support from the Londoners against Gloucester, who took up arms with the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, Richard spoke them fair, and affected to agree to the impeachment of his favourites in the parliament which was to meet in February 1388. But on his sending the Duke of Ireland to raise an army in Cheshire, and attempting to pack the parliament, the three lords met at Huntingdon (12 Dec.) and talked of deposing the king. Joined by the Earls of Derby and Nottingham, they routed De Vere at Radcotbridge (20 Dec.), and, the Londoners opening their gates, they got admission to the Tower on the 27th, and entered the presence of the helpless king with linked arms. Gloucester showed him their forces on Tower Hill, and ‘soothed his mind’ by assurances that ten times their number were ready to join in destroying the traitors to the king and the realm (Knighton, ii. 256). Had Gloucester not been overruled by Derby and Nottingham, Richard would have been deposed, and he was no doubt chiefly responsible for the vindictiveness of the Merciless parliament. His insistence on the execution of Sir Simon Burley [q. v.] involved him in a heated quarrel with the Earl of Derby (Walsingham, ii. 174).
Gloucester and his associates held the reins of power for more than twelve months, not without some attempt to justify their promises of reform, but they did not hesitate to obtain the enormous parliamentary grant of 20,000l. by way of reimbursing them for their patriotic sacrifices. Gloucester also secured the lordship of Holderness, the castle, town, and manor of Oakham, with the sheriffdom of Rutland (which had belonged to his wife's ancestors), and the office of chief justice of Chester and North Wales, which gave him a hold over a district attached to Richard by local loyalty (Dugdale, ii. 170; Ormerod, i. 63). The king resuming the government in May 1389, and promising his subjects better government, Gloucester was naturally in disgrace. But through the good offices of the Earl of Northumberland and of John of Gaunt, now returned from Spain, his peace was made. As early as 10 Dec. he once more appeared in the council, was given, with his brothers, some control over crown grants, and allowed to retain his chief-justiceship of Chester (Ord. Privy Council, i. 17, 18 b). Grants of money were also made to him (Dugdale, ii. 170). But he doubtless felt that he had no real influence with the king, and this, combined with emulation of his nephew Derby's recent achievements in Prussia [see Henry IV], may have induced him to undertake in September 1391 a mission to the master of the Teutonic order. But a storm drove him back along the coasts of Denmark, Norway, and Scotland; and, narrowly escaping destruction, he landed at Tynemouth, whence he returned home to Pleshey (Fœdera, vii. 705–6; Walsingham, ii. 202). He must have been disquieted to find that the king during his absence had secured an admission from parliament that the proceedings of 1386–8 had in no way curtailed his prerogative (Rot. Parl. iii. 286).
Early in 1392 Richard appointed Gloucester his lieutenant in Ireland only to supersede him suddenly in favour of the young Earl of March in July, just as he was about to start, ‘par certeynes causes qui a ce nous mouvent’ (King's Council in Ireland, pp. 255, 258). Gloucester was then holding an inquiry into a London riot, but this may not have been the sole cause of his supersession (Rot. Parl. iii. 324). The king, it is worth noticing, was seeking the canonisation of Edward II, with whose fate he had been threatened by his uncle six years before (Issues, p. 247).
The Cheshire men rose against Gloucester and Lancaster in the spring of 1393, while they were negotiating at Calais, in the belief that it was the king's wish, and Richard had to publish a disavowal (Annales, p. 159; Fœdera, vii. 746). There is some reason to think the Earl of Arundel was trying to force on a crisis. Gloucester had now to give up his post of chief justice of Chester to Richard's henchman Nottingham, but was consoled with a fresh grant of Holderness and Oakham, and certain estates that had belonged to De Vere (Pat. Rolls, 17–18 Ric. II). Yet he cannot but have been rendered uneasy by the king's quiet attacks upon the work of the Merciless parliament and his serious breach with Arundel after the queen's death in June 1394 (Rot. Parl. iii. 302, 316; Annales, p. 424). Richard took him with him to Ireland in September, but sent him back in the spring of 1395 to obtain a grant from the new parliament. It is plain from Froissart's account of his visit to England in the ensuing summer that Gloucester's relations with the court were getting strained. The courtiers accused the duke of malice and cunning, and said that he had a good head, but was proud and wonderfully overbearing in his manners. His advocacy of coercion to make the Gascons receive John of Gaunt as their duke was put down to his desire to have the field to himself at home. He disapproved too of the proposed French marriage and peace, and the negotiations were carried through by others, though he was
