Of one fact, as we follow their track, we must never lose sight:--that behind these visible five, securely hidden, stood the invisible one, Sir Thomas de Arundel, setting all these puppets in motion according to his pleasure, and for "the good of the Church;" working on the insufferable pride of Gloucester, the baffled ambition of Derby, the arrogant rashness of Arundel, the vain, time-serving nature of Nottingham, and the weak fears of Warwick. Did he think he was doing God service? Did he ever care to think of God at all? The further career of the Lords Appellants must be told as shortly as possible, but without some account of it much of the remainder of my story will be unintelligible. They drew a cordon of forty thousand men round London, capturing the King like a bird taken in a net; granted to themselves, for their own purposes, twenty thousand pounds out of the royal revenues; met and utterly routed a little band raised by the Duke of Ireland with the object of rescuing the sovereign from their power; impeached those members of the Council who were loyalists and Lollards; plotted to murder the King and the whole Council, which included near blood relations of their own; prohibited the possession of any of Wycliffe's books under severe penalties; murdered three, and banished two, of the five faithful friends of the King left in the Council. The Church stood to them above all human ties; and Sir Thomas de Arundel was ready to say "_Absolvo te_" to every one of them. This reign of terror is known as the session of the Merciless Parliament, and it closed with the cruel mockery of a renewal of the oath of allegiance to the hapless and helpless King. Then Gloucester proceeded to distribute his rewards. The archbishopric of York was conferred on Sir Thomas de Arundel, and Gloucester appropriated as his own share of the rich spoil, the vast estates of the banished Duke of Ireland. And then the traitor, robber, and murderer, knelt down at the feet of Archbishop Arundel, and heard--from man's lips--"Thy sins are forgiven thee"--but not "Go, and sin no more." "Master Calverley, you? God have mercy! what aileth you?" For Hugh Calverley stood at one of the hall windows of Langley Palace, on the brightest of May mornings, in the year 1388, his face hidden in his hands, and his whole mien and aspect bearing the traces of sudden and intense anguish. "God had no mercy, Mistress Maude!" he wailed under his voice. "We had no friend save Him, and He was silent to us. He cared nought for us--He left us alone in the uttermost hour of our woe." "Nay, sweet Hugh! it was men, not God!" said Bertram's voice soothingly behind them. "He gave them leave," replied Hugh in an agonised tone.