soul. He was buried where he died, in the Abbey of
Merton--far from his home, far from his mother's tears and his father's
grave. It was always the lot of the hapless buds of the White Rose to
be scattered in death.

There was only one person at Cardiff who did not mourn bitterly for its
young Lord. To his sister Isabel, the inheritance to which she now
became sole heiress--the change of her title from "Lady Isabel de
Beauchamp" to "The Lady Le Despenser"--were amply sufficient
compensation to outweigh the loss of a brother. But little Alianora
wept bitterly.

"Ay me! what a break is this in our Lady's line!" lamented Maude to
Bertram. "God grant it the last, _if_ His will is!"

It was only one funeral of a long procession.

The Issue Roll for Michaelmas, 1413 to 1414, bears two terribly
significant entries--the expenses for the custody of Katherine Mortimer
and her daughters, who were "in the King's keeping"--and the costs of
the funerals of the same persons, buried in Saint Swithin's Church,
London. This was the hapless daughter of Owain Glyndwr, the wife of
Edmund Mortimer, uncle of the Earl of March. A mother and two or more
daughters do not usually require burial together, unless they die of
contagious disease. Of course that may have been the case; but the
entry looks miserably like a judicial murder.

Stirring events followed in rapid succession. Lord Cobham escaped
mysteriously from the Tower, and as mysteriously from an armed band sent
to apprehend him by Abbot Heyworth of Saint Albans. Old Judge Hankeford
made his anticipated visit to South Wales, and ceremoniously paid his
respects to the Lady of Cardiff, whose associations with his name were
not of the most agreeable order. With the new year came the unfortunate
insurrection of the political Lollards, goaded to revolt partly by the
fierce persecution, partly by a chivalrous desire to restore the beloved
King Richard, whom many of them believed to be still living in Scotland.
Wales and its Marches were their head-quarters. Thomas Earl of
Arundel--son of a persecutor--was sent to the Principality at the head
of an army, to "subdue the rebels;" Sir Roger Acton and Sir John
Beverley, two of the foremost Lollards of the new generation, were put
to death; and strict watch was set in every quarter for Lord Cobham,
once more escaped as if by miracle.

And then suddenly came another death--this time by the distinct and
awful sentence of God Almigh