hich he was never to leave alive.

The guilty fears of Henry were not unfounded; but perhaps the judicial
murder of Lord Wiltshire at Bristol quickened the action of the little
band, now again reduced to six. They met quietly at Oxford in December,
to concert measures for King Richard's release and restoration,
resolving that in case of his death they would support the title of
March. But there was a seventh person present, whom it is
incomprehensible that any of the six should have been willing to trust.
This was Aumerle, vexed with the loss of his title, and always as ready
to join a conspiracy at the outset as he was to play the traitor at the
close. The extraordinary manner in which this man was always trusted
afresh by the friends whom he perpetually betrayed, is one of the
mysteries of psychological history. His plausibility and powers of
fascination must have been marvellous. An agreement was drawn up,
signed by the six, and entrusted to Aumerle (who cleverly slipped out of
the inconvenience of signing it himself), containing promises to raise
among them a force estimated at 8,000 archers and 300 lance-men, to meet
on the fourth of January at Kingston, and thence march to Colnbrook,
where Aumerle was to join them.

On the day appointed for the meeting at Kingston, Aumerle, attired in a
handsome furred gown, went to dine with his father. The Duchess appears
to have been absent. Aumerle carried the perilous agreement in his
bosom, and when he sat down to dinner, he pulled it forth, and
ostentatiously placed it by the side of his silver plate. The six seals
caught the old Duke's eye, as his son intended they should; and his
curiosity was not unnaturally aroused.

"What is that, fair son?" inquired his father.

Aumerle ceremoniously took off his hat--then always worn at dinner--and
bowed low.

"Monseigneur," said he obsequiously, "it is not for you."

Of course, after that, York was determined to see it.

"Show it me!" he said impatiently; "I will know what it is."

Aumerle must have laughed in his traitor heart, as with feigned
reluctance he handed the document to his father. York read it through;
and then rose from the table with one of his stormy bursts of anger.

"Saddle the horses!" he shouted forth to the grooms at the lower end of
the hall. And, turning to his son,--"Ha, thou thief! False traitor!
thou wert false to King Richard; well might it be looked for that thou
shouldst be false to t