ploughing or harvest the husbandman might be forced to work and to lend his horses for the service of any of the royal household who could use the King's name. It was impossible that the common folk should have any liking for the King at the news of whose coming they made haste to hide away their geese and chickens; and to the abuse of purveyance may in great measure be attributed the hatred felt for Edward II., and the failure of Edward III., and even of Edward I., to win popularity. Laws were passed to restrain the power which the Popes exercised over the English Church and clergy; and the demand made in 1366 by Pope Urban V. for thirty-three years' arrears of John's tribute, was absolutely refused.

10. Commerce.—In 1331 Edward took advantage of discontents among the Flemish weavers to invite them over here, where they settled chiefly in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and brought in the finer manufactures of woollen cloths. The people were so jealous of these newcomers that Edward had no small trouble to protect them. The wool of England was at that time the finest in Europe, and was the chief article of export and source of revenue.

II. John Wycliffe.-In this and the next reign lived John Wycliffe, born near Richmond in Yorkshire, a doctor of Oxford, who put forth opinions differing on many points, particularly on the Eucharist, from the received doctrines, and assailed alike the Begging Friars, who, professing to subsist upon alms, had become rich and worldly, and the wealthy clergy, his idea being that the clergy ought to live in poverty. He spread his views abroad by his writings and by his poor priests," disciples whom he sent out to preach among the people. His great work was a translation of the Bible, made by himself and his followers. John of Gaunt and a party at court for a time befriended him, more because they were jealous

of the power of the clergy than from any real religious sympathy with him. Although he was at last forbidden to teach at Oxford, he remained in his rectory of Lutterworth, where he died peaceably in 1384; many years afterwards his bones were taken up and burned as those of a heretic. His disciples were nicknamed Lollards.

CHAPTER XX.

RICHARD II.

Richard of Bordeaux; the Peasant Insurrection (1)— government of Richard; fall of the Duke of Gloucester (2)-Henry of Lancaster; his banishment and return in arms (3)-capture, abdication, and deposition of Richard; Henry raised to the throne (4)-Statute of Præmunire (5)—language (6)—literature (7).

I. Richard II., of Bordeaux, 1377-1399. The Peasant Insurrection of 1381.-Richard of Bordeaux, son of the Black Prince, became King at the age of eleven. His reign was troublous and unfortunate. Four years after he ascended the throne an insurrection broke out among the peasants. The growing ideas of liberty and equality, fostered by the preaching of the Lollards, and the yoke of villainage tended to cause discontent. Till the "Black Death indeed, villainage had not been burthensome, and was growing lighter every year. The lords accepted money payments in lieu of service; they were often willing to grant or sell enfranchisement; the clergy encouraged the setting free of the villain as a good work, and the villain who dwelt unclaimed for a year and a day in a free borough became free.

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In one way or another the mass of villains and serfs became practically free hirelings. But the pestilence came, and after it the Statute of Labourers, fixing wages which the men refused to accept. At their wit's end for labour, the landlords fell back upon their half-forgotten rights over the villains, and recalled to servitude many a man who had hitherto been as good as free. The irritation thus produced spread to the lower class of free tenants, who also owed burthensome service to their lords; and the ranks of the malcontents were swelled by dissatisfied artisans and discharged soldiers. It was the pressure of a poll-tax of three groats upon every person above fifteen years old which brought about the actual outbreak. All who had grievances seemed suddenly to have banded together. Here it was the Lollards or the Friars that had raised a cry against the clergy; there clergymen stood forth as ringleaders. Jingling rimes conveying some hidden meaning carried the signal for revolt from shire to shire. Unknown men, bearing names or nicknames which marked them as of the same class as their followers-Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, and the like-started up as leaders. The insurrection began among the peasants of Essex, where villainage was the special grievance, and thence spread to Kent, where villainage was unknown. The revolt there, according to a wellknown tradition, was partly brought about by the tax-gatherer's insulting behaviour to a young girl of Dartford. Her father, John Tyler, so called because he was a tiler by trade, killed the offender on the spot with a stroke of his lathing-staff. The Kentish insurgents are said to have numbered 100,000 men by the time they reached Blackheath, where they were harangued upon the equality of mankind by a priest named John Ball, who took as his text the rime :— "When Adam delved, and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman?"

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This rude army entered London, and breaking open the prisons, let the prisoners loose, burned John of Gaunt's palace of the Savoy, and the Temple, together with its books and records, and butchered all the Flemish artisans they could find; but in their havoc, they allowed of no plunder for private profit. "We will not be thieves," they said, as they flung Lancaster's jewels into the Thames. A large body, mostly Essex and Hertfordshire men, withdrew the next day, young Richard having promised to comply with their demands, chief of which was the abolition of villainage. But meanwhile another division had entered the Tower, and there seized and beheaded the Archbishop and Chancellor Simon Sudbury, and six other men. This force, which mainly consisted of Kentishmen, remained in arms, and on the morrow, June 15, its leader, Walter or "Wat" Tyler, had an interview with the King in Smithfield. Wat is described as behaving insolently, keeping his cap on, and, according to one story, laying his hand on Richard's rein; at all events, the conference ended in his being stabbed by the Mayor, Sir William Walworth, and others. The insurgents bent their bows, but Richard boldly rode up to them, exclaiming that he himself would be their leader. They followed him to the fields at Islington, where a considerable force of knights and citizens hastened to protect the King; and the rioters dispersed after the promised charters of emancipation and pardon had been delivered. In Norfolk the insurrection was put down by Henry Spenser, "the fighting Bishop of Norwich." On the 2nd of July, Richard, who indeed could not legally abolish villainage without consent of the Lords and Commons, annulled the charters he had granted; and throughout the country great numbers of the rioters were tried and put to death. But though the rebellion was stamped out, and the Parliament scouted a suggestion of a general enfranchisement, villainage had nevertheless

received a heavy blow. The landlords forbore to recall the freed labourers to serfdom, they again accepted money payments instead of labour, and let their lands to leasehold tenants.

2. Government of Richard.-Richard was noted for his beauty; his abilities were good, and he could act on occasion with quickness and daring; but he was wasteful, dissipated, frivolously fond of shows and pageants, and violent in temper. Mistrusting his uncles who had kept him in tutelage as long as they could, he promoted and enriched friends of his own who were hated as upstarts. In 1388 the party against the King, which was headed by his youngest uncle Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, got the upper hand; when exile or death became the lot of Richard's friends. The Parliament in which they were condemned was known by the epithets of "the Wonderful" and "the Merciless." The next year Richard, displaying sudden vigour, took the government into his own hands, and for eight years he ruled well, though apparently he never really forgave those who had taken part in the doings of 1388. His first wife, "the Good Queen Anne" of Bohemia, who seems to have been inclined towards the doctrines of Wycliffe, and who was beloved both by her husband and by the nation, died in 1394. Two years later he married a child of eight years old, Isabel, daughter of Charles VI. of France. This step was unpopular, as the English had no wish to be friends with France, and it was strongly opposed by Gloucester; but Richard, whose policy was one of peace, desired to secure a long truce. The next year, 1397, he had his uncle Gloucester seized and hurried off to Calais. The governor of that town soon made report that the Duke was dead-secretly murdered, as most thought. The Earl of Arundel, Gloucester's chief ally, was tried in Parliament, and beheaded; his brother, Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, was banished.