Shakespeare's Kings (13 page)

1. Of the church, part of the twelfth-century chancel and crypt still survive. The existing gatehouse, which forms a bridge over St John's Lane, dates from 1504. After the dissolution of the English Order of the Knights of St John by Henry VIII it fulfilled various functions, and at one point during the reign of Elizabeth I provided offices for the Master of the Revels, who was also licenser of plays. Shakespeare himself must have visited it on innumerable occasions.

the panic which had overtaken his ministers only a few hours before, the probability is that this decision was made on his own initiative; even if it were not, it argues considerable courage on the part of a delicate and inexperienced boy of fourteen.

Thus it was that on the morning of Friday
14
June the young King, having advised Sudbury and his friends to try to escape by water, rode out of London with the mayor, William Walworth, to confront the insurgents. As he approached, several of his followers drew back; but he himself rode confidently forward to the rebels' camp. He found them reasonable, but determined. Their leaders knelt and bade him welcome, assuring him that they sought no other sovereign but himself; they demanded, however, that 'the traitors' should be surrendered to them at once. Richard replied that no man was a traitor until he was tried by due process of law; but if anyone were found guilty after such process, they were welcome to do with him as they liked. They then presented the King with a petition for the abolition of villeinage, and another for the right to sell their labour instead by free and open contract and to rent land at an annual cost of fourpence an acre. These requests he insta
ntly
granted, promising to confirm them with letters bearing his Great Seal, and to send a royal banner, as an additional token of his good faith, to each of their towns of origin. Soon afterwards he bid them a friendly farewell. He had capitulated on almost every point; but he had at least established friendly relations with them and there seemed no reason why, having obtained all that they demanded, they should not now disperse.

Thus, as Richard rode homeward, he was in all probability well satisfied with what he had achieved. He was not to remain so for long. He returned to find that the mob had forced its way into the Tower. How it managed to do so we shall never know. The garrison, we are told, numbered
600
men-at-arms and the same number of archers, all tried and trusted men; had they resisted, there can be little doubt that they would have been more than a match for the largely unarmed and untrained rabble outside. Yet for some reas
on they seem to have made no eff
ort to protect those who were in their care. Sudbury, Hales, Legge and John of Gaunt's doctor, a friar named William Appleton, had been seized in the chapel where they were at their devotions, dragged out to Tower Hill and executed on the spot, after which their heads were paraded through the city and set up on pikes at London

Bridge. The mob had then burst into the chamber of the King's mother, leaving her in a state of nervous collapse. Her bed had been smashed to pieces and one or two of the intruders, she claimed, had even attempted familiarities with her, although she had not been seriously harmed. After their departure she had been taken by boat to Baynard's Castle on the riverside at Blackfriars,
¹
where her son subsequently joined her.

The rebels from Essex and Hertfordshire now seem to have been satisfied; at any rate they were to give no further trouble. Wat Tyler and the men of Kent, on the other hand, remained to be reckoned with; and on the following day, Saturday
15
June, after attending mass at Westminster Abbey, the King decided on a further confrontation -this time at Smithfield, then as now the principal cattle market of the capital. It was plain from the outset, however, that the meeting would not be as easy as that at Mile End. For a week now Tyler had enjoyed a position of undisputed authority over his men. Success - and bloodshed - had gone to his head. He approached the King arrogantly, not on foot in the manner of a subject, but on horseback, determined to pick a quarrel. His demands, too, went a good deal further than those made by the men of Essex; they included the confiscation of all Church estates, the abolition of all lordships
save that of the King h
imself and of all bishoprics but one. Conciliatory as always, Richard pretended not to notice his insolence and assured him that all his demands would be met; but this time, perhaps, he gave in a little too readily, arousing Tyler's suspicions and making him more overbearing than ever. As the conversation continued, tempers among the King's followers began to run high; and at last the Mayor of London, Walworth, able to bear it no longer, barked out an order. Immediately a group of his men set upon Tyler and dragged him from his horse; no sooner was he on the ground than one of the attendant squires, Standish by name, cut him down with his broadsword.

Here was a moment of supreme danger. Seeing the fate of their leader, the rebels surged forward. The royal party was outnumbered many times over, and could easily have been massacred. Many of those

1. Baynard's
Castle
was destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666, except for a single turret which survived until 1720. It was thoroughly excavated in 1972-
4, but the findings were of littl
e interest to any but archaeologists.

facing them had longbows, and according to one chronicler the arrows had already started to fly. It was the King once again who saved the situation. Holding up his hand for silence, he addressed the mob in a measured, reasonable tone. What more, he asked, did they want? He was their King - they had no other - and he had granted all their requests. Why did they not now hold their peace? Gradually the tumult died down; in a short time, too, Walworth - who had hurried back to the city for armed assistance - returned with a volunteer force which quickly surrounded the insurgents. Richard, however, was determined to avoid any punitive measures. Tyler's head was substituted for Sudbury's on London Bridge, but all his followers were pardoned.

There was little doubt among the King's men that they owed their lives to his courage and presence of mind. He himself, however, was anxious to reward the leaders for their loyalty. There and then in Clerkenwell Fields, he drew his sword and knighted Walworth and two other faithful Londoners who had remained firmly at his side. Only then did he return to Baynard's Castle, where his anguished mother awaited him.

The Peasants' Revolt had lasted less than a week. It had put an end to the hated poll tax, but apart from that it had achieved nothing - at least so far as those who took part in it were concerned. As peace was restored, so gradually was the King's confidence; he began to regret the readiness with which he had granted the insurgents' demands. When in Essex on
23
June a delegation asked for confirmation of his promises, he is said to have replied cuttingly: 'Villeins ye are and villeins ye shall remain.' On
2
July in Chelmsford he went further still, announcing his formal revocation of the pardons 'lately granted in haste'; and a day or two later he rode in state to St Albans, where he presided over a tribunal at which fifteen of the local ringleaders, including John Ball, were condemned to death.

The treatment of the offenders was not, by the standards of the time, unduly savage. There were no tortures, no forced confessions, no mass reprisals on innocent populations, no condemnations without honest attempts at a fair trial. A surprising number of those implicated received light sentences or were acquitted altogether. On
30
August the King declared an end to all arrests and executions. One fact, however, could not be concealed: he had broken his word. Nowadays we accept that promises made under duress are not legally binding, and it is difficult to see what Richard could have done, at Mile End or at Smithfield, other than he in fact did. In the fourteenth century, however, such arguments had little effect. If the King were to be properly respected and revered by his subjects, it was essential that he should be seen to be a man of good faith. In this Richard had failed, and it was a failure that would not be forgotten. Nor was it mitigated by the support of Parliament which, while confirming the general amnesty the following November, formally ratified the revocation. By the end of the year none the less, it was as if the most serious crisis to be faced by an English King since the Norman Conquest had never occurred at all.

Or almost. Although they may have been only half conscious of it themselves, both sides had been taught a lesson. The landlords, from the high aristocracy down to the humblest of country squires, had been forcibly reminded of how much they relied on those who tilled their soil and tended their livestock. No longer, it was clear, could these men be taken for granted. The peasantry, too, had learnt much. Villeins they might be, and villeins they might technically remain for the better part of another century; but their lot was steadily improving, and as it did so they gradually came to understand the nature of their dissatisfaction and how it might be allayed. United, they possessed formidable power. Their first attempt to exercise that power had been unsuccessful, but only because they had been foolish enough to trust in the good faith of their King. It was a mistake they would not make again.

[1381-1388]

gaunt
. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,

Whose compass is no bigger than thy head . . . O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
..

king richard ii

The
events
of
the
summer
of
1381
had
brought
Richard
a
long
way towards
manhood;
and
the
process
was
completed
six
months
later
-on
14
January
13
82,
a
week
after
his
fifteenth
birthday
-
by
his
marriage to
an
imperial
Princess,
Anne
of
Bohemia.
Dynastic
marriages
had
long been
one
of
the
principal
tools
of
diplomacy,
and
this
particular
one had
been
strongly
encouraged
by
Pope
Urban,
who
saw
in
it
the
first step
towards
a
great
European
league
against
his
rival
Clement;
in England,
on
the
other
hand,
it
had
met
with
considerable
opposition. Daughter
of
Charles
IV,
King
of
Bohemia
and
Holy
Roman
Emperor,
¹
by
his
fourth
wife
Elizabeth
of
Pomerania,
and
granddaughter
of
the blind
J
ohn
of
Luxemburg
who
had
fought
so
courageously
if
quixotically at
Crecy,
²
Anne
did
not
immediately
find
a
place
in
English
hearts.
If the
tomb
that
she
shares
with
her
husband
in
Westminster
Abbey
is

anything
to
go
by
-
and
tomb
effigies
normally
tend
to
flatter
their subjects
rather
than
the
reverse
-
she
was
a
plain,
rather
pudding-faced girl
whose
family,
despite
its
nobility,
was
by
no
means
as
rich
as
might have
been
expected
and
who
brought
her
husband
no
dowry
at
all; indeed,
before
the
contract
could
be
signed
he
had
been
obliged
to offer
her
brother
a
loan
of
£15,000.
She
was
certainly
a
far
cry
from her
principal
rival,
the
beautiful
and
dashing
Caterina,
one
of
the thirty-eight
children
of
Bernabo
Visconti,
ruler
of
Milan,
who
had offered
Richard
'an
inestimable
quantity
of
gold'
to
take
his
daughter as
queen.
True,
the
Bohemian
marriage
effectively
detached
the House
of
Luxemburg
from
its
old
alliance
with
the
Valois
of
France, while
simultaneously
bringing
Richard,
by
virtue
of
his
new
position as
the
Emperor's
son-in-law,
a
welcome
measure
of
international
prestige;
but
such
considerations
cut
little
ice
with
Anne's
prospective subjects.