ty could ever
forgive. His duchess, the daughter of Reginald Lord Cobham, had been
accused of the crime of witchcraft; and it was pretended, that there was
found in her possession a waxen figure of the king, which she and her
associates, Sir Roger Bolingbroke, a priest, and one Margery Jordan, of
Eye, melted in a magical manner before a slow fire, with an intention
of making Henry's force and vigor waste away by like insensible degrees.
The accusation was well calculated to affect the weak and credulous mind
of the king, and to gain belief in an ignorant age; and the duchess was
brought to trial with her confederates. The nature of this crime, so
opposite to all common sense, seems always to exempt the accusers from
observing the rules of common sense in their evidence: the prisoners
were pronounced guilty; the duchess was condemned to do public penance,
and to suffer perpetual imprisonment; the others were executed.[*] But
as these violent proceedings were ascribed solely to the malice of the
duke's enemies, the people, contrary to their usual practice in such
marvellous trials, acquitted the unhappy sufferers; and increased their
esteem and affection towards a prince who was thus exposed, without
protection, to those mortal injuries.

These sentiments of the public made the cardinal of Winchester and his
party sensible that it was necessary to destroy a man whose popularity
might become dangerous, and whose resentment they had so much cause to
apprehend. In order to effect their purpose, a parliament was summoned
to meet, not at London, which was supposed to be too well affected to
the duke, but at St. Edmondsbury, where they expected that he would
lie entirely at their mercy. As soon as he appeared, he was accused of
treason, and thrown into prison. He was soon after found dead in his
bed;[**] and though it was pretended that his death was natural, and
though his body, which was exposed to public view, bore no marks of
outward violence, no one doubted but he had fallen a victim to the
vengeance of his enemies.

* Stowe, p. 381. Holingshed, p. 622. Grafton, p. 687.

** Grafton, p. 597.

An artifice, formerly practised in the case of Edward II., Richard II.,
and Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Glocester, could deceive nobody. The
reason of this assassination of the duke seems, not that the ruling
party apprehended his acquittal in parliament on account of his
innocence, which, in such times, was seldom much