Arundel’s body was buried in the Church of the Austin Friars in Broad Street in the City, a building once filled with splendid monuments to the illustrious dead, but of which no single one now remains. Among these monuments were those of Hubert de Burgh, of Edward Plantagenet, Richard the Second’s half-brother, and many others, but none more illustrious, both by birth and renown, than Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Whatever his relatives may have felt concerning the Earl’s death, the great body of the people lamented and mourned him bitterly, regarding him as a martyr; and so much so, that they flocked in crowds to the church of Austin Friars expecting miracles to be performed at his tomb. Richard, although outwardly rejoicing at the great Earl’s death, is said to have had his nights disturbed ever after by fearful dreams, and his mind haunted by the wraith of Fitzalan.
[Illustration: _Side of the Scaffold on Tower Hill._]
After this sanguinary act of vengeance Richard seems to have lost all self-control. Mr Gardiner writes that, “It is most probable that, without being actually insane, his mind had to some extent given way.” However that may be, it is certain that after the deaths of Gloucester and Arundel, Richard knew no peace; and in three short years he, too, lay in a bloody grave.
Richard dissolved Parliament the year after the murder of Gloucester and the execution of Arundel, appointing a Committee of twelve peers and six commoners, his personal adherents, to carry on the government of the country with himself. Like the first Charles he attempted to rule the realm without a Parliament, and by this act of autocracy destroyed himself. The Duke of Norfolk and Henry of Hereford had been banished during that memorable tournament at Coventry, which Shakespeare has immortalised in his great tragedy, and during the two succeeding years Richard ruled the land, a half-crazed despot.
In 1399 Hereford, who by his father’s death, “old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” had become Duke of Lancaster, returned to England from his banishment, having heard that the King had seized all his father’s lands; and, in returning to claim his own, it chanced that he obtained the realm of England from his cousin Richard.