POLITICAL HISTORY 



them at their camp in Hornsey Park near Highgate. 110 The king 

 thought of resistance, but London refused to fight, and Richard's 

 adherents sympathized too keenly with Gloucester's demand for the 

 removal of the aliens ' to get their heads broken for de Veer's sake,' as 

 the earl of Northumberland said. 111 Richard could only issue a procla- 

 mation forbidding the citizens to assist or sell provisions to the enemy. 

 This was met on the part of the barons by an advance to Hackney with 

 4,000 men. They dispatched a letter to the mayor and aldermen assur- 

 ing the City that their only object was to deliver the king from traitors. 

 On 1 3 November they were joined by the earls of Derby and Notting- 

 ham, 113 and on the following day at Waltham Abbey, just beyond the 

 north-east boundary of Middlesex, they ' appealed ' five of the king's 

 favourites of treason, which charge they repeated three days later at 

 Westminster. 118 



The accession of Henry of Lancaster to the throne led to the 

 increase of royal influence in Middlesex. Before he came to the throne 

 Henry had married Mary, one of the de Bohun heiresses, 11 * and thus the 

 manor of Enfield came into the hands of the crown. The whole estate, 

 that is from Barnet to Enfield, and from Potters Bar to Winchmore 

 Hill and Southgate, was strictly preserved, and became a favourite royal 

 hunting-ground. 



The rebellions and wars of the reign of Henry IV scarcely affected 

 Middlesex, and we hear very little of it during the early fifteenth century. 

 In 1414 a great meeting was secretly arranged by the Lollards to be 

 held in St. Giles's Fields. 116 Their intention was said to be to seize and 

 even to put to death the king and his brothers, to destroy Westminster 

 Abbey and St. Paul's, and to proclaim Sir John Oldcastle as Regent. 116 

 It was expected that thousands of apprentices from London would muster 

 in the fields, and that Oldcastle would place himself at the head of the 

 insurgents. The date and place of the meeting were, however, made known 

 to the king. He came quietly to Westminster from Eltham where he 

 had been keeping Christmas, and on the evening fixed, the Sunday after 

 Twelfth Day, he set out for St. Giles' Fields with a small body of com- 

 panions. 117 Panic seized the rebels on the news of his approach, and they 

 scattered in all haste, though many were killed and others taken 

 prisoners. 118 



Jack Cade's rebellion, in the following reign, had little to do with 

 the county. Apparently no Middlesex men joined the rebels. 119 Cade 

 and the men of Kent and Sussex entered London from Southwark, and 

 Mile End seems to have been the only place north of the river that was 

 affected by the insurrection. 120 On the same day on which Lord Say was 



110 Walsingham, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 164. " Knighton, Chron. (Twysden), 2698. 



"' Knighton, Chron. (Twysden), 2700. '" Lingard, op. cit. iii, 328. 



n< Inq. p.m. 47 Edw. Ill, m. 10. "* Getta Henrici 7. (Engl. Hist. Soc.), 4. 



116 Rot. Par!. (Rec. Com.), iv, 108. "' Elmham, Vita Hen. Y. (ed. Hearne), 31. 



118 Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 298. "' Owridge, lllus. of Jack Cade's Rebellion, 73. 

 110 A great number of the Commons of Essex encamped there on the same day that Jack Cade 

 entered Southwark. Fabyan, Chron. (1811), 623. 



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