Footnote 79: Some chroniclers say, that the conspiracy was made known to the Mayor of London, who forthwith hastened to the King at Windsor, and urged him to save himself and his children. The same pages tell us that John Holland Earl of Huntingdon was seized and beheaded in Essex by the Dowager Countess of Hereford.—Sloane MS.[(back)]
Footnote 80: Pat. p. 3, 22 Ric. II. [(back)]
Footnote 81: The Pell Rolls contain several interesting entries connected with this subject. Payment for a thousand masses to be said for the soul of Richard, "whose body is buried in Langley." (20th March, 1400.) Payment also for carrying the body from Pomfret to London, &c.[(back)]
Footnote 82: See Henry's answer to the Duke of Orleans, as recorded by Monstrellet, in which he solemnly appeals to God for the vindication of the truth.[(back)]
Footnote 83: Sir Harris Nicolas. "Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England."[(back)]
Footnote 84: Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, maintains with much ingenuity the paradoxical position, that Richard escaped from Pontefract, made his way in disguise to the Western Isles, was there recognised, and was conducted to the Regent; that, taken into the safe keeping of the government, and sick of the world and its disappointments, he lived for many years in Stirling Castle; and that he there died, and there was buried. It falls not within the province of these Memoirs to examine the facts and reasonings by which that writer supports his theory, or to weigh the value of the objections which have been alleged against it. The Author, however, in confessing that the result of his own inquiries is opposed to the hypothesis of Richard's escape, and that he acquiesces in the general tradition that he died in Pontefract, cannot refrain from making one remark. Whilst he is persuaded that Glyndowr, and many others, believed that Richard was alive in Scotland, yet he thinks it almost capable of demonstration that Henry IV, with his sons and his court, in England; and Charles VI, with his court and clergy, and Isabella herself, and her second husband, had no doubt whatever as to Richard's death. If they had, if they were not fully assured that he was no longer among the living, it is difficult to understand Henry IV.'s proposals to Charles VI. for a marriage between Isabella and one of his sons; or how, on any other hypothesis than the conviction of his death, the Earl of Angouleme, afterwards Duke of Orleans, would have sought her in marriage; how her father and his clergy could have consented to her nuptials; or how she could for a moment have entertained the thought of becoming a bride again. She had not only been betrothed to Richard, but had been with all solemnity married to him by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the face of the church; and she had been crowned queen. Yet she was married to Angouleme in 1406, and died in childbed in 1409. Had she believed Richard to be still alive, she would have been more inclined to follow the bidding which Shakspeare puts into her husband's mouth at their last farewell, than to have given her hand before the altar to another:
"Hie thee to France,
And cloister thee in some religious house."
Froissart says expressly that the French resolved to wage war with the English as long as they knew Richard to be alive; but when certain news of his death reached them, they were bent on the restoration of Isabella.[(back)]
Footnote 85: It is painful to hear the Church historian, without any qualifying expression of doubt or hope, call Henry IV. "the murderer of Richard."—Milner, cent. xv. [(back)]
Footnote 86: Froissart expressly says, that, though often urged to it, Henry would never consent to have Richard put to death. [(back)]