Note 331 — Chapter XVI

Footnote 331: There is so much of fable mingled with the traditionary biography of this "Devonshire worthy," that most persons probably will dismiss the claim altogether. He became weary of his life, and, being determined to rid himself from the direful apprehensions of dangerous approaching evils, he adopted this strange mode of suicide: having given strict orders to his keeper to shoot any person at night who would not stand when challenged, he threw himself into the keeper's way, and was shot dead upon the spot. "This story (says the author) is authenticated by several writers, and the constant tradition of the neighbourhood; and I myself have been shown the rotten stump of an old oak under which he is said to have fallen." But as to the cause which drove him to this rash act the same writers vary, and tradition is strangely diversified. One author says, that "on the deposition of Richard II, who had made him a judge, he was so terrified by the sight of infinite executions and bloody assassinations, which caused him continual agonies, that, upon apprehension what his own fate might be, he fell into that melancholy which hastened his end." His re-appointment to the office on September 30, 1401, by Henry IV, would have relieved him from these apprehensions. Others say, that, "having committed the Prince to prison in his younger days, he was afraid that, on the sceptre of justice falling into his hands, that royal culprit would take a too severe revenge thereof; and this filled him with such insuperable melancholy, that he was driven to the desperate act of self-murder." But his appointment to succeed Gascoyne as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, March 29, 1413, must have conquered that melancholy; and he discharged that office through the whole of Henry V.'s reign, and through one year of Henry VI, after which he died, December 20, 1422. (back)