the Tower and from the Oppression of the Spencers She knew England con'd neither be safe to her nor Mortimer whom she valued as her self and therefore resolved to trust any thing rather than her Husband or the Spencers The Queen thus delaying her Obedience to the King in returning to England She and the Prince were declared Enemies to the Kingdom and they and their Adherents banished and at the same time the Queen received Intelligence that there were great Sums offered to have the Prince murthered upon which she withdrew to the Earl of Haynault where she contracted her Son to Philippa Daughter to the Earl and there procures some Forces and Moneys Though her Forces were inconsiderable yet she reasonably depended upon what she shou'd find in England not what she brought For she knew that any thing would be welcome that brought a shew of redeeming them from the Oppressions they suffer'd under With these therefore she ventur'd to Sea and after some Variety of Accidents she landed with her Forces near Harwich where immediately she found all her Conjectures true For many Lords and Bishops repaired to her among them the Two Bishops of Hereford and Lincoln the first not forgetting the particular Wrong and both zealously remembring the Injury the Clergy had received The Queen wanted not a just Complaint to support her unjust Cause and so great were the Discontents that they hurried on almost the whole Nation to support a Double Rebellion in a Woman against her King and Husband and the Pulpit was ready to speak as execrably as others to act The Bishop of Hereford taking for his Text My head aketh raising his revengeful and impious Doctrine upon it That a sick Head was to be taken off and in the Revolutions that attended this unhappy King and Richard the Second the Clergy were always ready to Sanctifie and the Lawyers to make Rebellion Legal The King had now the Clamorous effects of ill Councels calling too loud upon him yet saw no way left to recover or repair the Misfortune those Errors had brought him into Wherever he went he found no Subjects those with their Hearts were lost before but led by as uncertain Councels as his Life was Govern'd He knew not whether to fly but only fled He saw London was unsafe who were all turn'd from Duty to him in Affection to the Queen Nor cou'd he propose any place to himself where he had not reason to expect certain Enemies or worse uncertain Friends After many Motions as various as his former Humors he design'd for the Isle of Lundy and takes with him the Earl of Glocester the Spencers and Robert Baldock that was Chancellor and with some few others takes shipping shewing how Man's Nature waits upon Fortune and changes with it They that before cou'd not be content with so much Plenty and Dominion shew'd now no more Ambition than what a small naked Island cou'd satisfie where Safety was their only Hope and a chosen Prison their Liberty The King had left the Government of the City of London to Walter Stapleton Bishop of Exeter
be suitable to his Nature and their Ambitious Designs The three chief Favourites and Ministers were Robert Vere Earl of Oxford afterwards Marquiss of Dublin and Duke of Ireland Michael Delapool Earl of Suffolk and Robert Tresilian Lord Chief Justice The Duke of Ireland seem'd the best as hardly he cou'd do otherwise being set with two such Foils but he wanted Vertue and Courage without the excess of Vices of the other two Michael Delapoole was a model of complicated Vices in Peace the most odiously Insolent in War the most dejectedly Contemptible He despised all methods of Quietness and yet was frighted with the least Disturbance Tresilian the Chief Justice was one that never shew'd his Place or Title by any practice but ready to prostrate all Law to Occasion and Justice to Designs His Knowledg was Lewdness and his Vertue Violence what others design'd he was ready to execute and being kept up in this Darkness he grew fierce on all things that were cast to him This King was called Richard of Burdeaux because born there the only Son of the Black Prince By his Grandfather Edward the Third he was in his Life time declared his Successor And after his Death was Crowned at Westminster in the year 1377 by Simon Sudbury Archbishop of Canterbury with great Solemnity The King being then eleven years old The Duke of Lancaster and Edmund Earl of Cambridge the King's Uncles with other Lords and Bishops were joyned in Commission to manage the State. The Minority of the King gave foreign Princes an Opinion that it was a proper time to attempt upon England the French first laid hold on the Occasion and landed Forces and did some mischief and burnt some places near the Sea As about Rye Portsmouth Dartmouth and Plimouth as also Hastings and Winchelsea The Scots also assaulted the Castle of Berwick and won it but it was taken again by the Earls of Northumberland and Nottingham and all put to the Sword but Ramsey who took it by a bold and desperate attempt with a few Men. These troubles occasion'd a Parliament to be called at Westminster where Alice Pearce the Concubine to the late King Edward the Third was banish'd and all her Goods confiscated A Tax was then given of two Tenths of the Clergy and two Fifteenths of the Temporalty Others write the Tax was a Poll of four Pence upon every Head but which way soever it was either the Levying it or the Tax it self caused a sudden and strange Insurrection begun by the infusion of one Wiat a Factious Priest using these Common Notions against great Men who had power to oppress others and ruine the meaner sort to support their Greatness and Luxuries This spread to the City who gave intelligence that they were ready to join with the Rabble that appeared gather'd from many adjacent Countries This confused Body chose one Wat Tyler for their Captain whose Assistants or Privy-Councellers were John Ball Jack Straw and Jack Shepherd Blackheath as they marched to London was their Rendezvous where they appeared to be above Threescore Thousand From thence they marched to London declaring themselves for the King and People When they came to London they were received either for Fear or Love with all freedom and treated as if they strove who shou'd express themselves best to the flatter'd Rebels who like such a Mass of Giddiness got together committed nothing but Murther and Violence They burnt the Savoy the Duke of Lancaster's House they rifled the Temple and destroyed the Law-Books expressing a Spleen against any thing of that Nature Nor were Churches or Religious Houses spared the good they punished the ill they cherished setting all Prisoners at Liberty their Chief Leader Tyler remembring some Punishment that his old Master Richard Lyon had inflicted on him for some Crime he had committed without any more Tryal or Judgment than what his Revenge allowed caused his Head to be stricken off and carried before him on a Spear Their Numbers were now so great that the King durst not resist their Entrance into the Tower where they abused his Mother and took the Archbishop of Canterbury the Chancellor and Lord Treasurer and dragging them to Tower-Hill there beheaded them In the midst of all these Outrages the King proclaim'd a Pardon to all that wouâ—d go quietly home which the Essex men and some others accepted but the Kentish and others stayed with their Captain Tyler So that it seem'd as if part of this Rabble were not in the secret intention to subvert the Government and throw down all above themselves from Oppression About 20000. continued with their Captain The King looking upon this as a good beginning presented himself in Person before the Rebels and spoke to them with all sweetness promising them Pardon and Favour but had so rude a return from Tyler that instead of Submission he demanded the King's Sword at which the Mayor of London drew his and struck him to the ground where he was presently killed The Rabble seem'd to threaten Revenge But the City hearing this and thinking it high time to free their King and themselves from Ruine and Destruction came to his Relief with a body of men at which sight the affrighted Rebels yielded and some fled and deliver'd up their Ringleader a Sacrifice that seldom fails to be made by such Tumults Jack Straw at his Execution confessed their Design of destroying all that were above them in Name or Fortune The King 's chief Favourites now appeared to be Michael Delapoole made Chancellor of England and after Earl and Duke of Suffolk Robert de Vere Marquess of Dublin and after Earl of Ireland Alexander Archbishop of York and Tresilian the Chief Justice The first Testimony that these shewed of their Animosities against the Methods of a just Minister was the displacing Sir Richard Scroope Lord Chancellor who in all things used an impartial uprightness which was an Offence to their loose and partial Designs But they did not only sharpen the King's Nature against men in point of Offices and Employments but against their Lives The first appearance of this was by the Duke of Lancaster whose Offences were likewise from his Vertues and his Ruine therefore contrived by them and resolv'd by Tresilian to be done by Form of Law the worst sort of destroying when violated but when truly observ'd the best defence against destruction There are seldom any extream Proceedings in a Government but there are depraved persons enough in all Conditions ready to swim with the stream and take the benefit of any Tide of Fortune For when Mischief is to be practised Corruption is the Consequence and there are always those ready whom no Consideration ballances in their Natures with Honour and Benefit Tresilian was one of those thus prepared and cou'd hardly want as well-condition'd Informers and Juries Occasions preserved from men is the surest Cause of their Vertue but offered from those that should depress it is the Cause and Temptation of Villany
a little after the Commons come to receive his Resignation and were seated in a Form ready for the Ceremony The King came out in Mourning and at the sight of a form'd Power ready to take away His sunk down but being recover'd to a miserable Life the Bishop of Hereford deliver'd the Cause of their coming After which Trussell a Lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons pronounces a Form of renouncing all Allegiance to Edward of Caernarvon to which as most Writers say the King made not the least Answer but turn'd about and went out There were Articles also exhibited against him and his Son with much Ceremony chosen King in Westminster-Hall with the full consent of the People which gave the occasion to the Archbishop of Canterbury to choose for the Subject of his Sermon Vox populi Vox Dei exhorting the People to pray for the King they had chosen Thus the Lawyer found out a Legal Method for the People to deprive their King of Sovereignty and the Divines Consecrated their mighty Power in calling their Voice a Divine Election Philip de Comines in his Third Book takes notice That the Great Earl of Warwick subdu'd England in Eleven days and King Edward the Fourth recover'd it in One and twenty Though these were sudden Revolutions yet the Fortune of them was dispos'd by many Battels but this was as sudden yet without a Blow which shews no Force to be greater than the Power of Injuries and Oppressions For though in Prosperity and the full gust of Power this mighty Force lying as it were in an Ambush in the Vexed Minds of injur'd Subjects is undiscern'd and slighted And the fatal Precedents made by the Errours of others are seldom made use of to our selves yet when it begins to shew it self it seems no wonder that the united Minds of all conclude for themselves But Men are so much their own Flatterers that they believe every thing Permanent they wish to be so and Favourites that cannot submit to share a Common Benefit venture at uncertain Advantages and make it a Principle to depend more upon Men's Fears than Love. By the Mighty and Ambitious Mischiefs and Disturbances are wrought but the Weak and Moderate desire Peace and Quietness The unhappy King was now kept in Confinement with a small allowance that he might be deprived of all things that resembled a Princes Condition and suffer'd now for his unsteady Errors as much perhaps by the wounding reflection of their Memory as by what he endured for them But too late he was taught Truth by Misery and saw the Difference to lose those Friends that cou'd preserve him and keep none but only such as could help to destroy him Princes sometimes believe that the right of Power should preserve them notwithstanding the want of Conscience in the using of it But when their Errors have contracted Enemies and the same Errors raised Accidents enough to give power and opportunity to those Enemies misguided Princes like this unhappy King will find that such with as much want of Conscience will revenge their Wrongs as they shew'd by the Oppression It now appear'd that the Graves of Princes are ever near their Prisons This unhappy one above all things deplored That his Wife whom he had ever loved wou'd not be got to see him But she was now possessed by her passion for Mortimer that all her Duty and Vertue was Sacrific'd and her Husband was now as much her apprehension as aversion Mortimer was as jealous as he could be and never thought himself safe in his Enjoyments while the King liv'd They cou'd be inform'd of the murmuring whispers of their Course of Life and that hard usage of the King proceeded from thence and therefore looked upon the King's Death as their only security His Keepers were therefore changed by the advice of that ready Counsellor of mischief the Bishop of Hereford for Sir Maurice Berkley in whose Custody he was had been tamper'd with and not found ready for the intended Villany he was therefore taken from Henchworth Castle and committed to Sir Thomas Gourney and Sir John Matravers who carry'd him to Corf-Castle a place some write that he always declared an apprehensive aversion to from thence to Bristol from whence upon some suspicion of a Plot for his escape he was convey'd to Berkley Castle where by those barbarous Villains he was wretchedly murthered with a hot Iron thrust through a Pipe up behind into his Bowels which way they thought wou'd perhaps make the least discovery by what Death he died though his Groans and Cryes sufficiently proclaim'd the Violence of it Some write That the Bishop of Hereford by a dark Sentence instigated the Murtherers to hasten the Execution by this Line Edwardum occidere nolite Timere bonum est At once giving them encouragement and concealing an excuse for himself But Ecclesiastical Riddles are dangerous and sometimes their Expositions of Texts have been no other After this horrid Execution the Murderers Gourney and Matravers expected Rewards but found the Queen and Bishop readier rather to threaten and accuse them than to own the Service and were forc'd to fly beyond Sea to seek safety for their loath'd Lives But Gourney after three years was taken and sent to England and by the way had his Head struck off Matravers fled into Germany where in Repentance he had time to wast a miserable Life This King Reigned something above Eighteen years and was murther'd in the 43d year of his Life His Body was carryed to Glocester and there buryed without any Ceremony His Character I will reserve till I join it with Richard the Second since the same Methods and Errors in Government workt the same Effects and both Princes equally unfortunate The Reigns of Edward the Second and Richard the Second to which I am now proceeding may be justly said to be as Mezeray calls the Reign of Henry the Third of France The Reign of Favourites who did enervate all his Vertues and dispos'd him to looseness and carelesness deafen'd and confounded him with Flatteries prompting to observe no Law but his Will while they were the Disposers of all things At which many great Men and others retired discontented and left the Favourite-Ministers at large to pursue their Ambition and with new Inventions to waste and pillage the King's Revenue This Description suits with the beginning of this unfortunate King Richard the Second who after the death of his Grandfather that great Prince Edward the Third succeeded him in the Throne His Father the Famous Black Prince dying in his Father's time who by contrary Methods to what they us'd met as contrary Fortunes The Comeliness and Beauty of his Person exceeding all his Predecessors only seem'd to Entitle him to a Generous Father and as beautiful a Mother But that promising Person which might have become great Actions was turned to Looseness and Pleasures and Flatterers broke in to encourage that dissolute Carelesness which they found wou'd