It began in 1338-1453. The war was carried during the reign of 5 English
kings. Edward III and Edward Baliol defeated David II of Scotland, and
drove him into exile in 1333. The French cooperation with the Scots, French
aggression in Gascony, and Edward’s claim to the throne of France (through
his mother Isabella, who was the sister of the king; the Capetiance failed
to produce a mail heir) led to the outbreak of War. “The sea battle of
Sluys (1340) gave England control of the Channel, and battle at Crecy
(1346), Calais (1347), and Poitiers (1356) demonstrated English supremacy
on the land. Edward, the Black Prince and eldest son of Edward III,
excelled during this first phase of the war.”(24)
Throughout 1348-1350 the epidemic of a plague so called “The Black
Death” swept across England and northern Europe, removing as much as half
the population. This plague reached every part of England. Few than one of
ten who caught the plague could survive it. If in Europe 1/3 of population
died within a century , in England 1/3 of population died during two years.
The whole villages disappeared. This plague continued till it died out
itself. English military strength weakened considerably after the plague,
gradually lost so much ground that by 1375, Edward agreed to the Treaty of
Bruges, which only left England Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne.
Domestically, England saw many changes during Edward’s reign.
Parliament was divided into two Houses – Lords and Commons – and met
regularly to finance the war. Treason was defined by statute for the first
time (1352). In 1361 the office of Justice of the Peace was created.
Philippa died in 1369 and the last years of Edward’s reign mirrored the
first; he was once again dominated by a woman, his mistress, Alice Perrers.
Alice preferred one of Edward’s other sons, John of Gaunt, over the Black
Prince, which caused political conflict in Edward’s last years.
Edward the Black Prince died one year before his father. Rafael
Holinshed intimated that Edward spent his last year in grief and remorse,
believing the death of his son was a punishment for usurping his father’s
crown. In Chronicles of England, Holinshed wrote: “But finally the thing
that most grieved him, was the loss of that most noble gentleman, his dear
son Prince Edward…. But this and other mishaps that chanced to him now in
his old years, might seem to come to pass for a revenge of his disobedience
showed to his in usurping against him….” (25)
There is one more point about Edward’s reign, concerning the English
language. Edward had forbidden speaking French in his army, and by the end
of the 14th century English once again began being used instead of French
by ruling literate class.
Richard II (1377-99)
Richard II’s reign was fraught with crisis – economic , social,
political, and constitutional. He was 10 years old when his grandfather
died, and the first problem the country faced was having to deal with his
monitoring. A “constitutional council” was set up to “govern the king and
his kingdom”. Although John of Gaunt was still the dominant figure in the
royal family, neither he no his brothers were included.
The peasant’s revolt.
“(1381) Financing the increasingly expensive and unsuccessful war with
France was a major preoccupation. At the end of Edward III’s reign a new
device, a poll tax of four pence a head, had been introduced. A similar but
graduated tax followed in 1379, and in 1380 another set at one shilling a
head was granted. It proved inequitable and impractical, and when the
government tried to speed up collection in the spring of 1381 a popular
rebellion – the Peasants’ Revolt – ensued. Although the pool tax was the
spark that set it off, there were also deeper causes related to changes in
the economy and to political developments.”(26) The government in
practical, engendered hostility to the legal system by its policies of
expanding the power of the justices of the peace at the expense of local
and monorail courts. In addition, popular poor preachers spread subversive
ideas with slogans such as : “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who was then
the gentleman?” (27) The Peasants’ revolt began in Essex and Kent.
Widespread outbreaks occurred the southeast of England, taking the form of
assault on tax collectors, attacks on landlords and their manor houses,
destruction of documentary evidence of villein status, and attacks on
lawyers. Attacks on religious houses, such as that at St. Albans, were
particularly severe, perhaps because they had been among the most
conservative of landlords in commuting labour services.
The men of Essex and Kent moved to London to attack the king’s
councilors. Admitted to the city by sympathizers, they attacked John of
Gaunt’s place of the Savoy as well as the Fleet prison. On June 14 the
young king made them various promises at Mile End; on the same day they
broke into the Tower and killed Sudbury, the chancellor, Hales, the
treasure and other officials. On the next day Richard met the rebels again
at Smithfield, and their main leader, Wat Tyler, presented their demands.
But during the negotiations Tyler was attacked and slain by the mayor of
London. The young king rode forward and reassured the rebels, asking them
to follow him to Clerkenwell. This proved to be a turning point, and the
rebels, their suppliers exhausted, began to make their way home. “Richard
went back on his promises he had made saying, “Villeins you are and
villeins you shall remain.”(28) In October Parliament confirmed the king’s
revocation of charters but demanded amnesty save for a few special
offenders.
“The events of the Peasants’ Revolt may have given Richard an exalted
idea of his own powers and prerogative as a result of his success at
Smithfield, but for the rebels the gains of the rising amounted to no more
than the abolition of the poll taxes.”(29) Improvement in the social
position of the peasantry did occur, but not so mach as a consequence of
the revolt as of changes in the economy that would have occurred anyhow.
John Wycliffe.
“Religious unrest was another subversive factor under Richard II. England
had been virtually free from heresy until John Wycliffe, a priest and an
Oxford scholar, began his career as a religious reformer with two treaties
in 1375 – 76. He argued that the exercise of lordship depended on grace
and that therefore, a sinful man had no right to authority. Priest had even
the pope himself , Wycliffe went on to argue, might not necessarily be in
state of grace and thus would lack authority. Such doctrines appealed to
anticlerical sentiments and brought Wycliffe into direct conflict with the
church hierarchy, although he received protection from John of Gaunt. The
beginning of the Great Schism in 1378 gave Wycliffe fresh opportunities to
attack the papacy, and in a treaties of 1379 on the Eucharist he openly
denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. He was ordered before the
church court at Lambeth in 1378. In 1380 his views were condemned by a
commission of theologians at Oxford, and he was forced to leave the
university. At Lutterworth he continued to write voluminously until his
death.”(30)
Political struggles and Richard’s desposition.
Soon after putting down the Peasants’ Revolt, Richard began to build up a
court party, partly in opposition to Gaunt. A crisis was precipitated in
1386 when the king asked Parliament for a grant to meet the French treat.
Parliament responded by demanding the dismissal of the king’s favorites,
but Richard insisted that he would not dismiss so much as a scullion in the
kitchen at the request of Parliament. In the end he was forced by the
impeachment of the chancellor, Michel de la Pole, to agree to the
appointment of a reforming commission. Richard withdrew from London and
went on a “gyration” of the country. He called his judges before him at
Shrewsbury and asked them to pronounce the actions of Parliament illegal.
An engagement at Radcot Bridge, at which Richard’s favorite, Robert de
Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford was defeated settled the matter of ascendancy. In
the Merciless Parliament of 1388 five lords accused the king’s friends of
treason under an expansive definition of the crime.
“Richard was chastened, but he began to recover his authority as
early as the autumn of 1388 at the Cambridge Parliament. Declaring himself
to be of age in 1389, Richard anounced that he was taking over the
government. He pardoned the Lords Appellant and ruled with some moderation
until 1394, when his queen Ann of Bohemia, died.”(31) After putting down a
rebellion in Ireland, he was , for a time, almost popular. He began to
implement his personal policy once more and rebuilt a royal party with the
help of a group of young nobles. He made a 28- years truce with France and
married the French king’s seven-year-old daughter. He built up a household
of faithful servants, including the notorious Sir John Bushy, Sir William
Bagot, and Sir Henry Green. “He enlisted household troops and built a wide
network of “king’s knight” in the counties, distributing to them his
personal budge, the White Hart.”(32)
The first sign of renewed crisis emerged in January 1397, when
complaints were put forward in Parliament and their author, Thomas Haxey,
was adjudged a traitor. “Richard’s rule, based on fear rather then consent,
