est. Then they spurred on to
Cirencester. On reaching the city gate, Surrey, with his usual
impulsive eagerness, shouted to the Constable, "Arm for King Richard!"
The Constable, supposing that "the luck had turned," obeyed; but the
next morning brought an archer from Henry, who must have discovered or
guessed whither the fugitives had gone. Surrey received Henry's message
and messenger with sovereign contempt; but the Constable, finding that
Henry was still in power, immediately went over to the winning side, and
there was a town riot. The peers had taken up their temporary abode in
an inn, which was surrounded and besieged by the mob. Surrey, impetuous
as usual, rushed to the window to address the mob. He was received with
a shower of arrows. His friends sprang forward to rescue him; but time
and the things of time were over for the young, dauntless, gallant
Surrey. They could only lay him gently down on the rushes to breathe
out his life. It was a sad end. Fairest and almost highest of the
nobles of England, of royal blood, of unblemished character, of great
wealth, and only twenty-five--to die on the floor of an inn, in a mob
riot!

But what was to become of the rest? Exeter's fertile brain suggested a
way of escape.

"Quick--fire the rushes! And then ope the back windows, and drop down
into the fosse."

It is manifest from the circumstances, that the back windows of the inn
opened from the town wall upon the ditch which ran round it, and which
in all probability was filled with water. John Maudeleyn gathered a
handful of the rushes, with which he set fire to the room in two or
three places. The five who remained--Exeter, Salisbury, Le Despenser,
and the two Maudeleyns,--then dropped down from the window, swam across
the fosse, and fled into the fields, where the scattered relics of their
own army were advancing to join them. But Exeter's idea had been a
shade too brilliant. He frightened by the fire not only his foes, but
his friends.

His troops fancied that Henry had come up, and was burning Cirencester;
and, panic-stricken, they dispersed in all directions. The five parted
into three divisions, and fled themselves.

They fled to death.

Exeter set out alone. His destination was Pleshy, whence he meant to
escape to France. But the angel of death met him there in the guise of
a woman, Joan Countess of Hereford, mother-in-law of Henry, and sister
of Archbishop Arundel. She had never forgi