The power thus regained was wielded neither wisely nor well. On the death of John o’ Gaunt, in 1399, Richard, to replenish his exhausted exchequer, seized his possessions into his own hands, leaving to the banished son of “time-honoured Lancaster,” the youthful Bolingbroke, nothing but the empty title. This arbitrary abuse of power naturally inflamed the resentment of Bolingbroke, who resolved upon accomplishing the king’s dethronement, and it was not long before the opportunity offered for putting his scheme into execution. While the unsuspecting Richard was leading the Cheshire bowmen among the bogs and thickets of Ireland, in order to quell the insurrection and punish the murderers of Mortimer, Bolingbroke, taking advantage of his absence, embarked with a small retinue and landed “upon the naked shore of Ravenspurg,” a place on the Humber, where, at a later date, Edward IV. landed on a similar errand, with an excuse plausible as that of the duke whose exploit he imitated. He quickly mustered a force of 60,000 men; towns and castles surrendered to him; and before Richard could return the invader had virtually made himself master of the kingdom. When he did arrive, there being no army to receive him, seven loyal Cheshire men, John Legh of Booths, Thomas Cholmondely, Ralph Davenport, Adam Bostock, John Done of Utkinton, Thomas Holford, and Thomas Beeston, each with seventy retainers, became his body guard, wearing his cognisance of the white hart upon their shoulders, and keeping watch over him day and night with their battle-axes. This would appear to have been the occasion when, according to Stow, Beeston was chosen by the king, on account of its strength and the usually loyal feelings of the county, for the custody of his treasures, when jewels and other valuables said to be worth 200,000 marks (£133,333) were deposited in it for safety. The castle was then garrisoned by a force of a hundred men; but it says little for their valour that, without striking a blow, they surrendered it to the victorious heir of Lancaster, who, anticipating Richard’s advance towards his trusty friends in Cheshire, where his power was strongest, and wishing to intercept his communications, had marched through Gloucester, Hereford, and Ludlow to Shrewsbury, crying havoc and destruction to Cheshire and Cheshire men as he went; and who was then at Chester, where he had caused to be beheaded that loyal and loving subject, Sir Piers Legh, the founder of the house of Legh of Lyme—a Cheshire worthy who had been the companion in arms of the Black Prince, and whose name is still perpetuated in the inscription which one of his descendants placed in the Lyme Chapel, in Macclesfield Church— Here lyethe the bodie of Perkyn a Legh, That for King Richard the death did die, Betrayed for righteovsnes; And the bones of Sir Piers, his Sonne, That with King Henrie the Fift did wonne In Paris.