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 his frauds, who had availed himself of his court influence to make a “corner” in nearly all imported articles, to the impoverishment of the common people and the disorganisation of trade.  Lord Neville, whose eager partisanship of Latimer had led him to insult Sir Peter de la Mare, was threatened with similar proceedings.  Even Alice Perrers was attacked, though, says the chronicler, the natural affection of Englishmen for their king was so great that they were slow to molest the lady whom the king loved.  However, Alice’s unblushing interference with the course of justice, her appearance in the courts at Westminster, sitting on the judges’ bench, clamouring for the condemnation of her enemies and the acquittal of her friends, roused the knights of the shire to action.  An ordinance against women being allowed to practise in the law courts was made the pretext for her removal from court, and Alice, fearful that worse might happen, took oath that she would have no further dealings with the king.  Meantime Latimer and Lyons were condemned to forfeiture and imprisonment.

In the midst of these proceedings the knights lost their strongest support by the death of the Black Prince on June 8.  John of Gaunt at once went down to the house of commons, and boldly suggested that the English should follow the example of the French and allow no woman to become heiress of the kingdom.  This was a direct assertion of his own claims to stand next to the throne after Richard of