m.[150]

[Sidenote: Character of Richard.]

The character of Richard II. was now developing itself, and the hopes
excited by his remarkable presence of mind in confronting the rioters on
Blackheath were rapidly destroyed. Not that he was wanting in capacity,
as has been sometimes imagined. For if we measure intellectual power by
the greatest exertion it ever displays, rather than by its average
results, Richard II. was a man of considerable talents. He possessed,
along with much dissimulation, a decisive promptitude in seizing the
critical moment for action. Of this quality, besides his celebrated
behaviour towards the insurgents, he gave striking evidence in several
circumstances which we shall have shortly to notice. But his ordinary
conduct belied the abilities which on these rare occasions shone forth,
and rendered them ineffectual for his security. Extreme pride and
violence, with an inordinate partiality for the most worthless
favourites, were his predominant characteristics. In the latter quality,
and in the events of his reign, he forms a pretty exact parallel to
Edward II. Scrope, lord chancellor, who had been appointed in
parliament, and was understood to be irremovable without its
concurrence, lost the great seal for refusing to set it to some prodigal
grants. Upon a slight quarrel with archbishop Courtney the king ordered
his temporalities to be seized, the execution of which, Michael de la
Pole, his new chancellor, and a favourite of his own, could hardly
prevent. This was accompanied with indecent and outrageous expressions
of anger, unworthy of his station and of those whom he insulted.[151]

[Sidenote: He acquires more power on his majority.]

Though no king could be less respectable than Richard, yet the
constitution invested a sovereign with such ample prerogative, that it
was far less easy to resist his personal exercise of power than the
unsettled councils of a minority. In the parliament 6 R. II., sess. 2,
the commons pray certain lords, whom they name, to be assigned as their
advisers. This had been permitted in the two last sessions without
exception.[152] But the king, in granting their request, reserved his
right of naming any others.[153] Though the commons did not relax in
their importunities for the redress of general grievances, they did not
venture to intermeddle as before with the conduct of administration.
They did not even object to the grant of the marquisate of Dublin, with
almost