called, against the five counsellors
whom they had already accused before the king. The parliament, who ought
to have been judges, were not ashamed to impose an oath on all their
members, by which they bound themselves to live and die with the lords
appellants, and to defend them against all opposition with their lives
and fortunes.[*]

* Cotton, p. 322.

The duke of Glocester and his adherents soon got intelligence of this
secret consultation, and were naturally very much alarmed at it. They
saw the king's intentions; and they determined to prevent the execution
of them. As soon as he came to London, which they knew was well disposed
to their party, they secretly assembled their forces, and appeared in
arms at Haringay Park, near Highgate, with a power which Richard and
his ministers were not able to resist. They sent him a message by the
archbishop of Canterbury, and the lords Lovel Cobham, and Devereux,
and demanded that the persons who had seduced him by their pernicious
counsel, and were traitors both to him and to the kingdom, should be
delivered up to them. A few days after, they appeared in his presence,
armed, and attended with armed followers; and they accused by name the
archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, the earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert
Tresilian, and Sir Nicholas Brembre, as public and dangerous enemies to
the state. They threw down their gauntlets before the king, and fiercely
offered to maintain the truth of their charge by duel. The persons
accused, and all the other obnoxious ministers, had withdrawn or had
concealed themselves.

The duke of Ireland fled to Cheshire, and levied some forces, with
which he advanced to relieve the king from the violence of the nobles.
Glocester encountered him in Oxfordshire with much superior forces;
routed him, dispersed his followers, and obliged him to fly into the Low
Countries, where he died in exile a few years after.

The other proceedings were well suited to the violence and iniquity of
the times. A charge consisting of thirty-nine articles, was delivered
in by the appellants; and as none of the accused counsellors, except
Sir Nicholas Brembre, was in custody, the rest were cited to appear; and
upon their absenting themselves, the house of peers, after a very
short interval, without hearing a witness, without examining a fact, or
deliberating on one point of law, declared them guilty of high treason.
Sir Nicholas Brembre, who was produced in court, ha