Courtenay appeared to waive the matter. Ostensibly, he deferred to the King's judgment. And Richard never suspected that the sentence of death had merely been, by Courtenay and Gloucester, transferred to another person, and that their resolve was that if he would not permit the heretics to die, Richard must die himself.
It was during this period that Earl Roger kept quiet and silent,—so quiet that we never hear a word about him for a whole twelvemonth, though circumstantial evidence tends to show that he was in London all the time. His high position, and his known opinions, alike placed him in danger. The only safe thing to do was, so far as possible, to reduce himself to a nonentity, and hope that Gloucester and his myrmidons would forget him.
During the last two years death had been very busy in high places. The plague of 1394 had made three royal widowers—the Duke of Lancaster, the King, and the Earl of Derby. In the summer of 1396, Archbishop Courtenay was also summoned to the judgment bar. Removed from Courtenay's influence, the King awoke from his dream, and determined to initiate a new order of things. He knew at last—all but too late—that Gloucester and Arundel were among his worst enemies. Had he seen it with regard to one man more—his cousin Derby—the course of English history would probably have been different.
There was another person awake also, with the important difference that he had never been asleep. Gloucester was ready to act just as soon as his royal nephew: sooner, in fact, for his plans were already matured, while Richard's were only in process of formation. The time was come when that blow was to be struck which he had foreseen so long, for which he had waited so patiently and paved the way so elaborately, and which for so many years past, he had mentally destined Roger Mortimer to strike. The edge of the tool must be felt, to see whether the metal were sufficiently strong for the work to be done, and the point sufficiently sharp.
The July sun streamed full into a large low chamber of a handsome house on St. Paul's Wharf. The chamber was hung with dark blue silk relieved by silver embroidery. Velvet settles of the same colour stood at intervals around the walls, and half-a-dozen curule chairs of ebony inlaid with ivory, and furnished with blue silk cushions, were scattered about the room. On one of the velvet settles, with his head supported by a cushion, lay the only occupant of this handsome chamber—a young man of twenty-two years of age, fair-complexioned and very good-looking. His eyes were closed, but he certainly was not asleep, for he drew long sighs at intervals which were not long. On a small table beside him a large book lay open, bound in violet velvet, and clasped with gold.
A soft scratch at the door without announced a visitor, who was desired to come in, without any change of position on the part of the occupant of the settle. A middle-aged man, clad in blue and gold livery, entered accordingly.
"Please it your Lordship, Master Westcombe is here come from Fleshy, from my Lord Duke of Gloucester, desiring speech of your Lordship."
The slight contraction of his Lordship's brow might indicate that he could have borne to be deprived of the pleasure of an interview with Mr. Westcombe.
"Good. Bring him hither."
He rose from the settle, gave his long blue silk gown a slight shake, and resting his hand on the book, awaited his visitor.