Source.—The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, pp. 187, 188. (Royal Society of Literature, 1904.)
On the eve of his coronation, in the Tower of London and in the presence of Richard late King, King Henry made forty-six new knights, amongst whom were his three sons, and also the earls of Arundel and Stafford, and the son and heir of the earl of Warwick; and with them and other nobles of the land he passed in great state to Westminster. And when the day of Coronation was come (13th October), all the peers of the realm, robed finely in red and scarlet and ermine, came with great joy to the ceremony, my lord of Canterbury ordering all the service and duties thereof. In the presence were borne four swords, whereof one was sheathed as a token of the augmentation of military honour, two were wrapped in red and bound round with golden bands to represent twofold mercy, and the fourth was naked and without a point, the emblem of the executioner of justice without rancour. The first sword the earl of Northumberland carried, the two covered ones the earls of Somerset and Warwick, and the sword of justice the King's eldest son, the prince of Wales; and the lord Latimer bore the sceptre, and the earl of Westmoreland the rod. And this they did as well in the coronation as at the banquet, always standing around the King. Before the King received the crown from my lord of Canterbury, I heard him swear to take heed to rule his people altogether in mercy and in truth. These were the officers in the Coronation feast: The earl of Arundel was butler, the earl of Oxford held the ewer, and the lord Grey of Ruthin spread the cloths.
While the King was in the midst of the banquet, sir Thomas Dymock, knight, mounted in full armour on his destrier,[1] and having his sword sheathed in black with a golden hilt, entered the hall, two others, likewise mounted on chargers, bearing before him a naked sword and a lance. And he caused proclamation to be made by a herald at the four sides of the hall that, if any man should say that his liege lord here present and King of England was not of right crowned King of England, he was ready to prove the contrary with his body, then and there, or when and wheresoever it might please the King. And the King said: "If need be, sir Thomas, I will in mine own person ease thee of this office."
[1] Destrier = a charger, a war-horse.
CONSPIRACY OF THE EARLS (1400).
Source.—Capgrave's Chronicle of England, pp. 275, 276 (Rolls Series).
In the second year of this King the earls of Kent, Salisbury and Huntingdon, unkind to the King, rose against him. Unkind were they, for the people would have them dead and the King spared them. These men, thus gathered, purposed to fall on the King suddenly at Windsor, under the colour of mummeries in Christmas time. The King was warned of this and fled to London. These men knew not that, but came to Windsor with four hundred armed men, purposing to kill the King and his progeny, and restore Richard again unto the crown. When they came to Windsor, and thus were deceived, they fled to a town where the queen lay, fast by Reading, and there, before the queen's household, he blessed him this earl of Kent. "O benedicite," he said, "who may this be that Harry of Lancaster hath taken the Tower at London, and our very King Richard hath broken prison, and hath gathered a hundred thousand fighting men." So gladded he the queen with lies, and rode forth to Wallingford, and from Wallingford to Abingdon, warning all men by the way that they should make them ready to help King Richard. Thus came he to Cirencester, late at even. The men of the town had suspicion that their tidings were lies, (as it was indeed,) rose and kept the entries of the inns, that none of them might pass. There fought they in the town from midnight unto nine of the clock in the morrow. But the town drove them out of the Abbey and smote off many of their heads. The earl of Salisbury was dead there; and worthy, for he was a great favourite of the Lollards, and a despiser of the sacraments, for he would not confess when he should die.
The earl of Huntingdon heard of this and fled unto Essex. And as often as he assayed to take the sea, so often was he born off with the wind. Then was he taken by the Commons and led to Chelmsford and then to Pleshy, and his head smote off in the same place where he arrested the Duke of Gloucester.
DE HERETICO COMBURENDO (January, 1401).
Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 2 Henry IV., c. xv.