The simple unexplanatory abruptness of this announcement is particularly startling. It impresses the mind with the conviction of foul play, and suggests that the king—not daring to bring to further trial a prince so nearly related to the Crown, and so highly esteemed by the people, and yet resolved not to let him escape—had procured his assassination. Apoplexy and other things were talked of, but there could be but one opinion of his end—murder. How this was effected has never been discovered. When Henry Bolingbroke had usurped Richard's throne, and it was his particular interest to prove Richard a murderer of their common uncle, one John Hall, a servant of the Earl of Nottingham, was brought forward, who swore that to his knowledge the duke was taken from the prison to an inn, called the Prince's Inn, and there smothered between two beds by a servant of the king and another of the Earl of Rutland. Though eight persons were named in the paper as being concerned in the transaction, none of these were ever examined, nor was Hall brought before any judge; but, having made this confession, he was at once beheaded. It appears sufficiently clear, therefore, that this was an invention of Bolingbroke's to blacken the character of Richard. Froissart says he was strangled in prison by four people with towels; but the mode matters little: the fact of Gloucester's murder cannot admit of a doubt, and whatever it was, the Parliament appears not to have troubled itself about it. They declared, both Lords and Commons, that he was a traitor, and confiscated all his property to the Crown. The rest of the nobles and prelates named in the indictment were then conditionally pardoned, except those who took up arms against the king in his eleventh year, including Lord Cobham, who was banished to Jersey for life, and Mortimer, who had fled into the wilds of Ireland, and was outlawed.
What is extraordinary is, that several of the very peers who were engaged in these transactions, now declared treasonable, sat in judgment on their more unlucky accomplices. The Duke of York, the Bishop of Winchester, and Sir Richard Scrope, had been members of Gloucester's commission of regency; and Derby and Nottingham were two of the five who appealed to the favourites of treason. Some of these were not only winked at, but even promoted when the trial was over. Richard, indeed, in Parliament, fully exculpated them, asserting that, though for a time deceived by the pretences of Gloucester, they had abandoned his cause like good and loyal subjects. He then created his cousins, Derby and Rutland, Dukes of Hereford and Albemarle; his two half-brothers, the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon, Dukes of Surrey and Exeter; the Earl of Nottingham, Duke of Norfolk; the Earl of Somerset, Marquis of Dorset; the Lords Despenser, Nevil, Percy, and William Scrope, Earls of Gloucester, Westmoreland, Worcester, and Wiltshire.
On the last day of the session of this servile Parliament the peers took an oath that all the judgments passed in this Parliament should have the full force of statutes for ever; that any one attempting to reverse them should be held to be a traitor; and that the clergy should excommunicate him. The Commons held out their hands in acquiescence with this oath, and Lord Thomas Percy, the proxy of the clergy, swore on their behalf. The Parliament was then prorogued till after the Christmas holidays, when it met at Gloucester.
Perhaps no period of our history exhibits a monarch more reckless of the restraints of the constitution than Richard at this epoch; nor a Parliament more servilely disposed to grovel at his feet, and surrender every valuable right. Before closing its sessions, the Commons not only granted him most liberal supplies, but a tax on wool, wool-fells, and hides, not for the year as previously, but for life, thus rendering him, to a great degree, independent of Parliament; and Richard, again, to provide against any repeal of this munificent grant, published a general pardon, which, however, was to become void the moment any future Parliament attempted to repeal this act.
But this vile Parliament went still further in surrendering the birthrights of the people. It had been customary to appoint a committee of the peers and judges formerly, to remain after the business of the session was completed, to hear and determine on such petitions as had not been already answered. Advantage was now taken to seize on this form of a committee to supersede the general functions of Parliament; and twelve peers and six commoners, not judges or justices, were not only invested with the powers of the ancient committees, but also to "hear, examine, and determine all matters and subjects which had been moved in the presence of the king, with all the dependencies thereof." One half only of these were required to attend, so that to nine people were transferred all the powers and authority of Parliament!
The immediate object of this stretch of parliamentary and, under its guise, of kingly power, was to execute the designs of the monarch which led to his ruin. Richard was of that light and sensitive character, and had been early so imbued with the idea of the divinity that "doth hedge a king," that he was easily led on to the most arbitrary conduct. In the late proceedings against Gloucester and his adherents he had broken unceremoniously through all the restraints of the constitution, and the obsequiousness of Parliament induced him now to imagine that he had placed himself above all law. Parliament had granted him supplies for life, and with the aid of the committee to which Parliament had so tamely resigned its prerogative, "all persons well affected to the king," he could, he imagined, do just as he pleased; and he lost no time in putting this to the proof. He had destroyed Gloucester; he resolved to cut off or remove other overgrown relatives and nobles.
The lively and strong memory which Richard had always shown of past injuries, but never more so than during the late trials, struck terror into the hearts of many who were conscious that they had offended. Amongst these was the Duke of Norfolk. At present he stood apparently high amongst Richard's friends; but he was well aware how slippery was that position, and he was conscious that his reluctance to carry out the bloody proscription against Gloucester would be treasured up in the king's never-failing remembrance for the first tempting occasion. Of the original lords appellant he only and the Duke of Hereford now remained.
Norfolk happening to overtake Hereford, on the road between Brentford and London, the following conversation took place, according to Hereford's statement of it as it still remains on the rolls of Parliament:—
Norfolk. We are on the point of being undone.
Hereford. Why so?
Norfolk. On account of the affair at Radcot Bridge.
Hereford. How can that be, since the king has granted us pardon, and has declared in Parliament that we behaved as good and loyal subjects?
Norfolk. Nevertheless, our fate will be like that of others before us. He will annul that record.
Hereford. It will be marvellous, indeed, if the king, after having said so before the people, should cause it to be annulled.
Norfolk. It is a marvellous and false world that we live in; for I know well that, had it not been for some persons, my lord your father of Lancaster and yourself would have been taken or killed, when you went to Windsor after the Parliament. The Dukes of Albemarle and Exeter, and the Earl of Worcester and I, have pledged ourselves never to assent to the undoing of any lord without just and reasonable cause. But this malicious project belongs to the Duke of Surrey, the Earls of Wiltshire and Salisbury, drawing to themselves the Earl of Gloucester. They have sworn to undo six lords, the Dukes of Lancaster, Hereford, Albemarle, and Exeter, the Marquess of Dorset and myself; and have power to reverse the attainder of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, which would turn to the derision of us and many others.
Hereford. God forbid! It will be a wonder if the king should assent to such designs. He appears to make me good cheer, and has promised to be my good lord. Indeed, he has sworn by St. Edward to be a good lord to me and others.
Norfolk. So he has often sworn to me by God's body, but I do not trust him the more for that. He is attempting to draw the Earl of March into the scheme of the four lords to destroy the others.
Hereford. If that be the case, we can never trust them.
Norfolk. Certainly not. Though they may not accomplish their purpose now, they will contrive to destroy us in our houses ten years hence.
Hereford must have taken the earliest opportunity to communicate this confidential conversation to the king. It showed him that the king was carefully watching those who had formerly appeared as his enemies. He was in haste, therefore, to secure himself by the sacrifice of the friend who had thus put him on his guard. Whatever were the steps he took for this end, he received a summons to attend the king at Haywood, where he was made to pledge himself on his allegiance to lay the whole of the preceding conversation before the council. Hereford took care not to leave the king without obtaining a full pardon for himself, under the Great Seal, for all the treasons, misprisions, and offences that he had ever committed.