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Fitzalan
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Fitzalan

mit to great humiliations (Ann. Ric. II, ed. Riley, p. 241 ; Leland, Collectanea, i. 483). At last Fitzalan managed to effect his escape, and with the assistance of a mercer named William Scot arrived safely on the continent, either at Calais or at Sluys. He joined his uncle, the deposed Archbishop Arundel, at Utrecht, but was so poor that he would have starved but for the assistance of his powerful kinsfolk abroad. The conjecture, based on a slight correction of Froissart's story of Archbishop Arundel's commission from the Londoners to Henry of Derby, that Fitzalan bore a special message from, the London citizens to Henry, that he should overthrow Richard and obtain the English crown, seems neither necessary nor probable. Froissart's whole account of the movements of the exiled Henry is too inaccurate to make it necessary to explain away his gross blunders. However, Archbishop Arundel left his German exile and joined Henry at Paris, and his nephew doubtless accompanied him, both on this journey and on the further travels of Henry and the archbishop to Boulogne. Fitzalan embarked with Henry on his voyage to England, and landed with him at Ravenspur early in July 1399. There is no foundation for the story of the French anti-Lancastrian writers that when Richard II fell into Henry's hands the latter entrusted Fitzalan and the son of Thomas of Woodstock {who was already dead) with the custody of the captive prince, with an injunction to guard closely the king who had put both their fathers to death unjustly, and that they conveyed Richard to London 'as strictly guarded as a thief or a murderer' (Chronique de la Traison, p. 210; Religieux de Saint-Denys, ii. 717 ; cf. Archæologia, xx. 173). On 11 Oct. Fitzalan was one of those knighted by Henry in the great hall of the Tower of London on the occasion when the order of the Bath is generally considered to have been instituted. Next day he marched, with the other newly-made knights, in Henry's train to Westminster, all dressed alike and 'looking like priests.' At Henry's coronation, on Monday 13 Oct., he officiated as butler (Adam of Usk, p. 33, ed. Thompson). The new king even anticipated the commons' petition in his favour by restoring him to his father's titles and estates (Rot. Parl. iii. 435-6 ; Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 238 b ; Cont. Eulog. Hist. iii. 385). Though still under age he at once took his seat as Earl of Arundel, and on 23 Oct. was one of the magnates who advised the king to put Richard II under 'safe and secret guard' (Rot. Parl. iii. 426-7). Early in 1400 Arundel took the field against the Hollands and the other insurgent nobles. On the capture of John Holland, now again only Earl of Huntingdon, by the followers of the Countess of Hereford, in Essex, Arundel, if we can believe the French authorities, hastened to join his aunt in wreaking an unworthy revenge on his former captor (Chronique de la Traison, p. 97 sq.) After taunting Huntingdon with his former ill-treatment of him, Arundel procured his immediate execution, despite the sympathies of the bystanders and the royal order that he should be committed to the Tower (Fœdera, viii. 121). He then marched through London streets in triumph with Huntingdon's head on a pole, and ultimately bore it to the king (Religieux de Saint-Denys, ii. 742).

Arundel's great possessions in North Wales were now endangered by the revolt of Owain of Glyndyfrdwy [see Glendower, Owen], who had begun life as an esquire of Earl Richard. Earl Thomas was much employed against the Welsh chieftain during the next few years. In 1401 he fought with Hotspur against the rebels near Cader Idris. In August 1402 he commanded that division of the three-fold expedition against the Welsh which assembled at Hereford. Within a month all three armies were compelled by unseasonable storms to retreat to England. In 1403 he was again ordered to assemble an army at Shrewsbury. After attending, in October 1404, the parliament at Coventry, where he was one of the triers of petitions for Gascony, he entered into an agreement with the king, in accordance with the ordinance of that parliament, to remain for eight weeks with a small force at his castle of Oswestry ; but in February 1405 he confessed that he was able to do nothing against the insurgents (Rot. Parl. iii. 545-7 ; Nicolas, Proceedings of Privy Council, i. 246-7).

In the early summer of 1405 the revolt of Archbishop Scrope and the earl marshal brought Arundel to the north. After the capture of the two leaders Arundel joined Thomas Beaufort in persuading Henry to disregard his uncle, Archbishop Arundel's, advice to respect the person of the captive archbishop. On 8 June, while Archbishop Arundel was delayed at breakfast with King Henry, his nephew was placed at the head of a commission which hastily condemned both Scrope and Mowbray, and ordered their immediate execution (Ann. Hen. IV, p. 409 ; Raynaldi, Ann. Eccl. viii. 143 ; but cf. Maidstone, in Raine, Historians of the Church of York, ii. 306 sq., Rolls Ser., for a different account). This violence seems to have caused a breach between Arundel and his uncle. Henceforth the earl inclined to the policy of the Beauforts and the Prince of Wales against