In the previous chapter, I observed in passing that the more egregious of the Ricardian plots against the commissioners provoked Fovent to ridicule the conspirators with allusions to scripture, as he does at the end of this passage. For a brief moment here he seems to address his readers directly, punctuating the revelation of secret letters sent by the Ricardians to the king of France with a remark that is at once indignant and incredulous: Qui habet aures audiendi audiat. Though such biting interjections are certainly colourful (particularly his description of the Ricardians labouring in the devil’s vineyard in connection with Richard’s meeting with the judges), these biblical references seem to appear almost reflexively, as if to brace the reader for the next revelation. But are they doing something more? Perhaps these allusions to scripture are not simply admonitory or mocking – as I suggested before, they typically appear in conjunction with offences involving the misappropriation, suppression and counterfeiting of government documents. Fovent clearly dislikes the misuse of official letters and documents, and this is because he supposes such documents to be the most consistent mechanism for exercising, and in the words of the Appellants, accroaching royal power. But what truly bothers Fovent about these documents – what provokes his ire and his commentary – is something besides the accroachment of power. It is the ability of the letters and documents to circulate, for the letters and documents generated by the Ricardians travelled far and wide, increasing the scope of the crisis by their very circulation.

Consider again those letters sealed with Richard’s signet and sent by the Ricardians to London and France in the months when Richard toured the kingdom in the hopes of rebuilding his base of support.