Shakespeare's Kings (28 page)

When
the
parliament
rose,
Gloucester
and
Arundel
-
who
may
well have
been
behind
Haxey's
petition
-
made
little
effort
to
conceal
their disgust.
They
were
concerned,
too,
at
the
rapid
rise
to
power
and influence
of
the
King's
new
favourite,
Edward
Earl
of
Rutland;
and they
were
irritated,
to
say
the
least,
both
by
Richard's
continued
efforts to
secure
the
canonization
of
Edward
II
and
by
his
shameless
intriguing for
the
crown
of
the
Holy
Roman
Empire.
In
February
they
provoked a
fresh
outburst
of
royal
wrath
by
deliberately
ignoring
his
summons to
a
Council;
soon
afterwards,
at
a
royal
banquet
held
at
Westminster in
early
July,
Gloucester
complained
of
the
concessions
being
made
to the
French,
including
the
surrender
to
them
of
Brest
and
Cherbourg three
months
before.
¹
Whether
he
and
Arundel,
and
perhaps
Warwick
-
of
whose
doings
over
the
past
decade
we
know
comparatively
little, but
who
now
returns
to
a
position
of
some
prominence
-
were
actively plotting
against
the
King,
we
shall
never
know.
It
seems
unlikely;
but rumours
of
a
conspiracy
soon
spread,
and
Richard
was
not
prepared
to take
any
chances.
He
had
had
enough
of
his
uncle
and
his
friends;
he would
suffer
them
no
more.

It
was
somehow
typical
of
Richard's
character
that
he
should
have invited
his
enemies
to
a
banquet
—
which
Thomas
Walsingham
was
to compare
with
the
one
given
by
Herod
at
which
Salome
danced
for
the head
of
John
the
Baptist.
Gloucester
pleaded
ill-health;
Arundel
also declined.
Of
the
three,
only
Warwick
accepted,
and
was
initially
given a
warm
welcome
by
the
King;
only
when
the
feasting
was
over
was
he seized
and
led
away
to
the
Tower.
A
few
weeks
later
Arundel
was
also captured
—
once
again
by
trickery,
Richard
having
sworn
a
solemn
oath to
his
brother
the
Archbishop
that
he
should
suffer
no
bodily
harm.
He was
confined
to
Carisbrooke
Castle
until
such
time
as
his
fate
should be
decided.
There
remained
only
Gloucester.
This
time
the
King
was resolved
on
a
show
of
strength.
With
a
numerous
retinue
which
included his
half-brothers
Thomas
and
John
Holland
—
now
Earls
of
Kent
and Huntingdon
respectively
-
the
Earls
of
Rudand
and
Nottingham
and a
sizeable
contingent
of
his
own
household
troops,
he
rode
down
by night
to
his
uncle's
castle
at
Pleshey
in
Essex;
since
Gloucester
had refused
his
earlier
invitation,
he
explained,
he
had
no
alternative
but
to come
himself
to
fetch
him.
Taken
totally
by
surprise,
the
Duke
could only
beg
for
mercy;
Richard
replied
that
he
should
have
all
the
mercy that
he
had
shown
to
Sir
Simon
Burley,
for
whose
life
the
Queen
had knelt
in
vain
before
him
nine
years
before.
Gloucester
was
dispatched in
close
custody
to
Calais
to
await
his
fate
-
which
was
not
to
be
long in
coming.

Judgement
was
passed
at
the
next
parliament
-
the
last
of
the
reign
—
which
met
on
17
September
1397.
The
charges
were
essentially
those

of
treason
-
committed
nine
years
before,
at
the
time
of
the
Merciless Parliament,
when
the
three
accused
had
been
themselves
the
accusers; and
the
procedure
followed
was
much
the
same.
This
time
the
appeal was
laid
by
eight
lords,
including
Richard's
half-brothers
Kent
and Huntingdon
and
his
cousins
the
Earls
of
Rutl
and
and
Somerset.
¹
Westminster
Hall
being
under
restoration,
a
temporary
pavilion
had
been erected
in
the
palace
yard,
open
at
the
sides
and
with
an
immense throne
on
a
high
platform.
A
somewhat
more
sinister
note
was
struck at
the
opening
session
by
the
presence
of
the
King's
personal
bodyguard of
some
four
hundred
Cheshire
archers,
specially
recruited
for
the occasion.

The
first
surprise
after
the
proceedings
had
begun
was
the
appearance of
a
fourth
defendant:
Arundel's
brother
Thomas,
who
had
been
promoted
from
the
Archbishopric
of
York
to
that
of
Canterbury
in
the previous
year.
In
such
circumstances
it
was
surprising
that
he
should now
have
been
impeached
on
the
grounds
of
his
complicity
in
the events
of
1386-8;
the
reason
was
almost
certainly
that
he
had
refused the
King's
command
to
appoint
a
lay
proctor
to
speak
for
the
clergy
-an
important
preliminary,
since
churchmen
were
barred
by
their
cloth from
all
legal
processes
which
might
result
in
bloodshed.
He
was given
no
opportunity
to
defend
himself
against
the
charges,
and
on
25 September
was
sentenced
to
the
confiscation
of
his
possessions
and perpetual
banishment.

The
eight
Appellants
then
appeared,
wearing
robes
of
red
silk
bordered
in
white
and
embroidered
with
gold.
Bowing
low
before
the King,
they
requested
that
the
three
accused
should
now
be
summoned before
the
assembly
one
by
one,
to
answer
the
charges
laid
against
them. First
came
the
Earl
of
Arundel,
whose
indictment
was
read
out
to him
by
John
of
Gaunt
in
his
capacity
as
High
Steward
of
England. Indignantly,
the
Earl
pleaded
that
he
had
already
received
two
pardons from
the
King;
Gaunt
pointed
out
that
these
had
both
been
formally revoked,
and
the
two
were
still
arguing
over
their
validity
when the
Speaker,
Sir
John
Bushey,
²
interrupted
and
demanded
Arundel's