Four months later, the Duke of Hereford knelt before the throne, and solemnly accused his late friend and colleague, the Duke of Norfolk, of treason. He averred that Norfolk had tempted him to join another secret conspiracy. Norfolk, when questioned, turned the tables by denying the accusation, and adding that it was Hereford who had tempted him. Since neither of these noble gentlemen was particularly worthy of credit, and they both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at Coventry in the following autumn.
Before the duel took place, an important event occurred in the death of Roger Mortimer, the Lollard Earl of March, whom the King had proclaimed heir presumptive of England. He was Viceroy of Ireland, and was killed in a skirmish by the “wild Irish.” March, who was only 24 years of age, left four children, of whom we shall hear more anon, to be educated by their mother, Archbishop Arundel’s niece, in her own Popish views. He is described by the monkish chroniclers as “very handsome and very courteous, most dissolute of life, and extremely remiss in all matters of religion.” We can guess pretty well what that means. “Remiss in matters of religion,” of course, refers to his Lollardism, while the accusation of “dissolute life” is notoriously Rome’s pet charge against those who escape from her toils. Such was the sad and early end of the first and only Lollard of the House of Mortimer.
The duel between Hereford and Norfolk was appointed to take place on Gosford Green, near Coventry, on the 16th of September. The combatants met accordingly; but before a blow was struck, the King took the matter upon himself and forbade the engagement. On the 3rd of October, licence was granted to Hereford to travel abroad, this being honourable banishment; no penalty was inflicted upon Norfolk. But some event—perhaps never to be discovered—occurred, or came to light during the following ten days, which altered the whole aspect of affairs. Either the King found out some deed of treason, of which he had been previously ignorant, or else some further offence was committed by both Hereford and Norfolk. On the 13th both were banished—Hereford for ten years, Norfolk for life; the sentence in the former case being afterwards commuted to six years. Those who know the Brutus-like character of John of Gaunt, and his real opinion of his son’s proceedings, may accept, if they can, the representations of the monastic chroniclers that the commutation of Hereford’s sentence was made at his intercession.
In the interim, between the duel and the sentence, Archbishop Arundel was formally adjudged a traitor, and the penalty of banishment was inflicted on him also.
Constance was too busy with her nursery to leave Cardiff, where this autumn little Richard was joined by a baby sister, who received the name of Elizabeth after the Dowager Lady. But the infant was not many weeks old, when, to use the beautiful phrase of the chroniclers, she “journeyed to the Lord.” She was taken away from the evil to come.
It was appropriate enough that the last dread year of the fourteenth century should be ushered in by funeral knells. And he who died on the third of February in that year, though not a very sure stay, was the best and last support of the Gospel and the throne. It was with troubled faces and sad tones that the Lollards who met in the streets of London told one to another that “old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” was lying dead in the Bishop of Ely’s Palace.
But the storm was deferred for a few weeks longer. There were royal visits to Langley and Cardiff, on the way to Ireland, the Earl of Gloucester accompanying the King to that country. And then, when Richard had left the reins of government in the feeble hands of York, the tempest burst over England which had been lowering for so long.
The Lady Le Despenser and the Countess of Gloucester were seated at breakfast in Cardiff Castle, on a soft, bright morning in the middle of July. Breakfast consisted of fresh and salt fish, for it was a fast-day; plain and fancy bread, different kinds of biscuits (but all made without eggs or butter); small beer, and claret. Little Richard was energetically teasing Maude, by whom he sat, for another piece of red-herring, and the Dowager, deliberate in all her movements, was slowly helping herself to Gascon wine. The blast of a horn without the moat announced the arrival of a guest or a letter, and Bertram Lyngern went out to see what it was. Ten minutes later he returned to the hall, with letters in his hand, and his face white with some terrible news.
“Ill tidings, noble ladies!”
“Is it Dickon?” cried the Countess.