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 account for subsidies entrusted to him, and his temporalities were seized into the king's hands. The more sober judgement of the time was, however, that the blame should fall mainly on those officers who had set the example of mutiny in the army, and some of them were condemned to imprisonment (Rot. Parl., Cotton MS. Titus E. II, printed by Kervyn de Lettenhove, notes to, x. 517-33; , Hist, Angl. ii. 108 et seq.; Malverne, pp. 25 et seq.).

At the same time, from the first Despenser's crusade had raised a loud outcry against him on the part of Wycliffe and his followers, Wycliffe wrote a special tract against it—the 'Cruciata, contra bella Clericorum' (Polemical Works, ii. 588-632, ed. R. Buddensieg, London, 1883)—during the time that the crusade was on foot, and he repeatedly refers to the subject in terms of severe reprobation elsewhere in his writings (e.g. 'De fundat. Sectarum,' ii., l.c. i. 19; De dissens. paparum, ib. ii. 574; 'De Christo et suo advers. Satans,' xi., ib. p. 682; Serm. ciii. in 'Select English Works,' ii. 166, ed. T. Arnold, 1871; 'The Church and her Members,' v., ib. iii. 349; 'Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars,' xxiv., ib. pp. 385 et seq.; 'Expos, of Matth.' xxiv., MS. ap. F. D. Matthew, notes to Wyclif's 'Select English Works' pp. 491, 511, &c. Cf. 's John Wiclif, pp. 408-19, Engl. transl., ed. 1884). But even orthodox monks like the author of the 'Eulogium Historianum' considered Despenser 'magis militari levitate dissolutus quam pontificali maturitate solidus.'

Still the bishop remained high in King Richard's favour. He accompanied him in July 1385 in his march northward to repel the French invasion of Scotland (, p. 62), and in the autumn parliament of that year he was restored to his temporalities, 24 Oct. (, p. 69;, l.c.), when the good offices of Bishop Arundel of Ely were successful against the objections raised by the chancellor, Michael de la Pole (, Angl. Hist. ii. 141). Once more Despenser returned to arms, taking part in the naval expedition of the Earl of Arundel against the Flemish coast, 1386-7 (, xi. 361 et seq.) In 1388, after the impeachment of Sir Simon Burley by the 'merciless' parliament, Despenser is found in the royal council (, xii. 259). As an indication of his religious attitude it is noted that he alone among the English bishops took active steps to suppress lollardy in 1389 (, Hist. Angl. ii. 189; Ypodlgma Neustniæ p. 360).

On the appearance of the future king, Henry IV, in 1399, Despenser was among the few who stood loyally by Richard II. He was with the Duke of York at Berkeley in July, and when York came to terms he remained firm, was arrested, and suffered imprisonment ( p. 152; Bodleian MS. Dodsworth 116, in appendix E to the Chronique de la trahison et mort de Richart II, p. 292, ed. B. Williams, 1846). Adam of Usk (p. 42), however, places his imprisonment in the following year, and connects it with the bishop's supposed complicity in the plot in which his brother Thomas, lord Gloucester, was concerned. In any case he was not reconciled to the new king until the parliament of 1401 (, Constit. Hist. of Engl. vol. iii. § 306). He died 23 Aug.1406 (Reg. Arundel. ap. Le Neve, l.c.), and was buried in Norwich Cathedral before the high altar, with a brass inscription now destroyed (, Hist. of Norfolk, ii. 372).

[The chief authorities for Despencer's crusade are Froissart's Chroniques, x. 205-55, 265-73, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, with the editor's valuable notes, pp. 505-33; Walsingham's Historia Anglicana, ii. 84-6, 88-96, 98-104, ed. H. T. Riley, 1864; and his Ypodigma Neustriæ, pp.336-338, ed. Riley, 1876; Chronicon Angliae, 355-8, ed. E. M. Thompson, 1874; J. Malverne's contin. of Higden's Polychronicon, ix. 16-23, ed. J. R. Lumby, 1886; Monach. Evesham. Vita Regis Richardi II, pp. 44-8, ed. Hearne. 1729; Knyghton De Eventibus Angliae in Twysden's Scriptores Decem, pp. 2671-4, Eulogium Historiarum, iii. 356 et seq., ed. F. S. Haydon, 1863; royal instruments. &c., in Rymer's Fœdera, iv 157, 164, 168-72, Record edit.; see also Adam of Usk. Chr. pp. 6, 42, ed. E. M. Thompson, 1876, and the life of the bishop by Capgrave, De illustribus Henricis, pp. 170-4, ed. F. C. Hingeston, 1858. The account of Jean Juvenal des Ursins (a. 1383, in Michaud and Poujonlat's Nouv. Coll. de Mem, is quite legendary.)

 DESPENSER, HUGH (d. 1265), justiciary of England, was of somewhat uncertain parentage. Dugdale thought he might be grandson of the Hugh le Despenser who occurs as a sheriff and custodian of castles between 1224 and 1237. The future justiciary is first mentioned in 1256, when Harestan Castle in Derbyshire was entrusted to him (Pat. 40 Hen. II, m. 20). In 1257 he accompanied Richard, the newly elected king of the Romans, to Germany. Returning to England the following year, he was one of the twelve representatives elected by the barons in the parliament of Oxford (June 1258) to the council of twenty-four (Annals of Burton, p. 447). He was also, by the same 'Provisions of Oxford,' named as one of the twelve commissioners for the barons in parliament ('les duze ke sunt eslu 