The Earl of Arundel had been induced by his brother to unite with the conspirators, who were also joined by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, a weak man who was as much a dupe as a criminal. It was not till a later period that they were joined by the cautious Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, and by another who ought for very shame to have held aloof,—the King's favoured friend and trusted councillor, Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk. William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, was also ready to help them, on account of his personal dislike to his brother Archbishop, who had recently received a lucrative appointment whereon Courtenay had set covetous eyes.
Of course the real causes of hatred were not paraded before that innocent, deceivable creature, the public. The true reasons for hating the four obnoxious councillors were that they had the ear of the King, while he declined to be governed by the five conspirators and their priestly guides, who were accordingly much scandalised at his allowing himself to be governed by any one—themselves of course excepted. This is the usual secret of complaints that a man is governed. Put the complainer in the place of the governor, and the complaint will not be heard again.
The ostensible reasons were plausible. The Archbishop of York, said the conspirators, was covetous and arrogant, and took liberties with the King: which of course meant that equal liberties were not allowed to themselves, the Archbishop being in reality one of the gentlest and most unworldly of men. The Duke of Ireland was "a puppy;" he made the King do whatever he liked, and bestow on him lands, titles, and offices (instead of on the conspirators). The Earl of Suffolk was a mere nobody, the scum of the earth, yet he took upon himself to dictate to the King and to oppose the nobles. Sir Simon Burley had proposed, under colour of an expected invasion of the French, to remove the shrine of St. Thomas from Canterbury Cathedral to Dover Castle, on the pretence that Canterbury was not so strong as Dover: of course he could only mean to pocket the rich offerings, and make his own profit out of the guardianship of the shrine. All of them were accused of defalcations of the Crown revenues.
There was a further charge against Ireland, which has been ever since received as historical fact, though it was not substantiated by a single document, nor by any thing but the bare word of the conspirators, and some inferences from circumstantial evidence, which might or might not be true. The Duke had always lived unhappily with his Duchess, who was a cousin of the King. The differences between them were partly ecclesiastical, he siding with the Antipope Urban, she with Pope Clement. There is also reason to suspect that her temper was somewhat less than angelic. The chroniclers tell us that Ireland fell violently in love with a German lady in the Queen's suite, whose name was Lancerona or Lancecrona (a suspiciously manufactured epithet): that the Queen wrote a letter to Pope Urban entreating that he might receive a divorce; that Urban thereupon divorced Ireland and Philippa, and that the Duke married his German love: that his mother was extremely indignant, and took Philippa to live with her; that the Sire de Coucy, father of the Duchess, and the King of France, almost took up arms against England in consequence of these wicked proceedings. The real truth of the matter is that no evidence whatever exists to support these alleged facts. We have evidence that Gloucester and others took pains to spread them as a rumour, but none to show that they were true. Not only is the Queen's letter not forthcoming, but there is no document to show that a divorce ever took place![#] There is no evidence—except the ipse dixit of Gloucester and his partisans—that Ireland ever contracted a second marriage; while the facts that after his banishment he was invited to visit the French Court, that his wife bore the title of Duchess of Ireland to the day of her death, which followed his, and that his mother ran great personal risk in warmly espousing his cause and that of King Richard when both were at the lowest ebb, do not took favourable to the representations of Gloucester. It may be added that this Lancecrona, who is stated to have been a lady in waiting and a laundress—two utterly incompatible positions, even more so at that time than now—does not appear at all as one of the royal suite in any mention of them contained in the state papers, and there is cause for suspicion which almost reaches certainty, that she never existed beyond the inner consciousness of my Lord Duke of Gloucester.
[#] Carter, one of the most accurate of our historians, records his opinion that "there is no reason to think that a divorce was ever granted, nor even solicited, between Ireland and Philippa." (ii. 581.)
These tales, true or false, were assiduously spread among the populace, and Gloucester very secretly, but very diligently, advised them to refuse any further payment of taxes. The King, said he, would have plenty of money at his command, if the wicked councillors were only forced to disgorge their ill-gotten booty. Yet with all their cleverness, Gloucester and his allies could not succeed in accusing Suffolk of any greater covetousness than "taking from the King a thousand marks a year since he was made an Earl"—which was the ordinary grant from the Crown to every earl in England.
That the animosity of these plotters was really and originally religious is shown in the fact that when the whole power in the kingdom fell into their hands, they weeded the state offices and the royal household of all the Lollards, and let others alone. They descended even to squires and ladies—so long as they were Lollards. The Lady de Poynings, a princess's daughter, was not too high for them to aim at; nor was John Calverley, the Queen's squire, too low to feel their vengeance. Sir Bernard Brocas, the Queen's Chamberlain, and the Lady Molyneux, wife of Sir Thomas, were also swept out of her household. Neither prayers nor tears availed to soften them. For four hours the Queen herself, "Cæsar's daughter," knelt to the Earl of Arundel, imploring him to spare Calverley, whom they had condemned to death. It was all in vain. Arundel savagely told her to pray for herself. She had cause enough. Sir Bernard Brocas was also put to death: the ladies were dropped into obscurity, where they were wise enough to remain.
The long and sad story of this persecution—it deserves no other name—belongs to general history: but the end is soon told. Ireland, Suffolk, and Archbishop Neville fled abroad, and died there. Burley meant to have preceded them in this step, but was unfortunately dissuaded by Ireland, at that time unable to conceive the possibility of the conspirators presuming to put any man to death. He generously offered him forty thousand marks to refund in respect of the defalcations of which Burley, "that gentle, gallant, and prudent knight," had been falsely accused. But the Lords Appellants, as it pleased the conspirators to term themselves, wanted blood, not bribes: nor did it suit them to accept as a gift what they meant to take with a high hand. They got the King out of the way, and instantly seized on his old tutor, whom he was unable to deliver from their malicious hands. Burley died on Tower Hill. The other less obnoxious councillors were got rid of, mostly by death without the pretence of a trial: and then my Lords Appellants, having reduced their Sovereign to the status of their slave, courteously, and in subservient language requested him to come home, to obey their orders, and as the first, to deliver into their hands all the state records and twenty thousand pounds.
Ten years later, when the slave had resumed the status of the Sovereign, after a trial on which Lancaster sat as judge, the Earl of Arundel was beheaded in Cheapside. And modern writers regard Richard as a tyrant, and Arundel as a murdered patriot! There is one Book written by truer pens than theirs, wherein other appellations are probably attached to the names.
Perhaps few households in high positions throughout England were less disturbed by the political earthquake than that at Woking Manor. The Earl of Kent, with whomsoever he might side in his heart, practically held aloof from the entire struggle; and the Countess Alesia, though she was sister alike of the Earl of Arundel and the Bishop of Ely, who with Gloucester formed the soul of the conspiracy, appears herself to have entertained no political bias, and to have followed her husband along the quiet bye-path into which he thought it prudent to turn until the storm blew over. Rumours, however, were not slow in reaching them: and no one was more eager to hear all the news than Roger. It need hardly be said that he was a vehement partisan of his royal cousin, and hotly indignant against the Lords Appellants. The suspicions which he had entertained already concerning the fidelity of his uncle of Gloucester were now confirmed to the full, and beyond it.