No sooner was Parliament dissolved, however, than the king recalled De la Pole to court, together with his other favourite, De Vere, whose estates had been confiscated. These two noblemen and Alexander Neville were the only persons in whom Richard placed confidence. The Earl and the Duke were loaded with fresh favours, and were enabled, for a time, to make head against their enemies, whose destruction they determined upon. Among the chief of their opponents were the king's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earl of Arundel, who, seeing the shape things were taking, assembled an army of 40,000 men, marched to London, and presented thirty-nine articles of impeachment against Neville, De Vere, De la Pole, Sir Robert Tresilian, the chief justice, and Sir Nicholas Brember, Lord Mayor of London. The accused were summoned to appear at Westminster, but, aware of their danger, they all, except Brember, who was in prison, failed to appear. Meanwhile, the Lords' appellant proceeded to pronounce judgment. Some of the accused were condemned to death, and others to imprisonment; and amongst the rest our prelate was sentenced to perpetual incarceration in Rochester Castle. The crime they laid to his charge, says Godwin, was endeavouring to abuse the king's youth, and to exasperate him against the nobility. But Knyghton, his contemporary, gives a better reason, which was straining the king's prerogative too high "by advising him to set aside and disannul an Act of Parliament with his own

The king being now in disgrace, his friends could. expect small favour and, seeing the storm look black upon them, withdrew from England. De Vere fled to Ireland, and afterwards to Holland, where he died about four years later. De la Pole escaped to France, where he was kindly received by the French King, but died at Paris, in the same year, of a broken heart, at the age of 55. Tresilian remained concealed about London for some time, but was at length betrayed by a servant, and he and Brember were both beheaded. With the cause of the Lord Mayor's unpopularity we are not acquainted; but the Chief Justice had made himself odious by his "bloody circuit" against the peasants who had been engaged in the late insurrection.

Neville escaped from his castle of Cawood, disguised as an ordinary priest, but was arrested near Newcastleon-Tyne. The money in his possession, amounting to some £30., was taken from him and given to his captors. He was subsequently allowed, by the people, to escape to the Continent, leaving all his possessions to be confiscated, which, by a writ of outlawry at the meeting of Parliament, were forfeited to the king. It is most certain our prelate's cause would have been exceeding bad had he fallen into the hands of his enemies, but even as it was it was deplorable enough. He lived in exile, in great want, until Pope Urban VI., commiserating his condition, translated him, on his resignation of the See of York, to St. Andrew's, in Scotland. But alas! his evil fate still pursued him. The Scots, being amongst those who acknowledged

K

the anti-pope Robert of Geneva (who had been elected under the name of Clement VII., by the discontented cardinals, after their election of Urban VL.), rejected Urban's nomination of Neville to St. Andrew's, and he, being thus deprived of both Sees, was constrained, through sheer necessity, to become a parish priest and schoolmaster at Louvain, in Belgium. After dragging on through five years of exile and poverty, he died, and was buried in the church of the Friars Carmelite at Louvain, about the end of May, 1392.

This prelate is said to have expended considerable sums on his castle at Cawood, adding divers towers and other buildings to it. Knyghton, who evidently was no friend of Neville's, tells us he was at variance with his canons of Beverley, whom he deprived ab officiis et beneficiis, keeping the perquisites in his own hands. This story is repeated by Oliver in his history. Notwithstanding any wrongs which Neville may have inflicted upon the canons and church of Beverley, his magnificent gift to the burgesses is sufficient to endear his memory to every inhabitant of the town and their successors, and to cause his name to be inscribed on BEVERLEY'S ROLL OF HONOUR.

JOHN ALCOCK, D.D.,

BISHOP OF ELY.

1440-1500.

BRAHAM de la Pryme, in his Ephemeris Vita, has attempted to erase from Beverley's Roll of Honour the name of this great and good prelate, by endeavouring to prove that he first saw the light in the neighbouring town of Hull, which at that time was only beginning to emerge from obscurity, whilst Beverley occupied the proud position of the capital of the East Riding. His grounds for thus arguing were:-" First, because that his ancestors, William Alcock, Thomas Alcock (sheriff in 1468 and mayor in 1478), and Robert Alcock (the bishop's father, who was sheriff in 1471 and mayor in 1480) were all of them famous merchants of this town [Hull] and lived here. Secondly, because that the old records of the town positively say that he was the son of the aforesaid Robert Alcock, mayor. Thirdly, because that when he founded the great free school in the town of Hull, he founded it upon his own lands that had descended to him from his grandfather, William Alcock, merchant, of the same place, being a

great garden fifty-five royal ells in length, which he had bought in 1432 of John Grimsby, merchant. And fourthly, because it was commonly the custom in those days to build their chantreys and chappells and schools and such like in the towns where they were born.”

Mr. Corlass, in his "Sketches of Hull Authors," founding his hypothesis on the arguments of De la Pryme, says "It is very probable that the family of Alcock had, previously to the birth of the subject of this sketch, migrated from Beverley to Hull through trade considerations, as we read of many merchant families having done about this period." Mr. Sheahan, in his "History of Hull," holds a contrary opinion, and asserts that Robert Alcock, the Hull merchant, retired from business and went to reside at Beverley before the birth of our prelate. Be this as it may, most authors agree in according to Beverley the honour of being his birthplace.

It has been conjectured that he was a younger son, but we have no means of ascertaining the fact. He was educated, it is thought, first at Beverley, then at Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire, and finally entered Cambridge, where he obtained great distinction, particularly for his knowledge of the civil and canon law, and received the degree of L.L.D. In some notes to the Testamenta Eboracensia* we are told that he was admitted to the order of sub-deacon by John, Bishop of Philippolis, the suffragan of the Archbishop of York, on the 8th of March, 1448-9, Thornton Abbey giving

* Surtees Society, vol. ii.