Gloucester's Alleged Confession

Hume claims that the truth of Gloucester's confession "may be entirely depended on"--that it was "genuine, and obtained without violence."

His evidence is this: In the first parliament of Henry IV, Judge Rickhill, who brought the confession over from Calais, was tried on the charge of fabricating the confession, but was acquitted, even though "Glocester's party was prevalent."

To Hume, Rickhill's acquittal "may even appear marvellous, considering the times." (Hume believed him to be innocent.)

Alliance with France

But Hume does admit that Richard's alliance with France may have played a part--and this does not reflect well on Richard:

"[Glocester's] aversion to the French truce and alliance was public and avowed; and that court, which had now a great influence over the king, pushed him to provide for his own safety, by punishing the traiterous designs of his uncle."

So Richard murdered Gloucester at the urging of the king of France?!

The Guilt of the Duke of Gloucester

Hume gives a couple of possible reasons that might have at least somewhat justified Richard's murder of Gloucester.

1. Froissart reports a scheme to depose Richard and place Roger Mortimer, whom Richard had named as his successor, upon the throne. Mortimer allegedly declined and so Gloucester schemed to divide the kingdom in four parts and bestown them upon himself, his two brothers, and the earl of Arundel.

"The king, it is said, being informed of these designes, saw that either his own ruin or that of Glocester was inevitable; and he resolved, by a hasty blow, to prevent the execution of such destructrive projects."

2. Right before his execution, Gloucester allegedly made a confession and Hume is convinced that the report of this confession is genuine.

In this supposed confession, Gloucester allegedly confessed to the following crimes:

1. Speaking contemptuously of the king's person and his government
2. Deliberating concerning the lawfulness of throwing off his allegiance to him
3. Took part in a secret conference, where his deposition was proposed, talked of, and determined.

Hume concludes that the plot was not so far advanced as to justify Richard in taking such drastic action as he proceeded to take: "It is reasonable to think, that his schemes were not so far advanced as to make him resolve on putting them immediately into execution. The danger, probably, was still too distant to render a desperate remedy entirely necessary for the security of government."

Richard's Character

1396:

According to Hume, Richard's "personal character brought him into contempt....Indolent, profuse [i.e. "spending or giving freely and in large amount, often to excess"], addicted to low pleasures; he spent his whole time in feasting and jollity, and dissipated, in idle show, or in bounties to favourites of no reputation, that revenue which the people expected to see him employ in enterprizes directed to public honour and advantage."

Richard II's Alliance with France

1396: Hume says that Richard agreed to marry the daughter of King Charles of France "chiefly that he might fortify himself by this alliance, against the enterprizes of his uncles and the incurable turbulence as well as inconstancy of his barons."

The Inexorable Tyrant

To Hume, it is Gloucester who is "the inexorable tyrant." He describes Gloucester in this way after Gloucester refuses to pardon Simon Burley, even after queen Anne pleads with him on her knees for three hours.

The Accusation of the Five

1388: The Duke of Gloucester and his party became aware that the king was plotting against them and decided to strike first.

They armed themselves and confronted Richard in London. They sent four messengers to the king: the archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Lovel, Lord Cobham, and Lord Devereux. Through these messengers they demanded that the king should deliver up to them "the persons who had seduced him by their pernicious counsel."

A few days later, they accused the following men of being enemies of the state:

1. The archbishop of York
2. The duke of Ireland
3. The earl of Suffolk
4. Sir Robert Tresilian
5. Sir Nicholos Brembre

The duke of Ireland raised forces and tried to oppose the Duke and his party, but was defeated. The duke of Gloucester then appeared with 40,000 men and compelled Richard to summon a parliament. This provided Gloucester and his party with an opportunity, as Hume puts it, "by observing a few legal forms, to take vengeance on all their enemies."

Five men came forward in parliament to bring accusations against the five counsellors:

1. The duke of Gloucester
2. The earl of Derby
3. The earl of Arundel
4. The earl of Warwic
5. The earl of Nottingham.

The proceedings, says Hume, "were well suited to the violence and iniquity of the times." Brembre, the only one of the accused who was in custody, was sentenced to death after only the appearance of a trial in the house of lords (whom, says Hume, were not by law his proper judges).

He was executed along with Tresilian, who had been apprehended in the meantime.

Hume sees these men as being not guilty of any of the accusations against them, but rather as being men who faithfully defended their king first against the unlawful commission established by Gloucester and his party and then against the detention of the king against his will. To Hume, the actions of the accusers and the judges in parliament were "without any regard to reason, justice, or humanity."

(Hume says that "the royal prerogative was invaded by the commission." You can see why Americans didn't especially like Hume's version of the English history, as I think Forrest McDonald points out.)

The Reply of the Judges

1387: "The king...was in reality dethroned," says Hume.

To regain his power, the king first tried to get an election of men who would take his side in the house of commons (seeing that this body "appeared now of weight in the constitution"). This attempt failed, because the sheriffs were mostly appointed by his uncles.

The king then turned to some judges, who turned out to be willing to condemn as unlawful the impeachment of de la Pole and the establishment of the council.

The judges were:

1. Sir Robert Tresilian, chief justice of the King's Bench
2. Sir Robert Belknappe. chief justice of the Common Pleas
3. Sir John Cary, chief baron of the Exchequer
4. Holt
5. Fulthorpe
6. Bourg (three inferior justices)
7. Lockton, serjeant at law

These judges declared (quoting Hume):

1. The late commission was derogatory to the royalty and prerogative of the king
2. Those who procured it, or advised the king to consent to it, were punishable with death
3. Those who necessitated and compelled him were guilty of treason
4. Those were equally criminal who should persevere in maintaining it
5. The king has he right of dissolving parliaments at pleasure
6. The Parliament, while it sits, must first proceed upon the king's business (that is, grant him the money he wants without first getting him to agree to their demands)
7. This assembly cannot without his consent impeach any of his ministers and judges.

Hume comments that except for the last two, all of these determinations appear justifiable. In a note, he says that a Parliament in the time of Edward III got Edward to agree to make his ministers to stand down from office on the third day of every session in order that accusations might be brought against them, which implies that ministers cannot be impeached while in office. Hume also notes that Henry IV insisted that it was an established usage of Parliament "to go first through the king's business in granting supplies"--which was ironic because this was one of the charges that Henry brought against Richard when he deposed him.

"So ill grounded were most of the imputations thrown on the unhappy Richard!"

The Council of 14

By 1386, the barons were fed up with the influence that Robert de Vere had over the king. Prior to de Vere coming along, Richard was under the control of his uncles. According to Hume, Richard's "violent temper" made it impossible for him to stand this control any more, especially that of the Duke of Gloucester.

The barons, listed by Hume as

1. Moubray earl of Nottingham, the mareschal
2. Fitz-Alan earl of Arundel
3. Piercy earl of Northumberland
4. Montacute earl of Salisbury
5. Beauchamp earl of Warwic

are described as being "all connected with each other, and with the princes, by friendship or alliance, and still more by their common antipathy to those who had eclipsed them in the king's favour and confidence."

They decide on two steps. First, the impeach and remove from office Michael de la Pole, the chancellor. (In the course of this, a member of Parliament called for the record of the deposition of Edward II, "a plain intimation of the fate, which Richard, if he continued refractory, had reason to expect from them."

Second, they established a council of 14, to rule for a year, which in effect was a temporary deposition of Richard. It was clear, says Hume, that the barons intended to extend the power of this council indefinitely into the future. All of the members were of the party of the Duke of Gloucester, with the exception of Nevil, Archbishop of York.

Richard's Poor Character

In Hume: the Scottish campaign of 1385 provides an example of Richard's poor character.

While Richard leads an army into Scotland, the Scottish troops invade England and lay waste to Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire.

Richard's advisers urge him to lead his troops to the west in order to encounter the Scots as they returned to Scotland. But Richard is impatient to return to England, so that he can "enjoy his usual pleasures and amusements." This impatience "outweighed every consideration."

Hume concludes this segment by observing how the English "regretted the indolence and levity of their king."