Boe THE MASTER OF GAME his shockingly cruel execution, Edward sent two of his own servants to assist in the assassination of Gloucester. Be this as it may, Edward received much of the latter’s lands, and with them the title of Duke of Aumarle or Albemarle, as wellas considerable portions of Arundel’s and Warwick's estates. As Constable of England he attended Richard on his last expedition to Ireland in 1399 According to many historians Edward’s reputation as an arch-plotter was of the Blaeleet Hume speaks of him as “this infamous man,” who became a traitor to his associ than one occasion, and gloried in the most savage reprisals. instrumental in the murder of his uncle, the Duke of Glouceste on a pole, the head of one of his victims, Lord le Despe exaggerated some of these harsh criticisms may have been, there can be no doubt that his conduct towards Richard, his abandonment of the latter’s cause at Milford after the landing of Henr Bolingbroke, was a treacherous act. Monstrelet relates that the Count of St. Pol, who ean oe Maud Holand, half-sister of Richard u., ordered Rutland’s effigy in his coat armour to be sus- pended, the feet uppermost, from a gibbet near the gate of Calais. That Shakespeare took the same view of Edward is known to every reader of the immortal bard’s Richard 7, for our author is the hero of the dramatic incident when Edmund of York discovered the plot which his son Edward was hatching against the new King (January 1400), and of the race that father and son rode to Windsor. Though perhaps hardly necessary to point out, there is Shakespeare’s mzse-en-scéne when he makes the Duchess of York, cousin,” be present at the memorable scene before Henry 1 for six years. The father’s curse of vill the malediction shrieked out at Edward execution at Oxford.” Edward in consequence of his plotting was deprived of the Constableship, of Aumarle, as well as of all the lands bestowed upon him during th reign, and, according to some authorities, feeling against him at Henry’s first Parlia intense, twenty gages (Wylie in his him, and he had to thank the King fo as to the extent of Edward’s treacher contending that had his conduct be followed so speedily. ates on more Thus we are told that after being r, Edward carried in his own hands, nser, his brother-in-law, However a curious inaccuracy in mother “of my dangerous v. at Windsor, for she had been dead ain and traitor hurled at his son’s head was but an echo of by the tortured Sir Thomas Blount at his blood-curdling of his title as Duke e last two years of Richard’s he was imprisoned for a short time at Windsor. The ment as the supposed murderer of Gloucester was most “ History of Henry rv.” says forty) were thrown down to r the mildness of his punishment. Not all historians agree y at this period, those that would take a milder view of it en so vile the reconciliation with the King would not have It is certain that in the following December Edward again took part at the Privy Council, and two months later Henry renewed King Richard’s grant of Okeham and the 1 “Trais. de Rich. 11.,” P- 139, states that this occurred in 1397. * The account of this savage exe cution, carried out on the lines that had been “ invented ” for the punishment of the informer Halle, which is given in the contemporary ‘‘ Chronicque de la Traison de Richard 11.,” gives a striking picture of the time, and as such may be worth quoting : “Sir Th. Blount and Sir Benet Shelley were drawn from Oxford unto the place of executi @ [from the Carmelite Abbey where the Kin - Co ee eae a ‘ & lodged], and there they were hung ; they then cut them down and made €m speak, and placed them before a large fire. Then came the executioner with a razor in his hand, and kneeling down before Sir ae a who had his hands tied, begged his forgiveness for putting him to death, for he was obliged to perform his office. ‘ Are you he,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘ who will deliver me from this world ?’ ‘y 1 The executioner replied : es, my lord, I beg you to pardon me.’ The lord then kissed him and forg ave him. The executioner had with him ; etween the fire and the lords unbuttoned Sir Thomas, and ripped open his stomach and tied the bowels with i of whipcord, that the breath of the heart might not escape, and cast the bowels into the fire. As Sir Thomas was thus seated before the fire, his bowels burning before him, Sir Thomas Erpingham cure you... ,’ to which the good knight replied, suffering as he was: ‘ Art Thou art more false than I am or ever was, and thou liest, false knight as thou art... itor the Earl of Rutland the noble knighthood of England is destroyed. Cursed be the ee n. I pray to God to pardon my sins, and thou traitor Rutland and thou false Erpingham y oth to answer before the face of Jesus Christ, for the great treason that you two have committed against our eee ae oe king Richard and against his noble knighthood.’ The executioner then asked him if he would drink. ; Tepiled, _ you have taken away wherein to put it, thank God’; and then he begged the executioner to deliver fa ag this world, for it did harm to see the traitors. The executioner kneeled down and Sir Thomas having kissed m, the executioner cut off his head and quartered him and parboiled the quarters.” : “Now, go and seek a master who will thou the traitor Erpingham ? for by thee and by the false tra: hour when thou and he were bor Xx] THE AUTHORSHIP in restoring i jament of January 1401, i is heirs male, while the Parliam g ee Ity in strong terms. As a further proof of we ee x ter to the important post © trued as a sign that such a shrievalty of to him his good name and estate, asserted his lo in hi i ix months la King’s restored confidence in him, he was aoe : ee i a Tettenant of Aquitaine, but this may, on the re er E turbulent spirit was deemed safer out of England. ’ ’ Z , Edward set sail for Guienne on September 23 1401! In the Trinite de a Tour and It 1S : ns s and arms he took with him there were: 2 large ae : le stuf, i.e., 40 lbs. of powder, 40 stones (cannon ba s), fe ye es 1 peire de suffles, 20 pelottes pur les cannons. interesting to note that among the store and 1 small cannon, “pur pelottes with tampons, 2 touches (for firing off the pieces (Wylie, iv. 232.) In the following event and of his succession to t August his father, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, died, the news of the 5 he dukedom reaching Edward in Aquitaine. rae On hi to England in the following year he received (November 29, 1403) - a ae ee f Lieutenant of South Wales. His Welsh command broug ye : panne ie ail cee: s a very ungrateful task, for he was kept a ae i of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and other eo eae i: aan pret es He had to sell and pledge his d silver plate i = his soldiers, and in June 1404 we hear he was at apemne we oh ne the abbot, to whom he pledged all his estates in roe ne : oe ne = imiti : é conducted, and at what a lo eo eee sue etne ert e be cited. For the garrison of this strong- ee the ae quoted by Wylie (vol. ii. p. 7), it appears that the requisite arms i i i > basnets from London by cart va Bristol. The articles sent consisted of breast plates, : en r six men-at-arms, together with six arblasts (cross- ment t oe lot of desultory fighting and was in some resp strong places being s v oleaxes, &c., fo : anbraces gauntlets, lances, Pp i bows) a a dlaes with a belt, two small cannon costing 12S. each, 40 lbs. of gunpowde nha cask , dS and a bag, 40 bows, 80 sheaf of aoe 2000 quarrels (crossbow bolts), and 12 dozen bowstrings i ees ee of £3433 scraped together from the customs receipts at ee and Southampton, at last reached him,, but the mischief was Bae ee wre done, his discontent at this treatment proving too strong for his loyalty, and he mone is sis ca Lady le Despenser, in her attempt to carry off from Windsor Castle their two ae om Mortimers, the elder of whom was the heir-presumptive to the throne. The plot faile 1, a one hatched by the same dangerous plotter to assassinate the King while he was holding his alti Court some weeks previously. Both Edward and Lady le Despenser WE arrested and brought before the Council at Westminster (February 17, 1405), where a dramatic scene ensued, for Lady le Despenser denounced her brother as the chief instigator of the plot. At first the icici: appears to have been the centre of the conspiracy, “tried his old familiar methods and denied a knowledge of the affair.” Lady le Despenser called vehemently for a champion to do battle for her, offering that if he should be worsted in the lists on her behalf, she would give herself up to be burnt alive. An esquire, William Maidstone, took up her cause and flung down his hood to the Duke in the presence of the King. The Duke accepted the challenge, but, as Wylie remarks, he was a fat man and probably would have got the worst of the encounter. A more prosaic course was pursued. The Duke was arrested by his cousin Prince Thomas, the King’s son, and taken to the Tower. The Council met again on March 1, and when the Duke was brought up he confessed not only that he had a knowledge of the whole plot, but that he himself supplied the King with the means of thwarting it. Possibly there may have been some truth in this defence, but anyhow he was sent as a prisoner to Pevensey Castle and all his estates in England and the Channel Islands were confiscated by the Crown. Historians have pointed out that Henry tv.’s policy towards members of the royal house that were mixed up in treasonable plots was always one of mercy, and this instance certainly showed none of that inhuman vindictiveness that marked the treatment of * In 1404 the soldiers received the following pay : bannerets 4s., knights 2s. 3d., esquires Is., and archers 6d. per day.