Part 37

This is probably the oldest armor of the king in Great Britain. See Stothard's "Monumental Effigies."

Henceforth, whatever lingering feeling of jealousy and hatred had remained in England, between the Norman and the Englishman (S192), now gradually melted away. An honest, patriotic pride made both feel that at last they had become a united and homogeneous people.

The second effect of the wars was political. In order to carry them on, the King had to apply constantly to Parliament for money (SS217, 220). Each time that body granted a supply, they insisted on some reform which increased their strength, and brought the Crown more and more under the influence of the nation. (See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xii, S13.)

The it came to be clearly understood that though the King held the sword, the people held the purse; and that the ruler who made the greatest concessions got the largest grants.

It was also in this reign that the House of Commons (SS213, 217, 262), which now sat as a separate body, obtained the important power of impeaching, or bringing to trial before the upper House, any of the King's ministers or council who should be accused of misgovernment (1376). (See S247, and Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xii, S13.)

About this time, also, statutes were passed which forbade appeals from the King's courts of justice to that of the Pope, who was then a Frenchman, and was believed to be under French political influence. Furthermore, all foreign Church officials were prohibited from asking or taking money from the English Church, or interfering in any way with its management.

First Statute of Provisors (1351) and of Praemunire (1353) (S265). The first Statute of Praemunire did not mention the Pope or the Court of Rome by name; the second, or Great Statute of Praemunire of 1393, expressly mentioned them in the strongest terms. See Constitutionals Documents in the Appendix, p. xxxii. Statute of Provisors (1351), and see S265.

244. The Black Death, or Plague, 1349.

Shortly after the first campaign in France, a frightful pestilence broke out in London, which swept over the country, destroying upwards of half the population. The disease, which was known as the Black Death, had already traversed Europe, where it had proved equally fatal.

"How many amiable young persons," said a noted writer of that period, "breakfasted with their friends in the morning, who, when evening came, supped with their ancestors!" In Bristol and some other English cities, the mortality was so great that the living were hardly able to bury the dead; so that all business, and for a time even war, came to a standstill.

245. Effect of the Plague on Labor, 1349.

After the pestilence had subsided, it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for their work, like freemen.

It was a general agricultural strike, which lasted over thirty years. It marks the beginning of that contest between capital and labor which had such an important influence on the next reign, and which, after a lapse of more than five hundred years, is not yet satisfactorily adjusted.

Parliament endeavored to restore order. It passed laws forbidding any freeman to ask more for a day's work than before the plague. It gave the master the right to punish a serf who persisted in running away, by branding him on the forehead with the letter F, for "fugitive." But legislation was in vain; the movement had begun, and statutes of Parliament could no more stop it than they could stop the rolling of the ocean tide. It continued to go on until it reached its climax in the peasant insurrection led by Wat Tyler, under Edward's successor, Richard II (S251).

246. Beginning of English Literature, 1369-1377.

During Edward's reign the first work in English prose may have been written. It was a volume of travels by Sir John Mandeville, who had journeyed in the East for over thirty years. On his return he wrote an account of what he had heard and seen, first in Latin, that the learned might read it; next in French, that the nobles might read it; and lastly he, or some unknown person, translated it into English for the common people. He dedicated the work to the King.

Perhaps the most interesting and wonderful thing in it was the statement of his belief that the world is a globe, and that a ship may sail round it "above and beneath,"--an assertion which probably seemed to many who read it then as less credible than any of the marvelous stories in which his book abounds.

William Langland was writing rude verses (1369) about his "vision of Piers the Plowman," contrasting "the wealth and woe" of the world, and so helping forward that democratic outbreak which was soon to take place among those who knew the woe and wanted the wealth. John Wycliffe (S254), a lecturer at Oxford, attacked the rich and indolent churchmen in a series of tracts and sermons, while Chaucer, who had fought on the fields of France, was preparing to bring forth the first great poem in our language (S253).

247. The "Good Parliament" (1376); Edward's Death.

The "Good Parliament" (1376) attempted to carry through important reforms. It impeached (for the first time in English history) certain prominent men for fraud (S243). But in the end its work failed for want of a leader. The King's last days were far from happy. His son, the Black Prince (S238), had died, and Edward fell entirely into the hands of selfish favorites and ambitious schemers like John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Perhaps the worst one of this corrupt "ring" was a woman named Alice Perrers, who, after Queen Philippa was no more (S240), got almost absolute control of the King. She stayed with him until his last sickness. When his eyes began to glaze in death, she plucked the rings from his unresisting hands, and fled from the palace.

248. Summary.

During this reign the following events deserve especial notice:

1. The acknowledgment of the independence of Scotland. 2. The establishment of the manufacture of fine woolens in England. 3. The beginning of the Hundred Years' War, with the victories of Cre'cy and Poitiers, the Peace of Bre'tigny, and their social and political results in England. 4. The Black Death and its results on labor. 5. Parliament enacts important laws for securing greater independence to the English Church. 6. The rise of modern literature, represented by the works of Mandeville, Langland, and the early writings of Wycliffe and Chaucer.

Richard II--1377-1399

249. England at Richard's Accession.

The death of the Black Prince (SS238, 241, 247) left his son Richard heir to the crown. As he was but eleven years old, Parliament provided that the government during his minority should be carried on by a council; but John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (S247), speedily got the control of affairs.

He was an unprincipled man, who wasted the nation's money, opposed reform, and was especially hated by the laboring classes. The times were critical. War had again broken out with both Scotland and France, the French fleet was raiding the English coast, the national treasury had no money to pay its troops, and the government debt was rapidly accumulating.

250. The New Tax; the Tyler and Ball Insurrection (1381).