No violence is objected to them; no particular illegal act;[*] no breach of any statute; and their administration may therefore be concluded to have been so far innocent and inoffensive.

All the disorders indeed seem to have proceeded not from any violation of the laws, or any ministerial tyranny, but merely from a rivalship of power, which the duke of Glocester and the great nobility, agreeably to the genius of the times, carried to the utmost extremity against their opponents, without any regard to reason, justice, or humanity.
But these were not the only deeds of violence committed during the triumph of the party.

All the other judges who had signed the extrajudicial opinions at Nottingham, were condemned to death, and were, as a grace or favor, banished to Ireland; though they pleaded the fear of their lives, and the menaces of the king's ministers as their excuse.
Lord Beauchamp of Holt, Sir James Berners, and John Salisbury, were also tried and condemned for high treason, merely because they had attempted to defeat the late commission: but the life of the latter was spared.
The fate of Sir Simon Burley was more severe: this gentleman was much beloved for his personal merit, had distinguished himself by many honorable actions,[*] [13] was created knight of the garter, and had been appointed governor to Richard, by the choice of the late king and of the Black Prince: he had attended his master from the earliest infancy of that prince, and had ever remained extremely attached to him: yet all these considerations could not save him from falling a victim to Glocester's vengeance.
* See note M, at the end of the volume.
This execution, more than all the others, made a deep impression on the mind of Richard; his queen too (for he was already married to the sister of the emperor Winceslaus, King of Bohemia) interested herself in behalf of Burley: she remained three hours on her knees before the duke of Glocester, pleading for that gentleman's life; but though she was become extremely popular by her amiable qualities, which had acquired her the appellation of "the good Queen Anne," her petition was sternly rejected by the inexorable tyrant.[*] [14] * At least this is the character given of him by Froissard, (liv.

ii.) who knew him personally.

Walsingham (p.