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Presidential Address: State Trials under Richard II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

T. F. T. Plucknett
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Extract

With the accession of Richard II, the political plot thickens. Crisis follows crisis, and each time there is a spectacular state trial. At times there is an air of good humour, even indulgence, in the conduct of these affairs, but as the reign proceeds they become more grim, ending in such savagery as is rare in our political history. Modern historians have contributed much new material to the study of this reign, and yet the result is not an increase of clarity; the more we learn, the more obscure the whole story becomes. There seems an unmistakable likeness between the successive crises and their accompanying state trials, and yet it is hard to define it in terms of politics. They seem to be all of them variations—one might say Enigma Variations—upon an undisclosed theme which still eludes us.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 2 , January 1952 , pp. 159 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1952

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References

page 160 note 1 Discussed in Trans. R. Hist. Soc, 5th ser., i. 153–64.

page 160 note 2 Rotuli Parliamentorum, iii. 10 (38)–12 (40).

page 161 note 1 Ibid., iii. 12 (4i)–i4 (43). It is notable that she was to forfeit lands held by others to her use.

page 162 note 1 Rotuli Parliamentorum, iii. 152 (15). Archbishop Stratford had similarly asked for a trial when he was defamed among the commons in 1340: Trans.R. Hist. Soc, 4th ser., xxiv. 68.

page 162 note 2 Rot. Parl., iii. 153 (16).

page 162 note 3 Ibid., iii. 153 (18)– 155 (20).

page 163 note 1 Ibid., iii. 155 (22)–156 (23).

page 164 note 1 Rot. Parl, iii. 157b.

page 164 note 2 Higden, , Polychronicon, ix. 33–40Google Scholar.

page 164 note 3 Perhaps one of those liaison committees of lords appointed at the request of the commons which are frequent during this period.

page 164 note 4 Rot. Parl, iii. 168 (11)–(13).

page 165 note 1 The judges made a record (ibid., 169 (15)) in common-law form convicting Cavendish of scandalum magnatum under 2 Ric. II, stat. I, c. 5.

page 165 note 2 Rot. Parl., iii. 216 (6).

page 165 note 3 Ibid., iii. 216 (7); Scrope was eventually allowed to recount Suffolk's long career of public service: ibid., iii. 217a.

page 165 note 4 Ibid., iii. 219 (13).

page 166 note 1 Rot. Parl., iii. 221 (18); stat. 10 Rio II, c. 1.

page 166 note 2 Ibid., iii. 233 (August 1387).

page 167 note 1 The last and most famous example is Ashford v. Thornton (1819), 1 B. & Ald. 405.

page 168 note 1 Appeals of treason are listed in Pollock, and Maitland, , History of English Law, ii. 507Google Scholar, and in Harcourt, L. W. V., His Grace the Steward, p. 349 nGoogle Scholar.

page 168 note 2 The constable's jurisdiction over appeals of treason and felony committed abroad was not contested: Harcourt, , op. cit., 362 ff.Google Scholar, Rot. Parl, iii. 65 (47). Cf. the statute 13 Ric. II, c. 2.

page 168 note 3 Rot. Parl., iii. 229–38.

page 169 note 1 Steel, A., Richard II, p. 138Google Scholar, regards this as ‘his first really intelligent move in the whole crisis’.

page 169 note 2 Rot. Parl, iii. 237b–238.

page 170 note 1 Rot. Parl., iii. 238.