the city. He was especially gratified to learn that, in
accordance with his request, they had appointed Thomas Usk (the chief
witness against Northampton) to the office of under-sheriff, and promised
that such appointment should not be drawn into precedent. The citizens
were not slow to take the hint about the election of a new mayor, and
Exton was continued in office.(682)

(M363)

Great discontent had arisen meanwhile in the country at the lavish
expenditure of the king, without any apparent result in victories abroad,
such as had been gained in the glorious days of his predecessor. A cry for
reform and retrenchment was raised, and found a champion in the person of
the Duke of Gloucester, the youngest of the king's uncles. At his
instigation, the parliament which assembled on the 1st October, 1386,
demanded the dismissal of the king's ministers, and read him a lesson on
constitutional government which ended in a threat of deposition unless the
king should mend his ways. Richard was at the time only twenty-one years
of age. In the impetuosity of his youth he is recorded as having
contemplated a dastardly attempt upon the life of his uncle, whom he had
grown to hate as the cause of all his difficulties. A plan was laid, which
is said to have received Brembre's approbation, for beguiling the duke
into the city by an invitation to supper, and then and there making away
with him, but the duke was forewarned. The chronicler who records
Brembre's complicity in this nefarious design against Gloucester's life
also relates that Exton, who was mayor, refused to have anything to do
with it.(683)

(M364) (M365) (M366)

Before the end of the session, parliament had appointed a commission, with
Gloucester at its head, to regulate the government of the country and the
king's household. This very naturally excited the wrath of the hot-headed
king, who immediately set to work to form a party in opposition to the
duke. In August of the next year (1387) he obtained a declaration from
five of the justices to the effect that the commission was illegal. On the
28th October he sent the Archbishop of York and the Earl of Suffolk into
the city to learn whether he could depend upon the support of the
citizens. The answer could not have been regarded as unfavourable, for, on
the 10th November, the king paid a personal visit to the city and was
received with great ceremony.(684) On the following day (11 Nov.) orders
were given to the alderme