I7O TAXES AND CONTRIBUTIONS. 



claim is accompanied by a document, in which the writer dwells 

 on the services which his family had rendered to the Royal 

 House, how his father's attendance on Henry IV had been 

 constant, and how he died in the service of Henry V at 

 Harfleur; how his eldest brother was killed at Agincourt, 

 two others were also slain in battle, and himself was captured 

 and put to 20,000 ransom, another brother dying while held as 

 a hostage in France ; how he had been under arms for the 

 king and his father for thirty-four winters, seventeen of which 

 had been spent abroad, had been thirty years a Knight of the 

 Garter, and fifteen in close attendance on the king's person. 

 The document concludes with a protestation of innocence 

 and a demand that the accused be brought face to face with 

 his accusers. 



On Jan. 26, the Speaker, with certain of the Commons, 

 waited on the Chancellor, Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 and taking occasion of the admission made by the duke that 

 heavy charges were laid against him, begged the Chancellor 

 to communicate the facts to the king, and in the interval 

 demanded that Suffolk should be imprisoned. On the following 

 day, the Chancellor communicated the message to the king and 

 to the Privy Council. The lords of the council consulted with the 

 judges, who declared that the charges were too general and too 

 vague, that they might imply offences to which imprisonment 

 did not apply, or crimes to which it did, and that it was 

 necessary to supply particulars. 



On Jan. 27, the Speaker opened and declared in the 

 Commons' House, before the Chancellor and other lords with 

 him, sent by the king, how great was their loyalty and affection 

 to the king's person, and how serious were their alarms. They 

 professed to believe that the French king meditated the in- 

 vasion of England, with the connivance of Suffolk, and that 

 the arming, provisioning, and storing of Wallingford Castle by 

 the duke, with guns, gunpowder and other munitions of war, 

 with sufficient provisions, was proof of traitorous intentions ; 

 and again urged that the duke should be sent to the Tower 



