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DE BOHUN. 217
that he was instigated thereto by the Duke of Norfolk and Edward
Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland (afterwards Duke of York), who assured him
that " the King had given charge that he should be smothered," and that
the Duke of Gloucester was brought to a " certain hostel called Prince's
" Inn," and there smothered between two feather beds.
His body was conveyed to Fleshy for burial in a tomb which he had
prepared during his lifetime, and, later, removed to Westminster Abbey,
and interred upon the south side of the shrine of Edward the Confessor.
He left one son, who was imprisoned by the King in the castle of
Trim in Ireland, and who died at Chester, on his way to London, after his
release by Henry IV.
Anne, his daughter, married two brothers in succession, Thomas and
Edmund, Earls of Stafford, by the latter of whom she had a son, the
ancestor of a long line of Dukes of Buckingham and ; thirdly, William Bouchier,
Earl of Eu in Normandy, from whom the late Duke of Buckingham,
and many others, have derived their claim to bear the Plantagenet arms.
Lady Eleanor, his widow, died a nun, 3rd October, 1399, having survived
her sister five years, thankfully seeking refuge in the cloister from
troubles and sorrows which, common to all stations and all times, seem
specially sharp and bitter in the rough times of which we are speaking.
The property at Enfield was inherited by her sister Mary, and thus
became vested in the Crown, and annexed to the Duchy of Lancaster.
In the reign of Henry VIII., the house was retained as a royal residence.
Here Edward VI. was living while Prince of Wales, and was hailed
by the Scottish prisoners, after the defeat of Solway Firth, as the future
husband of the infant Princess Mary of Scotland, eventually the unfortunate
Mary Queen of Scots.
Truly " man proposes and God disposes." How differently would the
history of England have been written had this project come to pass ;
had
that young, precocious life been spared to ascend the throne of England ;
had that frivolous, but not unkindly, nature been united to one whose
vigorous character and strong religious convictions might have influenced
her for good, and saved her from the unhappy
life which afterwards
awaited her, from her weakness under the temptations of unprincipled
and designing libertines, and from the hard, rancorous persecutions of
narrow-minded, intolerant men.
From hence Edward went to London on his accession to the throne.
The Earl of Hertford dates his letter to the Council "From Envild this
"Sunday night att xj. of the clok," and says, "We intend the King's
" Ma't'e shall be a-horsbak to-morrow by xj. of the clok, so that by iij. we
" trust his Grace shall be att the town."
Here, when Edward was dead, the same Earl of Hertford confidentially
communicated to the Master of the Horse his intention to assume the