Shakespeare's Kings (25 page)

The
ghost
of
his
great-grandfather
had
been
laid
at
last.
Perhaps,
in retrospect,
it
might
have
been
better
had
it
continued
to
haunt
him.

In
this
penultimate
chapter
of
Richard's
reign,
England
was
generally considered
by
most
of
its
inhabitants
to
be
at
peace.
True,
the
war
in France
rumbled
on;
but
it
made
little
impact
across
the
Channel,
and John
of
Gaunt
had
crossed
over
to
Calais
for
yet
another
round
of negotiations
to
bring
it
to
an
end.
The
Scots
were
quiet.
But
peace,
in the
fourteenth
century,
was
relative.
In
1392
there
were
ugly
scenes
in London,
the
city
having
refused
to
grant
the
King
one
of
its
periodic loans.
If,
as
the
chroniclers
claim,
it
had
simultaneously
granted
a
large one
to
a
Lombard
merchant,
Richard
would
have
had
good
reason
to be
angry;
at
all
events
he
reacted
with
all
his
old
impulsiveness,
forcibly removing
the
mayor
and
sheriffs
from
office
and
transferring
the
courts and
administration
to
York.
Finally
the
Londoners
were
obliged
to
give in,
making
the
King
a
free
gift
of
£10,000
as
the
price
of
reconciliation. This
they
celebrated
with
a
grand
procession
through
the
city;
but
they never
entirely
forgave
him.
When,
a
few
years
later,
he
would
stand
in need
of
their
support,
that
support
would
not
be
forthcoming.

There
were
other
disturbances
in
the
north,
beginning
in
1393
in Cheshire.
These
seem
to
have
been
primarily
directed
against
the
Duke of
Gloucester,
who
had
thought
better
of
his
crusade
in
Prussia
and had
now
rejoined
Richard's
Council.
Gloucester's
erstwhile
colleague Arundel,
in
his
nearby
castle
of
Holt
on
the
river
Dee,
was
well
placed to
restore
order
but
made
no
attempt
to
do
so;
nor
did
he
lift
a
finger when
another
rising
took
place
a
few
weeks
later
in
Yorkshire.
John of
Gaunt,
the
principal
object
of
the
insurgents'
wrath,
went
so
far
as to
accuse
Arundel
of
actively
encouraging
them
and
ultimately
extracted a
grudging
apology;
but
Arundel
had
grown
bitter
and
cantankerous, and
was
rapidly
losing
the
goodwill
of
all
his
former
friends.

Matters
came
to
a
head
at
the
beginning
of
June
1394,
with
the sudden
and
unexpected
death
of
the
Queen
at
the
age
of
twenty-seven. The
heartbroken
King,
having
ordered
the
immediate
demolition
of that
part
of
the
Palace
of
Sheen
in
which
she
had
died,
made
plans
for an
impressive
funeral
at
Westminster
Abbey
at
which
Arundel,
having failed
altogether
to
take
part
in
the
procession
from
the
lying-in-state, appeared
late
and
simultaneously
requested
permission
to
leave
early. Richard,
furious
at
what
he
believed,
probably
rightly,
to
be
a
deliberate insult,
seized
a
rod
from
one
of
the
vergers
and
struck
him
to
the ground.
After
some
weeks
in
the
Tower,
Arundel
was
arraigned
before his
sovereign
at
Lambeth
Palace
and
obliged
to
take
an
oath
for
his subsequent
good
behaviour
on
a
surety
of
£40,000.

Most
of
the
summer
of
1394
Richard
spent
in
mourning
for
his
wife; then,
towards
the
end
of
September,
he
left
for
Ireland.
The
visit
was, he
knew,
long
overdue.
In
1368
and
again
in
1380,
all
those
English lords
possessing
estates
in
Ireland
had
been
ordered
either
to
return
to them
or
to
make
proper
provision
for
their
defence;
but
the
order
had proved
unenforceable
and
with
every
year
that
passed
the
administration had
become
more
chaotic,
with
the
local
Irish
kings
and
chieftains penetrating
deeper
and
deeper
into
the
lands
of
the
English
absentees. In
1379
Edmund
Mortimer,
third
Earl
of
March,
had
been
appointed Lieutenant
and
had
done
much
to
retrieve
the
situation
in
Ulster;
but in
1381
he
was
drowned
crossing
a
ford
in
County
Cork,
and
his immense
estates
had
passed
to
his
seven-year-old
son
Roger.
In
the following
year,
with
the
situation
growing
increasingly
desperate, Richard
had
appointed
his
uncle
Gloucester
as
Lieutenant,
but
had subseque
ntly
changed
his
mind
for
reasons
unexplained;
and
it
was
by now
clear
not
only
that
he
must
go
himself,
but
that
he
must
do
so
at once.
If
his
visit
were
to
be
any
longer
postponed,
all
Ireland
-
and
its revenues
-
would
be
lost.
Gloucester
accompanied
him,
together
with the
young
Earl
of
March,
now
twenty,
the
Earls
of
Rutl
and,
Huntingdon and
Nottingham
-
now
completely
reconciled
-
and
a
number
of
lesser lords.
His
uncle
Edmund,
Duke
of
York
-
Rutland's
father
-
remained behind
as
Keeper
of
the
Realm;
John
of
Gaunt
returned
to
Gascony and
Aquitaine.