dismal picture of this period in the provinces bordering British Aquitaine, which is fully supported by the account of Froissart. The Gruiennese said, "No; we are much better off as we are. The English leave us in possession of our liberties and our property; if we unite ourselves to the French, we shall get French treatment. No, that would not do for us. True, the Londoners have deposed King Richard and set up King Henry; but what matters that to us? So long as the king leaves us as we are, with our trade with England in wine, wool, and cloth, we are much better off than plundered by the French." So greatly had the public feeling in Guienne changed since the days of the Black Prince and his desolating expeditions.
These dangers from abroad being thus happily dissipated, a movement was made by the Royal Council, undoubtedly originated by Henry for ascertaining the fate of the deposed king. The late insurrection had shown the perils resulting from the presence of the true king—though in strict concealment—to the usurper. So long as Richard remained alive would attempts be made by his partisans to restore him; and, however popular Henry might be for a time, he was too well versed in human nature not to be aware that any cause of offence on his part, any heavy imposition or restriction of liberty, however necessary, would immediately turn the public mind to the dethroned monarch, and operate in his favour. These considerations, we have every reason to believe, had led to his immediate destruction. From the day that he had been left in the Tower after his formal abdication, the most profound mystery had covered his existence. There were many stories of his being, like Edward III., conveyed secretly from one castle to another by his keepers. It was said that he had been kept some time in Leeds Castle in Kent, and thence removed to Pontefract. But no one really know where he was, or how he was treated. But now news had reached the court of France that Richard was really dead, and the council of Henry, as if of their own accord, placed a minute on their book to this effect:—"It seemeth expedient to the council to speak to the king, that in case Richard, lately king, &c., be still alive, he be put in safe keeping, in conformity with the advice of the lords; but if he be departed this life, that then he be shown openly to the people, that they may have the knowledge of it."
The answer to this, as intended, was the showing openly the body, which was brought up from Pontefract Castle with considerable funeral pomp, namely, in a carriage drawn by two horses, one placed before the other. The carriage was covered with black cloth, having four banners emblazoned with the arms of St. George and St. Edward. It was attended by 100 men all clad in black, and was met on its approach to the city by thirty Londoners dressed in white and bearing torches. King Henry himself walked in procession, bearing a corner of the pall.
But this public exposition, so far from having satisfied the public mind of Richard's death, was the fruitful source of continued rumours of his existence, and perpetuated the very effects which Henry intended it to dispel—repeated revolts for his restoration. So strong was the belief that Richard was still alive and even at liberty, and that this was a mere mock funeral, and the corpse that of some other person, that in our own time Mr. Tytler, in his History of Scotland, vol. vii., p. 279, has taken up the theory, and produced new and curious evidence in its favour. It will explain much that we shall meet with in this reign to take a cursory review of this evidence.
The accounts of Richard's death, given by contemporary writers, are chiefly three. Walsingham asserts that he died in Pontefract Castle on the 14th of February, 1399, from voluntary starvation, having fallen into a profound melancholy on hearing of the failure of the insurrection on his behalf, and the execution of his half-brother, John Holland, and the rest of his friends. Thomas of Otterburn confirms this account, except that he adds that Richard being persuaded at length to take food by his keepers, found the orifice of his stomach closed from long abstinence, and perished in consequence. The chronicle of Kenilworth, the chronicle of Peter de Ickham in the Harleian collection, and Hardyng, assert that he was starved to death, by his keepers.
The story of his assassination by Sir Piers Exton and his eight ruffians is found in a French manuscript work in the Royal Library at Paris, and is repeated by Fabyan, Hall, and Haywood. The account of Fabyan is that followed by Shakespeare, which has given it a firm and world-wide hold on the public mind. All these accounts concur in the fact that the murder of Richard, in whatever shape it took place, occurred in Pontefract Castle. Tradition has had but one constant voice, also fixing it there, and in 1643 three gentlemen of Norfolk visiting that castle record that they were shown the highest of seven towers, called "the round tower," as the one in which Richard fled round a post in combat with his butchers; and they add, "Upon that post the cruel hackings and fierce blows do still remain."
The reasons for rejecting all these accounts brought forward by Mr. Tytler are these. In the first place, the public at the time were extensively of opinion that the body shown as Richard's was not his, but most probably that of Maudelain, his kinsman and chaplain, a man so strikingly resembling him, that we have seen the conspirators lead him forth with them to personate the king. There was nothing shown of the body but the face, and that only from the eyebrows to the chin. Undoubtedly there were strong reasons of some kind for this concealment. If the body were Maudelain's, though the features might bear out the resemblance, the hair would dispel the illusion, for Richard's was well known from its peculiar yellow hue. No hair was visible, and, so far, the idea of the substitution of another corpse was favoured. But the concealment of the head was equally suspicious, even were the body Richard's. It showed that there was something there which could not boar examination. If Richard died by violence, there would be upon the head the traces of it. That there was something to conceal was further strengthened by the fact that Henry did not allow the body to be deposited in the royal vault at Westminster, nor in the vault of the Black Prince, Richard's father, at Canterbury, but had it privately, conveyed to Langley, a favourite retreat of
