Tracts, legal and historical

56
During the investigations into the circumstances
of the March conspiracy in 141.5, the object of which
was to raise Edmund Mortimer, the true heir of the
Plantagenets, to the throne, it transpired that some
persons had secretly cast their eyes upon " Thomas
of Trumpington an ideot," of whom they were to
avail themselves like another Maudelain, and bring
from Scotland to personify Richard. 1 The attempt,
however, of course, was not made, and seems
merely to have been an under plot, in order to un-
settle men's minds, and by its co-operation to pro-
mote the main object — the substitution of the house
of Mortimer for that of the reigning family. It
will be afterwards seen, that the impostor is again
alluded to by the English in 1417, but he still con-
tinued in Scotland as much a brutum fulmen as
ever, and he is finally proved to have died there by
a Scottish chronicle in 1419-
Let us, therefore, now see, after having so fully
traced the individual, how the case may stand. It is
proved that, in 1402, one, assisted by Serle, personi-
fied Richard in Scotland ; and, in 1404, both Serle
and " Thomas Warde of Trumpington," are ex-
cepted from a general pardon, while the latter is ex-
pressly charged with having feigned himself to be
Richard ; we find by the Archbishop of Canterbury's
letter to Henry IV., that the personificator of
Richard was still in Scotland, and that he was a
1 Rolls of Parliament, Vol. IV. p. 65.