their gates.  The two great houses of the north joined him at once.  Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmoreland, had married his half-sister; the Percies came from their exile over the Scottish border.  As he pushed quickly to the south all resistance broke down.  The army which the Regent gathered refused to do hurt to the Duke; London called him to her gates; and the royal Council could only march hastily on Bristol in the hope of securing that port for the King’s return.  But the town at once yielded to Henry’s summons, the Regent submitted to him, and with an army which grew at every step the Duke marched upon Cheshire, where Richard’s adherents were gathering in arms to meet the king.  Contrary winds had for a while kept Richard ignorant of his cousin’s progress, and even when the news reached him he was in a web of treachery.  The Duke of Albemarle, the son of the Regent Duke of York, was beside him, and at his persuasion the King abandoned his first purpose of returning at once, and sent the Earl of Salisbury to Conway while he himself waited to gather his army and fleet.  The six days he proposed to gather them in became sixteen, and the delay proved fatal to his cause.  As no news came of Richard the Welshmen who flocked to Salisbury’s camp dispersed on Henry’s advance to Chester.  Henry was in fact master of the realm at the opening of August when Richard at last sailed from Waterford and landed at Milford Haven.

[Sidenote:  Richard’s capture]

Every road was blocked, and the news that all was lost told on the thirty thousand men he brought with him.  In a single day but six thousand remained, and even these dispersed when it was found that the King had ridden off disguised as a friar to join the force which he believed to be awaiting him in North Wales with Salisbury at its head.  He reached Caernarvon only to find this force already disbanded, and throwing himself into the castle despatched his kinsmen, the Dukes of Exeter and Surrey, to Chester to negotiate with Henry of Lancaster.  But they were detained there while the Earl of Northumberland pushed forward with a picked body of men, and securing the castles of the coast at last sought an interview with Richard at Conway.  The King’s confidence was still unbroken.  He threatened to raise a force of Welshmen and to put Lancaster to death.  Deserted as he was indeed, a King was in himself a power, and only the treacherous pledges of the Earl induced him to set aside his plans for a reconciliation to be brought about in Parliament and to move from Conway on the promise of a conference with Henry at Flint.  But he had no sooner reached the town than he found himself surrounded by Lancaster’s forces.  “I am betrayed,” he cried, as the view of his enemies burst on him from the hill; “there are pennons and banners in the valley.”  But it was too late for retreat.  Richard was seized and brought before his cousin.  “I am come before my time,” said Lancaster, “but I will show you the reason.  Your people, my lord, complain that for the space of twenty years you have ruled them harshly:  however, if it please God, I will help you to rule them better.”  “Fair cousin,” replied the King, “since it pleases you, it pleases me well.”  Then, breaking in private into passionate regrets that he had ever spared his cousin’s life, he suffered himself to be carried a prisoner along the road to London.