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This was an unusual concession; and though it was limited in the object, might, either immediately or as a precedent, have proved dangerous to the constitution; but the cause of that extraordinary measure was an event singular and unexpected, which engaged the attention of the parliament.

After the destruction of the duke of Glocester and the heads of that party, a misunderstanding broke out among those noblemen who had joined in the prosecution; and the king wanted either authority sufficient to appease it, or foresight to prevent it. The duke of Hereford appeared in parliament, and accused the duke of Norfolk of having spoken to him, in private, many slanderous words of the king, and of having imputed to that prince an intention of subverting and destroying many of his principal nobility.[**] Norfolk.. denied the charge, gave Hereford the lie, and offered to prove his own innocence by duel. The challenge was accepted: the time and place of combat were appointed: and as the event of this important trial by arms might require the interposition of legislative authority, the parliament thought it more suitable to delegate their power to a committee, than to prolong the session beyond the usual time which custom and general convenience had prescribed to it.[***]

The duke of Hereford was certainly very little delicate in the point of honor, when he revealed a private conversation to the ruin of the person who had intrusted him; and we may thence be more inclined to believe the duke of Norfolk’s denial, than the other’s asseveration. But Norfolk had in these transactions betrayed an equal neglect of honor, which brings him entirely on a level with his antagonist. Though he had publicly joined with the duke of Glocester and his party in all the former acts of violence against the king.

     ** Cotton, p. 372. Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 490.

     *** In the first year of Henry VI., when the authority of
     parliament was great, and when that assembly could least be
     suspected of lying under violence, a like concession was
     made to the privy council from like motives of convenience.
     See Cotton, p. 564. his name stands among the appellants who
     accused the duke of Ireland and the other ministers, yet was
     he not ashamed publicly to impeach his former associates for
     the very crimes which he had concurred with them in
     committing; and his name increases the list of those
     appellants who brought them to a trial. Such were the
     principles and practices of those ancient knights and
     barons, during the prevalence of the aristocratical
     government, and the reign of chivalry.

The lists for this decision of truth and right were appointed at Coventry before the king: all the nobility of England banded into parties, and adhered either to the one duke or the other: the whole nation was held in suspense with regard to the event; but when the two champions appeared in the field accoutred for the combat, the king interposed, to prevent both the present effusion of such noble blood, and the future consequences of the quarrel. By the advice and authority of the parliamentary commissioners, he stopped the duel; and to show his impartiality, he ordered, by the same authority both the combatants to leave the kingdom;[*] assigning one country for the place of Norfolk’s exile, which he declared perpetual, another for that of Hereford, which he limited to ten years.

     * Cotton, p. 380. Walsing. p. 356.

Hereford was a man of great prudence and command of temper; and he behaved himself with so much submission in these delicate circumstances, that the king, before his departure, promised to shorten the term of his exile four years; and he also granted him letters patent, by which he was empowered, in case any inheritance should in the interval accrue to him, to enter immediately in possession, and to postpone the doing of homage till his return.

The weakness and fluctuation of Richard’s counsels appear nowhere more evident than in the conduct of this affair. No sooner had Hereford left the kingdom, than the king’s jealousy of the power and riches of that prince’s family revived; and he was sensible that by Glocester’s death he had only removed a counterpoise to the Lancastrian interest which was now become formidable to his crown and kingdom. Being informed that Hereford had entered into a treaty of marriage with the daughter of the duke of Berry, uncle to the French king, he determined to prevent the finishing of an alliance which would so much extend the interest of his cousin in foreign countries; and he sent over the earl of Salisbury to Paris with a commission for that purpose.

1399.

The death of the duke of Lancaster, which happened soon after, called upon him to take new resolutions with regard to that opulent succession. The present duke, in consequence of the king’s patent, desired to be put in possession of the estate and jurisdictions of his father; but Richard, afraid of strengthening the hands of a man whom he had already so much offended, applied to the parliamentary commissioners, and persuaded them that this affair was but an appendage to that business which the parliament had delegated to them. By their authority he revoked his letters patent, and retained possession of the estate of Lancaster; and by the same authority he seized and tried the duke’s attorney, who had procured and insisted on the letters, and he had him condemned as a traitor for faithfully executing that trust to his master;[*] an extravagant act of power! even though the king changed, in favor of the attorney, the penalty of death into that of banishment.

Henry, the new duke of Lancaster, had acquired by his conduct and abilities the esteem of the public; and having served with distinction against the infidels in Lithuania, he had joined to his other praises those of piety and valor, virtues which have at all times a great influence over mankind, and were, during those ages, the qualities chiefly held in estimation.[**] He was connected with most of the principal nobility by blood, alliance, or friendship; and as the injury done him by the king might in its consequences affect all of them, he easily brought them, by a sense of common interest, to take part in his resentment. The people, who must have an object of affection, who found nothing in the king’s person which they could love or revere, and who were even disgusted with many parts of his conduct[***] easily transferred to Henry that attachment which the death of the duke of Glocester had left.

     * Tyrrel, vol. iii. part ii. p. 991, from the records.

     ** Walsing. p. 343.

     *** He levied fines upon those who had ten years before joined
     the duke of Glocester and his party: they were obliged to
     pay him money, before he would allow them to enjoy the
     benefit of the indemnity; and in the articles of charge
     against him it is asserted that the payment of one fine did
     not suffice. It is indeed likely that his ministers would
     abuse the power put into their hands; and this grievance
     extended to very many people. Historians agree in
     representing this practice as a great oppression. See
     Otterborne, p. 199. without any fixed direction. His
     misfortunes were lamented the injustice which he had
     suffered was complained of; and all men turned their eyes
     towards him as the only person that could retrieve the lost
     honor of the nation, or redress the supposed abuses in the
     government.