Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/162

 present, willingly or unwillingly, at the marriage festivities in October 1396 near Calais. In the early months of 1397 mutual provocations followed swiftly upon one another. Gloucester may have prompted Haxey's petition in the January parliament in which Richard saw an attempt to repeat the coercion of 1386 [see ]. It was afterwards alleged by French writers favourable to Richard that Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick engaged in a conspiracy which aimed at the perpetual imprisonment of the king and his two elder uncles (Chronique de la Traison, pp. 3–7). But Richard himself did not attempt to bring home to them any such definite charge, and everything points to his having resolved upon their destruction, and taken them by surprise. He had at first intended to arrest them at a dinner, to which they were invited, but Gloucester, who was at Pleshey, excused himself on the plea of illness (Annales, p. 201). On the evening of 10 July, after the arrest of Warwick and Arundel, Richard, accompanied by the London trained bands, set off for Pleshey, which was reached early the next morning. Gloucester, who was perhaps really ill, came out to meet him at the head of a solemn procession of the priests and clerks of his newly founded college (, p. 130;, p. 345; Annales, pp. 203 sqq.) As he bent in obeisance, Richard with his own hand arrested him, and, leading the procession to the chapel, assured his ‘bel oncle’ that all would turn out for the best. According to another version, Gloucester begged for his life, and was told that he should have the same grace he had shown to Burley (Eulogium, iii. 372). After breakfast Richard set off with most of his followers, leaving Gloucester in charge of the Earl of Kent and Sir Thomas Percy, who conveyed him direct to Calais. The statement that he was first taken to the Tower sounds doubtful (, p. 345;, p. 542; Traison, p. 8). At Calais Gloucester was in the keeping of its captain, the Earl of Nottingham, a prominent partisan of the king. About the beginning of September it was announced (‘feust notifié,’ which surely implies more than mere report) both in England and in Calais that he was dead; the date given was 25 or 26 Aug., and the former is the day of his death entered on the escheat roll (Rot. Parl. iii. 431, 452;, p. 96; , ii. 172). It was therefore with intense surprise that Sir William Rickhill [q. v.], a justice of the common pleas, who by order of the king accompanied Nottingham to Calais on 7 Sept., heard on his arrival that he was to interview Gloucester and carefully report all that he should say to him. What made the matter more mysterious still, his instructions were dated three weeks before (17 Aug.) There is no reason to doubt Rickhill's account of his interview with Gloucester on 8 Sept. He took care to have witnesses, and his story was fully accepted by the first parliament of the next reign. It is obvious that Richard could not safely produce his uncle for trial in the forthcoming parliament, and there was only less danger in meeting the houses with a bare announcement of his death. Rickhill was introduced to his presence in the castle early on the morning of 8 Sept., and, in the presence of two witnesses, begged him to put what he had to say in writing and keep a copy. Late in the evening he returned, and Gloucester, before the same witnesses, read a written confession in nine articles, which he then handed to Rickhill. He admitted verbally that he had threatened the king with deposition in 1388 if the sentence on Sir Simon Burley were not carried out, and requested Rickhill to come back next day in case he should remember any omission. This he did, but was refused an audience of the duke by order of Nottingham (Rot. Parl. iii. 431–2). Parliament met on 17 Sept., and on the 21st a writ was issued to the captain of Calais to bring up his prisoner. Three days later he briefly replied that he could not do this because the duke was dead. On the petition of the lords appellant and the commons, the peers declared him guilty of treason as having levied arms against the king in 1387, and his estates consequently forfeited. His confession, which is in English, was read in parliament next day, but omitting, as Rickhill afterwards declared, those articles which were ‘contrary to the intent and purpose’ of the king. He admitted helping to put the king under restraint in 1386, entering his presence armed, opening his letters, speaking of him in slanderous wise in audience of other folk, discussing the possibility of giving up their homage to him, and of his deposition. But he declared that they had only thought of deposing him for two days or three and then restoring him, and that if he had ‘done evil and against his Regalie,’ it had been in fear of his life, and ‘to do the best for his person and estate.’ Since renewing his oath of allegiance on God's body at Langley he had never been guilty of fresh treason. He therefore besought the king ‘for the passion that God suffered for all mankind, and the compassion that he had of his mother on the cross and the pity that he had of Mary Magdalen,’ to grant him his mercy and grace. The confession is printed