[Footnote 173: His friends and retainers spread strange reports throughout the north, of the King's death; and, assembling in great force, held the castles of Berwick, Alnwick, and Warkworth against the royal authority. The Earl of Westmoreland, Warden of the West March, therefore requested to be supplied with cannon and other means of assault to reduce these fortresses. The proceedings are given in detail among the Acts of the Privy Council, but do not call for a minute examination here.] [Footnote 174: Walsingham says expressly, it was on the morrow of St. Lawrence, August 11th.] [Footnote 175: On the 15th, he issues a proclamation for an array, to meet him at Worcester, on the 3rd of September at the latest, to proceed against Owyn.] [Footnote 176: It was on his return towards Wales that the military recommended Henry (then much in need of money) to take from the bishops their horses and gold, and send the prelates home on foot. The Archbishop resisted the outrage in a manly speech; and the King prayed a benevolence, which the clergy granted.] After these acts of grace and pardon to Lord Douglas, Northumberland, and all others who were joined to Sir Henry Percy, we should not expect to find a charge substantiated of wanton and brutal cruelty and vengeance on the part of the King against the corpse of that gallant knight. Such a charge, however, is brought in the most severe terms which language can supply in the manifesto said to have been made by the Archbishop of York. The fact of Hotspur's exhumation may be granted, and yet the King's memory may remain free from such a charge.[177] That the body was buried, and afterwards disinterred and exposed to public view, seems not to admit of a doubt. As it appears from the Chronicle of London, "Persons reported that Percy was yet alive. He was therefore taken up out of the grave, and bound upright between two mill-stones, that all men might see that he was dead." "The cause of Hotspur's exhumation is therefore satisfactorily explained; and, (p. 183) since it must have been very desirable to remove all doubt as to the fact of his death, the charge of needless barbarity which has been brought against the King for disinterring him is without foundation."[178] [Footnote 177: The King, speaking of the death of Hotspur, merely says, "He hath gone the way of all flesh."--Rot. Pat. 4 Hen. IV. p. 2.] [Footnote 178: Sir Harris Nicolas.]