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ment by the hands of the Archbishop, they resolved to seize the person of King Richard the Second, and his brothers the Dukes of Lancaster and York, to commit them to prison, and cause the lords of the King's Council to be drawn and hanged. This plot, however, was divulged, it is said, by the Earl Marshal, and the apprehension of Arundel led to the family catastrophe, which with some little abridgment of the original authors is related as follows::

Apprehended under assurances of personal security, he was hurried to the Tower, and finally tried and condemned by the Parliament at Westminster.

On the feast of St. Matthew, Richard Fitz Alaine, Earl of Arundel, was brought forth to swear before the King and whole Parliament to such articles as he was charged with.* And as he stood at the bar, the Lord Nevile was commanded by the Duke of Lancaster, which sat that day as High Steward of England, to take the hood from his neck, and the girdle from his waist. Then the Duke of Lancaster declared unto him that for his manifold rebellions and treasons against the king's majesty, he had been arrested, and hitherto kept in ward, and now at the petitions of the lords and commons, he was called to answer such crimes as were there to be objected against him, and so to purge himself, or else to suffer for his offences, such punishment as the law appointed.

First he charged him that he had ridden in armour against the King in company of the Duke of Gloucester, and of the Earl of Warwick, to the breach of peace and disquieting of the realm.

His answer hereunto was, that he did not this upon any evil meaning towards the King's person, but rather for the benefit of the King and realm, if it were interpreted aright and taken as it ought to be.

It was further demanded of him, why he procured letters of pardon from the King, if he knew himself guiltless. He answered he did not purchase them for any fear he had of faults committed by him, but to stay the malicious speech of them that neither loved the King nor him.

of York and Lancaster, and commit them to prison; and also the lords of the King's Council they determined should be drawn and hanged. Such was the purpose which they meant to have accomplished in the August following. But the Earl Marshal, Arundel his son-in-law, discovered all to the King." Holinshed, 1. 448.

"He was arrayned," says the old picturesque chronicle," in a red gown and scarlet hood; and forthwith the Duke of Lancaster, John-of-Gaunt, said to the Lord Neville, Take from him his girdle

and hood, and so it was done; and herewith the appeal being to the said Earl declared, with a valyaunt and bolde minde he denies that he was a traytor, and required benefit of y pardon, protesting that he would not go from the benefit of the King and his grace. The Duke of Lancaster then said, Why didst thou purchase the pardon? The Earl answered, To the tongues of mine enemies, whereof thou art one. The Duke of Lancaster said, Thou traytor, this pardon is revoked. The Earl answered, Truely thou lyest, I never was a traytor."

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TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF RICHARD FITZALAN.

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He was again asked whether he would deny that he had made any such rade with the persons before named, and that in company of them he entered not armed unto the King's presence against the King's will and pleasure. To this he answered he could not deny it, but that he so did.

Then the speaker, Sir Johr Bushie, with open mouth besought that judgment might be had against such a traitor; and "your faithful commons," said he to the King," ask and require that so it may be done." The Earl, turning his head aside, quietly said to him, "Not the King's faithful commons require this, "but thou, and what thou art I know." Then the eight appellants standing on the other side, cast their gloves at him, and in prosecuting their appeal-which already had been read-offered to fight with him, man to man, to justify the same. "Then," said the Earl, " if I were at libertie, and that it might so stande with the pleasure of my sovereign, I would not refuse to prove you all liars in this behalfe."

Then spake the Duke of Lancaster, saying to him, "What have you further to say to the points laid before you?" He answered, that of the King's grace he had his letters of general pardon, which he required to have allowed. Then the duke told him that the pardon was revoked by the prelates and noblemen in Parliament; and therefore willed him to make some other answer.

The Earl told him again that he had another pardon under the King's great seal, granted him long after the King's own motion, which also he required to have allowed. The Duke told him that the same was likewise revoked. After this, when the Earl had nothing more to say for himself, the Duke pronounced judgment against him as in cases of treason is used.

But after he had made an end, and paused a little, he said, "The King our sovereign lord of his mercy and grace, because thou art of his blood, and one of the Peers of the realm, hath remitted all other pains, saving the last that is to say, the beheading, and so thou shalt only lose thy head ;”—and forthwith he was had away, and led through London, unto the Tower-hill. There went with him to see the execution done, six great lords, of whom there were three earls, Nottingham, that had married his daughter; Kent, that was his daughter's son; and Huntington, being mounted on great horses, with a great company of armed men, and the fierce bands of the Cheshiremen, furnished with axes, swords, bows and arrows, marching before and behind him, who only in this parliament had licence to bear weapon, as some have written. When he should depart the palace, he desired that his hands might be loosed to dispose of such money as he had in his purse, betwixt that place and Charing Cross. This was permitted; and so he gave such money as he had in alms with his own hands, but his arms were still bound behind him.

When he came to the Tower-hill, the noblemen that were about him moved him right earnestly to acknowledge his treason against the king. But he in no wise would do so; but maintained that he was never traitor in word nor deed; and herewith perceiving the Earls of Nottingham and Kent, that stood by with other noblemen, busy to further the execution, and being, as ye have heard, of kin, and allied to him, he spake to them, and said, “Truly it would have beseemed you rather to have been absent, than here at this business. But the time will come ere it be long, when as many shall marvel at your misfortune as do now at mine." After this, forgiving the executioner, he besought him not to torment him long, but to strike off his head at one blow, and feeling the edge of the sword, whether it was sharp enough or not, he said, "It is very well, do that thou hast to do quickly,"—and so kneeling down, the executioner with one stroke, strake off his head. "Then returned they that were at the execution and shewed the kinge merily of the death of the erle; but although the kinge was then merry and glad that the dede was done, yet after exceedingly vexed was he in his dremes." The Earl's body was buried, together with his head, in the church of the Augustine Friars in Bread-street, within the city of London.

The death of this earl was much lamented among the people, considering his sudden fall and miserable end, whereas, not long before among all the noblemen of this land, there was none more esteemed; so noble and valiant he was that all men spake honour of him.

After his death, as the fame went, the king was sore vexed in his sleep with horrible dreams, imagining that he saw this earl appear unto him, threatening him, and putting him in horrible fear, as if he had said with the poet to King Richard

"Nunc quoque factorum venio memor umbra tuorum,

In sequor et vultus ossea forma tuos.'

With which visions being sore troubled in sleep, he cursed the day that ever he knew the earl. And he was the more unquiet, because he heard it reported that the common people took the earl for a martyr, insomuch that some came to visit the place of his sepulture, for the opinion they had conceived of his holiness. And, when it was bruited abroad, as for a miracle, that his head should be grown to his body again, the tenth day after his burial; the king sent about ten of the clock in the night certain of the nobi

"The constancy of this Earl's courage," says Speed, "as well as his arraignement, passage, and execution, in which he did not discolour the honour of his blood with any degenerous word, look, or

action, encreased the envy of his death upon his his persecutors. That he was a traitor either in word or deed, he utterly did deny, and died in that denial."-Speed, 739.

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NIGHT SCENE.-FITZALAN'S TOMB

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lity to see his body taken up, that he might be certified of the truth. Which done, and perceiving it was a fable, he commanded the friars to take down his arms, that were set up about the place of his burial, and to cover the grave, so as it should not be perceived where he was buried.

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In less than two years, however, King Richard himself was a captive in the hands of his subjects Young Arundel and the son of the late Duke of Gloucester were appointed his keepers. "Here," said Lancaster, as he delivered Richard into their custody †, "here is the king; he was the murderer of your fathers; I expect you to be answerable for his safety."

During the first five years of Henry the Fourth, young Arundel, among other services, shared with his sovereign the reverses which attended his invasion of the Welsh frontier, and his campaign against

Owen Glendower.-But at length the scenes of the camp gave place to domestic festivities; and his approaching marriage with Donna Béatrice, daughter of John the First, king of Portugal, was publicly announced. Great preparations were made to receive the bride with all the honours due to her beauty and station; the royal palace and the earl's ancestral castle were sumptuously fitted up for her reception. She left Portugal with a splendid retinue, made a prosperous voyage, and arrived in London in the middle of November. On the twenty-sixth of the same month the solemnity took place in the Royal Chapel, where, in the presence of the King and Queen, Donna Béatrice gave her hand to the young Earl of Arundel.

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Their subsequent arrival at Arundel, and the rejoicings which there met the royal bride, may be better imagined than described. All that could add to the splendour of the gala was ingeniously arranged and displayed; and on her triumphant entry under the old Norman gateway of her husband's castle, Donna Béatrice might well confess that "the castled heights of Algarva were not so beautiful as the verdant hills, and embattled towers, of Arundel."

1411.

Among the personal exploits by which his brief career was subsequently distinguished, is the following. During the excitement which prevailed in France in consequence of the murder of the Duke of Orleans, "the author of that assassination, Charles Duke of Burgundy, now taking the alarm, applied to the English monarch for assistance." His request was instantly complied with; for Henry had "private motives which prompted him in this instance." Arundel, at the head of a strong body of archers and men-at-arms, was despatched to join the Burgundian leader, whom he met at Arras ; and thence directing their march upon the capital, arrived on the twentythird of October. The first point of attack was St. Cloud, where Arundel took charge of the assault, and marching his men to the bridge which here crosses the Seine, carried it by storm; took possession of the town with severe loss to the enemy, and returned with numerous prisoners, immense booty, and the thanks of the Burgundian chief.

The same Earl was also present at the siege of Harfleur, in the subsequent reign; and under both sovereigns held many distinguished posts of high trust and honour. But returning from the last campaign in ill health, he died at his paternal seat of Arundel, where a magnificent monument, quartered with the royal arms of Portugal, attests his virtues and patriotic services.

Of John Fitzalan, the eighth Earl, the public services and achievements, "during the French wars," are not sufficiently prominent to demand any special notice in these pages; but John Fitzalan, the ninth Earl, is justly celebrated for his abilities both as a soldier and a senator.

In the grand tournament which took place in the French capital in honour of the coronation of Henry the Fifth, the English monarch, there was a brilliant display of all that was most dazzling to the eye, and daring to the imagination. But at the close of the scenes in which the pride and prowess of chivalry were never more strikingly exemplified, Arundel + and the Comte de St. Pol, grand master of the household, were acknowledged to have carried away the prize from every competitor ‡.

"The next day after the coronation, were kepte triumphant joustes and tourneys, in which the Erle of Arondelle and the Bâtard de St Pol, by the judgement of the ladyes, wanne the prize." Holinshed. † Monstrelet, vii. 51.

The French historians bear ample testimony to his prowess:-" Le Comte d' Arondelle, Anglais de grande réputation, se mit en campagne pour prendre des places sur les Français.”—Dallaway, quoting Montfaucon, t. iii. 309.

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