CHAPTER III
IN THE DAYS OF THE LATER PLANTAGENETS
Coronation of Richard II—The Wat Tyler Rebellion—Murder of Archbishop Simon of Canterbury—The Rebellion Quelled—Fresh Troubles raised by the Duke of Gloucester and quieted by Archbishop Courtenay—Still Troubles Continue—Execution of some Prominent Members of Parliament, and of Sir Simon Burley, the King’s Tutor—First Legal Execution on Tower Hill—Richard’s Wilfulness and Treachery—His Dethronement, August 19, 1399—Accession of Henry IV—Death and Burial of Richard II—Conspiracies against Henry IV—Battle of Shrewsbury—Prisoners shut up in the Tower—Among them James of Scotland, “The King’s Quhair”—The Great War with France—Charles, Duke of Orleans, a formidable rival; his Imprisonment and Life in the Tower—His Return to France—The Lollards—Sir John Oldcastle—His Plots and Death—Death of Henry V—Fall of the English Power in France—Rival Nobles in England: Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, Cardinal Beaufort, Earl of Warwick—Marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou—Public Discontent—Cade’s Rebellion—Claim of Richard Duke of York—Battle of Wakefield—The Wakefield Tower—Battle of Towton—Accession of Edward IV—Henry VI a Prisoner in the Tower—Warwick’s Tergiversation—Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury—King Henry slain in the Wakefield Tower—Continued Tragedies, Duke of Clarence’s Disaffection and Plottings—His Death in the Bowyer Tower—Death of Edward IV—Edward V and his Brother brought to the Tower by their Uncle Gloucester, who has Lord Hastings beheaded for loyalty to Edward—Edward deposed—Richard Crowned King—Edward and his Brother secretly Murdered—Discovery of their Bones and Burial at Westminster.
The reign of Richard II began with festivities and pageantries of unprecedented magnificence, and the Tower was the scene of some of the most prominent. On the day of the Coronation, according to Holinshed, the King, clad in white robes, issued from its gate surrounded by a vast assemblage of nobles and knights. The streets were hung with drapery, and the conduits ran wine. In Cheapside was a castle with four towers, from two sides of which “the wine ran forth abundantly, and at the top stood a golden angel, holding a crown, so contrived that when the King came near, he bowed and presented it to him. In each of the towers was a beautiful virgin, of stature and age like unto the King, apparelled in white vestures, who blew in the King’s face leaves of gold and flowers of gold counterfeit. On the approach of the cavalcade, the damsels took cups of gold, and filling them with wine at the spouts of the castle, presented them to the King and his nobles.”