Jealousy of Richard and his mother against the uncles.--Plots and manoeuvres.--Thomas, Duke of Gloucester.--Province of Parliament.--Prerogative of the king.--The Commons threaten the king.--He is compelled to yield.--Council appointed.--Richard's discontent.--The court at Nottingham.--Preparations for war.--Richard and his party overcome.--Execution of Burley.--Queen Anne's fruitless intercession.--The king determines to resume his power.--His interview with his council.--Surprise of the barons.--The great seal.--Richard appoints a new chancellor.--Richard appoints new officers of government.--The wars in which Richard was engaged.--Story of Sir Miles, the Bohemian knight.--The archers and the squires.--A squire killed.--Sir Ralph Stafford is displeased and alarmed.--Lord Holland is enraged.--He meets Lord Stafford in a narrow lane.--Stafford is killed.--Lord Holland's unconcern.--Richard's perplexity and distress.--His mother's anguish.--Extraordinary marriage of the Duke of Lancaster.--Indignation and rage of the ladies of the court. In giving some general account of the character of Richard's reign, and of the incidents that occurred during the course of it, we now go back a little again, so as to begin at the beginning of it. When Richard was married, he was, as has already been said, only about fifteen or sixteen years of age. As he grew older, after this time, and began to feel that sense of strength and independence which pertains to manhood, he became more and more jealous of the power and influence of his uncles in the government of the country. His mother, too, who was still living, and who adhered closely to him, was very suspicious of the uncles. She was continually imagining that they were forming plots and conspiracies against her son in favor of themselves or of their own children. She was particularly suspicious of the Duke of Lancaster, and of his son Henry Bolingbroke. It proved in the end that there was some reason for this suspicion, for this Henry Bolingbroke was the means at last of deposing Richard from his throne in order to take possession of it himself, as we shall see in the sequel. In order to prevent, as far as possible, these uncles from finding opportunity to accomplish any of their supposed designs, Richard and his mother excluded them, as much as they could, from power, and appointed other persons, who had no such claims to the crown, to all the important places about the court. This, of course, made the uncles very angry. They called the men whom Richard thus brought forward his favorites, and they hated them exceedingly. This state of things led to a great many intrigues, and manoeuvres, and plots, and counterplots, the favorites against the uncles, and the uncles against the favorites. These difficulties were continued for many years. Parties were formed in Parliament, of which sometimes one was in the ascendency and sometimes the other, and all was turmoil and confusion.