“The fatal tragedy of the reign of King Richard II. was at length consummated by his murder at Pontefract Castle, February 14th, 1399-1400; for whether he died of grief, starvation, or by the weapon of Sir Piers Exton, his death cannot be called by any other name; though Henry of Lancaster was not yet so firmly seated on the throne as to prevent numerous insurrections throughout the realm, on behalf of the younger Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the legitimate heir to the crown. For about the year 1386, King Richard had appointed as his successor Roger Mortimer, the son of Edmond, second Earl of March, and Philippa his Countess, who was daughter and heiress to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, _third_ son of King Edward III.: whereas Henry of Lancaster was the son of John of Ghent, who was only _fourth_ son of that Monarch. One of the most famous of these insurrections, was that raised by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, which was overthrown by Sir Thomas Rokeby, Sheriff of York, at Horselwood, on February the 19th, 1407-1408. In which encounter, Lord Thomas Bardolf,--who is a character in Shakspeare’s ‘_Second Part of King Henry the Fourth_,’--was mortally wounded, and died soon afterwards; but being on the party of the Earl, his body was quartered as a traitor’s, and set up at several places, with the Earl’s, one of which was London Bridge. This you find identified by Thomas of Walsingham, in his ‘_Historiæ Angliæ_,’ page 419; for there he says, with considerable pathos: ‘The root of Percy dies in ruin wild! for surely this Nobleman was altogether the living stock of the Percy name; and of most of the various others who were lost in his defeat. For whose unhappy end the common people did not grieve the least; recalling that famous, glorious, and magnificent man, and applying to him the mournful song of Lucan, where he says, ‘But not his blood, his wounds did not so move Our grieving souls, or wake our weeping love,-- As that we saw, in many a town, appear His aged head transfixed on a spear.’ PHARSALIA, ix. 136. For his venerable head adorned with its silver locks, set upon a pole, was publicly carried through London, and regardlessly placed upon the Bridge.’ “Sir William Dugdale, in his ‘_Baronage_,’ volume i., page 683, says that Lord Bardolf’s head was erected over a gate at Lincoln; and this is partly supported by the Chronicle in the Harleian Collection, No. 565, page 68 a, which states that in the ninth year of Henry IV., ‘the Erle of Northumberland and y^e Lord Bardolf, which arysyn a yeynis y^e Kyng, were taken in y^e north cuntre, and be heded, and y^e hed of y^e forsaid Erle, and a quarter of y^e Lord Bardolf, were sent to London, and sett vp on London Brigge.’ Dugdale adds, however, from the authority of the Close Rolls, that Avicia, the widow of that Baron, was permitted by the King to take down his body and bury it.