ertook to
maintain them against all men, either by open force or by supporting
them in their quarrels in the law courts; and this maintenance, as it
was called, was seldom limited to the mere payment of expenses. The
lord, by the help of his retainers, could bully witnesses and jurors,
and wrest justice to the profit of the wrongdoer. As yet, indeed, the
practice had not attained the proportions which it afterwards assumed,
but it was sufficiently developed to draw down upon it in =1390= a
statute prohibiting maintenance and the granting of liveries. Such a
statute was not merely issued in defence of private persons against
intimidation; it also helped to protect the Crown against the violence
of the great lords. The growth of the power of the House of Commons
was a good thing as long as the House of Commons represented the
wishes of the community. It would be a bad thing if it merely
represented knots of armed retainers who either voted in their own
names according to the orders of their lords, or who frightened away
those who came to vote for candidates whom their lords opposed.

8. =Richard's Domestic Policy. 1390--1391.=--It was therefore well for
the community that there should be a strong and wise king capable of
making head against the ambition of the lords. For some years Richard
showed himself wise. Not only did he seek, by opening the council to
his opponents, to win over the lords to take part in the peaceable
government of the country instead of disturbing it, but he forwarded
legislation which carried out the general wishes of the country. The
Statute of Provisors (see p. 258) was re-enacted and strengthened in
=1390=, the Statute of Mortmain (see p. 212) in =1391=, and the
Statute of Praemunire (see p. 258) in =1393=.

9. =Richard's Foreign Policy. 1389--1396.=--Richard's foreign policy
was based upon a French alliance. In =1389= he made a truce with
France for three years. Negotiations for a permanent peace were
frustrated because the French would make no peace unless Calais were
surrendered to them, and English feeling was against the surrender of
the claims sanctioned by the Treaty of Bretigni. The truce was,
however, prolonged from time to time, and in =1396=, when Richard, who
was by that time a widower, married Isabella, the daughter of Charles
VI., a child of eight, it was prolonged for twenty-eight years. Wise
as this policy was, it was distasteful to Englishmen, and their
dissatisfaction rose wh