[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 36/73
The danger probably was still too distant to render a desperate remedy entirely necessary for the security of government. But whatever opinion we may form of the danger arising from Glocester's conspiracies, his aversion to the French truce and alliance was public and avowed; and that court which had now a great influence over the king, pushed him to provide for his own safety, by punishing the traitorous designs of his uncle.
The resentment against his former acts of violence revived; the sense of his refractory and uncompliant behavior was still recent; and a man whose ambition had once usurped royal authority, and who had murdered all the faithful servants of the king, was thought capable, on a favorable opportunity, of renewing the same criminal enterprises.
The king's precipitate temper admitted of no deliberation: he ordered Glocester to be unexpectedly arrested; to be hurried on board a ship which was lying in the river; and to be carried over to Calais, where alone, by reason of his numerous partisans, he could safely be detained in custody.[*] The earls of Arundel and Warwick were seized at the same time: the malecontents so suddenly deprived of their leaders, were astonished and overawed; and the concurrence of the dukes of Lancaster and York in those measures, together with the earls of Derby and Rutland, the eldest sons of these princes,[**] bereaved them of all possibility of resistance. A parliament was immediately summoned at Westminster; and the king doubted not to find the peers, and still more the commons, very compliant with his will.
This house had in a former parliament given him very sensible proofs of their attachment;[***] [15] and the present suppression of Glocester's party made him still more assured of a favorable election.
As a further expedient for that purpose, he is also said to have employed the influence of the sheriffs; a practice which, though not unusual, gave umbrage, but which the established authority of that assembly rendered afterwards still more familiar to the nation. Accordingly, the parliament passed whatever acts the king was pleased to dictate to them:[****] they annulled forever the commission which usurped upon the royal authority, and they declared it treasonable to attempt, in any future period, the revival of any similar commission: they abrogated all the acts which attainted the king's ministers, and which that parliament who passed them, and the whole nation had sworn inviolably to maintain: and they declared the general pardon then granted to be invalid, as extorted by force, and never ratified by the free consent of the king. * Froissard, liv.iv.chap.90.Walsing.
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