The hapless king, finding his power gone and his castles of Carnarvon, Beaumaris, and Conway destitute of provisions, gave himself up to Percy, Duke of Northumberland, who conveyed him to Flint, whither Bolingbroke repaired from Chester to receive him. Thence the fallen monarch was removed to Chester; but he could only have remained a day or two, for on the 21st August he was at Nantwich, a prisoner on his way to the Tower, having on the morning of that early autumn day passed with his captors beneath the frowning walls of Beeston, so lately lost to him. The close of that sad journey of triumph and humiliation has been thus described by our greatest dramatist:— Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke— Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seemed to know, With slow but stately pace kept on his course, While all tongues cried—“God save thee, Bolingbroke!” You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage; and that all the walls, With painted imag’ry, had said at once— “Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!” Whilst he, from one side to the other turning, Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed’s neck, Bespake them thus—“I thank you, countrymen!” And thus still doing, thus he pass’d along. Alas, poor Richard! Where rides he the while? As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious; Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes Did scowl on Richard. No man cried, “God save him;” No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home; But dust was thrown upon his sacred head; Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off— His face still combating with tears and smiles, The badges of his grief and patience— That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him. But Heaven hath a hand in these events, To whose high will we bound our calm contents; To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now, Whose state and honour I for aye allow. Ere many moons had waxed and waned the humbled and wretched king, who had resigned his crown to the usurper, fell beneath the murderous battle-axe of Piers Exton, “within the guilty closure of the walls” of Pontefract, that— Bloody prison, Fatal and ominous to noble peers; and very near the spot where, less than sixty years before, Sir Robert Holland’s patron, the “good Earl of Lancaster,” had yielded up his life.