an impeachment against Fitz-Alan, archbishop
of Canterbury, and brother to Arundel, and accused him for his
concurrence in procuring the illegal commission, and in attainting the
king's ministers. The primate pleaded guilty; but as he was protected
by the ecclesiastical privileges, the king was satisfied with a sentence
which banished him the kingdom, and sequestered his temporalities.[*]
An appeal or accusation was presented against the duke of Glocester,
and the earls of Arundel and Warwick, by the earls of Rutland, Kent,
Huntingdon, Somerset, Salisbury, and Nottingham, together with the lords
Spenser and Scrope, and they were accused of the same crimes which had
been imputed to the archbishop, as well as of their appearance against
the king in a hostile manner at Haringay Park. The earl of Arundel, who
was brought to the bar, wisely confined all his defence to the pleading
of both the general and particular pardon of the king; but his plea
being overruled, he was condemned and executed.[**]

* Cotton, p. 368.

** Cotton, p 377. Froissard, liv. iv. chap. 90. Walsing. p.
354.

The earl of Warwick, who was also convicted of high treason, was, on
account of his submissive behavior, pardoned as to his life, but doomed
to perpetual banishment in the Isle of Man. No new acts of treason were
imputed to either of these noblemen. The only crimes for which they were
condemned, were the old attempts against the crown, which seemed to be
obliterated both by the distance of time and by repeated pardons.[*] The
reasons of this method of proceeding it is difficult to conjecture. The
recent conspiracies of Glocester seem certain from his own confession;
but perhaps the king and ministry had not at that time in their hands
any satisfactory proof of their reality; perhaps it was difficult to
convict Arundel and Warwick of any participation in them; perhaps an
inquiry into these conspiracies would have involved in the guilt some of
those great noblemen who now concurred with the crown, and whom it was
necessary to cover from all imputation; or perhaps the king, according
to the genius of the age, was indifferent about maintaining even the
appearance of law and equity, and was only solicitous by any means to
insure success in these prosecutions. This point, like many others in
ancient history, we are obliged to leave altogether undetermined.

A warrant was issued to the earl mareschal, governor of Calais, to bring
over