n.

A letter came from him three weeks later--a doubtful, uneasy letter,
showing that the mind of the writer was by no means at rest concerning
the future. The King had received him most graciously, and every one at
Court was kind to him; but the sky was lowering ominously over the
struggling Church of God--that little section of the Holy Catholic
Church, on which the "mother and mistress of all churches" looked down
with such supreme contempt. The waves of persecution were rising higher
now than to the level of poor tailors like John Badby, or even of
priestly graduates like William Sautre.

"Lady, I do you to wit," wrote young Richard, "that as this day, Sir
John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, was put to his trial, and being convinced
[convicted], was cast [sentenced]; the beginning and end of whose
offence is that he is a Lollard confessed, and hath harboured other men
of the like opinions. And the said Lord is now close prisoner in the
Tower of London, nor any of his kin ne lovers [friends] suffered to come
anigh him. And at the Court it is rumoured that Sir William Hankeford
(whom your Ladyship shall well remember) should be sent into our parts
of South Wales, there to put down both heresy and sedition: which
sedition, methinks, your Ladyship's favour allowing, shall point at Sir
Owain Glendordy [the name is usually spelt thus in contemporary
records]; and the heresy so called, both your Ladyship and I, your
humble son and servant, do well know what it doth signify. So no more
at this present writing; but praying our Lord that He would have your
Ladyship in His good keeping, and that all we may do His good pleasure,
I rest."

Twelve days later came another letter, written in a strange hand. It
was dated from Merton Abbey, in Surrey, was attested by the Abbot's
official cross and seal, and contained only a few lines. But never
throughout her troubled life had any letter so wrung the heart of
Constance Le Despenser. For those few formal lines brought the news
that never again would her eyes be gladdened by her heart's dearest
treasure--that the Angel of Death had claimed for his own her bright,
loving, fair-haired Richard.

No details have been handed down concerning that early and lamented
death of the last Lord Le Despenser. We do not even know how the boy
died--whether by the visitation of God in sudden illness, or by the fiat
of Thomas de Arundel, making the twelfth murder which lay upon that
black, seared