19 - Years of Peace, Years of Decay (1360–1369)

Summary

The king returned to England from Honfleur on 18 May, and commenced a round of feasting. While his subjects celebrated, the minds of king and council were focused on darker matters. Parliament had convened shortly before Edward’s return to England. Although details of the proceedings are scanty, naval reform was high on the agenda. The northern fleet had mutinied when England was most vulnerable, with the king abroad and with invaders ashore. Although in reality Edward was far less vulnerable than his father, he had been reminded of England’s apparent vulnerability to even a small invasion force. The mutiny was also a profound shock for MPs, demonstrating the powerlessness of the Crown when faced with uncooperative subjects. Representatives from some ports proposed to limit the time fleets could be arrested. Others suggested tax cuts and fresh charters to boost prosperity. However the real problem was that organising the 1359 fleet had been so enormously complex that the agents charged with arresting shipping were now in a state of mutinous apathy. Towards the end of May the Exchequer began to receive bills from men and mariners from Paveley’s fleet. They were supposed to have been paid by arrayers and local customs officials. The various officials involved were summoned to Westminster and the money extracted, but the mistakes were just one indication that England’s naval administration had been badly overloaded.

Fortunately, English naval requirements in the summer of 1360 were moderate. Small groups of ships were used to transport prominent French prisoners like Jacques Bourbon, Constable of France, and Jean II himself to Calais to take part in the negotiations. The mutiny in the Admiralty of the North had again demonstrated that the two admirals would naturally attract resentment, so the Warden of the Cinque Ports, John Beauchamp, was instead made responsible for finding the requisite shipping.

The structure of the navy was also changed to reflect the peace. One weakness of having two admirals was that they were well known to local officers, particularly in the Admiralty of the North where Morley and Wesenham had been dragged into the corrosive local politics of Great Yarmouth. Their familiarity to local shipowners had encouraged defiance. Accordingly in mid-July John Beauchamp was appointed ‘admiral of all fleets, southern, northern and western’.