mured at all this, and were still very sore about the
French marriage. The nobles saw how little the King cared for law, and
how crafty he was, and began to be somewhat afraid for themselves. The
King's life was a life of continued feasting and excess; his retinue,
down to the meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, and
caroused at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten thousand
persons every day. He himself, surrounded by a body of ten thousand
archers, and enriched by a duty on wool which the Commons had granted him
for life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than powerful and
absolute, and was as fierce and haughty as a King could be.

He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the Dukes of
Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than the others, he tampered
with the Duke of Hereford until he got him to declare before the Council
that the Duke of Norfolk had lately held some treasonable talk with him,
as he was riding near Brentford; and that he had told him, among other
things, that he could not believe the King's oath--which nobody could, I
should think. For this treachery he obtained a pardon, and the Duke of
Norfolk was summoned to appear and defend himself. As he denied the
charge and said his accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen,
according to the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the
truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Coventry. This
wager of battle meant that whosoever won the combat was to be considered
in the right; which nonsense meant in effect, that no strong man could
ever be wrong. A great holiday was made; a great crowd assembled, with
much parade and show; and the two combatants were about to rush at each
other with their lances, when the King, sitting in a pavilion to see
fair, threw down the truncheon he carried in his hand, and forbade the
battle. The Duke of Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the
Duke of Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the King. The Duke
of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The Duke of Norfolk
made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and afterwards died at Venice of a
broken heart.

Faster and fiercer, after this, the King went on in his career. The Duke
of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of Hereford, died soon after
the departure of his son; and, the King, although he had solemnly granted
to that son leave to inherit his father's propert