As fast as the tidings of these events spread, they produced universal excitement. The Earl of Stafford, the father of Sir Ralph, was plunged into the most inconsolable grief at the death of his son. The earl was one of the most powerful nobles in the army, and, if he had undertaken to avenge himself on Lord Holland, the whole expedition would perhaps have been broken up into confusion. On the king's solemn assurance that Holland would be punished, he was appeased for the time; but then the Princess of Wales, Richard's mother, who was Lord Holland's mother too, was thrown into the greatest state of anxiety and distress. She implored Richard to save his brother's life. All the other nobles and knights took sides too in the quarrel, and for a time it seemed that the dissension would never be healed. Lord Holland, in the mean while, fled to the church at Beverley, and took sanctuary there. By the laws and customs of the time, they could not touch him until he came voluntarily out.
Richard resisted all the entreaties of his mother to spare the murderer's life until he found that her anxiety and distress were preying upon her health so much that he feared that she would die. At last, to save his mother's life, he promised that Holland should be spared. But it was too late. His mother fell into a decline, and at length died, as it was said, of a broken heart. What a dreadful death! that of a mother worn out by the agony of long-continued and apparently fruitless efforts to prevent one of her children from being the executioner of another for the crime of murder.
Extraordinary marriage of the Duke of Lancaster.
Besides these fierce, deadly contests among the knights and nobles, the ladies of the court had their feuds and quarrels too. They were often divided into cliques and parties, and were full of envyings, jealousies, and resentments against each other. One of the most serious of these difficulties was occasioned by a marriage of the Duke of Lancaster, which took place toward the close of his life. This was his third marriage, he having been successively married to two ladies of high rank before. The lady whom he now married was of a comparatively humble station in life. She was the daughter of a foreign knight. Her name, originally, was Catharine de Rouet. She had been, in her early life, a maiden in attendance on the Duchess of Lancaster, the duke's second wife. While she was in his family the duke formed a guilty intimacy with her, which was continued for a long time. They had three children. The duke provided well for these children, and gave them a good education. After a time, the duke, becoming tired of her, arranged for her to be married to a certain knight named Swinton, and she lived with this knight for some time, until at length he died, and Catharine became a widow.
Indignation and rage of the ladies of the court.
The Duchess of Lancaster died also, and then the duke became for the second time a widower, and he now conceived the idea of making Catharine Swinton his wife. His motive for this was not his love for her, for that, it is said, had passed away, but his regard for the children, who, on the marriage of their mother to the father of the children, would be legitimatized, and would thus become entitled to many legal rights and privileges from which they would otherwise be debarred. The other ladies of the court, however, particularly the wives of the other dukes—the Duke of Lancaster's brothers—were greatly incensed when they heard of this proposed marriage, and they did all they possibly could do to prevent it. All was, however, of no avail, for the Duke of Lancaster was not a man to be easily thwarted in any determination that he might take into his head. So he was married, and the poor despised Catharine was made the first duchess in the realm, and became entitled to take precedence of all the other duchesses.
This the other duchesses could not endure. They could not bear it, they said, and they would not bear it. They declared that they would not go into any place where this woman, as they called her, was to be. As might have been expected, an interminable amount of quarreling and ill-will grew out of this affair.
About the time of this marriage of the duke, the king himself was married a second time, as will be related in the next chapter.