[The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. by David Hume]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. CHAPTER XVII 24/73
They sent him a message by the archbishop of Canterbury, and the lords Lovel Cobham, and Devereux, and demanded that the persons who had seduced him by their pernicious counsel, and were traitors both to him and to the kingdom, should be delivered up to them.
A few days after, they appeared in his presence, armed, and attended with armed followers; and they accused by name the archbishop of York, the duke of Ireland, the earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, and Sir Nicholas Brembre, as public and dangerous enemies to the state.
They threw down their gauntlets before the king, and fiercely offered to maintain the truth of their charge by duel.
The persons accused, and all the other obnoxious ministers, had withdrawn or had concealed themselves. The duke of Ireland fled to Cheshire, and levied some forces, with which he advanced to relieve the king from the violence of the nobles. Glocester encountered him in Oxfordshire with much superior forces; routed him, dispersed his followers, and obliged him to fly into the Low Countries, where he died in exile a few years after. The other proceedings were well suited to the violence and iniquity of the times.
A charge consisting of thirty-nine articles, was delivered in by the appellants; and as none of the accused counsellors, except Sir Nicholas Brembre, was in custody, the rest were cited to appear; and upon their absenting themselves, the house of peers, after a very short interval, without hearing a witness, without examining a fact, or deliberating on one point of law, declared them guilty of high treason. Sir Nicholas Brembre, who was produced in court, had the appearance, and but the appearance, of a trial: the peers, though they were not by law his proper judges, pronounced, in a very summary manner, sentence of death upon him; and he was executed, together with Sir Robert Tresilian, who had been discovered and taken in the interval. It would be tedious to recite the whole charge delivered in against the five counsellors; which is to be met with in several collections.[*] * Knyghton, p.2715.Tyrrel, vol iii.
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