Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/240

 in the church of Notre-Dame in the presence of his master. Nottingham took them to a hostel called Prince's Inn, and there left them. Gloucester was handed over to them by John Lovetot, who was also a witness to the duke's confession made to Rickhill, and he was suffocated under a feather bed. Hall was at once condemned, without being produced, and executed; and when Serle, one of the others mentioned, was captured in 1404 he met the same fate (, ii. 171 ; Ann. Henrici IV, p. 390). This not altogether satisfactory evidence was adopted, with some additions of their own, by the Lancastrian chroniclers (Ann. Ricardi II, p. 221 ; Ann. Henrici IV, p. 309 ;, ii. 226, 228, 242 ; , pp. 161-2 ; Cont. Eulogii, iii. 373). But Nottingham's guilt is not proved, though the balance of evidence is against him.

Nottingham's services, whatever their extent, were rewarded on 28 Sept. by a grant of the greater part of the Arundel estates in Sussex and Surrey, and of seventeen of the Earl of Warwick's manors in the midlands (, i. 129). The commons representing to the king that Derby and Nottingham had been ' innocent of malice ' in their appeal of 1388, Richard vouched for their loyalty (Rot. Parl. iii. 355). On 29 Sept. Nottingham was created Duke of Norfolk, and his grandmother, Margaret, countess of Norfolk, was at the same time created Duchess of Norfolk for life (ib. iii. 355, iv. 273;, p. 141 ; , p. 17). The statement of one authority that Richard at the same time gave him the earldom of Arundel must doubtless be referred to the grant of the estates of that earldom (Cont. Eulogii, iii. 377).

But new wealth and honours did not render Norfolk's position inviolable. The king was vindictive by nature, and had not forgotten that Norfolk was once his enemy; he afterwards declared that the duke had not pursued the appeal of his old friends with such zeal as those who had never turned their coats (Rot. Parl. iii. 383). At the same time the inner circle of the king's confidants the Earl of Kent, now Duke of Surrey, Sir William le Scrope, now Earl of Wiltshire, and the Earl of Salisbury were (Norfolk had reason to suspect) urging the king to rid himself of all who had ever been his enemies. Norfolk is said to have confided his fears to Hereford as they rode from Brentford to London in December 1397 (ib. p. 382). Richard was informed of Norfolk's language ; obtained from Hereford, who probably was jealous of Norfolk's dignities and power, a written account of the interview with Norfolk, and summoned both parties to appear before the adjourned parliament, which was to meet at Shrewsbury on 30 Jan. 1398 (ib. ; Cont. Eulogii, iii. 379). Hereford seems to have accompanied the king on his way to Shrewsbury, for on 25 Jan. Richard at Lilleshallgave him a full pardon for all treasons or other offences of which he might have been guilty in the past (Fœdera, viii. 32). Norfolk did not appear to answer the charges which Hereford, on Wednesday, 30 Jan., presented against him, and on 4 Feb. the king ordered the sheriffs to proclaim that he must appear within fifteen days (ib.) The story, one of several common to Adam of Usk and the French authorities, that Norfolk had laid an ambush for Hereford on his way to Shrewsbury, and which has passed into Holinshed and Shakespeare, if it is not entirely baseless, must be referred to some earlier occasion (, pp. 22, 129 ; Chronique de la Trahison;, Richard II, act i. sc. i. ; cf. , p. 57). Meanwhile it had been settled, on 31 Jan., that the matter should be left to the king, with the advice of the committee appointed by parliament to deal with unfinished business (Rot. Parl. ii. 382). At Oswestry, on 23 Feb., Norfolk was present, and gave a full denial to the charges, and it was settled and confirmed by the king in council at Bristol that unless sufficient proofs of his guilt were discovered in the meantime the matter should be referred to a court of chivalry at Windsor, to be held on Sunday, 28 April (ib. ; Fœdera, viii. 35-6 ; cf., p. 23). The court met at Windsor on the date fixed, and next day decided that the matter should be settled by trial of battle at Coventry on 16 Sept. (Rot. Parl. iii. 382). The lists were prepared in a place surrounded by a ditch, outside Coventry, and on the appointed day the combatants duly appeared (, p. 23). They were both magnificently arrayed, Norfolk, we are told, having secured his armour from Germany, and Hereford's being a present from Gian Galeazzo of Milan (Archæologia, xx. 102 ;, p. 23). But Hereford was much the more splendid, having seven horses diversely equipped (ib.) Before they had joined issue, however, the king took the battle into his own hands, on the ground that treason was in question, and that it was undesirable that the blood royal should be dishonoured by the defeat of either (Rot. Parl. iii. 383). Richard then decided that inasmuch as Norfolk had confessed at Windsor to some of the charges which he had repelled at Oswestry, and was thus self-convicted of conduct which was likely to have roused great trouble in the