



Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









 Makers of History

 Richard II.

 BY JACOB ABBOTT

 WITH ENGRAVINGS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 1901




 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
 hundred and fifty-eight, by

 HARPER & BROTHERS,

 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District
 of New York.

 Copyright, 1886, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN ABBOTT, LYMAN
 ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT.




[Illustration: PARLEY WITH THE INSURGENTS.]




PREFACE.


King Richard the Second lived in the days when the chivalry of feudal
times was in all its glory. His father, the Black Prince; his uncles,
the sons of Edward the Third, and his ancestors in a long line,
extending back to the days of Richard the First, were among the most
illustrious knights of Europe in those days, and their history abounds
in the wonderful exploits, the narrow escapes, and the romantic
adventures, for which the knights errant of the Middle Ages were so
renowned. This volume takes up the story of English history at the
death of Richard the First, and continues it to the time of the
deposition and death of Richard the Second, with a view of presenting
as complete a picture as is possible, within such limits, of the ideas
and principles, the manners and customs, and the extraordinary
military undertakings and exploits of that wonderful age.




CONTENTS.

 Chapter                                                    Page

    I. RICHARD'S PREDECESSORS                                13

   II. QUARRELS                                              37

  III. THE BLACK PRINCE                                      81

   IV. THE BATTLE OF POICTIERS                              103

    V. CHILDHOOD OF RICHARD                                 140

   VI. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE                              166

  VII. THE CORONATION                                       185

 VIII. CHIVALRY                                             197

   IX. WAT TYLER'S INSURRECTION                             225

    X. THE END OF THE INSURRECTION                          255

   XI. GOOD QUEEN ANNE                                      273

  XII. INCIDENTS OF THE REIGN                               290

 XIII. THE LITTLE QUEEN                                     310

  XIV. RICHARD'S DEPOSITION AND DEATH                       324




ENGRAVINGS.

                                                            Page

  PARLEY WITH THE INSURGENTS                     _Frontispiece._

  RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CASTLE                                 15

  MAP--SITUATION OF NORMANDY                                 23

  KING JOHN                                                  29

  CAERNARVON CASTLE                                          51

  PORTRAIT OF EDWARD THE SECOND                              55

  WARWICK CASTLE                                             61

  KENILWORTH CASTLE                                          66

  A MONK OF THOSE DAYS                                       69

  BERKELEY CASTLE                                            71

  CAVES IN THE HILL-SIDE AT NOTTINGHAM CASTLE                75

  MORTIMER'S HOLE                                            79

  MAP--CAMPAIGN OF CRECY                                     85

  VIEW OF ROUEN                                              87

  GENOESE ARCHER                                             94

  OLD ENGLISH SHIPS                                         105

  MAP--CAMPAIGN OF POICTIERS                                110

  STORMING OF THE CASTLE OF ROMORANTIN                      116

  RICHARD RECEIVING THE VISIT OF HIS UNCLE JOHN             152

  PORTRAIT OF RICHARD'S GRANDFATHER                         165

  EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE                                  169

  THE BULL                                                  177

  STORMING OF A TOWN                                        205

  KNIGHTS CHARGING UPON EACH OTHER                          220

  VIEW OF THE TOWER OF LONDON                               235

  THE SAVOY                                                 248

  RUINS OF THE SAVOY                                        252

  COSTUMES                                                  282

  FASHIONABLE HEAD-DRESSES                                  283

  SEAL OF RICHARD II                                        300

  HENRY OF BOLINGBROKE--KING HENRY IV                       340

  PONTEFRACT CASTLE                                         342




KING RICHARD II.




CHAPTER I.

RICHARD'S PREDECESSORS.

Three Richards.--Richard the Crusader.--King John.--Character of the
kings and nobles of those days.--Origin and nature of their
power.--Natural rights of man in respect to the fruits of the
earth.--Beneficial results of royal rule.--The power of kings and
nobles was restricted.--Disputes about the right of succession.--Case
of young Arthur.--The King of France becomes his ally.--Map showing
the situation of Normandy.--Arthur is defeated and made prisoner.--John
attempts to induce Arthur to abdicate.--Account of the assassination of
Arthur.--Various accounts of the mode of Arthur's death.--Uncertainty
in respect to these stories.--League formed against him by his
barons.--Portrait of King John.--Magna Charta.--Runny Mead.--The
agreement afterward repudiated.--New wars.--New ratifications of Magna
Charta.--Cruelties and oppressions practiced upon the Jews.--Extract
from the old chronicles.--Absurd accusations.--The story of the
crucified child.--John Lexinton.--Confessions extorted by
torture.--Injustice and cruelty of the practice.--Anecdotes of the
nobles and the king.


There have been three monarchs of the name of Richard upon the English
throne.

Richard I. is known and celebrated in history as Richard the Crusader.
He was the sovereign ruler not only of England, but of all the Norman
part of France, and from both of his dominions he raised a vast army,
and went with it to the Holy Land, where he fought many years against
the Saracens with a view of rescuing Jerusalem and the other holy
places there from the dominion of unbelievers. He met with a great
many remarkable adventures in going to the Holy Land, and with still
more remarkable ones on his return home, all of which are fully
related in the volume of this series entitled King Richard I.

Richard II. did not succeed Richard I. immediately. Several reigns
intervened. The monarch who immediately succeeded Richard I. was
John. John was Richard's brother, and had been left in command, in
England, as regent, during the king's absence in the Holy Land.

After John came Henry III. and the three Edwards; and when the third
Edward died, his son Richard II. was heir to the throne. He was,
however, too young at that time to reign, for he was only ten years
old.

The kings in these days were wild and turbulent men, always engaged in
wars with each other and with their nobles, while all the industrial
classes were greatly depressed. The nobles lived in strong castles in
various places about the country, and owned, or claimed to own, very
large estates, which the laboring men were compelled to cultivate for
them. Some of these castles still remain in a habitable state, but
most of them are now in ruins--and very curious objects the ruins are
to see.

[Illustration: RUINS OF AN ANCIENT CASTLE.]

The kings held their kingdoms very much as the nobles did their
estates--they considered them theirs by right. And the people generally
thought so too. The king had a _right_, as they imagined, to live in
luxury and splendor, and to lord it over the country, and compel the
mass of the people to pay him nearly all their earnings in rent and
taxes, and to raise armies, whenever he commanded them, to go and fight
for him in his quarrels with his neighbors, because his father had
done these things before him. And what right had his father to do these
things? Why, because _his_ father had done them before him. Very well;
but to go back to the beginning. What right had the first man to assume
this power, and how did he get possession of it? This was a question
that nobody could answer, for nobody knew then, and nobody knows now,
who were the original founders of these noble families, or by what
means they first came into power. People did not know how to read and
write in the days when kings first began to reign, and so no records
ere made, and no accounts kept of public transactions; and when at
length the countries of Europe in the Middle Ages began to emerge
somewhat into the light of civilization, these royal and noble families
were found every where established. The whole territory of Europe was
divided into a great number of kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms, and
other such sovereignties, over each of which some ancient family was
established in supreme and almost despotic power. Nobody knew how they
originally came by their power.

The people generally submitted to this power very willingly. In the
first place, they had a sort of blind veneration for it on account of
its ancient and established character. Then they were always taught
from infancy that kings had a right to reign, and nobles a right to
their estates, and that to toil all their lives, and allow their kings
and nobles to take, in rent and taxes, and in other such ways, every
thing that they, the people, earned, except what was barely sufficient
for their subsistence, was an obligation which the God of nature had
imposed upon them, and that it would be a sin in them not to submit to
it; whereas nothing can be more plain than that the God of nature
intends the _earth_ for _man_, and that consequently society ought to
be so organized that in each generation every man can enjoy something
at least like his fair share of the products of it, in proportion to
the degree of industry or skill which he brings to bear upon the work
of developing these products.

There was another consideration which made the common people more
inclined to submit to these hereditary kings and nobles than we should
have supposed they would have been, and that is, the government which
they exercised was really, in many respects, of great benefit to the
community. They preserved order as far as they could, and punished
crimes. If bands of robbers were formed, the nobles or the king sent
out a troop to put them down. If a thief broke into a house and stole
what he found there, the government sent officers to pursue and arrest
him, and then shut him up in jail. If a murder was committed, they
would seize the murderer and hang him. It was their interest to do
this, for if they allowed the people to be robbed and plundered, or to
live all the time in fear of violence, then it is plain that the
cultivation of the earth could not go on, and the rents and the taxes
could not be paid. So these governments established courts, and made
laws, and appointed officers to execute them, in order to protect the
lives and property of their subjects from all common thieves and
murderers, and the people were taught to believe that there was no
other way by which their protection could be secured except by the
power of the kings. We must be contented as we are, they said to
themselves, and be willing to go and fight the king's battles, and to
pay to him and to the nobles nearly every thing that we can earn, or
else society will be thrown into confusion, and the whole land will be
full of thieves and murderers.

In the present age of the world, means have been devised by which, in
any country sufficiently enlightened for this purpose, the people
themselves can organize a government to restrain and punish robbers
and murderers, and to make and execute all other necessary laws for
the promotion of the general welfare; but in those ancient times this
was seldom or never done. The art of government was not then
understood. It is very imperfectly understood at the present day, but
in those days it was not understood at all; and, accordingly, there
was nothing better for the people to do than to submit to, and not
only to submit to, but to maintain with all their power the government
of these hereditary kings and nobles.

It must not be supposed, however, that the power of these hereditary
nobles was absolute. It was very far from being absolute. It was
restricted and curtailed by the ancient customs and laws of the realm,
which customs and laws the kings and nobles could not transgress
without producing insurrections and rebellions. Their own right to the
power which they wielded rested solely on ancient customs, and, of
course, the restrictions on these rights, which had come down by
custom from ancient times, were as valid as the rights themselves.

Notwithstanding this, the kings were continually overstepping the
limits of their power, and insurrections and civil wars were all the
time breaking out, in consequence of which the realms over which they
reigned were kept in a perpetual state of turmoil. These wars arose
sometimes from the contests of different claimants to the crown. If a
king died, leaving only a son too young to rule, one of his brothers,
perhaps--an uncle of the young prince--would attempt to seize the
throne, under one pretext or another, and then the nobles and the
courtiers would take sides, some in favor of the nephew and some in
favor of the uncle, and a long civil war would perhaps ensue. This was
the case immediately after the death of Richard I. When he died he
designated as his successor a nephew of his, who was at that time only
twelve years old. The name of this young prince was Arthur. He was the
son of Geoffrey, a brother of Richard's, older than John, and he was
accordingly the rightful heir; but John, having been once installed in
power by