The commons then preferred an impeachment against Fitz-Alan, archbishop of Canterbury, and brother to Arundel, and accused him for his concurrence in procuring the illegal commission, and in attainting the king's ministers. The primate pleaded guilty; but as he was protected by the ecclesiastical privileges, the king was satisfied with a sentence, which banished him the kingdom, and sequestered his temporalities 55. An appeal or accusation was presented against the duke of Gloucester, and the earls of Arundel and Warwick, by the earls of Rutland, Kent, Huntingdon, Somerset, Salisbury, and Nottingham, together with the lords Spenser and Scrope, and they were accused of the same crimes which had been imputed to the archbishop, as well as of their appearance against the king in a hostile manner at Haringay Park. The earl of Arundel, who was brought to the bar, wisely confined all his defence to the pleading of both the general and particular pardon of the king: but his plea being overruled, he was condemned and executed 56. The earl of Warwick, who was also convicted of high treason, was, on account of his submissive behaviour; pardoned as to his life, but doomed to perpetual banishment in the Isle of Man. No new acts of treason were imputed to either of these noblemen. The only crimes, for which they were condemned, were the old attempts against the crown, which seemed to be obliterated, both by the distance of time and by repeated pardons". The reasons of this method of proceeding, it is difficult to conjecture. The recent conspiracies of Gloucester seem certain from his own confession: but, perhaps, the king and ministry had not at that time in their p. 55 Cotton, p. 368. 56 Cotton, p. 377. Froissart, liv. iv. chap. 90. Walsing. 354. 57 Tyrrel, vol. iii. part 2, p. 968, from the Records. hands any satisfactory proof of their reality; perhaps it was difficult to convict Arundel and Warwick of any participation in them; perhaps an inquiry into these conspiracies would have involved in the guilt some of those great noblemen who now concurred with the crown, and whom it was necessary to cover from all imputation; or perhaps the king, according to the genius of the age, was indifferent about maintaining even the appearance of law and equity, and was only solicitous by any means to ensure success in these prosecutions. This point, like many others in ancient history, we are obliged to leave altogether undetermined. A warrant was issued to the earl marshal, governor of Calais, to bring over the duke of Gloucester, in order to his trial; but the governor returned for answer, that the duke had died suddenly of an apoplexy in that fortress. Nothing could be more suspicious, from the time, than the circumstances of that prince's death it became immediately the general opinion, that he was murdered by orders from his nephew: in the subsequent reign undoubted proofs were produced in parliament that he had been suffocated with pillows by his keepers 58. And it appeared that the king, apprehensive lest the public trial and execution of so popular a prince, and so near a relation, might prove both dangerous and invidious, had taken this base method of gratifying, and, as he fancied, concealing his revenge upon him. Both parties, in their successive triumphs, seem to have had no farther concern than that of retaliating upon their adversaries; and neither of them were aware, that, by imitating, they indirectly justified, as far as it lay in their power, all the illegal violence of the opposite party. This session concluded with the creation or advancement of several peers: the earl of Derby was 58 Cotton, p. 399, 400. Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 171, made duke of Hereford; the earl of Rutland, duke of Albemarle; the earl of Kent, duke of Surrey; the earl of Huntingdon, duke of Exeter; the earl of Nottingham, duke of Norfolk; the earl of Somerset, marquis of Dorset; lord Spenser, earl of Gloucester; Ralph Nevil, earl of Westmoreland; Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester; William Scrope, earl of Wiltshire 59. The parliament, after a session of twelve days, was adjourned to Shrewsbury. The king, before the departure of the members, exacted from them an oath for the perpetual maintenance and establishment of all their acts; an oath similar to that which had formerly been required by the duke of Gloucester and his party, and which had already proved so vain and fruitless. 1398, 28th Jan.] Both king and parliament met in the same dispositions at Shrewsbury. So anxious was Richard for the security of these acts, that he obliged the lords and commons to swear anew to them on the cross of Canterbury 60: and he soon after procured a bull from the pope, by which they were, as he imagined, perpetually secured and estab lished 6. The parliament, on the other hand, conferred on him for life the duties on wool, wool-fells, and leather, and granted him, besides, a subsidy of one tenth and a half, and one fifteenth and a half. They also reversed the attainder of Tresilian and the other judges, and, with the approbation of the present judges, declared the answers, for which these magistrates had been impeached, to be just and legal: and they carried so far their retrospect, as to reverse, on the petition of lord Spenser, earl of Gloucester, the attainder pronounced against the two Spensers in the reign of Edward II 63. The ancient history of England is nothing but a catalogue of 60 Ibid. p. 371. 59 Cotton, p. 370, 371. 62 Statutes at large, 21 Rich. II. reversals: every thing is in fluctuation and movement: one faction is continually undoing what was established by another: and the multiplied oaths, which each party exacted for the security of the present acts, betray a perpetual consciousness of their instability. The parliament, before they were dissolved, elected a committee of twelve lords and six commoners 64, whom they invested with the whole power both of lords and commons, and endowed with full authority to finish all business which had been laid before the houses, and which they had not had leisure to bring to a conclusion 65. This was an unusual concession; and though it was limited in the object, might either immediately, or as a precedent, have proved dangerous to the constitution: but the cause of that extraordinary measure was an event singular and unexpected, which engaged the attention of the parliament. After the destruction of the duke of Gloucester and the heads of that party, a misunderstanding broke out among those noblemen who had joined in the prosecution; and the king wanted either authority sufficient to appease it, or foresight to prevent it. The duke of Hereford appeared in parliament, and accused the duke of Norfolk of having spoken to him, in private, many slanderous words of the king, and of having imputed to that prince an intention of subverting and destroying many of his principal 64 The names of the commissioners were, the dukes of Lancaster, York, Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter; the marquis of Dorset; the earls of March, Salisbury, Northumberland, Gloucester, Winchester, and Wiltshire; John Bussey, Henry Green, John Russel, Robert Teyne, Henry Chelmeswicke, and John Golofre. It is to be remarked, that the duke of Lancaster always concurred with the rest in all their proceedings, even in the banishment of his son, which was afterwards so much complained of. 65 Cotton, p. 372. Walsing. p. 355. nobility 6. Norfolk denied the charge, gave Hereford the lie, and offered to prove his own innocence by duel. The challenge was accepted: the time and place of combat were appointed and as the event of this important trial by arms might require the interposition of legislative authority, the parliament thought it more suitable to delegate their power to a committee, than to prolong the session beyond the usual time which custom and general convenience had prescribed to it 67. The duke of Hereford was certainly very little delicate in the point of honour, when he revealed a private conversation to the ruin of the person who had intrusted him; and we may thence be more inclined to believe the duke of Norfolk's denial, than the other's asseveration. But Norfolk had in these transactions betrayed an equal neglect of honour, which brings him entirely on a level with his antagonist. Though he had publicly joined with the duke of Gloucester and his party in all the former acts of violence against the king; and his name stands among the appellants who accused the duke of Ireland and the other ministers: yet was he not ashamed publicly to impeach his former associates for the very crimes which he had concurred with them in committing; and his name increases the list of those appellants who brought them to a trial. Such were the principles and practices of those ancient knights and barons during the prevalence of the aristocratical government, and the reign of chivalry. The lists for this decision of truth and right were 66 Cotton, p. 372. Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 490. 67 In the first year of Henry VI. when the authority of parliament was great, and when that assembly could least be suspected of lying under violence, a like concession was made to the privy council, from like motives of convenience. See Cotton, p. 564. VOL. III. U |