The "Good Parliament", so called because the people though its actions were good, brought complaint against the corruption of key officials, the extravagant expenditures, and lack of success in the Hundred Years' War. This parliament brought about the impeachment of Lord Chamberlain Latimer and others, and the expulsion of Alice Perrers, the King's mistress. In the end, everything the Parliament had accomplished was undone by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the Parliament of 1377.

"THE GOOD PARLIAMENT". The parliament of 1376 shares the character of the great councils of 1258 and 1297 only in the fact that it marked the climax of a long rising excitement. It asserted some sound principles without being a starting-point of new history. It afforded an important illustration of the increasing power of the commons, but, as an attempt at real reform and progress, it was a failure.

It had been summoned originally for the 12th of February, but did not meet until the 28th of April.¹ On that day the king presented himself, but, as it was usual to wait for late comers, the proceedings were delayed until the morrow, when, in the Painted Chamber and in the king's presence, Knyvett the chancellor declared the occasion of the meeting. This was threefold, to provide for the internal peace of the country, for defence against France, and for the continuance of the war.

After the appointment of the Triers of petitions, the two houses separated, and, on the application by the commons to be assisted in their deliberations by the lords, twelve magnates were appointed to confer with them, as had been done in 1373. Four bishops were named, William Courtenay of London, Henry le Despenser of Norwich, Adam Houghton of St. David's, and Thomas Appleby of Carlisle; four earls, March, Warwick, Stafford and Suffolk; four barons, Henry Percy, Guy Brian, Henry le Scrope and Richard Stafford.² The leaders in this committee, bishop Courtenay and the earl of March, were more or less constitutional politicians, and might be trusted not to concede too much to the court party. Henry Percy also was supposed to be faithful to the rights of the commons. Adam Houghton may have leaned to the duke of Lancaster who afterwards made him chancellor; Warwick, as may be inferred from later history, was a mere self-seeking politician; Brian and Scrope were men of much official experience; none of the others were in any way remarkable.

The strength however of the commons lay in the support of the prince of Wales, who, with the bishop of Winchester, probably concerted the attack upon the court,³ which was the most marked result of the deliberation. The parliament lasted until the 6th of July; large documentary illustrations of its proceedings are extant, but unfortunately no chronological arrangement of those proceedings is possible, and we gather only a general impression as to the sequence of events. The death, however, of the Black Prince on the 8th of June serves as a middle point.

The debates, if debates they may be called, were of two sorts. The commons with their associated lords concerted their measures apart in the chapter-house at Westminster; the court faction under the duke of Lancaster sat, as a distinct contracting party, probably at the Savoy. The first measure of the commons was to elect a foreman or Speaker; their choice fell on Sir Peter de la Mare,⁴ one of the knights who represented Herefordshire, and steward of the earl of March: he at once laid before the council, of which the duke [of Lancaster] was president, a demand for an examination of the public accounts.⁵ The speaker was charged to report to the king's representatives that the nation was willing to do their utmost to help their lord, but that they claimed some consideration; if the king had had good counsellors he must have been rich; it was certain that some of his counsellors had become wealthy and that the kingdom was impoverished for their aggrandisement; if he would do justice on the culprits the commons would undertake that without extraordinary aid from them he would have sufficient supply for all needs. The duke, who was aware that the popular excitement against him was very strong, adjourned the sitting to the next day, and then attempted to temporise.⁶ The Speaker, however, having got the first word, persisted in his statement, and declared the precise causes of the national poverty to be the frauds on the staple, the usurious loans taken up by the king from private persons, and the shameful financial transactions by which the courtiers bought up the king's debts from despairing creditors, and then obtained full payment at the treasury.⁷

The chief offenders were pointed out, Richard Lyons the king's agent with the merchants, and William lord Latimer the king's chamberlain and privy councillor. Latimer had been guilty of every sort of malversation, he had bought up the king's debts, he had extorted enormous sums from the Bretons, had sold the castle of S. Sauveur to the enemy and prevented the succour of Becherel, and had intercepted a great proportion of the money which by way of fine ought to have reached the king's treasury. Richard Lyons had been his partner in some gigantic financial frauds; in one instance they had lent the king 20,000 marks and received £20,000 in payment;⁸ they had also forestalled the market at the several ports and raised the price of foreign imports throughout the kingdom, to their own profit but to the loss of the entire nation.

The duke, appalled by the charges, was obliged to allow the accused, thus formally impeached, to be imprisoned by the award of the full parliament.⁹ An attempt to bribe the king and the prince of Wales, to interfere in their favour, failed; the king, it is said, took the bribe with a jest, the prince refused it.¹⁰ The lord Neville, John Neville of Raby, the steward of the royal household, by an attempt to intercede for Latimer exposed himself to an impeachment.¹¹ After a searching examination carried on both in full parliament and before the lords only, it was determined that the charges against Latimer were proved; the lords condemned him to imprisonment and fine at the king's pleasure, and at the request of the commons he was deprived of his office. On the 26th of May, however, Latimer was released on bail furnished by a large number of the lords;¹² and, although the duke was ultimately obliged to sentence him to imprisonment and forfeiture of his place,¹³ the attempt to bring him to justice failed. Richard Lyons was likewise condemned to imprisonment and forfeiture. Encouraged by their temporary success the commons next attacked [the King's mistress] Alice Perrers;¹⁴ under a general ordinance against allowing women to practise in the courts of law, they obtained against her an award of banishment and forfeiture. Several other minor culprits were also visited with penalties;¹⁵ Sir Richard Sturry, a Lollard courtier, was banished from the court, and the lord Neville, who had been one of the buyers of the royal debts, was made the subject of a special petition for removal.¹⁶

No sooner was the death of the prince of Wales known, than the commons determined on still more trenchant measures. If John of Gaunt were really all that they believed him, it was high time that the safety of the heir-apparent should be secured, and that some provision should be made for the government which the king was no longer capable of conducting, and which could not be trusted to the duke. His proposition that the parliament should settle the question of succession in case of Richard's death was rejected by the commons.¹⁷ They drew up a petition to the king that Richard of Bourdeaux the son and heir of the Black Prince might be brought before parliament that they might see him. This was done on the 25th of June.¹⁸ They then proposed the election of an administrative council such as had been appointed in the reigns of Henry III and Edward II; a body of lords, ten or twelve in number, were to be appointed to 'enforce' the council: no great business was to be undertaken without the advice of all; six, four or even fewer should be competent to dispatch smaller matters, and six or four should be always in attendance on the king.¹⁹

Before presenting this proposition to the king they determined to offer to renew the subsidy on wool granted in 1373 with an apology for not giving more. This was done at Eltham at the close of the session; there the king acceded to the proposed addition to the council, with the proviso that the chancellor, treasurer, and privy seal should not be hampered in the discharge of their offices; and measures were at once taken for carrying the proposal into execution: nine of the members were named, the archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, with the bishops of London and Winchester; the earls of Arundel, Stafford and March, the lords Percy, Brian and Beauchamp of Bletso.²⁰ The parliament, the longest probably that had ever yet sat, was dismissed on the 6th of July.²¹

The impeachment of the great offenders, and the substitution of a new council, were however only a small part of the business of the Good Parliament. A hundred and forty petitions of various kinds were delivered and answered during the nine weeks of the session. And from these the general character of the assembled body may be gathered, more certainly perhaps than from their greater exploits performed under Peter de la Mare. Some of these petitions are of the normal kind: for the enforcement of the charters, the maintenance of the privileges of boroughs, the reform of the staple, and of the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, the limitation of the term of office and powers of the sheriffs, the regulation of the courts of Steward and Marshal, and against the abuses of purveyance and of interference with the course of justice by royal writs; these read like an accumulation of all the grounds of complaint that have been urged since the beginning of the century. There is also a large number of local petitions.

More significant, however, are the following: the commons pray that there may be annual parliaments,²² and that the knights of the shire may be orderly chosen by common election from the better folk of the shires, and not merely nominated by the sheriff without due election; the king replies that the knights shall be elected by common assent of the whole county; the annual parliaments are already provided for by law. They ask that the sheriffs may be annually elected, and not appointed at the Exchequer; that also, the king replies, is settled by law. To the request that officers convicted of default or deceit may be permanently incapacitated from acting on the royal council, the king replies that he will act according to circumstances.²³ Thirteen petitions are devoted to the pope and the foreign clergy. The 57th and 58th pray for the enforcement of the statute of labourers; the 81st for the restriction of the right of common in towns; the 3rd for the limitation of the powers of chartered crafts; the 10th for the treatment of sturdy beggars. From these we may perhaps infer either that the burgher element in parliament was less influential than the knights, who throughout the history of this parliament are specially mentioned as acting for the commons, or else that the ruling power in the boroughs was engrossed by the higher classes whose sympathies were with the employer of labour and the landlord rather than with the labourer and artisan.

The 133rd petition prays that those who by their 'demesne' authority, by their own unauthorised assumption, without assent of parliament, impose new taxation and so 'accroach to themselves royal power in points established in parliament,' may be condemned to penalties of life, limb, and forfeiture. To this obscure demand, which the king perhaps understood no better than we do at this day, the answer is, 'Let the common law run as has been accustomed;' possibly the complaint proves the inadequacy of administration, but the practice is as unlawful as it can be. Four of the petitions touch the ancient local courts; the 135th prays that hundreds and wapentakes may not be granted by patent; the 136th that the courts may be held publicly with proper notice and at the legal times; the 137th that view of frank-pledge may not be demanded at the three weeks' court; the 138th that the bailiffs may not amerce non-residents for non-attendance. All these points indicate a decay in the ancient system, which probably was giving way before the institution of justices of the peace.

As a whole, the petitions prove that the government was ill-administered rather than that any resolute project for retarding the growth of popular freedom was entertained by the administrators, a conclusion which our view of Edward's character as a politician would à priori incline us to accept. There was no strong repressive policy, no deliberate design of creating a despotism, no purpose of retaining unconstitutional expedients for government; but, on the other hand, there was no check on dishonesty and extortion among public servants, nor any determination to enforce the constitutional law: and some of the highest officers of the court, the closest friends and associates of the king, were among the chief offenders. And this may partially at least account for the position of John of Gaunt, who was now acting in opposition to the principles maintained by the great body of nobles, whom by all the force of territorial associations he was entitled to lead. He might to some extent divide the Lancastrian party in order to screen an abuse or protect an offender, whilst in anything like a conflict of principles, had he taken the side of prerogative, he must have been left alone. And so perhaps we may account for the result, the melancholy collapse that followed.

No sooner was the parliament dispersed than the duke declared the intention of the government to show no respect to its determinations. Exercising an amount of power which has never been exercised by any subject and rarely by any sovereign, he dismissed the additional members of the council, proclaimed that the Good Parliament was no parliament at all, recalled to court and office the impeached lords,²⁴ and allowed Alice Perrers to return in spite of civil and ecclesiastical threats. She had sworn on the cross of Canterbury to obey the sentence,²⁵ but archbishop Sudbury, whose duty it was, in case of her unauthorised return, to excommunicate her, was silent, overawed perhaps by the violence of the duke, or perhaps influenced to some extent by professional jealousy, for Courtenay and Wykeham had in the proceedings of the parliament taken the reins of the clerical party out of his hands. Not one of the petitions of the commons became a statute.

Not content with thus braving the national will, the duke proceeded to take vengeance on the leaders; the earl of March was compelled to resign the office of marshall,²⁶ which he had held since 1369; Peter de la Mare was summoned before the king's court and imprisoned.²⁷ In the Michaelmas term following William of Wykeham was called before Sir William Skipwith, one of the justices of the Common Pleas, upon an elaborately drawn charge of malversation; in November his temporalities were confiscated and himself forbidden to approach within twenty miles of the court.²⁸ Equal energy was shown in the attempt to divide the opposition: Henry Percy was induced, probably by the promise of the marshal's staff, to join the duke's party,²⁹ and the temporalities of the see of Winchester were held out as a gift to the heir-apparent, Richard, a bribe no doubt for the neutrality of his personal adherents.³⁰ The king was persuaded to make his will, and name Lancaster and Latimer among the executors.³¹ Other measures were left to be completed in the next parliament, which was called on the 1st of December, to meet on the 27th of January, 1377.

1. Lords' Report, iv. 662; Rot. Parl. ii. 321: 'Parliamenti quod Bonum merito vocabatur;' Walsingham, i. 324. 'Commonly called the Good Parliament;' Stow, Chron. p. 271; Daniel (quoted by Barnes, p. 893), p. 257.
2. Rotuli Parliamentorum ii. 322. Instead of the bishop of S. David's, the Chronicon Angliae (ed. Thompson) mentions the bishop of Rochester, Thomas Brinton, and instead of Henry le Scrope, Roger Beauchamp; the nomination of the bishops is said to have been made by the knights of the shire, who with them chose the four barons, and with their advice four earls; pp. 69, 70; Archaeologia, xxii. 212.
3. The participation of the prince of Wales in the attack on the court was believed at the time; one of John of Gaunt's advisers said to him, 'domino, non latet vestram magnificentiam quibus et quantis auxiliis isti milites, non plebei sicut asseruistis, sed armipotentes et strenui, fulciuntur. Namque favorem obtinent dominorum et in primis domini Edwardi principle fratris vestri qui illis consilium impendit efficax et juvamen;' Chr. Angl. pp. 74, 75. 'Communes Angliae per dominum principem Walliae primogenitum regis, ut dicebatur, erant secretius animati;' ibid. App. p. 393; Cont. Murim, p. 222. The chief evidence of Wykeham's share in this is the fact that it was upon him first that the duke's vengeance fell; see Lowth, pp. 138 sq. The story that Wykeham had declared John of Gaunt to be a changeling is only a proof of the open enmity existing at this moment between the two. See Shirley, Fasc. Ziz. p. xxv.
4. He does not bear the title of speaker, which was given first to Sir Thomas Hungerford in 1377; but it is clear that, like Sir William Trussell and others, he fulfilled the duties of the office; and Walsingham (i. 321) and the St. Alban's Chronicon Angliae (ed. Thompson, p. 72) call him 'prolocutor;' cf. Cont. A. Murim. p. 219.
5. Rot. Parl. ii. 322, 323; Chr. Angl. p. 73; Wals. i. 320, 321 ; Cont. Murim. pp. 218-220. John of Gaunt seems to have acted as representing the king 'Anglorum dominus incoronatus,' Chr. Angl. 74, note I; either as head of the council or in the capacity of High Steward. He passes sentence, 'judiciali sententia,' on Latimer; ib. l,. 86: but the language of the writer is inflated and too violent to be construed literally.
6. Chr. Angl. pp. 74, 76.
7. Rot. Parl. ii. 323.
8. 1 mark was worth 100 pennies; 1 pound was worth 240 pennies.
9. Rot. Parl. ii. 323-325; Chr. Angl. pp. 76-79.
10. Chr. Angl. pp. 79, 80.
11. Ibid. p. 80; Rot. Parl. ii. 328, 329.
12. Rot. Parl. ii. 326, 327.
13. Chr. Angl. p. 86.
14. Rot. Parl. ii. 325; Vitae Abb. S. Alb. iii. 231.
15. Rot. Parl. ii. 329.
16. Rot Parl. ii. 329; Chr. Angl. p. 87.
17. Chr. Angl. pp. 92, 93.
18. Rot. Parl. ii. 330.
19. Rot. Parl. ii. 322. From the way in which the results of the parliament are stated on the Rolls it might be inferred that the proposals for the council were made before the impeachment; but the narrative of the chronicler is clear on the point; Chr. Angl. p. 101.
20. Chr. Angl. pp. lxviii, 100.
21. The convocation of Canterbury was called for June 23, and that of York for July 28; Wake, p. 304.
22. No. 128; Rot. Parl. ii. 355.
23. No. 14; Rot. Parl. ii. 333.
24. Chr. Angl. pp. 102, 103.
25. Chr. Angl. pp. 100, 104.
26. Chr. Angl. p. 108.
27. Chr. Angl. p. 105.
28. The charges are given in full in the English Chronicle, printed in Chr. Angl. pp. lxxv, sq.; Fœ iv. 12. On the charges themselves, see Lowth's Life of Wykeham, pp. 94, 124. The order to seize the temporalities was given Nov. 17; Lowth, p. 124. The bishop was summoned for further hearing on the 20th of January; Fœ iii. 1069.
29. Chr. Angl. p. 108; Percy was made marshal May 8; Fœ iii. 1078.
30. Chr. Angl. p. 106; they were given March 15, 1377; Fœ iii. 1075.
31. Oct. 7, 1376; Fœ iii. 1080. 7 Chr. Angl. p. 112. 1 Fœ iii. 1069.

Other Local Resources:

• King Edward III
  
• John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
  

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