A quarrel arises among the leaders of the French expedition, which causes the design to be laid aside.

The earl of Arundel captures a large Flemish fleet, near Sluys, March 24.

The duke of Lancaster is obliged to retire to Gascony, having lost nearly his whole army, mainly by sickness.

The king obtains an opinion from the judges (Tresilian, Belknap, Holt, Fulthorp, and Burgh,) at Nottingham, Aug. 25, that the commission of regency is illegal, and all who act under it traitors.

He returns to London in November, when the duke of Gloucester and his partisans take up arms, and accuse the king's councillors of treason; they seize the Tower, and imprison or banish all their opponents.

The duke of Ireland escapes, and raises a force in Cheshire, but is defeated and put to flight at Radcot Bridge, in Oxfordshire, Dec. 20.

The king issues a commission to seize the books of John Wickliffe and others described as heretics.

A.D. 1388. A parliament meets, Feb. 3, when articles of treason are exhibited against the king's favourites; they do not appear, but are condemned as traitors, Feb. 13d.

Several of the judges who had condemned the council of regency, are sentenced to death, but imprisonment for

The appellants were the duke of Gloucester, the earls of Derby, Arundel, Warwick, and the Earl Marshal.

d Sir Robert Tresilian and Sir Nicholas Brembre were captured and executed, Feb. 19 and 20. The archbishop of York and the bishop of Chichester were banished, the first to Flanders, where he died in May, 1392, the other to Ireland, where he received the bishopric of Kilmore from the pope; De Vere and De la Pole had already escaped to the continent, where they both died.

life in Ireland is substituted, Feb. 13; Sir Simon Burley and three other knights are executed, May 5 and 12.

The Scots under the earl of Douglas besiege Newcastle; they are driven off by Henry Percy, son of the earl of Northumberland; Percy pursues them to Otterburn, near Wooller, where a battle is fought, Aug. 10, in which Douglas is killed, and Percy taken prisoner d.

The duke of Lancaster marries his daughter Catherine to Henry, son of the king of Castile, and thus closes his Spanish wars.

A.D. 1389. A truce concluded with France, to last till Aug. 16, 1392.

The king takes the government into his own hands, May 3; the duke of Lancaster returns to England shortly after, and effects a seeming reconciliation between the king and the duke of Gloucester.

A.D. 1390. The duchy of Aquitaine granted to the duke of Lancaster for his life.

Robert II. of Scotland dies April 19; his son John succeeds, and takes the title of Robert III. f

The jurisdiction of the constable, marshal, and admiral defined by statute [13 Rich. II. c. 2, 5.].

Uniformity of weights and measures established by statute, except in Lancashire," where they have by custom larger measure than elsewhere," [13 Rich. II. c. 9.].

a The famous ballad of Chevy Chase is founded on this battle, but full poetic licence is taken with regard to the incidents of the struggle. • William of Wykeham again became chancellor, but finally resigned the office Sept. 21, 1391.

Robert III was a cripple, and he committed the charge of the realm to his brother Robert, duke of Albany.

A.D. 1391. The king's prerogatives acknowledged by parliament not to have been affected by the late changes, Dec. 28.

A.D. 1392. A truce with France is arranged, to last till Michaelmas, 1393.

The charters of the Londoners are forfeited, owing to tumults in the city, but are soon restored.

A.D. 1393. Severe penalties denounced on persons endeavouring to evade the statutes against papal provisions, [16 Rich. II. c. 5.].

A.D. 1394. A four years' truce concluded with France, May 27.

The king goes to Ireland, is favourably received there, and holds a parliament.

The Lollards present a bold remonstrance to the parliament, complaining of the wealth and power of the clergy. A.D. 1396. The king marries Isabella, the daughter of the king of France, and a truce for twenty-five years is agreed toj.

This declaration appears on the Parliament Roll, in the usual form of a prayer of the prelates, lords temporal and commons, to which the king, thinking their request "honest and reasonable," fully agrees and assents.

The king wished to borrow money of them, but they positively refused, and even murdered an Italian merchant who would have lent it to him.

i The writ in execution of process under this statute commences with the word "Præmunire," (probably for præ monere,) whence that term came to designate the offence of upholding a foreign power against the crown; it was afterwards also applied to offences of very different kinds by which like penalties were incurred.

In consequence, Brest was given up to the duke of Britanny, as Cherbourg had been while the treaty was being negotiated, which, added to a suspicion that Calais and the Channel Isles were to be surrendered to the French, rendered the king more unpopular than before, and encouraged his uncle Gloucester to form anew traitorous designs.

The duke of Gloucester engages in plots to recover his lost ascendancy.

A.D. 1397. The judges Belknap, Holt, and Burgh, are allowed to return from Ireland*, [20 Rich. II. c. 6 ]. The duke of Gloucester, and the earls of Arundel (Richard Fitz-Alan) and Warwick (Thomas Beauchamp) are seized by the king's command, and a parliament summoned for their trial.

The charges against Gloucester and his associates were preferred (as appears by the Parliamentary Roll) by Edward, earl of Rutland, Thomas, earl of Kent, John, earl of Huntingdon, Thomas, earl of Nottingham, John, earl of Somerset, John, earl of Salisbury, Thomas, lord Despenser, and William Scrope, the king's chamberlain. William Rikhill, one of the judges, was sent to visit Gloucester at Calais, who brought back with him a very full confession of the duke's misdeeds, made by him Sept. 8; in it he acknowledges that he has in many ways acted unlawfully, but solemnly affirms that it was "never in his intent, or will, or thought," to harm the king's person, and prays for mercy in most urgent terms: "Therefore I beseech my liege and sovereign lord the king, that he will of his high grace and benignity accept me to his mercy and his grace, as that I put my life, my body, and my goods wholly at his will, as lowly and meekly as any creature can do or may do to his liege lord; beseeching his high lordship that he will, 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 Maudeleyne, vouchsafe to have

compassion and pity, and accept me to his mercy and his grace, as he hath ever been full of mercy and grace to all his lieges, and to all others, that have not been so nigh unto him as I have been, though I be unworthy1."

The parliament meets Sept. 17. The commission of regency" is declared illegal, and all pardons granted to those who had acted under it cancelled [21 Rich. II. c. 12.]. The archbishop of Canterbury (Thomas Arundel, brother of the earl, and chancellor), is banished; the earl of Arundel beheaded, Sept. 21; the earl of Warwick condemned, but his life spared"; the duke of Gloucester having in the meantime come to an untimely death at Calais.

The king confers higher titles on the chief actors in the late changes".

The county of Chester erected into a principality, with the addition of several adjoining districts in Shropshire and Wales [21 Rich. II. c. 9P.]

1 According to the confession of one John Hall, who was executed shortly after the accession of Henry IV., the duke was removed from the castle at Calais, soon after the judge had left, and was carried to a house in the town, where he was smothered; this appears to have been done on his own responsibility by the earl marshal, (Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham,) who, when called on to produce his prisoner before the parliament, simply replied, that being in the king's prison at Calais, he had died there.

m

See p. 410. By a subsequent statute, attempting to procure the reversal of the acts of this parliament was declared to be treason [21 Rich. II. c. 10.3.

"He was imprisoned in the Isle of Man for a time, then brought to the Tower, where he remained until the landing of Henry, duke of Lancaster.

• The earls of Derby, Rutland, Kent, Huntingdon and Nottingham were created dukes of Hereford, Albemarle, Surrey, Exeter, and Norfolk; the earl of Somerset was made marquis of Dorset ; and the lords Despenser, Nevill, Thomas Percy and William Scrope, earls of Gloucester, Westmoreland, Worcester and Wiltshire.

This statute was repealed by 1 Hen. IV. c. 3.