Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/499

A.D. 1400. Calais, had adhered to Richard through all his fortunes, and was taken with him at Flint.

The army of the insurgents increased, but it is evident that their enterprise was ill-concerted, and their counsels were now distracted. Hearing that Henry was already at Kingston-on-Thames at the head of 20,000 men, they resolved to retire into the west. They went on, proclaiming Richard in all the towns and villages in their route, and the next evening they took up their quarters in Cirencester.

The young queen, according to several authorities, took a warm interest in this attempt. The Earls of Kent and Salisbury, it is said, went to Sunning Hill, where she was staying, and told her that they had driven Bolingbroke from the throne; that her husband was at liberty, and was then on the march to meet her, at the head of 100,000 men. Overjoyed at this news, says Sir John Haywood, the queen put herself at their disposal, and took an extraordinary pleasure in ordering the badges of Henry IV. to be torn from her household and replaced by those of her husband.

The deception was a cruel one; but the murderer Huntingdon was not likely to be very considerate of the queen's personal feelings. It would be enough for him that drowning men catch at straws, and that the presence of the real queen might be more effectual even than a sham king. The poor queen set out with the Earls of Kent and Salisbury on their march towards Wallingford and Abingdon. She was with the barons when they entered Cirencester. But there a terrible fate awaited them. The mayor had received the king's writ to oppose and seize the traitors. He summoned the burghers and the people, and at midnight they made an attack on the quarters of Kent and Salisbury. On attempting to escape the wretched noblemen found archers posted in every street; and, after a resistance of six hours, they were compelled to surrender, and were conducted into the abbey. In the middle of the following night, however, a fire breaking out in the abbey, which was attributed to their party, they were brought out and beheaded on the spot by the populace. The women, it appears, were as zealous in seizing the insurgents as the men, and that they did not exceed the king's orders is very clear from the fact, that Henry made a grant of four does and a hogshead of wine annually to the men, and of six bucks and a hogshead of wine to the women of that town.

The unfortunate Isabella was re-conducted, strictly guarded, from Cirencester to the palace of Havering-atte-Bower, and this continued her place of residence during the tragical transactions which followed this abortive insurrection.

The fate of the other leaders of the revolt was summary and sanguinary. The Earl of Gloucester and Lord Lumley went into the west of England, as was proposed, but were seized and put to death by the populace at Bristol. As for Huntingdon, the accounts of his end vary. One relation says that he was seized in Essex and committed to the Tower on the 10th of January, and five days afterwards beheaded, with circumstances of great cruelty. But others, and apparently the more probable, are that he was taken in Essex and convoyed to Fleshy, the seat of the late Duke of Gloucester, and, as one of those who had been associated with the late king in the treacherous arrest and murder of the duke, was put to death at the suggestion of the Duchess of Hereford, the eldest of Gloucester's daughters. The tenants and servants of the late duke are represented as actually tearing him to pieces with every possible act of torture, in the intensity of their hatred and revenge.

Sir Thomas Blount, Sir Benedict Shelley, Sir Bernard Brokos, and twenty-nine other knights and gentlemen, were drawn, hanged, and quartered in the Greenditch at Oxford, with circumstances of aggravated atrocity. Fabyan, in his "Chronicle," describes the death of Sir Thomas Blount as something not exceeded by the most fiendish tormentors. His bowels were cut out before his face and cast into a fire. While sitting in this manner he was insulted by Sir Thomas Erpingham, saying, "Go, seek a master that can cure you." Blount only answered, "Te Deum, laudamus. Blessed be the day on which I was born, and blessed be this day, for I shall die in the service of my sovereign lord, the noble King Richard." The executioner then cut off his head.

Feriby and Maudelain, Richard's chaplains, were executed in London. Bishops Merks and Walden were also condemned, but Walden succeeded in satisfying Henry of his innocence, and was pardoned. Merks the king was bent on putting to death, but the Pope demurred to acquiesce in the king's demand that he should be degraded from his orders prior to execution, and the delay saved him. The wrath of the king had cooled: probably he felt some of that remorse which he experienced afterwards so bitterly for the torrents of blood shed; and he complied with the Pontiff's entreaty for pardon for the bishop, who had certainly shown a most noble example of fidelity to his monarch. Both those clergymen subsequently acquired Henry's favour. The faithful Merks died rector of Todenham, in Gloucestershire, in 1409.

Such was the sanguinary termination of this ill-advised and ill-conducted insurrection—a proper prelude, as Henry the historian has justly observed, "to those scenes of blood and cruelty which fallowed in the long contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, occasioned by the fatal ambition of Henry IV."

"But the spectacle," justly observes Hume, "the most shocking to every one who retained any sentiment, either of honour or humanity, was to see the Earl of Rutland carrying on a pole the head of his brother-in-law. Lord Spenser, which he presented in triumph to Henry as a testimony of his loyalty. Rutland, soon after Duke of York, was, perhaps, the most infamous man, as he certainly was the greatest traitor, of the age."

A storm still lowered in the direction of France. Charles VI. had been deeply offended by the conduct of Henry on leaving France. Under pretence of visiting the Duke of Brittany, he had stolen away to make war on the son-in-law of Charles, the husband of his daughter Isabella. On hearing of the deposition of Richard, Charles was seized, it is said, with one of his frequent fits of insanity, and on recovering vowed to make instant war. The people of France eagerly seconded the intentions of the indignant monarch. Offers of military service were made by leaders of note, and troops were already on the march towards the coast. It was now that Henry, as we stated in the close of Richard's reign, made his offers of alliance. He proposed intermarriages on a most liberal scale. The