Historic%20Yorkshire

80
THE FALL AND DEATH OF RICHARD II.
which was only exposed from the eyebrows to the chin.
The corpse was conveyed to King's Langley,in Hertfordshire,
and there buried; butit was afterwards, by the
order of Henry V., removed to WestminsterAbbey.
The mystery which shrouds the end of Richard II. has
never yet been fully clearedup, and the immediate cause
ofhis death at Pontefract Castle, oreven whether he died
there at all,has yet to be determined. Those wholooked
upon the emaciatedface in St. Paul's and believed*it to
be that of their late king, spoke below their breath of
starvation,and it was reported by those that such was the
vitality of Richard, and such the robust nature of his
constitution, that he defied the pangs of absolute starvation
for fourteen days after his cruel gaolers had ceased to
supply him with food, and only at the expirationof that
protracted period of torment did he die. Others, also,
believingthat he came to his deathbystarvation,affirmed
that he, in the extreme melancholy and dejection of his
mind, utterly refused to take food, and so voluntarily
starved himselfto death.
Yet another account is that recorded in the text of
Shakespeare,who derivedit from the writings of Fabyan,
by whom it was adoptedfrom a manuscript in the Royal
Library at Paris. It runs as follows: — As soon as the
Council had advised the safe custody of the already imprisonedking,and
the production of his bodyif already
dead, Sir Piers, of Exton,was deputed by King Henry
to leave no doubt as to the matter of his death in fact,
to murder him. Sir Piers, with seven armedattendants,
set out for Pontefract, and on arriving there entered the
cell of the condemnedking. He at once read his fate in
the meaning glances of the ruffianly soldiers, and, with
resistless impetuosity,snatching a battle-axe from the
hand of one of his assailants, slew him, and was likely
to have defeated the whole party by the courage and
address of his attack, when Sir Piers, stepping behind
him, smote him down with a cowardlyblow that decided
the assassination; and the wretched king was finally