threatened invasion, Richard in person led an army of over twelve thousand men into Scotland. But the Scots, as usual, avoided a battle, and, after burning Edinburgh, Richard returned. In the course of the expedition he created his uncles Edmund and Thomas dukes of York and Gloucester, possibly in the hope of playing them off against Lancaster. The elevation of his chancellor, Pole, a merchant's son, to the earldom of Suffolk provoked dissatisfaction. In the autumn Richard got rid of Lancaster by a grant for his long-delayed Spanish expedition, and, according to a not very trustworthy authority, decided against his aspirations to the succession by designating the Earl of March as heir-presumptive (Cont. Eulogii, p. 361).
Richard perhaps thought he had foiled any ambition of his uncles to keep him in tutelage similar to that of the young king of France, Charles VI. But Lancaster's departure left the leadership of the magnates to a more dangerous person, the king's youngest uncle, Gloucester. Great nobles like Gloucester and Arundel naturally resented the king's determination to rule through an upstart like Suffolk and a young courtier like Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford. The promotion of De Vere on 1 Dec. 1385 to be Marquis of Dublin—the new-fangled title itself caused discontent—with all the royal rights in Ireland, feudal superiority alone reserved, would doubtless have excited fiercer jealousy if it had not carried with it the obligation to complete the conquest of the island, and in two years convert a constant deficit into an annual contribution of five thousand marks to the English exchequer. But, to secure the support of the commons, Gloucester had to convict the minister of something more than ‘withdrawing the king from his magnates.’ The increased export of wool shows that the state of the country had slightly improved during the recent truces, and it was no fault of Richard or his chancellor if it was still at war, and now threatened with a great French invasion (Kunze, Hanseakten aus England, p. 360). Nevertheless the country's condition was still far from satisfactory, and the ignorant commons were only too ready to lay this at the door of the government. In the parliament which met on 1 Oct. 1386 Richard found himself confronted with a demand for the dismissal of the chancellor and treasurer. He retorted that he would not dismiss the meanest varlet in his kitchen at their bidding, and, after attempting to dissolve parliament, he retired to Eltham, and expressed his contempt for them by raising De Vere (13 Oct.) to the rank of Duke of Ireland. At last Gloucester and Thomas Arundel, bishop of Ely, went to Eltham, and induced Richard to return to Westminster by threatening him with the fate of Edward II. Suffolk was superseded by Arundel as chancellor (23 Oct.), and then impeached and sentenced to fine and imprisonment on charges that show he was made the scapegoat of Richard's policy. Enlarging upon precedents of 1379 and 1380, a commission of eleven magnates was appointed for a year with very extensive powers for the reform of the household and the realm. Richard was bound by an oath to stand by its ordinances. But this was far from his intention. A more prudent prince might have waited for Gloucester's ambition to rally moderate men round the crown, and the composition of the commission was not unfavourable to such a policy. But Richard was young and headstrong; the constraint put upon him, the threats used, were intolerably galling to one imbued with the highest notions of royal prerogative. Nor could he fail to call to mind the sequel of a similar episode in the reign of his great-grandfather, Edward II. He did not allow the parliament ‘that wrought wonders,’ as the seventeenth-century searchers for precedents called it, to disperse without a protest that nothing done in it should prejudice himself or his crown. Immediately after the dissolution he released Suffolk.
In the summer Richard made a progress into Wales, ostensibly to see De Vere off to Ireland, but really to arrange his revenge upon Gloucester and his supporters. He took counsel with the Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, Alexander Neville [q. v.], archbishop of York, and the chief justice, Robert Tresilian; and on 25 Aug. at Nottingham five of the judges, under compulsion they afterwards pleaded, gave it as their opinion that the commission was unlawful as infringing upon the royal prerogative, and that those who had procured it had rendered themselves liable to the penalties of treason; that the direction of procedure in parliament and the power to dissolve it rested with the king, and that the commons could not impeach crown officers without the royal consent. Richard committed the double mistake of prematurely driving his adversaries to bay and of rallying the commons round them by his uncompromising assertion of royal prerogative. The sheriffs declared it impossible to pack a parliament for him because ‘the commons favoured the lords.’ He made preparations for the arrest of the latter, and for armed support if needed.
Richard was welcomed back to London on 10 Nov. by the mayor and citizens, wearing
