The Earls of Northumberland and Suffolk were the supporters of Le
Despenser, who walked forward with a slow, graceful step, to receive
from the King's hand an earl's coronet, accompanied by the ominous name
of Gloucester--a title stained by its last bearer beyond remedy. In
truth, the royal dukedom had been an interpolation of the line, and the
King was merely giving Le Despenser back his own--the coronet which had
belonged to the grand old family of Clare, whose co-heiress was the
great-grandmother of Thomas Le Despenser. The title had been kept as it
were in suspense ever since the attainder of her husband, the ill-fated
Earl Hugh, though two persons had borne it in the interim without any
genuine right.
Three other peers were created, but they do not concern the story. And
then the King rose from his throne, the ceremony was over; and Constance
Le Despenser left the hall among the Princesses by right of her birth,
but wearing her new coronet as Countess of Gloucester.
Four months later, the Duke of Hereford knelt before the throne, and
solemnly accused his late friend and colleague, the Duke of Norfolk, of
treason. He averred that Norfolk had tempted him to join another secret
conspiracy. Norfolk, when questioned, turned the tables by denying the
accusation, and adding that it was Hereford who had tempted him. Since
neither of these noble gentlemen was particularly worthy of credit, and
they both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide
which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived
at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of
battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at Coventry in the
following autumn.
Before the duel took place, an important event occurred in the death of
Roger Mortimer, the Lollard Earl of March, whom the King had proclaimed
heir presumptive of England. He was Viceroy of Ireland, and was killed
in a skirmish by the "wild Irish." March, who was only 24 years of age,
left four children, of whom we shall hear more anon, to be educated by
their mother, Archbishop Arundel's niece, in her own Popish views. He
is described by the monkish chroniclers as "very handsome and very
courteous, most dissolute of life, and extremely remiss in all matters
of religion." We can guess pretty well what that means. "Remiss in
matters of religion," of course, refers to his Lollardism, while the
accusation of "dissolute life" is notoriously Rome's pet charge against
those who escape from her toils. Such was the sad and early end of the
first and only Lollard of the House of Mortimer.
The duel between Hereford and Norfolk was appointed to take place on
Gosford Green, near Coventry, on the 16th of September. The combatants
met accordingly; but before a blow was struck, the King took the matter
upon himself and forbade the engagement. On the 3rd of October, licence
was granted to Hereford to travel abroad, this being honourable
banishment; no penalty was inflicted upon Norfolk. But some event--
perhaps never to be discovered--occurred, or came to light during the
following ten days, which altered the whole aspect of affairs. Either
the King found out some deed of treason, of which he had been previously
ignorant, or else some further offence was committed by both Hereford
and Norfolk. On the 13th both were banished--Hereford for ten years,
Norfolk for life; the sentence in the former case being afterwards
commuted to six years. Those who know the Brutus-like character of John
of Gaunt, and his real opinion of his son's proceedings, may accept, if
they can, the representations of the monastic chroniclers that the
commutation of Hereford's sentence was made at his intercession.
In the interim, between the duel and the sentence, Archbishop Arundel
was formally adjudged a traitor, and the penalty of banishment was
inflicted on him also.
Constance was too busy with her nursery to leave Cardiff, where this
autumn little Richard was joined by a baby sister, who received the name
of Elizabeth after the Dowager Lady. But the infant was not many weeks
old, when, to use the beautiful phrase of the chroniclers, she
"journeyed to the Lord." She was taken away from the evil to come.
It was appropriate enough that the last dread year of the fourteenth
century should be ushered in by funeral knells. And he who died on the
third of February in that year, though not a very sure stay, was the
best and last support of the Gospel and the throne. It was with
troubled faces and sad tones that the Lollards who met in the streets of
London told one to another that "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured
Lancaster," was lying dead in the Bishop of Ely's Palace.
But the storm was deferred for a few weeks longer. There were royal
visits to Langley and Cardiff, on the way to Ireland, the Earl of
Gloucester accompanying the King to that country. And then, when
Richard had left the reins of government in the feeble hands of York,
the tempest burst over England which had been lowering for so long.
The Lady Le Despenser and the Countess of Gloucester were seated at
breakfast in Cardiff Castle, on a soft, bright morning in the middle of
July. Breakfast consisted of fresh and salt fish, for it was a
fast-day; plain and fancy bread, different kinds of biscuits (but all
made without eggs or butter); small beer, and claret. Little Richard
was energetically teasing Maude, by whom he sat, for another piece of
red-herring, and the Dowager, deliberate in all her movements, was
slowly helping herself to Gascon wine. The blast of a horn without the
moat announced the arrival of a guest or a letter, and Bertram Lyngern
went out to see what it was. Ten minutes later he returned to the hall,
with letters in his hand, and his face white with some terrible news.
"Ill tidings, noble ladies!"
"Is it Dickon?" cried the Countess.
"Is it Tom?" said the Dowager.
"There be no news of my Lord, nor from Langley," said Bertram. "But my
Lord's Grace of Hereford, and Sir Thomas de Arundel, sometime
Archbishop, be landed at Ravenspur."
"Landed at Ravenspur!--Banished men!"
The loyal soul of Elizabeth Le Despenser could imagine nothing more
atrocious.
"Well, let them land!" she added in a minute. "The Duke's Grace of York
shall wit how to deal with them. Be any gathered to them?"
"Hundreds and thousands," was the ominous answer.
"Ay me!" sighed the Dowager. "Well! `the Lord reigneth.'"
Constance's only comment on the remarks was a quiet, incredulous shrug
of her shoulders. She knew her father.
And she was right. Like many another, literally and figuratively, York
went over to the enemy's ground to parley, and ended in staying there.
One of the two was talked over--but that one was not the rebel, but the
Regent.
Poor York! Looking back on those days, out of the smoke of the battle,
one sees him a man so wretchedly weak and incapable that it is hardly
possible to be angry with him. It does not appear to have been
conviction, nor cowardice, nor choice in any sense, which caused his
desertion, but simply his miserable incapacity to stand alone, or to
resist the influence of any stronger character on either side. _He_ go
to parley with the enemy! He might as well have sent his baby grandson
to parley with a box of sugar-plums.
Fresh news--always bad news--now came into Cardiff nearly every day.
The King hurried back from Ireland to Conway, and there gathered his
loyal peers around him. There were only sixteen of them. Dorset,
always on the winning side, deserted the sinking ship at once. Aumerle
more prudently waited to see which side would eventually prove the
winner.
Exeter and Surrey were sent to parley with the traitors. They were both
detained, Surrey as a prisoner, Exeter with a show of friendship. The
latter was too fertile in resources, and too eloquent in speech, not to
be a dangerous foe. He was therefore secured while the opportunity
offered.
Then came the treacherous Northumberland as ambassador from Hereford,
whom we must henceforth designate by his new title of Lancaster.
Northumberland's lips dropped honey, but war was in his heart. He
offered the sweetest promises. What did they cost? They were made to
be broken. So gentle, so affectionate were his solicitations to the
royal hart to enter the leopard's den--so ready was he to pledge word
and oath that Lancaster was irrevocably true and faithful--that the King
listened, and believed him. He set forth with his little guard,
quitting the stronghold of Flint Castle, and in the gorge of Gwrych he
was met by Northumberland and his army, seized, and carried a prisoner
to Chester.
This was the testing moment for the hitherto loyal sixteen. Aumerle,
who had satisfied himself now which way the game was going, went over to
his cousin at once. Worcester broke his white wand of office, and
retired from the contest. Some fled in terror. When all the faithless
had either gone or joined Lancaster, there remained six, who loved their
master better than themselves, and followed, voluntary prisoners,
outwardly in the train of Henry of Lancaster, but really in that of
Richard of Bordeaux.
These six loyal, faithful, honourable men our story follows. They
were--Thomas Le Despenser, Earl of Gloucester; John de Montacute, Earl
of Salisbury; Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey; William Le Scrope, Earl
of Wilts; Richard Maudeleyn, chaplain to the King; John Maudeleyn
(probably his brother), varlet of the robes.
Slowly the conqueror marched Londonwards, with the royal captive in his
train. Westminster was reached on the first of September. From that
date the coercion exercised over the King was openly and shamelessly
acknowledged. His decrees were declared to be issued "with the assent
of our dearest cousin, Henry Duke of Lancaster." At last, on Michaelmas
Day, the orders of that loving and beloved relative culminated in the
abdication of the Sovereign.
The little group of loyalists had now grown to seven, by the addition of
Exeter, who joined himself to them as soon as he was set at liberty.
They remained in London during that terrible October, and most of them
were present when, on the 13th of that month, Henry of Lancaster was
crowned King of England.
There stood the vacant throne, draped in gold-spangled red; and by it,
on either hand, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. The hierarchy were,
on the right, Arundel at their head, having coolly repossessed himself
of the see from which he had been ejected as a traitor; an expression of
contemptuous amusement hovering about his lips, which might be easily
translated into the famous (but rather apocryphal) speech of Queen
Elizabeth to the men of Coventry--"Good lack! What fools ye be!" On
the left hand of the throne stood Lancaster, his lofty stature
conspicuous among his peers, waiting with mock humility for the farce of
their acknowledgment of his right. Next him was his uncle of York,
wearing a forced smile at that which his conscience disapproved, but his
will was impotent to reject. Aumerle came next, his face so plainly a
mask to hide his thoughts that it is difficult to judge what they were.
Then Surrey, with a half-astonished, half-puzzled air, as though he had
never expected matters really to come to this pass. His uncle Exeter,
who sat next him, looked sullen and discontented. The other peers came
in turn, but their faces are not visible in the remarkable painting by
an eye-witness from which those above are described, with the exception
of the tellers, the traitor Northumberland, and the cheery round-faced
Westmoreland. These went round to take the votes of the peers. There
were not likely to be many dissenting voices, where to vote No was
death.
Henry stated his assumption of power to rest upon three points. First,
he had conquered the kingdom; secondly, his cousin, King Richard, had
voluntarily abdicated in his favour; and lastly, he was the true heir
male of the crown.
"Ha!" said the little Earl of March, the dispossessed heir general,
"_haeres malus_, is he?"
It was not a bad pun for seven years old.
If Henry of Bolingbroke may be credited, the majority of the loyal six,
and Thomas Le Despenser among them, not only sat in his first
Parliament, but pleaded compulsion as the cause of their petition
against Gloucester, and consented to the deposition of King Richard,
while some earnestly requested the usurper to put the Sovereign to
death. While some of these allegations are true, the last certainly is
false. One of those named as having joined in the last petition is
Surrey; and his alleged participation is proved to be a lie. Knowing
how lightly Henry of Bolingbroke could lie, it is hardly possible to
believe otherwise of any member of the group, except indeed the
time-serving Aumerle.
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Note 1. See "Mistress Margery," preface, page six.
Note 2. His mother, Alianora of Lancaster, was the daughter of Earl
Henry, son of Prince Edmund, son of Henry the Third.