Introduction

In September 1376, just two months after Edward III's unpopular courtiers had been humiliated in the Good Parliament, the great and good of the realm were summoned to attend a meeting of the royal council to participate in what must have seemed to be a distinctly peculiar affair. The meeting had been called to allow the ‘victims’ of the Good Parliament, foremost among whom was John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, to exact their revenge on William Wykeham, bishop of Winchester. As Thomas Walsingham put it, in his own inimitable style,

The peculiar quality of these proceedings lay in the fact that the accusations levelled against Wykeham did not concern his more recent participation in the tumultuous events of the Good Parliament, where he had taken an active role in the trial of the disgraced courtiers and had also been appointed as a member of the reform council. Instead, they related to misconduct which he had committed over five years previously when he had been serving as chancellor.