But this marriage brought the newly-created Duke of Suffolk into great disfavour with Parliament; for he was accused of having delivered the important province of Maine into the hands of the French, this being one of the conditions of the marriage treaty. His enemies also accused him of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester. To save his favourite Duke the King banished him for five years, but his enemies were determined that he should not escape their vengeance. Realizing the danger he was in, he set sail from Ipswich, and hoped to reach Calais in safety. Before his departure he wrote, on the 30th of April, 1450, the following letter to his young son:— My dere and only welbeloved sone, I beseche oure Lord in Heven, the Maker of alle the world, to blesse you, and to sende you ever grace to love hym, and to drede hym; to the which, as ferre as a fader may charge his child, I both charge you and prei you to ... do no thyng for love nor drede of any erthely creature that shuld displese hym.... Secondly, next hym, above alle erthely thyng, to be trewe liege man in hert, in wille, in thought, in dede, unto the Kyng ... to whom bothe ye and I been so moche bounde to.... Thirdly, in the same wyse, I charge you, my dere sone, alwey, as ye be bounden by the commaundement of God to do, to love, to worshepe youre lady and moder, and also that ye obey alwey hyr commaundements, and to beleve hyr councelles and advises in all youre werks.... Wreten of myn hand, The day of my departyng fro this land. Your trewe and lovying fader, SUFFOLK. It was indeed the day of Suffolk’s ‘departyng fro this land,’ as the following portion of a letter written in London on the 5th of May of that year will show. The writer tells first how news had then reached London that on April 31 the Duke of Suffolk had been captured off Dover by a ‘shippe callyd Nicolas of the Towre,’ whose master ‘badde hym “Welcom, Traitor.”’ Then— Yn the syght of all his men he was drawyn ought of the grete shippe yn to the bote ... and oon of the lewdeste of the shippe badde hym ley down his hedde, and he should be fair ferd wyth, and dye on a swerd; and toke a rusty swerd, and smotte of his hedde withyn halfe a doseyn strokes, and toke awey his gown of russet, and his dobelette of velvet mayled, and leyde his body on the sonds of Dover. Although the first Duke of Suffolk suffered this ignominious death, the tide of fortune for his family still rose. John, his son, the second Duke, married the sister of King Edward IV.; and in the year 1484 their son John, Earl of Lincoln, was declared heir-presumptive to the throne of England. * * * * * [Illustration: SEAL OF EDMUND DE LA POLE EARL OF SUFFOLK. ]