[133] Most of our general historians have slurred over this important session. The best view, perhaps, of its secret history will be found in Lowth's Life of Wykeham; an instructive and elegant work, only to be blamed for marks of that academical point of honour which makes a fellow of a college too indiscriminate an encomiast of its founder. Another modern book may be named with some commendation, though very inferior in its execution, Godwin's Life of Chaucer of which the duke of Lancaster is the political hero. [134] Rymer, p. 322. [135] Rymer, p. 322. [136] p. 329. [137] Anonym. Hist. Edw. III. ad calcem Hemingford, p. 444, 448. Walsingham gives a different reason, p. 192. [138] Rot. Parl. p. 374. Not more than six or seven of the knights who had sat in the last parliament were returned to this, as appears by the writs in Prynne's 4th Register, p. 302, 311. [139] Walsingham, p. 200, says pene omnes; but the list published in Prynne's 4th Register induces me to qualify this loose expression. Alice Perrers had bribed, he tells us, many of the lords and all the lawyers of England; yet by the perseverance of these knights she was convicted. [140] Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 374. [141] vol. iii. p. 12. [142] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 12 [143] Rot. Parl. p. 35-38. [144] Id. p. 57. [145] See p. 47 of this volume. [146] Nevertheless, the commons repeated it in their schedule of petitions; and received an evasive answer, referring to an ordinance made in the first parliament of the king, the application of which is indefinite. Rot. Parl. p. 82. [147] p. 73. In Rymer, t. viii. p. 250, the archbishop of York's name appears among these commissioners, which makes their number sixteen. But it is plain by the instrument that only fifteen were meant to be appointed. [148] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100. [149] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 104. [150] The commons granted a subsidy, 7 R. II., to support Lancaster's war in Castile. R. P. p. 284. Whether the populace changed their opinion of him I know not. He was still disliked by them two years before. The insurgents of 1382 are said to have compelled men to swear that they would obey king Richard and the commons, and that they would accept no king named John. Walsingham, p. 248. [151] Walsing. p. 290, 315, 317. [152] Rot. Parl. 5 R. II. p. 100; 6 R. II. sess. 1, p. 134. [153] p. 145. [154] Rot. Parl. 9 R. II. p. 209. [155] Ib. p. 213. It is however asserted in the articles of impeachment against Suffolk, and admitted by his defence, that nine lords had been appointed in the last parliament, viz. 9 R. II., to inquire into the state of the household, and reform whatever was amiss. But nothing of this appears in the roll. [156] Knyghton, in Twysden x. Script. col. 2680.