guessed whither the fugitives had gone. Surrey received Henry's message and messenger with sovereign contempt; but the Constable, finding that Henry was still in power, immediately went over to the winning side, and there was a town riot. The peers had taken up their temporary abode in an inn, which was surrounded and besieged by the mob. Surrey, impetuous as usual, rushed to the window to address the mob. He was received with a shower of arrows. His friends sprang forward to rescue him; but time and the things of time were over for the young, dauntless, gallant Surrey. They could only lay him gently down on the rushes to breathe out his life. It was a sad end. Fairest and almost highest of the nobles of England, of royal blood, of unblemished character, of great wealth, and only twenty-five--to die on the floor of an inn, in a mob riot! But what was to become of the rest? Exeter's fertile brain suggested a way of escape. "Quick--fire the rushes! And then ope the back windows, and drop down into the fosse." It is manifest from the circumstances, that the back windows of the inn opened from the town wall upon the ditch which ran round it, and which in all probability was filled with water. John Maudeleyn gathered a handful of the rushes, with which he set fire to the room in two or three places. The five who remained--Exeter, Salisbury, Le Despenser, and the two Maudeleyns,--then dropped down from the window, swam across the fosse, and fled into the fields, where the scattered relics of their own army were advancing to join them. But Exeter's idea had been a shade too brilliant. He frightened by the fire not only his foes, but his friends. His troops fancied that Henry had come up, and was burning Cirencester; and, panic-stricken, they dispersed in all directions. The five parted into three divisions, and fled themselves. They fled to death. Exeter set out alone. His destination was Pleshy, whence he meant to escape to France. But the angel of death met him there in the guise of a woman, Joan Countess of Hereford, mother-in-law of Henry, and sister of Archbishop Arundel. She had never forgiven Exeter for sitting in judgment on her brother the Earl of Arundel, and she rested not now till she saw him stretched before her, a headless corpse. The two Maudeleyns went towards Scotland. Richard was apprehended, and executed. There is good reason to believe that John, escaped, and that it was he who, in after years, personated King Richard at the Scottish Court. The Lollard friends, Salisbury and Le Despenser, determined to attempt their escape together. For a minute they waited, looking regretfully after Exeter: then Le Despenser said to his squire-- "Haste, Lyngern!--for Cardiff!"