Years passed, and Richard recovered his authority, when he punished the lords appellant, sparing only his cousin Hereford and the Duke of Norfolk. Some conversation appears to have passed between these nobles, and Hereford accused Norfolk of having expressed his suspicion that Richard would yet revenge himself upon them for their past offence, and especially for the affair of "Radcot Bridge," when the Duke of Ireland's forces were dispersed. Norfolk denied the charge, and the King permitted the quarrel to be decided by wager of battle. The 29th of April, 1398, was appointed for the trial; the place, Coventry. The noblemen had put spurs to their horses, when Richard, under the advice of his council, stopped the combat, and banished the offenders--as guilty of treason. Norfolk's sentence was for life; Hereford's for ten years. The Londoners were incensed at losing their favourite, Hereford, and when his father, the aged John of Gaunt, died on the Christmas following his son's banishment, and Richard seized his estates, the general indignation was extreme; for the King had granted legal instruments to both the exiles, securing to them any inheritance which might fall to them. In face of the gathering storm Richard sailed for Ireland. On the 4th July, 1399, three small ships entered the Humber, and Hereford, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Fitz-Alan, son of the late Earl of Arundel, a few servitors, and fifteen men-at-arms, landed at Ravenser Spurn. Shut out of Hull, he was met at Doncaster by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who espoused his cause, affecting to believe his assertion that he had returned to claim the estates of his father. King Richard threw himself into Conway Castle, and Northumberland induced him to leave his refuge, to make terms with Hereford. Drawn into an ambush, Richard was delivered into his cousin's hands. Northumberland had sworn on the sacramental elements to keep faith with the King, and Richard thus reproached him, on the moment of his seizure, "May the God on whom you laid your hand reward you and your accomplices at the last day." On the 1st of October, the day following his coronation, Henry IV. signed a licence for Matthew Danthorpe, a hermit, who had welcomed him at Ravenser Spurn, granting him permission to erect a hermitage and chapel on that desolate place. Richard was imprisoned, and expired in a dungeon of Pontefract Castle, but whether by stroke of Sir Piers Exton's axe, or broken down by famine, matters not _now_. Northumberland was honoured by the dignity of Constable of England, and at the coronation bore a naked sword on the King's right hand. He was further guerdoned by a grant of the Isle of Man. On the 7th of May, 1402, the Percies defeated Earl Douglas at the battle of Homildon, inflicting a heavy loss upon the Scots, and capturing Douglas; Murdoch, son of the Duke of Albany, and other captains to the total sum of eighty.