ring which he wore upon his finger, and which
she wished to get away from him as soon as the dying monarch was too
far gone to be conscious of the robbery.

The counselors and nobles, though they thus forsook the king, were not
wholly unmindful of the interests of the kingdom. They assembled
immediately after his death, and determined that during Richard's
minority the government should be administered by a council, and they
selected for this council twelve men from among the highest nobles of
the land. They determined upon this plan rather than upon a regency
because they knew that if a regent were appointed it would be
necessary that the Duke of Lancaster should be the man, and they were
unwilling to put the power into his hands, for fear that he would not
surrender it when Richard should come of age.

Besides, it would be in his power, in case he had been appointed
regent, to have caused Richard to be put to death in some secret way,
if he chose to do so, and then, of course, the crown would, without
dispute, pass next to him. It was not wholly unreasonable to fear
this, for such crimes had often been committed by rival against rival
in the English royal line. A man might be in those days a very brave
and gallant knight, a model in the eyes of all for the unsullied
purity of his chivalric honor, and yet be ready to poison or starve an
uncle, or a brother, or a nephew, without compunction or remorse, if
their rights or interests conflicted with his own. The honor of
chivalry was not moral principle or love of justice and right; it was
mere punctiliousness in respect to certain conventional forms.

Immediately on the death of the king, orders were sent to all the
ports in the southern part of England forbidding any ship or boat of
any kind from going to sea. The object of this was to keep the death
of the king a secret from the King of France, for fear that he might
seize the opportunity for an invasion of England. Indeed, it was known
that he was preparing an expedition for this purpose before the king
died, and it was considered very important that he should not hear of
the event until the government should be settled, lest he should take
advantage of it to hasten his invasion.

The making of these arrangements, and the funeral ceremonies connected
with the interment of the king, occupied some days. There was also a
difficulty between the Duke of Lancaster and the citizens of London
to be settled, which for a tim