A Distant Mirror_ The Calamitous 14th Century - Barbara W. Tuchman [192]
Infuriated by the presumption of what he called “these low hedge-knights,” Lancaster threatened in private “to give them such a fright that they shall not provoke me again.” He was warned by an adviser that the Commons “have the countenance of the Prince your brother” and the support of the Londoners, who would not allow them to be touched. Biding his time, the Duke visited the Commons next day under a guise so gracious that members stared at him in amazement, but they were not diverted from pursuing the charges against Latimer and Lyons. They summoned as witnesses two former Treasurers and other officials, demanded to examine the public accounts, and conducted the proceedings as a formal trial. When all the evidence had been heard, the Commons cried with one voice, “Lord Duke, now you can see and hear that Lord Latimer and Richard Lyons have acted falsely for their own advantage for which we demand remedy and redress!”
When Latimer demanded to know by whom and by what authority he was being indicted, Sir Peter de la Mare supplied the historic answer that the Commons as a body would maintain all their charges in common. At one stroke he created the constitutional means for impeachment and removal of ministers. Lyons thought to spike the process by sending the Black Prince a bribe of £1,000 concealed in a barrel of sturgeon. The Prince sent it back, but the King, in more comfortable cynicism, accepted a similar bribe with the jest that he was only taking back his own.
Parliament found the charges proved. The two accused ministers and four subordinates, including Latimer’s son-in-law, Lord Nevill, steward of the King’s household, were judged guilty, dismissed from office and condemned to fines and imprisonment, although Latimer was shortly released on bail provided by a group of his friends. Even Alice Perrers was removed on charges of meddling in the law by sitting alongside judges on the bench and overawing them into decisions in favor of her friends. Miserably the King had to acquiesce in her banishment from court.
The petitions of reform were accepted in the King’s name by John of Gaunt, who for the time being considered that he had insufficient support in the Lords to do otherwise. Besides annual Parliaments, the Commons demanded election of members by the “better folk” of the shires rather than by appointment of the sheriff. The petition for enforcement of the Statute of Laborers, with provisions for arrest and punishment of violators, reflected the growing antagonism between employer and worker. Likewise the growing antagonism to the papacy appeared in the petition for the exclusion of papal tax-collectors and prohibition of the export of money. No petition was made for peace, probably because the Commons believed the recent ill-fortunes in war had been due to the incompetent and corrupt leadership they were now replacing.
To contain John of Gaunt—or “bell the cat,” as it appeared in Langland’s fable—and to maintain the reforms once Parliament had dispersed, a new Council was named of nine lords and prelates including the ex-Chancellor, William of Wykeham, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, a rather pedestrian character of non-noble birth. The youth of the Council was characteristic of the early age at which men exercised power. Apart from Wykeham and Sudbury, six of the seven other members, including William Courtenay, Bishop of London, were under the age of 34, two of these under 30, and one, the Earl of March, was 25. Their opponent, the great Duke of Lancaster, was 36, born in the same year as Coucy.
Just as Parliament reached the peak of its accomplishment, the Prince fell into a fatal phase of his disease, complicated by dysentery.