There were many who shared this unbelief; and in 1402, the rumours that King Richard was yet alive became so persistent and circumstantial, that King Henry dealt with them by putting to death a number of persons, principally priests and friars, for spreading such treasonable reports. The cause of the revival of these rumours at this time is revealed in a document issued by King Henry, requiring the sheriffs to arrest all persons guilty of spreading the report that King Richard was alive, which had arisen from a person calling himself King Richard having appeared in Scotland in company with one William Serle, who had been groom of the robes to Richard, and had possessed himself of his signet.
As the scene thus shifts to Scotland, we naturally turn to the Scottish chronicles and records for the further elucidation of the mystery. Wyntoun and Bower—each writing of events which happened within his own lifetime—narrate the story of this second Claimant in much the same manner. He came from the out-isles of Scotland, having been discovered in the kitchen of Donald, Lord of the Isles, by persons who had seen King Richard, and recognised his likeness. He was sent in charge of Lord Montgomery to Robert III. of Scotland, by whom he was well received, and assigned a pension of one hundred merks yearly. After King Robert’s death, the pension was continued by the Regent Albany. The Scottish Chamberlain, in charging his accounts with these annual payments, has entered them as paid to ‘King Richard of England.’ Finally, we learn from an old Scottish chronicle that when he died at Stirling in 1419, his body was buried on the north side of the high-altar of the Church of the Preaching Friars, and a long Latin epitaph graven over his tomb informed the reader that ‘Here lies buried King Richard of England.’ Yet it has been established as clearly as any such question can now be established by evidence, that this second personator of King Richard was an adventurer named Thomas Ward, or Thomas of Trumpington, who, with his confederate William Serle, is exempted by name from the general amnesty granted to political offenders by Henry IV. in 1403.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Meanwhile, Harry Noel himself was quite unconsciously riding round to the Hawthorns’ cottage, to perform the whole social duty of man by Edward and Marian.
‘So you’ve come out to look after your father’s estates in Barbadoes, have you, Mr Noel?’ Marian inquired with a quiet smile, after the first greetings and talk about the voyage were well over.
Harry laughed. ‘Well, Mrs Hawthorn,’ he said confidentially, ‘my father’s estates there seem to have looked after themselves pretty comfortably for the last twenty years, or at least been looked after vicariously by a rascally local Scotch agent; and I’ve no doubt they’d have continued to look after themselves for the next twenty years without my intervention, if nothing particular had occurred otherwise to bring me out here.’
‘But something particular did occur—eh, Mr Noel?’
‘No, nothing occurred,’ Harry Noel answered, with a distinct stress upon the significant verb. ‘But I had reasons of my own which made me anxious to visit Trinidad; and I thought Barbadoes would be an excellent excuse to supply to Sir Walter for the expenses of the journey. The old gentleman jumped at it—positively jumped at it. There’s nothing loosens Sir Walter’s pursestrings like a devotion to business; and he declared to me on leaving, with tears in his eyes almost, that it was the first time he ever remembered to have seen me show any proper interest whatsoever in the family property.’
‘And what were the reasons that made you so very anxious, then, to visit Trinidad?’