"By reason, Mistress, that I much question the good: and I do yet more doubt the pleasure."
"Nay, now, heard you ever the like?" demanded Mistress Grenestede of any body who chose to answer, as Lawrence walked quietly away. "Yon lad is either to presume more than him ought,[#] or elsewise can he see further into a millstone than other folk."
[#] More suspicious than he should be.
Lawrence was not so far off that he failed to hear her, and he stopped for a moment to reply.
"Any man may see through a millstone, Mistress mine, if he will but set his eye on line with the hole."
About the close of 1393, the King resolved to make Roger Viceroy of Ireland. He was now twenty years of age—equivalent to twenty-five in the present day—and His Majesty thought it desirable that he should try his hand at that government of which so much might eventually be thrust upon him. He had been married for four years, and most people would have thought him fully competent to take care, not only of himself, but of Ireland. But his wise friend and father-in-law, Kent, who seems to have been much attached to him, was not easy to let him go alone. He resolved to accompany him in person: not only this, but he prepared a petition to the King in Council, in Roger's name, containing the following large stipulations, before Roger should take the lieutenancy upon him.
First, he requested that notwithstanding his nonage, full livery should be granted to the Earl of March of all his estates, in England, Wales, or Ireland; and of all "lordships, castles, manors, towns, lands, tenements, rents, services, franchises, fees, and advowsons, with all other appurtenances and commodities, whether existing in fee, or hereafter to return to the said heritage by reversion or remainder, or by any other way whatever. Item, all the revenues and profits of all the lordships and lands, with all their appurtenances and commodities whatever, belonging to our Lord the King in all the land of Ireland during the nonage of the said Roger. Item, two thousand marks in money to be paid in hand. Item, that he have ... full power to charge his said heritage" for one year, in order to provide money for the voyage. Item, that Roger should not be obliged to take the said lieutenancy upon him, before attaining his majority. Item, that the Earl of Kent should accompany him, with sufficient attendance, specially indicating the Lord Lovel, Sir John Stanley, Sir John Sandes, and Sir Ralph Cheyne. Lastly, that this should be done within a year from the nativity of St. John next ensuing, whereupon Roger would assume the duties of Viceroy. These demands were very large; but that they were perfectly reasonable is shown by the fact that not only did the King assent to them, but that Arundel and his co-trustees gave a ready and formal consent. The entire estates of March, therefore, were at once resigned into Roger's keeping, though he was yet some months short of his full age. Arundel and his colleagues had done their duty well by Roger in this matter. The possessions handed over to him were in the best possible condition. He "found all his castles and houses in good repair, amply stored with rich furniture, his lands stocked with cattle, and forty thousand marks in the treasury."
The King intended to have set out for Ireland about the end of April. But before he was able to leave Shene, where he was then residing, the saddest loss of all his sad life fell upon him. The "black death," that dreadful plague which had scourged England in 1340 and in 1369, returned to ravage it in 1394. One of its first victims, about the 20th or 25th of April, was the beloved Lollard Queen.
This is not the date usually given for her death but it is nearer the truth than the accepted one. Froissart, who states that she died at Whitsuntide (which that year was June 7), and who has been followed by all other writers, contradicts himself by saying that the King's journey was deferred for two months in consequence of the Queen's death, and that he set out about the 24th of June. In this case, she died about the 24th of April: a date shown to be near the truth by an entry on the Issue Roll, recording payment for the carriage of the waxen image to be borne on the coffin at her burial, on the third of June. There must therefore have been time, before this, to manufacture the wax statue, which assuredly never was commenced while the Queen was alive; nor only this, but to convey it by water from London to Richmond, which the entry informs us had been done.
It was not until after the tenth of August that Roger set forth on his journey to Ireland. His retinue consisted of (his own) March Herald, two knights banneret, eight other knights, a hundred men-at-arms, 200 horsed archers, and 400 foot archers. With him, inseparable as his shadow, went Lawrence Madison.