st place to
shoot rubbish. And when the rubbish is alive, if it be but vermin, I
cannot slack to feel compassion for it.

Methinks the Lady Alianora felt it sorer trouble of the twain, when she
suffered touching certain jewels reported to be missing from the Tower
during her governance thereof--verily a foolish charge, as though the
Lady of Gloucester should steal jewels! Howbeit, she was fined twenty
thousand pound, for the which she rendered up her Welsh lands, with the
manors of Hanley and Tewkesbury, being the fairest and greatest part of
her heritage. The King allowed her to buy back the said lands if she
should, in one and the same day, pay ten thousand marks: howbeit, one
half the said fine was after remitted at the intercession of the Lords
and Commons.

That autumn was the insurrection of my Lord of Lancaster--but a bit too
soon, for the time was not ripe, but I reckon they knew not how longer
to bear the ill thewis [manners, conduct] of the Mortimer, which ruled
every thing at his will, and allowed none, not even my Lord of
Lancaster, to come nigh the King without his leave, and then he had them
watched of spies. The Parliament was held at Salisbury that Michaelmas,
whereto all men were forbidden to come in arms. Thither, nathless, came
the said Mortimer, with a great rabble of armed men at his heels. My
Lord of Lancaster durst not come, so instead thereof he put himself in
arms, and sent to expound matters to the King. He was speedily joined
by all that hated the Mortimer (and few did not), among whom were the
King's uncles, the Bishops of Winchester and London, the Lord Wake, the
Lord de Beaumont, Sir Hugh de Audley, and many another that had stood
stoutly for Queen Isabel aforetime. Some, I believe, did this out of
repentance, seeing they had been deceived; other some from nought save
hate and envy toward the Mortimer. The demands they put forth were no
wise unskilwise [unreasonable]. They were chiefly that the King should
hold his revenues himself (for the Queen had so richly dowered herself
that scarce a noble was left to the King); that the Queen should be
dowered of the third part, as queens had been aforetime; and that the
Mortimer should live on his own lands, and make no encroachments. They
charged him with divers evil deeds, that he had avised the King to
dissolve his Council appointed of twelve peers, he had wasted the royal
treasure, he had counselled the King to give up Scotland, and