Lords Appellant The Lords Appellant were a group of nobles in the reign of King Richard II who sought to impeach some five of the King ' s favourites in order to restrain what was seen as tyrannical and capricious rule . The word appellant simply means ' [ one who is ] appealing [ in a legal sense ] ' . It is the older ( Norman ) French form of the present participle of the verb " appeler " , the equivalent of the English ' to appeal ' . The group was called the Lords Appellant because its members invoked a procedure under law to start prosecution of the king ' s unpopular favourites known as ' an appeal ' : the favourites were charged in a document called an appeal of treason , a device borrowed from civil law which led to some procedural complications . Members . There were originally three Lords Appellant : Thomas of Woodstock , Duke of Gloucester , son of Edward III and thus the king ' s uncle ; Richard FitzAlan , Earl of Arundel and of Surrey ; and Thomas de Beauchamp , Earl of Warwick . These were later joined by Henry Bolingbroke , Earl of Derby ( the future king Henry IV ) and Thomas de Mowbray , Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Nottingham . Success . They achieved their goals , first establishing a Commission to govern England for one year from 19 November 1386 . In 1387 , the Lords Appellant launched an armed rebellion against King Richard and defeated an army under Robert de Vere , Earl of Oxford at the skirmish of Radcot Bridge , outside Oxford ( This was the only battle that Bolingbroke , a renowned jouster , won in command through his life ) . They maintained Richard as a figurehead with little real power . They had their revenge on the king ' s favourites in the " Merciless Parliament " ( 1388 ) . The nominal governor of Ireland , de Vere and Richard ' s Lord Chancellor , Michael de la Pole , Earl of Suffolk , who had fled abroad , were sentenced to death in their absence . Alexander Neville , Archbishop of York , had all his worldly goods confiscated . The Lord Chief Justice , Sir Robert Tresilian , was executed , as were Sir Nicholas Brembre , Lord Mayor of London , John Beauchamp of Holt , Sir James Berners , and Sir John Salisbury . Sir Simon Burley was found guilty of exercising undue influence over the king and was sentenced to death . Derby and Nottingham , together with the duke of York , tried to win a reprieve for him , but he was executed on 5 May . Aftermath . In 1389 , Richard ' s uncle and supporter , John of Gaunt , returned from Spain and Richard was able to rebuild his power gradually until 1397 , when he reasserted his authority and destroyed the principal three among the Lords Appellant . However in 1399 Richard was deposed by Gaunt ' s son , Henry of Bolingbroke , partly as a result of the royal confiscation of Gaunt ' s estate on his death . Bolingbroke succeeded him as Henry IV . Richard never forgave the Lords Appellant . His uncle Gloucester was murdered in captivity in Calais ; it was ( and remains ) widely believed that he was killed on Richard ' s orders . The Earl of Arundel was beheaded . Warwick lost his title and his lands and was imprisoned on the Isle of Man until Richard was overthrown by Henry Bolingbroke . The behaviour of the two junior Lords Appellant , Bolingbroke and Mowbray , probably influenced Richard ' s decision in 1399 to exile them both , and to revoke the permission he had given them to sue for any inheritance which fell due , as it did in relation to Mowbray ' s grandmother and , more significantly , of Bolingbroke ' s father , John of Gaunt , 1st Duke of Lancaster .