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THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
But I doubt whether the lot of her elder sister, Eleanor, was more
enviable, for her life, if prolonged, must have been a very troubled one.
On November i2th, 1385, Richard II. made his uncle, her husband,
Duke of Gloucester, by girding him with a sword and placing a cap upon
his head, at Hoselow Lodge in Tividale.* But his ambitious disposition
caused him to take advantage of the dissatisfaction created by his nephew's
indolent, low, and dissolute habits.
He courted the friendship of every one actuated by private resentment
and disappointment, and encouraged the vulgar prejudices of those
who compared the military glories of the late reign with the sensuous
inactivity of the present. According to Froissart, he proposed to Roger
Mortimer, Earl of March, whom Richard had declared his successor, to
place him at once on the throne ; and, when he declined the project, he
resolved to divide the kingdom between himself, his two brothers, and
the Earl of Arundel.
His treason, of course, leaked out, and King Richard, becoming
acquainted with his designs, acted for once with something like his father's
promptitude, though with a treachery alien to his generous nature.
He rode over from Havering-atte-Bower, as it were on a hunting
party, and came to Fleshy, where the duke resided, about five o'clock.
The duke, who had just newly supped, hearing of his coming, met him,
with the duchess and children, in the court, and ordered a table to be
prepared for the King's supper. In the course of the meal the King
casually informed his uncle of a great gathering of the Londoners about
to take place the following day, when the Dukes of Lancaster and York
would be present, and at which he desired his counsel. He invited him
to ride on with him that night to London, leaving his steward to follow
with his train, so that they might discuss the matter on the way together.
The unsuspecting Duke complied, and, with only seven servants, accompanied
the King.
Richard rode at a rapid pace, avoiding the ordinary road, and taking
the route by Bondelay and Stratford. When near the latter place, he set
spurs to his horse, leaving
his uncle behind. At the same moment the
Earl Marshal with a band of men appeared from an ambuscade, seized
him (calling in vain upon the King, who rode on unheeding), carried him
to the river close by, placed him on board a ship which was lying in the
Thames, and conveyed him to Calais.
There he was immured in the castle, and, Froissart says, murdered
one night after dinner by four men " suddenly casting a towel round his
" neck and strangling him."
John Hall, a servant of the Earl Marshal, who was afterwards hanged
at Tyburn in the ist year of Henry IV., for his share in the matter, declared
* Hurke's Extinct ami Dormant Pcfrage.