London - Edward Rutherfurd [236]
James Bull, at the age of eighteen, was a credit to his race. Tall, sturdy, fair-haired, broad-faced, his Saxon ancestors would have recognized him as one of their own immediately. In all his dealings, his staring blue eyes told you at once that he was absolutely honest. Not only did he never break his word, he never even thought of doing so. Indeed, if any adjective in the English language summed him up it was: forthright.
In the modest ironmonger’s business which the family still ran, everybody swore by him. His parents relied upon him, his young brothers and sisters all looked up to him; and if, for three generations, the business had never produced more than enough to feed the family, they all felt confident that James would lead them to greater things. “Everybody trusts him,” his mother would explain with legitimate pride.
Even so, his parents had some misgivings about his plan to visit his cousin Gilbert Bull. It was over eighty years since the family of ironmongers had encountered the rich Bulls of Bocton, and humiliation seemed likely. James’s plan to transform the family fortunes might excite his brothers and sisters, but his mild-mannered father was not so sure.
James, however, was confident. “He can’t possibly mind,” he told his father, “when he sees that I’m honest.”
And so it was, on a bright spring morning, that he set out for the big house on London Bridge.
As Gilbert Bull made his way back from Westminster he felt a sense of heaviness.
The long reign of Edward III was drawing to its close, and, sadly, it was not a dignified ending. Where were the triumphs of yesteryear? All whittled away. The French had once again managed to claw back nearly all the territory the Black Prince had won. The most recent English campaign had been an expensive waste of time and the Black Prince himself, having fallen sick on campaign, had died a broken man in England that very summer. As for the old king, in his dotage now, he had taken up with a young mistress, Alice Perrers, who in the manner of such women had infuriated the judges by interfering with their work and the merchants by spending their tax money on herself.
But worst of all, for Bull at least, was the Parliament which had just ended.
The practice of calling parliaments, used so cunningly by Edward I, had become more or less an institution during the long reign of his grandson Edward III. It had also become customary for these great assemblies to split into three parts. The clergy would hold their own convocation in one place; the king and his extended council of barons, the Parliament proper, would usually meet in the Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace; and the knights of the shires and burghers, rather patronizingly called the Commons, would gather until sent for in the octagonal Chapter House of Westminster Abbey.
The Commons had also subtly changed. The previous century, the burghers from the towns had only been summoned there occasionally, when needed; but now they were a regular fixture. At least seventy-five boroughs usually sent men, who sometimes outnumbered the knights. London generally sent four, Southwark another two. And in recent years, a further sophistication had evolved: it was expensive to send a man to Westminster, where he might have to stay for weeks. So some boroughs began deputing London merchants to represent them. “After all,” they could truthfully say, “these fellows are merchants. They know what we want.” Many a borough, therefore, instead of its own timid provincials, was represented by a London man. Rich men; men with connections amongst the nobility; men with centuries of London independence behind them. Men like Gilbert Bull. That year he had represented a borough in the West Country.
Yet he was not glad he had done so. For if historians have called the Parliament of 1376 the Good Parliament, they have done so with hindsight. To those who took part, it was a melancholy affair.
Everybody was angry.