But Richard appeared not according to his promise; distressing reports
were circulated among the troops; and the royalists, having waited for
him almost a fortnight, disbanded in spite of the fears and entreaties
of their commander. At last, on the eighteenth day, the King arrived in
Milford Haven with the dukes of Albemarle, Exeter, and Surrey, the Earl
of Worcester, the bishops of London, Lincoln, and Carlisle, and
several thousands of the troops who had accompanied him to Ireland. With
such a force, had it been faithful, he might have made a stand against
his antagonist; but on the second morning, when he arose, he observed
from his window that the greater part had disappeared. A council was
immediately summoned, and a proposal made that the King should flee by
sea to Bordeaux; but the Duke of Exeter objected that to quit the
kingdom in such circumstances was to abdicate the throne. Let them
proceed to the army at Conway. There they might bid defiance to the
enemy; or at all events, as the sea would still be open, might thence
set sail to Guienne. His opinion prevailed; and at nightfall the King,
in the disguise of a Franciscan friar, his two brothers of Exeter and
Surrey, the Earl of Gloucester, the Bishop of Carlisle, Sir Stephen
Scrope, and Sir William Feriby, with eight others, stole away from the
army, and directed their route toward Conway. Their flight was soon
known. The royal treasure, which Richard left behind him, was plundered;
Albemarle, Worcester, and most of the leaders hastened to pay their
court to Henry; the rest attempted in small bodies to make their way to
their own counties, but were in most instances plundered and ill-treated
by the Welsh.
The royal party with some difficulty, but without any accident, reached
Conway, where, to their utter disappointment, instead of a numerous
force, they found only the Earl of Salisbury with a hundred men. In this
emergency the King's brothers undertook to visit Henry at Chester, and
to sound his intentions; and during their absence Richard, with the Earl
of Salisbury, examined the castles of Beaumaris and Carnarvon; but
finding them without garrisons or provisions, the disconsolate wanderers
returned to their former quarters.
When the two dukes were admitted into the presence of Henry, they bent
the knee and acquainted him with their message from the King. He took
little notice of Surrey, whom he afterward confined in the castle, but,
leading Exeter aside, spoke with him in private, and gave him, instead
of the hart, the King's livery, his own badge of the rose. But no
entreaties could induce him to allow them to return. Exeter was observed
to drop a tear when the Duke of Albemarle said to him tauntingly: "Fair
cousin, be not angry. If it please God, things shall go well."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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