mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry
which will occasionally find an echo to
this day. But Wat was a hard-working man,
who had suffered much, and had been foully
outraged; and it is probable that he was a man
of a much higher nature and a much braver
spirit than any of the parasites who exulted
then, or have exulted since, over his defeat.

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately
bent their bows to avenge his fall. If the
young King had not had presence of mind at
that dangerous moment, both he and the
Mayor to boot, might have followed Tyler
pretty fast. But, the King riding up to the
crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor,
and that he would be their leader. They were
so taken by surprise, that they set up a great
shouting and followed the boy until he was
met at Islington by a large body of soldiers.
The end of this rising was the then usual end.
As soon as the King found himself safe, he
unsaid all he had said, and undid all
he had done; some fifteen hundred of the
rioters were tried (mostly in Essex) with great
rigour, and executed with great cruelty.
Many of them were hanged on gibbets and
left there as a terror to the country people;
and, because their miserable friends took some
of the bodies down to bury, the King ordered
the rest to be chained up—which was the
beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging
in chains. The King's falsehood in this business
makes such a pitiful figure that I think
Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond
comparison the truer and more respectable man
of the two

Richard was now sixteen years of age, and
married Anne of Bohemia, an excellent princess,
who was called "the good Queen Anne." She
deserved a better husband; for the King had
been fawned and flattered into a treacherous,
wasteful, dissolute, bad young man.

There were two Popes at this time (as if
one were not enough! ) and their quarrels
involved Europe in a great deal of trouble.
Scotland was still troublesome too; and at
home there was much jealousy and distrust,
and plotting and counter-plotting, because
the King feared the ambition of his
relations, and particularly of his uncle, the Duke
of Lancaster, and the duke had his party
against the King, and the King had his party
against the duke. Nor were these home
troubles lessened when the duke went to
Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that
kingdom ; for then the Duke of Gloucester,
another of Richard's uncles, opposed him, and
influenced the Parliament to demand the
dismissal of the King's favourite ministers. The
King said in reply, that he would not for
such men dismiss the meanest servant in his
kitchen. But, it had begun to signify little
what a King said when a Parliament was
determined ; so Richard was at last obliged
to give way, and to agree to another Government
of the kingdom under a commission of
fourteen nobles for a year. His uncle of
Gloucester was at the head of this commission,
and, in fact, appointed everybody
composing it.

Having done all this, the King declared
as soon as he saw an opportunity that he had
never meant to do it, and that it was all
illegal; and he got the judges secretly to
sign a declaration to that effect. The secret
oozed out directly, and was carried to the
Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester,
at the head of forty thousand men, met the
King on his entering into London to enforce
his authority; the King was helpless against
him; his favourites and ministers were
impeached and were mercilessly executed.
Among them were two men whom the people
regarded with very different feelings; one,
Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice, who was
hated for having made what was called " the
bloody circuit" to try the rioters; the other,
Sir Simon Burley, an honourable knight,
who had been the dear friend of the Black
Prince, and the governor and guardian of the
King. For this gentleman's life the good
Queen even begged of Gloucester on her
knees; but Gloucester (with or without reason)
feared and hated him, and replied, that if she
valued her husband's crown, she had better
beg no more. All this was done under what
was called by some the wonderful—and by
others, with better reason, the merciless—
Parliament.

But Gloucester's power was not to last for
ever. He held it for only a year longer; in
which year the famous battle of Otterbourne,
sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was
fought. When the year was out, the King,
turning suddenly to Gloucester, in the midst
of a great council said, " Uncle, how old am
I?" "Your highness," returned the Duke,
"is in your twenty-second year." "Am I
so much?" said the King, "then I will
manage my own affairs! I am much obliged
to you, my good lords, for your past services,
but I need them no more." He followed this
up, by appointing a new Chancellor and a
new Treasurer, and announced to the people
that he had resumed the Government. He
held it for eight years without opposition.
Through all that time, he kept his
determination to revenge himself some day upon his
uncle Gloucester, in his own breast.

At last the good Queen died, and then the
King, desiring to take a second wife, proposed
to his council that he should marry Isabella
of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth:
who, the French courtiers said (as the English
courtiers had said of Richard), was a marvel
of beauty and wit, and quite a phenomenon—
of seven years old. The council were divided
about this marriage, but it took place. It
secured peace between England and France
for a quarter of a century; but it was strongly
opposed to the prejudices of the English
people. The Duke of Gloucester, who was
anxious to take the occasion of making himself
popular, declaimed against it loudly, and his