rst, the royal captive was assailed with promises
and threats. Generally he abandoned himself to lamentation and despair;
occasionally he exerted that spirit which he had formerly displayed.
"Why am I thus guarded?" he asked one day. "Am I your king or your
prisoner?" "You are my king, sir," replied the Duke with coolness; "but
the council of your realm has thought proper to place a guard about
you."

[Illustration: Richard II resigns the crown of England to
Henry, Duke of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt, at London.

Painting by Sir John Gilbert.]

On the day before the meeting of parliament a deputation of prelates,
barons, knights, and lawyers waited on the captive in the Tower, and
reminded him that in the castle of Conway, while he was perfectly his
own master, he had promised to resign the crown on account of his own
incompetency to govern. On his reply that he was ready to perform his
promise, a paper was given him to read, in which he was made to absolve
all his subjects from their fealty and allegiance, to renounce of his
own accord all kingly authority, to acknowledge himself incapable of
reigning, and worthy for his past demerits to be deposed, and to swear
by the holy Gospels that he would never act, nor, as far as in him lay,
suffer any other person to act, in opposition to this resignation. He
then added, as from himself, that if it were in his power to name his
successor, he would choose his cousin of Lancaster, who was present, and
to whom he gave his ring, which he took from his own finger.

Such is the account of this transaction inserted by the order of Henry
in the rolls of parliament; an account the accuracy of which is liable
to strong suspicion. It is difficult to believe that Richard had so much
command over his feelings as to behave with that cheerfulness which is
repeatedly noticed in the record; and the assertion that he had promised
to resign the crown when he saw Northumberland in the castle of Conway,
is not only contradictory to the statement of the two eye-witnesses, but
also in itself highly improbable. From the fate of Edward II, with which
he had so often been threatened, he must have known that it was better
to flee to his transmarine dominions, which were still open to him, than
to resign his crown and remain a prisoner in the custody of his
successor.

The next day the two houses met amid a great concourse of people in
Westminster hall. The Duke occupied his usual seat nea