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RICHARD THE SECOND, son of Edward the Black Prince, came to the throne as the successor of his grandfather, at the age of sixteen. The French wars for the time were over; and as the King of one country was an easy, indolent, and unenterprising man, and the King of the other a mere boy, animosities were not actively renewed.

John of Gaunt, whom we shall notice more particularly as the head of the family whence came the Lancasters, the second son of Edward, and therefore uncle to the King, had married the daughter of the King of Castile; and in the early part of Richard's reign the warlike spirit of the time was vented in an effort to vindicate his right to that Spanish fief. A source of discomfort to the Crown was the rebellion of Wat Tyler, which reached the importance of opposing a force of one hundred thousand men to the authority of the government. The apt spirit and presence of mind displayed by Richard alone preserved London and restored quiet.

The Scotch began once more to show indications of revolt. The French, shaking off their inactivity, threatened invasion. Amid such fast-gathering troubles the true character of Richard began to develop. He showed himself to be weak in judgment, totally devoid of administrative capacity, easily diverted from State affairs, deplorably open to the approach of para sites, indolent in the extreme. Gloucester, his youngest uncle, full of ambitious projects, and a favorite with nobles and people, used every artifice to get the power into his own hands. Richard, distrustful of his kinsmen and counsellors, sought consolation in the society of favorites, and was impatient of the presence of the great nobles at his court. Therefore, what had

happened in the time of Edward the Second was now repeated. Nobles combined on one side; the King, clinging to his favorites, bid defiance on the other. It was the old struggle in one of its many forms-in truth, feudalism against power at a focus. But the time had come when the barons were no longer irresistible-when the personal character of the King turned the balance. If he was competent to stand to his rights, he was the stronger party. His individual weakness alone stood in the way of his triumph. The King proved wanting; the confederated nobles found themselves in possession of the power. De la Pole, the Chancellor, a favorite, was degraded; Parliament was dictated to by the conspirators; the King found himself superseded; the Gloucester faction set up an oligarchy of twelve, who ruled in his stead. Impeachments and executions, of course, followed fast on such an usurpation; men of the highest rank and most venerable reputation were deposed, stripped of property, banished, beheaded, because they remained loyal to the Crown. Before a year had passed, however, a gleam of spirit appeared in the movements of the insulted King, and he seems to have taken cautious and judicious steps toward recovering his rights. After gradually removing ministers appointed by the cabal of princes, and acquiring enough authority to make some show of power, he was considerate enough of his own interest to affect reconciliation with the conspirators, and to gain popularity from the lower orders by some well-timed concessions. The only prince of the blood royal who was not double-dyed in the crime of high treason was the gallant Lancaster, soi-disant King of Castile; and he, having returned from his Quixotic sally in quest of royalty,

imparted, by his counsel and defence, a new purpose to the King to maintain his sovereignty. Soon after its resumption, the two easy-minded monarchs of France and England, having little taste for war, but inclined rather to the luxury and pleasures of peace, concluded a truce which was to last a quarter of a century.

But poor Richard had little peace, notwithstanding. Two obstacles were fatal to his desire for a tranquil reign. One was himself; the other was his restless, daring, and heartless uncle of Gloucester. The King gave himself up to idle and useless amusements; squandered on foolish superfluities the royal revenue; yielded his affections to unworthy and lowborn favorites; was undignified in his familiarity with the populace, and turned his back on the serious duties of his office. Gloucester was ever watchful, ever scheming, ever conscienceless, ever secret. His ambition trained him to every art by which to achieve his end. Nothing turned his eyes from the fixed object of his aim. Able, and conscious of ability, he cunningly abided his time, meantime never resting, but turning events to his own account. The contrast of character foreshadowed the events which followed. While the thoughtless Richard pursued his round of frivolous indulgence, Gloucester was interpreting him to the nation after his own ideas; men were being taught to distrust the truce; soldiers were being made impatient for conflict; nobles were being as sured of greater honor and greater influence; everybody was being persuaded that under Richard the glories of England were fading away, but, under Gloucester, would be surpassed by other and nobler achievements. To what height the Duke carried his

projects in his own fancy, it is not possible to say; certain it is that he sought to degrade Richard from the throne. Discovered in his conspiracies by the true friends of the King, he was arrested, and transported to the confinement of a prison at Calais; and there he was probably assassinated. A report of his death by apoplexy was circulated through England.

Once more, rather by the timely aid of wellwishers than by his own merit, the King ruled over his people in safety. Parliament was obsequious and obedient, favorite ministers were retained in office, and tranquillity was apparently restored. But hardly had one conspirator been done away with, than the hydra-headed genius of faction yielded other champions equally dangerous, and, as the issue proved, more successful. But as we now approach events which have a more intimate bearing upon our immediate theme, it is necessary to defer to another chapter an account of the melancholy, but to a great de gree self-imposed, sequel of King Richard's reign.

We have related enough to make it apparent that he was a victim of his own weakness and the wickedness of others; and that, while the phase of military passion which developed itself in foreign invasion was comparatively dormant in his career, the other phase, internal strife, rose for the time as the controlling fact.

We have, with necessary brevity, taken a glance at the vicissitudes of the throne between the time of the last Crusades and the accession of the Lancastrian dynasty, for the purpose of setting forth especially the train of events which prepared England for the remarkable transactions with which the career of that royal house is full. Simple and natural are the

causes which produced the interesting sequences which it will be our duty to narrate. The great controlling power of action was constantly, through all these generations, that spirit of military ambition which we have before remarked. It was the resort of feudalism when there was external peace or a weak king; it was the instrument of the sovereign when he sought to lessen feudal power, and to divert to national glory what had always been the cause of national degradation-the rivalry between authority divided among many and authority proceeding from a centre. If we were to look forward to a century after the death of Henry the Fifth, we should find feudalism prostrate, and a race of able and vigorous sovereigns asserting with marvellous success a single source of government-that source the Crown. Through the centuries we have been regarding, that greatest transition of modern history was working its way to a distant culmination, with a slow and hardly perceptible pace, yet by a progress in the main organic and uniform. The power of feudalism was yielding; political power was drawing to a focus. The principles of chivalry were receding; statecraft was the crescent promise of the future. Apparently each was suffering the ups and downs of chance supremacy and chance weakness; apparently neither made a permanent foothold on the future. The barons were not foresighted enough to guard against forces which operated obscurely, whose bearing was toward a distant point, which did not interfere as yet with their means of ascendency. The sovereign, equally obscure in prophetic vision, failed to encourage those silent and but little perceptible elements which were finally attracted by inevitable

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