The Duke's friends were expelled from office; John of Northampton, the head of his adherents among the Commons, was thrown into prison; the Duke himself was charged with treason and threatened with arrest.

In 1386 John of Gaunt abandoned the struggle and sailed for Spain.
[Sidenote: Temper of the Court] Richard himself took part in these measures against the Duke.

He was now twenty, handsome and golden-haired, with a temper capable of great actions and sudden bursts of energy but indolent and unequal.

The conception of kingship in which he had been reared made him regard the constitutional advance which had gone on during the war as an invasion of the rights of his Crown.

He looked on the nomination of the royal Council and the great officers of state by the two Houses or the supervision of the royal expenditure by the Commons as Infringements on the prerogative which only the pressure of the war and the weakness of a minority had forced the Crown to bow to.