History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
pilgrimages, and against transubstantiation, till the Statute of Heresy
strengthened Arundel's hands. In February, 1401, Sautre was brought before
the Primate as a relapsed heretic, and on refusing to recant a second time
was degraded from his orders. He was handed to the secular power, and on
the issue of a royal writ publicly burned.
[Sidenote: England and France]
The support of the nobles had been partly won by a hope hardly less fatal
to the peace of the realm, the hope of a renewal of the strife with
France. The peace of Richard's later years had sprung not merely from the
policy of the English king, but from the madness of Charles the Sixth of
France. France fell into the hands of its king's uncle, the Duke of
Burgundy, and as the Duke was ruler of Flanders and peace with England was
a necessity for Flemish industry, his policy went hand in hand with that
of Richard. His rival, the king's brother, Lewis, Duke of Orleans, was the
head of the French war-party; and it was with the view of bringing about
war that he supported Henry of Lancaster in his exile at the French court.
Burgundy on the other hand listened to Richard's denunciation of Henry as
a traitor, and strove to prevent his departure. But his efforts were in
vain, and he had to witness a revolution which hurled Richard from the
throne, deprived Isabella of her crown, and restored to power the baronial
party of which Gloucester, the advocate of war, had long been the head.
The dread of war was increased by a pledge which Henry was said to have
given at his coronation that he would not only head an army in its march
into France but that he would march further into France than ever his
grandfather had done. The French Court retorted by refusing to acknowledge
Henry as king, while the truce concluded with Richard came at his death
legally to an end. In spite of this defiance however Burgundy remained
true to the interests of Flanders, and Henry clung to a truce which gave
him time to establish his throne. But the influence of the baronial party
in England made peace hard to keep; the Duke of Orleans urged on France to
war; and the hatred of the two peoples broke through the policy of the two
governments. Count Waleran of St. Pol, who had married Richard's
half-sister, put out to sea with a fleet which swept the east coast and
entered the Channel. Pirates from Britanny and Navarre soon swarmed in the
narrow seas, and their ravages were paid back by those of pirates from the
Cinque Ports. A more formidable trouble broke out in the north. The enmity
of France roused as of old the enmity of Scotland; the Scotch king Robert
the Third refused to acknowledge Henry, and Scotch freebooters cruised
along the northern coast.
[Sidenote: Richard's death]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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