Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/153

 shoot their king. ‘I will be your captain,’ he cried, ‘Come with me into the fields and you shall have all you ask.’ His presence of mind withdrew them from the sight of their slain leader, and gained time for Sir Robert Knollys [q. v.] to bring up his forces and surround the rebels. Richard forbad any slaughter, and ordered the promised charters to be given them. At the end of the month, however, when the revolt had been everywhere suppressed, he accompanied chief justice Sir Robert Tresilian [q. v.] into Essex, where it first broke out, to punish the rebels, and on 2 July revoked his charters. A fortnight later he witnessed the trial and execution of John Ball at St. Albans. On 13 Dec. he proclaimed a general pardon.

The question of the young king's marriage had engaged the attention of his advisers from the beginning of his reign. An alliance with a daughter of Charles V of France had been suggested by the papal mediators in January 1378. But the outbreak of the schism, when France took the side of Clement while England adhered to Urban, broke off these negotiations. Bernabo Visconti then offered the hand of his daughter Catherine, ‘cum inestimabili auri summa.’ But the refusal of Wenceslaus of Bohemia, the new king of the Romans, to follow his relative and traditional ally, the king of France, in his support of Clement placed a much more brilliant match within Richard's reach. The opportunity of drawing central Europe into his alliance against France was not to be missed, and Richard knew Charles V to be seeking the hand of Wenceslaus's sister Anne for his own son (, i. 300;, p. 3). Urban used all his influence in Richard's favour; the matter was virtually settled by the end of 1380, and in the following spring Anne's great-uncle, Przimislaus, duke of Tetschen, came to England and signed a treaty (2 May) of marriage and alliance against all schismatics. The price of this diplomatic success was a loan of 15,000l. to Wenceslaus ‘for the urgent affairs of the holy church of Rome, the Roman empire,’ &c., of which 6,000l. was to be written off if Anne were delivered within a certain time. For this reason the marriage was not popular with the English. Anne seems to have reached Dover on 18 Dec.; the marriage took place on 14 Jan. 1382, and the queen's coronation eight days later. Vigorous efforts were made, in concert with the pope, to draw Wenceslaus into an open league against France, but without success.

Richard had now reached an age of discretion. But parliament, controlled by the great nobles, was reluctant to surrender the strict control which it had exercised over the crown during the minority. Its persistence in keeping Richard in leading strings irritated him and strengthened his natural disposition to show undue favour to his immediate circle. Parliament could find no better explanation of the late rising than the extravagance of the court, and appointed Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, a leading magnate, and Michael de la Pole [q. v.], a tried servant of the crown, to govern and counsel the king's person and household. When Richard le Scrope, the chancellor nominated in parliament, very properly objected (July 1382) to the lavish grants Richard was making, the king forced him to give up the seals. Richard followed up this assertion of independence by appointing Pole chancellor in 1383, without reference to parliament. It was not a bad choice, for Pole had hitherto been on good terms with the magnates. He boldly warned parliament that, if they did not mean to abandon the French claims, they must put their whole strength into the war, and that law and order could not be enforced without the vindication of the royal authority. But they rejected Richard's offer to go in person to France on the score of expense, and elected to subsidise the bishop of Norwich's crusade against the French schismatics [see ]. The news of the bishop's disastrous defeat reached Richard, who was making a progress, at Daventry. He started up from table and rode through the night to London, where he conferred with Lancaster. Lancaster's own crusade to Spain had been shelved for the bishop's, and he was no doubt responsible for the decision not to relieve the bishop in the face of a great French army.

In the spring of 1384 there was an ominous revival of the old charges of treason against John of Gaunt (cf. Cont. Eulogii, p. 369;, p. 353). Richard accepted Lancaster's explanations, in spite of which his youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham, threatened him with death if he charged his brother Lancaster with treason. Equally disquieting was the refusal of the commons to take any responsibility for the terms of the proposed peace with France, though they agreed that the country needed peace badly. As the year closed the political atmosphere grew thunderous; Richard was having ‘large warlike machines’ made in the Tower ‘for certain urgent and secret affairs’ (Issues, p. 227), and Lancaster retired to Pontefract in fear of arrest. The king's mother, however, effected a reconciliation. This may have been hastened by the landing of a French force in Scotland. To avert the