h for
mercy such as this. Clouds no sooner gathered round the new king than the
degraded lords leagued with the Earl of Salisbury and the deposed Bishop
of Carlisle to release Richard and to murder Henry. Betrayed by Rutland in
the spring of 1400, and threatened by the king's march from London, they
fled to Cirencester; but the town was against them, its burghers killed
Kent and Salisbury, and drove out the rest. A terrible retribution
followed. Lord Spenser and the Earl of Huntingdon were taken and summarily
beheaded; thirty more conspirators fell into the king's hands to meet the
same fate. They drew with them in their doom the wretched prisoner in
whose name they had risen. A great council held after the suppression of
the revolt prayed "that if Richard, the late king, be alive, as some
suppose he is, it be ordained that he be well and securely guarded for the
safety of the states of the king and kingdom; but if he be dead, then that
he be openly showed to the people that they may have knowledge thereof."
The ominous words were soon followed by news of Richard's death in prison.
His body was brought to St. Paul's, Henry himself with the princes of the
blood royal bearing the pall: and the face was left uncovered to meet
rumours that the prisoner had been assassinated by his keeper, Sir Piers
Exton.

[Sidenote: Revolt of Wales]

In June Henry marched northward to end the trouble from the Scots. With
their usual policy the Scottish army under the Duke of Albany withdrew as
the English crossed the border, and looked coolly on while Henry invested
the castle of Edinburgh. The wants of his army forced him in fact to raise
the siege; but even success would have been fruitless, for he was recalled
by trouble nearer home. Wales was in full revolt. The country had been
devoted to Richard; and so notorious was its disaffection to the new line
that when Henry's son knelt at his father's feet to receive a grant of the
Principality a shrewd bystander murmured, "He must conquer it if he will
have it." The death of the fallen king only added to the Welsh disquiet,
for in spite of the public exhibition of his body he was believed to be
still alive. Some hold that he had escaped to Scotland, and an impostor
who took his name was long maintained at the Scottish Court. In Wales it
was believed that he was still a prisoner in Chester Castle. But the
trouble would have died away had it not been raised into revolt by the
energy of Owen