The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [25]
On the morning of 29 September 1399, some of the lords assembled for Parliament, accompanied by a committee of lawyers, waited upon Richard in the Tower. They returned in the afternoon, when the King, with a smiling face, signed an instrument of abdication, in which he requested that he be succeeded by his cousin of Bolingbroke. As a token of goodwill he sent Henry his signet ring.
The next morning, Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall. Richard had asked that he should not come before it ‘in horrible fashion’ as a prisoner, which was agreed to. When he entered the hall, he stood before the empty throne, removed his crown and, placing it on the ground, ‘resigned his right to God’. He then made a short speech expressing his hope that Bolingbroke would be a good lord to him and ensure that he was comfortably provided for. Although thirty-three accusations against him were read aloud, he was not allowed to say anything more, even in his defence.
In the official record of the proceedings, written in the Parliament Roll, Richard is described as looking cheerful as he read out the transcript of his instrument of abdication, but this is at odds with the evidence of Adam of Usk and the chronicler monk of Evesham, who describe his demeanour as anything but happy. Later that day the Bishop of Carlisle protested that Richard should have had a chance to answer the charges against him, but his was a lone voice.
Yet even though it had been summoned in the King’s name, this ‘Parliament’ was not a strictly legal or normal assembly. There was no Speaker, and a crowd of hostile Londoners had been admitted, probably to intimidate the former king.
After Richard had been taken back to the Tower, the assembled lords declared him deposed. His removal from the throne was the catalyst for the dynastic and political instability that characterised the century that followed it. Shortly after, Bolingbroke entered Westminster Hall, preceded by his four sons and the archbishops of Canterbury and York. In the hushed throng Sir Thomas Percy’s voice rang out, ‘Long live Henry of Lancaster, King of England!’ This was the cue for the whole assembly to respond with the words, ‘Yes! Yes! We want Henry to be king, nobody else!’
Bolingbroke acknowledged their acclaim, then placed himself in Gaunt’s former seat, occupying it as Duke of Lancaster. But the two archbishops took him by the hand and led him to the empty throne. Silence fell as he rose to speak, saying, ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, challenge this realm of England and the crown, as I that am descended by right line of the blood coming from the good lord Henry the Third, and through him that right that God of His grace hath sent me with help of my kin and of my friends to recover it, the which was in point to be undone for default of governance and undoing of the good laws.’
After he had finished speaking, he showed the assembly Richard’s signet ring, as proof that the former king had designated him his successor. There was rapturous applause, and both lords and commons enthusiastically acknowledged him as king of England and of France. At the close of proceedings, proclamation was made that Richard had abdicated and that Bolingbroke had succeeded him as King Henry IV. Some voices were publicly raised in protest. They were to be the first of many.
* Their tomb was lost in the Great Fire of London.
3
The Usurping Dynasty
Certainly Henry IV and the Lancastrian kings who succeeded him were usurpers. Henry had achieved the royal dignity by deposing England’s lawful sovereign, and the legitimacy of his title to the throne would remain