141. senecta. Burley was then fifty-six years old.
142. This evidently means that the queen interceded for him; cp. Chronique de la Traïson, p. 9. Walsingham tells us only that the earl of Derby tried to save Simon Burley and quarrelled with his uncle Gloucester on the subject. Burley had been the principal negotiator of the marriage of Richard with Anne of Bohemia.
150. Walsingham says of him that he was ‘ab antiquo fallax et fraudulentus.’
152. Pons Aquilonis, ‘Bridgenorth.’ Beauchamp was keeper of Bridgenorth Castle (Rot. Pat., 10 Rich. II. pt. 2. m. 15), but it does not appear from other sources that he had the title here given him by Gower of ‘baron Bridgenorth.’ In 1387 he was made a peer by patent (the first instance of this) under the title of lord Beauchamp of Kidderminster.
154. Tribulus: i.e. Nicholas Brembel (so called by Gower), called Brembul or Brembyl by Knighton, Brambre by Walsingham and Brembre or de Brembre in the Patent Rolls and Rolls of Parliament. Presumably he was of Brembre (Bramber), in the county of Sussex. He had been Mayor of London last in 1386. Knighton says of him ‘quem saepius rex fecerat maiorem praeter et contra voluntatem multorum ciuium’ (ii. 272), and Walsingham declares that he had planned a proscription of his opponents, with a view to making himself absolute ruler of London with the title of duke (ii. 174).
158 f. Though he was a knight, he was not dignified with the nobler form of execution, being a citizen of London.
162. Cornubiensis: Sir Robert Tresilian, Chief Justice.
172. falsa sigilla: that is, the seals set by the judges to the questions and replies submitted to them at Nottingham. ‘In quorum omnium testimonium Iusticiarii et Serviens predicti sigilla sua presentibus apposuerunt’ (Rot. Parl. iii. 233; cp. Knighton, ii. 237). They all pleaded that they had set their seals to these replies under the influence of threats from the archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, and the earl of Suffolk.
173. magis ansam, ‘or rather a handle’ (i.e. a pretext). The reading of the MSS. is doubtful (S apparently ‘ausam,’ but with a stop after ‘regi’). The form of expression is not unusual with our author.
174 f. ‘There was no punishment which would have been sufficient,’ &c.