en they learnt that Richard had surrendered
Brest and Cherbourg to the French. It was true that these places had
been pledged to him for money, and that he had only given them up as
he was bound to do when the money was paid, but his subjects drew no
fine distinctions, and fancied that he was equally ready to surrender
Calais and Bordeaux.

10. =Richard's Coup d'Etat. 1397.=--Richard knew that Gloucester was
ready to avail himself of any widespread dissatisfaction, and that he
had recently been allying himself with Lancaster against him. To
please Lancaster, who had married his mistress, Catherine Swynford, as
his third wife, Richard had legitimatised the Beauforts, his children
by her, for all purposes except the succession of the crown, thus
giving personal offence to Gloucester. Lancaster's son Derby, and
Nottingham, another of the lords appellant (see p. 279), were now
favourable to the king, and when rumours reached Richard that
Gloucester was plotting against him, he resolved to anticipate the
blow. He arrested the three of the lords appellant whom he still
distrusted, Gloucester, Warwick, and Arundel, and charged them before
Parliament, not with recent malpractices, of which he had probably no
sufficient proof, but with the slaughter of his ministers in the days
of the Merciless Parliament. Warwick was banished to the Isle of Man,
Arundel was executed, and Gloucester imprisoned at Calais, where he
was secretly murdered, as was generally believed by the order of the
king. Archbishop Arundel, brother of the Earl of Arundel, was also
banished. In such contradiction was this sudden outburst of violence
to the prudence of Richard's recent conduct, that it has sometimes
been supposed that, he had been dissimulating all the time. It is more
probable that, without being actually insane, his mind had to some
extent given way. He was always excitable, and in his better days his
alertness of mind carried him forward to swift decisions, as when he
met the mob at Smithfield, and when he vindicated his authority from
the restraint of his uncle. Signs had not been wanting that his native
energy was no longer balanced by the restraints of prudence. In =1394=
he had actually struck Arundel in Westminster Abbey. In =1397= there
was much to goad him to hasty and ill-considered action. The year
before complaints had been raised against the extravagance of his
household. The peace which he had given to his country was made the
subje