The Downfall of the Lords Appellant

The Lords Appellant must have felt they had done good service to the kingdom of England after the Merciless Parliament of 1388 eliminated everyone who was considered a corrupting influence on King Richard II. In fact, they rewarded themselves with £20,000 for their service and the expenses of hunting down malefactors.

That money may have been the catalyst for a turn of fortune. In September 1388, the Cambridge Parliament was called to address the state of the government's funds. By the end of 1388, the support for the Lords Appellant by the House of Commons had begun to wane.

The Commons made several complaints, arguing that the Lords had not been attentive to the proper governance of the country once they had eliminated their enemies. The approved tax was very small and committed only for defense of England in its northern boundary. Nothing was raised to continue wars in France.

Then, in 1389, Richard's uncle John of Gaunt returned from campaigning in Spain (Gaunt had married Constance of Castile—whose father the king of Castile had been deposed—and claimed the Castilian throne in her name, for which he had to fight). Gaunt was wealthy and powerful and worked to restore the king's power. He convinced the Lords Appellant and the king to compromise. The 1390s were relatively stable, but Richard never forgave the Lords Appellant, and eventually had his revenge.

The Duke of Gloucester, one of the Lords Appellant, was Thomas of Woodstock, one of the sons of Edward III and therefore Richard's uncle. He was captured during the wars in France and held captive in Calais. Richard (presumable) gave an order to kill him. (see illustration) Others were executed or imprisoned.

One of the Lords Appellant was Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt's son. This was one explanation why Gaunt was able to reason with the Lords Appellant. When Gaunt died in 1399, Richard did not have to worry about angering his most valuable ally. Richard had exiled Henry for ten years (it didn't last), and forbade him to inherit from his father.

The exile and confiscation of his father's estate and title did not sit well with Henry, obviously. You might be familiar with his name and what happened next. If not, I'll save the surprise until next time.

The Merciless Parliament, Part 2

After the Merciless Parliament in 1388 had eliminated the five specific advisors to Richard II that they considered the most corrupt, the Lords Appellant decided to sweep through the rest of the administration.

First came the judges that had approved all of Richard's actions. There were seven of them, and they were allowed to have trials before the House of Lords, in which they pleaded for leniency. Leniency was not to be offered, however, and they were all condemned and executed.

The Parliament wanted to eliminate anyone who would be considered a "bad advisor" to the king, and this meant almost anyone with whom Richard had contact. Chamber knights and servants did not escape.

Sir Simon Burley (c.1336 – 5 May 1388) had been the tutor of Richard, and a "friend of the family" for longer. He had grown up alongside Richard's father, Edward the Black Prince. Now he was Richard's vice-Chamberlain, and therefore considered too influential on the king.

An honorable man whom many had known their whole lives and fought alongside, his condemnation was not universal. Lords argued for mercy. Two of Richard's uncles argued openly. Edmund Langley, Duke of York, defended Burley. Thomas of Woodstock rose to condemn Burley. Richard spoke up to argue with his uncle Thomas and was told to stop defending his friends if he wanted to keep the crown.

Queen Anne of Bohemia reportedly went down on her knees for three hours and begged him to be spared. (see illustration) She was told to pray for him. A letter from the population of Kent threatened an uprising if Burley were not executed. In the end, he was allowed a swift death by the axe instead of the traitor's death by hanging.

The king's steward, Sir John Beauchamp, was impeached for exerting undue influence on the king. He was imprisoned in the Tower and then executed. Dozens of other members of the king's household were executed.

The king's household had been reduced by half, and men were put in place to oversee its functioning. The five Lords Appellant were allowed £20,000 for their expenses.

The future of the Lords Appellant became uncertain, however, when John of Gaunt returned from campaigning in Spain a year after the Merciless Parliament. Let me tell you tomorrow what happened then.

The Merciless Parliament, Part 1

A few years back I offered a brief look at the Lords Appellant, the group put in charge of England because of the excesses in the administration of the young king, Richard II. Richard tried to overthrow the Lords Appellant, but they forced Richard to call a parliament session that became known as the Merciless Parliament.

Assembled from 3 February to 4 June in 1388, the goal was to deal with corruption and incompetence. England had been losing territory to France for the past 20 years as part of the Hundred Years War. A parliament two years earlier (called the Wonderful Parliament) had put the blame for losses squarely on Richard's advisors. It was the Wonderful Parliament that had removed Richard from his administrative authority and created the Lords Appellant.

The five Lords Appellant and the Parliament named five advisors of the king who "had to go." They were Michael de la Pole (who had negotiated Richard's marriage to Anne of Bohemia and been made chancellor), Nicholas Brembre, Robert de Vere (Earl of Oxford whom Richard had made Duke of Ireland), Alexander Neville (Archbishop of York), and Chief Justice Robert Tresilian.

They were all declared a corrupting influence on the king, for "living in vice, deluding the said king ... embracing the mammon of iniquity for themselves." They were all convicted and sentenced to death without trial. They were not even present when sentence was passed.

Brembre was in London, but fled to Wales when he heard the verdicts. He was arrested and taken to the Tower. As a bishop, Neville could not be executed by a secular court, but he was impoverished and exiled. Tresilian was found hiding in Westminster and dragged into court by a mob. He was right away stripped, hanged, and had his throat cut. De Vere fled to Belgium, and died in 1392 after being injured in a boar hunt (he was 30 years old).

Brembre was brought before the parliament for trial, but was not allowed to hear the charges, and so pled "guilty of nothing." In a treason trial, the king was allowed to speak, but when Richard tried to speak on behalf of his friend, the Lords Appellant (and 300 other members of parliament) threw down their gauntlets (see illustration), threatening armed rebellion against Richard.

Twelve noblemen were put in charge of determining Brembre's guilt, but except that he was friendly with the king they could find no reason for the death penalty. The Lords Appellant, wanting blood, spoke to the guild leaders of London to find cause, but that turned up nothing useful. (Maybe they should have asked Brembre's new "friend," Thomas Usk, who was good at turning state's evidence.) They finally called London's current mayor, the goldsmith Sir Nicholas Twyford, who had lost the mayoral election to Brembre earlier when Brembre had armed men chase Twyford's supporters out of the London Guildhall. Through a series of leading questions, the Lords drew from Twyford and London's aldermen details that they used to hang him for treason.

The five advisors were not sufficient to appease the Merciless Parliament, however. The net widened. I'll explain tomorrow.

Thomas Usk, Civil Servant & Poet

We know little of Thomas Usk's early life except that he was born in London. The name Usk appears in several records, but we cannot link the various folk with that surname together. He became a civil servant and left us some writings. He produced a poem called "The Testament of Love" (the illustration here is from one manuscript). He also wrote a certain amount of biographical detail, from which we know more about his later life.

He admits to having Lollard leanings as a young man, and the populist/Wycliffite leanings of John Northampton were attractive to him. He subsequently hitched his wagon to the rising star of Northampton who became mayor of London in 1381, and was instrumental in implementing Northampton's plans. He even says he supplied money to some of the people in this circle of reformers.

When fortunes change in 1383 with Northampton's defeat by Nicholas Brembre, however, Usk's public identity as a member of the reform crowd made life in England unsafe. He fled to the continent, but had to appeal to his former confederates for money to be able to live abroad. He found that the camaraderie he was experiencing while in England was a one-way street, and the road didn't go in his direction. He had to return to England for lack of funds.

In August 1384, back in England now, he was arrested as an accomplice to the seditious group headed by Northampton and taken to Newgate prison. He was released when he promised to tell everything he knew about the workings of Northampton's administration.

Northampton was brought before the king and council and discovered that the chief witness against him was Usk. Enraged, Northampton denied everything and challenged Usk to single combat. (Northampton had been known to have a temper, and long before becoming mayor he had been involved in public altercations, one of which even led to his imprisonment for. time.)

King Richard II was outraged by this behavior and sentenced Northampton to be hanged. We are told that the intercession of the queen, Anne of Bohemia, turned the sentence to life in prison. This was 18 August. Usk received a pardon from the king on 24 September.

Usk wrote that his new alliances did not seem to trust him, despite his recanting of Lollardy and new loyalty to Brembre. He survived, however, and was named under-sheriff of London in October 1387. Unfortunately, that was not the happy ending he might have hoped for.

Richard had to deal with a rebellion by his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, one of whose principal advisors was Nicholas Brembre. Usk had once again hitched his wagon to the wrong star. He was arrested along with Brembre and others.

This brings us to something that has been mentioned but not described, the Merciless Parliament of 1388. Tomorrow we'll examine that event and the final fate of Thomas Usk.

Richard II and the Lords Appellant

Although the Wonderful Parliament in 1386 tried to curtail the excesses of King Richard II, it was the Merciless Parliament in 1388 that truly forced the king to accept that Magna Carta was no joke and the king did not have supreme authority in the kingdom and was answerable to the parliament. The parliament was requested by a small group called the Lords Appellant, and we should understand their role during this part of Richard's reign before we go on.

The Hundred Years War was still going on in 1386, and England had had two decades of losses. The Wonderful Parliament held Richard's favorites responsible for these military failures and for the egregious taxation used to fund the war. A group of trusted nobles was chosen to take over the management of the kingdom and the king, the Lords Appellant.

The Lords Appellant were:

• Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; Richard's uncle, who forced him to attend the Wonderful Parliament
• Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel
• Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick
• Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby (another nephew of Woodstock, being John of Gaunt's son)
• Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham

They began their task right after the Wonderful Parliament ended, and the following year (1387) felt it necessary to launch an armed rebellion against Richard because one of his favorites, Robert de Vere, had raised an army for the king. (The illustration shows the Lords Appellant throwing their gauntlets down in front of Richard, but I cannot find an anecdote that explains this Victorian picture.)

In February 1388, the Merciless Parliament met to deal with Richard's favorites, de Vere and Michael de la Pole, Nicholas Brembre (who had been mayor of London several times), Chief Justice Robert Tresilian, and Alexander Neville (Archbishop of York). They were all accused of vice and swaying the king wrongly and lining their own pockets. As a prelate, Neville was only exiled after losing his position and all his estates and possessions, but everyone else was executed.

The executions did not stop there: dozens of members of the royal administration were purged. Finally they came to Simon Burley, who had been the king's father's advisor and was one of the king's regents when he was young. Burley was defended by Edmund Langley, the Duke of York, who was also a son of Edward III and therefore also Richard's uncle. Langley's brother, Thomas of Woodstock, rose to condemn Burley. Richard, who was in attendance of course, spoke up for the first time, and argued with his uncle Woodstock. Woodstock finally told him that he needed to stop defending his friends if he wanted to keep his crown. That made Richard sit back down.

One of the complaints about Richard was that he was a failure at the war with France, and was trying to negotiate a peace. Parliament (and the Lords) preferred military successes over a truce. Although Richard became effectively a puppet under the Lords Appellant, he managed to get revenge on the Lords and Parliament by the Truce of Leulinghem, but that's a story for tomorrow.