Under the eyes of Gloucester and his accomplices the _Merciless Parliament_ was summoned to London. Awed by the armed men around them, the members declared Suffolk and de Vere outlaws, and condemned to death seven of the king's minor ministers. So Tresilian the Chief Justice, Sir Simon Burley who had been the king's tutor, and five more were hanged (February, 1388). This disgraceful Parliament ended by voting £20,000 as a gift to the Lords Appellant for their services, and then dispersed. Gloucester and his friends were in office for something more than a year, a period long enough to show the world that they were grasping self-seekers, and not patriots. The only service they did the country was to negociate truces with Scotland and France, which stopped for a time the lingering "Hundred Years' War." [Sidenote: =Dismissal of Gloucester.=] By 1389 Richard had passed his majority. In a session of the royal council, he suddenly asked his uncle Gloucester how old he was. The duke replied that he was now in his twenty-second year. "Then," said the king, "I am certainly old enough to manage my own affairs." So, formally thanking Gloucester and the rest for their past services, he dismissed them from office. If he had replaced them by his own favourites the civil war would have broken out again, but Richard wisely called in the good bishop William of Wykeham, and other ancient councillors of his grandfather's, against whom no one had a word to say. He made no attempt to punish the Lords Appellant, and acted with such self-restraint and moderation that all the realm was soon full of his praises. Yet all the time he was dissembling, and biding his time for revenge on the men who had murdered his friends in 1388. [Sidenote: =Moderation of Richard.--Growth of Lollardry.=]