Merciless Parliament

The term Merciless Parliament refers to the English parliamentary session of February 1388, at which Richard II's entire Court was convicted of treason.

Background

After their victory at Radcot Bridge against the forces of Robert de Vere, the anti-Ricardian Lords Appellant were in a position of incontestable strength. During the Parliament, the group - which consisted of the Duke of Gloucester (Thomas of Woodstock) and the Earls of Arundel, Warwick, Derby (Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV) and Nottingham - pursued their earlier accusations against Richard's inner circle, almost wholly unopposed.

Outcome

This meant that a number of Richard's intimate associates, namely Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk, Nicholas Brembre, Robert de Vere, Alexander Neville, and Chief Justice Robert Tresilian, were found guilty of 'living in vice, deluding the said king...embracing the mammon of iniquity for themselves'.^[1]

Brembre and Tresilian were executed at Tyburn the same month: de la Pole, Nevill and de Vere, having just managed to flee the country, were sentenced in their absence.

Other members of King Richard's retinue were also condemned, including John Beauchamp of Holt, James Baret, and John Salisbury, who were all hanged and beheaded; Simon Burley, who by Richard's special favor was not hanged before he was beheaded; Robert Bealknap (Belknap), John Beauchamp of Holt, Roger Fulthorp, William Burgh, John Locton and John Cary, who were exiled to Ireland. Thomas Usk (author of The Testament of Love) and John Blake, members of Brembre's and Tresilian's households respectively, were also put to death.

Aftermath

After this virtual coup d'état, the Appellants continued to dominate English politics for the next year. Richard was effectively their puppet until the return of John of Gaunt from his Spanish campaigns in 1389.

Notes

1. ^ Thomas Favent, History or Narration Concerning the Manner and Form of the Miraculous Parliament at Westminster, trans. by Andrew Galloway, in The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary Production in Medieval England, ed. by Emily Steiner and Candace Barrington (Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 2002), pp.231-52. ISBN 0-8014-8770-6