The Parliament of 1385 and the Constitutional Crisis of 1386

Abstract

IT is generally recognised that the constitutional and political troubles of Richard II's reign can be traced back to the Wonderful parliament, the parliament of October 1386. All subsequent crises refer back to the events of this session. Both the king and his enemies acknowledged its key place in their controversies by the punishments they inflicted on their respective victims. The forfeitures of 1388 and of 1397 were declared retrospective, as from the Wonderful parliament. But if the troubles of the reign can be traced back to October 1386, they have been traced no further. The antecedents of the Wonderful parliament are shrouded in obscurity. Only the most general considerations have been adduced to explain its unheralded attack on the king and his ministers. No moving cause, no direct links with earlier events have yet been established. Yet until such links are traced, the true nature of the crisis is in danger of being misunderstood. There are therefore the best of reasons for re-examining the background to the constitutional crisis of 1386; and since that crisis was a parliamentary one, for scrutinising in particular the activities of the previous parliament, that of October 1385. This parliament met in a tense atmosphere. A few months previously the young Richard II had led his first military expedition-against Scotland-and the campaign had been accompanied by two measures of exceptional unpopularity. The government was very hard up and it seized the opportunity afforded by a domestic, defensive war to summon the feudal host and to impose a scutage, a feudal levy which had apparently died a natural death half a century previously.2 To make matters worse, this arbitrary taxation was accompanied by a lavish distribution of lands and honours which was certain to cost the Commons dearly. The king's younger uncles, the earls of Cambridge and of Buckingham, were raised to the dukedoms of York and Gloucester, and his chancellor, Michael de la Pole, was created earl of Suffolk. In all probability, too, another favourite, Simon de Burley, was given the earldom of Huntingdon, and the northern magnate Ralph Neville that of Cumberland.3 Each of these creations could be expected to cost the Crown somewhere in the region of a thousand marks or ?1,000 per annum. In addition, Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, who was to receive the new title of marquis of Dublin towards the end of the parliament of 1385, was granted successively Queenborough castle, the lordship of Oakham, the reversion of the Audley lands, the bulk of the king's Irish revenues and the promise of financial support in Ireland to the tune of some ?45,000.4 Other royal