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
continued their March to London where the King grants all things denied before The King that had yeilded to what was demanded by Force out of the apprehension of that Power retain'd yet his former Inclinations and was so used to act by indirectness that he rather proceeded by a familiar Method than any new Necessity and praetis'd as much from Nature as Occasion The Spencers by an Edict published in Westminster-Hall by the Earl of Hereford were banished the Realm but in a very little time when the Lords were returned home the Edict was revoked in a Council held in London where the Archbishop of Canterbury declared the Banishment of the Spencers to have been Erroneous As soon as the Lords were retired to their promised Quiet having obtained what they desired the King began to design to revenge on them the Displeasure for what he himself had granted as if all his Favours were his Errours and his Severity his prudent Justice Thus while they thought themselves restored to Peace the King prepares for War and suddenly raising Forces pursues the Barons many of whom revolt to him the rest make such preparations as was possible in so short a time and stayed with their Forces at Burton upon Tnent When the King's Army advanc'd to them they perceiv'd they were much exceeded in Numbers so that the Earl of Lancaster thought it wiser to retreat especially considering that he had sent Sir Robert Holland to raise more Forces among his Tenants which Supplies he thought it prudent to wait for But the Endeavour to retreat gave the King's Forces an Addition of Courage from that Testimony of their Fear which was made use of by Valence Earl of Pembrook who then Commanded the King's Army who after some resistance put them to flight after which the Earl of Lancaster and many Noblemen and Gentlemen were taken Prisoners The News of this Defeat or his own Falseness brought Sir Robert Holland with his new raised Forces to joyn with the King. As soon as these mighty Enemies were in the King's Power the Spencers full of Revenge urged on for the Execution of all 'T is said That Valence the Earl of Pembrook who obtained the Victory interceded for Mercy but this rather hastens their Fate for Spencer was so apprehensive that the King's Mercy to any wou'd be a Cruelty to him that he successfully urg'd a quick Execution The King with other Lords among whom was Hugh Spencer now Earl of Winchester sat and gave Judgment upon the Earl of Lancaster who was presently beheaded and many other Lords in their several Countries to disperse Terror in every place Above Twenty Men of Quality were put to death at this time the first Blood of this nature that was ever shed since the Conquest Besides the Earl of Lancaster there died Fourteen Lords and Barons their Estates and Inheritances were likewise seiz'd and were us'd to advance a new sort of men who must needs applaud and flatter such Councils and Successes that had been so favourable to them and questionless the Streams of Flatteries flow'd to the King for his Choice of such a Favourite as Spencer who had now enthron'd him once again and by so much Blood procured him the surest Coronation Nor was Spencer less blind in the Judgment of his own Condition who was now Master of his King and of all those Spoils that this bloody Success had thrown into his ambitious Arms But his Condition was too prosperous temperately to consider the Vncertainty of a Violent Prosperity watched by the unwearied searches of Envy and Revenge Councils and Actions now appeared as commonly after such Success Law lay contemn'd under Power and the Interest of the Nation under Conquest all Temperate and Composing Actions formerly used were now reflected on as a Prince's Shame and any thing less than Arbitrary Power his Dishonour an ill chosen Ground of Safety in its own Nature but most improper to engage a Prince in who by the weakness of unsteddy Judgment and the ill use of Power had sufficiently by mistrust prepar'd mens minds not to be couzen'd into Flattery It must be the Concurrence of many strange Accidents and the close Reserve of a Prince's Nature that must steal him into Absolute Power otherwise we had heard of many more successful Tyrants in the World For I doubt not but generally the Natures of Men have been more ready to embrace more Power than their Abilities or Accidents have complied to assist them in And we seldom read of such as become Slaves but of such as have been well couzen'd Subjects The King's Power now seemingly grown to a great height by the Numbers that his Success encreas'd flatter'd him as well as their Tongues that nothing was able to resist him and perhaps to find uses for those Forces that now must be kept together resolves to march from York into Scotland rather with a mighty Number than a powerful Army never considering that such Numbers without suitable Discipline and Provisions were a weakness to themselves The Scots it seem'd consider'd this and kept close and hindred them of all Provisions leaving them to overcome themselves for Want increasing they were beaten without Blows and return'd pursued by Want and Dishonour as well as by the Scots who enter'd far into England and return'd with great Spoils into Scotland This unhappy King not made for Councils was as well not born for Triumph and was now perhaps at a calmer leisure to consider what he had done It seem'd something like regretting Thoughts when being earnestly sollicited to pardon one of the Duke of Lancaster's Followers a Man of a mean Condition he exclaim'd with Passion against such Councellors that prest him to spare the Life of such a Fellow and spoke not one word to spare the Life of the Duke though his near Kinsman whose Blood had so near Relation to his own making this true Reflection that his Life might have been useful to him the other 's could not Misfortune seem'd at this Instant to give the King a more temperate Consideration which in the streams of Success he would hardly have leisure to entertain but this was rather an unsteddy than a firm return to better and more prudent Thoughts and Councils his Nature was still the same which made his Favours or Displeasure equally dangerous Sir Andrew Hackley who took the Earl of Lancaster shew'd the Truth of this for growing enough to give apprehension to the Spencers he lost his new enjoy'd Honours together with his Life being first degraded of them and then executed So that the King seem'd at one time ready to destroy and to revenge Destruction just as the Displeasure and Spleen of his Ambitious Favourites guided him It was no wonder if so easie a Conquest over a King shou'd swell the Conquerour enough to burst him nor that so much Wealth and Glory shou'd so much dazzle the Eyes of Spencer as to make him loose his way but all seem'd calm nor any little speck
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