Announcing A KING UNDER SIEGE New Release

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! Release Date Jan 5, 2019 BOOK BLURB: Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants' Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost. Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding. The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless. He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects. Richard's inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.

Richard II has proved to be one of the most enigmatic kings in the Middle Ages. Just like that other Richard (III, as we know him) his reputation was demolished by the person that usurped him. Historians are destined to muddle through documents that have been altered or written by hostile chroniclers. They must search for missing records and interpret passages written by survivors anxious to curry favor with the new king—or at least escape censure. It doesn't help that there is such a wide range of conflicting opinions about him.

Like many of us, I first learned about Richard II from Shakespeare. Even though I knew nothing about him, I was totally moved during the prison scene when he bemoaned the fate of kings—and I never recovered! But his story goes way beyond the events of this play; in fact, Shakespeare only covered the last year of Richard's life. We know nothing about what led up to the famous scene between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, where their trial by combat was interrupted by the king and they were sent into exile. Once I did my research, I was astounded at how complicated Richard's life really was. His 22-year reign can be divided up into two parts: the 12 years of his minority and the ten years of his majority—each of which are brought to a tragic climax. Hence, it will take me two books to cover his story. As you might guess from the book blurb, volume two will be called THE KING'S RETRIBUTION.

Inheritance in Medieval England

Source: Wikipedia: Genealogical roll of the kings of England. 1300-1308. Royal 14 B VI Membrane 7 From Henry III to Edward III

Cut-and-dried? Not on your life. Primogeniture, or the “law” governing inheritance, even in its basic form could prove elusive to the most determined lawyer. “Primogeniture among males, equal shares between females, a son always preferred to a daughter, a daughter to a brother or other collateral. For the fief to retain its coherence, it was thus essential that its proprietor, if not childless, should have at least one son or, failing sons, not more than one daughter.” (see K.B. McFarlane’s “The Nobility of Later Medieval England”). Easier said than done! Sorting out the details got messy very quickly.

According to McFarlane, approximately 25% of all noble families failed in the direct male line in every generation. So according to the laws of inheritance, any daughters would be next in line, even if there was a male nephew, for instance, or a surviving brother, known as collateral heirs. When the inheritance went to an heiress, the line would be passed to her husband—an unfortunate outcome, needless to say. A famous example of this was the Beauchamp inheritance. When in 1446 the Earl of Warwick died with no male heir, his lands and title passed on to his daughter who died in infancy; after that the earldom passed on to his full sister, married to Richard Neville who was already Earl of Salisbury—and later known as the Kingmaker. If there were multiple daughters, they would split the inheritance. In the case of Richard Neville, he had no sons—only two daughters, the elder married to George Duke of Clarence and the younger to Richard Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III. George became next Earl of Warwick through Isabella, then was executed, passing the title to his son Edward Plantagenet. Imprisoned in the Tower of London at age 10, Edward spent the rest of his life there and was executed in 1499, at which point the line became extinct.

If the father had a big family, naturally he would want to take care of younger sons and daughters, notwithstanding the legends of the younger son driven from home to seek his fortune. In the case of royalty, the younger sons often were often made earls, or dukes—and married to an heiress, if possible. And of course there was sometimes a situation where a younger son was preferred over the direct heir. What was a man to do? What’s important to the study of primogeniture is to know that property could not be devised by a will, as we know it today. According to McFarlane, “If a landowner died, his heir inherited; if he wanted to benefit his younger children he had to do it in his own lifetime.” Most people did not want to divest themselves of their lands à la King Lear, so this was not a common option.

Clever aristocrats soon found a way around this restriction: the estate tail. What happened here is that the grantor would surrender his fief as a “conditional gift” to his king, his immediate lord, or a group of friends. Then he would receive it back “on terms different from those governing ordinary inheritance”. He no longer owned the fief in “fee simple” (by definition unconditional); he held it in “fee tail”. This way he could cut out the direct heir, or possibly his daughter in favor of collateral heirs (or any other situation—even bastardy). If women were excluded altogether, or at least until all male descendants were extinct, this estate was called “tail male” or “entail”. The entail was irrevocable and perpetual, even if the principal changed his mind before he died. No one could alter it. However, in the legal interest of the direct heir, entails usually reverted back to the head of the family if there was a total failure of male heirs in the cadet branches after three generations.

Slightly more adaptable was another legal device known as the use. A man would grant his lands, “or any part of them, to a number of his friends, usually called his feoffees, to hold to his use as long as he lived and to dispose of when he was dead in accordance with his last will.” (McFarlane) For all intents-and-purposes the grantor was now a tenant for life rather than owner of the estate. The use had the added advantage that an underaged lord who inherited was not subject to a wardship in his minority—hence, it was a bit of a tax dodge, since wardships had a monetary value. A disadvantage was that the feofees had to be trusted implicitly; if they acted fraudulently or in disobedience, there was little established recourse for the wronged party.

By the end of the fourteenth century, “tail male” became ingrained and extended to earldoms as well. An added bonus, by the way, is that an estate held in “fee tail” could not be forfeited for treason. Ultimately this new freedom to bequeath land had its own consequences: too many unsustainable cadet branches weakened the line. Primogeniture reasserted itself around 1500, though many permutations continued to exist.

In the Days After Hastings

The Body of Harold brought before William the Conqueror by Ford Madox Brown, Manchester Art Gallery

It was said that after the great Battle, William the Conqueror retired to Hastings and awaited the submission of the English people. None was forthcoming. Was he surprised, I wonder? After all, England had been subjected to Danish invasions the last couple of centuries, winning and losing battle after battle. Of course, they had not lost their king during one of those battles, but electing another king was only a matter of time. Apparently—at least initially—no one had any intention of recognizing the usurper. Of course, this was destined to change.

But not yet. With a few days after Harold's death (I can't find an exact date), a hastily-assembled Witan elected Eadgar Aetheling as king; he was the last surviving heir of the Royal house of Cedric of Wessex though still in his early teens. Eadgar was not crowned, presumably because this event always coincided with a high religious holiday and the next appropriate date would not occur until Christmas. Historian Edward A. Freeman suggested that Edwin and Morcar put themselves forward as likely candidates but received no support. They duly consented to Eadgar's election, then went back home with their levies, "and left Eadgar and England to their fate". Freeman's judgment was harsh: "The patriotic zeal of the men of London was thwarted by the base secession of the Northern traitors. By their act all was lost." Divided, England could not stand up to the might of the Norman invader.

William waited at Hastings for five days then resolved to secure the southeast portion of England before advancing on London. He marched along the coast, plundering his way to strike terror in his conquered people. He took especial revenge on Romney who had the audacity to attack some of his men before the great Battle. William then advanced to Dover which surrendered without a blow. Had the garrison already been killed at Hastings? It is said that William intended to spare the city because of its submission but that some of his unruly soldiers plundered anyway, setting fire to many houses. William brought his men under control and even compensated the homeowners for their losses. He spent eight days at Dover and left his wounded there to recover.

The Conqueror's violence to the resistors and leniency to towns surrendering along the way served its purpose in Kent; even the city of Canterbury met the Duke on the road with hostages and tribute. This was on October 29. Interestingly, two days later, he pitched camp nearby in a neighborhood called the Broken Tower and stayed there for a month, for he was stricken down with a serious illness. This didn't stop him from sending messengers to Winchester where Queen Editha had taken refuge, offering to leave them alone as long as they submitted to his rule (along with tribute, of course). Editha consulted with the city fathers and together they agreed to William's terms. For all intents and purposes, the south was in William's hands.

He now turned his attention to London; the last vestiges of resistance were strong there. Initially he sent forward a small contingent of 500 knights, who were met south of the Thames by a stout company of Londoners. A skirmish took place that sent the citizens retreating back inside the walls of the city; at this, the soldiers set fire to Southwark. But William was not minded to attack London yet; rather, he struck west along the southern bank of the Thames, harrying Surrey, Hampshire, and Berkshire until he reached Wallingford, which offered a bridge and a ford across the river. Unchallenged, William crossed and continued north, intent on creating a circle of desolation around London. Although this was not a formal siege, it was beginning to have the trappings of one. By the time William reached Berkhampstead, apparently the English were demoralized. An embassy led by none other than Eadgar Aetheling himself, accompanied by Archbishops Ealdred and probably Stigand (as well as many of the chiefest men from London and southern England) came and did homage to William. Prepared to be merciful, the Conqueror received them graciously and gave Eadgar the kiss of peace. As Freeman reminds us: "It was the chance shot of an arrow which had overcome the English King, but it was William's own policy which had overcome the English people." And so it began.

King Richard’s Household: the Retinue

British Library: MS Harley 4205 f.6V

My interest in “The Royal Household and the King’s Affinity: Service, Politics and Finance in England 1360-1413” by Chris Given-Wilson goes way beyond what I can discuss in a book review. In Part One I talked about the king’s servants, from the lowest page to the great officers. When we move on to the chapters about the king’s affinity—or his retinue, for lack of a better word—we learn about the different layers of intimates: courtiers, knights, retainers, and so on. Some of them received annuities (the chamber knights) and some of them were only called upon in case of specific need and were paid accordingly.

The chamber knights were intimates of the king and were often sent away on special missions (as ambassadors, for instance, or in Burley’s case to negotiate his marriage). At the start of Richard’s reign there were about ten chamber knights, mostly left over from the Black Prince’s household; the most famous of them were also victims of the Appellants in 1388: Simon Burley and John Beauchamp of Holt. Two others were beheaded and three more were ordered to leave court. In the ’90s a new generation of intimates formed around the king—closer to his age—and by the end of Richard’s reign he had about 18 chamber knights in service. According to the author, “they actually had regular duties at court, either in the chamber or in the hall, and that they were obliged to remain at court for certain periods of each year (perhaps this was organized on a rotational basis, perhaps it was as other duties allowed, but certainly some of them would have been with the king all the time).” Chamber knights were rewarded with “temporary grants such as wardships, the custody of royal lands or castles (with attached fees), life annuities, and salaried posts in the king’s gift.” This was not a path to great landed wealth, though Richard did reward them whenever he could.

The author thinks about the royal affinity in terms of concentric circles around the king. The inner circle, most of the time, controlled access to the king—much to the annoyance of those who thought they deserved better. The king’s intimates—aside from chamber knights—were great officers of state, royal councilors, great magnates (in his favor), esquires of the chamber, and clerks of the royal chapel. Included among his inner circle were the bachelerii—or bachelors—”a distinct group of retainers in whom their lord reposed a special trust”. Some (perhaps all) were indeed chamber knights, but not all of them are recorded as receiving fees and robes. Perhaps they were just close personal friends; it’s difficult to say for certain. The second circle “may be defined as those who were bound to the king by ties of service, and by the fact that he paid them a regular wage…and expected them to serve him on a regular basis.” These included department officials, sergeants-at-arms, and lesser clerks; the majority of the household of 400-700 total belonged to this circle. The third (and outer) circle included those called upon for specific needs as mentioned above: the king’s knights, the king’s esquires, archers, and yeomen. They mostly did not live at the court and were called up as required, but here too there were layers of service. You had the bannerets (a superior rank of knight with a personal retinue of up to 20 men; he received 4s a day wages on campaign), simple knights (who received 2s a day on campaign), and esquires.

The king’s knights were the military men who mostly received annuities, “who were not of the royal household but who were attached to the person of the king”. After the episode with the Appellants, Richard started retaining knights for life; he realized that “he wanted to be sure of a loyal core of followers in a crisis” which was sorely lacking in 1387. In the last couple of years of his reign during his “second tyranny” he surrounded himself with the turbulent Cheshire archers, thus contributing greatly to the costs of the exchequer and wreaking havoc with the locals. In the same time frame he started retaining squires for life as well, in somewhat greater numbers; they were about half as expensive to maintain as knights.

So the king’s knights were among his lay courtiers. But not to be overlooked were his clerical courtiers, those of the king’s chapel, numbering up to 50 at any one time. The clerics were the ones who did the departmental work, i.e. clerks of the chancery, clerks of the exchequer, the privy seal office, the marshalsea, the chapel, etc. The clerical position was often a stepping-stone to higher religious posts, and they usually held prebends or canonries outside of the court from which they received the bulk of their livings. Many went on to be bishops; in fact, “by the end of the reign Richard had secured bishoprics for so many of his household clerks that the episcopacy must almost have come to resemble an extension of the household.” It is interesting that in his last few years, “the number of clerks among the king’s closest companions and advisors was considerably greater than the number of chamber knights”. They were to become a thorn in the side for Henry IV, many going so far as to assist the rebels in 1400.

It was contemporary opinion that Richard was much too impressionable and influenced by his “evil councilors”. It was the purpose of the Lords Appellant to remove his inner circle so they themselves could exert some influence over the king. They certainly succeeded in eliminating (one way or the other) more than 40 people from his household, but they fell short of their ultimate goal once he reached his majority and took control of the government in 1389.