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lowed this resolute step, during which the king made a visit to Ireland, and by his affability and liberality conciliated many of the most powerful chiefs; but his popularity was marred by a peace with France and marriage with a French princess, as it was generally suspected that Calais and the Channel Islands were intended to be given up, as Brest and Cherbourg had already been. The duke of Gloucester took advantage of the discontents thus occasioned, and intrigued to regain his lost ascendancy, but the king was now directed by his half-brother, the earl of Huntingdon, a bold and cruel man, and the duke and his confederates were suddenly seized and put to death.

Richard now appeared firmly established on the throne, when a quarrel between the dukes of Norfolk and Hereford, who had aided him against his uncle, induced him to banish them both. Norfolk submitted to his sentence and died abroad, but his opponent (who had lingered in France, and had become duke of Lancaster by the death of his father,) soon returned with a few friends under pretence of claiming his inheritance, was joined by the Percies and others, seized the king on his return from a second expedition to Ireland, brought him captive to London, and procured his formal deposition, Sept. 30, 1399, after a troubled and inglorious reign of twenty-three years.

c Richard was very unpopular with the Londoners, who commonly styled him only Richard (or John) of Bordeaux, and affected to doubt his legitimacy. He had seized their charters and extorted money from them, and they had so great a share in his overthrow, that the people of the north afterwards spoke of Henry of Lancaster as only chosen by "the villeins of London."

Richard was then in the Tower, but the parliament soon after desired that he might be "kept secretly,” and so fully was this carried out, that he soon after disappeared, and nothing is certainly known of the time, place, or manner of his death, though it is quite clear that the received account that he was murdered at Pomfret by Sir Piers Exton is untrue, and that the body exposed at St. Paul's (March 12, 1400) was not his, but probably that of Maudelyn, a priest who bore a strong resemblance to him, and is believed to have been his natural brother.

The English writers of the period all speak vaguely on the subject of Richard's death, and acknowledge that reports of his being alive were long circulated, but they appear to have been too much under the influence of the usurping Lancastrians to venture to say more. From documents among the public records, of both England and Scotland, however, and the statements of Scottish and French chroniclers, it has been surmised with a high degree of probabilitye, that Richard escaped from Pomfret early in the year 1400, simultaneously with the rising in his favour of the earls of Huntingdon, Kent, Salisbury, and others, and found a shelter in Scotland, where he was visited by some of his friends in

Some say he was killed by Exton, some that he was starved to death, others that he starved himself; qualifying their accounts, however, with "as it is said," "according to common rumour," &c.

e This view of the matter was suggested by Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland; several eminent writers have dissented from it, but some of them were not aware of documents existing in the English Record Office, which at least establish Richard's escape from Pomfret; others allege that one Thomas Ward (whose name, however, does not occur in cotemporary writers) was employed to personate Richard, in order to embarrass the government of Henry.

1402, and in 1405 by Creton, an emissary of his wife, Isabella of France; that he was found by him in a state of mental imbecility, occasioned by grief for the tragical fate of his friends, and that the story of his murder at Pomfret was subsequently devised to serve the political views of the duke of Burgundy (the actual ruler of France in consequence of the illness of Charles VI.). That some one existed in Scotland who for many years was ordinarily taken for King Richard is evident from the accounts of the chamberlain of that kingdom, which speak of the expenses of the "custody of King Richard of England" as late as 1417; in the same year Henry V. alludes to the "mammet" (impostor) "of Scotland,” in a manner which is conceived to shew that the term was dishonestly employed; and several Scottish chroniclers speak of his death at Stirling in 1419: one saying he died " a beggar and out of his mind," and another giving his epitaph.

In 1382 Richard married Anne of Bohemia, sister of the emperor Wenceslaus, who exerted herself to calm the animosities and jealousies which reigned in his court, and thus earned the title of the "good Queen Anne;" she died in 1394, much lamented. Two years after he married Isabella, daughter of Charles VI. of France, a child of seven years of age, and thus put an end to

↑ After his deposition she returned to France, and though declared free from all matrimonial ties, on account of her youth, she, according to the French chronicles, manifested much affection for Richard ; she resolutely refused to acknowledge Henry of Lancaster as king, attempted more than once to land in England, or to join Richard in Scotland, and apparently only married the duke of Orleans (June, 1406) when deceived by a false account of his death. She died Sept. 13, 1409.

D d

the war which had now (with a few intervals of illobserved truce) for more than fifty years existed between the two nations. He left no issue.

Richard bore in the early part of his reign the arms of England quartered with those of France, but afterwards he impaled these with the bearings ascribed to Edward the Confessor.

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Various badges and devices are attributed to him; as the sun behind a cloud, the sun in splendour, the white hart couchant (inherited from his mother, Joan of Kent),

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the stump of a tree, and a white falcon; but this latter probably belongs to his queen Isabella.

The character of Richard was evidently weak rather than wicked. He was doubtless luxurious and extravagant, and he listened too readily to the evil counsels

of his half-brother, the earl of Huntingdon, and others, which cost the lives of his turbulent uncle Gloucester, and the earl of Arundel8; but towards some of his enemies he was far from acting with rigour, and that his conduct in private life was amiable may be justly inferred from the devoted affection with which he was regarded by both his consorts, and his personal attendants i.

A.D. 1377. Richard, grandson of Edward III., succeeds to the throne, June 22k; he is crowned at Westminster, July 16.

Richard Fitz-Alan, earl of Arundel, was the son of Richard, the grandson of the earl executed in the time of Edward II., and Eleanor, daughter of Henry, earl of Lancaster. He succeeded his father as earl in 1375, and like other nobles of the period served in France and Scotland, but he was chiefly remarkable for his valour and conduct at sea. He was for several years admiral and captain-general of the east, south, and west, gained several naval victories, and also captured Brest. The duke of Ireland attempted to depreciate his services, which induced him to join the duke of Gloucester in seizing the reins of government; he became thus personally obnoxious to the king, was deprived of his office, when the latter freed himself from restraint, and was afterwards involved in Gloucester's fall, being seized, tried, and beheaded, in Sept. 1397. His estates were shared among the royal favourites, (two of them were his sons-in-law,) and his son fled to the continent, but returning with Henry of Lancaster, was restored in blood in the first parliament of Henry IV. The earl was buried in the church of the Augustin Friars in London, and being a popular favourite, reports were spread of miracles wrought at his tomb.

Arms of earl of Arundel.

Henry of Lancaster, Archbishop Arundel, and the earl of Warwick may be named; it cannot be doubted that they were ready to take his life, yet he spared theirs.

iSeveral of these latter adhered to him in every change of fortune, and cheerfully suffered death in his cause.

* His regnal years are computed from this day.

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