It was the last public act of King Edward; this body so active and robust, this spirit so bold, this will so firm, had nevertheless undergone the effects of premature old age. The ministers were ranging themselves beside the Duke of Lancaster; the opposition was grouped around the young Prince Richard and the Princess of Wales; the old king was dying alone, with Alice Perrers. It is even said that she deserted him in his agony, after having taken the royal ring from him. The king lay in this isolation; the servants having dispersed in the manor of Shene, to plunder at their leisure. A monk entered, crucifix in hand; he approached the unhappy monarch, praying beside him, and supporting his expiring head until the last sigh. Thus died, on the 21st of June, 1377, the great Edward III., who had at one time appeared destined to unite upon his head the two crowns of France and England. He died alone, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, leaving to his grandson, a child, instead of the whole of Aquitaine, which he had received from his father, a few towns only upon that soil of France of which he claimed possession. The blood of the two nations had flowed during more than thirty years, and the struggle was as yet only at its beginning. {337} Chapter XII. Bolingbroke. Richard II. (1377-1398). Henry IV. (1398-1413). The little King Richard was much fatigued on the 16th of July, 1377; it was found necessary to place him in a litter to bring him back to the palace, after his coronation. All the former popularity of his grandfather Edward III., all the affection which his father the Black Prince had inspired, appeared to have accumulated upon his head, by reason of the fear and aversion which were felt towards John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. The prelates and barons assembled on the morrow of the coronation, and selected a council of regency of twelve members. The uncles of the king did not form part of this body, and John of Gaunt retired to his castle of Kenilworth; but several members of the council remained devoted to him, and his influence soon began to be complained of.