Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/497

A.D. 1400.] on the floor of the House as pledges of battle in support of their assertions. The accused flung down his hood in acceptance of the challenge, and all wore taken up and given into the custody of the constable and Earl Marshal. When the Lord Morloy charged the Earl of Salisbury with falsehood to the Duke of Gloucester, and with betraying the secrets of Gloucester to the late king, Salisbury met his accusation with a direct denial, and both oast down their gloves in pledge of battle. There was plenty of ground for attack and recrimination in the transactions of the late reign; not a man but was open to some charge or other; and the House of Lords became the scene of the most violent dispute. The nobles charged each other with treason, duplicity, cowardice, and numbers of other criminal and disgraceful actions. The coarsest and fiercest language resounded through the house; liar and traitor rose above all other abusive and rude epithets; and it is said that no less than forty gauntlets, the gages of battle, lay on the floor at once.

Nothing but the most settled purpose of vengeance on his enemies would have induced the cautious Henry to rouse such a tempest at this moment. But he was sure of the popular branch of the legislature, and, probably, he felt that division amongst the haughty barons was strength to his own hands; and that only while they were in violent repulsion from each other could he safely humiliate those whom he had in view.

When the storm was at its height Henry interposed, and, while the conflicting peers were in fiery antagonism with each other, he let fall his intended blow on the party which had supported Richard against his uncle Gloucester and himself. The lords appellant were stripped of the honours and estates which they had obtained from Richard as the rewards of their appeal; and the Dukes of Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter, the Marquis of Dorset, and the Earl of Gloucester, descended again to their former ranks of Earls of Rutland, Kent, Huntinigdon, Somerset, and Lord le Despenser.

To prevent the repetition of such scenes in future, appeals of treason to Parliament were prohibited, and such appeals were directed to be carried to the established courts of law. Treason itself was again limited to the offences named in the celebrated Act of Edward III. The abuse introduced by Richard of delegating all the powers of Parliament to a mere committee of both Houses was declared unconstitutional and utterly inadmissible; and the heaviest penalties were enacted against any person but the king giving liveries to his retainers.

This practice of giving liveries had grown into a source of great public mischief and confusion. Whoever accepted the badge of any prince or nobleman, bound himself to support the cause of his patron, and the patron on his part to defend him against the officials of the law, of other hostile person. Numbers of those who accepted the livery of a nobleman received no pay whatever, the equivalent being in the protection just mentioned; so that by this means a leader could maintain a large train of clients at little or no cost, and could call them together on occasion, to the evident danger of the public peace. It was highly desirable to put down this flagrant evil; but this law was as ill-obeyed as many others in those days, and the practice of distributing these liveries remained for ages afterwards.

Great Seal of Henry IV.

Henry proceeded to reward his friends. As he had punished his enemies by deprivation of honours and estates, he now restored the Earls of Warwick and Arundel to their former ranks and properties. He constituted the Earl of Northumberland constable, and Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, marshal of England; and, as he had bestowed the Isle of Man on Northumberland, he now gave the earldom of Richmond to Westmoreland. Besides these, he conferred many other honours, grants, and offices. Before dismissing Parliament, he submitted to the lords spiritual and temporal, through the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Northumberland, an especial matter for their advice, and they were charged to keep the subject an inviolable secret. This was no other than the disposal of the deposed king. Henry declared, as we have already stated, that at all events he was resolved on the