the duke of Glocester, in order to his trial; but the governor
returned for answer, that the duke had died suddenly of an apoplexy in
that fortress. Nothing could be more suspicious, from the time, than the
circumstances of that prince's death: it became immediately the
general opinion, that he was murdered by orders from his nephew: in the
subsequent reign, undoubted proofs were produced in parliament, that
he had been suffocated with pillows by his keepers:[**] and it appeared
that the king, apprehensive lest the public trial and execution of so
popular a prince, and so near a relation, might prove both dangerous and
invidious, had taken this base method of gratifying, and, as he fancied,
concealing, his revenge upon him. Both parties, in their successive
triumphs, seem to have had no further concern than that of retaliating
upon their adversaries; and neither of them were aware that, by
imitating, they indirectly justified, as far as it lay in their power,
all the illegal violence of the opposite party.

* Tyrrel, vol. iii. part ii. p. 968, from the records.

** Cotton, p. 399, 400. Dugdale, vol. ii. p. 171.

This session concluded with the creation or advancement of several
peers: the earl of Derby was made duke of Hereford; the earl of Rutland,
duke of Albemarle; the earl of Kent, duke of Surrey; the earl of
Huntingdon, duke of Exeter; the earl of Nottingham, duke of Norfolk; the
earl of Somerset, marquis of Dorset; Lord Spenser, earl of Glocester;
Rulph Nevil, earl of Westmoreland; Thomas Piercy, earl of Worcester;
William Scrope, earl of Wiltshire.[*] The parliament, after a session of
twelve days, was adjourned to Shrewsbury. The king, before the departure
of the members, exacted from them an oath for the perpetual maintenance
and establishment of all their acts; an oath similar to that which had
formerly been required by the duke of Glocester and his party, and which
had already proved so vain and fruitless.

{1398.} Both king and parliament met in the same dispositions at
Shrewsbury. So anxious was Richard for the security of these acts, that
he obliged the lords and commons to swear anew to them on the cross
of Canterbury;[**] and he soon after procured a bull from the pope,
by which they were, as he imagined, perpetually secured and
established.[***] The parliament, on the other hand, conferred on him
for life the duties on wool, wool-fells, and leather, and granted him,
besides, a subsidy of o