The war, and the need to finance it, dominated domestic affairs under Edward III. The king faced a crisis in 1340–41 because he found himself disastrously indebted by 1339, even though he had received generous grants from Parliament since 1336. It was estimated that he owed £300,000. He had seized wool exports and had borrowed recklessly from Italian, English, and Flemish bankers and merchants. A grant in 1340 of a ninth of all produce failed to yield the expected financial return. In the autumn of 1340 Edward returned from abroad and charged John Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury, the man who had been in charge in his absence, with working against him. He also engaged in a widespread purge of royal ministers. Stratford whipped up opposition to the king, and in Parliament in 1341 statutes were passed that were reminiscent of the kind of restraints put on earlier and less popular kings. Officers of state and of the king’s household were to be appointed and sworn in Parliament. Commissioners were to be sworn in Parliament to audit the royal accounts. Peers were to be entitled to trial before their peers in Parliament. Breaches of the Charters were to be reported in Parliament. Charges were brought against Stratford, only to be dropped. But in 1343 Edward III was able to repudiate the statutes. The crisis had little permanent effect, though it did demonstrate the king’s dependence on Parliament, and within it on the Commons, for supply.
In the following years the country was well governed, with William Edington and John Thoresby serving the king loyally and well. Edward’s compliance toward the requests of the Commons made it relatively easy for him to obtain the grants he needed. Discontent in 1346–47 was overcome by the good news from France. Much of the legislation passed at this time was in the popular interest. In 1352 the king agreed that no one should be bound to find soldiers for the war save by common consent in Parliament, and demands for purveyance were moderated. The Statute of Provisors of 1351 set up statutory procedures against the unpopular papal practice of making appointments to church benefices in England, and the Statute of Praemunire two years later forbade appeals to Rome in patronage disputes. The crown in practice had sufficient weapons available to it to deal with these matters, but Edward was ready to accept the views of his subjects, even though he did little about them later. Much attention was given to the organization of the wool trade because it was intimately bound up with the finance of war. In 1363 the Calais staple was set up, under which all English exports of raw wool were channeled through Calais. The currency was reformed very effectively with the introduction in the 1340s of a gold coinage alongside the traditional silver pennies. Law and order
The maintenance of law and order, a prime duty for a medieval king, had reached a point of crisis by the end of Edward I’s reign when special commissions, known as commissions of trailbaston, were set up to try to deal with the problem. Matters became worse under Edward II, from whose reign there is much evidence of gang warfare, often involving men of knightly status. Maintaining law and order was also an urgent issue in Edward III’s reign. In the early years there was conflict between the magnates, who wanted to be given full authority in the localities, and the county knights and gentry, who favoured locally appointed keepers of the peace. A possible solution, favoured by the chief justice, Geoffrey Scrope, was to extend the jurisdiction of the king’s bench into the localities. There was a major crime wave in 1346 and 1347, intensified by the activities of soldiers returning from France. The justices reacted by greatly extending the use of accusations of treason, but the Commons protested against procedures they claimed did little to promote order and much to impoverish the people. In 1352 the crown gave way, producing in the Statute of Treason a narrow definition of great treason that made it impossible to threaten common criminals with the harsh penalties which followed conviction for treason. The concern of the Commons had been that in cases of treason goods and land forfeited by those found guilty went to the crown, not to the overlord. In 1361 the position of justice of the peace was established by statute, marking another success for the Commons. The crises of Edward’s later years
The war with France was reopened in 1369 and went badly. The king was in his dotage and, since the death of Queen Philippa in 1369, in the clutches of his unscrupulous mistress Alice Perrers. The heir to the throne, Edward the Black Prince, was ill and died in 1376. Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, the next son, had died in 1368, and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third surviving son, was largely occupied with his claims to Castile, his inheritance through his second wife, Constance. Edmund of Langley, the fourth surviving son, was a nonentity, and the youngest, Thomas of Woodstock, was not yet of age. In 1371 Parliament demanded the dismissal of William of Wykeham, the chancellor, and the appointment of laymen to state offices. The new government, dominated by men such as William Latimer, the chamberlain, proved unpopular and ineffective. When the so-called Good Parliament met in 1376, grievances had accumulated and needed to be dealt with. As in previous crises, a committee consisting of four bishops, four earls, and four barons was set up to take responsibility for the reforms. Then, under the leadership of Peter de la Mare, who may be termed the first Speaker, the Commons impeached Latimer, Alice Perrers, and a number of ministers and officials, some of whom had profited personally from the administration of the royal finances. The Commons took the role of prosecutors before the Lords in what amounted to a new procedure.
John of Gaunt, an unpopular figure at this time, had, as a result of the king’s illness, presided uncomfortably over the Good Parliament. He ensured that the achievement of Peter de la Mare and his colleagues was ephemeral, taking charge of the government at the end of the reign. De la Mare was jailed in Nottingham. William of Wykeham was attacked for alleged peculation as chancellor, and Alice Perrers was restored to court. The Parliament of 1377 reversed all important acts of the Good Parliament. There were rumours in London that Gaunt aimed at the throne. But the Black Prince’s widow made peace between Gaunt and the Londoners, and Wykeham’s temporalities were restored. The reign ended in truce, if not peace. Richard II (1377–99)
Richard II’s reign was fraught with crises—economic, social, political, and constitutional. He was 10 years old when his grandfather died, and the first problem the country faced was having to deal with his minority. A “continual council” was set up to “govern the king and his kingdom.” Although John of Gaunt was still the dominant figure in the royal family, neither he nor his brothers were included. The Peasants’ Revolt (1381)
Financing the increasingly expensive and unsuccessful war with France was a major preoccupation. At the end of Edward III’s reign a new device, a poll tax of four pence a head, had been introduced. A similar but graduated tax followed in 1379, and in 1380 another set at one shilling a head was granted. It proved inequitable and impractical, and, when the government tried to speed up collection in the spring of 1381, a popular rebellion—the Peasants’ Revolt—ensued. Although the poll tax was the spark that set it off, there were also deeper causes related to changes in the economy and to political developments. The government, in particular, engendered hostility to the legal system by its policies of expanding the powers of the justices of the peace at the expense of local and manorial courts. In addition, popular poor preachers spread subversive ideas with slogans such as: “When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?” The Peasants’ Revolt began in Essex and Kent. Widespread outbreaks occurred through the southeast of England, taking the form of assaults on tax collectors, attacks on landlords and their manor houses, destruction of documentary evidence of villein status, and attacks on lawyers. Attacks on religious houses, such as that at St. Albans, were particularly severe, perhaps because they had been among the most conservative of landlords in commuting labour services.