ed on board a ship which was lying in the river; and to be carried
over to Calais, where alone, by reason of his numerous partisans, he
could safely be detained in custody.[*] The earls of Arundel and Warwick
were seized at the same time: the malecontents so suddenly deprived of
their leaders, were astonished and overawed; and the concurrence of the
dukes of Lancaster and York in those measures, together with the earls
of Derby and Rutland, the eldest sons of these princes,[**] bereaved
them of all possibility of resistance.

A parliament was immediately summoned at Westminster; and the king
doubted not to find the peers, and still more the commons, very
compliant with his will. This house had in a former parliament given
him very sensible proofs of their attachment;[***] [15] and the present
suppression of Glocester's party made him still more assured of a
favorable election. As a further expedient for that purpose, he is also
said to have employed the influence of the sheriffs; a practice which,
though not unusual, gave umbrage, but which the established authority
of that assembly rendered afterwards still more familiar to the nation.
Accordingly, the parliament passed whatever acts the king was pleased
to dictate to them:[****] they annulled forever the commission which
usurped upon the royal authority, and they declared it treasonable to
attempt, in any future period, the revival of any similar commission:
they abrogated all the acts which attainted the king's ministers, and
which that parliament who passed them, and the whole nation had sworn
inviolably to maintain: and they declared the general pardon then
granted to be invalid, as extorted by force, and never ratified by the
free consent of the king.

* Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 90. Walsing. p. 354.

** Rymer, vol. viii. p. 7.

*** See note O, at the end of the volume.

**** The nobles brought numerous retainers with them to give
them*

Though Richard, after he resumed the government, and lay no longer under
constraint, had voluntarily, by proclamation, confirmed that general
indemnity, this circumstance seemed not, in their eyes, to merit any
consideration. Even a particular pardon, granted six years after to the
earl of Arundel, was annulled by parliament, on pretence that it had
been procured by surprise, and that the king was not then fully apprized
of the degree of guilt incurred by that nobleman.

The commons then preferred