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and as it were undesignedly, lead us to infer that he was a distinguished example of affability and courteousness; still not usually a man of many words; clear in his own conception of the subject of conversation or debate, and ready in conveying it to others, yet peculiarly modest and unassuming in maintaining his opinion, listening with so natural an ease and deference, and kindness to the sentiments and remarks and arguments of others, as to draw into a close and warm personal attachment to himself those who had the happiness to be on terms of familiarity with him. Certainly the unanimous voice of Parliament ascribed to him, when engaged in the deeper and graver discussions involving the interests and welfare of the state, qualities corresponding in every particular with these representations of individual chroniclers. The glowing, living language of Shakspeare seems only to have recommended by becoming and graceful ornament, what had its existence really and substantially in truth.

      Hear him but reason in divinity,

       And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

       You would desire the King were made a prelate:

       Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

       You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study:

       List his discourse in war, and you shall hear

       A fearful battle render'd you in music:

       Turn him to any cause of policy,

       The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

       Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,

       The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

       And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

       To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.

      Soon after Richard reached Dublin, the Duke of Albemarle, Constable of England, arrived with a large fleet, and with forces all ready for a campaign: but he came too late for any good purpose, and better had it been for Richard had he never come at all. His advice was the king's ruin. Richard with his army passed full six weeks in Dublin, in the free enjoyment of ease and pleasure, altogether ignorant of the terrible reverse which awaited him. In consequence of the uninterrupted prevalence of adverse winds, his self-indulgence was undisturbed by the news which the first change of weather was destined to bring. Through the whole of this momentous crisis the weather was so boisterous that no vessel dared to brave the tempest. On the return of a quiet sea, a barge arrived at Dublin upon a Saturday, laden with the appalling tidings that Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had returned from exile and was carrying all before him; supported by Richard's most powerful subjects, now in open rebellion against his authority; and encouraged by the Archbishop, who in the Pope's name preached plenary absolution and a place in paradise to all who would assist the duke to recover his just rights from his unjust sovereign. The King grew pale at this news, and instantly resolved to return to England on the Monday following. But the Duke of Albemarle advised that unhappy monarch, fatally for his interests, to remain in Ireland till his whole navy could be gathered; and in the mean time49 to send over the Earl of Salisbury. That nobleman departed forthwith, (Richard solemnly promising to put to sea in six days,) and landed at Conway, "the strongest and fairest town in Wales."

      Either before the Earl of Salisbury's departure, or as is the more probable, towards the last of those eighteen days through which afterwards, to the ruin of his cause, Richard wasted his time (the only time left him) in Ireland, he sent for Henry of Monmouth, and upbraided him with his father's treason. Otterbourne minutely records the conversation which is said then to have passed between them. "Henry, my child," said the King, "see what your father has done to me. He has actually invaded my land as an enemy, and, as if in regular warfare, has taken captive and put to death my liege subjects without mercy and pity. Indeed, child, for you individually I am very sorry, because for this unhappy proceeding of your father you must perhaps be deprived of your inheritance." 'To whom Henry, though a boy, replied in no boyish manner,' "In truth, my gracious king and lord, I am sincerely grieved by these tidings; and, as I conceive, you are fully assured of my innocence in this proceeding of my father."—"I know," replied the King, "that the crime which your father has perpetrated does not attach at all to you; and therefore I hold you excused of it altogether."

      Soon after this interview the unfortunate Richard set off from Dublin to return to his kingdom, which was now passing rapidly into other hands: but his two youthful captives, Henry of Monmouth, and Humfrey, son of the late Duke of Gloucester, he caused to be shut up in the safe keeping of the castle of Trym.50 From that day, which must have been somewhere about the 20th of August, till the following October,51 when he was created Prince of Wales in a full assembly of the nobles and commons of England, we have no direct mention made of Henry of Monmouth. That much of the intervening time was a season of doubt and anxiety and distress to him, we have every reason to believe. Though he had been previously detained as a hostage, yet he had been treated with great kindness; and Richard, probably inspiring him with feelings of confidence and attachment towards himself, had led him to forget his father's enemy and oppressor in his own personal benefactor and friend. Richard had now left him and his cousin (a youth doubly related to him) as prisoners in a solitary castle far from their friends, and in the custody of men at whose hands they could not anticipate what treatment they might receive. How long they remained in this state of close and, as they might well deem it, perilous confinement, we do not learn. Probably the Duke of Lancaster, on hearing of Richard's departure from Dublin, sent off immediately to release the two captive youths; or at the latest, as soon as he had the unhappy king within his power. On the one hand it may be argued that had Henry of Monmouth joined his father before the cavalcade reached London, so remarkable a circumstance would have been noticed by the French author, who accompanied them the whole way. On the other hand we learn from the Pell Rolls that a ship was sent from Chester to conduct him to London, though the payment of a debt does not fix the date at which it was incurred.52 We may be assured no time was lost by the Duke, by those whom he employed, or by his son; at all events that Henry was restored to his father at Chester (a circumstance which would be implied had Richard there been consigned to the custody of young Humphrey), is not at all in evidence. The far more reasonable inference from what is recorded is, that Humphrey, his young fellow-prisoner and companion, and near relative and friend, was snatched from him by sudden death at the very time when Providence seemed to have opened to him a joyous return to liberty and to his widowed mother. There is no reason to doubt that the news of Richard's captivity, and the Duke of Lancaster's success, reached the two friends whilst prisoners in Trym Castle; nor that they were both released, and embarked together for England. Where they were when the hand of death separated them is not certainly known. The general tradition is, that poor Humphrey had no sooner left the Irish coast than he was seized by a fever, or by the plague, which carried him off before the ship could reach England. But whether he landed or not, whether he had joined the Duke or not before the fatal malady attacked him, there is no doubt that his death followed hard upon his release. His mother, the widowed duchess of his murdered father, who had moreover never been allowed the solace of her child's company, now bereft of husband and son, could bear up against her affliction no longer. On hearing of her desolate state, excessive grief overwhelmed her; and she fell sick and died.53

      It is impossible to contemplate these two youthful relatives setting out from the prison doors full of joy, and happy auguries, and mutual congratulations, in health and spirits, panting for their dearest friends,—one going to a princedom, and a throne, and a brilliant career of victories, the other to disease and death,—without being impressed with the wonderful acts of an inscrutable Providence, with the ignorance and weakness of man, and with the resistless will of the merciful Ruler of man's destinies. Even had young Humphrey foreseen his dissolution, then so nigh at hand, as the gates of Trym Castle opened for their release, he might well have addressed his companion in words once used by the prince of Grecian philosophers at the close of his defence before the court who condemned him. "And now we are going, I indeed to death, you to life; to which of the two is the better fate assigned is known only to God!"54

      Since this page was first written, the Author has been led to examine the Pell Rolls;55 and he is induced to confess that, independently of the full confirmation afforded by those original documents to numberless facts referred to in these Memoirs, many an interesting train of thought is suggested by the inspection of them. The bare and dry entries

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