lundered and ill-treated
by the Welsh.

The royal party with some difficulty, but without any accident, reached
Conway, where, to their utter disappointment, instead of a numerous
force, they found only the Earl of Salisbury with a hundred men. In this
emergency the King's brothers undertook to visit Henry at Chester, and
to sound his intentions; and during their absence Richard, with the Earl
of Salisbury, examined the castles of Beaumaris and Carnarvon; but
finding them without garrisons or provisions, the disconsolate wanderers
returned to their former quarters.

When the two dukes were admitted into the presence of Henry, they bent
the knee and acquainted him with their message from the King. He took
little notice of Surrey, whom he afterward confined in the castle, but,
leading Exeter aside, spoke with him in private, and gave him, instead
of the hart, the King's livery, his own badge of the rose. But no
entreaties could induce him to allow them to return. Exeter was observed
to drop a tear when the Duke of Albemarle said to him tauntingly: "Fair
cousin, be not angry. If it please God, things shall go well."

The immediate object of Henry was to secure the royal person. He was
gratified to learn from the envoys the place of Richard's retreat, and
detained them at Chester, that the King, instead of making his escape,
might await their return. His first care was to take possession of the
treasure which the King had deposited in the strong castle of Holt; his
next, to despatch the Earl of Northumberland at the head of four hundred
men-at-arms and a thousand archers to Conway, with instructions not to
display his force, lest the King should put to sea, but by artful
speeches and promises to draw him out of the fortress and then make him
prisoner. The Earl took possession in his journey of the castles of
Flint and Rhuddlan, and a few miles beyond the latter, placing his men
in concealment under a rock, rode forward with only five attendants to
Conway.

He was readily admitted, and, to the King's anxious inquiries about his
brothers, replied that he had left them well at Chester, and had brought
a letter from the Duke of Exeter. In it that nobleman said, or rather
was made to say, that full credit might be given to the offers of the
bearer. These offers were, that Richard should promise to govern and
judge his people by law; that the dukes of Exeter and Surrey, the Earl
of Salisbury, the Bishop of Carlisle, and Maude