Thomas, Duke of Gloucester and Lord High Constable of England, was the youngest son of Edward III (1327-1377) and an uncle of King Richard II.
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He was born in 1355 at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, hence he was called 'Thomas of Woodstock'.
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Excluded from the Council of regency created on the accession of Richard in 1377, he was entrusted with the command of the army in France and, in 1380 marched at the head of the army from Calais to Brittany. The following year he returned to England.
During the absence of John of Gaunt between 1385 and 1387, Thomas gained the ascendancy in the state and succeeded in getting a Council of Regency, the 'Lords Appellant', with himself at its head formed. When the king and his supporters took steps to dissolve the Council, Gloucester marched on London and seized the Tower, imprisoning or banishing his opponents.
The parliament of February, 1388,
condemned the king's favourites as traitors;
Tresilian, the Chief Justice, and Sir Nicholas Brember, lord mayor, were executed;
the archbishop of York was banished, and De Vere and De la Pole escaped to the Continent.
The following year, the king
assumed the government and was formally reconciled with Gloucester whose influence subsequently waned.
He was always at variance with his nephew the monarch who created him Earl of Buckingham, and later Duke of Gloucester.
The king turned upon him quite suddenly, having Gloucester arrested on a charge of treason commited earlier in his reign. While imprisoned, Gloucester was murdered.
The latter afterwards opposed the marriage of Richard with Isabella of France, and engaged in plots for the recovery of his lost power; in consequence of which he was, by the king's command, arrested, in July, 1397, under circumstances of profound treachery at his castle of Plashy, thence dragged into a boat and sent to Calais. When a writ was issued in September to have him brought to answer the appeal of treason before the parliament, the return was made by the governor of Calais that he died in custody. There is no doubt that he was murdered. His body was given to his wife, Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.
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