It
had persevered to the end in the teeth of discouragements of all kinds,
and, even after his brother's death, Duke John dared not lift up his
hand against it so long as the session continued.

When the estates separated Lancaster threw off the mask. The king, sunk
in extreme dotage, was entirely in the hands of his unscrupulous son.
The old man was kept quiet by the return of Alice Perrers to court. She
had sworn on the rood never to see the king again, but the prelates
were "like dumb dogs unable to bark" against her; and no effort was
made to prosecute her for perjury. Latimer and Lyons returned from
their luxurious imprisonment in the Tower to their places at court. The
duke roundly declared that the late parliament was no parliament at
all. No statute was based upon its petitions, the council of twelve was
rudely dissolved, and Sir Peter de la Mare was imprisoned in Nottingham
castle. William of Wykeham was deprived of his temporalities, and the
rumour spread that his disgrace was due to his possession of a state
secret, revealed to him by the dying queen Philippa, that John of Gaunt
was no true son of the royal pair but a changeling. So timid was the
disgraced bishop that he vied with the weak primate in his subserviency
to Alice. The Earl of March, who was marshal of England, was ordered to
inspect the fortresses beyond sea, whereupon, fearing a plot to
assassinate him, he resigned his office, "preferring," says a friend,
"to lose his marshal's staff rather than his life". The powerful
north-country lord, Henry Percy, who had hitherto acted with the
opposition, was bribed by the office of marshal to join the Lancastrian
party.

Grave difficulties still beset the government, and in January, 1377,
John of Gaunt had to face another parliament. Every precaution was taken
to pack the commons with his partisans. Of the knights of the shire of
the Good Parliament only eight were members of its successor,[1] while
in the place of the imprisoned De la Mare, Sir Thomas Hungerford,
steward of the Duke of Lancaster, was chosen Speaker, on this occasion
by that very name. A packed committee of lords was assigned to advise
the commons. In these circumstances it was not difficult to procure the
reversal of the acts against Alice Perrers and Latimer, and the grant of
a poll tax of a groat a head. The only measure of conciliation was a
general pardon, a pretext for which was found in the jubilee of the
king's accession. From