f historiography.[1]

[1] _Chron. Angliae_, 1328-88, ed. E.M. Thompson (Rolls Ser.).
Compare Mr. S. Armitage-Smith's _John of Gaunt_ for an
unfavourable estimate of its value.

The Good Parliament showed from the beginning a strong animosity
against the courtiers. The time was not yet come when the commons could
take the initiative, or supply leaders from its own ranks, and even
among the commons capacity was unequally divided. Authority and
influence were exclusively with the knights of the shire, and the
citizens and burgesses were content to allow the country gentry to
speak and act in their name. The knights of the shire demanded that, in
accordance with the precedent of 1373, a committee of magnates should
be associated with them in determining the policy to be adopted. The
lords spiritual and temporal were as eager as the knights to attack the
government, and a committee, of which the leading spirits included the
Earl of March and the Bishop of London, supplied the element of
direction and initiation in which the commons were lacking. The
resolution which prevailed was shown by the estates agreeing to make no
grant until grievances had been redressed, and by the choice of Sir
Peter de la Mare as spokesman of the commons before the king. Sir Peter
was elected, we are told, because he possessed abundant wisdom and
eloquence, and enough boldness to say what was in his mind, regardless
of the good-will of the great. Perhaps a further and more weighty
reason was that he was steward of the Earl of March. He was the first
person to hold an office indistinguishable in all essentials from that
of the later Speaker. Under his guidance the commons worked out an
elaborate policy of revenge and reform. The contempt with which John of
Gaunt and the courtiers had at first regarded their action, gave place
to fear. The duke found it prudent to stand aside, while a clean sweep
of the administration was made.

Charges were brought against the leading ministers of state, after a
fashion in which the constitutional historian sees the beginnings of
the process of the removal of great offenders by impeachment. Lord
Latimer was the first victim. He had appropriated the king's money to
his own uses; he had shown remissness and treachery during the last
campaign in Brittany; he had taken bribes; he was, in a word, "useless
to king and kingdom". His fate was promptly shared by Lyons, the London
merchant, the accomplice of hi