It was just outside the city, on Gosford Green, that the famous meeting took place in September 1397, between Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, afterwards Henry IV., and Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, to which encounter Shakespeare himself refers in “King Richard II.” The duel, which the King commanded to be fought on this spot, arose from a quarrel between the ducal combatants, Hereford having accused Norfolk of speaking disrespectfully of his Sovereign. Richard and a great number of the nobility had gathered in the brilliant sunshine of that September day on the triangular piece of greensward where two of the greatest nobles of the realm were to engage in single combat, the trial by combat of those far–off days. But just as the champions were about to commence hostilities Richard suddenly placed his veto upon the encounter and banished both of the disputants from England; Hereford for ten years, and Norfolk for life. It was in 1451 that Henry VI. conferred on Coventry and certain contiguous villages the honour of being constituted a county of themselves, and the charter which made this enactment provided that the bailiffs of the city should be also sheriffs of the county, and that the same coroner should preside over both. Edward IV. confirmed the charter, and in the agricultural survey of Warwickshire, it is mentioned that the county and city of Coventry, situated in the north–east part of Warwickshire, with “the greatest length from Bedworth, to a point named Baginton, in a north–east and south–west direction, is 7–1/2 miles; and the greatest breadth, from Nettlehill to Brownshill Green, in about an east and west direction, is 7–1/4 miles.” Exhall, Keresley, Anstey, Foleshill, Stivichall, Stoke, a part of Sow, and Wyken, are all united with the city to form the county of Coventry. The Quarter Sessions were, prior to 1842, held with the same full powers as counties at large, and the men and aldermen of the city had considerable privileges as well as being Justices of the Peace. It was in the Priory that Henry VI. held a second Parliament in the year 1459, known to the Yorkists as the “Parliamentum Diabolicum,” this name being given to the assembly on account of the large number of attainders which were passed by it against the Yorkists, including Richard, Duke of York, and the Earls of March, Salisbury, and Warwick. Afterwards King Edward IV. and his Queen spent the Christmas festival in the city in 1465, evidently with the intention of winning over the citizens to the Yorkist side; but it is recorded that even the presence of the King and Queen was not sufficient to alienate their affections from the House of Lancaster. [Illustration: KENILWORTH CASTLE.]