^{page 2 note a} Complete History of England. Folio. London, 1706, vol. I.

^{page 3 note b} Ellis's “Specimens of Early English Poets,” and “Romances.”

^{page 3 note c} Warton, in his History of English Poetry, vol. I. p. 121, says, “In the royal library at Paris there is ‘Histoire de Richard Roi d'Angleterre et de Maquemore d'Irlande en rime. No. 7532;’ but he has erroneously attributed it to Richard the first. It should seem that it was another copy of this MS.; but I have no means of ascertaining whether it is still to be found in that collection. He adds, in a note, ‘Du Cange recites an old French manuscript prose romance, entitled, Histoire de la mort de Richard Roy d'Angleterre. Gloss. Lat. Ind. Auct. I. p. cxci. There was one, perhaps the same, among the manuscripts of the late Mr. Martin, of Palgrave, in Suffolk.” This of Du Cange might be one of those which will be described hereafter.

^{page 4 note d} Camden's Britannia, 606, 1340. Edition of 1722.

^{page 5 note e} Un gentilhomme François de marque; which Strutt has most inaccurately rendered, Francis de la marque, a French gentleman. Manners and Customs, vol. II. p. 119.

^{page 5 note f} It is not improbable that he was attached to this knight as his squire. The first illumination represents him as a youth in a posture of submission, while the knight with an air of gravity, is proposing the journey to Ireland. The latter, indeed, addresses him by the appellation of brother. When he speaks of both in conjunction he repeatedly uses the expression “mon compagnon et moy,” in every instance courteously giving him the preference. Had he been a knight it would probably have been expressed in the title of the work.

^{page 6 note g} At Flint, for instance, where it appears the whole party passed a sleepless night in the same room.

^{page 7 note h} Froissart, who has so frequently given interesting details of the transactions of the age, is notoriously defective as to those which relate to the fall of this king.

^{page 7 note i} —He had been sometime in chyvauchye

In Flanders, in Artoys, and in Pycardye,

And borne him well.

–Syngynge he was, or floytynge all the day.

He coude songes make and well endyte,

Juste and eke daunce, portray, and well wryte.

Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

^{page 7 note k} Froissart, when he visited him at Leeds castle, presented him with a volume of poems, with which he was much pleased; and when he took leave of him at Windsor, the king gave him a silver goblet filled with one hundred nobles. Chronicles translated by Johnes, 8vo. XI. c. 24. XII. c. 32.

^{page 8 note l} Gower, after addressing his book in the first instance to Richard, and speaking highly in his praise, lived long enough to alter his dedication, and transfer his encomium to his successor.

^{page 9 note m} Carte, in his History of England, has referred to this MS. He also cites another, the contents of which seem to be exactly similar; and it might be the earlier copy. He gives the title with the author's name. Relation de la prise de Richard II. par Berry roy d'Armes, vol. II. p. 642. This is, perhaps, the same writer who is mentioned by Du Cange, in his list of authorities. Berry Heraud d'Armes, Hist. de Charles VII. Roi de France. Gloss. Lat. Ind. Auct. I. p. cxc.

^{page 9 note n} Account and Extracts of the Manuscripts in the Library of the King of France. London, 1789, vol. II. p. 197.

^{page 10 note o} Id. vol. II. p. 214.

^{page 10 note p} Id. p. 218.

^{page 10 note q} Perhaps a stronger inference, that he was with the king when he was taken, may be drawn from his account of Richard's soliloquy at Flint, in which some very curious particulars are detailed. Id.

^{page 10 note r} Art de verifier les Dates.

^{page 13 note a} Sir Thomas Percy, second son of Henry Percy, by Mary daughter of Henry Earl of Lancaster, and younger brother to Henry first Earl of Northumberland; a statesman and soldier of distinguished ability and reputation, who had spent a very active life in the service of his country. He was at this time upwards of fifty years of age.

He had been with the Black Prince in Aquitaine; was his high steward in 1369, and served under him with Chandos, Knolles, Trivet, and others of that school of chivalry.

He was at the skirmish in which Chandos was slain, on the morning of Dec. 31, 1370; assisted at various military operations in that country, and was at the barbarous sacking of Limoges, the last transaction in which the prince was engaged. When Sir Baldwin Freville, seneschal of Poitou, went into England, he succeeded him; and a contemporary thus speaks of him in this situation:

Monsr. Thomas Percy li vaillant

Yfuist ove honour moult grant.

But, during his absence on an expedition, he had the misfortune to lose the town of Poitiers, where he officially resided, to Bertrand du Guesclin; and he was himself soon after taken prisoner by Evan of Wales, in an affair near the castle of Soubise. His captivity, however, was not of long duration, the castle of Limosin being given up for his ransom in the next year, 47 Ed. III. The prince of Wales and his father, in consideration of his services, granted him, 50 Ed. III. an annuity of an hundred marks out of the exchequer at Caernarvon, and the same sum out of the king's exchequer during his life.

He officiated at the Coronation of Richard the Second; and next appears, R. II. as admiral of the northern seas, where he made several prizes. As he was passing over into France to the aid of the duke of Britanny, he narrowly escaped suffering shipwreck in the dreadful tempest in which Sir John Arundel and upwards of a thousand others were drowned. Scarcely had the storm ceased, when a Spanish vessel assailed him: he captured it by boarding, after an obstinate resistance, and returned with it into port; then proceeding upon his voyage, carried over his men and horses safely to Brest. He was joint governor of that place with Sir Hugh Calverley. About this time he was named one of the commissioners to settle the infractions of a treaty made with the Scots in the former reign. In 3R. II. he attended the Earl of Buckingham in his expedition into France; and in the next year was employed with the same nobleman and the Earl of Warwick in suppressing the insurrection: he was in the retinue of the king when he met the rebels at Mile-end. Returning to France, he was at the siege of Nantes, and, 5 R. II. was made captain of the castle of Brest, and afterwards of the town, 6 R. II.

He is spoken of, 7 R. II. as being of the king's council; commissioned to act in treaties with Flanders and France, and to guard the East Marches. In 8 and 10 R. II. he was again made admiral; in which capacity he escorted the Duke of Lancaster into Castile, was at the storming of Ribadavia, and other conflicts in Spain: particularly at the barriers of Noya in Galicia he signalized himself by fighting hand to hand with Barrois des Barres, one of the ablest captains of France. Having been afflicted with the distemper that proved fatal to so many of the soldiers, he came home with the army. He was,

13 R. II. appointed vice-chamberlain of the royal household, and justice of South Wales; and successively obtained grants of two castles in the Principality.

We find him in 16 R. II. at the head of the embassy which brought about the peace with France, where he was much caressed and honoured by the French king: he was then steward of the household. He was retained to serve in the first campaign in Ireland, 18 R. II. The disputes between Richard and the Duke of Gloucester so disgusted him, that he prudently solicited permission to retire to his own estate, and obtained it with some reluctance on the part of the king.

At length, in 21 R. II. he was rewarded with the dignity of Earl of Worcester; though it is singular that the author of the narrative never mentions him by this title. He was also made captain of the town and castle and marches of Calais. His appointment to be admiral of Ireland is dated Jan. 16, 22 R. II. It was preparatory to this second Irish expedition, in which he was to take with him thirty-five men at arms, knights and esquires, and one hundred archers; to every twenty archers one carpenter and one mason.

The text sufficiently describes the part that he took at the close of the reign of Richard, and the beginning of that of his successor. His disaffection to his old master might arise from the banishment of the Earl of Northumberland and his son, at which he was much exasperated. When Henry ascended the throne, it was one of his first objects to conciliate and attach so valuable a servant. Accordingly he bestowed many high appointments upon him; made him ambassador to France, governor of Aquitaine, admiral of the fleet, lieutenant in North and South Wales; and retained him as governor to his eldest son. Polidore Vergil is quite at a loss to account for his defection from Bolingbroke, which, he says, no author of any credit has explained; and he ridiculously attributes it to envy. Carte affirms, that he detested Henry as the author of the murder of Richard, and as an usurper of the crown, to the prejudice of the right heir, Edmund Mortimer Earl of March. Whatever might be the real cause of the dispute between Henry IV. and the Percies, each party laid the blame upon the other. When the affair came to an open rupture, Sir Thomas joined his nephew Hotspur, was taken at the battle of Shrewsbury, and beheaded there, July, 1403. He died without issue. He was knight of the Garter, and his barony was that of Haverfordwest the possessed the castle of Emelin in South Wales, and the castle and commot of Huckirk in the county of Caernarvon; and had purchased the manor of Wresil in Yorkshire, where he built a castle. Had he survived the Earl and Countess of Northumberland, and Henry Percy, dying without heirs, he would have inherited a large proportion of the great estates of the Countess, his sister-in-law, the heiress of the Lucy family.

Most contemporary writers have borne testimony to the talents and accomplishments of this nobleman; even our author touches his abandonment of Richard with a degree of tenderness. Walsingham alone, a strong partisan of Henry, lays to his charge the bloodshed of the fatal day of Shrewsbury. He informs us that the king was willing to have treated with his adversaries before the engagement; and that in a conference with Sir Thomas had even humbled himself to submit to unfavourable terms; but that the latter wilfully misrepresented his expressions when he returned to Hotspur, and hastened the fight. It does not however actually appear that when he drew the sword he at once threw away the scabbard; for that he was not averse to treat is plain from his accepting the dangerous office of a personal parley. But Henry survived to make a statement in favour of his own conduct, and Percy perished. His head and one of his quarters were set up on London Bridge; and the order addressed to the Mayor and Sheriffs is worded, perhaps in the usual official style, but certainly with apparent severity. The head is “ibidem quamdiu poterit moraturam,”

That he excelled in the qualities of the chivalrous character cannot be doubted his gravity and dignity as a statesman may be inferred from his being chosen procurator for the clergy upon a very solemn occasion during the parliament of 1397.28 Froissart, who became personally acquainted with him in 1395, commends his gracious and agreeable manners.

^{page 13 note 1} Dugdale's Baronage, v. I. p. 276.

^{page 14 note 2} Froissart, vol. III. c. 259. IV. c.9. 21, 28, 31, 39, 41.

^{page 14 note 3} MS. Life of the Black Prince, by Chandos Herald. Froissart represents him as immediate successor of Sir John Chandos; but this was not the fact.

^{page 14 note 4} Froiss. IV. c. 41, 42,

^{page 14 note 5} Walsingham. Ypodigma Neustris in Anglica Scripta, Camden, p. 529. Dugdale has rendered Liziniaeum by Lymosin: according to Baudraud, Geogr. p. 581, it is Saint Germain Leuroux.

^{page 14 note 6} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 197.

^{page 14 note 7} Stow, Annale: by Howes, p. 280.

^{page 14 note 8} Walsing. ut supra, p. 232, 235.

^{page 14 note 9} Id. p. 280, et alibi.

^{page 14 note 10} Stow, p. 287.

^{page 14 note 11} Froiss. V. c. 42, 45, 46.

^{page 15 note 12} Froiss. VIII. c. 3, 45. IX. c. 1, 4.

^{page 15 note 13} Rymer, VII. p. 677.

^{page 15 note 14} Froiss. IX. c. 23. X. 24.

^{page 15 note 15} Id XI. c. 48.

^{page 15 note 16} Rymer, Donation MS. Brit. Mus. vol. V. 91.

^{page 15 note 17} Froiss. XII. c. 16.

^{page 15 note 18} Froiss. c. 28.

^{page 15 note 19} Rymer, Donat. MS. B. M. 1.44.

^{page 15 note 20} Ang. Hist. 1. XXI.

^{page 15 note 21} Hist. of England, II. p. 656.

^{page 16 note 22} Anstis, MS. Collections, with notes by Bp. Percy, quoted by Johnes. Froiss, IV. c. 28.

^{page 16 note 23} Dugdale, 1. p. 277. See the Article, Sir Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, pp. 285, 286. passim.

^{page 16 note 24} Waking, p. 368.

^{page 16 note 25} Walsingham himself is cautious in the terms he employs. Ferunt, &c, and only says of him that he was, “inventor (ut dlatur) totius mali.” p. 369.

^{page 16 note 26} MSS. Bodl. 2067. f. 79. b.

^{page 16 note 27} Dated Lichfield, July 25, 1403. Rymer, VIII. p. 320.

^{page 16 note 28} Stow p. 316.

^{page 16 note 29} XII. c. 22. He introduced himself to him at the archbishop's palace, in Canterbury, where Sir Thomas was in attendance upon the king.

^{page 16 note b} The condition of Ireland at this juncture was truly deplorable. That island was the resort of outlaws, and exiles and adventurers of different nations; it was peopled by savage tribes and by settlers equally ferocious; and the affairs of it's government seemed to be in desperate and inextricable confusion. In original documents repeating the state of the country the inhabitants are described and arranged under three classes, “Wild Irish, rebellious Irish, and obedient English.” The “Wild Irish” or Irishry, were the unsubdued natives who had retired to the interior fastnesses, the mountains, bogs, and forests: they were governed by their own rude chiefs and laws, and looked upon by all the rest as their natural enemies. These were out of the protection of the English law, and it was often adjudged no felony to kill a mere Irishman in time of peace. “Our law,” says Sir John Davies, “did neither protect his life nor avenge his death.” The “rebellious Irish” were those who were also called English by blood; and were in part descended from the original conquerors, who had intermarried with the natives, and adopted their dress and manners, their language and their customs; possessing a tract of country between the natives and the sea, and subject to little controul. Their territory was called the English pale. The “obedient English” were a confused medley of soldiers, merchants, men of needy or desperate fortunes, and those whom the English government had invested with authority: they occupied the principal towns and cities and small tracts around them, chiefly in Leinster, and on the eastern and southern coasts. These were distinguished by the title of English by birth.

Such a population, in such an age, rendered Ireland, as the remonstrants at Kilkenny had forcibly expressed it, “a land full of wars.” Sometimes the septs were destroying each other; at other times they were making inroads upon the English pale, or joining with the great settlers in their mutual ravages. Richard II. in the beginning of his reign had addressed a rebuke to his liege subjects respecting their dissensions, which he followed up by sending Edmund Mortimer as his lieutenant into the country. His government, however, lasted only three years; and after his death things gradually fell into such disorder that the king found it necessary, in 1394, to interfere by his presence. His enemies submitted; but at his departure they scorned the weak forces that he had left behind him, and relapsed into their former anarchy. In 1397, Ormond and Obrien had wasted each other's lands; and the Earl of March, son of the above-mentioned Edmund, the king's lieutenant, who was co-operating with Ormond, was slain by the Obriens in the year ensuing. Thomas Holand, Duke of Surrey, was appointed to succeed him; he arrived in the island in 1398; but neither he nor his predecessor were of sufficient age and experience for so arduous a station. Of the native reguli, or canfinnies, who had affected to submit to Richard II. during his former visit, a great part were now in arms. Mac Morogh, the savage and powerful chieftain so often mentioned in this history, who was foremost in the rising, was united with the Earl of Desmond to waste the south: Obrien, whose territory lay nearer to Dublin, and Oneil in Ulster, were also in motion. They were to begin by attacking an adherent of the government. “Mac Morogh,” in the words of a despatch written about this time, “is now gone to Desmond to aid the Earl of Desmond to destroy the Earl of Ormond, if possible; and afterwards is to return with all the power he can get from the parts of Munster to destroy the country. Oneil has assembled a very great host of people to war and destroy the whole country. “The government was too weak to interpose in quelling these disturbers of the public peace, or even to protect it's own friends from the evils that were likely to ensue. Mal-administration and oppression prevailed. Sir Stephen Scroope, the deputy-lieutenant, had rendered himself odious to the English by blood and by birth, through his injustice and extortion. The disaffected Irishry pleaded unredressed wrongs, and pledges unfulfilled. Attempts had been made to bribe them into tranquillity; and they were again provoked to outrage by failure of payment. The finances were in a disordered state. Walsingham tells us, that the annual revenue in the reign of Edward the Third amounted to thirty thousand pounds; which is confirmed by Carew's extracts from the archives of the castle of Dublin; but this was wholly spent upon the public service, and proved at times far too little to meet the demands and allowances. At all events there was no residue for the king. An entry constantly occurs in the Pipe Rolls from the time of Henry the Third downwards, “in thesanro nihil,” “And the assertion of Fines Morysonia that “the country always supported its own government” is so far from being true, that Richard the Second had been obliged to contribute to it's assistance the yearly sum of thirty thousand marks. This was, however, before his first campaign. We have authentic evidence to prove that, about the time of which the text treats, the exchequer, exhausted by grants and annuities to the English and Irish, had been farther drained by the king himself of the money that should have been appropriated to the protection of the land; that there were no funds to pay the soldiers; that the army had consequently disbanded; and that the settlers in the Marches were neither able nor willing to afford any military aid.

These were the existing grievances and distractions of Ireland which called for remedy : the lieutenant and his council had made the most urgent representations upon this emergency; and the king, indignant at the death of Mortimer, had determined to correct the evils by his personal authority, as he had done five years before.

Some curious inedited details upon this subject will be found in the APPENDIX, NO. I. See also Lingard, Hist. of England, vol. III. c. 20, and Campbell's Sketch in Gough's Camden, IV. p. 247.

^{page 17 note 1} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 3. in APPENDIX, NO. 1. Also in a letter from Richard II. to the Duke of York in 1394, from Ireland, ibid. f. 23. a. and 151.

^{page 17 note 2} Discoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, ed. 1747, pp. 102,109, 111.

^{page 17 note 3} Camden, Annals of Ireland, a. 1341.

^{page 17 note 4} Rymer, Donat. MS. Brit. Mus. V. 121. Dated Aug. 18, 2 R. II. but catalogued as 23 R. II.

^{page 17 note 5} Dugdale, Baron. I. p. 149.

^{page 17 note 6} Camden and Holinshed, a. 1397,1398.

^{page 18 note 7} Bibi. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 3.

^{page 18 note 8} Holinshed, p. 66.

^{page 18 note 9} Hist. Angl. p. 330. Davies, p. 39, mistakes Walsingham, when he opposes him upon this point. He does not mean to assert, that such a sum was transmitted to England, or remained to the king.

^{page 18 note 10} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f, 279.

^{page 18 note 11} Davies, p. 30.

^{page 18 note 12} Itinerary, p. 3.

^{page 18 note 13} Walsing. ut supra.

^{page 19 note c} 1493. Forty English, among whom were John Fitz-Williams, Thomas Talbot, and Thomas Comyn, were unfortunately cut off on Ascension-day by the Lords Lez Tothils.:

On S. Margaret's day this year, Roger Earl of March, the king's lieutenant, was slain, with many others, by O Bryen and the Irish of Leinster, at Kenlys in that province. Camden in anno.

^{page 19 note d} A name celebrated in the annals of Ireland, and variously spelt Mac Morgh and Mac Morogh. One of this race, a brutal and sanguinary character, Dermot Mac Morogh, son of Murchard, was the principal cause of the conquest in the reign of Henry the Second. The Mac Moroghs were the most considerable sept in Leinster, the chief of which styled himself king of that province. The individual here introduced was Arthur Mac Morogh, “chief captain of his nation, at whose might and power all Leinster trembled.” Henry Cristall, who furnished Froissart with an account of Richard's first expedition into Ireland, apparently represents him as having been concerned in an insurrection during the government of Lionel Duke of Clarence, which must have been forty years before; but as this will not accord with the accounts of his activity given hereafter, it may be considered that the historian has confounded him with his predecessor of that name. This is certain, that the Arthur Mac Morogh in question was in the war of 1394, and was one of the four kings who made submission to Richard in Dublin, and were knighted by him on the feast of our Lady in the same year, in the cathedral of that city. Cristall, who had been long resident as a prisoner among the Irishry, and was well acquainted with their manners and language, was selected to drill them into something like respectable appearance and behaviour at the court and at the ceremony. He accomplished the task with some difficulty, and his account of their habits and conduct is altogether curious. They entered into indentures, not only to continue loyal subjects, but that they and all their adherents should, by a day appointed, surrender to the king and his successors, all the lands and possessions which they held in Leinster; and, taking with them only their moveable goods, should serve him in his wars against his other rebels. In consideration of this, the king was to give them pay and pensions during their lives, and the inheritance of all such lands as they might recover from the rebels in any other part of the realm. Mac Morogh, in particular, was to have an annuity of eighty marks. Davies saw the enrolment of these indentures, and of the annuity, in the office of the king's remembrancer and the white book of the exchequer in Ireland. But Arthur and his wild companions seem to have submitted with an ill grace, and not long after the departure of Richard he again began to levy war. In this state of insubordination he continued under the lieutenancy of Roger Mortimer, and of his successor the Duke of Surrey; till at length he was brought to a parley of treaty. His barony of Norragh had been granted to the Duke of Surrey: he demanded restitution of it. His promised annuity had never been paid; and he insisted upon the whole arrears, adding that unless these terms were complied with, he would not keep the peace. The warden and council, alarmed at his threats, consented to pay him a certain sum of money for the barony and pension, until the king's pleasure could be ascertained; but he refused to enter into any composition, or to be pacified without speedy restitution of the barony. His language, according to their report, was, that “if his conditions are not complied with by Michaelmas, he is at open war.” In the mean time he began his incursions, as related in a former note. Richard appeared in Ireland; led in person his troops against him; set a price upon his head, and left him unsubdued. During the twenty ensuing years, he continued at intervals a thorn in the side of the government. Sir Stephen Scroope, deputy-lieutenant to Thomas Duke of Lancaster, son of Henry the Fourth, marched into his territory in 1417, and defeated the Irish after an obstinate encounter. But his final reduction took place on the 4th of May, 1419. On that day he was made prisoner, and is spoken of no more. Henry Marleburgh attributes this feat to John Talbot Earl of Furnivale; but Campion, out of James Young, asserts, that it occurred in the next year, under the great tamer of the septs, James Butler Earl of Ormond.

^{page 19 note 1} Giraldus Cambrensis. Expugnatio Hiberniae, 1. 1.

^{page 19 note 2} Davies styles him chief of the Kavanaghs, p. 49.

^{page 19 note 3} Holinshed, pp. 70, 71.

^{page 19 note 4} Chronicles, XI. c. 24.

^{page 19 note 5} In Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 153, is a letter from the Council in England to Richard II. then in Ireland, congratulating him upon the submission of “tos rebeaux Mac Mourgh et le grand Onel, et mitres grands Capitains illocquei le plus forts de la terre.”

^{page 19 note 6} Froissart, ut supra.

^{page 20 note e} In Carew's translation of a portion of this story there is a note upon this passage “This must be a mistake of the French author; for the Mac Moroughs never pretended to more than the kingdom of Leinster, though Dermond Mac Morough had ambition enough to seek to dethrone O'Connor, king of Ireland.” In opposition to this it may be observed, that it is not likely that he should he deceived in what he must so often have heard; and he dwells upon it as if he felt offended with the chieftain for his presumption. The pretensions of Mac Morogh in this instance might only be assumed to vex the king of England; but among the heads of the septs who called themselves kings, “there always existed an ardriagh, or monarch, who, if he did not exercise, at least claimed, the sovereignty over the whole island;” and that Mac Morogh did so, is a proof of the power and consequence of the sept over which he presided.

From the time of John, the kings of England were styled “Lords of Ireland.” Henry the Eighth rejected the title because it had been originally confirmed by the Pope.

^{page 20 note 7} This is what the text alludes to in the expression, “he hath little territory of any kind.”

^{page 20 note 8} Disnoverie, &c. pp. 49, 50, 51.

^{page 20 note 9} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 3.

^{page 20 note 10} Camden, Annals, a. 1417, 1419. Holinshed.

^{page 20 note 11} Hibernica, p. 23.

^{page 21 note g} Preparations had been making for some time: they were going on during the whole of Lent. There is an article in Rymer, dated March 2, 1399, “De equis pro curribus regiis providendis.” The measures that were taken, or rather the manner in which they were enforced, tended to increase the unpopularity of the king. The grievances of purveyance heavily felt and remedied under Edward III. appear to have been revived in all their intolerable rigour. The clergy complained of having been compelled to furnish horses, and waggons, and sums of money, and the people in general were sorely afflicted by extortion: nothing that was taken for the king's use was paid for. “Equos et quadrigas exigens, et alia necessaria profectione sua rapiens, nihilque resokens.”

The naval part of the armament was upon a large scale. An order had been issued, Feb. 7, for all vessels of twenty-five tons and upwards from the ports of Colchester, Orwell, and all ports and places on the sea coast northward as far as Newcastle upon Tyne, to assemble at Milford or Bristol, by the octaves of Easter, ready for shipment, and appointed with sufficient masters and mariners for the voyage of Ireland. Pressing was also resorted to upon the occasion. John Elys, master of a certain barge, called “the Nicholas de le Tour,” is to arrest twenty-five able mariners wherever they may be found, “tam infra libertates quam extra,” to serve in the said barge.

^{page 21 note g} Minstrelsy was now in high repute; and besides the harpers, who may be supposed to have resorted from that part of Wales to the head-quarters at Milford, many professed minstrels were, as usual, attendant upon the army. Among the names of those to whom letters of protection were granted for going into Ireland, occur

William Bynglay, ministrallus.

Willielmus York, ministrallus.

Walterus de Lynne, ministrallus.

The popular notion of a minstrel is attached, perhaps, too exclusively to the harp and the banquet. A minstrel was a performer upon any instrument then in use of wind or string. It seems that upon some occasions they formed part of the military band. They are often spoken of as above, in connexion with the trumpets. Edward the Third took them to sea with him when he went to fight the Spaniards. Like the Welsh bards their talents might be equally serviceable in the field and in the hall. The herald minstrel, menestrel huchier, was of this description. Such was Taillefer, who led the Normans to the assault at the battle of Hastings.

^{page 21 note 2} Lingard, Hist. of Engl. II. c. 12.

^{page 21 note 3} Campbell, in Gough's Caraden, IV. p. 248.

^{page 21 note 4} Th. Otterbourne, a Hearne, p. 197.

^{page 21 note 5} Tom. VIII. p. 67. See also another article, p, 70.

^{page 21 note 6} Lingard, III. c. 19.

^{page 21 note 7} Articles of Accusation. Decera Scriptores, art. XXII.

^{page 21 note 8} Wahing. p. 356.

^{page 21 note 9} Otterbourns, ut supra.

^{page 21 note 10} Rymer, Donat. MS. V. 107.

^{page 21 note 11} Ibid. 108.

^{page 21 note 12} Burney, Hist. of Music, II. pp. 273, 360.

^{page 22 note h} He had already taken leave of the Queen, as it appears, at Windsor; where the writer of MS. Ambassades says, that he “never saw so great a lord make so much of a lady or show so much love for her as King Richard did for the queen.” From this passage Gaillard concludes the author of that narrative to have been an eye-witness. Narrative of the Death of Richard II. in Accounts and Extracts of the MSS. in the Library of the King of France, vol. II. pp. 213, 214.

^{page 22 note 1} Rymer, VIII. pp. 78,79.

^{page 22 note 2} Du Cange, Gloss, v. Ministrallus.

^{page 22 note 3} Froissart, II. c 161, at the battle of Poitiers, IV. c. 12.

^{page 22 note 4} Id. II. Additions to e. 50.

^{page 22 note 5} Leges Wallie, 1.1. c. 19. 7.

^{page 22 note 6} Burney, II. pp. 275, 289.

^{page 23 note i} Richard landed on a Sunday, being the morrow after the festival of Saint Petronilla, the Virgin. June 1st. His armament, according to Froissart, consisted of full two thousand lances, knights and squires, and ten thousand archers. The MS. Ambassades states the amount of the whole at thirty-two thousand, when they returned into Wales.

^{page 23 note k} Kilkenny was on the borders of the English pale, and close upon the Irishry. Richard Talbot fortified the greater part of the town in the following year, 14OO.

^{page 23 note l} Edward Plantagenet, eldest son of Edmund Duke of York, by Isabella of Castile, youngest daughter of Peter the cruel. He was cousin both to Richard II. and Henry IV. and was at this period about twenty-five years old.

By the female side he was descended of an unworthy line; and his conduct in early life did not tend to redeem the reputation of that branch of his family. Though he had been one of the chief favourites of Richard, he ill requited his attachment; for by evil counsels he paved the way to his downfall; and, if credit may be given to the scene in the Tower, hereafter to be quoted, he had the meanness to insult him in his captivity. In short his treachery rendered him at last odious to either party, and in the unfortunate monarch's own words, he was “unworthy of the appellation of duke, earl, or knight.” Even foreigners held him in contempt. The Count de Saint Pol, when he challenged Henry IV. exhibited his effigy one night before the gates of Calais, significantly represented, “ayant la teste en bas.” The Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V. formed an attachment to him, and contrived to restore him to a certain degree of usefulness and respectability.

His titular honours had kept pace with those of Henry of Lancaster; and on the same days in which the latter had been created Earl of Derby and Duke of Hereford, Edward Plantagenet was made Earl of Rutland and Duke of Albemarle. He is the first Earl of Rutland upon record. To this title, which he was to retain only during his father's life, was annexed a grant of the castle, town, and lordship of Okeham and the sherivalty of the county. Other appointments rapidly followed. From the 17th to the 21st of Richard II. inclusive, he was made Admiral of the fleet to the northward, Commissioner of peace in France, Justice of the forests south of Trent, Constable of the Tower of London, Commissioner to treat of the marriage with Isabel, Governor of Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Wight with Carisbrook castle, Warden of the New-Forest, and all the forests south of Tent, Constable of Dover castle, and Warden of the Cinque-ports. To these succeeded the Dukedom of Albemarle above-mentioned, with a large portion of the estates of the Earls of Arundel and Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester, who had been attainted of treason. He had been one of the appellants of Gloucester, and was deeply implicated in the murder of that prince, his uncle, whose son, being by inheritance constable of England, was by the king deprived of this office in his favour; the title of Albemarle seems to have been part of his reward for the share he took in that iniquitous transaction: within five days ensuing his elevation to that dignity he was again made Constable of the Tower.

As in the instance of Sir Thomas Percy, his recent appellation does not appear to have been generally adopted; for it will be seen that our author rarely speaks of him but as Earl of Rutland, though he notices his advancement to the title of Albemarle. He must have been deprived of the latter by the time the metrical History was composed.

Richard, according to his habitual weakness, was immoderately partial to him, and greatly influenced by his opinion; and Rutland seems to have been devoted to him in his turn, till the quarrel arose between the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk, in which his own personal safety was called in question. Hereford affirmed that Norfolk had said, “that the king, notwithstanding his fair countenance and great oaths, did yet intend to oppress the duke of Lancaster, and the two Dukes of Albemarle and Exeter” A suspicion that this assertion was founded in truth might have alienated his mind from the king: his conduct from that time exhibited a coolness towards him. Having officiated as high constable in the lists at Coventry, he withdrew from court, though he was one of the council, and retired with his father to Langley. Bolingbroke had probably then begun to tamper with him.

The expedition into Ireland brought him from his retreat. The king had constituted him in this year, 22 Ric. II. General Warden of the West Marches toward Scotland, and joined him with others, in commission to treat of peace with the Scots. He was now retained by indenture to serve in Ireland, for one whole year, with one hundred and forty men at arms, Knights and esquires, and two hundred archers on horse-back; every twenty of the archers having one carpenter and one mason.

So high was the estimation in which Richard continued to hold him, that in the will which he made before his departure from England he nominated him one of his executors, distinguishing him by the expression “dilectum consanguineum nostrum.” He had been in the former Irish campaign; and Froissart? tells us, that he was in the present case “induced to join the king for two reasons; one in return for the great affection King Richard had shown him; the other because he was constable of England. It was therefore necessary he should attend his king.” What real sense he had of his obligations, and how far he discharged his office will be seen in the text. He might well be ashamed, as he was at the castle of Flint, to come into the presence of one whom he had so basely injured. Having been thus actively instrumental in the ruin of his benefactor, his known disposition renders it most probable that he designedly betrayed his friends, the Earls of Salisbury, Exeter, and Surrey. This was the opinion of Camden; “and it is confirmed by the narrative, in opposition to other accounts which make his discovery of their conspiracy against Henry IV. to have arisen from an accidental cause. But he not only betrayed them, but joined in the pursuit after them. “Who,” says Gaillard, from the MS. Ambassades, “but must have felt indignation at seeing this traitor carrying on the end of a lance the head of his brother-in-law and accomplice, Lord Spencer, and shamefully presenting it to Henry, whom he would have treated in the same manner, if the tournament at Oxford (it should be Windsor) had taken place?”

Previous to the insurrection, in the stormy debates that had arisen in the first parliament of Henry IV. he was accused of the murder of the Duke of Gloucester, and appealed of treason. Lord Fitzwalter, and twenty other nobles threw down their gages of quarrel upon the floor against him. But the proceedings were stayed, and the dispute passed over by the policy and forbearance of the new king. Yet Henry had not spared him for any favour that he bore towards him; he knew him too well to repose much confidence in him: he deprived him of his post of constable, and his title of duke, and reduced him to the rank of Earl of Rutland, H. IV. though he pardoned him for the share he had taken in the conspiracy against his life, and restored his estate. On the death of his father in 1402, he became Duke of York; in the same year he was made lieutenant of Aquitaine, as Dugdale thinks, owing to his obsequiousness; but, it was perhaps, with a view of removing him from England. His restless spirit prompted him in 1405 to attempt the rescue of the Earl of March from confinement in Windsor; the plot however failed, and he was arrested, and shut up in Pevensey castle till the next parliament. It was generally reported that he had died in prison; but the power of Henry IV. was too firmly established to render his existence matter of alarm, and in the next year he was released, and re-appointed Constable of the Tower. Besides, he found a firm friend in the Prince of Wales; the duke served in his company in the war against Owen Glendower, and was much indebted to his protection, under a charge of cowardice from which the prince strenuously vindicated him in the parliament or 1407. In 13 H. IV. he attended Thomas Duke of Clarence, when he went to the aid of the Duke of Burgundy; and in the year ensuing was in the war in France.

Henry the Fifth extended his patronage towards him, and in the second year of his reign reversed the attainder that had been passed upon him, constituted him Justice of South-Wales, and Warden of the East marches towards Scotland; he also restored him to the post of high constable; in which capacity he was with the host that besieged and captured Harfleur. The only merit of his character, as Luders justly observes, was in military service; nor can we in any other sense, agree to his friend's eulogium of him, pronounced while he was pleading his cause, “that in all his actions he is a true and valiant knight.”

As he advanced in age a review of the past might excite in him some feeling of contrition, and this probably induced him, in 1412, to found the college of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire. A tendency towards it may be traced in his will which he made at the same time, wherein he directs, that in all masses and prayers directed to be offered up for him, mention should be made of Richard the Second, for whom he was in conscience obliged to pray?

If too many of his deeds exclude him from being classed with the honourable, the concluding act of his life, at least, ranks him indisputably among the brave. He died on the field at Azincourt, Oct. 25, 1415, and was buried in the church of the college he had founded. By his wife Philippa, daughter of John Lord Mohun, he left no issue.

On the day of that great battle he earnestly solicited the command of the vanguard; and, as he had grown very corpulent, is said to have been over-borne in the throng and pressure of the combatants, and to have been suffocated and trampled to death rather than slain with the sword. His suggestion of planting sharp stakes in front of the lines greatly contributed to the victory. The sight of his body, united to other circumstances, occasioned Henry V. to issue the disastrous order for the slaughter of the prisoners. Henry caused his funeral obsequies to be celebrated with great pomp after his triumphal entry into London.

^{page 20 note 1} Holinshed, Hist. of Ireland, f. 65.

^{page 20 note 2} Fruiss. XII. c. 16.

^{page 20 note 3} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 216.

^{page 20 note 4} Holinsh. ut supra, f. 14. o.

^{page 20 note 5} Compare Dugdale, Baronage, II, p. 155.

^{page 20 note 6} MS. Ambassades, p. 145. Mr. Allen's Extracts, MS.

^{page 20 note 7} Mezeray, in a. 1400.

^{page 20 note 8} Nov. 3,1386, and Sept. 28,13,97.

^{page 20 note 9} Camden, 1. f. 548. This writer says, that he was previously made Earl of Cambridge, I. f. 495. II. f. 915. This is not correct; for his father retained that title to his death. Dugdale, II.

^{page 21 note 10} lie sent two of hi; servants to assist in it. MS. Bodl. 2376.

^{page 21 note 11} Froiss. XII c 3.

^{page 21 note 12} Cotton's Abridgment, p. 372. Placita Coron. in Parl. 21R.II. quoted by Rapin. 8vo. ed. VIII p. 75 note.

^{page 21 note 13} Froiss. XI. c. 20.

^{page 21 note 14} Life of King Rich. II. by a person of quality, 8vo, 1681, p. 174.

^{page 22 note 15} Rymer, VIII. p. 77.

^{page 22 note 16} Walsing. p. 351.

^{page 22 note 17} XII. c. 22.

^{page 22 note 18} Ritson has the hardihood to assert, that lie is not charged by any contemporary writer, unless it be the writer of a romance, as having the least concern in the conspiracy. Note on Shaksp. Rich. II. Act V. Sc. 2.

^{page 22 note 19} Vol. I. f. 548.

^{page 22 note 20} Account and Extracts, II. p. 229.

^{page 22 note 21} “Le Sr de Fitzwater soy levaet dit al roy la ou le Duyk d'Aumarle luy excusa del mort de Gluucestre, ieo dye quel fuist cause de sa mort, et aim il luy appeila de trayson, issuit fuist il cause; et cela ce p'vera ove mon corps, et veici noon gage et getta avant son chaperon. El xx autres s^rs et barouns getterount auxi 10^r gages pur mesme la querelle devers Aurnark Deposicio Regis Richardi s'cdi, in MSS. Bodl. 2376. Sir John Bagot, then prisoner in the Tower, accused him of having spoken against the Duke of Lancaster. Baker's Chronicle, p. 161.

^{page 23 note 22} The conjecture in the Catalogue of Cottonian MSS. Vespasian, F. XII. 14, 15. as to Richard d'Everwyk (Duke of York) who was to accompany Philippa, daughter of Henry IV. into Denmark, in 1406, cannot be correct.

^{page 23 note 23} Rytner, VIII, pp. 386, 388.

^{page 23 note 24} Stow, p. 332.

^{page 23 note 25} Rymer, ut supra, p.457.

^{page 23 note 26} Stow, p. 340.

^{page 23 note 27} Rot. Parl. IV. p. 17.

^{page 23 note 28} Stow, p. 348.

^{page 23 note 29} Essay on the Character of Henry V. p. 59, quoting Rot. Parl. III. p. 611.

^{page 23 note 30} Dugdale, Monast. Anglic, old edit HI. 162. b. and Tanner, Notitia Monast. Northamptonshire, XVI.

^{page 23 note 31} Dugdale, Baronage, II. 157. See the article, Edward, Earl of Rutland, passim.

^{page 27 note m} June 23d. He seems to have timed the commencement of his operations so as to enter upon them under the auspices and protection of Saint John the Baptist, who was his patron saint. Frequent allusions are found to this fact. Indeed he had two other patrons in the calendar, King Edmund, and Edward the Confessor. In an old picture painted in 1377, and engraved by Hollar in 1639, he is represented kneeling by these three saints, and addressing his devotions to the Virgin. His will is prefaced in the name of the Trinity, the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Edward the Confessor.

^{page 23 note n} As the woods and mountains were proper places for out-lawes and theeves, so were they their naturall castells and fortifications; thither they drave their preyes and stealthes; there they lurkt, and lay in waite to doe mischiefe. These fast-places they kept unknowne, by making the wayes and entries thereunto impassable; there they kept their creaglits or heardes of cattle, living by the milk of the cowe without husbandry or tillage. “Sylvis pro castris; paludibus utitur pro fossatis,” says Giraldus.

^{page 27 note 32} His magnificent monument had been ruined in the civil wars, and another was erected to his memory in a very inferior style by order of Queen Elizabeth. Camden, I. f. 521.

^{page 27 note 33} Dugdale, ut supra, from Leland, It in. I. f. 5.

^{page 27 note 34} Baker, p. 375.

^{page 27 note 35} Waking, p. 393.

^{page 27 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 221.

^{page 27 note 2} Granger's Biogr, Hist. of Engl. 1779. I. p. 15.

^{page 27 note 3} Rymer, VIII. 75.

^{page 28 note o} In his first expedition he had adopted the arms of Edward the Confessor. The reason assigned for this by Cristal was, that “the Irish loved and feared him more than any King of England before or since;” but it is more likely to have been founded in Richard's devotion to his patron saint. “When our king went thither last year,” said the knight to Froissart, “he laid aside the leopards and flower de luces, and bore the arms of Saint Edward emblazoned on all his banners. This we heard was very pleasing to the Irish.” We now find the leopards restored; for in 1397 the king added the above arras to his own, and bare them together party per pale. The assumption of these arms of Edward proved fatal to the Earl of Surrey in the reign of Henry VIII. though they had been formally granted to the family by Richard II. in 1394.

Selden has asserted and proved that the leopards were anciently the coat of England. They were borne by Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, son-in-law of Henry I. upon his shield and slippers, when the King of England made him a knight at Rouen, by the ceremony of the Bath.

Richard I. grandson of this earl, bare upon his shield in his great seal, three leopards passant in pale. When the Black Prince summoned his council at Bourdeaux to deliberate upon proceeding to the aid of Peter, his biographer makes him say,

—ie oy contier

Que li leopards et leur compaigne

Se disployerent en Espaigne.

Nicholas Serby was Leopard Herald in the reign of Henry V.

It was an old opinion, pretended to have originated in a prophecy of Merlin, that the lilies and leopards should be united in the same field. The ambassadors sent by Edward III. in 1329 to claim the regency of France, upon the death of Charles the Fair, opened their harangue with this declaration. Richard had challenged Charles VI. upon the best title to the fleur de lis. The passage of Ariosto quoted by Menestrier and others, by a strong anachronism, assigns the leopards and fleurs de lis to a Duke of Lancaster in the time of Charlemagne.

“Tu vedi ben quella bandiera grande

Ch' insieme pon la Fiordilegi, e i pardi.”—Orl. Fur. C. X. st 77.

Gower describes Richard by an attribute similar to that of the text.

Sit laus Richardi, quem sceptra colunt leopardi.

^{page 28 note 4} Sir John Davies, Discoverie, &c. p. 162.

^{page 28 note 5} Topogr. Hibern. Sylv. Giralcl, in Angliea, &c. a Camden, p. 748.

^{page 28 note 6} Nisbet. Essay on Armouries, p. 146, in Dallaway's Enquiries, p. 377.

^{page 28 note 7} Froiss. XI. c, 24.

^{page 28 note 8} Stow, p. 318.

^{page 28 note 9} Lord Herbert's Hist. of Hen. VIII. p. 626. in Dallaway, p. 185, note.

^{page 28 note 10} Note on the eleventh Song of Drayton's Polyolbion.

^{page 28 note 11} Menestrier. De l'origine des Armoires, I. pp.61, 62,63, from a MS. History of Geoffrey by a monk of Marmoustier: but the latter expressly calls them, Leunculi, lioncek. The French heralds frequently styled them lion-leopards.

^{page 29 note p} Henry, afterwards Henry V. eldest son of Henry Duke of Lancaster, by Mary youngest daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, was but in his eleventh year when this transaction took place. He was brought up in the king's palace, and received the early part of his education at Queen's College, in Oxford; and from comparison of dates it maybe concluded that he quitted his academical studies for a while to join the army. Because Henry Beaufort, his uncle, under whose superintendance he is understood to have been placed at the University, and who had been Chancellor in the preceding year, 1398 was himself attached to the expedition. Whether he continued at Oxford after he became Prince of Wales does not so clearly appear; though from the little mention made of him till the year 1402, it has been conjectured that this was the case. The commons, at the beginning of his father's reign, requested that, in consideration of his tender age, he might not go out of the kingdom; and it has been said, that he was sent for to court from Oxford, when he was placed under the military tuition of the veteran Sir Thomas Percy. After the death of his governor, against whom he fought at Shrewsbury, he acquired much experience in arms under the Duke of York in Wales; but this was the first campaign in which the future conqueror of France unsheathed his sword. The remarkable event of Henry's life, alluded to in the text, is not mentioned by any other writers of the time; though they speak of the king's having taken him to Ireland to learn the art of war, “ut rem militarem et disceret et primum exerceret.”

^{page 30 note 12} MS.Life of Edward the Black Prince, by Chandos Herald.

^{page 30 note 13} Dallaway, p. 126.

^{page 30 note 14} Mezeray, Hist.de France, I. p.384.

^{page 30 note 15} Rot. Parl. 8 Ric. II. n. 3. in Selden de Duello. Opera, III. f. 60.

^{page 30 note 16} Selden, ut supra, from a MS. of “Confessio Amantis.”

^{page 30 note 1} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 187.

^{page 30 note 2} T. Livii Vita Hen. V. p. 3. Ant. k Wood. Hict. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. ed. 1674,1. p. COS.

^{page 30 note 3} Id. II. p. 401.

^{page 30 note 4} Luders, Essay, p. 149, note.

^{page 30 note q} The term “bachelor” is used in a military sense. He was one who was not yet knighted, but was a candidate for the dignity of knighthood, and for that purpose exercised the profession of arms.

^{page 30 note r} There is an obscurity about this passage, at least to the translator, who has rendered it according to the best consideration he could give it. The difficulty lies chiefly in the word sans, which is capable of two interpretations. When any such points occur, he must refer them to the candour of the reader, who shall take the pains to compare them, hoping that he may be permitted to adopt the plea of Chaucer, made at the very period in which this now antiquated language, though lost among the commonalty, and banished from the pleadings of the courts, was spoken and written by scholars and polished persons, and formed part of a liberal education. “The understandynge of Englyshmen woll not stretche to the privy termes of Frenche, what so ever we bosten of straunge langage.”

The words may signify that he had, as yet, little experience (sens) in conquest, and that, therefore, his chief concern would be to give proof of his valour. Or they might be intended to convey an allusion to the idea that Richard is said to have formed of Henry's future ability. Titus Livius tells us, that “he often used to say publicly of him at court, that he had always heard it reported from his ancestors, that one Henry should be born among his kindred, who should be renowned all over the world for his praiseworthy and glorious deeds; and that he verily believed the prince to be that person.”

^{page 30 note 5} MS. Bodl. 2376. Derms. Reg. Ric.

^{page 30 note 6} Baker, p. 167.

^{page 30 note 7} Rot. Parl. III. 611.

^{page 30 note 8} Tb. Elmham, c. 2, Otterbourne, p. 197.

^{page 30 note 9} Titi Livii Vita Hen. V, p. 3.

^{page 30 note 10} Selden, Opera, t. III. Titles of Honour, part ii. c. 3. s, 24. Du Cange, u. Baccalareus.

^{page 30 note 1} Statutes of the Realm, I. p. 375.—36 Edw. III. St. 1, c. 15.

^{page 30 note 2} Prologue to the Testament of Love.

^{page 30 note 3} Vita Hen. V. p. 3.

^{page 31 note s} Richard gave many proofs of his affection for young Henry, who seems ever to have retained a grateful sense of his kindness; for one of the first acts after his coronation was to pay due funeral honours to his remains, and to shew as much respect to his memory as circumstances would allow. Soon after the ceremony described in the text, the youth was placed in an embarrassing situation; when news arrived of his father having landed in England, and marched through the country in arms. Upon that occasion Richard sent for him into his presence, and tried to sooth and relieve his feelings. The dialogue that took place between them, as it is given by Otterbourne, is equally creditable to both parties. “Ecce, ait, Hen. fili, quid pater tuus fecit mihi, revera terrain meam ingressus hostiliter, guerrarum more captivans et perimens sine misericordia et pietate. Certe, fili, pro persona tua doleo, quia pro patris tui hoc infortunio, privandus eris tuo fortassis patrimonio!” Cui ille, licet puer, non tamen respondit pueriliter sub his verbis; “Vere, gratiose rex et domine, de his rumoribus multum doleo, et constat vestrae dominationi, prout aestimo, quod ego sum innocens de patris facto.” Cui rex, “novi,” ait, “quod nihil ad te pertinet per patrem perpetratum negotium, et ideo te de facto habeo excusatum.” But, before he left Ireland, he thought proper to place him, and Humphrey, son of the late Duke of Gloucester, as hostages, in Trim Castle. When the Duke of Lancaster reached Chester he sent for them; and they joined him either in that city, or on the march to London. Humphrey then had the king in custody in his turn.

^{page 31 note t} One of these was a son of the Countess of Salisbury; another might be the son of the Duke of Gloucester, mentioned in the former note. It was always honourable to receive knighthood in the field, in sight of an army, before a battle or assault, where banners of princes were displayed; but to receive it under the banner of the king was a very high honour for one not of royal birth. Great numbers were occasionally made in this way. Three hundred were knighted at Vittoria by the Black Prince, the Duke of Lancaster, and other lords, when they expected an engagement with the Spaniards.

^{page 31 note 4} Th. Elmhara, c. 2.

^{page 31 note 5} Otterbourne, pp. 205, 206.

^{page 31 note 6} Idem ut supra. Walsing, Ypod. Ntustr. p. 554.

^{page 31 note 7} Life of Ric. II. p. 188.

^{page 31 note 8} The Sallade in Selden, ut supra.

^{page 31 note 9} St Palaye, quoted by Luders, p, 35.

^{page 31 note 10} Froiss. III. c. 236.

^{page 32 note u} Davies, who was well acquainted with the country and the septs that inhabited it, has thus described the king's line of march through it. “He landed at Waterford, and passed from thence to Dublin, through the wast countries of the Murroghes, Kinshelaghes, Cavanaghes, Birnes, and Tooles.—In the Cavanaghes countrey he cut and cleared the paces.” He speaks of his knighting the Lord Henry, which he not improbably derived from this history.

^{page 32 note v} Compare this with the relation of another eye-witness of the condition of the country. Froissart, voi XL c. 24.

^{page 32 note w} Rapin, in his account of the first invasion by Henry II. in lly I, remarks, “It is almost incredible, that the Irish, who were exceedingly numerous, should suffer themselves to be thus over-run by a handful of Englishmen; this is imputed to their great dread of the English crossbows, the use of which, till then, was unknown to them.” Cristal concludes, reasonably enough, “that they could not withstand the arrows, for they are not armed against them;” and it is besides obvious, that, so long as this impression of alarm was kept up, the bowmen would prevent them from closing upon an adversary, and at all times outmatch their ruder missiles. The Irish weapons were the sparthe or steel hatchet, the lance, and two darts. Froissart mentions also pointed knives with broad blades, sharp on both sides like a dart-head. They used stones too with great effect. But the bright and keen hatchet was most formidable; this, wielded with only one hand, the thumb being extended upon the handle to direct it, had been known to sever a horseman's thigh at a single stroke. No helmet or armour was proof against it. In daily intercourse every man carried one of these about him; and the evils resulting from this practice to a people, quick to receive and resent offence, may readily be imagined; neither is it wonderful that so many maimed and mutilated persons were to be seen among them. But their best means of attack and defence in battle were neutralised by the arrow. Hence Giraldus recommends the employment of archers; while he suggests the advantage of light troops, and judiciously comments upon the ineffectiveness of heavy armed cavalry against the activity of the Irishry.

^{page 32 note 1} Diseoverie, &c. p. 52.

^{page 32 note 2} Hist. of England, folio, I. p. 235. “Gens,” says Giraldus, “subita sagittarum vulnera exhorrens.” Yet he hints that they made some attempts at archery. Hib. Expugn. I. ii. c. 23.

^{page 33 note x} This shouting they made rather from an old superstitious notion than from fear, or expectation of terrifying the enemy. “Perhaps some will impute it to want of gravity and prudence in me, if I give an account of an old opinion of the wild Irish, and still current among them; that he, who in the great clamour and outcry which the soldiers usually make with much straining before an onset, does not huzza as the rest do, is suddenly snatched from the ground, and carried flying into these desert vallies, from any part of Ireland whatsoever; that there he eats grass, laps water, has some remains of his reason, but none of his speech; and that at long run he shall be caught by the hunters and brought back to his own home.” Camden's Ireland. Description of Kerry.

^{page 33 note y} There is, again, an ambiguity in this passage, though both MSS. agree in it. It may, on the other hand, be taken to mean that such of them as were opposed to the archers ran away from them. Many involutions of expression occur in the poem. There were archers on horseback as well as on foot.

^{page 33 note 3} Froiss. XI. e. 24.

^{page 33 note 4} Gir. Cambr. Top. Hib dist. III. c. 10.

^{page 33 note 5} Ibid. ut supra.

^{page 33 note 6} Top. Hib. ut supra.

^{page 33 note 7} Hib. Expugn. 1. III. c. 35.

^{page 33 note 8} ibid. 1. II. c. 36.

^{page 33 note 9} Dugd. Bar. I. p. 150.

^{page 34 note z} Irregularly; without waiting for their captain.

^{page 34 note a} Richard's enemies have not given him credit for this quality; though two of the last great exigencies of his life, if they be not falsely reported, shew him to have been capable of it, both in suffering and in action, to an extraordinary degree. A later historian has enlarged too much upon this part of his behaviour in Ireland, without producing any authority for what he has advanced. “He (the king), made at first some progress against the rebels, and in several encounters gave marks of valour, which caused a belief, that if hitherto he had shown no great inclination for war, it was not to be ascribed so much to a want of courage as to a bad education. The mutability of his character renders any decision with respect to this point very difficult. The fact seems to have been, that, whatever lessons he might have received from Sir Guiscard D'Angle, his military tutor, one of the bravest and most experienced knights in the train of his valiant father, they were early obliterated by the society into which he was thrown. He had hardly ever exposed his person in tourney, or in fight; and his whole career shews that he was more attached to the pomp and parade, than to the serviceable exercise of arms.

^{page 34 note b} Stow renders it a ivyth. It is well known that this was the customary submission of a rebel.

Si sont assentis a rendre au derrein jour,

A venir a mercy bellement par loy seur,

Chascun la hart au col, a loy de boiseur.

With this appendage the brave Oliphant and his comrades issued from the castle of Stirling, when they yielded to Edward I. in the year 1304.

^{page 34 note 1} See Reflections upon the Reigns of Ed. II. and Ric. II. by Sir Roh. Howard, 8vo. 1690, p. 172.

^{page 34 note 2} Rapin, I. p. 470.

^{page 34 note 3} Annales, p. 319.

^{page 34 note 4} Chron. MS. Bertrandi de Guesclin in Ducange, v. Bausiare.

^{page 34 note 5} Lingard, II. c. 18.

^{page 35 note c} He seems to allude to an equivalent for the barony of Norragh, as well as to the annuity that had been promised to him: probably some additional gratuity, on condition of surrender, had been tendered on the part of the king.

^{page 35 note d} It was far otherwise during the hostilities of 1394, if we may believe Froissart. “I was told that during the whole campaign, they were well supplied with all sorts of provisions: for the English are expert in war, and know well how to forage, and take proper care of themselves and horses.”

^{page 35 note 1} Xl.c.21.

^{page 36 note e} From Richard's marching first upon Kilkenny, and then drawing down towards the sea, it might seem, at first sight, as though he designed to have cut off Macmorogh from the interior, and have driven him up in the direction of Dublin; but the result shews, not only that he failed in this, if such were his object, but that, after he had opened a passage through the woods, and destroyed their fastnesses, when he was forced to retire for want of provisions, the Irishry, besides wasting the country before him, probably, hung upon his flanks and rear, and distressed his army the whole of the way across Wicklow. Something like a co-operation appears to have been attempted by Janico Dartois to the northward; but he began before the king left Kilkenny.' The scene of the campaign must have been chiefly in Carlow and Wicklow.

^{page 34 note f} The strength of the grape of Burgundy had been often injuriously experienced by the English in their wars in France. In this instance the wine was comparatively cheap, and they had been exhausted by severe privations. The price of the wines of Oseye and Spain' had been regulated by statute during this reign. They were not to be charged at more than 100 shillings the Tun wholesale; and were to be retailed at not more than sixpence per gallon. If they had undergone land carriage into the interior, an additional halfpenny was to be laid on every gallon. But in the present case they, perhaps, paid no duty; and, if so, the men could have purchased a quart for three halfpence; this conies near to the very expressions of the text, if, indeed, they are not employed in a general sense. The effect of this upon a famished and ill-organised soldiery may easily be understood, and is but too characteristically represented.

^{page 36 note 1} Caraden, Annals of Ireland, a. 1399.

^{page 36 note 2} Statutes of the Realm, 5 Ric. II. stat. I. c. 4.

^{page 37 note g} Osoye, in Lambeth MS. Osore, according to the British Museum MS. is Auxerre; Osoye is Alsace. Both expressions are here presented in a single line;

Mes vin i a de fi le scai,

Ne scai ou d'Auçoire ou d'Aussai.

In the “Squyr of low Degree,” the king of Hungary, after enumerating a variety of wines, tells his daughter that she shall be presented with “pots of Osey.” But the conjecture of Ellis upon that passage, (q: oseille? sorrel,) is quite erroneous.

^{page 37 note h} Thomas Despencer, son of Edward Lord Despenser, by Elizabeth daughter of Bartholomew de Burghersh, and great grandson of Hugh Despencer, executed in the reign of Edward II.

His father dying in 49 Edw. III. when he was two years old, his wardship was granted to Edmund Earl of Cambridge, uncle of Richard II. to the end that he should marry his daughter, a circumstance which afterwards took place. At the time of this expedition he could not be more than twenty-six years old; but he had served in Ireland in the first campaign against Macmorogh and the other chieftains; and had been one of the negociators of Richard's second marriage. Dugdale has erred, when he informs us, from Waisingham, that this nobleman, in 20 Ric. II. was arrested with others, at Nottingham, upon a charge of high treason. The passage of the historian, which he has mistaken, refers to the appoint appointment cf Despencer, with associates, to be appellants of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick. After the death of the two former, and the banishment of the latter, Thomas Despencer was made Earl of Gloucester, and had a portion of the estates of the Earl of Warwick assigned to him. Being always in favour with the king, and connected with him by marriage with his cousin, he petitioned, in the parliament of 1398, for the revocation of the judgment that had been pronounced against his great grandfather, and obtained it.

When Richard's army was broken up at Milford, no mention is made of his having gone over to the Duke of Lancaster; but he sat in the first parliament of Henry IV. excused himself as to the share he had taken in the death of Gloucester, upon the plea of compulsion, and became one of the commissioners for the deposition of the king. Yet he experienced no favour at the hand of Henry; for he was reduced to the rank of Lord Despencer, stripped of his newly acquired castles, lordships, and lands, and sentenced to hold all his hereditary possessions at the king's mercy: he was to give no liveries or cognisances, nor to have any retainers except domestics; and, if ever he should attempt to assist the deposed king, he was to be prosecuted as a traitor. This attempt, however, he made in conjunction with the conspirators in 1 Hen. IV. During the confusion of the affair at Cirencester he escaped from the inn, in which he was lodged, over the roofs of some houses, and fled for refuge to his strong castle at Cardiff. But even this afforded him no security. He had, indeed, eluded a party despatched by the king to apprehend him; and had embarked on board a vessel in the hope of escaping with his servants and treasure. But a severer fate awaited him; and the circumstances of his arrest were peculiarly tantalising. Having gained the Bristol Channel in fancied security, the captain inquired to what port he wished to proceed: and when he told him he intended to go beyond sea, refused to carry him any where but to Bristol. Despencer threatened the mariner with death; and in the course of their altercation, twenty armed men, concealed in the hold, rushed upon deck and over-powered him and his attendants. He was then taken into Bristol, and delivered into the custody of the Mayor of that city. Henry wished to have had an interview with him before he was put to death; but, on the second day after his arrival, a multitude assembled, and called aloud for the traitor to the king and realm, that he might be brought out to execution. The Mayor in vain endeavoured to oppose them; they dragged their victim forth, and beheaded him in the market place. His head was set upon London Bridge; his body was buried in the midst of the choir at Tewksbury, under a lamp that burned before the host.

In Rymer's Additional MSS. is an order to give to William Flaxman the cloak of motley velvet and furred damask, which Thomas Lord le Despencer wore when he was brought to Bristol.

Froissart calls him one of the most powerful barons in England. He was Lord of Glamorgan and Morganok; and his influence in South Wales must have rendered him dangerous. In the proclamation against the insurgents he is simply styled Thomas Despencer, Chivaler; a term which shews the feeling of indignation or contempt entertained by the government towards him, reducing his rank as low as possible. Knighthood itself was indelible, except by a formal act of degradation.

He left one son and two daughters by his wife Constance, daughter of Edmund Duke of York. She survived her husband nine years.

^{page 37 note 1} Fabliau du sot Chevalier. Barbazan, III. p. 212.

^{page 37 note 2} Specimens of Early English Poets, I. p. 341.

^{page 37 note 3} Froiss. XI. c. 31.

^{page 37 note 4} Baronage, I. p. 396.

^{page 37 note 5} It runs thus: (He had already spoken of the arrest of Gloucester, and the two others.) “Et paulo post apud Notyngham fecit (rex sc. J indictari dictos dominos de proditione, subornavitque appellantes, qui eosappellarentin parliamentn future, sc. Edwardumcomitem Ruthlandim, Thoruara Mounbray comilem Mareschallum, Thomam Holand comitem Cantii, Johannem Holand comitem Huntingdonis, Tho Beuford comitem de Somerset, Johannem de Monte acuto comitem Sarum, Thomam dorainum de Spencer, et Wilhelmum Scrop regis Camberlanura.” Walsing. Hist.Angl. p. 354. But, considering the nature of Dugdale's task, and the value of it, no severe censure should be passed upon the execution.

^{page 38 note 1} According to the setting forth of this petition, the estate and stock of Hugh le Despenser at the time of his decease was immense. He had fifty-nine lordships in sundry counties; twenty-eight thousand sheep; one thousand oxen and steers; one thousand and two hundred kine, with their calves; forty mares, with their colts of two years; one hundred and sixty draught-horses; two thousand hogs; three thousand bullocks; forty tuns of wine; six hundred bacons; fourscore carcases of Martinmass beef; six hundred muttons in his larder ten tuns of cider; armour; plate; jewels; and ready money, better than ten thousand pounds; thirty-six sacks of wool; and a library of books. Rot. Parl. 21 Ric. ll. quoted by Dugdale, Baronage, I. pp. 396, 397.

^{page 38 note 2} MS. Bodl. 2376, p. 213.

^{page 38 note 3} Rot Parl x Hen. IV.

^{page 38 note 4} Rapin, I. p. 489. Froissart says, he separated from Salisbury on Severn side, as they were ri towards Berkeley. XII. c. 30.

^{page 39 note 1} Vita Ric. II. per Mon. Evesb. á Hearne. p. 167.

^{page 39 note 2} His brother-in-law, the Earl of Rutland, himself brought it to Henry. Accounts and Extract II. p. 229.

^{page 39 note 3} MS. Brit. Mus. Donat. 4596, p. 112, dated, Feb. 13,1 Hen. IV.

^{page 39 note 4} XII. e. 30.

^{page 39 note 5} Fœdera, VIII. p. 124, dated, Feb. 8,1400.

^{page 39 note 6} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 396. See the article, Thomas Despencer, Earl of Gloucester, passim.

^{page 40 note i} “Sellis equitando non utuntur,” is the testimony of Giraldus. The native Irish excelled in horsemanship.

^{page 40 note k} This ancient mode of traffic, common to savage nations, is strongly indicatory of the existing state of the Irishry. Cows were a favourite barter for horses in Wales, and, indeed, were generally applied for purposes of exchange. Under Trychan, the fifteenth Bishop of Llandaff, in the eighth century, Convur, the son of Jacoi, bought of King Fernuail the church of Guthbertine and some lands belonging to it, giving for the same an excellent horse which cost him ten kine, a spaniel prized at the worth of three kine and another horse worth likewise three kine. This land, so bought, he gave to Trychan and his successors. Other instances of land so purchased, and presented to the church occur under the same bishop.

^{page 40 note l} That is, they violated the indentures into which they entered with the king, when he was last in Ireland. See pp. 19, 20. noted.

^{page 40 note 1} Top. Hib. dist. III. c. 10. Hulinshed, Descr. of Ireland, t. 28. a.

^{page 40 note 2} Godwin, in the article Landaff, from a very ancient MS. called Teliau's book, belonging to the church of Landaff.

^{page 41 note m} Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, and second Earl of Ulster, in Ireland, was the eldest son of Edmund Earl of March, by Philippa, daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. An historian attached to the family has furnished us with some minute particulars concerning him. He was born at Usk, April 11, 1374, and baptised on the following Sunday by William Courtney, Bishop of Hereford; his sponsors being Roger Cradock, Bishop of Llandaff, Thomas Horton, Abbot of Gloucester, and the Prioress of Usk. His father dying at Cork, during his government of Ireland, in 1382, left him a minor under the legal guardianship of Richard II. The minions of the court immediately applied to be admitted into the profits of his estates during his minority; and the king too readily consented to their request, and angrily dismissed his honest chancellor, Sir Richard Scroope, who had opposed them. The trust was afterwards for a pecuniary consideration vested in more responsible persons; and those into whose hands it fell do not appear to have abused it. When Roger Mortimer came of age he found that his rights had been duly respected according to the provisions of the great charter of the land: his castles and mansions were in good repair: his manors and farms were well stocked with cattle, and all the requisites of husbandry; and he had twenty thousand marks in his treasury. Such was his hereditary rank and consequence, that in case Richard should die without issue, he was nearest to the throne; and in provision for an occurrence of that nature the parliament of 1385 nominated him heir presumptive to the crown. Six months after his father's decease, 5 Ric. II. he was appointed lieutenant of Ireland. He had been originally betrothed to the daughter of the Earl of Arundel; but the king, at the interposition of his own mother, the princess Joan, set aside the match in favour of her grand-daughter Eleanor, daughter of Thomas Holand, Earl of Kent. The character of Roger Mortimer, as given by the aforesaid historian, forms an ample comment upon the epithet 'courtois” applied to him by the poet. “He was distinguished for the qualities held in estimation at that time, a stout tourneyer, a famous speaker, a costly feaster, a bounteous giver, in conversation affable and jocose, in beauty and form surpassing his fellows.” His splendid mode of living, had been probably modelled from his own example. In 17 Ric. II. Mortimer, then in his twentieth year, accompanied the first expedition into Ireland, having in his retinue an hundred men at arms, of which two were bannerets, and eight knights, two hundred archers on horseback, and four hundred archers on foot. Richard hastily returning to England, left the inexperienced youth to govern that turbulent island. He had, however, competent advisers under him, if he would have listened to their counsels. In 19 Ric. II. he had an especial commission and lieutenancy for the provinces of Ulster, Connaught, and Meath; and in 20 Ric. II. he was instituted once more lieutenant of that whole realm. He was summoned to attend the parliament at Shrewsbury, at which he appeared at the head of a crowd of retainers, clad chiefly at his own expence in white and crimson, with great pomp and pageantry. He had a cause at that time pending with the Earl of Salisbury, respecting the right to the town and castle of Denbigh; and when he had succeeded in his suit, he returned to his government. It was a post of as much trouble as dignity, and demanded a steadier hand. For, adds the same chronicler, “Roger, warlike and renowned as he was, and fortunate in his undertakings and fair, was yet most dissolute, and remiss in matters of religion.” Like his master, he neglected the prudential representations of older persons; and his rash and resolute spirit brought him to an untimely end. In a conflict at Kinles with the sept of Obrien, his ungovernable impetuosity hurried him foremost upon the enemy; and as he had advanced beyond the succour of his own soldiers, and was disguised in the habit and accoutrements of an Irish horseman, he was slain and torn in pieces by the savage natives. This happened upon the festival of Saint Margaret the virgin in the year 1398. By his wife Eleanor he left four children, and his posterity on the female side involved England in civil discord. His bones repose beneath the site of the Abbey of Wigmore in Herefordshire, the foundation and favourite burial-place of his fathers.

By his wife Eleanor he left four children, and his posterity on the female side involved England in civil discord. His bones repose beneath the site of the Abbey of Wigmore in Herefordshire, the foundation and favourite burial-place of his fathers.

^{page 41 note 1} Prioratus de Wygmore Fundationis et Fundatorum Historia MS. in Dugdale, Monast. Ang. I.pp. 228, 229.

^{page 41 note 2} Waking. Hist. Angl. p. 290.

^{page 41 note 3} The joint farmers who held his estates were the Earls of Arundel, Warwick, and Northumberland. Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus. B. XI. f. 7.

^{page 41 note 4} Froissart, who by mistake calls him John, introduces the Duke of Gloucester endeavouring at Fleshy to draw him into a plot against the king. XI, c. 48, XII. c. 14.

^{page 42 note 5} Particulars as to his establishment and allowance during his nonage in the government of Ireland may be seen in APPENDIX, NO. II, from original documents of the negotiation entered into with those who had the wardship of his estates. Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus. B. XL f. 19 b.

^{page 42 note 6} Lord Lovel, Sir John Stanley, Sir John Sandes, Sir Ralph Cheyney, and others, MS. Titus, ut supra.

^{page 42 note 7} Rymer, Foedera, VIII. p. 13.

^{page 42 note 8} Otterbourne, p. 197, says, he was riding unarmed and unattended; but this does not agree with the other accounts. In MS, Bibl. Soc. Antiq. 87.21, it is affirmed, that he went to the rescue of some lands that had been left to him by his mother. His father had been obliged to reconquer them before. Dudale Baronage, I. p. 149. Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus. XI. f. 5. b. At any rate the transaction occurred in war.

^{page 42 note 9} Nequiter occisus et membratim dilaceratus. Vita regis Ric. II. p, 127. The behaviour of the Irishry towards a fallen enemy was excessively ferocious. Froissart, XI. c. 24.

^{page 42 note 10} Dugdale, Baronage. See the article, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, 150.

^{page 43 note n} This little incident, trifling as it may appear, is a proof of the accuracy of the Frenchman's ocular observation. Richard's growing pale with anger is more than once adverted to. Shakspeare has taken advantage of this peculiarity in the reproof which he makes him give to Gaunt.

Dar'st, with thy frozen admonition,

Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,

With fury, from his native residence ?

The king is known to have been of a ruddy complexion.

^{page 43 note o} A singular notion prevailed in this age with respect to common colloquial and affirmative oaths. In most cases they were reputed harmless, and even meritorious, especially if they were employed to assert the truth. And thus they were used and understood both by clergy and laity. This may in part account for their frequent occurrence in the pages of Chaucer and Froissart. The opinion was something like that of the Mahometans, explained by Ockley, in his History of the Saracens. The Lollards, who stuck closer to the injunctions of the Gospel, opposed this unchristian practice; and were, in the other extreme, as scrupulous about judicial oaths as the Quakers have been since. At the examination of William Thorp in the castle of Saltwood, before Archbishop Arundel, in 1407, of which we have an account, “penned by himself,” a portion of the debate hinges upon this point. Thorp, addressing the archbishop, expresses himself thus: “Sir, I know well that many men and women, have now swearing so in custom, that they neither know, nor will know that they do evil to swear as they do; but think and say that they do well to swear as they do, though they know well that they swear untruly. For they say, they may by their swearing (though it be false) void all blame or temporal harm, which they should have if they swear not thus. And, sir, many men and women maintain strongly, that they swear well, when that thing is sooth which they swear for. Also, full many men and women say now, that it is well done to swear by creatures, when they may not (as they say) otherwise be believed. And also, full many men and women say now, that it is well done to swear by God, and by our Lady, and by other saints, to have them in mind.” The archbishop could not induce Thorp to make oath upon the Gospels; but, before the examination was over, he convinced the Lollard, that he himself had little scruple at oaths of any kind.

^{page 43 note 1} Richard 11. Act. 2. Sc. 1.

^{page 43 note 2} Yet it must be mentioned, in justice to Wycliff, that his own words deny the imputation of his adversaries, that he was an enemy to all oaths. “God,” says he, “teaches us to swear by himself, when necessity calls for it, and not by his creatures.” Dr. James's Apology for Wycliff in Milner. History of the Church, IV. p. 137.

^{page 44 note p} Having already stated from Froissart the account of the king's armament, that it consisted of two thousand lances and ten thousand archers; it may be proper to observe, in addition, that this could be only that portion of the forces which he marched to Bristol. Great numbers, according to our author's representation, joined at Milford; and the Duke of Rutland with his complement did not come in till the rest of the army had reached Dublin. This may serve to reconcile Froissart with others; but it is a curious circumstance that he did not know that the king had gone farther than Bristol, or that he had been at all in Ireland.

^{page 44 note 1} William Thorp's Examination, in Fox. Acts and Monuments. Edit. 1684, p. 613.

^{page 44 note 2} See XI. c. 16, 21, and the intermediate chapters.

^{page 45 note q} The king loved the Earl of Rutland beyond measure. Froiss. XII. c. 3.

^{page 45 note r} In the original it is barges ne nefs. Vessels in use during this period are thus enumerated in an ordinance of Parliament. “Nefs, barges, ballingers.” Walsingham also speaks of galleys and lines (lin, linter), coggos and carricks. Some of these might be foreign. Barges were employed for the transport of troops and stores, and were in remoter times considered of a large class.

^{page 45 note 1} Rot. Parl. 2 Ric. 11. p. 2. art. 39.

^{page 45 note 2} Hist. Angl. pp. 296,229,318,322.

^{page 45 note 3} Du Cange, Gloss, v. Barga.

^{page 46 note g} This might be the vessel in which Sir William Bagot passed over; for, while the duke was wreaking his vengeance upon the other lieutenants of the king, Bagot made his escape to Chester, and thence to Ireland. He was afterwards apprehended, sent to Newgate, and brought for examination before the parliament; but acquitted in the next session. The MS. Ambassades affirms that Scroope, chancellor of the Exchequer, carried the news to Ireland; which is unquestionably wrong.

^{page 46 note t} William Scroope, second son of Henry Lord Scroope of Masham. He had been seneschal of Aquitaine in 6 Ric. II. and was highly esteemed by the king, who poured his favours upon him with an unsparing hand, especially towards the close of his reign. In Hie. II. he obtained certain grants of money for his support, payable out of the customs, and in Ric. II. was made governor of the castle of Cherbourg. He was vice-chamberlain of the household 18 Ric. II. presented with the town and castle of Marlborough 17 Ric. II. and appointed governor of Queenborough, Beaumaris, and Bamborough castles, chamberlain of Ireland, Justice of Chester, North Wales, and Flint, created Earl of Wiltshire, and enriched with large portions of the confiscated estates of the Earls of Warwick and Arundel, from the 20 to the 22 Ric. II. inclusive. He had been of the commission for the marriage of Richard with Isabel. It is said that he purchased the lordship of the Isle of Man of the Earl of Salisbury; yet, owing to some unexplained circumstance, Salisbury continued to use the title as long as he lived. Scroope had recently been appointed captain of the castle of Calais, and constable of the castles of Guisnes and Knaresborough, and was retained to serve with the king in Ireland, with forty men at arms, and one hundred archers on horseback, to be shipped to and fro at the king's charge; and he had received a quarter's pay in advance for himself and his retinue; but, being one” of the chief counsellors, he remained at home, with the very few who were well affected to king, for the security of the realm. Henry took him at Bristol, with Sir John Bussy and Sir Henry Green, and beheaded him in compliance, as he professed, with .the wishes of the people. The very act was treason, by the statute, 25 Edw. III. st. 5, c. 12. “If a man slea the treasurer of the king, it ought to be judged treason.” This shews how strongly he committed himself in the outset; for, though he might pretend that it was done as a concession to the popular fury, he must have known that the responsibility of it, if it should be enquired into, would fall upon himself. Probably he owed Scroope no good will for his connexion with the castle of Knaresborough.

Walsingham gives a most unfavourable account of the Earl of Wiltshire. “Vir, in quo (sic) in humano genere de facili non invenietur nequior aut crudelior.” About ten years before, he had been guilty of some gross outrage against the Bishop of Durham, for which he made amends, according to the fashion of the day, by offering a jewel at the shrine of Saint Cuthbert, of the value of five hundred pounds.

The king was unfortunate in the personal character of too many of those whom he injudiciously selected for his advisers and friends; and his weakness was only equalled by his obstinacy respecting them. One of his admirers has confessed, that “King Richard of England was of a temper, that when he took a liking to any one, he instantly raised him to high honours, and had such confidence in him that no one dared to say any thing to his prejudice.”

^{page 46 note 1} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 46 note 2} Chronic. Peri de Ickham. MSS. Harl. 4323, p. 67. Carte, II. p. 644.

^{page 46 note 3} Deposicio Regis Richrdi se'di. MSS. Bodl. 2376.

^{page 46 note 4} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 216.

^{page 47 note u} Thomas Fitz Alan, third son of Richard Earl of Arundel and Warren, by Eleanor his second wife, daughter of Henry Earl of Lancaster. At the period of King Richard's deposition he was only forty-six years old, He obtained the archdeaconry of Taunton when he was very young; and it provokes a smile from the gravity of Godwin, that in 1374 he was made Bishop of Ely, while yet a sub-deacon, and at the age of twenty-two. His father died in 1375, and left him a portion of 2000 marks. He continued at Ely till 1388, when he was advanced to the see of York. During the king's dispute with the Londoners in 1393, when he was chancellor, he removed the courts for six months from London to York, to the great advantage of that city, and the proportionate distress of the capital. From York, in 1396, he was elevated to the see of Canterbury; and it is especially noted, that this was the first instance of such a translation. In the same year the pope made him his legate and executor of the faculty for dispensing with the king's marriage. Richard had long looked upon him with a suspicious eye, from Ills attachment to the party of the Duke of Gloucester. Soon after he appears as a principal actor in the plot then said to have been framed against the king. On July 8, 1397, he is said to have attended at a meeting held by the conspirators in the castle of Arundel, his brother's residence; where he performed mass, and administered the sacrament to the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Arundel, and others. It was agreed by common consent to seize the king, and keep him in perpetual imprisonment; the Dukes of Lancaster and York were to be treated in like manner, and death was denounced against the rest of the king's council. If this may be depended upon, we cannot be surprised that he should have been impeached of high treason; or that, while some of his associates suffered death, he should have been sent into banishment. But the chief article in the public charge brought against him places his offence much earlier; “That being Bishop of Ely, and chancellor, he was traiterously aiding, procuring, and advising, in making a commission directed to Thomas Earl of Gloucester, Richard Earl of Arundel, and others, in the tenth year of the king's reign, and procuring himself, as one of the chief ministers of state, to be put into the said commission, which commission was apparently prejudicial to the king's prerogative and dignity; and that the said Thomas put the said commission in execution.” The whole of this affair is involved in much obscurity, through which, however, the king appears to great disadvantage. On the first day of his impeachment, September 20,139”, Arundel was present in parliament, and offered to make his defence; but the king, under promise of his friendship, and an assurance that nothing should be done to his prejudice, commanded him not to make his appearance on the next day, and in his absence sentence was pronounced against him. He was allowed six weeks to prepare for quitting the kingdom under pain of death. One of the articles of accusation against Richard, which, on the other hand, must be received with some degree of caution, as savouring strongly of Arundel's own manufacture, exhibits the king as behaving towards him with shameless duplicity. Before his departure, the archbishop told the Duke of Norfolk, that he would share the same fate, and surprised the king by a warning, to which he in part reluctantly assented, that the consequences would fall upon his own head at last.

Thus driven into exile, Arundel went first to Frame, and afterwards to Rome, where he was well received by Boniface IX, who interested himself much in his favour, and wrote to the king to obtain his restitution to the archbishopric. Not succeeding in this, he intended to have made him Archbishop of St. Andrews, and to have given him several preferments in England by way of provision. Richard, aware of his designs, despatched a letter to the pope, couched in haughty and offensive terms. He expressed great surprise that he should countenance his treason, take him under his protection, and lead him to expect he would be restored. The language of part of his remonstrance runs thus: “We are resolved never to endure such usage, though the whole world were of a different opinion. We desire your holiness would not shock our interest and inclination by such favours. If you have a mind to provide for him otherwise, we have nothing to object; only we cannot allow him to dip in our dish. We heartily desire you would take this matter into serious consideration, as you tender our royal regards, and expect a compliance with any future request your holiness may make us.”

The time had been, when expressions like these might have raised the greater part of Europe in arms against the offender: but the papal authority was itself divided by contending parties. Two popes aspired to the chair of Saint Peter; and Boniface IX. who had established himself at Rome, and whose cause had been espoused by England, was desirous of gaining a point in the repeal of the statutes of provisors and præmunire, which limited his power in this country. Richard was well aware of this, and it is what he alludes to in his letter. The pope therefore withdrew his protection from Arundel, and at the king's request made Roger Walden, who was Dean of York and Treasurer of England, Archbishop of Canterbury: but neither this concession, nor the granting of a bull confirming all the proceedings of the late parliament of Shrewsbury, nor the legate which he sent over in the year 1398, could obtain a repeal of the offensive statutes.

In the mean time Arundel availed himself of the first opportunity to return. This, among a variety of circumstances, proves that Henry had an eye to extremities, when he took for his companion and counsellor one who was so odious to the king. The interview that passed between the ex-prelate and the duke at Paris, preparatory to their setting out, is given minutely by Froissart; but it is, perhaps, rather what might be considered likely to have occurred between the parties on such an occasion, than the conversation which actually took place. That writer was but ill-informed in many parts of this whole affair. He makes Arundel quit England with great secrecy, at the instigation of the citizens of London, to confer with the Duke; but there is no good reason to conclude that he had ever previously returned from banishment. The text fills up the interval between the landing and coronation of Henry IV. in which, having been restored to his see, he took an active part. He was afterwards very useful to Henry during the rest of his reign, and lived to see his successor upon the throne. He died at the rectory of Hakyngton, on Monday, February 19, 1413-14.

During the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV. he was four times chancellor of the realm. In 1401 he visited and reformed the University of Cambridge; and in 1411 made an attempt of the same kind at Oxford, which was more than suspected of Lollardism; but in this he failed.

His character has been variously estimated according to the political and religious sentiments of subsequent writers: his catholic contemporaries are loud in his praise. Of his concern in the deposition of Richard II. every reader will judge for himself. The epithet fier, in the original, is not misapplied to him. He was a man of strong personal courage, fitted for bold and dangerous enterprise; but appears to have wanted those milder qualities that appertain to a Christian bishop. He was a great favourite with the pope and the ecclesiastics of his time; for he resolutely combated the innovations that were then on foot against the established religion. Richard‘s, and even Henry's encroachments upon the rights of the church, and Wycliff's endeavours at reform, were objects of his strenuous resistance. He anathematised, and dealt harshly with the followers of the latter. The Lollards might be injudicious in some of their measures, and, according to his notions, might give great provocation; but he let loose the spirit of persecution upon them. Sawtry and Badby, the first protestant martyrs of which we have any distinct account, suffered at the stake in his time. One of his actions may not be omitted. He had the good sense and generosity to intercede with Henry IV. in behalf of Walden, who had supplanted him at Canterbury, and obtained his promotion to the bishoprick of London. His devotion, learning, ability, and official diligence, are extolled by a monkish historian. He insisted upon payment of oblations to the clergy, long neglected in his diocese and province, especially in London; reformed his proctors; obliged the incumbents to residence; and enforced the repairs of churches and parsonage houses. Many writers bear testimony to his liberality and munificence. He was a benefactor to every see with which he was concerned. While he was at Ely, he almost rebuilt the episcopal palace in Holborn; and presented to the church, among other gifts, a curious tablet of great value, full of the reliques of the saints set in large pearls, rubies, and sapphires. Arundel had purchased it of Edward the black prince; it had once belonged to the King of Spain. He improved the manors of the see of York, and gave to the cathedral various articles of ornament and massy plate. To Canterbury he bequeathed many sumptuous habiliments and jewels, with several valuable books; and gave the peal of bells, known by the appellation of “the Arundel Ring.”

After his return, he obtained a grant of Leeds Castle in Kent; where he frequently resided, and held his court.

Drake ventures a groundless conjecture, from some circumstances in his arms, that he was a bastard of the family of Arundel; and the historian of Ely gives a very confused account of him. In one place he informs us that he was the second son of Richard Earl of Arundel; and in another, that his mother was Alice, daughter of William, and sister and heir of John Earl of Warren: whereas this Alice was the grandmother of Archbishop Arundel.

^{page 47 note 1} Statutes of the Realm, I. p. 320.

^{page 47 note 2} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 47 note 3} Ibid. p. 350.

^{page 47 note 4} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 661. See the article Scroope, Earl of Wiltshire, passim.

^{page 47 note 5} Froiss. Xll.c. 5.

^{page 47 note 6} Hist. of the Bishops, in the article Arundel, under Ely, York, and Canterbury.

^{page 47 note 7} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 318.

^{page 47 note 8} ypod. Neustr. p. 546.

^{page 48 note 1} Carte, II. p. 613.

^{page 48 note 2} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 206.

^{page 48 note 3} That private meetings for a purpose of this kind had been held by the party is confirmed by the Duke of Gloucester's own confession. “I was in place, where it was communed, and spoken in manner of deposal of my liege lord; truly I knowleeh well, that we were assentid thereto for two days or three, and then were to have done our homage and our othes, and put him as highly in his estate as ever he was.” But all their sentences turn upon their overt acts in the tenth and eleventh years of Richard's reign; and he denies any recent attempt. Parliamentary Hist. of Engl. I. p. 464, et seq.

^{page 48 note 3} See article XXXIII.

^{page 49 note 1} This is the second example, Thomas a Becket being the first, of any archbishop banished the realm by sentence of parliament. Parl. Hist. I. p. 465. Gower seems to consider this as the greatest of the king's offences. Cronica Tripartita, Pars secunda. Bibl. Cotton. MS. Tiberius. A. IV. 2.

^{page 49 note 2} Rymer, VIII. p. 31, dated Jan. 21, 1398.

^{page 49 note 3} William Courteney, Archbishop of Canterbury, had, in 1393, made public protestation in parliament, that the Pope ought not to make translations without the king's leave. Which protestation he prayed might be entered on the rolls. Parl. Hist. I, p. 451. Arundel at this time attempted to interfere in behalf of the pope.

^{page 49 note 4} This is Collier's translation. Eccles. Hist. I. p. 602. The original is not quite so caustic; yet it is positive and highly dictatorial. Concilia Mag. Brit, et Hibern, a Wilkins, III. p. 232.

^{page 49 note 5} He kept Benedict XUI. the rival pope of Avignon, confined to his palace for five years. Bower, Hist of the Popes, VII. p. 84, Many fruitless attempts had been made to reconcile them. Fox, Acts and Monuments, I. p. 580. Art de verifier les Dates, XI. part I. under Philip le Hardi.

^{page 49 note 6} Walsing. Hist.Anglp. 356.

^{page 50 note 1} XI. c. 18.

^{page 50 note 2} See the Revocation of the Order passed in the reign of Ric. II. for seizing the estate of Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury, and the restitution of his revenues, pursuant to an order of parliament, dated October 31, 1399, Rymer, VIII. p. 96; also, the Bull of Boniface IX. declaring his translation to Saint Andrews null and void, and restoring him to Canterbury, dated Nov. 4,1399. Concilia, III. p. 246.

^{page 50 note 3} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Vespasian, F. VII. 98.

^{page 50 note 4} Dies obituales Archiepisc. Cantuar. and Canonicus Liehfieldensis de success, archiep. Cantuar. in An glia Sacra. Pars prima. pp. 62,122.

^{page 50 note 5} Spelroan, Glossary, v. Cancellarius.

^{page 50 note 6} Collier, Eccles. Hist. I. p. 622.

^{page 50 note 7} Ypod. Neustr. p. 572.

^{page 50 note 8} Walsingham delights in him. “Eminentissima turris Ecclesise Anglicans et pugil invietus.” Hist Angl. p. 386. Even the anti-pope flattered and caressed him. Concilia, III. p. 290.

^{page 50 note 9} Wals.utsupra,p.321.

^{page 50 note 10} Ypod. Neustr. pp. 561,563. On one occasion he declared, “Prius hoc caput exponam gladioquam ecclesia destituatur minimo jure suo.”

^{page 51 note 1} Concilia, pp. 252, et seq, 314,350,353.

^{page 51 note 2} Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, I. p. 25. Ypod. Neustr. p. 574.

^{page 51 note 3} As if be intended to obviate the imputation of severity against Sir John Oldcastle, he repeatedly instances his lenient deportment towards him at the conferences held in the chapter-house of St. Paul's in London. “Totam seriem facti, boms et modestis terminis, ac modo multum suavi recitavimus.”— “Svaviter recitavimus acta prioris diei, ac ut prius sibi recitavimus, quomodo excomtnunicatus fuerat et est idem dom. Johannes.” And again, after Oldcastle had refused absolution from him, “nos modesto modo rogavimus et requisivimus eundem. Act. Conv. Prov. Cant, in Concilia, III. pp. 354, 356. But Thorp, in his interview at Saltwood, found him far otherwise. Fox, I. pp. 602, et seq.

^{page 51 note 4} Fox, I. pp. 587, et seq. 593.

^{page 51 note 5} Fox, I. p. 597, criticises his false derivation and perverted application of the word Cephas, as indicatory of the supreme authority of the Pope. “Petrus dictus est Cephas, id est, caput.” See Constitutiones T. Arundel Cantuar. Archiep. in Concilia, III. p. 314.

^{page 51 note 6} Dies obituales Archiep. Cant, in Anglia Sacra, ut supra.

^{page 51 note 7} Concilia, III. pp. 230, 231,267, 273, 276.

^{page 51 note 8} Bentham, Hist. of Ely, p. 166.

^{page 51 note 9} Monachi Eliensis Hist. Eliens. in Anglia Sacra, Pars 1, p. 665.

^{page 51 note 10} Dies obituales, &c. ut supra.

^{page 52 note w} Two other sermons of the archbishop are upon record; one at the funeral of Queen Anne in 1394,5 the other at the coronation of Henry IV. His exciting the people from the pulpit does not seem to have been noticed by any writer of the age. But the observation made upon this by Bishop Percy, in his MS. notes to the illuminations, is very just. “This fact the author only gives from hearsay, it does not, therefore, impeach his veracity as an historian, if it is not confirmed by other authentic writers.” Stow has adopted it.

As to the procuring of the bull, Richard's opposition to the pope, and Boniface's partiality to Arundel, might render it a matter of no great difficulty. Similar interference on the part of the see of Rome had before occurred, in the case of William Duke of Normandy: but the text insinuates that the publication was a mere device of Arundel's. “Larcevesque ce eonseil cy trouva.”

^{page 52 note x} He introduces nothing respecting his own banishment, as not immediately relating to the affair. An opportunity was soon found of expatiating upon it in the articles of accusation: and shortly after, in a mandate addressed to the diocese and province of Canterbury, in which he directed that prayers should be offered to their protectress, the Virgin, at the ringing of the morning bell as well as of the curfew, he indignantly, but obliquely, alludes to his particular injuries, and reminds the clergy of their own and of their country's wrongs. “Nostra felicitas praeteritis aucta temporibus solummodo attribuitur suæ (sc. Dei genetricis) medioations auxilio, cui novissimis temporibus istis merito etiam ascribere possumus felicem liberationem nostram, sub manu potenti christianissimi regis nostri a luporum morsibus et faucibus bestiarum, quse super dorsum nostrum ferculum felle mixtum prseparaverant, et odio iniquo nos oderant, nobis pro dilectione nostra statuentes insidias in obscuro.”

^{page 52 note 1} Acta Conv. Prov. Cant. in Concilia, III. p. 354. Hasted, Hist. of Kent, II. p. 474. This writer says, his “mind was by no means inferior to his high birth.” But Archbishop Parker was of a very different opinion, “nulla in re magnificum se ostendit.” Antiq. Britann. p. 413.

^{page 52 note 2} Hist. of York, B. II. c. 1, p. 436.

^{page 52 note 3} Bentham, Hist. of Ely, p. 164. Appendix to ditto, p. 43.

^{page 52 note 4} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 316.

^{page 52 note 5} Fox, I. p. 578. Ex fragmentis libri cujusdam Wigorniensis Bibliotheæ.

^{page 52 note 6} Annales, p. 320.

^{page 52 note 7} Rapin, I. p. 140.

^{page 52 note 8} Dated Feb. 10, 1399-1400.

^{page 53 note y} See, in Froissart, the eager manner in which the English received the bull of Urban against the Clementists, for the croisade undertaken by the military prelate, Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, in the year 1383. The canon of Chimay laughs at the credulity of the nation. In the collections made to defray the expense, a large Gascony tun full of money was gathered in the diocese of London alone. One lady gave a hundred pounds. Chaucer, in the “Prologue to the Pardoner's Tale,” satirises the method of publishing bulls, and the obedience expected from them.

^{page 53 note z} They hesitated from dread rather than love of Richard. It were needless to attempt to shew that the king had rendered himself unpopular in the highest degree. (See note fp. 21.) “Amarum animum vulgus commune gerebat contra eum.—Factus est suis odibilis et invisus.” But, among the variety of causes tending to this, there might have been one, which has hitherto, I believe, been unnoticed. In the stipulations made by the Duke of Surrey, in 1395, on his taking upon him the government of Ireland, is the following curious entry. The original is in French.—

Item. “That he (the lieutenant) may have at sundry times out of every parish, or every two parishes in England, a man and his wife, at the cost of the king, in the land of Ireland, to inhabit the said land, where it is wasted upon the marches, to the profit of the king; and that he may give to the said men in fee competent lands on their estates.

Such a demand may, indeed, have been made by lieutenants of Ireland upon former occasions; but, if in this instance it had really been put into execution, it must have driven the people to desperation: and whether it had been acted upon or not, the possibility or necessity of exercising such a compulsory mode of colonisation evinces the miserable state of villainage in England, as well as the wretched condition of the marches of Ireland.

^{page 53 note 1} Consilia, III. p. 247.

^{page 53 note 2} Froiss. VI. c. 51.

^{page 53 note 3} Life and Reign of Ric. II. p.64.

^{page 53 note 4} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 356.

^{page 54 note a} The first direction in which the duke's army marched from the rendezvous in Yorkshire, appears to have been through the counties of Derby or Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Worcester, and Gloucester, to Bristol; the various objects of which will be explained in a future note; but it is not improbable that he went in person to London, after the ineffectual attempt at a muster that had been made by the king's party at Saint Alban's. Froissart, who in this part of his chronicles is not much to be relied upon, expressly states him to have done so, and has described in his lively manner the enthusiasm with which he was received by the inhabitants. Five hundred citizens turned out on horseback to form a guard of honour: every shop was shut up: men, women, and children, and the clergy, all dressed in their best clothes, went forth to meet him with acclamations. But then he makes him land at Plymouth, and proceed immediately to London. It is to be feared that this is fabulous: in this particular, all other accounts are against him.

As the palpable inaccuracy of that portion of his work which relates to this period has been frequently adverted to, it may be necessary, once for all, to observe, that his errors may fairly admit of apology; and that he can never justly fall under the censure of wilful misrepresentation. Could he have procured good intelligence upon this important topic, he had certainly laid it before us; for he was much interested in the fate of Richard the Second. He had known him personally from his infancy, having hen one of the attendants at his baptism in the church of Bourdeaux; he had also visited him in his prosperity and shared in his bounty; and always regarded him with affection. Besides, he is so impressed with the importance and atrocity of the occurrences, that he considers them more terrible than any which he has recorded, “excepting the fate of that noble prince, Lusignan, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, whom his brother and the Cypriots villainously murdered.” No one could be more anxious to fulfil the first duty of an historian. He was indefatigable in inquiry, eminently impartial, and desirous of ascertaining and communicating the truth: but, being obliged to collect great part of his materials, just as he could obtain them, from mere hearsay, and from men of various characters and qualifications, it would be difficult for him to acquire-certain information upon this subject. Englishmen in general, as appears from our own annalists, themselves knew comparatively little of the particulars of Richard's disaster, and of the steps which led to it: much of the transaction was confined to a few actors; the main points might be suppressed; and what was officially made public was fabricated under Henry's eye. As to his own countrymen, though no pen but that of a Frenchman, has feelingly, minutely, and, it seems, correctly told the story of the monarch's fall; yet, Froissart certainly did not meet with those who were well informed of the affair. To this may be added, that, when he was composing this part of his chronicles, intercourse between the two countries was much diminished; and he had himself probably retired from public life when this catastrophe, which brings up the close of his work, took place. What he tells us of the disposition of the people towards Henry and Richard, and many traits which he has interspersed, may be received as genuine representations of the temper of the times; and subject to certain reservations, wherever it may be safely done, in spite of his defects, he must be quoted wit advantage and pleasure.

^{page 54 note 1} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 5. a.

^{page 54 note 2} Froiss. XII. c, 20.

^{page 54 note 3} See p. 7, note^h, and p. 44, note P.

^{page 54 note 4} Fruiss. XI. c. 21.

^{page 55 note 5} Froiss. XII. c. 12.

^{page 56 note b} It may seem singular that the vessels which conveyed the army over should not be sufficient to take them back again. Richard himself had brought two hundred sail; but these were left behind at Waterford: and in conformity to a practice that then prevailed, the greater part of those which had originally been taken up might have been dismissed upon the landing, The right of purveyance must be necessarily put in force again; and the commissioners would be some time in collecting and impressing ships from the different harbours.

^{page 56 note c} John de Montacute eldest son of Sir John de Montacute and Margaret de Monthermer his wife. He was nephew and heir also of William Earl of Salisbury; and had recently inherited his title and estates. He had borne arms in France in the time of the Black Prince, and in 13C9was knighted by the Earl of Cambridge in the field, at the attack of Bourdeilles, where he behaved with great bravery. He was also at Belleperche, in Bourbonnois, with the Earls of Pembroke and Cambridge, when they carried off the mother of the Duke of Bourbon; and, in the same campaign, he had a narrow escape in the company of the former at the village of Puirenon in Poictou. In 15 Ric. II. he travelled into Prussia with a retinue of ten servants, and with ten horses; and in 18 Ric. II. was in the first expedition into Ireland. He had been one of the appellants of the Duke of Gloucester and the other nobles, who were attainted of treason; and part of the confiscated estates of the Earl of Warwick fell to his share. ‘This affair rendered him odious to the people.’ In 1398 he was constituted marshal of England in in the absence of the Duke of Surrey in Ireland; in the same year he was made one of the commissioners to treat of peace with the Scots; and he had also licence previously to go into France. Richard sent him to Paris about Christmas, to interfere in obstructing the rumoured marriage of the Duke of Hereford with Mary of Berry. It is to his credit, that he accepted the office with reluctance; but his execution of it drew upon him the duke's indignation.

However, after the deposition of the king, he remained unmolested, and even protected by the ruling power. To the charges brought against him in parliament, for his conduct in the late reign, he was admitted with others to urge the plea of compulsion; and when Lord Morley challenged him as a traitor, for the part he had taken in the affair of the Duke of Gloucester, he replied, by giving him the lie, and throwing down his gloves: but here, as in the case of Albemarle, the matter ended. Camden brands him with the appellation of “time-server,” perhaps, because he assisted in the ceremonies which placed Henry upon the throne, and did homage to him: he was not more inconsistent in this respect than others who attended upon that occasion, and they had then no choice of resistance. But neither the names of the Earls of Salisbury nor Huntingdon are found among those who consented to the imprisonment of Richard the Second; and that his heart was with Henry can never be imagined: he waited, with the rest of the disaffected, for an opportunity of restoring his former master. They created one with hasty zeal, as will be seen in the course of the narrative. He conspired with them to seize Henry at Windsor, and put him to death, was taken prisoner at Cirencester, and beheaded by the townsmen, January 5, 1400. His body was buried in the abbey at Cirencester, and remained there till 8 Hen. V. when, at the petition of his widow, it was removed to the Priory of Bustlesham, in Berkshire, which his ancestors had founded.

He was summoned to parliament among the barons of the realm, from 16 to 20 Ric. II. when he became Earl of Salisbury. His character and accomplishments will be noted in another place.

By his wife, Maude, daughter of Sir Adam Francis, knight, who, before their marriage, had been twice a widow, he left five children. The family were reduced to poverty by his attainder; but were relieved from it by the generosity of Henry the Fourth. His eldest son, Thomas, was that renowned Earl of Salisbury, who was slain in the wars of France at the siege of Orleans.

There is an error in Dugdale respecting the age of this nobleman. At the death of his father, in 13 Ric. II. he is said to have been thirty-nine years old, and at the decease of the earl, his uncle, in 20 Ric. II. only forty. And again, in one place he is cousin, and in another nephew, of William Earl of Salisbury.

^{page 56 note 1} Camden, in Annals of Ireland, a. 1399.

^{page 56 note 2} Lingard, III. p. 142.

^{page 56 note 3} It is singular that, in the list of those who had letters of protection for going into Ireland on the present expedition, he is only noticed as the heir of his father. “Johannes de Montagu, comes Sarum filius et haeres Johannes de Montagu et Margarets uxoris Sue.” Dated April 18,1399. Rymer, VIII. p. 797.

^{page 56 note 4} Froiss. III. c. 262. Barnes, Hist. of King Edward the Third, p. 767.

^{page 56 note 5} Froiss. IV. c. 12.

^{page 56 note 6} Ibid. c. 3.

^{page 56 note 7} Rapin, I. p. 486.

^{page 56 note 8} Froiss. XI. 21.

^{page 57 note 1} The Dukes of Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter: the Marquis of Dorset, and the Earl of Gloucester.

^{page 57 note 2} Depositio Regis Richard s'c'di in MSS. Bodl. 2376. f. 213.

^{page 57 note 3} Vol. I. f. 118.

^{page 57 note 4} Abstract of the Rolls, Bibl. Harl. MS. 21. f. 217. b.

^{page 57 note 5} Pat. 8 Hen. V. m. 4. quoted in Tanner, Not. Monast. Berkshire, V.

^{page 57 note 6} See the article, John Montacute Earl of Salisbury, passim, Dugdale, Baronage, I. pp. 650, 651.

^{page 58 note d} His overweening confidence in Albemarle is mentioned before, and this had ever been he case between him and his favourites. Froissart sets his credulity in a strong light. “There had not been a king of England, in the memory of man, who so easily believed all that was told him.” He was so blinded by the Duke of Ireland, that if he had declared black was white, the king would not have said to the contrary.

Richard will hereafter be found to enter upon a vindication of the general firmness of his conduct; but neither in matters of great or minor importance could he ever be depended upon: this brought him into contempt with his people, and was one of the charges laid against him by his adversaries. Hastiness, irresolution, and procrastination, were his bane.

Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, in his croisade against the anti-pope Clement, in 1383, involved himself in such difficulties at Gravelines, that he expected to have been taken with his whole army. In this extremity he wrote to the king for aid. Richard was at supper at Daventry, in Northamptonshire, when the intelligence reached him: he rose immediately in a rage, pushed the table from before him; and, vowing to go in person to chastise the king of France, mounted his horse, and rode all night by relays, without stopping till he came to London. Finding himself fatigued on his arrival, he retired to rest, slept soundly upon his resolve, and changed his mind in the morning. The Duke of Lancaster was nominated to go to the assistance of Spencer; but the preparations were tedious; and in the mean time the bishop extricated himself as well as he was able.

One of his favourite chaplains receives an order, dated October 4,1397, to proceed to Calais for the body of the Duke of Gloucester lately deceased in the Castle there. This is followed by an order, October 8, to give up the body to his widow Alionora, that it may be buried at Westminster: five days elapse, and it is reversed by another order, October 13, to take it for interment to Bermondsey Priory. Though we can only guess at the motives of this last instance, we can judge of the fact.

Respecting this fatal delay in Ireland, Otterbourne observes, “Dei voluntate contigit ut incideret regi diversum propositum eo tempore.” But, according to him, all things were made ready, and even the horses were put on board. These he ordered to be disembarked, and taken to another port, by which seven days were lost. Otterbourne might have added eleven more. The king in violation of his promise, stopped eighteen days after the departure of the Earl of Salisbury, and thus threw all his affairs into disorder.

^{page 58 note 1} Froiss. XII. c. 5.

^{page 58 note 2} VIII. c. 49.

^{page 58 note 3} Article of Accusation XXV.

^{page 58 note 4} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 305. At midnight be borrowed the palfrey of the Abbot of St. Alban's, in exchange for one of his jaded horses, and the historian takes care to tell us it was never returned. The whole of the story is related in a most sarcastic manner.

^{page 58 note 5} Rymer, VIII. pp. 20, 21, 23.

^{page 58 note 6} Otterbourne, p. 206.

^{page 59 note e} It is doubtful whether he here intends to speak of any one person, or generally of the elder part of the council.

^{page 59 note f} His allusion to Turkey is very natural; it had recently obtruded itself forcibly upon the attention of the princes of Europe. A subsidy had just been granted by England, for the relief of Manuel Emperor of Constantinople, sorely pressed by Baiazet, who, in the autumn of 1396, had annihilated a French army at Nicopolis. This event, and the threats of Bajazet, had been subjects of much anxiety and discussion throughout Christendom.

^{page 59 note 1} Rymer, VIII. pp. 82, 83. He is styled with asperity, Baysetus prineeps Turcorum perfidus. Dated June 22,1399. Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 356.

^{page 59 note 2} Froiss, XI. c. 41, 42.

^{page 60 note g} Singing was considered a great accomplishment in the youth of either sex. It is a matter not beneath the notice of grave historians. The profligate and unfortunate Sir John Arundel excelled in it; and at the feast at which the king quarrelled with his uncle the Duke of Gloucester, the Countess of Exeter bore away the palm of being the best dancer and singer.

In an age destitute of many resources which the moderns enjoy, ballads and carols relieved many an hour when minstrels were not at hand, or had withdrawn. They danced to their carols.

Si commenca

La danse adonc, et chacun se pensa

De sa chancon dire. Si s'avanca

Celle qui au premier les empressa,

Et sa chancon

Dist haultement, et de gracieux son,

Ou il avoit en la prime lecon,

“Tres doulx ami' de b'n amer pe'nson.”

Et puis apres

Un escuyer, qui d'elle fu empres,

Qui moult courtois, et bel et doulz tr'

Et voulentiers de chanter est en gres;

Voix enrouee

II n'avoit pas' mais doulce et esprouvee.

—Chacun chanta tant quil fu p's de nuit.

Apres mengie' chascuns comence

De faire caroles et danses.

Vos deffendeiz aus jones gens

Et les dances etles quaroles.

The Count de Foix, a great patron and proficient in the science of music, made his secretaries sing songs, ballads, and roundelays;' and we find Edward III. calling upon Sir John Chandos to amuse him with his voice during a voyage.

Music constituted a part of the quadrivium, a branch of their system of education; and it was more or less cultivated by persons of all conditions, as may be seen in the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury tales. Churchmen studied it by profession, and the students at the inns of court learned singing and all kinds of music. Richard himself understood something of the practical part of it; for on the day of his departure for Ireland, he assisted at divine service with the canons of Saint George, and chanted a collect. An old annalist, enumerating the qualifications of Henry IV. describes him “in musica micans:” Wd Stow says of Henry Vth, “he delighted in songs, meeters, and musicall instruments, insomuch that in his chappell amongst his private prayers, he used our Lord's prayer, certain psalmes of David, with divers hymnes and canticles, all which I have seen translated into heroicall English meeter, by John Lydgate, monk of Bury.”

^{page 60 note 1} Froiss. III. c. 217.

^{page 60 note 2} Id.X. c.ll.

^{page 60 note 3} Bibl. du Roy. MS. 635, p. 5.

^{page 60 note 4} Burney, Hist. of Music, II. p. 343.

^{page 60 note 5} Christine de Pise. MSS. Harl. 4431, f. 87. b. in “Le livre de Poissy,” a poem which contains a good picture of the manners of the time.

^{page 60 note 6} Fabliaux, III. p. 111.

^{page 60 note 7} Id. I. p. 135.

^{page 61 note h} The seizure of castles was of course a great object with him, as he soon had no enemy to encounter in the field.

The Duke of Lancaster's first measures upon his landing are not very accurately recorded by historians; nor do the accounts impress us with an opinion that they had arisen out of any digested plan of operation. But a comparison of the desultory information which is furnished relative to them, with what may fairly be supposed to have been most advisable on his part, will, perhaps, shew that they were really the result of good calculation, well applied to existing circumstances and incidental occurrences. It may also help to confirm the sentiment expressed in the text as to the treacherous conduct of the Duke of Albemarle during the king's engagements in Ireland, respecting which some authors have hesitated.

The following is accordingly offered as the outline of the scheme, so far as may be inferred from the known situation of all the parties.

Richard, odious to his own subjects, had quitted England, and left it in confusion. Henry, aware of his own popularity, found, by secret intelligence, that all things were ripe for his project. To secure a chance of success, it was in the first instance necessary not only that the most powerful nobles remaining at home should join him; but that means should be devised to hinder the king from returning till time had been gained. In the influence and authority of the Percys, who had refused to accompany Richard in his expedition, and in the artful management of Albemarle, who was to have joined the king some time before he even quitted England, he found a strong advantage. Henry's emissaries had been through the country. London is said to have invited him.

It would, however, be expedient that he should try the disposition of the people upon the eastern coast before he should land, and most important to him that he should select a spot for his descent, from which he could put himself into immediate communication with his friends. Yorkshire afforded the greatest facility. There he had large possessions and castles, and the injustice of the king in depriving him of these must be fresh in the minds of men.

These might so far be his calculations; and he thus connectedly and without any confusion pursued his objects. The wind that took Albemarle over into Ireland must have been favourable to him; the tempestuous weather that succeeded was equally in his favour. He hovered for some days about the coast till he had ascertained that his presence would be generally welcome. He landed at Ravenspur, and marched to Doncaster, where the Percys and others came down to him. Knaresborough and Pontefract, strong fortifications, his rightful inheritance, must have fallen to him; and it will be farther seen that he made a point as much as possible of marching upon all places of this description as he moved along.

We may continue to compare his operations with reference to expediency. Having gained a footing, and tried the affection of the people, it would be necessary that he should immediately press towards the south. Whether he should first go to the capital, of the attachment of which he was assured, must depend upon the nature of events: the government was weak: it would be his object instantly to disperse and secure the members of which it was composed, wherever he could find them.

He marched southward, accordingly, without delay. His rapidity astonished the country; his proclamations excited universal approbation; and his opponents withdrew before him. The council, consisting of the regent, Scroop, Bussy, Green, and Bagot, those who attempted to gather a force, and among them the military bishop of Norwich, could interpose no obstacle to his proceedings. The Duke of York, who appears to have been gained over, made a faint shew of official interference; but fear drove most of the others into Bristol. They probably thought to have gone to Milford, and thence to Ireland, or at least to have secured that important position, anticipating the king's return. They could not have taken a more favourable direction for Henry; it led him towards his territories and holds. Thus he advanced upon Leicester, where the castle was his own: Kenilworth, his own also by inheritance, was upon the road to Evesham: from this place he quickly got upon the line of the Severn, and followed it to Gloucester and Berkeley. There he came into amicable contact with the duke of York; secured many of Richard's adherents; passed on to Bristol; took the castle, slew three out of four of the unfortunate ministers, and gained possession of a place entirely disaffected to the king.

Thus occupying the keys of the Severn, Gloucester, and Bristol, and commanding the passages into South Wales, it would not be necessary for him to entangle his army in the principality, where Richard was still beloved. It would only be useful for him to secure his best castles in that quarter, and to raise his tenants, which he could easily accomplish by skirting the southern part of Herefordshire. His course thence would lie directly northward up the borders, through the chief towns upon the marches. All this time, it would be Albemarle's business, if possible, to detain Richard till Henry had gained upon that line, and made an impression upon the whole of the neighbouring country. In any case he should endeavour to draw him down to Milford. The king must be hindered from passing over into North Wales; or shewing himself in Cheshire, where he had more adherents than in any other quarter. But if Richard should land while Henry was in the south, provided his army had been properly practised upon, it would afford them a temptation and an opportunity to desert while the duke was moving up the border, who should use his utmost diligence to get first to Chester. Thither the king, if he had tried to outmarch him, could not advance with the same rapidity, were he to move upon a parallel line, on account of the difficulties of the country; and, if he should attempt to pursue him, must have so much more ground to traverse. Arrived at Chester, Henry would occupy the key of North Wales, the point from which it had ever been most assailable since the days of Edward I. and from which, if any thing adverse had happened to him, he might have retired upon his supporters in Lancashire and Northumberland, as the exigency might have required.

It seems, from the issue, that all this, at least, must have occurred to him: for that the greater part of his proceedings were directed merely by fortuitous coincidences is still more difficult to be imagined. His conduct justifies the hypothesis that he did not set about his enterprise without the best consideration; and, admitting this to have been the case, it may be allowed that hardly any thing could have been more judicious than his arrangements. From Bristol he directed his march back to Gloucester, thence bearing westward to Ross and Hereford, as it were with a view of securing those castles appertaining to the duchy of Lancaster, which were upon that southern border. He might have taken a nearer direction to Chester, but his purpose in bending to the left is evident. From Hereford he had derived one of his titles, and there his family were respected. He then continued to pass upward through Leominster and Ludlow, encreasing his train by the maintainers of Herefordshire and Shropshire, as he moved onward to Shrewsbury and Chester. No greater proof need be given of his anxiety to secure Chester than his despising Holt, a strong fortress, garrisoned for the king, which was hardly out of his road. After the surrender of Chester, he turned back to invest it, and it became an easy prey.

In the mean time the plans of his colleague, Albemarle, were equally successful. By his artifice the king was prevented going from Dublin to Chester, where he might have anticipated Henry, and infused a spirit into his loyal subjects which might have caused some difficulty to the latter: he also thwarted every thing that might have turned to his advantage; brought him southward to Milford, while the duke was going northward; and so corrupted and dispersed his army, that upon their landing they hurried over Wales to join his enemy. By about the time that Richard came on shore, Henry must have been at Chester, surrounded by his friends, at the head of an immense force, master, at least, of London, Bristol, and Chester, and of all the fortresses that had been his own, or had belonged to Richard, on two sides of a triangle, the apex of which is to be found at Bristol, the base extending from the mouth of the Humber to that of the Dee. Some have asserted that all the castles from Berwick to Bristol were in the hands of himself or his party; and, considering the power of the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland in the north, it may readily be believed.

Up to this point the measures of Albemarle and the movements of the Duke of Lancaster seem perfectly to correspond with each other. The course pursued by the latter reflects a light upon the intrigues of the former. Nothing appears to have been neglected that could be turned to account; and there is a decision and connexion about the whole campaign which gives it the air of deep contrivance.

^{page 61 note 1} Froiss.VIII. c.31.

^{page 61 note 2} Id. II. additions to c, 150. The knight had just introduced a German dance into England.

^{page 61 note 3} The reigning pontiff had been distinguished for his musical ability. Bower, Hist. of the Popes.VH, p,69.

^{page 61 note 4} Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliæ, c. 49.

^{page 61 note 5} Accounts and Extracts, II. p, 213.

^{page 61 note 6} MS. Chronicle of Kenilworth in Henry IV.

^{page 61 note 7} Annales, p. 342.

^{page 62 note 1} Could an exact list be formed of the castles that descended by inheritance to the Duke of Lancaster, the number might excite surprise. Besides the castellated mansions of various sizes, with which, doubtless, most of his manors and towns were furnished, the following castles are distinctly specified as appertaining to the family at this time. Knaresborough, Pontefract, Pickering (co. York); Lydel, Dunstanborough (Northumberland); Cykliull(Durham);Bolingbroke (Lincoln), Lancaster; Leicester-Kenilworth (Warwick); Tutbury (Stafford); Hertford; Pevensey (Sussex); Monmouth, Skenfrith, Blanch Cistle, Grossmont, Oken, Oggermore, Caer Kennyn, Kidwelly (South Wales, and on the Marches). Dugdale, Baronage, L p, 778, et seq. II. p. 114, et seq. Froiss. XII. c. 12.

^{page 64 note 1} Monmouth, Skenfrith, Grossmont, Blanch Castle, occupied by the Duke of Exeter. Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 79.

^{page 64 note 2} Richard II. had taken the castle of Hereford from John of Gaunt in the first year of his reign Id II. p. 116.

^{page 65 note i} This rumour, it may be supposed, could only refer to the appointment of military officers or castellans. Our author says, that he deprived Albemarle of his title of duke, and post of constable, and that he had made Henry Percy chief captain of his army: but, I believe, nothing was regularly done in appointment of officers of state till after they reached London. Official documents issued while they were at Chester, upon the road, and even in London, run in Richard's name.

^{page 65 note k} The Duke of York, his uncle, remained unmolested: but at Berkeley he seized the persons of the Bishop of Norwich, Sir William Elmham, and Sir Walter Burleigh, knights; Lawrence Drew and John Golofre, esquires, attached to the king's household; executed others already mentioned, at Bristol; and while he was at Chester, and the king was at Conway, beheaded Sir Peers a Legh, of Lyme, near Macclesfield, commonly called Perkin a Legh, ancestor to the Leghs of Adlington, a faithful adherent of Richard; and ordered his head to be set upon one of the loftiest towers of Chester. The opposition of Sir Peers must have occasioned this severe measure: but I have not any where seen the particulars of his resistance. An inscription upon his monument, in a chapel of the Leghs at Macclesfield, briefly records the cause of his decease, and suggests that he was taken by treachery:

Here lieth the body of Perkin a Legh,

That for King Richard the dethe did die,

Betrayed for righteousnesse.

^{page 65 note 1} Albemarle had at his command, only in Denbigh, Flint, and Shropshire, the following castles and seignories; Chirk, Lyons, (Holt, garrisoned for the king), lsabell, Dallilay, and Oswaldestreet (Oswestry), with the town well walled with stone, and eleven towns to the said castle belonging. The whole of which had belonged to the late Earl of Arundel. All these must have yielded to Henry. So that Richard must have been quite hemmed in and excluded from England, by the time he shut himself up in Conway. See Statutes of the Realm, II. p. 100. 21 Ric. II. e. 9.

^{page 65 note 2} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. pp. 84, 85,87. Summons to Parliament. Parl. Hist. II.p. 4.

^{page 65 note 3} Sir John Russell got off by feigning madness. Baker, p. 154. He had long had the care of the king's great horses. Calendarium Rotul. Pat, p. 234, a. 3 Pat. 21 Ric. II. No. 28.

^{page 65 note 4} Vita Ric. II. p. 154.

^{page 67 note l} The duke had been active in exciting the people by circular letters throughout the country. The MS. Ambassades has preserved the substance of that which was addressed to the city of London: one hundred and fifty of the same kind were sent to different places.

“Those which came to the commons of the city of London, said that King Richard had done every thing secretly; that he had drawn over and bound to agreement with him many great lords, as well of France, Germany, and Brittany, as of divers other kingdoms; and that by the aid of his allies he would lord it and domineer more greatly and mightily over the kingdom of England than any of his predecessors, the kings of England, had ever done; and that he would keep the villains of England in greater subjection, and greater servitude, than any Christian king had ever exercised towards his subjects. Their other contents were, that he would first cause to be apprehended all the chief magistrates feschevins) of the good cities who, ever since his coronation, had maintained the opinions of the commons in opposition to him and his council, and put them to death by divers torments; and he had purposed, that, as soon as he should be come from Ireland, he would secretly bid his allies to a certain festival which he was to make, which was to last a month; and would bring thither all the great burgesses, chief magistrates, and merchants of all the good cities of England; and afterwards, when they were all come, would cause them to be apprehended by his people and allies, and would then lay on such subsidies, tallages, and imposts as he should please. “And then the duke said in his letters,” Wherefore, my friends and good people, when the aforesaid matters came to my knowledge, I came over, as soon as I could, to inform, succour, and comfort you, to the utmost of my power; for I am one of the nearest to the crown of England, and am beholden to love and support the realm of England as much or more than any man alive; for thus have my predecessors done. My friends, may God preserve you: be well advised, and think well of that which I write to you, Your good and loyal friend, Henry of Lancaster.”

“These letters were read to the people by the chief magistrates of the towns, and produced a great outcry against Richard: none durst speak in his favour; his servants and officers were Killed, whever they could be found; and the people exclaimed, “Let Richard be deposed and Henry declared our lord and governor.”

“Soon after, the duke sent letters to the nobility, accusing Richard of a design to deliver over to the French king all the possessions of the English in France, for a sura of money to be paid by instalment in ten years; which was the more readily believed, because he had already given back Brest and Cherbourgh. The effect of these letters was such, that every gentleman of England went and offered his services to the duke; and in less than six days, he had so large an army both of nobles and non-nobles, that he was obliged to dismiss the greater part for want of means to subsist them; and for certain it was in consequence of the effects produced by these letters that he was so well received in England, and emboldened to advance to London.”

Carte has placed the dissemination of these imputations after the capture of the king; but, according to the above relation, this is an unwarranted transposition. The desertion of Richard at Milford-haven by the principal lords who had returned with him from Ireland, is elsewhere attributed to the letters which they had received, informing them of the causes for which the duke of Lancaster was come into England. Before the army dispersed, the Earl of Rutland had received letters from Lancaster, and had been seen reading them by one of his squires.

^{page 66 note 1} Lysons's Britannia, Cheshire, II. part 2. pp. 306, 728.

^{page 67 note m} This exactly accords with the statement of Walsingham. The rapidity with which large armies were raised is a striking feature of this reign. The croisade against the Clementists in 1383, the alarm of an attack from France in 1385, the dispute between the Duke of Ireland and the nobles in 1387, and the conspiracy against Henry IV. in this year, 1399, quickly drew together considerable bodies of men. This may easily be accounted for. The disposition of the Scots promoted a warlike spirit in the north: great numbers of the veterans who had been engaged in France under Edward III. had been disbanded, and with the partial exception of the Duke of Lancaster's campaign in Spain, there had been little employment for common soldiers: the people were generally dissatisfied, and in a state of ferment: the banditti styling themselves “maintainers,” who roved about in different counties, especially upon the western borders, and subsisted by plunder in defiance of the laws, encreased the facility of raising forces. The mischievous effects of military ardour, the relic of former wars, were visible in the turbulent state of England during the life of Henry IV.; but this disposition was turned to account by his son.

^{page 67 note 1} MS. Ambassades, pp. 126, 127, 128. Mr. Allen's MS. Extracts.

^{page 67 note 2} Hist. of Eng. II. p. 635.

^{page 67 note 3} Bibl. du Roy. MS. 1188, f. 17. a.

^{page 67 note 4} Ibid. MS. 635, p. 14. MS 10,212, p. 136.

^{page 67 note 5} Hist. Angl. p. 368.

^{page 67 note 6} Lingard, HI. c. 20.

^{page 68 note n} Cheshire abounded with bold and rapacious maintainers, many of whom were among the celebrated bowmen of the king's guard. The men of this county were preferred from their known attachment to him. Before the meeting of the parliament in 1397, he thought it necessary to provide for the safety of his person; and orders were addressed to the Dukes of Lancaster and York, and the Earl of Derby, to raise men at arms and archers for this purpose: some have reckoned their number at two thousand: they mounted and relieved guard night and day. The writers of the Parliamentary History doubt respecting the date of their introduction and their number, because no such account of them appears on record. But that they made their appearance in London at that time, and that it produced a strong impression, is evident from the way in which they are spoken of by the early writers. “Interea (sc. a 1397) rex sibi metuens convocavit ad tutelam sui corporis multos malefactores de comitatu Cestriae, qui noctium vigilias dierunique servarent et dividerent circa ilium.” While the trial of Arundel was going on, they surrounded the house of Parliament “ad pugnam arcubus tensis, sagittas ad aures trahentes;” and afterwards escorted him at his execution, “Praecessit eum et sequebatur satis ferialis turba Cestrensium, armata securibus, gladiis, arcubus et sagittis.” Their disorderly conduct was a cause of scandal to Richard. The fifth article of accusation complains that “he drew to him a great number of malefactors out of the county of Chester, who, marching up and down the kingdom, with the king, as well within his own house, as without, cruelly killed his lieges, beat and wounded others, plundering the goods of the people, &c. and although complaints were made to the king of their excesses, yet he took no care to apply remedy or do justice in them, but favoured them in their wickedness, confiding in them, and in their assistance against all others of his kingdom; wherefore his good subjects had great matter of commotion and indignation.”

Like all his other favourites, they gained a complete ascendency over him, and indulged in great freedom of speech towards him; a specimen of which the Chronicle of Kenilworth gives in the original dialect. “In tantam familiaritatem domino regi annectebantur, ut eidem in materna lingua audacter confabularentur; Dycun, slep sicury quile we wake, and dreed nouzt quile we lyve seftow: for zif thow haddest weddet Perkyn dauzter of Lye thow mun well halde alone day with any man in Chester schire in ffaith.”

He took the Cheshire archers of his guard into Ireland.

^{page 68 note 1} Rymer, Foedera, VIII. p. 14. Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 119.

^{page 68 note 2} Vita Ric 11. p. 133.

^{page 68 note 3} Vol. I. p. 461.

^{page 68 note 4} Walking. Hist. Angl. p. 354.

^{page 68 note 5} Vita Ric. II. ut supra.

^{page 68 note 6} Walsing. ut supra.

^{page 68 note 7} This is Perkin a Legh, mentioned in note ^K p. 65.

^{page 68 note 8} Query, Keep Hallown tide? Be as good and substantial a man as any in Cheshire.

^{page 68 note 9} MS. Chronicle of Kenilworth, in Ric II.

^{page 68 note 10} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 357. Otterbourne, p. 200.

^{page 69 note o} From the predatory dispositions and habits of the people of North Wales and Cheshire they were ever ready to arm; and in 1387 had furnished him with troops in his contest with the nobles. No part of the island was so well affected to him, or continued more unshaken in their fidelity after his misfortune. Great numbers of the Welsh had fought under his father and grandfather, and the nation were habitually devoted to their princes. On Cheshire he had conferred marks of especial favour. In the summer “of the above-mentioned year he had visited it, and much ingratiated himself with persons of all ranks in the county; they adopted his livery, and bound themselves by oath, to stand in his defence against, all manner of men. In the parliament held in 1398 at Shrewsbury, on account of the loyalty of that district, for the love he bore to the gentlemen and commons of the shire of Chester, he caused it to be ordained, that from thenceforth, it should be called and known by the name of “the principality of Cheshire”. From that time he took the title of Prince of Chester. This act was revoked in the next reign.

Henry diligently watched the Cheshire men; and one of the statutes of his first parliament was enacted against them. He had sufficient reason to be suspicious of them. Chester, Flint, and Denbigh, were afterwards conspicuous in the insurrection of the Percys in 1403. The goods, lands, and chattels, of thirty-four Cheshire gentlemen were forfeited to the king; and two hundred knights and squires of that county alone lay dead upon the field at Shrewsbury.

^{page 69 note 1} Statutes of the Realm, II. p. 10. 2 Ric. II. c 6.

^{page 69 note 2} Ypod. Neustr. p. 452.

^{page 69 note 3} Lingard, ut supra.

^{page 69 note 4} Lysons's Britannia, Cheshire, II. part 2, p. 561, Statutes of the Realæ, II. p. 100. 21 Ric. II. e, 9. Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 355.

^{page 69 note 5} Id. pp. 118, 119. 1 Hen. IV, c. 18.

^{page 69 note 6} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 320.

^{page 69 note 7} A list of them U to be found in Bibl. Harl. MS. 1988, 38.

^{page 69 note 8} Ypod. Neustr. p. 560.

^{page 71 note p} This intimates that the Earl of Salisbury had at first advanced beyond Conway, and that the duke made some demonstration against him in that direction. It is probable that the latter was now at Chester; but how far Salisbury had pushed towards him, or whether the other had actually passed the Dee, does not appear, no further notice being taken of this operation. Flint and Rutland were still in Richard's possession, till Northumberland brought up his detachment towards Conway to seize the king.

^{page 72 note q} Ballad-making was much in fashion. The squire of Chaucer, in the passage already cited, page 7, possessed this qualification. The French took the lead in composition of this kind. About the year 1380, according to Warton, a new species of poetry succeeded to the Provencal in France. It consisted of Chants royaux, Balades, Rondeaux, and Pastorales. But the passion for writing songs among the princes and gentlemen of that country may be traced much higher.' Winceslaus of Bohemia, Duke of Luxembourg and Brabant, uncle of Richard's first queen, was a great composer of songs, ballads, roundelays, and virelays. Froissart made a collection of these at the request of the duke, in the volume entitled Meliador, which he presented to Richard II. and that historian has left us several specimens of similar efforts of his own muse. Among the contemporary writers of our own nation, the French ballads of Gower are remarkable for their ease and elegance.

Of the poems of the Earl of Salisbury, probably composed in the French language, a favourable opinion may be formed from the commendations bestowed upon him by Christina of Pisa, who calls him, “Gracieux chevalier, aimant dictiez, et ltd meme gracieux dieteur.” She herself, whose various works both in prose and verse form so conspicuous a portion of the literature of this period, was little inferior to any of the poets of the age; and her judgment might be depended upon, even though it should be suspected to be biassed by the debt of gratitude which she owed to her admirer and friend. She was a foreigner by birth, but the widow of a Frenchman, patronised at the court of France for her literary talent; and a part of her story is closely connected with the Earl of Salisbury and Henry IV. When Salisbury went over to France either upon the marriage of Richard, or to thwart the match of the duke of Lancaster, he became acquainted with Christina, whose works had attracted his attention; and he conceived such a friendship for her, that seeing she had a son whom she wished to place out, he offered to take him and educate him with his own. Christina consented; and her son, then thirteen years of age, accompanied him into England in 1398.

At the death of this nobleman, Henry, who had read the compositions of Christina, which were, in Salisbury's possession, and must have seen or heard of her at Paris, was very desirous to entice her to his court: he took her son under his protection; and sent two kings at arms, Lancaster and Falcon, to invite her over with promise of an ample maintenance. But, as she had been disgusted at his conduct towards Richard, she declined his offers with many thanks, excuses, and delays, till she could obtain her son again. She confesses that she made this sacrifice of a liberal establishment for, herself and her child to her principles and feelings; (perhaps also it was made to her apprehensions;) that he returned upon an understanding that she was to go back with him, which, however, she did not; and that his restitution cost her some of her books. (“Be mes livres me couta.”) She afterwards placed him in the service of the Duke of Orleans, and thus expresses herself in a ballad addressed to that prince, recommending the youth to his protection.

Ja. iij. ans que, pour sa grat promesse,

L'en enmena le conte tres louable

De Salsbery, qui mouru a destresse,

Ou mal pays d'Angleterre; ou muable

Y sont la gent. Depuis lors, nest pas fable,

Ya este; si ay tel peine mise

Que ie le ray: non obstant qu'a sa guise

L'avoit henry, qui de la se dit hoir.

Or vous en face ie don de foy apprise,

Si le vueilles, noble due, recevoir.

After what Boivin has said respecting her and the Earl of Salisbury, it might be expected that among her numerous ballads, in that most splendid volume of her poems in the British Museum, many of which are addressed to her patrons and the principal persons of the time with whom she had intercourse, some one at least might be found addressed to this nobleman. But I am not aware that he is mentioned in any other passage of that part of her works, except in the above quotation. It will be observed how lightly she there touches upon the death of the earl, the behaviour of the English, and the claims of the reigning monarch. And it is a remarkable circumstance, that there are several blanks left among the ballads by the transcriber. This might at first sight seem to favour the conjecture, that these spaces might in other copies be filled up with compositions containing allusions objectionable to Henry, and that this might be one of the very books which she sent to procure the restoration of her son. It appears, however, from internal evidence of some of the pieces, that the volume was not written till after 1404; before which time, according to her own account, he must have returned. It's costly decorations indicate it to have been prepared for some person of rank; and, if part of the suspicion be founded in fact, it might be originally destined for an Englishman.—It belonged in 1676 to Henry Duke of Newcastle.

There is reason to believe that Salisbury possessed an active and cultivated mind, with a taste for literature and the arts. The reader will hereafter see that it is to his suggestion that he owes this interesting story of Richard's fall. He seems to have been the earl of that title alluded to in the romance History of Partenay, composed about this time; in which the writer, speaking of the sources from which his materials are derived, says

Forment celle historie avery

Le conte de Salsebery,

Dun livre quavoit.

Either by inheritance or purchase he had tapestry in his possession, which, upon his forfeiture, was thought a present worthy of a king's son.

It is indeed probable, that the earl, his uncle, had been a collector of books; but all his stores did not descend to his heir. Among the royal MSS. in the British Museum is Comestor's Scholastic History, in French, which, as it is recorded in a blank page at the beginning, was taken from the king of France at the battle of Poitiers, and, being purchased by William Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, for 100 marcs, was ordered to be sold by the last will of his countess Elizabeth for 40 livres.

Bishop Percy and Strutt perused the passage, to which this note is appended, so inattentively as to ascribe the above poetical accomplishment to the king.

^{page 72 note 1} Hist. of Eng. Poetry, I. p. 464.

^{page 72 note 2} Roquefort, De L'Etat de la poésie Françhise dans les XII et XIII Siécles, p. 211, and his authorities.

^{page 72 note 3} Chronicles, VII. c. 31.

^{page 72 note 4} Memoires de 1'Academie, XIV. p. 219, &c.

^{page 72 note 5} Ellis, Specimens, I. pp. 170,171.

^{page 72 note 6} They had escaped the researches of Warton, and are probably lost. He notices the earl's talent and fondness for poetry, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, I. p. 342 note; and thinks he must have been a patron of Chaucer. His son married Alice the grand-daughter of the poet. Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 653.

^{page 72 note 7} Mem, de Liu. par Buivin, le Cadet. Paris 1717,4to. T. If. pp. 768,769.

^{page 73 note 1} MSS. Harl. 4473. f. 47. a. in Cent Balades.

^{page 74 note r} He was an eminent patron of the disciples of Wycliff. Their doctrines had spread so rapidly, that they had made their way into the court, the church, and the universities. The great towns of London, Leicester, and Bristol in particular, cherished them with avidity; and according to Knighton, a man could scarcely meet two persons upon the road, without one of them being a Wycliffite. As their religious assemblies were subject to interruption, Sir John Montacute and others, about 1387, used to attend them in armour. When their attempts at reform recalled Richard II. in haste from Ireland in 1394, he sharply rebuked Montacute and several of his household, and threatened to put to death Sir Richard Sturry, who had served him and his grandfather for many years, if he did not renounce these opinions. As to Montacute, he had shewn such an aversion to images, that he caused all those, that had been placed in his chapel of Shenly in Buckinghamshire by his wife's former husbands or their ancestors, to be removed and thrown into obscure places, except that of Saint Catherine, which, on account of the respect paid by many to it, he permitted to be placed in his bakehouse.

Walsingham loses his temper when he mentions him; “Inter cæteros major fatuus Johannes Mountagu, qui in tantam vesaniam, &c. “and speaking of his death he tells us, that ” he who throughout the whole of his life had been a favourer of the Lollards, a despiser of images, a contemner of the canons, and a derider of the sacraments, ended his days, as is reported, without the sacrament of confession.

^{page 74 note 1} Bibl. Bodl, MS. 2386, 19. f. 9a.

^{page 74 note 2} Three pieces of tapestry, of the forfeited property of the Earl of Salisbury, were given to Thomas the king's son by a grant, dated May 2, 2 Hen. IV. Rymer, Donat. MSS. Brit. Mus.l. 4596, p. 180.

^{page 74 note 3} Warton, I. Diss. II.

^{page 74 note 4} Fox, I. pp. 56, 585. Wilkins's Concilia, 111. 265. Knighton, Col. 2661.

^{page 74 note 5} Ypod. Neustr. p. 540.

^{page 75 note s} At this place ends Carew's abbreviated translation of the former part of this tract, of which an account has been given in the Introductory Observations, page 4. “The story of Richard the second's expedition into Ireland,” in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, F. 4. 30.3 is probably only another copy of it.

^{page 75 note 1} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 351.

^{page 75 note 2} Id. pp. 323, 363.

^{page 75 note 3} Report respecting the Public Records of Ireland, 1810-1815, p. 191.

^{page 76 note t} The author assigns a singular reason for the resolution that Richard took of quitting his aiviy. It is difficult to conceive how the general distress and terror of the country should form a motive for his abandonment of them. The latter part of the sentence must indicate the true cause,—the panic and disorganisation that prevailed among the troops themselves. We learn from other sources that desertion had taken place to a serious extent before he withdrew. “Some days after his arrival in England,” when the king arose in the morning, and was about to say his orisons, he leaned on a window that looked to the field where his army was encamped; and when he saw the smallness of the number, he was quite dismayed. This army of thirty-two thousand was reduced to six thousand, the rest having deserted during the night, and joined the duke of Lancaster.”

He halted two days at Milford to refresh them. The monk of Evesham must have been misinformed when he reports that they were much concerned to see him so dejected, and offered to stand by him to the last drop of their blood; but that he disbanded them.

^{page 76 note u} The account of the discussion that took place in the council at Milford-haven is supplied by the MS. Ambassades, and is curious, inasmuch as it is characteristic of the speakers, and shews the grounds upon which the king was determined to retire to Conway.

“He consulted with his friends what course he had best pursue. Then said the earl of Salisbury, ‘Sir, truly this man, as I have heard, hath already stirred up many people against you by falsehoods and artful words (paroles entrouvees); you now see, and may perceive, that four parts of your men, and all those of highest rank, have left you in a single night. So it seemeth to me, that it were well, saving the correction of your good opinion, since we are few in number, and, moreover, we know not whether those who are with us will remain, that on the approach of night we should take four or five hundred of the best and most faithful of those that are left; put to sea, for our navy is ready to go wherever you please; and make straight for Bordeaux: there we shall be well received; and you will also have aid, if it be needful, from France, from Brittanny, or from Gascony; for it is better to withdraw a little from an enemy than to throw one's self upon his protection.’ The Earl of Huntingdon replied, ‘By Saint George, if my lord trusts to me, he will go this very night to Bellicaldit, and thence to the strong castle of Conway; there he will be in a state of security, in his kingdom, and in his rightful inheritance.’ And the king made answer, ‘So we should at Bordeaux.’ ‘That is true,’ said the earl; ‘but if you go to Bordeaux, every one will’ say you will have fled without being pursued; and that if you had not felt yourself guilty in some respect, you would not have gone away; and if you are in the castle of Conway you will be secure from any one; for in spite of Henry of Lancaster and all his friends, at all times, and at any time you please, you may embark and go wherever you chuse. And, peradventure, while you are in the castle some good agreement may be made. ‘Then said the king, you speak well; we will do so; and yourself shall go tomorrow to Henry of Lancaster to know what he would have.’ The Bishop of Carlisle, the Earl of Salisbury, Sir Stephen Scroope, Ferriby, Janico, and Maudelain would have prefered going to Bordeaux: but it pleased the king to listen to his brother.”

In Bibl. du Roy, MS. No 635. p. 15. The Bishop of Carlisle unites in advising him to proceed to Conway. Bellicaldit or Bellicardric is there represented to be a strong castle thirty miles from Milford; and it is said that they went thither the first night, and the next night to Conway; which, upon any calculation of the whole distance to the extremity of North Wales, taking into account also the nature of the country, seems impossible.

^{page 76 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 216.

^{page 76 note 2} Bibl. du Roy, MS. 635, p. 13.

^{page 76 note 3} Vita Ric. II. p. 150.

^{page 77 note v} According to other MSS. about one hundred horse accompanied the king in his flight: if it were so, many of these might have fallen away from him by the road. That he went off secretly, and abandoned the remains of his army, all the MSS. agree.

^{page 77 note w} The habit of the Franciscan, or Minor Friar, was a loose garment of a grey colour, reaching down to the ancles, with a cowl of the same, and a cloak over it, when they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords, and went barefoot.

The dresses of the clergy had been the subject of much episcopal animadversion during the latter part of this century. It seems, that through vanity or from a sense of inconvenience they were desirous of altering the clerical costume. They affected to have their upper garment shorter and tighter, and introduced buttons, which were entirely contrary to canonical regulations. John Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, complains in his constitutions of the luxury of their apparel, particularizing the Black Friars; and that many dressed rather like soldiers than persons of ecclesiastical profession. Simon Islip, in an ordinance dated November, 1353, in which the rules of his predecessor are recited, allows them on a journey only to use short vests, but they are to be neither too tight nor buttoned (botonatœ) down the middle; merely closed above and below: any clerk wearing buttons in public was subject to a fine. The constitutions of Thoresby, Archbishop of York, published in 1367, also censure “vestes nimia brevitate ridiculosas vel notandas.”

The seventy-fourth Canon of the Church of England, as it now stands, is, in part, but a more modern edition of the above regulations, adapted to the Reformation.

^{page 77 note 1} Bibl. du Roy, MS. Ambassades, pp. 131, 132. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 77 note 2} Id. p. 232, and No. 635, p. 16.

^{page 77 note 3} Tanner, Notit. Monast. Preface, p. xiii.

^{page 77 note 4} Concilia, II. p. 703.

^{page 78 note x} John de Holand, third son of Thomas, Earl of Kent, by Joan, daughter of Edmund of Woodstock. His mother, one of the most beautiful women of the age, was afterwards the wife of the Black Prince; and hence John de Holand was uterine brother to Richard the second. He was also brother-in-law to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, having married his sister Elizabeth.

He had been long exercised in arms; and had served in Scotland, 99 Edw. III. 7 and 8 Ric. II.; in Spain, 9 and 11 Ric. II.; and in France, 9, 11 and 13 Ric. II. His lady accompanied him in the Castilian campaign, where he was constable to the duke of Lancaster, his father-in-law, and high in his confidence. He executed the task of bringing off the remnant of the army enfeebled by pestilence.

He had espoused by proxy the king's first wife, Anne of Bohemia, and attended her into England; he assisted also at his second marriage. He had held the office of Justice of Chester, 4 Ric. II.; had been negociator of peace with France and Flanders, 7 and 15 Ric. II; admiral of the fleet from the mouth of the Thames westward, 13 Ric. II.; twice lord chamberlain of England, 13 and 17 Ric. II.; governor of the castle and town of Carlisle, 19 Ric. II.; and warden of the west march towards Scotland, 21 Ric. II. His advancement to the title of Earl of Huntingdon bears date, 2 June, 11 Ric. II. and to that of Duke of Exeter, 29 September, 21 Ric. II.

The enterprise and valour of John de Holand have been much celebrated. He himself confessed to the Duke of Lancaster, “I love nothing better than fighting.” He excelled in jousting, and was insatiably fond of it. Upon a formal challenge he tilted with. sir Reginald de Roye, before the court of Portugal at Entença; won the stranger's prize at Oporto; ran six lances at the grand match on the plain of Saint Inglevere, near Calais, and would have entered the lists again, but was not allowed; he also carried off the tenants prize at the famous tournament in Smithfield in 1390. The king granted special licence for himself and his retinue, knights and squires, to exercise points of arms, if they should be required, during his stay at Berwick upon Tweed and in the marches, in 1392.

But his intrepidity more than bordered upon ferocity. In bravery he might be a good knight; but he had certainly been a bad man. Twice within two years he had committed murder. During the parliament held at Shrewsbury in 1384, an Irish Carmelite presented to the king a schedule containing allegations of treason against the Duke of Lancaster, which he pledged himself to substantiate upon a day appointed. The duke denied the charges, and offered to prove his innocence; but demanded that the Friar should in the mean time be placed under the custody of Sir John Holand. At midnight preceding the day of enquiry, Holand and a knight, named Sir Henry Green, with their own hands put the accuser to death in the most barbarous manner; and to remove suspicion, caused his body to be dragged in the morning through the streets on a hurdle, like that of a traitor. Richard's youthful incapacity and the licentiousness of his nobles were never more conspicuous than upon this occasion; and it is not the least extraordinary particular in the affair, that no notice was taken of so gross an outrage. Walsingham drily remarks upon it. “Mirandum quod non armigeri, non valecti, non garciones, nee inferioris status viri quicquam mali voluerunt inferre fratri; sed milites hæe fecerunt. Ipsi judices, ipsi ministri, ipsi tortores extiterunt. Et hie fructus Parliamenti prgesentis.”

In the other case, his iniquitous conduct occasioned ultimately the death of his mother. When the king, on his march towards Scotland in 1885, halted his army at Beverley, in Yorkshire, a quarrel arose between a squire attached to Sir John Holand, and an archer belonging to Ralph, eldest son of the Earl of Stafford, respecting a German knight who was on a visit to the queen. High words ensued; and the archer shot the squire through the heart. When Sir John heard of it, Froissart tells us, “he was like a madman; and said he would neither eat nor drink till he had revenged it.” Accordingly he sallied forth in quest of the knight who had been the innocent cause of the affray; and accidentally meeting young Stafford in a narrow lane, without any personal provocation, slew him with a single stroke of his sword. His answer, when he was informed that Ralph was dead, was equally wanton and ferocious. “Be it so: I had rather have put him to death than one of less rank; for by that I have the better revenged the loss of my squire.” But he soon found the danger of his situation, and fled for sanctuary to Saint John's at Beverley. It is affirmed, that from this hour the Duke of Gloucester conceived an antipathy against him; and that he never forgave him for the transaction. The king, who was greatly incensed at it, caused him to be indicted and outlawed, and seized upon his offices. The Princess Joan, then at Wallingford, hearing that Richard had vowed Holand should suffer according to the law, attempted to mediate between her sons, and to obtain his pardon. But Richard rejected her earnest entreaties; and at the return of her messenger she was so affected with grief that she took to her bed, and in a few days expired. The king, shortly after, yielded to the solicitation of the Duke of Lancaster that for which his mother had sued in vain. Holand was received into favour, and was reconciled to the Earl of Stafford.

Either the express terms of this reconciliation, or some actual contrition on the part of Holand, caused him to appoint three priests, at the king's assignment, to celebrate divine service for the soul of Ralph, two on the spot where the murder was committed, and one at Langley, every day to the world's end.

It was, probably, the hope of expiation that induced him some years after, 17 Ric. II. to repair to the Holy Land in pilgrimage. He visited Jerusalem and Saint Catherine's of Mount Sinai, and purposed to have returned by way of Hungary. As he passed through Paris, where from his birth and connexions he was generously received at the court of the French king, he heard that the king of Hungary was to fight with Bajazet, and publicly avowed his resolution of joining the Christian army. An engagement took place, but, fortunately for him, he was not among the combatants: out of a great number of the French, who mingled in that fight, very few revisited their native country. His absence in Palestine prevented him from attending the king on the first expedition into Ireland. Of late he had been chiefly at court and about the person of his brother. Great jealousy had subsisted between him and the Duke of Gloucester; Froissart says, Huntingdon was much afraid of him. He was one of his appellants. Carte has endeavoured to disprove the story of his brutal conduct at the execution of Arundel, as related by Walsingham; and at any rate the wishes of humanity are on his side. After the death of that nobleman, he took possession of his residence in London called Cold Harbour, in the parish of All Saints in Dowgate Ward, then counted, “a right fair and stately house; and it is upon record, that in 1397 the king dined with him there. He gave him the whole of the furniture in the castle of Arundel. In the present campaign he was retained to serve with one hundred and forty men at arms, and five hundred archers: and about this time obtained a grant of various castles and lordships in Wales, which had belonged to the late duke of Lancaster. His acceptance of these would naturally have excited the displeasure of Henry, in whose presence he was shortly to appear.

After the deposal of Richard he was adjudged in parliament to lose the greater part of his honours and lands, but allowed to retain the title and estate of the Earl of Huntingdon. Having joined in the conspiracy against Henry IV. he remained in London till after the battle at Cirencester. He then made two several attempts to escape by sea, but being driven back by contrary winds, was taken and beheaded. Historians differ as to the place where he was arrested, but they in general concur that he lost his head at Pleshy, the spot from which he had been instrumental in enticing the Duke of Gloucester to his untimely end. The MS. Ambassades describes his decollation there, accompanied with circumstances of peculiar cruelty; yet Carte very reasonably doubts whether he was put to death at that place. After his apprehension he was certainly committed to the Tower of London; though Walsingham makes him remain a prisoner in the gate-house at Pleshy from his capture to his execution. Few of the accounts agree; but Froissart is wider of the mark than any of them, when he says, not only that he was slain fighting at Cirencester; but that he was absent at Calais as governor, during the time when the king was taken.

By his wife, daughter to John of Gant, he left issue, two sons and one daughter.

^{page 78 note 1} Concilia, III. p. 29 et seq. et p. 70.

^{page 78 note 2} Froissart, IX. cc. 2, 4.

^{page 78 note 3} Ro‘uli Scotiæ, II, p. 135.

^{page 78 note 4} Froiss. VIII. c. 31.

^{page 78 note 5} Id. ut supra.

^{page 79 note 1} Froiss. VIII. c. 27.

^{page 79 note 2} Id. X. c. 11.

^{page 79 note 3} Ibid. c. 21.

^{page 79 note 4} Rotuli Scotia, II. p. 117.

^{page 79 note 5} Walsiiig. Hist. Angl. p. 310.

^{page 80 note 1} Hist. Angl. p. 316.

^{page 80 note 2} The Dugdale. But the Patent Roll expressly appoints them to say mass at Langley, et non alibi. called Rot. Pat. P. 215 b 1 P. 11. Ric. II.

^{page 80 note 3} Fruiss. X. c. 21.

^{page 80 note 4} II. p.624.

^{page 80 note 5} Royal ami Nuble Wills, p. 13H. note in Dallaway's Inquiries, p. 188.

^{page 80 note 6} Caleud. Rot. Pat. p. 232. b. 1 p. 21 Ric. II.

^{page 81 note y} Thomas Holand, Earl of Kent and afterwards Duke of Surrey, nephew of the above mentioned John Holand; son of Thomas Holand, Earl of Kent, by Alice, daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel. His father had been dead about three years.

This young nobleman had been one of the appellants of the duke of Gloucester, and was rewarded, 21 Ric. II. with the castle and manor of Warwick, together with many other manors forfeited by the Earl of Warwick to the Crown. The title and dignity of Duke of Surrey was conferred upon him in the parliament of Shrewsbury, 21 Ric. II. and shortly after he was constituted Marshal of England, and acted in that capacity at the duel at Coventry; Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, the first Earl Marshal, being one of the combatants. He was made Lieutenant of Ireland upon the death of the Earl of March, and arrived there on the feast of Saint Mark, April 25, 22 Ric. II. He behaved with great bravery; but was unable either to repress or appease the insurgents. In fact the grant of Mac Morogh's forfeited barony of Norragh, which had been made to him, was one of the pleas of that rebellious chieftain for rising in arms. About the same time he was appointed governor of the castle of Liverpool, and obtained the castle and lordship of Carlow.

He had offended Henry by his prosecution of the Duke of Gloucester, and was imprisoned by him as soon as he got him into his power at Chester. In the first parliament of the ensuing reign he urged his tender age and small reputation in defence of his having engaged in the appeal; but he was degraded from his title of duke. He associated with the conspirators, and was taken and beheaded at Cirencester on Wednesday after the feast of the Epiphany. Froissart says, that “he was young and handsome, and had very unwillingly taken part in this conspiracy; but his uncle and the Earl of Salisbury had forced him into it.” He was about twenty-five years of age at the time of his death.

An anecdote related of him a few days before this event savours strongly of youth. When the party failed in their attempt to seize Henry at Windsor, they marched rapidly to Sunning, near Reading, where Isabel, Richard's queen, then resided. There the Duke of Surrey, with the Earl of Salisbury, entered the palace, dissembling their mortification before the household, who came out to meet them. Surrey then crossed himself, and began to harangue them in the following strain: “Bless me what is the matter, that Lord Henry of Lancaster, who boasted so much of his prowess and knighthood, thus runs away from me? and presently he added, “My lords and friends, I would have you to know, that Henry of Lancaster has been chased by me into the Tower of London, with his sons and adherents. And I mean to go to Richard, who was and is and shall be our king; for he has escaped from prison, and now lies at Pomfret, with a hundred thousand men to defend him.” In confirmation of all this, he contemptuously took off the collars, the badges of Henry, from the necks of some, whom he observed wearing them; and told them they must bear such ensigns no longer. He also pulled off the crescents from the arms of the attendants, and threw them away. Having thus cheered the queen's spirits, though to no purpose, he took his course to Wallingford.”

He founded the priory of Mountgrace, near North Allerton, in Yorkshire, where his body was buried.' It had been first interred in the Abbey of Cirencester, but was removed on the petition of his widow; his arms are still to be seen in the first compartment of the eastern window in the chapel of the Holy Trinity in that town. His head was exposed on a pole upon London bridge, from the beginning of January till the middle of March, 1400.

He was married to Joan daughter of Hugh, Earl of Stafford, by whom he left no issue. Many writers have confounded him with his deceased father. Even Dugdale calls him “brother of the Earl of Huntingdon,” contradicting what he had taken pains to prove before.

^{page 81 note 1} Hist. Angl. p. 402.

^{page 81 note 2} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 233, et seq.

^{page 81 note 3} II. p. 646.

^{page 81 note 4} Rymer, VIII. p. 121.

^{page 81 note 5} Hist. Angl. p. 363. His head was buried at Pleshy, and afterwards procured by his widow to be interred with his body. Dugdale does not say where. It had been exposed on London-bridge only for a day and a night. It seems probable that be was beheaded in the Tower, and that his head, for the justice of the example, was sent first to Pleshy.

^{page 81 note 6} XII.cc. 15,17,23,30.

^{page 81 note 7} Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 80. See the article, John de Holand, Earl of Huntingdon, passim.

^{page 81 note 8} He obtained from the king the Arras at Warwick, in which was wrought the story of the celebrated Guy, who slew the Danish champion. Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 76.

^{page 81 note 9} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 44, dated at Coventry, Sept. 17,1398.

^{page 82 note 1} Dallaway's inquiries. Appendix, No. III. p. li.

^{page 82 note 2} Henry Marleburgh in Camden, Annals of Ireland, a. 1398.

^{page 82 note 3} Chronic. Tinemut. p. 193, in Leland's Collectanea, I. p. 188.

^{page 82 note 4} Dugdale writes it “Clitberow,” which I suspect is an error. The grant of the lordship and castle of Carelagh is in Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f, 171.

^{page 82 note 5} He was also in possession of some of the Duke of Lancaster's manors in the county of Gloucester. Calend. Rot, Pat. p. 235. a. 3 p. 22 Ric. II.

^{page 82 note 6} Cotton's Abridgement, p. 399.

^{page 82 note 7} XII. 30.

^{page 83 note z} Other bishops are mentioned as having been with him in Ireland. The writer of the life of Richard II. in the Complete History of England, affirms, but I know not upon what authority, that the Bishop of Exeter was there. Walsingham speaks of many; and instances also the Bishop of London and the Abbot of Westminster; he adds the reason of his taking over so many prelates, that he might hold a parliament, whenever he should be so disposed. We may imagine that the king always liked to have some of these about him, from the sarcasm of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, that “he was only fit company for bishops and ladies.” Stow says he had usually thirteen in attendance.

He had, besides, many ecclesiastics in his army; Maudlin and Ferriby, his own chaplains, and several others went over, whose names are specified in the letters of safe conduct; John Haslee, Thomas More, Simon Hoke, William Lane, William Yoxhale, clerks, Richard Felde, Almoner, and master John Midyton, Archdeacon of Norfolk.

^{page 83 note a} He means to insinuate that they soon deserted him, though he gives no particular account of it. Merks was the only bishop present on his side when he was taken at Flint. The king had committed a capital error in provoking the clergy against him; they were greatly instrumental in promoting his downfal. Though he might affect the society of bishops, and was often more ready to ask the advice and attend to the suggestions of his chaplains, than of his nobler lay-counsellors, yet towards the clergy as a body, and especially the regulars, he had upon the whole, shewn himself inconsiderate, if not hostile. He seems to have looked upon their revenues as inexhaustible sources upon which he might draw whenever his necessities required; he forced heavy loans from them; and oppressed and aggrieved them in several ways. Great complaints had been made of his want of feeling in particular towards religious houses. Their hospitality is well known: but it had been frequently abused; for it was an old grievance that great men came to lodge in them when they were not invited by the governors; and whether it were at the charges of the inhabitants, or at their own charges, if it were against the will of religious persons, the intrusion was the same. Richard, in the early part of his reign, held more than one parliament in houses of this kind. In the fourth year he assembled one at Northampton, in a chamber of the priory of Saint Andrews, a place and town most unfit for such a purpose, in winter when lodging and fuel were scarce; and where a crowd of attendants pent up together must have broken in upon the quiet of monastic arrangements, and occasioned serious expences to the establishment. And that such intrusions bore heavily upon the parties may be seen in the account of a former parliament held at the Abbey of Gloucester, in the time of Robert Boysfield, the nineteenth abbot. Froucester, at that time one of the monks, was an eye-witness of the inconvenience and disorder, and has thus described it. “A. D. 1378, in the second year of King Richard II. and in the first year of that abbot (Boysfield) on the eleventh of the kalends of November began the parliament of Gloucester, and lasted till the sixteenth of the kalends of December. King Richard lodged by turns, sometimes in the abbey of Gloucester, sometimes in that of Tewksbury, at his pleasure. But while he was at Gloucester, not only himself, but his whole retinue lodged in the Abbey. It was so entirely filled with them and with the parliament, that all the convent were obliged for some days to take their meals in the dormitory, both on flesh and fish days, when their dinner was prepared in the store-room; and afterwards for greater convenience, while the parliament lasted, in the school-house.” He then points out how the different parts of the building were occupied by the different courts, and proceeds; “All open spaces in the monasterv were so crouded by persons coming to the parliament, that it appeared more like a fair than a house of religion. The grass-plot of the cloister was so trampled down with wrestling and ball-playing, that not a vestige of green was to be seen upon it.” The distress of the monk under the temporary hardship of being dispossessed of his refectory and kitchen may excite a smile; but a little reflection upon the nature and constitution of their establishments may convince us, that the misrule occasioned by such occupation must have been in every respect most unwelcome. This want of consideration for them might in the first instance be rather attached to the ministers than to the young king: but he gave farther proofs of it in his circular visits to the Abbies. His stay at that of Bury in 1383, for ten days, cost them eight hundred marks, at a time when they could very ill afford it, Walsingham peevishly shuts up the account of these visits. “Tsedet recordationis tot nugarum, et idcirco placet melius silere quam loqui.” When he set out for Ireland he gave them a strong proof that he had no hesitation in violating their privileges, if it suited his convenience; for although they were allowed to be exempt from furnishing armour, horses and carriages in time of war, these articles had been unsparingly extorted from them.

One of Richard's advocates has extolled his “great veneration for the clergy, whose privileges he maintained more than any of his predecessors;—neither in any other time,” he assures us, “were they less wronged.” It cannot be denied that their liberties were often formally asserted and acceded to in parliament; and that upon one occasion he sided with them against the laity, and declared, that he was resolved to leave the church in as good a state, or better, than he found it. As to the public acts of this reign, the enforcement of the statute of promisors was in favour of the English clergy; and the profane statute, as Knighton is pleased to call it, and that of appropriations passed in the parliament of 1390, were so far really to the advantage of the church, as they went to the correction of abuses in a community, in which there was room enough for reform. But the personal conduct of the king was not conciliatory towards them: the contempt with which he treated the pope, his harshness towards several prelates, and towards Arundel in particular, would increase the dislike of a great majority; and at length he had excluded most of them from any share in the administration of affairs. Widely different from this had been the conduct of his predecessor, who, while he judiciously restrained any encroachments of the clergy, understood the art of turning their services to account in the management of his temporal concerns; and in the zenith of his prosperity had more of them in office about him than any prince in Europe.

This, at least, shewed Edward the Third's good opinion of them; but he seems not to have calculated upon the injurious effect that might arise to the individuals, and through their example to society, by engaging them in affairs so discordant to their profession. Neither had such been the notion of the times. Jealousy, or a better estimate of the matter, occasioned the laity some years after to remonstrate, 45 Edward III. and the order of things was changed.”

The Duke of Lancaster might discern the general impolicy of Richard's proceedings towards the church; and in the outset of his enterprise, when promises were cheap, when he was backed by the pope, and every thing went smoothly before him, he made solemn oath that he would respect their rights. Whether he adhered to his professions, after he came to the throne, it is not our purpose to enquire: his enemies in their insurrections openly affirmed that he had broken his word.

^{page 83 note 1} Tanner, Notit. Monast. Yorkshire, LXXXIV.

^{page 83 note 2} Bigland, Collections relative to the County of Gloucester, p. 346.

^{page 83 note 3} Dugdale, Baronage, II. pp. 76,77, 79. See the article, Thomas Holand, Duke of Surrey.

^{page 83 note 4} Vol. I. p. 283, note.

^{page 83 note 5} Hist. Angl. pp. 357, 358.

^{page 83 note 6} Annales, p. 323.

^{page 83 note 7} Rymer, VIII. pp. 78,79.

^{page 83 note 8} See a striking instance of this in Walsingham, Hist. Angl. p. 309.

^{page 84 note 1} Statutes of the Realm, I. p. 237. Pleas in Eyre, 2 Edw. I.

^{page 84 note 2} Cotton's Abridgement, p. 188. Parl. Hist. I. p. 358.

^{page 84 note 3} MS. Bibl. Cathedr. Glouc. Account of the Abbots of Gloucester, by Walter Froucester, xxth Abbot, pp. 56,57.

^{page 85 note 1} Hist. Ang. p. 302.

^{page 85 note 2} Cotton, pp. 139,165.

^{page 85 note 3} See page 21, note f.

^{page 85 note 4} Carte, II. p. 640.

^{page 85 note 5} Hist. Angl. p. 320.

^{page 85 note 6} Col. 2738.

^{page 85 note 7} Parl, Hist. I. p. 448.

^{page 85 note 8} Cotton, p, 374.

^{page 85 note 9} Kennet in Daniel. Parl. Hist. I. pp. 293, 294, note.

^{page 86 note b} Guido de Mona or Mohun. He had been Keeper of the Privy Seal, and was appointed Treasurer of England in 21 Ric. II. He also held the same office for a short time in 4Hen.IV. Godwin dates his advancement to the see of Saint David's in 1401; but this is incorrect; for John Gilbert, the bishop immediately preceding, died in 1307-4 Guido is one of the witnesses to the will of the king. Walsingham, recording his decease, briefly observes, that “in his life he was the cause of much mischief.” He died August 31, 1407, probably of the epidemic disease that raged violently in that year, and, in London alone, in a very short time carried off thirty thousand persons. Solemn processions with litanies and collects were ordered for the mitigation of it; and Archbishop Arundel directed that a funeral service and masses should be performed in all churches and chapels throughout the province of Canterbury for the Bishop of Saint David's.

^{page 86 note c} Thomas Merks, Merk, or Newmarket, (de novo mercatu) whose fidelity to the king has been applauded by so many succeeding writers. Their commendations of him are chiefly founded upon a resolute speech which he is reported to have made in the first parliament of Henry IV. against the deposition of Richard II. But the authenticity of that speech, which will be adverted to in it's proper place, was shewn to be questionable, in a controversy respecting hereditary right and passive obedience, three centuries after the death of this prelate, when his character and conduct became the subject of strict enquiry. On one side he was set forth as a glorious example of loyalty and fortitude, a man of conscience and integrity, a champion for the right heir; on the other side, as a tool of the mal-administration of Richard's arbitrary reign, led by his own interests to espouse the king's cause, a bold adventurer, but a very impotent actor in treason and rebellion. Both parties, arguing for victory, may have overstrained their representations; but Bishop Rennet's exposure of Merks, to which no impartial reader can refuse the praise of industry and ability, holds him up in a very different light from that in which he has been viewed by most historians. He has brought forward facts, which were previously suppressed or unknown, and has shewn that his attachment to the cause of Richard was not so permanent as had generally been believed.

It appears that about 18 Ric. II. Merks was a doctor of divinity, and a person of some consequence at the university of Oxford; he was also a Benedictine Monk of Westminster; where being of the abbot's party, his quickness of talent recommended him to the ministry and to the king; by whom, on the translation of Bishop Read to the see of Chichester in 1397, he was promoted to the bishoprick of Carlisle, in opposition to the objections of the monks, who claimed the right of election. Under his episcopal character he was distinguished rather as a minister of state than a spiritual guide; and was employed in a variety of secular concerns at home and abroad. He joined in the proceedings against the Duke of Gloucester, and the Arundels; and continued to the last in great estimation with King Richard, who left him by his will a cup of the value of twenty pounds. He followed his master's fortunes, so long as that monarch continued at liberty; and used his endeavours to obtain his restoration to the crown. It seems undeniable that about the meeting of the first parliament of Henry IV. Merks had for some reason incurred that king's displeasure, who placed him in custody at Saint Alban's; and that he was brought before the parliament by warrant, dated October 28, 1399. After this he was suspected to have had communication with the insurgents, whose attempts were crushed at Cirencester; and, though he did not openly act with them, was arraigned before a special commission for having held meetings with other conspirators in London, at Saint Paul's church, in the ward of Baynard's-castle, in the parish of All Saints the Little, in the ward of Dowgate, and in other places; and was found guilty and sent to the Tower; but he was pardoned and released at the end of the year 1400. According to Carte, he was committed to the Marshalsey in the year following; but at last set at liberty. In the meantime, the see of Carlisle had been reported vacant, and Henry procured the pope to translate him to the bishop rick of Saraos, inpartibus infidelium. The same author represents him reduced by poverty to return to the protection of the Abbey of Westminster; that the convent presented him in 1404 to the living of Todenham in Gloucestershire; and that he enjoyed it till his death in 1409.

But Kennet draws a very different picture of his occupation in the interim between his liberation and his decease; he states that Merks was committed to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster; that he retired to Oxford; obtained the prebend of Massam, in the church of York; acquired the favour of Henry IV. and received from him the vicarage of Sturminster Marshal, in the diocese of Sarum, and county of Dorset; that he conciliated the esteem of Archbishop Arundel; acted as his commissary; and was returned a member of the lower house of convocation for the province of Canterbury, which convocation he opened with a Latin sermon, on May 10, 1406. The publication of these facts, for which he cites sufficient authorities, has robbed Merks of a portion of the interest which he had excited, when viewed as a man, who in degradation and seclusion ever maintained an inviolable attachment to the deposed king. Though he forsook him not while hope remained; others might be found who pushed still farther their devotion to his cause and person. And when we see that he courted his adversaries, whatever may be the opinion that may be formed of him, we are no longer to imagine that he patiently and perseveringly cherished the feelings, which have been attributed to him, in monastic retirement or pastoral labours to his latest hour.

^{page 86 note 1} It is, however, noted that when Simon Sudbury was made Chancellor, 3 Ric. II. it was looked upon as a degradation to his archiepiscopal dignity. Parl. Hist. I. p. 358.

^{page 86 note 2} Cotton, p. 112, The reason is shewn in Collier, Eccl. Hist. I. p. 561.

^{page 86 note 3} Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 232. 1 Pat. 21 Ric. II. No. 23.

^{page 86 note 4} See Hist. of the Bishops, under Saint David's, Nos.61, 62.

^{page 86 note 5} Rvmer VIII. 77.

^{page 86 note 6} Hist. Angl.p. 376.

^{page 86 note 7} Ypod. Neustr. pp. 567, 568.

^{page 86 note 8} Concilia, III. pp. 304,305, dated July 20,1407.

^{page 86 note 9} Ibid. Dated Sept. 12,1407.

^{page 87 note 1} Third Letter to the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, concerning Bishop Merks. London, 1713.

^{page 87 note 2} Rymer, Fœdera, VII. p. 858. VIII. p. 52.

^{page 87 note 3} Stow, Aimales, p. 316.

^{page 87 note 4} Fadera, VIII. p. 76.

^{page 87 note 5} Ibid. pp. 166, 167. “For it had never beene seene hitherto that any bishop was put to death by order of Lw.” Godwin.

^{page 87 note 6} Hist. of Eng. II. pp.647, 648.

^{page 88 note d} Henry Beaufort, second son of John of Gant by Catherine Swinford; a prelate of a bold and contentious temper, whose existing sentiments are neatly, though familiarly touched by the author, when he says, “il n'acontoit pas une poire mole a tous leurfaiz.” His turbulent and ambitious course is so strongly marked by the general historians of our country, that it may be sufficient to note little more than the progress of his professional career. He studied the civil and canon law many years at Aix-la-chapelle and Oxford; and became Dean of Wells; was made Bishop of Lincoln in 1397; Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1398; and upon the death of William of Wykeham was translated to Winchester in 1405; which see he held upwards of forty years. He received a Cardinal's hat from Pope Martin V. under the title of Eusebius, in 1427; undertook a croisade against the Bohemian Hussites in 1429; and performed the ceremony of coronation to his great nephew, Henry the Sixth, at Paris in 1431. He was Chancellor of England in the reigns of Henry IV, V, and VI. His dispute with the Duke of Gloucester lasted too long for the fame of either party. He died April 11,1447, at the age of eighty, “annis non minus quam divitiis gravis.” Through frugality he had amassed such wealth that he was called “the rich cardinal;” he lent Henry V. at one time twenty thousand pounds. By a testament made two years before his death he disposed of his riches to various charitable purposes. Cambridge, Eton, and Saint Cross near Winchester bear testimony to his bequests; and he left plate and jewels to a great amount, to most of the cathedrals and principal monasteries in the kingdom. It was supposed that he had not been over scrupulous as to the means of acquiring this property. Though neither his youth nor the vigour of his life were spent altogether irreproachably, it has been asserted that the close of his days was marked by sedulous attention to his diocese. May his death-bed, as detailed by Shakspeare, be merely a poetical fiction

—Lincoln is, in the original, Nicole. This is the way in which it is usually given in the earlier French writers. In the names especially of persons, misspelt as might be expected from the hand of a foreigner and the inaccuracy of the age, the translator has adopted the readings that are sanctioned by the somewhat more correct authorities of public documents; but even in these, it is well known, there is great disagreement under the unsettled orthography of places as well as names.

^{page 88 note 1} Third Letter, &c. passim.

^{page 87 note 2} The last touches of Godwin's false and flattering portrait of him are given in the strongest colours of constancy and loyal affection. Having spoken of his release from prison, and his translation, he concludes, “Hee was so happy, as neither to take benefit of the gift of his enemy, nor to be hurt by the masked malice of his counterfeit friend: disdayning (as it were) to take his life by his gift, that tooke away from his master both life and kingdom. He died shortly after his deliverance, so deluding also the mockery of his translation; whereby (things so falling out) he was nothing damnified.” History of the Bishops, in the article Merkes, under Carlisle, No. 15.

^{page 89 note e} Sir Stephen Scroope, eldest son of Henry, Lord Scroope of Masham, in the county of York. He was about forty-eight years of age, and had been a soldier from his youth, having served in France and Flanders during the last and present reign. When the Earl of Warwick was banished to the Isle of Man, 20 Rich. II. Sir Stephen was joined with the Earl of Wiltshire, his brother, in the precept for his safe conveyance and custody. In the same year he was constituted Justice of Munster, Leinster and Uriell in Ireland, where by iniquitous behaviour and abuse of power he excited the disgust of the English as well as Irish. This was the last post that he held under Richard the second. It will be found that he was made captive with him at Flint; where he courageously sustained the only remaining poor relic of the fallen monarch's state. When Richard came down from the tower to put himself into the hands of his adversary, Sir Stephen bore the sword before him. After these affairs he retired to his manor of Bynbury in Kent, where, in Hen. IV. he was accused by John Kighlee, esquire, of being privy to the insurrection so often alluded to in these notes. His trial was held, August 4, 1400, in the court of chivalry, in the Moothalle at Newcastle upon Tyne; when he was acquitted, and his accuser condemned to the same punishment that Scroope was to have endured, had he been found guilty. Henry IV. soon took him into his service. In the course of that year he was made joint governor with Sir Richard de Grey of the castle of Roxburgh, in Scotland; and in 2 Henry IV. went again into Ireland, as the deputy of Thomas, the king's son, lieutenant of Ireland.

And now the firmness of a female corrected the errors of his former administration, and rendered his conduct towards the Irish as beneficial as it had before been injurious. His wife, Margery, who had been widow of John de Huntingfield, and to whom he had been married twenty-four years, having heard the complaints that had been made against him, refused to accompany or continue with him there; except, as the account is given in the antiquated but expressive language of Holinshed, “he would receive a solemn othe on the Bible, that willingly he should wrong no Christian creature in that lande, that truly and duly he should see payment made for all expenses; and hereof, shee sayd, shee had made a vowe to Christ so determinately, that unless it were on his part firmly promised, she could not without peril of soul go with him. Hir husband assented; and accomplished hir request effectually; recovered a good opinion for his upright dealing, reformed his caters and purveyers; enriched the country; maintained a plentiful house; remission of great offences, remedies for persons endaungered to the prince, pardons of landes and lives he graunted so charitably, and so discreetly, that his name was never recited among them without many blessings and prayers; and so cheerfully they were redy to serve him against the Irish upon all necessarie occasions.”

In the absence of the king's son he continued to act as deputy lieutenant in Ireland, with some intermission, till his death. Occasionally he revisited England; as in 1403, and the two following years, when his charge of Roxburgh castle, and commission to treat respecting the prisoners taken at the battle of Hamildon, demanded his personal attention. James Butler Earl of Ormond, was usually appointed Lord Justice in his stead. How valuable his services were deemed by the young lieutenant, Thomas of Lancaster, from his ability, experience, and local knowledge, may be understood by an interesting letter given in APPENDIX NO. III. It is addressed by the prince to his father in 3 Hen. IV. and conveys a pleasing proof of his duty and affection and of discernment beyond his years.

In 1407, with the aid of the Earls of Desmond and Ormond, and the Prior of Kilmainham, Scroope invaded the lands of Mac Morogh, and vigorously chastised that chieftain and others of the rebels. He died at Tristel Dermot on the festival of Saint Marcellus, the Martyr, February 10, 1408.

He was summoned to parliament among the Barons of the realm from 16 Rich. II. to 7 Hen. IV. inclusive. One of the chronicles of Ireland frequently styles him eques auratus. He left issue one son, Henry, a man of considerable talent and as deep disimulation, who found his way to the entire confidence of Henry the fourth and his successor. But he conspired with the French on his embassy to Paris in 1415, and suffered at Southampton the death of a traitor.

^{page 89 note 1} Anth. a Wood, II. 401.

^{page 89 note 2} Cotton, pp. 4*8, 534, 576, et alibi.

^{page 89 note 3} Anglia Sacra, Pars prima, p. 318.

^{page 89 note 4} Godwin in Lincoln, No. 19, and Winchester, No. 53.

^{page 89 note 5} Fabliaux, II. p, 70. Stat. 13 Ric. II. Stat. 1. c. 18. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, I. p. 78. Reference to the original, printed at the end, will shew that the word Carlisle is ingeniously varied. It is Gerlie, Guerlille, Kerlille, and in the Lambeth MS. Quierlille.

^{page 90 note 1} Baker, p. 155.

^{page 90 note 2} See the confirmation of the process in Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. pp. 168,169, 170. Kighlee was afterwards pardoned. Calend, Rot. Pat. 243. a. 2. p. 2 Hen. IV. No. 31.

^{page 90 note 3} Holinshed, Hist. of Ireland, p. 66. The Red Book of the Exchequer of Ireland notes the precise hour of his entering upon his office, 23 Aug. circa horam Xma'. Carew's MS. Extracts, Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI, f. 293. Thomas of Lancaster was appointed, June 27, 2 Hen. IV. Rymer, Donat. MSS. I. 4596, p. 137. He succeeded Sir John Stanley, who bad been made lieutenant, Dec. 10, 1 Hen. IV. Ibid. p. 61. Scroope at the same time succeeded Stanley as governor of Roxburgh castle. Rotuli Scotiie, IL pp. 132. a. 138. b. Bibl. Cotton. MS. Vespasian, F. VII. 87.

^{page 90 note 4} Hist. of Ireland, ut supra.

^{page 91 note f} In the marginal notes of names that accompany the Lambeth MS. he is called William Firebye; and though in this place, and elsewhere, he is described as a layman, and a knight, others have represented him to be one of Richard's chaplains. Thus the MS. Ambassades asserts of Maudelain, that he was one of his esquires; whereas there is no doubt that he was a priest. I would therefore here with some diffidence suggest, that it is possible, that our author, having no acquaintance with the real character of Ferribys and having never seen him to notice him before, might have fallen into an error, from hearing him called Sir William Ferriby, the usual method of addressing clergymen as well as laymen; while Ferriby might have disguised himself through apprehension of the Duke of Lancaster; which by the Canons the secular clergy were permitted to do in case of danger. Maudelain appears to have made his escape.

The family of Ferriby, or Ferribridge, were of the county of York, and the name not unfrequently occurs in references of the time. William, the king's chaplain, is one of the witnesses to the king's will; and he had been employed as commissioner in the truce with Scotland, 22 Rich. II. in association with the disreputable Bussy and Green. The writer of this tract says, that for some unknown cause Henry hated him, and that he on his part was greatly afraid of the Duke. Maudelain was equally in disgrace with him, for his interference in the affair of the late Duke of Gloucester; and it seems very likely that as Richard's chaplains were too often his agents and councellors, both these persons had been concerned in advising and enforcing the harsh measures that had been exercised towards that prince and Henry of Lancaster.

His fidelity to the king was, however, exemplary. After the insurrection, in 1400, he was arrested with Maudelain on their way into Yorkshire; and being brought to London, a, they were hanged, drawn, and beheaded together. A precept to the sheriff of Kent for the recovery of the effects of the conspirators, names Richard Maudelyn, clerk, and William Ferriby, clerk, deceased. The latter possessed property in Coventry and the county of Warwick, of the annual value of twenty pounds, which upon his death and attainder was is forfeited to the crown.

^{page 91 note 1} Rymer, Foedera, VIII. p. 292.

^{page 91 note 2} The original is in Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 22.

^{page 91 note 3} Holinshed, Hist. of Ireland, p, 67. According to Dugdale, Jan. 25, 7 Hen. IV. See the article, Stephen Scroope of Masham, Baronage, I. p. 659.

^{page 91 note 4} Annal. Hibern. in Lyra Hibern. a Carve, pp. 240, 243, 244.

^{page 91 note 5} Henry IV. assigned to him, while he should be resident at Westminster, or London, the towns of Hampstead and Hendon, for the accommodation of his servants and horses. Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 659. And he usually slept in the same chamber with Henry V. Rapin, I. p. 511.

^{page 92 note g} Jenico or Janico D'Artois, esquire; alias D'Artasso and D'Artas; a captain of great repute. One writer states that he was a German; but the notes of the Lambeth MS. and many other authorities, affirm that he was a Gascon. In the reign of Edward I. the celebrated Robert D'Artois had settled with his family in England; but I find no proof that Jenico was a descendant of that illustrious stock.

He had been long in the service of Richard the second. Mention of him occurs in 11 Rich. II. when he was appointed with Sir John Say and Robert Walden to receive the ransom of John de Bloys; and though Froissart complains of the avarice of the Gascons, the imputation does not seem to attach to Jenico; for in 20 Rich. II. he received a grant of “Mareys lande in Hunsprele, in the hundred of Brinxton and county of Somerset, sometime belonging to John Trivet, deceased, to hold for his life in chief by military service, on the annual payment of forty marks into the exchequer, in consideration of his good and gratuitous services.” When the Duke of Surrey went over to Ireland, Jenico was there, or had attended him thither. The bon routier of the writer may be traced in the few particulars we possess of his achievements. He and the lieutenant are thus spoken of, in 1399. “Virtus ducis Southreiee et Janichonis Alemanni in Hibernia claruit.” In less than a week after Richard's landing in that island, before he could have moved from Waterford, this captain began to attack the Irish, favoured by the approach of the grand army. On the Friday after their arrival two hundred of the Irish were slain at Ford in Kenlys, in the county of Kildare, by Jenicho de Artois, a Gascoigne, and such Englishmen as he had with him.

At Flint he firmly refused to submit to the Duke of Lancaster's command that he should lay aside the badge of his master; he was therefore imprisoned in the castle of Chester; and it was expected that he would have shared the fate of Perkin a Legh. Here our author's account of him closes: but we may trace him much farther. Henry, who could not but have admired his loyal attachment to the fallen king in his adversity, soon released and brought him over to his own side, Jenico was made commissioner, December 10, 1399, with Sir Thomas Gray to treat with the Scots. On the return of the troops from the expedition into Scotland in 1400, a Frenchman and an Italian challenged to fight at York within lists against Sir John Cornwall and James of Artois. This is the way in which the name is given by Stow; and I have no hesitation in concluding that Jenico is the person here intended. The strangers were vanquished; and Cornwall's conduct, in particular, found such favour at the hands of Henry IV. that he consented to his marriage with his sister, the widow of the Earl of Huntingdon.

The king continued to patronise Jenico, who in the letter of Thomas of Lancaster, Hen. IV. Appendix, NO III. is spoken of as having command of the troops with Sir Stephen Scroope and Sir Edward Perrers. His name also appears in another mutilated letter in the same collection, a addressed to Henry IV. by the council, requesting pecuniary aid. It draws a deplorable picture of the state of the lieutenant's resources: “his soldiers have deserted him; the people of his household are on the point of leaving him; and though they were willing to remain, our lord is not able to keep them together; n're dit s^r v're futz est si destituit de monoy, qil riad un denier en monde, ne nul denier poet creancer; our said lord your son is so destitute of money, that he hath not a penny in the world, nor a penny can he get credit for.” Honourable mention is then made of “v're humble liege Janico, qi a t'stout n're cuer.” Jenico's name among others is affixed to this letter; but it is evidently a copy.

In 5 Hen. IV. he was made admiral of Ireland, and was commissioned with the Bishop of Down to treat with Donald de Insulis.

Two other notices of him are found in Holinshed. “June, 1409. Janico de Artoys with the Englishmen slue eighty of the Irish in Ulster.— 1413, Janico de Artoys ledde forth a power agaynste Magynors, a great lord of Ireland; but near to a place called Inor many Englishmen were slain.”

This is the last time his name occurs in these Annals of Ireland. But I perceive that in Hen. VI. he was still alive, and resident in that country, and that his authority was confirmed to him. It might be no small presumptive evidence of his merit, though nothing more were known of him, that he was found worthy to be a servant of the state during four successive reigns.

^{page 92 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II, p. 228.

^{page 92 note 2} Neither was he acquainted with Maudelain, except by sight: and this is plain from the way in which lie speaks of him. “Maintesfoiz le vy en Irlande.”

^{page 92 note 3} Lyndwood, Provincial, L. 3. Tit. 1. p. 119. Nisifortejusta causa timoris exegerit habitum transformari

^{page 92 note 4} Ryiner, Fœdera, VIII. p. 77.

^{page 92 note 5} Rotuli Scotiæ:, II. pp. 143, 144. Rymer, ut supra, pp. 46, 57, 58.

^{page 92 note 6} Walsing. Hist. Aug. P. 363.

^{page 92 note 7} Rymer, Donat. MSS. Brit. Mus. 1.4596, p. 150.

^{page 92 note 8} Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 244. b. 4 Pat. 2 Hen. IV.

^{page 92 note 9} Chronic. Tinemut. p, 193, in Leland, Collectanea, 1.188.

^{page 93 note 1} Rymer, Fœdera, VII. p. 565.

^{page 93 note 2} Chronicles, II. c. 170.

^{page 93 note 3} Rymer, Donat. MSS. Brit. Mus. V. 4595, p. 46, dated March 8.

^{page 93 note 4} Chronic. Tinemut. ut supra.

^{page 93 note 5} Holinshed, Hist. of Ireland, p. 65.

^{page 93 note 6} Rotuli Scotiae, II. p. 152. b. Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 113.

^{page 93 note 7} Stow, Annales, p. 325, says they were knights; but I apprehend the challengers to have been Charles Savoisy, knight, and Ector de Pontbirant, esquire. See a letter of safe conduct for them to come and perform feats of arms, dated April 27,1400. Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 140; and for their return, dated at York, July 26, 1400. Ibid. p. 151. The challenge of Savoisy could only be accepted by an esquire; and this exactly applies to Jenico. I cannot discover that he ever received the honour of knighthood, not withstanding his services, and the high post that he afterwards filled. All documents addressed to him are directed, diledo armigero nostro.

^{page 94 note 1} Baker calls him James, when he mentions his being taken at Flint; Chronicle, p. 155; but surely Jenico is rather a diminutive of Jean than of Jacques.

^{page 94 note 2} Bibl. Cotton. MS. Titus, B. XI. f. 22.

^{page 94 note 3} Ibid. f. 19. a. dated August 20, no year is mentioned.

^{page 94 note 4} Rymer, Donat. MSS. II. 4592, p. 152. dated at Pomfret, July 5.

^{page 94 note 5} Rymer, Foedera, VIII.p. 418. dated September 8.

^{page 94 note 6} Hist. of Ireland, pp.69, 70.

^{page 94 note 7} Caknd. Rot. Pat, p. 269,2 p. 1 Hen. VI. No. 13.

^{page 95 note h} The reader who has visited this town and district, and remarked the abundance of slate with which the country is furnished, will recognise the author's talent for observation in the insertion of this circumstance: luckily it here helps him to a line and a rhime. Conway, though it has suffered by war and time, still presents the same material features that it did in those days.

^{page 95 note i} We have other instances of Richard travelling all night upon emergencies. One of his journeys from Daventry to London has already been noticed. See page 58, note d. At another time he rode in this way to save the life of Henry himself, when he thought it was in danger. The passage of the text, on first inspection, might seem even to go beyond the idea held out in one of the MSS. that he performed the whole of the distance from Milford to Conway in less than thirty six hours; and that, setting out at midnight, he arrived at the latter place on the immediately ensuing morning. It is not worth while to undertake gravely to disprove this; but, admitting that the time would have allowed it, he could not have done so, owing to his inability to change horses, from the secret manner in which he wished to pass through the country. It can be taken, therefore, to signify no more than that he rode so warily in the night time that he reached Conway by break of day. And this is the sense attached to it by Stow. Rapidity of movement, in the existing state of the roads, is very rarely alluded to. Forty days were allowed by letter of safe conduct, dated April 8, 1381, to Lion, herald to the King of Scotland to go from London, to the borders of Scotland, with five servants and six horses. Henry's progress with an army from Yorkshire to Bristol, and thence to Chester, in forty-seven days, was looked upon as an extraordinary exertion; but this must be classed under the head of military movement, rather than of travel. The greatest feat of the kind handed down to us in this reign was achieved by Thomas, Lord Percy, second son of the Earl of Northumberland, and nephew to the Earl of Worcester. It was in the year 1383, when Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, broke up from Ypres, on intelligence that the King of France was advancing to raise the seige. “He came from Prussia,” says Froissart, “and hearing on his road that the Kings of France and England were to engage in the plains of Flanders or Artois, each at the head of his army, the knight was so much rejoiced, and had so great a desire to be present at the battle, that the journey, which at a moderate rate of travelling would have taken forty days, he performed in fourteen, leaving his equipage and servants behind, and frequently changing horses. He afterwards learnt that his baggage had arrived in less than twenty days in the town of Ghent.” The historian takes fire at the thought of his activity and appetite for deeds of arms. “Such good will and gallantry,” he adds, “deserve much praise.”

That carriages were not altogether unknown, may be seen in the circumstance of Richard having accompanied his mother to Mile-end during the insurrection of 1381 in one, called by Stow a whirlicole; but it is almost needless to remark, that all journeys of any length were performed on horseback. Hackneymen let out horses for this purpose, and were subject to frequent impositions. Rymer's additional MSS. contain an article upon this subject. It sets forth that Reginald Shrewesbury and Thomas Athekot, and others, of Southwark, Dartford, Rochester, and other towns between London and Dover, were hackneymen; that the hire of a hackney from Southwark to Rochester was sixteen pence; and from Rochester to Canterbury, the same: but that some persons were in the habit of hiring horses, and not paying as they ought; and that they were injured, rode off, and worked to death by others. An order is issued, that in future the hire of a hackney from Southwark to Rochester should be twelve pence, from Rochester to Canterbury twelve pence, and from Canterbury to Dover six pence only, prompt payment; and that they should not be compelled to let out their horses unless the money were paid. For the security of the said horses a brand was to be kept in each of the above towns to mark them; and all persons, of what state or condition soever, were forbidden to sell or purchase horses so branded, or to cut off their ears or tails, or put them to death, under heavy penalty of law. The said Reginald and Thomas and their partners might seize and carry off any horses found so branded, upon application to the bailiff or constable of the place where they should be discovered. If any horse should knock up on the road, these owners were to refund a proportionable sum to the hirer.

^{page 95 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II. p, 222.

^{page 95 note 2} Annales, p. 320. at the hreak of a day.

^{page 95 note 3} This would be at a very slow rate. But he was conveying armour, and might proceed by land or sea. He came to London to procure a complete suit of all pieces, with gloves of plate, and harness for the legs, to arm Robert Mercer, esquire, who was to fight in the lists with John Gille, esquire, both of Scotland. Rotuli Scotiae, II. p. 35. It was a matter of great favour to be allowed to transport armour of any kind to Scotland. It had been prohibited by statute, and could not be done without the king's licence. Stat. 7 Ric. II. c. 16.

^{page 95 note 4} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 96 note 1} Froissart, VI. c. 59.

^{page 95 note 2} Annales, p. 237. Some of the high roads out of London were paved to a considerable distance. Pavagum pro alta via de Smithfield Barrs usque Goresplace in Iseldon (Islington). Calend. Rot. Pat. p.204, a. I pars Pat 1 Ric. II.

^{page 95 note 3} Rymeri Donat Mss V. p. 18 dated Jan 19 . II.

^{page 98 note k} These expressions may suggest to us that his conscience reminded him of his coronation oath, and anticipated the accusations that might be brought against him. Compare his words with the language of the following charges.

“Article IX. Notwithstanding the said king at his coronation sware, that he would do in all his judgments equal and right justice and discretion, in mercy and truth, according to his power; yet the said king, without all mercy, rigorously, amongst other things, ordained, under great punishment, that no man should intercede with him, for any favour towards Henry, Duke of Lancaster, then in banishment: in so doing, he acted against the bond of charity, and rashly violated his oath.

“Article XXV. He was so variable and dissembling in words and writing, and so contrary to himself, especially in writing to the pope, kings, and other lords, without and within the kingdom, and also to his subjects, that no man living, knowing what he was, would confide in him; yea, he was reputed so unfaithful and inconstant, that he was not only a scandal to his own person, but to the whole kingdom, and all strangers that knew him.”

^{page 97 note l} He had taken the government into his hands ten years before. The proclamation to inform the people that he had done so is dated May 8, 1389. When he speaks of “three years past,” he alludes to the transactions of that period, detailed in the general histories, including the proceedings against the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk and Henry of Lancaster; and he evidently attempts a vindication of his conduct in these affairs. But the passage is involved and obscure.

^{page 98 note 1} This is an allusion to his letter to the pope concerning Archbishop Arundel (page 49, note), and to his refusal to grant the very next request the pontiff made.

^{page 98 note 2} Articles of Accusation.

^{page 98 note 3} Rymer, Fœdera, VII. p. 618.

^{page 99 note m} The king's apprehensions, love of display, or probable intention of holding a parliament, had induced him to take the regalia with him on the expedition; and it was brought forward as one of his offences, that he had “carried with him towards Ireland, without the consent of the states of the kingdom, the treasures, reliques, and jewels of the Crown.” The holy oil of anointing, used at coronations, and reputed to have been handed down from Beckefs time, he kept about him during the remainder of his difficulties; till it was wrested from him at Chester by the duke, who entertained, or affected to entertain the same superstitious value for it. Unless the whole of the story respecting it, as it is given by Walsingham, were merely a fabrication for purposes of state.

^{page 99 note n} Among other shewy things, he was fond, as might be supposed, of fine horses. Shakspeare young man, attendant upon Richesse in the Romaunte of the Rose, is a counterpart of Richard in this and other particulars.

Hys luste was moche in housholdynge;

In clothyng he was full fetyse,

And loved well to have horse of pryse.

He wende to have reproved be

Of thefte or murdre, yf that he

Had in hys stable an hackenay.

Towards the close of his grandfather's wars in France, coursers had become so scarce, that the parliament of 1370 interfered to check the exorbitant demands of dealers. No serious drain from the same cause could have taken place now for many years; but it appears that Richard drew the choicest of his stud from abroad. Some of the nobility were great breeders, and kept up a large stock; and the wealthy regular clergy always encouraged a race of good horses. “Religion,” says a contemporary satirist, “is a rider, a pricker of a palfrey from manor to manor;” and Chaucer, who has frequently noticed the subject, observes of his monk,

Full many a daintie horse had he in stable;

and mentions the high condition of that on which he rode; “his hors in great estate.” They were kept in a sumptuous stile at Saint Alban's. The stables for the guests would accommodate nearly three hundred, and had a lamp burning all night.

The king was never at a loss for these animals, when any particular occasion called for them; he had only to go to the abbies. They were all ransacked for this purpose, when he was about to attend at a conference with the king of France at Calais; and it has been more than once remarked, that a large demand was made upon them for this campaign in Ireland. Much abuse occurred in the impressment of horses for the king's service; for which remedy was provided by the statute, 20 Rich. II. c. 5. against “people of evil condition, who of their own authority take and cause to be taken royally horses, saying and devising that they be to ride on hasty messages and business, where of truth they be in no wise privy of any business or message; but only in deceit and subtilty, by such colour and device do take horses, and the said horses hastily do ride, and evil entreat, having no manner of conscience or compassion in this behalf; so that the said horses become all spoiled and foundered, paying no manner of thing nor penny for the same, nor giving them any manner of sustenance;” and to complete this picture of swindling, similar to that alluded to in the provisions made for the hackneymen, (see note i p. 96.) it farther states, “some such manner of people changing and altering their names, do take and ride such horses, and carry them far from thence to another place, so that they, to whom they belong, can never after by any means see, have again, nor know their said horses where they be.”

It was usual to feed them with horse-bread; and set their coats with cloths.

^{page 99 note 1} Walsing. Hist.Angl. p.357. Otterbourne, p. 200.

^{page 99 note 2} XXIVth Article of Accusation.

^{page 99 note 3} Walsing. ut supra, pp. 360, 361.

^{page 99 note 4} Richard II. Act v. sc. 5.

^{page 100 note 1} Romaunte of the Rose. Chaucer.

^{page 100 note 2} Cotton, p. 109.

^{page 100 note 3} Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 232. 1 p. 21 Ric. II. No. 6.

^{page 100 note 4} Pierce Ploughman's Vision in Ellis I. p. 156.

^{page 100 note 5} Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

^{page 100 note 6} Fosbroke, British Monochism, II. pp. 206, 207.

^{page 101 note 7} Most writers who have given an acc Ypod. Neustr. p. 545.

^{page 100 note 8} The form of a regular warrant occurs in Rotuli Scotiæ, II. p. 74, fora messenger going to Scotland, dated June II, 1385.

^{page 101 note o} Most writers who have given an account of these times have descanted upon the luxury and extravagance that extended more or less to all the arts of life, and affected the whole of society. It had been increasing during the preceding reign, and was cherished by foreign intercourse and war. About the middle of the fourteenth century there was hardly a female, who could be styled a gentlewoman, that had not in her house some portion of the spoils of furniture, silk, plate, or jewels, from Caen, Calais, or the cities beyond the sea; and those who, like the knight of Chaucer, had been at Alexandria, “when it was won” by Peter King of Cyprus, returned with great riches in cloth of gold, velvets, and precious stones. The English at Poitiers were so laden with valuable booty, that they despised armour, tents, and other things; and previously, at the taking of Barfleur, so much was acquired, that the boys of the army set no value on gowns trimmed with fur.

The passion for finery reached to a high pitch in the reign of Richard II. Apparel, armour, plate, and household furniture, were of the most costly description. Sumptuary laws had been passed in the time of his predecessor; but they were insufficient to repress it. The very clergy went with the stream. “Fashions from proud Italy,” and many imported by Queen Anne from Bohemia, infected even the menial servants, who indulged in the absurd shoes called cracows, and in pokys (pouches), enormous sleeves, which the monk of Evesham compares to bag-pipes, and tells us that they were often dipped into the broth when attendants were waiting at table. The vanity of the common people in their dress was so great, says Knighton, “that it was impossible to distinguish the rich from the poor, the high from the low, the clergy from the laity, by their appearance. Fashions were continually changing, and every one endeavoured to outshine his neighbour by the richness of his dress and the novelty of it's form.” Richard, from the chain of his shoe to the plume upon his casque, was, perhaps, the greatest fop of his day. He had one coat at this time estimated at thirty thousand marks; the value of which must chiefly have arisen from the precious stones with which it was adorned. The statute calls such dress, apparel broidered of stone. By his will he directed his clothes to be given to his servants; but under express condition that they were to be stripped of their costly garniture. The wardrobe of a nobleman, like that of a modern Turk, constituted no small part of his wealth; and the articles of it were frequently the subjects of testamentary bequest. Sir John Arundel, who was shipwrecked off the coast of Ireland in 1379, was said to have had fifty-two new suits of tissue and cloth of gold.

Armorial devices were embossed and embroidered upon the common habits of those who attended the court. Upon the mantle, the surcoat, and the just-au-corps, or bodice, the charge and cognizance of the wearer were profusely scattered, and shone resplendent in tissue and beaten gold. The custom of embroidering arms upon the bodice was introduced by Richard II. but mantles of this kind had been worn long before. Sir John Chandos lost his life in part owing to the rich robe which he had over his armour at the affair of Pont de Lussac. Knights and nobles of France and England went into the dust and blood of battle superbly arrayed.

Habiliments of war displayed in tournaments were equally magnificent. Thirty-four knights that jousted on the king's part in Smithfield in 1390, were, each of them, led from the Tower to the lists by a lady with a golden chain, having their arms and apparel garnished with white harts, and collars of gold about their necks. The value of a collar is estimated, in a proclamation of Henry IV. at thirty pounds.

The Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk made a most brilliant show of arms and trappings at the duel on Gosford-green, near Coventry: the plate and mail of the former was furnished by the armourers of Galeazzo, Duke of Milan; the latter procured his from Germany. Each provided himself most magnificently to outshine the other.

The quantity of plate accumulated by wealthy individuals was very considerable. When the palace of the Savoy was burnt and plundered in the riots of 1381, the keeper of the wardrobe to the Duke of Lancaster affirmed upon oath, that the plate would have loaded five carts.

Of jewels in the possession of females, it may be sufficient to adduce the instance of Alice Perrers, the favourite of Edward III. He had made her a present of those that belonged to his deceased queen; and upon the confiscation of her property in 2 Ric. II. according to an inedited document, the number and value of her pearls and precious stones was found to be as follows:

This account was delivered in by Thomas, Bishop of Exeter, treasurer, and Sir John Ermesthorp and John Bacon, chamberlains of the Exchequer, to Sir Alan Stokes, keeper of the wardrobe. The value of a great proportion of them seems to show that they were chiefly used in “broidering.” The Scotch pearl, according to the statutes of the Parisian goldsmiths, was unfit for setting with Oriental pearls, except in great church jewels. Pearls were sold upon strings.

The extravagance of the Lady de Coucy, who was governess to the young Queen Isabel, is described in MS. Ambassades, and incidentally throws light upon Richard's own establishment. On the king's farewell visit to Windsor before he went to Ireland, he enquired into it, and was so struck with it that he dismissed her. “She lives in greater splendour,” said the informants, “one thing with another, than the queen; for she has eighteen horses by your order, besides the livery of her husband, whenever she comes and goes; and keeps two or three goldsmiths, seven or eight embroiderers, two or three cutlers, and two or three furriers, as well as you or the queen; and she is also building a chapel that will cost fourteen hundred nobles.” The king gave orders that she should be sent back to France, and that all her debts should be paid.

Much detail upon the above subjects may be found in Henry, Hist. of Eng. IV. B. iv. c. 7.

^{page 101 note 1} Payn pour riiivauk, Slat. 13 Ric. II. St. 1. c. 8.

^{page 101 note 2} Bibl. Cotton. MS Vespasian, F. XIII. A3.

^{page 101 note 3} Walsiiif. Hist. Angl. p. 168.

^{page 101 note 4} Anderson, Hist. of Commerce, I. p. 352, quoting Echard.

^{page 101 note 5} Froiss. II. e. 163.

^{page 101 note 6} Ibid. c. 120.

^{page 101 note 7} Stal, 37 Edw. III. c. 8. et seq.

^{page 101 note 8} Vita Ric. II. pp. 126, 172.

^{page 102 note 1} Knighton, in an. 1388. co 2729.

^{page 102 note 2} 37 Edw. III. c. 12.

^{page 102 note 3} Rymer, Foedera, VIII. p. 76.

^{page 102 note 4} Dallaway, Inquiry, &c. p, 96.

^{page 102 note 5} Hist. Angl. p. 234.

^{page 102 note 6} Dallaway, ut supra, p. 99.

^{page 102 note 7} Froissart, IV. c. 9. He was dressed in a large robe, which fell to the ground, blazoned with his arms on white sarcenet, Argent, a pile Gules; one on his breast, and the other on his back.

^{page 102 note 8} Ibid. c. 163.

^{page 102 note 9} Baker, p. 150.

^{page 102 note 10} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 167. u Froissart, XII. c. 5.

^{page 103 note 1} Knighton, col. 2635.

^{page 103 note 2} Rymet, Foedera, VIII. 28.

^{page 103 note 3} Rymer, MSS. Donat. Brit. Mus.V. p. 127, dated May 14.

^{page 103 note 4} Ducange, Gloss, v. perla.

^{page 103 note 5} Rymer, Foedera, VII. p. 562.

^{page 103 note 6} An original petition from Dendenell de Deek, the king's cloth of gold worker, overour des draps (for, for arrears of wages, exists in Bibl. Cotton. MSS. Vespasian, F. XIII. 11.

^{page 104 note p} “He had long been steward of the household, and all the accounts passed officially through his hands.” He succeeded Sir John Devereux in 1392.

^{page 104 note q} But the greater part were recovered by the exertions of Henry IV. “Thesaurus regis cum equis et aliis ornamentis, et universa domus suppellectili venit ad manus ducis.” He took great pains to get into his hands all the effects of Richard II. A proclamation was issued for this purpose more than a year after. John Ikelyngton, one of the deposed king's chaplains, who had in charge the various sums of 65,000 marks and 946 marks, 4s. id. with many other goods and chattels, many of which he had disposed of, as verbally directed by Richard, surrendered the residue to Henry, before he assumed the reins of government, and received an acquittance, dated November 4, 1400, and another final discharge, dated November 4, 1402

^{page 104 note r} The MS. Ambassades says, that the remainder of Richard's army, who were waylaid and plundered by the duke's people, were chiefly foreigners: but I doubt the accuracy of this representation, either as to the mercenaries, of which we have no other information, or as to Henry's partisans, who where employed in another quarter. Both parties might have taken advantage of the general confusion to spoil the fugitives; for that they were utterly stripped there is no doubt, “Milites et armigeri qui Hiberniam cum 10 vel 20 equis transierunt, domum pedestres redierunt, penitus depredati.”

^{page 104 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II. pp. 212, 213.

^{page 104 note 2} Froissart, XI. c. 48.

^{page 104 note 3} Stow, Annale;, p. 308.

^{page 104 note 4} Waking. Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 104 note 5} Rymer, Donat. MSS. I. 4596.p. 157. dated Nov.6, 2Hen.1V.

^{page 104 note 6} Rymer Foedera, VIII. pp. 162, 281.

^{page 104 note 7} MS. Ambassades, p. 132. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 105 note s} The badge of cognisance, sometimes called sign of company. Those of the house of Lancaster were, the antelope and red rose; a fox's tail dependent; a swan Argent; gorged and chained Or, from the De Bohuns.' Henry wore the antelope and swan embroidered on green and blue velvet upon his caparisons, when he entered the lists against the Duke of Norfolk. That of young Henry, afterwards Henry V. during the life of his father, was a swan; the Black Prince had adopted a sun issuing from the clouds. Retainers of every condition bore the badge of their lord: and the minstrel of a noble house was distinguished by having it attached to a silver chain. They were thought of such importance in party matters, that they were in many cases forbidden by statute; particularly Richard's white hart, which makes such a figure in history, and was a frequent annoyance to Henry IV. Galliard questions the propriety of the word “Order” employed in MS. Ambassades as well as by this author; but the meaning is sufficiently clear.

^{page 105 note 1} Vita Ric. II. p. 150.

^{page 105 note 2} See Du Cange, v. Cognitiones.

^{page 106 note t} Because his father was of the council, and perhaps, as seneschal of England, had to pronounce sentence officially upon his own son. Merks, in his speech before the parliamen in behalf of Richard II. has been made to say that “the duke was banished the realm bj King Richard and his council, and by the judgment of his own father.” But if this testimony should be considered dubious, the fact is confirmed by the manifesto published under the name of Archbishop Scroope, and affixed in 1405 to the doors of the churches in York. This goes farther, affirming that he was doomed to exile “per sententiam domini regis Ricardi, domini Johannis ducis Lancastrian, populorumque (sic) dominorum temporalium et regni procerum voluntatem, et consensum suum, saltern verbotenus ab eisdem dominis expressatum.— juratus de non redeundo vel remeando in regnum Angliae, priusquam gratiam regiam obtinuisset et habuisset.” Henry must have given his father some trouble, as by Richard's own account of him, John of Gant had passed sentence of death upon his son two or three times, and he was himself obliged once to intercede for his life. This seems an extraordinary story, and was uttered in the heat of passion and anguish, during one of his nights of tribulation; but it is reasonable to suppose that there must have been some foundation for it.

The old Duke of Lancaster was of a cautious disposition, and interfered as little as possible with the king's proceedings against his son. The ostensible cause of Henry's exile is not quite clear; and though the public circumstances relating to it are generally known, the true grounds of it in all their bearings lie beyond the reach of enquiry. Generally speaking, it might take its rise in Richard's intolerance of any who opposed him. Nothing will justify the hypocrisy and injustice of the king towards him; but, in search of provocation received from Henry, it will not be overlooked that many years before he had been in arms against him, for which he upon his knees asked pardon: he was also among those who, in the eleventh year of the king's reign, had held the rod over him by an open threat, that “they had then good cause to depose him, but they stayed the same for the love of his noble grandfather and father, and in hope of his better government:” neither should it be omitted, though it has been seldom noticed, that upon one occasion, he had personally insulted him by offering to draw his sword upon him in the palace. In the mean time he had acquired great reputation by valiant acts in foreign lands while Richard was idling away his time and oppressing his subjects at home; so that to the sense of various aggressions, must be added the jealousy of a weak mind at the popularity of a rival in the public affection. The king was not deficient in mean expedients. Scandal had whispered that he had secretly encouraged the duel at Coventry, that he might visit the parties with his serious displeasure; and thus we see, he artfully got rid of two of the most formidable survivors of the late Duke of Gloucester's party at a blow. Having removed him from England, he affected in the very act to shew lenity towards him by shortening the term of his banishment; and Henry appeared at the court at Eltham, just before his departure, with the air of a man who expected hereafter to be admitted into favour, and was confident of a speedier return. It was a scene of dissimulation. The king received him kindly, and addressed him with apparent humility: “Cousin,” said her “to relieve you somewhat of your pain, I now remit four years of the term of your banishment, and reduce it to six years instead of ten.” “My lord,” replied the earl, “I humbly thank you; and when it shall be your good pleasure, you will extend your mercy.” But it may be averred that nothing was farther from Richard's intention; because the recollection of what had occurred, Henry's “courtship of the common people” their love of him, and his hereditary wealth and power, rendered him too dangerous a subject in the thoughts of a king, whose government was so injudicious and arbitrary, and who had once, through the intervention of this same person, been well nigh shaken from the throne. While John of Gant was alive, he might conclude that Henry would attempt nothing against him; but when that prince died, Richard threw off the mask, revoked his indulgence, confiscated his estates, and declared his banishment perpetual, persecuted him even at the court of France, and filled up on his side the measure of his duplicity and provocation.

We shall anticipate no farther upon the manner in which Henry was affected by all this than to observe, that the tone of feeling expressed on his part throughout the narrative, is that of an exasperated spirit, goaded by the additional spur of ambition, and unhappily knowing neither how to forget nor forgive. And, though it is not to be questioned that he was invited over by a large portion of friends, that the hearts of the people for the time were with him, and that Richard's misconduct had drawn the evil upon his own head, it must be allowed that the duke suffered his private resentments too much to influence him in the direction of the whole affair.

^{page 106 note 1} Dallaway, Inquiry, &c. p. 283, from Dugdale, Misc. L. XIV. fol. 30.

^{page 106 note 2} Stat. 2Hen.IV. e. 21.

^{page 106 note 3} Id. pp. 186,187. Percy, Rel. Anc. Poetry, Introd. p. XXXV.

^{page 106 note 4} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 218.

^{page 106 note 5} He did this in the case of the Earl of Arundel, in 1396. Stow, Annaks, p, 317.

^{page 106 note 6} Godwin, in Merks, Bishop of Carlisle.

^{page 107 note 1} Anglia Sacra, pars secunda, p. 363.

^{page 107 note 2} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 222.

^{page 107 note 3} Cotton, pp. 373, 376.

^{page 107 note 4} Accounts and Extracts, ut supra. When Richard heard in Ireland that Henry had landed, he used these expressions. “Ha! dear uncle of Lancaster, had I believed you, this man would not now have offended me: you told me truly that I did wrong to pardon him so often, for he would still continue to offend me. Three times have I pardoned his misdeeds, and this is the fourth offence he has committed.” Ibid. p. 266.

^{page 108 note 1} Froiss. XII. c. 5, 7, but he has made the Earl Marshal the challenger.

^{page 110 note v} The writers of ballads and romances have some common places to which they have recourse either as introductions or digressions whenever they are at a stand. Their openings, for instance, very usually run upon the seasons. La verdure renait; k printemps revient; le rossignol chante; je veux chanter anssi. Not less than seven out of nine cantos of the second part of the romance of “Merlin” open in this way. Such is the case with the beginning of this metrical history; but the author need not be so much blamed, for according in this respect with the vulgar herd, because it immediately refers to his subject, and is therefore not unappropriate: this cannot be said in excuse for the generality of them. Thibaut, King of Navarre, in earlier times, found the same fault with the poets of his day, and has thus neatly censured it:

Fueille ne flors ne vaut riens en chantant;

Fors ke par defaute sans plus de rimmer,

Et pour faire soulas moienne gent

Qui mauvais m6s font souvent abayer.

Another favourite topic was an invective against fortune. Lydgate in his poverty of invention, often flies to this, and sometimes hardly knows where to make an end. We see it here employed not inartificially, since it is manifestly brought in to break and relieve the narration. Whether it produces a good effect may be doubted; but it should be considered that it is in compliance with the prevailing taste. A ballad of Christina of Pisa, so strongly resembles this digression, both in sentiment and moral conclusion, that I almost suspect the author had it in his mind.

Trop sont divers et merveilleux les tours

De l'inconstant, double et faulce fortune;

Car ses maulx sont moult lones et ses b'ns cours;

Nous le veons et c'est chose commune;

Dont ie ne voy pourveance fors q'une

Contre elle: C'est q'l'omme soit si sage,

Q'uil n'ait es biens d'elle leece aucune,

Et ait ou mal fort et poissant courage.

Veoir povons que tout vie't a rebours:

Souvent aux bons par la fallace enfrune,

Et aux mauvais sans desserte ou labours

Rentbon guerdon: mais de. ij. voiesl'une,

Ou reconfort ou lenguir en rancune,

Prendre convie't: si conseil q'horns se targe

De bon espoir, quoy qu'elle lui soit brune;

Et ait en mal fort et poissant courage.

Car, puis que ses ioyes ne sont q'bien cours,

Par le monde general en commune,

Que nous veons, plus souve't en decours

Sur les greigneurs mesmes q' n'est la lune,

Hom'e ne doit les prisier une prune:

Mais, s'ilz vienne't, pense q' en petit de age

Perdre les peut, seurte n'y'ait aucune;

Et ait en mal, &c.

Princes soyes certain, que onques nesune

Ja ne sera fortune fors volage;

En soit chacun avisie et chascune;

Et ait en mal, &C.

A quotation from the historical Romance of Partenay by a poet very inferior to the former, if it be compared with the original text at the end of this translation, will shew how these contemporary writers borrow from one another.

A hay, dit il, faulce fortune!

Tu m'as este felle et enfrune:

Bien es mauvaise et malostrue,

II est plus folle que beste mue

Qui point se fie en ton affaire.

Tu n'as compere ne commere:

A l'un es doulce a lautre amere:

Nul ne se doit fier en toy:

Tu fais dun petit homme roy;

Et du tres riche povres horns;

En toy n'ay ne rive ne fons:

Tu aides l'un l'autre deservis.

Helas! dolent en moy le truis;

Tu m'as destruit entierement,

Et dampne pardurablement.

Even Commines, about a century after, in his plain but lively prose, reflecting upon the disaster of the Earl of Saint Pol, Constable of France, turns to a digression of this kind; though after descanting upon fortune, he strikes into a better strain. “Que dirous nous de fortune?—il faut respondre que tels grands mysteres ne viennent point de fortune; et que fortune n'est riens fors seulement une fiction poetique.—Autre fortune n'y avoit mi la main que Dieu.”

^{page 110 note 1} Roquefort, De la Poesie Framboise, &c. p. 212.

^{page 110 note 2} Ellis, Romances, I.

^{page 111 note 1} Poesies du Roi de Navarre, II. p. 38.

^{page 111 note 2} See his Boke of Troy, lib. 2. the first 72 lines.

^{page 112 note 1} MSS. Harl. 4473. f. 41. b. in Cent Balades,

^{page 112 note 2} Bib. Bodl. MS. 2386. 19. f. 15.

^{page 112 note 3} Mem. de Ph. de Commines, 1.4, c. 12.

^{page 115 note u} Otterbourne agrees in the account of the king's wanderings from one castle to another, in search of refuge; that he was in Anglesey, at Beaumaris, at Caernarvon, Conway, and Flint. Indeed he says that he visited Holt, which contained great part of his treasure; but I cannot think that he is right upon this point, as Henry would have obstructed him in that quarter; because the duke had reached Chester by the time that Richard threw himself first into Conway, and previously had driven the Earl of Salisbury into that fortress. The author had been with the king when he inspected Rhuddlan, and charged the governor to defend it. Stow tells us that he shifted to Beaumaris by advice of the Earl of Salisbury.

^{page 114 note w} He confounds Edward the First with Edward the Confessor: the former built Beaumaris in 1295 during his war in Wales. “Tune fundato Castro, quod vocatur Beaumareys, et deputatis ibi custodibus, superiores partes Snoudoniae pertransivit.” He have it the name of Beaumaris. William Scroope, Earl of Wiltshire, beheaded at Bristol, was appointed governor in 20 Rich. II. Henry the Fourth granted it, with the whole county and dominion of Anglesey, to Henry Hotspur for his life.

^{page 115 note 1} Otterbourne, p. 207. He is wrong in saying that Richard fled first to Flint, p. 206; and Walsingham equally so in affirming that Henry pursued him for many days with his army. Hist. Angl, p. 358.

^{page 115 note 2} Caraden, Annals of Ireland.

^{page 115 note 3} Annales Wigorn. a. MCCXCV. in Anglia Sacra, pars I. p. 516.

^{page 115 note 4} Waiting. Hist. Angl. p. 63.

^{page 115 note 5} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 279.

^{page 115 note x} This proved true, according to Froissart. “The king was much afflicted at the melancholy account he heard; for he knew the English to be determined, and havd to appease; and although he had been for a considerable time in a good state of health, the rage he got into, on learning the events passing in England, brought back his frenzy.”

And again, after Richard's decease, “The king of France was not in good health, nor had been ever since he heard of the misfortunes of his son-in-law, Richard; and his disorder was greatly encreased when he was told of his death.” Charles VI. was afflicted with fits which brought on derangement.

^{page 115 note 1} Froiss. XII. 28, 32.

^{page 116 note y} Great attention was paid during this age to comfort and decoration in bedding.

Of downe of pure downes white

I woll gyve him a fether bed

Rayed with golde, and ryght well cled

In fyne blacke sattyn doutremere;

And many a pylowe and every bere

Of cloth of Raynes to slepe on softe:

Hym there not nede to turne ofte.

In noble and wealthy mansions the most costly materials were employed upon these articles of the household. Valuable beds, as well as Jewels, plate, and apparel, are often mentioned in wills. See the testament of John de Raby, Lord Nevill, in 1386, and that of Joan Beauchamp, Lady of Bergavenny, in 1434. She had beds of gold with swans, hangings of cloth of gold with leopards, and of black and red silk embroidered with woodbine flowers of silver. Coverlets were furred with minever, and wrought with devices and arms; one in the Duke of Lancaster's palace in the Savoy destroyed by the populace in 1381, was estimated at a thousand marks.

Richard had experienced no privation till of late, in this or any other respect. If we reflect upon the very little hardship he could hitherto have endured, and upon what has been recorded of the luxury of his table, by his own cook, as well as by historians, contrasting these things with his having now neither a pillow for his head, nor scarcely a morsel to appease his hunger, the depth of his humiliation will fully appear.

The following lines from the contemporary above cited are peculiarly applicable to the condition of the king:

Gone is thy ioye, and all thy myrth in erth;

Of all thy blythenesse now art thou black and bare;

There is no salve may helpe thy sore;

Fell is thy fortune, wycked is thy werth;

Thy blysse is banished and thy bale unberde.

Where is thy chamber wantonly besene

With burly bed, and bankers brouded bene,

Spyces and wyne to thy collatione;

The cuppes al of gold and sylver shene,

Thy sweete meates served in plates clene

With savery sauce of a good facioun,

Thy gay garmentes?—

All is arere thy great royall renoune.

—For thy bed, take now a bonche of stro.

^{page 116 note 1} The Dreame of Chaucer.

^{page 116 note 2} Madox, Formulare Anglicanum, p. 427.

^{page 116 note 3} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 240.

^{page 116 note 4} Id. II. p. 80.

^{page 116 note 5} Stow, Annales, p. 286.

^{page 116 note 6} See Pegge's Form of Cury.

^{page 117 note z} Isabel, eldest daughter of Charles VI. King of France, whom Richard had espoused October 31, 1396. At that time she was but eight years old, and he was in his twenty-seventh year; and the disparity of their ages had given rise to much discussion and dissatisfaction among his subjects, who were averse to this alliance with France. But the king despised public opinion, and overruled all the remonstrances of his friends. Sir John Grailly, the capital of Buch, ventured to tell him “that it was no way agreeable to the English that he should connect himself by marriage with France;” others told him “the lady was by far too young,” but he replied by saying, that every day she would encrease in age. In addition to this, he gave pleasantly his reasons for his preferring her, that since she was so young, he should educate her, and bring her up to his own mind, and to the manners of the English; and that for himself he was young enough to wait till she was of a proper age for his wife.” They were accordingly married in Saint Nicholas church at Calais. Her dowry, as settled by the conventions, was 800,000 livres; 300,000 to be put down on the day of marriage, and 100,000 annually afterwards, till the whole should be paid. This was never done; and soon after the death of the king she was restored to her father. Richard spent in the festivities of his nuptials, not including presents, 300,000 marks and more.

She had been well educated, according to Froissart, and her appearance and manners were agreeable. He placed her first under the care of the Lady de Coucy; but, when she was discarded for her extravagance, see page 103, note o, the Lady Mortimer succeeded her. This was just previous to the Irish campaign. The young queen then resided at Windsor, where Richard on the road took his leave of her, and never saw her more. On the first alarm of Henry's progress, the regent sent her to Wallingford castle, and gave her in charge to Scroope, Bussy, Green, and Bagot. Henry afterwards placed her at Sunning; and she probably remained there till she was sent back to France.

She had in the first instance been betrothed to the son of the Duke of Brittanny: and after her return to her native county, she was married to Charles, eldest son of the Duke of Orleans; who was then only nine years old. This is he whose father was assassinated in 1407 by the Duke of Burgundy; and who was himself taken prisoner at Agincourt. They had one daughter, who married John II. Duke of Alencon.

Catherine, Isabel's younger sister, married Henry V.

To many readers these piteous lamentations of a husband of thirty over a baby-wife in her eleventh year, couched in terms which would better apply to a female of his own age, may appear weak and absurd. Be this as it may, he certainly was much attached to her, and by the confession of the French, had behaved very affectionately and honourably towards her.

^{page 117 note 1} Chaucer, The Complaynt of Creseyde.

^{page 117 note 2} Froiss. XI. c. 23.

^{page 118 note 1} Rymer, Fœdera, VII. from p. 811 to p. 820.

^{page 118 note 2} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p.356.

^{page 118 note 3} XI. c. 25.

^{page 118 note 4} I suppose this was Richard's aunt, the eldest daughter of Edward III. who married Ingelram, Lord de Coucy.

^{page 118 note 5} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 213.

^{page 118 note 6} Froiss. XII. c. 16.

^{page 118 note 7} When he was prisoner in the Tower, he earnestly requested that he might be allowed to see her; but Henry refused him. Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 227.

^{page 118 note 8} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 83.

^{page 118 note 9} Hist. Angl. p. 362. Otterbourne, p. 225.

^{page 118 note 10} Mezeray, Monstrellet, I. c. 1. f. I. b.

^{page 118 note 11} Accounts and Extracts, ut supra. Mezeray.

^{page 119 note a} Sir Robert and Sir John a Legh were sent with a deputation to treat for Chester, and to surrender every thing to the duke. They met him at Shrewsbury. Sir Robert was Sheriff of Cheshire 21 and 22 Rich. II. Henry entered Chester on the eighth of August, where he was received in a royal manner with solemn processions of all the religious orders.

^{page 119 note b} “On his arrival before the duke, Huntingdon bent one knee on the ground, and said, ‘It is but reasonable, Sir, that I should pay you reverence; for your father was a king's son, and my wife also is your sister.’ —‘Rise, brother-in-law,’ said the duke coldly, ‘you have not always acted thus.’ Then taking him by the hand, he drew him aside, and they conversed together a long time, but I know not what they said.” From the last expression, as well as that quoted in page 22, note, Gaillard conjectures the author of the MS. Ambassades to have been an eye-witness.

^{page 119 note 1} Vita Ric. II. p. 154.

^{page 119 note 2} MSS. Harl. 5171.

^{page 119 note 3} Carte, II. p. 663. Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 218.

^{page 120 note c} —The false Genellon,

He that purchased the trayson

Of Roulande, and of Olyvere.

The name of a traitor abundantly alluded to in the literature of the middle ages. He caused the death of Rolando and the defeat of the French army at Roncevalles, and was torn in pieces by horses at Aix la Chapelle by order of Charlemagne. The word became proverbial for any insincere person.

Les crueus felons,

Con peut apeler Guenelons,

Qui retenir ne se porroient

De mesdire, s'ils ne moroient;

Tant i sont mis et afetie.

The Morgante of Pulci, composed in the fourteenth century for the amusement of Madonna Lucrezia, the mother of Lorenzo de Medici, is constructed entirely upon this character.

^{page 120 note 1} The Dreame of Chaucer.

^{page 120 note 2} Le Lay d'Aristote.

^{page 121 note d} Henry farther alleged as his reason for detaining Huntingdon, that he must wait for the return of the Earl of Northumberland, who had been sent to the king with a message from him. Such is the account given in MS. Ambassades, though according to our author the resolution to send that nobleman was not yet adopted. Huntingdon was not only kept against his will, but made to wear the cognisance of Henry, and write a letter to Richard requesting him to place entire confidence in the Earl of Northumberland.

^{page 121 note 1} MS, Ambassades, p. 133.

^{page 122 note e} Stow, intentionally, I suppose, has altered the name of the castle to Beeston: but upon what authority, or whether from mere conjecture, does not appear. Probably he thought that the description of the Frenchman would better apply to Beeston than to Holt; but there is sufficient ground for believing that the author of the MS. was correct upon this point. For the situation corresponds as to distance, Holt being but eight measured miles from Chester, whereas Beeston is nearly ten. Then as to it's elevation, which might have misled Stow; the town of Holt itself stands upon a rock of considerable eminence in respect to the adjoining country; and from the extensive low and flat district on the south-east side, where the Dee divides England from Wales, the castle in particular appears on an elevated and commanding position. It was erected upon a part of the rock, which has been insulated from the rest on three sides by the quarry out of which the stone was raised for the building. This excavation, presenting a solid face of stone about thirty feet in height, formed the fosse, in some parts a hundred yards wide, and in none less than fifty. On the fourth side it was protected by the natural barrier of the river. It was clearly capable of containing a hundred men; and there is reason to conclude that it was the place where Richard deposited his treasure. There still exists traditionary belief that the well in the castle, now choked up with rubbish, contains hidden treasure; and the late Captain Gartside, who occupied the ruins and ground adjoining under the crown, expended a considerable sum in endeavouring to clear it out; and though he did not proceed to any great depth, he obtained some curious armour and many coins. I have been informed that three hundred pieces of silver have been found there at one time; and that it is unquestionable that many of the reign of Richard the second have been met with. For the above particulars I am indebted to the kind communication of my friend, George Kenyon, esq. of Cesn, near Wrexham, a gentleman whose means of information, as chief magistrate of the borough, and long and entire acquaintance with the spot, render his testimony especially valuable.

The drawing made of this fortress by Norden in 1620, when it was entire, engraved in Pennant's Tour in Wales, shews it to have been of a pentangular form, having a bastion tower at each angle, four of them circular, and that facing the river square. The entrance was by a drawbridge, over a deep moat, communicating with a gateway, upon which stood a square tower strengthened by portcullises and machicolations. John Earl of Warren, who murdered Madoc, the heir to these lands, began to build it in the reign of Edward I. and it was finished by his son William. It afterwards belonged to the Fitz-Alans; and was in the hands of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, who was resident there with armed men in 17 Rich. II. The Earl of Albemarle obtained it of the king, with several other fortresses in that county for his life; see page 65, note: but it was restored to the family of Fitz-Alan by Henry IV. It has since at different times been made the depository of wealth and military stores, in the reigns of Henry VII. and Edward VI. by Sir William Stanley, and Thomas Seymour of Sudley, Lord High Admiral of England. On the execution of Stanley, Henry VII. seized upon his effects, and found in this fortress, among a variety of valuables, money and plate to the amount of forty thousand marks. This of itself would be sufficient to account for the tradition of treasure; but does not at all invalidate the fact of the hoard that Richard II. had laid up there.—In the civil wars of Charles I. it was ordered to be demolished by the parliament.

The castle of Holt and the ground adjoining is now the property of the right honourable Lord Kenyon, who purchased it, some years ago, from the Crown.

^{page 123 note f} If suspect that he offers the adjective hault as the origin of it's name,

Un autre fort, que hoult en appelloit,

Sur une roche moult hault assis estoit.

not being acquainted with the Saxon word Holt, from which so many places in England derive their appellation.

^{page 123 note 1} Walsing. Hist. Angl.p.350.

^{page 123 note 2} Stat. 21 Ric. II. c. 9.

^{page 123 note 3} Dugdale, Baronage, III. p. 368.

^{page 123 note 4} See the account of this castle in Pennant's Tour in Wales, 1. pp, 205,210, 212.

^{page 124 note g} He had made up for his extravagance by pecuniary exactions, and had amassed a great treasure. The judicious Lingard thinks that his expenses were not greater, and that his demands on the purses of his subjects were considerably less, than his predecessors. It is, however, clear that for the two last years he had taken strong measures to accumulate money. In 1397 he borrowed of the lords spiritual and temporal, and all the cities in the realm. This sweep amounted to 25,420 pounds sterling; and in 1399, his Raman's bonds extorted immense sums from seventeen counties: he had besides sent Maudelain over to drain the treasury of Ireland. He was thus enabled to leave a large property behind him. In his will he allowed 20,000 pounds for the payment of his debts, and 4000 marks for charitable and religious purposes; and then provided for the residue of his gold; which, considering the peculiar purpose to which it was to be applied, and which will appear hereafter, should have amounted to a considerable sum. “Kynge Henry,” says Fabyan, “fande great rychesse that before tyme to Kynge Richarde belonged.” He then quotes “Polycronycon” for different items, adding, “so it shuld seme that kyng Richarde was ryche when his money and jewellys amounted to VII. C. M. li.”

The garrison, and what is now called in France munitions de guerre et de bouche, were styled, in the language of the age, stuffing and ward. Lydgate in one place applies the word “stuff” exclusively to soldiers.

Now stode a castell faste ther be side

I stuffed well with Grekys sowdyours.

The military store and furniture of a castle may be seen in Rymer, Fœdera VIII. p. 384. and Christina of Pisa, in one of her prose works, has given, in a long chapter, a minute account of requisites for the complete furnishing of a fortress against a siege.

^{page 124 note 1} Hist. of Eng. 111. c. 20.

^{page 124 note 2} Rymer Fœdera VIII. pp. 9, 12.

^{page 124 note 3} Walsing. Ypod. Neustr. pp. 550, 553.

^{page 124 note 4} Appendix, NO. I.

^{page 124 note 5} Fabyan, by Ellis, pp. 550, 551.

^{page 124 note 6} Stat 2 Hen. IV. c. 18.

^{page 124 note 7} Boke of Troy, 1.2.

^{page 124 note 8} De Stuffura pro castro de Hadlegh, dated March 4, 1405.

^{page 125 note h} Henry, eldest son of Henry Percy, by Mary daughter of Henry Earl of Lancaster, married in 32 Edw. III. Margaret daughter of Ralph Lord Nevil, by whom he had three sons, Henry surnamed Hotspur, Thomas, and Ralph. His second marriage with Maude, sister and heiress of Anthony Lord Lucy, and widow of the Earl of Angus, was without issue.

The following notices respecting this veteran negociator and warrior will convey some idea of the manner in which his public life was spent. In 33 and 37 Edw. III. he bore arms in France. 42 Edw. III. his father died, when he was twenty-six years of age; and he did homage, and had livery of his lands. In that year he was with the king in Calais, when the peace was made with France, and was sent to the relief of the marches of Poitou with three hundred men at arms and a thousand archers. 43 Edw. III. in the war in France, his retinue consisting of fifty nine men at arras, twelve nights, forty seven squires, and a hundred archers on horseback, 46 Edw. III. he accompanied the king towards France to the relief of Thouars; when they were driven back by contrary winds, after nine weeks tossing at sea. 47 Edw. III. he purchased, for 760 pounds, the custody of the castle of Mitford in Northumberland, with all the lands, during the minority of the Earl of Athol; and attended the king into Flanders. 50 Edw. III. he was Marshal of England, and went officially to inspect the towns and castles of Calais, and the marches thereof. 51 Edw. III. General of the forces sent to France; his retinue a hundred men at arms, and as many archers, with a ready supply of two hundred men at arms, and two hundred archers all mounted. He appeared now as a protector of Wycliff, to whom he shewed much respect at the conference with the bishops before the Duke of Lancaster in Saint Paul's Cathedral; and with difficulty avoided the fury of the populace, who rose on the part of the Bishop of London, and would have put him and the duke to death, had they not escaped in a boat over the Thames to Kennington.

At the coronation of Richard II. he acted as Marshal of England, and was advanced to the dignity and title of Earl of Northumberland. Shortly after he resigned his Marshal's rod, and went into Scotland against the Earl of Dunbar at the head of ten thousand men, and wasted his lands. 2 Rich. II. he entered that country again, with the Earl of Nottingham, and took Berwick. 4 Rich. II. the Scots invaded Cumberland and Westmorland; but he was stopped in his preparations to advance against them by the king's letters. 5 Rich. II. a dispute arose between him and John of Gant, which had nearly proved fatal to him. As commissioner for guarding the marches, with special care of the castles and garrisons, he had appointed Sir Matthew Redman his lieutenant at Berwick. Redman, acting strictly up to his trust, refused to admit the Duke of Lancaster into the place, on his return from Scotland. In the same manner he was shut out at Bamborough castle; though his provisions were stored in both places; and his family had taken refuge in the latter fortress. The duke complained of this treatment in the presence of the king, at a meeting of the nobles at Berkhamstead, and taxed Northumberland with ingratitude, unfaithfulness, and disobedience: upon which the earl became furious, and used such reproachful language, that the king, who had in vain commanded him to be silent, ordered him to be arrested: but, the Earls of Warwick and Suffolk undertaking for his appearance at the next parliament, he was set at liberty. Lancaster and Northumberland both attended the next parliament with large bodies of armed men, to the terrour of the citizens; and complaint was made of it to the king, who decided the quarrel, and reconciled them for the time. 7 Rich. II. he chastised the Scots who had made an incursion upon Northumberland, and had seized Berwick through the treachery of the lieutenant governor. This furnished a fit occasion for the Duke of Lancaster, who was intent upon humbling him, to accuse him in parliament, and obtain sentence of death and confiscation against him : but the king set aside the judgment, and Northumberland repaired the accident by recovering Berwick. In the same year he was of the commission for receiving the residue of ransom due for David King of Scotland; Sheriff of Northumberland with the custody of the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and retained to serve the king in the Scotch war for forty days. About this time he acquired a great accession of landed property by his second marriage. 9 Rich. II. he was again Sheriff of the same county. 10 and 11 Rich. II. Embassador in Scotland. 13 Rich. II. Commissioner to treat of peace with France and Flanders; but 14 Rich. II. recalled to guard the borders. 19 Rich. II. he was present at the interview between the Kings of England and France at Guisnes, and was one of the English Lords who attended Charles VI. to his pavilion. 21 Rich. II, in consequence of some expressions used by his eldest son Hotspur, derogatory to Richard II. he was summoned from the north, but refused to make his appearance; for which, Froissart informs us, he was banished. As he was preparing to retire into Scotland, the king passed over into Ireland. Henry of Lancaster, with whom he probably held communication, landed; and Northumberland with Hotspur joined him at Doncaster: then followed the train of events related in the metrical history.

The zeal that he had shewn in the cause of Henry IV. procured his advancement to the office of Constable of England for life, with the gift of the Isle of Man, to hold by bearing the Lancaster sword at the coronation. He was besides made Constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, and Caernarvon. In 2 Henry IV. he was commissioned to treat of a marriage between Blanch eldest daughter of the king, with Lewis, Duke of Bavaria. 3 Henry IV. he defeated the Scots in a decisive battle at Halidon-hill, where he took Earl Douglas, their general, prisoner;—and here his services and his intimate connexion with Henry IV. ceased.

4 Henry IV. In this year his disaffection to the king began to shew itself. Some have affirmed that it was on account of money long due to him for the wardenship of the Marches, which Henry IV. was unwilling to pay; others, that it originated in a dispute about the prisoners taken at Halidon. The Percys took up arms, and Sir Thomas and young Henry lost their lives at Shrewsbury, before Northumberland could bring up the force he had collected for their aid. But the earl afterwards appeared before the king on promise of safety, and disavowed the actions of his son; nor was Henry willing to push the matter any farther; but granted him pardon on commitment to safe custody; and in 6 Henry IV. either from recollection of what he owed to him, or from awe of him, restored all his possessions. 7 Henry IV. he joined the insurgents in Yorkshire, and when they were quelled, he was pursued into Scotland. With a resolution unbroken by these reverses he next retired into Wales, and concerted with Owen Glendour the means of deposing Henry IV. Then proclaiming liberty to all who would rise and follow him he reappeared in Yorkshire 8 Henry IV. at the head of a considerable number of men. Sir Thomas Rokeby, the sheriff of that county met him on Branham Moor near Tadcaster, and a skirmish ensued, in which he was slain. Such was the end of Henry Percy, first Earl of Northumberland, who betrayed the king that had advanced him to honour, and rebelled against the king whom he had placed upon the throne. His head and quarters were distributed to London and different places where he had been respected and obeyed. His age and high station, and the remembrance of past services rendered him an object of regret to the Lancastrians, and the partisans of Richard might be ready to believe that they had lost a friend; but his real intention, it is said, was to have conferred the crown upon the Earl of March, the rightful heir.

Upon his sense of religious obligation no observation need be made; but it may be mentioned that he had been so far influenced by the feeling of the times as in 50 Edw. III. to grant the hospital of Saint Leonard at Alnwick to the Abbot and Convent of Alnwick to hold for ever; and 19 Rich. II. to found a Chantry in the chapel of All Saints at Cockermouth for one priest to celebrate divine service there daily, for the good estate of himself and Maud his wife, and for their souls after their departure hence; as well as those of their ancestors, and all the faithful deceased.

His estates and residence upon the border country rendered him the natural guardian of those parts, and occasioned his frequent employment as Warden to watch over them, and as Commissioner to treat of peace with his neighbours the Scots. His different appointments of this kind bear date, 42, 45, 46,47, 50 Edw. III.; 1, 2, 3,5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 18 Rich. II.; 1 Henry IV.

^{page 126 note 1} Collins, Life of John of Gaunt, pp, 26, 28.

^{page 126 note 2} Id. pp. 41, 43.

^{page 127 note 1} Cotton's Abridgement, p, 195.

^{page 128 note 1} This is evident from the manner in which Walsingham speaks of his death. Hist. Angl. p. 377.

^{page 128 note 2} See the article, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Dugdale, Baronage, I. pp. 276, 277, 278.

^{page 129 note i} Whoever the governor of this fortress might be, he does not appear to have been at his post. His office had a peculiar authority attached to it, as by an express provision 10 Rich. II. he was constituted for the time being sheriff of the county. “Constabularius castri de Flint pro tempore existenti debet esse vicecomes comitatus de Flint.

^{page 129 note 1} Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 214. 1 Pat. 10 Ric. II.

^{page 130 note k} The vestiges of this castle prove it's original strength. The walls are flanked by six round towers, three of which remain tolerably entire. The ditch is wide and deep, and on both sides faced with stone. The steep escarpment towards the river was defended with walls, in which were square bastions; one of them is still standing. The Welsh antiquaries state that it was erected before the Norman Conquest by Llewellyn ap Sitsylt, who reigned over North Wales from 1015 to 1020: “Ruthlanae castrum primo conditum est a Leolino, Sisilii filio, Cambriæ principe; fuitque non solura ipsius Leolini verumetiam Gruffini filii sui praecipuum palatium.” Harold burnt it in 1063,3 and it was restored by William the Conqueror or Henry II.

^{page 130 note l} That the agreement was kept seems confirmed by the grant of the constableship of the several castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, and Caernarvon, all upon the. same line, to the Earl of Northumberland, in 1 Henry IV. Rhuddlan, which forms a link in the chain, is omitted in the list; and I therefore conclude that the old castellan retained it.

^{page 130 note 1} Evans, Topographical and Historical Description of N. Wales, p, 756.

^{page 130 note 2} Powel, Annot. in Silv. Giraldi Itin. Carabr. c. 10. n. 2.

^{page 130 note 3} Orderic. Vital, in Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 36.

^{page 130 note 4} Powd, ut supra.

^{page 130 note 5} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 278.

^{page 131 note m} These men were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, MS. Ambassades, p. 136, who came over with Henry from France, was one of the commissioners that passed sentence of deposition upon Richard II. and in his advanced age gave the signal for the battle of Agincourt.

^{page 131 note n} The Percys had upon their establishment, Northumberland Herald and Esperance Pursuivant.

^{page 131 note 1} Rapin, I. p. 513.

^{page 131 note 2} Dallaway, Inquiries, Sect. II. p. 85, note.

^{page 132 note o} His little retinue perhaps remained on the other side of the water, because Northumberland is admitted into the castle alone. And this should be particularly noted, since we shall endeavour to shew that a studied misrepresentation of the whole affair was made by the Lancastrians for an obvious end. Walsingham tells us, that the first proposition towards a treaty came from Richard, and that he desired to confer with the Earl of Northumberland and Archbishop Arundel at Conivay. So much were the true circumstances of the case kept out of sight.

^{page 132 note P} We are here supplied with some additional matter from the MS. Ambassades. Huntingdon, by command of the duke, sent one of his retinue after Northumberland with two letters, one for Northumberland, the other for the king. When he appeared before the king with seven attendants, he was asked by him, if he had not met his brother on the road? “Yes, Sire,” he answered, “and here is a letter he gave me for you.” The king looked at the letter and the seal, and saw that it was the seal of his brother; then he opened the letter and read it. All that it contained was this, “My very dear Lord, I commend me to you: and you will believe the earl in every thing that he shall say to you. For I found the duke at my city of Chester, who has a great desire to have a good peace and agreement with you, and has kept me to attend upon him till he shall know your pleasure.” When the king had read this letter, he turned to Northumberland, and said, “Now tell me what message you bring.” To which the earl replied, “My very dear Lord, the Duke of Lancaster hath sent me to you, to tell you that what he most wishes for in this world is to have peace and agreement with you; and he greatly repents with all his heart of the displeasure that he hath caused you now and at other times; and asks nothing of you in this living world, save that it may please you to account him your cousin and friend; and that it may please you only to let him have his land; and that he may be chief judge of England, as his father and his predecessors have been, and that all other things of time past may be put in oblivion between you two; for which purpose he hath chosen umpires (juges) for yourself and for him, that is to say, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Earl of Salisbury, Maudelain, and the Earl of Westmorland; and charges them with the agreement that is between you and him. Give me an answer, if you please; for all the greatest lords of England and the commons are of this opinion.” On which the king desired him to withdraw a little, and he should have an answer soon.

The latter part of this speech contains an important variation from the metrical history, worthy of the artifice of the earl; but the opposite account of our eye-witness, confirmed in Richard's subsequent address to his friends, is doubtless the true representation. The writer of MS. Ambassades might be at this time at Chester; but admitting that he had been in the train of Northumberland on the journey, he could not have been present at the conference.

^{page 132 note 1} Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 132 note 2} Accounts and Extracts, 11 p. 219.

^{page 133 note q} The style of the duke his father was, John, the son of the King of England, Duke of Guienne and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Steward of England. “The word seneshal,” says Rastall, “was borrowed by the French of the Germans; and and signifies one that hath the dispensing of justice in some particular cases, as the High Steward of England;” the jurisdiction of his court, by the statute, “shall not pass the space of twelve miles to be counted from the lodgings of our Lord the King.”

These “particular cases” would, however, have secured to him a power of exercising his vengeance upon the parties who are immediately afterwards named. But the request urged with such apparent humility was only a part of the varnish of the plot. He had not waited for Richard's consent, having already, within two days after his arrival at Chester, assumed the title upon his own authority. In Madox, Formulare Anglicanum, p. 327, is a letter of safe conduct from Henry to the prior of Beauval, dated from that place, August 10, 23 Richard II. in which he styles himself “Henry, Due de Lancastre, Conte de Derby, de Leycestre, de Herford, et de Northampton, Seneschal d'Angleterre.”

He conferred the office upon Thomas, his second son, by patent dated October 8,1399; constituting at the same time Thomas Percy Deputy High Steward during the minority of the prince.

^{page 134 note 1} MS. Ambassades, pp. 134,135. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 134 note 2} Cotton's Abridgement, p, 343.

^{page 134 note r} Richard Maudelain, a priest of the chapel royal, who resembled the king so much in size, feature, and speech, that he was employed by the insurgents at Christmas to personate him in the army.

————Un chapellain,

Qui resembloit si de certain

Au bon roy Richart de visage,

De corps, de fait, et de langage,

Qu'il n'est homme qui le vist

Qui ne certifiast et dist

Que ce fust le roy ancien.

This man appears to have been one of the most obsequious and daring of Richard's creatures; and served him in several confidential and difficult undertakings. Thus he was sent to bring over money from Ireland; and to attend the corpse of the Duke of Gloucester from Calais to London. The king gave him some property in Fleet-street, and the suburbs of London, which had belonged to Henry Bowet, clerk, a particular friend of the Duke of Lancaster, who had upon his account been attainted of treason, 22 Rich. II. So that for many reasons Henry had an especial dislike to Maudelain. He was a witness to Richard's will, and went with him upon the Irish expedition. On their return to Milford he was among those of his council who had advised him to withdraw from his army into France, see p. 77. I have already said p. 92, that he probably absconded; for, as he is a remarkable personage, it would have been mentioned had he been in the suite at Cornvay. When the rebels were dispersed at Cirencester he was taken in attempting to escape with Ferriby, and conducted to London for execution. He asked the mayor if he should be quartered. “No,” said the mayor, “but your head will be cut off.” Then Maudelain thanked God that he should die in the service of his sovereign lord, the noble king Richard. Walsingham oddly styles him, I. Mawdlyn Mawde.

^{page 134 note 1} Termes de la Ley. v, Seneshal.

^{page 134 note 2} 13 Ric. II. St 1 c 3.

^{page 134 note 3} Rvraer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 90.

^{page 135 note s} Henry's appearance in arms was but too symptomatic of a treasonable design against Richard not to excite strong suspicions in those who were unacquainted with his real intentions, and might not wish that the matter should be pushed to extremities. By the statute of Northampton, promulgated in the time of Edward III. and glossed upon and confirmed by many subsequent enactments in Richard's reign it was actual treason. No man could “ride armed in harness with launcegays, nor go armed by night nor by day, nor bear sallet, nor skull of iron, nor raise people and ride against the king, upon pain of treason.” So that to meet all imputations arising from his display of warlike preparation, his vengeance was at first professed only against the favourites of the court, who had abused the confidence of their sovereign, and had been the instigators of tyrannical measures. Besides this, to quiet the scruples of many of his well-wishers, who might look to reform rather than revolution; and to persuade others, probably the Archbishop of York in particular, of the purity of his intentions, and that he had no ulterior view than that of private justice, and an arrangement for the general good of the realm, he made oath upon the sacrament at Doncaster, immediately upon his landing, and afterwards at Chester, that he came to claim no more than his inheritance, which the ill-advised Richard had, contrary to promise, seized into his hands. “For this,” says Baker shrewdly, “was a reason had no objection; the other he reserved till his power should not need to regard objections.” And here, in professing to the king that he wished to touch none of his rights, he gave the Percys a lesson which they afterwards retorted upon him. In the beginning of their opposition to him, before the battle of Shrewsbury, “scripserunt provincialibus ubilibet constitutis, propositum quod assumpserant, non esse contra suam ligantiam, et fidelitatem quam regi fecerant nee; ab aliunde exercitum congregasse, nisi pro salvatione personarum suarum, et reipublicae meliori gubernatione, &c. Plures igitur, visis his literis, collaudabant tantorum virorum solertiam, et extollebant fidem quam erga rempublicam prætendebant.”

^{page 135 note 1} Appendix, NO. I.

^{page 135 note 2} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. pp. 20, 21, 31.

^{page 135 note 3} Calend. Rot. pat. p. 236. a. 3. p. 22 Ric. No. 24.

^{page 135 note 4} Cotton, p. 381.

^{page 135 note 5} Rymer, ut supra, p. 77.

^{page 135 note 6} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 235.

^{page 135 note 7} Hist. Angl. p. 363.

^{page 136 note 1} Stat. 2 Edw. 111. c.3.

^{page 136 note 2} Stat. C2 Ric. II, c. 6. 7 Ric II.c. 13. 20 Ric.II. c. 1. SI Rip. II. c 3.

^{page 136 note 3} Ther sware the duke upon the sacrament To claim no more but his mother's heritage. Hardyng, by Ellis, p. 350.

^{page 136 note 4} Maydestone, Hist. de Martyr. Ric. Scrope, Anglia Sacra, pars secunda, p, 369.

^{page 136 note 5} Chronicle, p. 154.

^{page 136 note 6} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 367.

^{page 138 note t} “He then consulted with his friends, Carlisle, Salisbury, Scroope, Ferriby, and Jenico in the chapel of the castle, and said to them, ‘Gentlemen, you have heard what the earl says: what think you of it ?’ To which they replied, ‘Sir, do you speak first.’ The king answered, ‘It seems to me that a good peace may be made between us two, if it be as the earl says. But, in truth, whatever agreement or peace he may make with me, if I can ever get him to my advantage, I will cause him to be foully put to death, just as he hath earned.”

The commonly received opinion, which has been echoed by many writers, was, that Richard, desiring a conference at Conway with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Earl of Northumberland, and of his own accord declaring himself ready to resign, first stipulated for his own maintainance, and for the security of eight persons whom he should name. “Indicavitse velle regno cedere, si sibi victus honorificus viteeque securitas octo personis, quos nominari vellet, fide interposita, donaretur.” Whether Henry was willing to grace his new authority by forbearance towards the king's adherents, or whether Richard was afterwards able to negociate for those whom the duke had threatened to bring before the parliament is immaterial: it is, however, plain, that excepting Jenico, whose resistance procured him a temporary confinement, they all remained unprosecuted and at large. But, as to Richard's spontaneous offer of resignation at this time, it may easily be understood that reports like these were propagated to encourage a persuasion that it was an act proceeding entirely from his consciousness of the difficulties to which he had been reduced by his inability to govern, and that it was not forced upon him by his adversaries. Richard himself in this genuine narrative holds no language which can induce a belief of this nature; he never hints at a wish to lay aside the burden of power in his message to Chester, his conference with Northumberland, or consultation with his little band of friends. On the contrary, he contemplates the future exercise of it in retaliation upon his aggressors, and merely in a general way accedes to the propositions of the earl, that he may escape from a part of his difficulties, with the confident expectation of his entire ability to screen his faithful servants. Salisbury, Scroope, and Merks, the only three present of those who were threatened with prosecution, are satisfied with his assurance of protection, and agree that at all hazards it would be well to close with the duke's conditions of peace.

But the king's pretended readiness to abandon his high estate was more industriously endeavoured to be established by an artifice that reflects little credit upon his successor. The story of what passed at Conway relative to the negociation is given in the text with such an appearance of truth, and is so coherent in all it's parts, that it may very properly be taken to correct the variety of suspicious statements with which ignorance or wilfulness have clouded the affair. One of these is of too grave a kind to be passed over. Comparing it with the statements of our author, I am reluctantly compelled to look upon the ground of Richard's retirement from the throne, given in the Roll of Resignation deposited in the Archives of England, to be a gross fabrication published by Henry IV. for purposes of state. In order to colour the transaction and make the renunciation appear more voluntary than it really was, it is entered upon the roll that the Earl of Northumberland in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the commissioners in the Tower, “remembered King Richard of his promise made to the said Archbishop, and to him the said earl at Corvway in Wales, at that time the same King Richard was at liberty, how that he, for certain defaults and inabilities in himself to rule, would renounce and give up the crowns of England and France, with the whole rule of the same, and that by the best advice that could be devised; King Richard thereto mildly answered, that he would willingly accomplish the same.”

Now from the narrative before us it is evident, and we repeat it, that when the king was at Conway he had no intention to resign; nor had any thing of this kind been proposed to him: every part of the negociation contradicts it. “You shall be crowned king and lord,” says Northumberland, “and he shall be chief judge. He desires to have nothing that belongs to you, for you are his rightful lord. Pardon him his offence, and he will sue for mercy on his knees before you.” Neither was the archbishop present at the interview; nor did he ever meet the king till they came to Flint. Northumberland entered the fortress of Conway alone. The truth might be, that afterwards at Flint, when he was in duresse, and his spirit was humbled by affliction, he might admit of his inability to reign; and in the private conversation that he had there with Arundel, under the influence of fear, a concession might have been obtained from him. His answer to Henry's address to him in the court of that castle seems to shew it. But though he talked at times of being ruined, and apprehended the duke's design to depose him, and warned him by the Duke of Exeter of the guilt and danger of such an attempt, he never appears to have seriously thought of giving way till he was made a prisoner. The reason then is evident why Conway was inserted in the roll instead of Flint; for at the latter place it might be known that the king was not his own master; and if a voluntary offer of abdication must be set to his account, it must be proved that he made it when his person was at liberty. At Conway he made no such, offer, and from the day that he left that fortress he was in the hands of his enemies.

^{page 137 note 1} MS. Ambassades, p, 135. Mr. Allan's Extracts. Galliard interprets it, “I shall no more scruple to put him to death, than he did to gain the upper hand of me.” Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 219. This is, however, too periphrastic. The original words are simply, “Je le feray mourir mauvaisement, ainsi comme il a gaognie.”

^{page 138 note 1} Walsing, Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 139 note 1} Cotton's Abridgement, p, 385. There is an overstrained affectation of cheerful acquiescence in the report of his renunciation, which defeats itself. The parties are all very courteous, and happy in each other's society while it lasts. “After familiar talk had between the king, the duke, and archbishop, the instrument was ordered to be read; but the king willingly and cheerfully took and read it throughout.” The whole is curious; and, I fear, in many particulars, a piece of deliberately recorded falsehood. Ut supra, p. 386.

^{page 140 note v} In the MS. Arabassades the ceremony of taking the oath is adopted upon the advice of Merks. “The Bishop of Carlisle approved of the peace, but suggested that Northumberland should be made to swear upon the gospel and on the body of our Lord, that what he said was true. The others approving of this advice, Northumberland was called in, and the proposition made to him, which he readily acceded to. Mass was then said; the oath administered to Northumberland, and after dinner he set off to Flint before the king, on pretence of making preparations for the king's supper, and apprising the duke of what had happened; but stopping at his ambush desired his men to be in readiness.”

We have here another proof that the writer of that MS. was not present at Conway; for our eye-witness mentions in more than one place that the king dined at Rhuddlan.

^{page 140 note 1} MS. Ambassades, p. 135. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 141 note u} The translator, in the course of his enquiries, not long since took this metrical history and compared it upon the spot with the castle of Conway. There he recognised the venerable arch of the eastern window of the chapel still entire, where must have stood the altar at which this mass was performed, when the fatal oath was taken. The chapel, in which Richard conferred with his friends, is at the eastern extremity of the hall.

^{page 141 note w} Unfortunately this is not a solitary instance of such abominable depravity. Sir Emeric of Pavia, Captain of the castle of Calais, in 22 Edw. III. swore upon the sacrament to Lord Geoffry Charney that he would deliver up that castle to him for 20,000 crowns of gold: but he communicated the secret to the King of England, and the French were foiled in their attempt. “A thing,” says Barnes, “scarce credible among Christians;” though he obscurely adduces another case of the same nature in his own time. Too many more might be found to add to the melancholy list. It must be admitted that the abuse of absolution by the church perniciously weakened the effect of such bonds of conscience, and encouraged the crime; but some periods seem more particularly infected with these blots upon the page of history; and certainly the age in which the metrical history was written had been profligate in the highest degree, with regard to what Lydgate calls, “assured othes at fine untrewe.”

Richard and Bolingbroke appear to have been both guilty of this species of perjury. The first is accused with having broken a corporeal oath, in the instance of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and one of another description sworn to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Carte, ever ready to vindicate the king at all hazards, treats these accusations with contempt. “The substance of the charge,” he says, “is either false, trifling, or impertinent.” But it is easier to deny than to disprove: he has not attempted to make it clear that the allegations are untrue; and unless he could have done it, they can never be looked upon as “trifling or impertinent.” They came indeed from Richard's enemies, who stuck at nothing which could blacken his character, or make him appear unworthy of his exalted station; but there is much in his own conduct which might dispose an impartial person to suspect, that these are not aspersions that could easily have been refuted, even at the time in which they were advanced. It may be inferred that he had imbibed no serious impressions of the solemnity of oaths from the levity of an observation made by him at the installation of Scroope, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, August 9, 1386. After that prelate had sworn to be faithful to the church according to the prescribed form, the king, in the hearing of all present, and apparently, as the Lichfield historian represents it, in the most idle manner observed to him, Certe, domini, magnum prcestitisti juramentum. Without the slightest wish to overstrain the bearing of these words for the establishment of a point, I cannot but consider that they clearly admit of the interpretation which has been assigned to them.

Henry of Lancaster was also manifestly perjured as to the oaths upon the sacrament which he took at Doncaster and Chester, to assure the public of the unambitious views with which he designed to carry on his proceedings. If charity might incline us at first to believe, with Daniel

“That then his oath with his intent agreed;”

a closer investigation of his temper and behaviour from his first setting foot on shore to his calling together the parliament, shews that his mind was bent upon a higher aim. The challenge of the Percys sent to him before the battle of Shrewsbury, and Scroope's manifesto tax him with perjury in the most unqualified manner.

The grossest perjury was lightly thought of, and unblushingly committed in England. The citizens of Lincoln were notorious for it; and the biographer of Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, commends him for the steps that he took to expel it from the courts of inquest and assize in his diocese. Sir Roger Fulthorpe, one of the judges, was guilty of this offence; and all the members, peers, clergy, and commons, of the vindictive parliament of 1397) swore to observe every judgment, ordinance, and declaration made therein; and were afterwards as little mindful of their obligation as if it had never been entered into. “What reliance could be placed on such oaths,” says Lingard, “it is difficult to conceive. Of the very men who now swore, the greater part had sworn the contrary ten years before; and as they violated that oath now, so did they violate the present before two years more had elapsed.”

Not a little of this general depravity may be attributable, I fear, to the evil example and arbitrary authority of the king; who, when he found his power declining, more than ever adopted this injurious mode of securing the obedience of his subjects. At that time, as it is found at all other times, the frequent requirement of these sacred pledges lessened the respect due to them; and whether they were by the cross of Canterbury, or the shrine of Saint Edward, the Holy Evangelists, or the body of our Lord, they produced little or no impression; or they were deliberately undertaken with mental reservation, and rendered subservient to the purpose of the day.

^{page 141 note 1} Birnes, Life of King Edward III. p. 422.

^{page 142 note 1} See Article of Accusation, XXXII. et alibi.

^{page 142 note 2} Hist. of England, II. P. 636. In another place he roundly asserts, that Richard “had a strict regard to truth.” 1b. p, 340. So far as common promises went, as he often capriciously changed his mind under the influence, of those around him, it does not seem that he had a great respect for his word. We have seen that his breaking the solemn assurance given to Salisbury, to come over from Ireland within six days, deprived him of the aid of an army, and probably as much as any thing, lost him a crown.

^{page 142 note 3} Gul. Whitlocke, contin. Hist. Lichfield, in Anglia Sacra, pars prima, p. 450.

^{page 142 note 4} Daniel's Poems, Civil War, b, 1.

^{page 143 note 1} Hardyng, p. 352.

^{page 143 note 2} Articuli advers. Hen. IV. Ansel, regem. Anglia Sacra, pars secunda, p. 360, et seq.

^{page 143 note 3} Truth, according to Christina of Pisa, was as little regarded in France:

Verité, depuis le greigneur maistre

Jusqu' au petit, si a peme trouvee

Fust comme elle est; c'est b'n chose senestre

Qu'en France suit si Mensonge eslevee.

MSS. Had. 4473. Rondel, f. 45, b.

^{page 143 note 4} Stat. 13 Ric. II. stat. 1. c. 18.

^{page 143 note 5} Capgrave in Anglia Sacra, pt. ii. p. 360.

^{page 143 note 6} Knighton, col. 2692, 2696.

^{page 143 note 7} Hist. of Engl. III. p. 250.

^{page 144 note x} The warmth with which he indulges his expectation of righteous retribution leads him into an expression as to the fate of Northumberland which was remarkably verified. The supposed causes of his dispute with Henry IV. are given in note^h, page 127; but, in our uncertainty of the real ground of his disaffection, it is not unreasonable to imagine that all the Percys deeply regretted the part they had taken against Richard II. The earl from being Lancaster's greatest friend became his bitterest enemy. Their union lasted no longer than 1403, and in that and the four following years he was concerned in three risings against him, and shuffled on through a round of opposition and abject excuses, of rebellion and suing for mercy. He might have calculated upon the security derived from his distance from the seat of government, his position and influence upon the borders, and upon the king's fear of his power, or privity to transactions, the publication of which might have injured Henry's reputation: but something of judicial infatuation accompanied all his efforts. Outliving his accomplished and respected brother, and his eldest son, the darling of England, who perished at Shrewsbury, he was himself at last slain in an obscure affair with the sheriff of Yorkshire February 19, 1407-8, and his corpse was treated with all the studied ignominy customarily applied to the extreme punishment of traitors. Drake, after speaking of the skirmish at Bramham Moor, has the following passage. “The Earl of Northumberland, the chief instrument in deposing Richard and raising up Henry, after having the misfortune to live to see most of his family cut off before him, he the stock and root of the name of Piercy, was miserably slain at this battle. His head, covered with silver hairs, being put upon a stake, was carried in a kind of mock procession through all the towns to London, and there placed on the bridge, where, says my author, (Holinshed) it long stood as a monument of divine justice.” And Walsingham, from whom both writers copy, affectingly, and with more than his usual taste, applies to the same event a quotation from Lucan, descriptive of the impression produced by the ghastly sight.

“Nos nee sanguis, nee tantum vulnera nostri Affecere senis, quantum gestata per urbes Ora ducis, quae transfixo deformia pilo Vidimus.”

^{page 144 note y} This is an obscure passage; and, according to one of the readings may, perhaps, signify. As for the man who goeth right forward, &c. contrasting such conduct and it's consequences through life with that of the parties of whom he is speaking: but I cannot determine whether the observation of the author is referable to Northumberland, or is intended to be general.

^{page 144 note 1} Hist. of York, b. 1. c. 4. p. 106.

^{page 144 note 2} Hist. Angl, p. 377.

^{page 144 note 3} Pharsalia, 1. ix. 136.

^{page 145 note z} A late writer places this scene in one of the deep bottoms near Llandulas; Pennant conjectures it to have been about the precipice of Penmaen Rhos. Much of the coast to the eastward of Saint Orme's head seems to partake of this rocky character.

Daniel, who works up Stow's materials, has given the following description of the spot; and in some respects, it forms no bad comment upon the text.

A place there is where proudly rais'd there stands

A huge aspiring rock, neighb'ring the skies,

Whose surly brow imperiously commands

The sea his bounds, that at his proud foot lies;

And spurns the waves, that in rebellious bands

Assault his empire, and against him rise.

Under whose craggy government there was

A niggard narrow way, for men to pass.

And here, in hidden cliffs, concealed lay

A troop of armed men, to intercept

The unsuspecting king; that had no way

To free his foot, that into danger stept:

The dreadful ocean on the one side lay;

The hard encroaching mountain th'other kept.

It may seem strange that, before he descended, when he had a view of them from the vantage-ground, he did not turn about and make an attempt to fly. But he probably caught sight of them at some turn in the road: certainly it was so managed that he should be very near them before he made the discovery; and it would have been almost impossible to have escaped, as he had so far to go back, and moreover was on the wrong side of the water from Conway, The writer asserts that they were obliged to continue their course down the mountain road. This is farther elucidated in MS. Ambassades, which informs, us that the king alighted to walk down the hill on account of it's steepness.

^{page 145 note 1} Thomas, Memoirs of Owen Glyndwr, p. 35.

^{page 145 note 2} Tour in Wales, 1. p. 45.

^{page 146 note 1} Ciri l War, b. 1.

^{page 146 note 2} MS. Ambassades, p. 136. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 147 note a} All things conspire to shew the deserted condition in which the king was now placed. Some of the MSS. mention, see p. 77, note^v, that when Richard rode away from the army at Milford-haven, he was accompanied by a body of horse; but, if this were true, they soon deserted him. Secrecy being a great object in his flight, the account of our narrative is more worthy of credit, which limits the number of attendants on that journey to thirteen, see p. 91. Of these we afterwards hear nothing concerning the Duke of Gloucester, or the Bishops of Lincoln and Saint David's; and as little is said of the hundred men, see p. 71, who came over with the Earl of Salisbury from Ireland. After the departure of the Dukes of Exeter and Surrey, the whole party, nobles and others, then at Conway, are estimated at only sixteen; and all that could be mustered as an escort in this perilous undertaking amounted to no more than twenty-one. The principal persons composing this troop, as they are distinctly enumerated shortly after their capture, were, exclusive of the king, the Earl of Salisbury, the Bishop of Carlisle, Sir Stephen Scroope, Jenico, Ferriby, the author and his companion; the rest might be inferior servants of the court, or mere domestics. Among these unquestionably was the famous Owen Glyndwr, at that time a squire in Richard's service; and probably Gwillim ap Tudor, another Welsh squire about his person, whom he had retained with a pension of ten pounds in the preceding year; and who afterwards, together with his brother Rhys, as generals under Glyndwr, struggled against Henry IV. in the Welsh war: perhaps also may be added to the list John Pallet and Richard Seimer; should these personages not be fictitious whom Hall introduces as assured servants of the king, endeavouring at Flint to favour his escape. Pennant places Perkin a Legh among them; but the head of the unfortunate Perkin, see p. 65, was already set upon one of the gates of Chester; and if he had been with them, considering the nature of his case, and what is said in commendation of Jenico's loyalty, it is not likely that the writer would have omitted to note him or his suffering for the sake of Richard.

^{page 147 note 1} Pennant, Tour in Wales, p. 304.

^{page 147 note 2} Dugdale, Baronage, [.p. 716, b. He says Owen had been squire to the Earl of Arundel. Pennant, however, ut supra, concludes that he was knighted before the deposal of Richard.

^{page 147 note 3} Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 234, 1 p. 22 Ric. II. No. 20.

^{page 147 note 4} Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, Introduo. f. 6. He may be right as to the names and existence of these men; but I cannot give him credit for the story of Richard's flight.

^{page 148 note *} He repeats his oath, taken in the chapel, in a most revolting manner; in the omission of which the principle of giving the text unmutilated may for once be set aside.

^{page 148 note b} “Richard mounted on horseback, with twenty-one attendants; and going down a mountain on the road on foot, and looking into the valley, he said to the Earl of Salisbury, ‘Do you not see below banners and streamers?’ the Earl of Salisbury answered, ‘Certainly, Sire, I do; and my heart forebodes ill:’ and the Bishop of Carlisle said, ‘I suspect that man has betrayed you.’ At the same time they saw the Earl of Northumberland coming to them with eleven others. ‘Sire,’ said he, ‘I am come to meet you.’ The king asked who the people were he saw below in the valley. ‘I have seen none,’ said Northumberland. ‘Look before you then,’ said the Earl of Salisbury; ‘there they are.’ ‘They are your men,’ said the bishop, ‘I know your banner.’—‘Northumberland,’ said the king, ‘if I thought you capable of betraying me, it is not yet, perhaps, too late for me to return to Conway.’—‘You shall not return thither,’ replied the traitor, throwing off the mask, and seizing the bridle of the king's horse: ‘I shall conduct you to the Duke of Lancaster, as I have promised him; for I do not break all my promises.‘” Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 110. Bishop Percy's MS note upon the accompanying illumination gives a very different colouring to the transaction, and indicates great inattention to the contents of the original, or peculiar tenderness to the memory of the earl. “As the king goes towards Chester, he finds a party of soldiers belonging to the Earl of Northumberland placed in a valley; the earl, who had gone before, being at their head; who tells the king he had placed these men to guard him to Chester, as the country was all in arms, &c. The king, alarmed, offers to turn back; but the earl dissuades him; and prevails on him to take some refreshment of bread and wine.” (This is much misrepresented by Carte.)

^{page 149 note c} The lamentations of Richard given in the MS. Ambassades agree in the main with those in the text; but are rather longer, and involve some curious particulars, intermixed with invocations to the Deity, the Virgin, and Saint John the Baptist, and many appeals to his friends in France. Among other things he exclaims, “Ah! dear cousin of Britanny! —Alas! you said truly, at your departure, that I should never be safe while Henry of Lancaster was alive. Alas! thrice have I saved his life! for once my dear uncle of Lancaster, on whom God have mercy! would have put him to death, for the treason and villainy he had been guilty of. All night did I ride to preserve him from death, and his father yielded him to my request, telling me to do with him as I pleased. How true is the saying, that we have no greater enemy than the man we save from the gallows! — Once he drew his sword on me in the chamber of the queen, on whom God have mercy! He was of the council of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel; he consented to my death, that of his father, and all my council. All his offences towards me have I pardoned; nor would I believe my uncle, his father, who two or three times condemned him to death.” Some of these are allusions to facts, no other traces of which, I believe, are to be found in history. One cannot be surprised if, with this impression and knowledge of the character and disposition of Henry towards him, he should have yielded to gloomy anticipations.

^{page 150 note *} The strength of this execration, far less qualified in the original, and quite at variance with the pious resignation of many of his former expressions, the translator felt himself called upon to modify.

^{page 150 note d} At one o'clock the Bishop of Carlisle exhorted them to submit to their fate with resignation; on which they ceased bewailing themselves, and went to bed. MS. Ambassades, p. 139. Mr. Allen's Extracts.

^{page 150 note 1} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 222.

^{page 151 note e} Specimens of this style of breaking off from verse to prose may be seen in the Fabliau of Aucassin and Nicollete, and in Christina de Pisa's poem Du due des vrais amans. The author truly states the disadvantages under which rhyming historians must labour: but his own performance is a refutation of the stigma cast upon historical poetry by a romance writer of the twelfth century:—“Nuz contes rymez n'en est vrais: tot mensonge ce qu'ils dient.”

^{page 151 note 1} MSS. Harl. 4431. xviii. f. 161, 168, et alibi.

^{page 151 note 2} Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet. I. p. 135, note.

^{page 152 note f} Not of the old Countess of Salisbury; as in MS. Ambassades, p. 134; her only son was unfortunately slain in a tournament at Windsor during the life time of his father.1But this was the son of the wife of the present earl, by one of her former husbands, Sir Alan Buxhull or Boxhull, fifty-second knight of the Garter, sometime Chamberlain to Edward III. and Constable of the Tower of London at the beginning of this reign: he tarnished his reputation by being concerned with those who violated sanctuary in the abbey of Westminster, and committed murder in the church, 2 Ric. II. in the singular affair of Shakell and Hawle, for which he was excommunicated. Young Sir Alan was now about eighteen years old; for, in 3 Hen. IV. when he had livery of his lands in Sussex, he is stated to have been upwards of one and twenty. He died without issue; and the name of Buxhull was taken by Richard Godui of Wateringbury, nigh Mailing, who had married into the family.

The present earl had a son by this lady, who was eleven or twelve years of age; but had he been intended by the historian, he would have spoken of him in a different manner.

^{page 152 note g} The white hart kneeling, a crown about his neck, and chained Or, Richard's favourite livery, adopted from the Holands; and which is probably the origin of many of those signs exhibited at Inns throughout England to the present hour. An old writer on the subject of Heraldry says, that he took the white harts for his supporters. “Kyng Richard the lid. forsoke the two antloppys for hys bests, and toke two whyt hertys, beryng up the armys with her bakys.” The mode of decorating armories by placing the shield between two animals, similar to the bearing or cognisance, arose about this time.

He distributed them very widely among his friends and dependents. In Rymer, VIII. p. 13, is a summons to the sheriffs of different counties, “Pro gerentibus liberatam de Cervo, ad equitandum cum rege.” Henry, knowing the effect it might produce, was anxious to get rid of the hart entirely, and for that purpose general prohibitions were enacted against liveries and signs; though he would not condescend to publish his apprehensions of this livery in particular by causing it to be specified in the statute. He found, however, that when any attempt was to be excited against him, the harts were sure to make their appearance. The army that Hotspur brought down to Lichfield and Shrewsbury bore them; and the old Countess of Oxford, mother of the late Duke of Ireland, sent little gold and silver harts in Richard 's name to several persons, when, in 1404, he was reported to be alive in Scotland.

It is well known that Westminster Hall presents a profusion of them: they are also to be seen in Gloucester cathedral painted on the capitals of the two pillars, between which stands the tomb of Edward II. It is not improbable that Richard himself caused them to be blazoned there.

^{page 152 note 1} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 648.

^{page 152 note 2} Calend. Inquis. ad quod damnum, p. 348, b.

^{page 152 note 3} Sbort pedigree of Boxhull, MSS. Harl, 6148, f. 79. art. 22.

^{page 152 note 4} MSS. Harl. 2259. f. 76. compiled about the reign of Hen. VI.

^{page 153 note h} S'il le fit mourir ou non je ne scay. MS. Ambassades, f. 142.

^{page 153 note i} Or readily inclined to change sides: in the original favorable de legier. The evident application of the terms faveur mi favorable seems very peculiar; and is not satisfactorily made out by reference to any Glossary that I have met with. But in justification of either of the above interpretations, I must refer to the MS. where faveur is almost always used in a bad sense. In f. 11. a. 1.18. the writer speaks of the duke having taken possession of the greater part of England par faveur si estranges, oncques ne vy pieur; and in f. 25, b. 1. 27,28, he couples it with treason, faueur et trayson: f. 73 a. 1. 2. he says that Richard loved the king of France sans faveur, without dissimulation, most sincerely: then as to favorable, f. 41, a. 1.1. the king exhorts Northumberland to perform the whole of what he promised, sans avoir pensee favorable, nulle quelconques, maiz fermez et estable; a clear indication of it's signification; and again, 1.18, the earl declares in answer, Je jureray qu'il n'a point de faveur en ce fait cy.

^{page 153 note 1} Dallaway, Inquiries, pp. 97, 98.

^{page 153 note 2} Walsing, Ypod. Neustr. p. 562.

^{page 153 note 3} Stat. 1. H. IV. c. 7.

^{page 153 note 4} Pennant, Tour, p. 337.

^{page 153 note 5} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 370.

^{page 154 note k} It is easy to perceive to what parts of our history he alludes; and, indeed, such was the general disrepute of the English upon this head, among a nation who valued themselves upon their indiscriminate attachment to the persons of their princes, that the disloyalty of England became proverbial among them. This stigma is included in the following satirical review of national characters distinguished by their opposite qualities.

Largesse de Francoys,

Loyaulté d'Angloys,

Patience d'Almant,

Humilité de Normant,

Labour de Picart,

Pitié de Lombart,

Sens de Breton,

Conscience de Bourgoignon,

Confession de Beguine,

Acomtance de pouvre meschine,

Tout Ne Vault Une Poytevine.

A Poitevine is a coin of small value, formerly struck in Poitou.

^{page 154 note 1} MSS. HarL 4473. Petis dictiez. f. 14

^{page 155 note l} The band would have received a strong accession of military musicians from the famous minstrels of Chester. See Burney, II. pp. 358, 359. The family of Northumberland had always several minstrels in pay.

I cannot but indulge in the idea that a diligent search into the reliques of the Welsh bards might bring to light some vestiges of the attachment of that nation to the king. The praises of Owen Glyndwr are still in existence; and I trust that it may not be deemed too light or fanciful a suggestion, that the ancient popular Welsh air of “Sweet Richard,” might have been the production of some contemporary bard; and that it long served to keep alive the feeling of regret for his fate. I should be the more inclined to the supposition, had it been constructed in the favourite minor key. But the title cannot exclusively prove that the composition is amatory; and it's words, if it had any, might be as encomiastic and expressive of political and personal affection towards the monarch, as those in the Scotch ballad of “Lewie Gordon” are towards the Chevalier, to whom in some copies the same epithet is applied.

^{page 155 note m} Writers are not agreed as to the instrument described by the term buisine. It seems to have been a wind instrument of considerable effect, and much in vogue. It was made of metal; Ces buisines d'arein resonent.

And had great power;

II faisoit terre trembler

Des busines et des taburs.

It was not straight;

Ces buisines et cors crocus.

And it is distinguished from the “trompe;”

Mainte bosine et mainte trompe.

Roquefort concludes it to have been a trumpet; and derives it from “buccina;” but in the text it is coupled with that instrument. In a translation of the Bible of the twelfth century it is thus introduced: “Ha, tu roy tu as rays descreet à chescun horn qe avera oy le soun de estive, de frestel, de harpe, de busine, de psaltrie, de symphans, et de totes maneres de musiks, soi abate et adoure l'yraage de or.” Daniel, c. iii. ver, 10. The Latin version is sambuca: our translators have rendered it sackbut. Vitruvius says, that sambuca is a stringed instrument, and Papias, that it is a kind of rustic harp, genus citharce agrestis; which would lead to a contradiction of what has been advanced as to the metal and power of the buisine.

Of wind instruments in their bands they had horns, nacaires, buisines, trumpets, large and small, and several sorts of flutes and flageolets; a list of these is given in the verses of a contemporary poet, Guillaume le Machault, in which he has enumerated all the instruments then in use. But they also employed stringed instruments in their processions. In an illumination of a missal of this age minstrels are represented before David bearing the head of Goliath, one of whom, a female, is playing upon a kind of portable harp. A passage of Lydgate is decisive upon this point; and he writes as though he had an ear for music, in the description of the entry of Paris and Helen into Troy:

The shrille trompettys weryn areysed loude:

Up on the skye gothe the blessful sown,

When al this people entreth into the town.

And many another div's instrument

That al to forn in atte the gatis went

In sundry wise that made mellodye

That to heven the hevenly armonye

Be musik touched upon strenge and corde

So even in oon and justly they accorde

Hit wol an hert ravyshe in to joye.

^{page 155 note 1} Pennant, Tour, p. 311.

^{page 155 note 2} Roman d'Athis et Prophilias. Roquefort De l'éat de la Poesie, &c, p. 118.

^{page 155 note 3} Tournoiement d' Ante-Christ. Ibid. p. 119.

^{page 155 note 4} Baudouin de Condé in Le Dit des Heraults; alluding to distorted persons. Ibid, p. 121.

^{page 155 note 5} Ut supra, p. 119.

^{page 155 note 6} The resemblance of the word buisine to bassoon is too striking to be overlooked, though the latter has, perhaps, a different derivation. But see Burney, II. 288.

^{page 156 note n} Among the various reproaches cast upon Northumberland, I cannot discover the least allusion to what has been recorded by Froissart, of the earl's previous refusal to accompany the king into Ireland, and of Richard's having consequently pronounced him a traitor, confiscated his estates, and sentenced him to banishment. It might be supposed that, as his character is brought so much into question, some such allusion would very naturally be made; and the absence of it induces me to suspect that statement, which, I apprehend, rests solely upon the authority of the above historian, to be erroneous.

^{page 156 note 1} Roquefort, p. 129.

^{page 156 note 2} Id. pp. 105, 106.

^{page 156 note 3} Boke of Troye, 1. II.

^{page 157 note o} This is a singular instance of hesitation, after what he has said of the Earl of Rutland, pp. 24, 45, 55, 99.

^{page 157 note 1} Chronicles, XII. c. 16.

^{page 157 note 2} The king when he sees the earl with so many followers, expresses an opinion of his disloyalty for the first time; see p. 146, and afterwards, more pointedly, p. 148; but never alludes to any thing that had occurred to bring it into suspicion before.

^{page 158 note p} He is rather guarded in speaking of the conduct of Sir Thomas, whose reputation stood high; and, perhaps for this reason, he never indulges in any expressions personally derogatory to him. Carte says, “The Earl of Worcester was really concerned for the king; but seeing no remedy, broke his rod in the great hall of Flint castle, and dissolved the household.” He did it, according to Walsingham, by desire of Richard, bidding them reserve themselves for better times.

In going over to the duke, he came into contact with the archbishop, and his nephew the young Earl of Arundel; and must have been awkwardly situated, as, in quality of lay proctor for the bishops and clergy, he had given judgment for the banishment of the former, and had joined with the temporal lords in sentencing the father of the latter. Revolutions draw men into strange associations. The families of Lancaster and Arundel had themselves, not long before, been at mortal variance. As to Sir Thomas Percy, he had been much connected with that of Lancaster; had been trustee to the estates of Henry when he went into Prussia; and was one of the executors of John of Gant.

Since the writer has not hinted at what afterwards befel Sir Thomas Percy, it is plain that the history must have been composed some time before the battle of Shrewsbury, and while the whole was fresh in his recollection.

^{page 158 note q} This is the first conference that Richard has with the archbishop after his return from exile; and it might have been upon this occasion, that some proposition was made respecting abdication; see p. 138, note; but the author was, naturally enough, only informed by Salisbury concerning the part that related to the security of the king's person.

^{page 158 note 1} Hist. of Eng. II. p. 634.

^{page 158 note 2} Hist. Angl. p. 358.

^{page 158 note 3} Cotton, p. 352. Parl. Hist. pp. 451,452,469.

^{page 158 note 4} Rymer, Fœdera, VII. p. 691.

^{page 158 note 5} Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 119.

^{page 159 note r} Henry, eldest son of Henry Percy first Earl of Northumberland, by Margaret his first wife, daughter to Ralph Lord Nevill; who, from an age in which valour, in the popular estimation, may be almost said to have been the “chiefest virtue,” has transmitted a character for chivalrous achievement superior to most of the warriors of his time. He was as much the hope of England, in this respect, as the Black Prince before him, or Sir Philip Sidney in later days. Historians rarely mention him without admiration; his name is celebrated in ballads; and before his death he was referred to by pretended seers as the restorer of the fortunes of his country. Educated in the Marches, he acquired all the intrepidity and enterprise of a border chieftain, and the energy he displayed against the Scots occasioned them to give him very early the ironical appellation of Hotspur.

The bard of the battle of Otterbourne tells us,

He had been a march-man all his dayes,

And kepte Barwyke upon Twede:

which will fully appear. He was knighted soon after the coronation of Richard II. and one of the first notices of him that occurs in the public Acts of Scotland is as follows. Liliat Cross in the Marches of Scotland was a place at which the English and Scotch used to decide their personal quarrels by single combat. John Chattowe, a Scotch squire, had challenged William de Badby, an Englishman, to fight there on the feast of Saint Catherine, Nov. 25, 1381. Such formal duels took place before a judge of the combat; and, as the Duke of Lancaster, then king's lieutenant in that district, was absent in attendance upon parliament, Henry Percy, the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, with John eldest son of John de Nevill of Raby, and two knights, were directed to attend in his stead. In 7 Ric. II. Henry was nominated one of the commissioners for receiving a payment of money sent by the king of Scotland; and 8 Ric. II. joint warden of the Marches towards Scotland, with his father, the Bishop of Durham, John Nevill, and Roger de Clifford. 9 Ric. II. he was made governor of Berwick upon Tweed and the Eastern Marches; and appointed with others to superintend the repair of Roxburgh castle. It may be conjectured that he was now a better fighter than disciplinarian. The farmers of the fishery at Berwick made formal complaint to the king, that his soldiers poached in the Tweed; and the townsmen, that they took by force their victuals and their goods; but with these disorderly bands he scoured the borders so vigilantly, that it gave rise to the nom de guerre already mentioned, which Walsingham is careful to explain, for the benefit, no doubt, of foreign rather than English readers, by the phrase, quod calidum calcar sonat. In this year he was sent to the defence of Calais; but finding no employment equal to his ardour, he soon returned into England. 11 Ric. II. he undertook, with a very inadequate force, to act against the French by sea, upon expectation of an invasion, and acquitted himself with honour. And when the Scots about the same time invaded the East Marches, and committed great devastation, he met them near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, slew the Earl of Douglas with his own hand, and wounded the Earl of Murrey; but pressing too far among the enemy, was taken prisoner with his brother Ralph, and carried into Scotland. However he soon obtained his release. In 12 Ric. II. he was again appointed Warden of the East March. 13 Ric. II he was at Calais, made several excursions towards Boulogne, and raised the siege of Brest, demolishing some part of the works, and repairing others. In this year he was also made Warden of the West and East Marches, and Governor of Carlisle, with power of granting safe conduct to persons going to, or coming out of Scotland. A trifling business of a very different nature from any of the preceding, in which he was at this time an agent, is deserving observation, as it shews that the high born ladies of Scotland interested themselves in concerns worthy of the pastoral age. He solicited and obtained permission from the king on behalf of the Scotch Countess of March, and Maria Heryng, that two flocks of one thousand and six hundred sheep, their respective property, with two shepherds attached to each of them, might have safe conduct, and leave to pasture at Colbrandspath and within five miles in circumference, for three years. The king by writ of privy seal, dated at Westminster, July 12, 1389, takes them under his special protection.

He was now retained to serve the king in peace and war, with a pension out of the exchequer, of a hundred pounds per annum, during his life. 14 Ric. II. he was in the commission for keeping the peace with Scotland; and 16 Ric. II. was again at Calais, whence he was recalled to his former post at Berwick and in the East March; besides which he was made governor of Bourdeaux. 17 Ric. II. he was one of the commissioners to treat of peace with the Scots. 19 Ric. II. he was employed in France, and had a renewal of his appointment at Berwick and in the East March; and this was repeated in 22 Ric. II. when he was constituted conservator of the truce with Scotland. By his warden's commission he had full power to punish all offenders against the peace, and all who held correspondence with the enemy; and to call out the able men of Northumberland and the Marches, within the liberties, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, and to see that they were properly armed and arrayed. What proportion of force he brought to the Duke of Lancaster does not appear. Henry could not have selected a better captain to command under him. He continued him in his situation at Berwick; 1 Hen. IV. made him governor of Roxburgh castle, sheriff of Northumberland, with a grant of the castle and lordship of Bamborough, for his life, justice of Chester, North-Wales, and Flintshire, and constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, and Caernarvon. Dugdale, quoting the Patent Rolls, has assigned these latter appointments of justice and constable both to the father and the son; but no notice of them is to be found in the published calendar; there is, however, an entry of a grant of the county and lordship of Anglesey with the castle of Beaumaris for life. 3 Hen. IV. he was with his father at the victorious battle of Halidon-hill. In the spring of this year he laid in, for the consumption of the town and castle of Berwick, 2,900 quarters of beans, peas, and oats, and 800 quarters of corn, and mixtillion (miscellane). These he had license to purchase in the counties of Cambridge, Lincoln, and Norfolk, and to ship for Berwick; and under proper distribution of his store, and attention to the conduct of his garrison, now at least the townsmen should have had no reason to complain.

The next year saw him in opposition to Henry IV. Under colour of advancing into Scotland, he raised and trained a force in the Marches, and drew southward, probably over the very ground he had traced in 1399 with the captive king, through Cheshire to Lichfield, and thence to Shrewsbury. His uncle Sir Thomas Percy joined him, and the fatal issue of their attempt is familiar to every reader. Never for the time was field more severely contested than that of Shrewsbury. They were upon the point of assaulting the town when Henry IV. came in sight, and, after a fruitless attempt at negociation, brought them to action. But all his efforts and military skill in throwing himself between Owen Glyndwr and his associates, and preventing them from effecting a junction, would apparently have little availed, had not a single arrow saved his crown, and deprived “the best knight in England” of the victory. Henry Percy the younger died, as he had lived, in arms; and his last words to his soldiers before the battle were these; “Stand to it valiantly; for this day will either advance us all, if we conquer; or free us from the king's power, if we be overcome; since it is more honourable to fall in battle for the public good, than after the fight to die by the sentence of an enemy.”

Henry IV. took a most unworthy revenge upon his corpse, after permitting it to be honourably interred; and he was deservedly reminded of this in Scroope's manifesto: “Henricum Percy non solum serael occidit, sed quantum in ipso est bis et ter interfecit. Quia postquam semel fuit occisus, et Domino de Furnyvale ad sepeliendum traditus et liberatus, qui ipsum ecclesiastics sepulturae, prout moris erat christianorum, cum honore quo tune potuit tradidit, et cum suffragiis mortuorum, missarum, et aliarum orationum, ipsius animam apud Deum commendavit; idem Dominus Henricus, ut cruenta bestia, ejus sanguinem denuo sitiens, et ejus corpus de tumulo exhumari et extrahi prsecepit, et inter duas molas asinarias in quodam vico de Shrewsbury juxta collistrigium reponi et sedere fecit, ac cum armatis hominibus custodiri, postmodum decollari, et membratim dividi et quarterisari, et caput et ejus quarterias ad regni certas civitates transmitti jussit.”

I have seen no date whereby to fix his age; but it appears to me that the general impression respecting it, which the “Young Harry” of the dramatic poet has helped to fix in our minds, does not carry it far enough. His parents were married in 32 Edw. III. and he was the eldest child of that marriage.

By his wife Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edmund Mortimer Earl of March, he left one son and one daughter. The former was concealed for some time in Scotland; but was afterwards sought out and educated under the compassionate attentions of Henry V. who restored him to his hereditary estates and honours.

^{page 159 note 1} Percy, Reliques of Ancient Engl. Poetry, I. p. 23.

^{page 159 note 2} Rotuli Scotiæ, II. p. 39.

^{page 160 note 1} Rotuli Scotiae, II. p. 39 b.

^{page 160 note 2} Ibid. pp. 56 a. 65 a. 78 a, 79 b.

^{page 160 note 3} Ibid. pp. 76 b. 37 b. The garrison were very irregular in their conduct under Sir John Stanley. 12 Ric. II. p. 06 b.

^{page 160 note 4} Hist. Angl. p. 322. In time of hostility the march-man's spur was seldom allowed to be cold. By the regulations of the barony of Gilsland, at an after period, every tenant by the border service was obliged “to have such a nagge as is able at any tyme to beare a manne twentie miles within Scotland and backe againe, without a baite. Lysons's Cumberland, p. xii. note.

^{page 161 note 1} Rotuli Scotiae, II. p. 99 b.

^{page 161 note 2} Id. p. 146 b.

^{page 161 note 3} Id. p. 161 b.

^{page 162 note 1} Artie Ric. Scrope, Anglia Sacra, pars secunda, p. 366.

^{page 162 note 2} Dugdale, Baronage, 1. pp. 279, 280, in the article Henry Percy.

^{page 163 note s} The castle itself stands upon a rock in a marsh: but the mountains of which he speaks must be the rising grounds to the westward, which after various undulations terminate in the Clwydian mountains. These hills conceal Flint from the view of the spectator at the top even of Moel Famma, one of the loftiest of the Clwydian range. From that point the eye penetrates far beyond over the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey to Liverpool, but can discern neither the town nor castle of Flint.

Some light may be thrown upon their numerical distribution of force in marshalling an army from the commission granted to Hotspur seven months before. He was ordered to array his muster on the borders, men at arms, hoblers and archers, in thousands, hundreds, and twenties.

^{page 163 note 1} Rotuli Seotiæ, II. p. 146 b.

^{page 164 note t} They probably recognised this herald from having seen him in the suite of the duke at Paris. His style was “Lancaster, King at Arms del North;” his name Richard del Brugge; and by writ addressed to the sheriff of Lincoln, bearing date Nov. 2, 1399, he had a pension assigned him for life, out of the revenues of the county of Lincoln. Henry IV. also appointed Antelope, pursuivant. Only two heralds with the title of Lancaster appear in the catalogue given by Dallaway.

Richard del Brugge. Hen. IV.

John Ashwell. Hen. VI.

^{page 164 note v} In the original il jeunoit les marseces; the precise import of which phrase I am unable to determine. But it appears as though his fast had been of a Lenten kind, or of a stricter nature than ordinary; and that this specious indulgence was grounded upon it. Marsece or Marseche signifies Lady-day, and also Lenten-grain; and the word is said to be still used in some parts of France to express barley. Whatever might have been the immediate application of the term, it seems intended to imply some severer course of mortification, to which the humbled monarch might have subjected himself under a sense of his misfortune. He could not correctly be said to be keeping Lenten fast in the month of August.

^{page 164 note 1} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. p. 100.

^{page 164 note 2} Inquiries, Appendix , p. lvi. No. III.

^{page 165 note u} He brought over with him the Archbishop of Canterbury, the young Earl of Arundel, and Lord Cobham; and had been joined at different places on his march by the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Henry Percy, the Earls of Worcester, Rutland, and Westmorland, Lords Bardolph, Beaumont, Berkeley, Carleton, Darcy, Lovell, Ross, Scales, Willoughby, Sir John Stanley, and Sir Edmund Mortimer. These are more than sufficient to make up the train by which he was attended into the court of the castle. Lord Berkeley was certainly one of them.

^{page 165 note w} To visit foreign courts and countries was one of the duties of knighthood, to which Christina of Pisa has assigned a prominent place in her spirited ballad on the qualities and accomplishments of the chivalrous character. The insertion of the whole of this, as it exists only in MS. may gratify the reader, who will be compensated for the length of it by the liveliness of it's expression, and the sentiments, which form a summary of the virtues of the preux chevalier in that age.

Gentil homme, qui veulx proece acq'rre;

Escoutes ci; entens qu'il te faut faire.

Armes suivir t'esteut en mainte terre;

Estre loyal contre ton adversaire;

De bataille ne fuyr, n'en sus traire;

Et doubter dieu; parole avoir tardive;

En fait d'assault trouver voye soubtive.

Ne soit ton cuer de lachete repris.

Des tours d'armes duit dois estre et appris;

Amer ton prince; et a ton chevetaine

Estre loyal; avoir ferme courage;

Croire conseil; promesse avoir certaine.

S' ainsi le fais tu seras preux et sage.

Te gouverner par grāt advis en guerre;

A voyager souvent te doit moult plaire;

Princes et cours estranges tu dots querre,

Tout enquerir leur estat et affaire;

Des bons parler, et a toy les attraire.

Contre raison ta parole n'estrive;

Ne mesdire de personne qui vive;

Porter honneur aux vaillans ou appris;

Hanter les bons; n'avoir povre en despris;

Pour acquerir honneur ne plaindre peine;

Trop convoiteux n'estre, mais du tien large;

Et ta parole soit vraye et non pas vaine.

S' ainsi le fais tu seras preux et sage.

Sans bon conseil de faire armes requerre

Ne dois autrui, et s'il n'est necessaire

Pour ton honneur: ta bouche et tes dens serre,

Qu'il n'en ysse chose qui face a taire:

L'autrui bien fait dois voulentiers retraire,

Taire le tien; ne t'entendre oisive;

Estre attrempé; n'avoir teste hastive;

Ffouyr tout vice, et avoir en mepris;

Tost achever ce que tu as empris;

N'avoir orgueil, ne parole haultaine;

Ta contenance seure et non sauvage

Par bel maintien en tous lieux te deraaine.

S' ainsi le fais, &c.

Prince gentil! ceste voye est certaine

Pour acquerir de hault honneur la targe.

Homme noble suis la ie ta certaine.

S' ainsi le fais, &c.

The expedition into Ireland must have proved a strong excitement to such foreign knights as were at liberty to join it; since the more savage the countries that were the theatre of war, the more interesting they would become to men who cherished the love of adventure. Hence the fashionable rage for travelling into Prussia, that had subsisted for so many years. That country, inhabited partly by idolaters, had long attracted the curiosity and exercised the valour of the gentlemen of England, Scotland, and France. Many of the English nobility had been there; among whom were the Earl of Salisbury and young Thomas Percy. Henry of Lancaster went thither in 1390, with a very numerous retinue, and served a campaign with great applause. If Froissart may be credited, he had also visited the Holy Sepulchre, Cairo, and Saint Catherine's.

^{page 165 note 1} Vita Ric. 11. p. 154. Waking; Hist. Angl. p. 358. Baker, pp. 154. 155. Carte, II. p. 634.

^{page 165 note 2} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p, 350.

^{page 166 note 1} MSS. Harl. 4431. f. 47. a, b. in Cent balades.

^{page 167 note x} Respecting Henry's skill in the French tongue, see Ypod. Neustr. p. 566.

^{page 167 note 1} Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 343.

^{page 167 note 2} XII. c. 6.

^{page 168 note y} Language of the same kind Richard was made to employ in two orders speedily issued for the purpose of keeping the peace and repressing any attempt of his own friends; one dated at Chester August 20^th; and another at Lichfield August 24th . They both speak of the duke in these words; “qui jam idem regnum nostrum pro regimine et gubernatione ejusdem, ac diversis defectibus, in eodem regno existentibus, emendandis, aliisque de causis est ingressus.”

If the date laid down by our historian in page 151 be correct, and those of the writs given in Rymer equally so, it would follow that the former of these instruments would seem to have been framed by anticipation upon Henry's authority, and set forth in the king's name before his arrival; since, according to the text, Richard was not brought into the city of Chester till Tuesday, the twenty-second of August. But there appears strong reason to suspect that the writer may not have been accurate as to the day of the month on which the king was taken from Flint castle, though there may be no doubt that he is right as to the day of the week. I am inclined, with Carte, to place this event on August 19; which I find by calculation to have fallen on Tuesday in that year, and then the dates of the documents in Rymer will follow in their right course. The king would be on Wednesday, August 20, at Chester, where the first writ was issued; and after remaining there three days, and setting out on the fourth from his leaving Flint, inclusive, might be at Lichfield on his way to London, on Sunday, the twenty-fourth of the same month; where the second writ was issued. Indeed the Monk of Evesham asserts that they halted at Lichfield the whole of Sunday, being the festival of Saint Bartholomew the apostle, which by the calendar corresponds to August 24, and accords with the indisputable authority in Rymer.

^{page 168 note z} Some observations, too long for insertion in notes, upon Merlin and the ensuing passages respecting the prophecy will be found in Appendix, NO. IV.

^{page 168 note 1} Rymer, Fœdera, VIII. pp. 84, 85.

^{page 168 note 2} Hist. of Engl. H.p.634.

^{page 168 note 3} Vita Ric. II. p. 156.

^{page 169 note a} The triangular shape of the town of Conway may be well distinguished from the small terrace or rampart at the western entrance, which commands the whole of the walls. Edward I. by whom it was laid down and fortified, had his choice of the form: it has been thought to bear reference to that of a Welsh harp; but this is too visionary a conjecture. No doubt it was adapted to the nature of the site, and the exigencies of the situation. Such was clearly the case from the outline of it; and I must take leave to correct the author's assertion, as to it's being exactly triangular; a little variation to the left, owing to the cast of the bank, being visible from the point already mentioned. The opinion of Daines Barrington seems entitled to some attention, that Edward I. in constructing the castles of this district, borrowed many hints from those which he had visited in the Holy land, where the Christians and Saracens had improved and carried to a high pitch of perfection the arts of attack and defence, which they had borrowed from each other. The castle commanded the port and passage over the river; and protected a frequented entrance into the interior of Wales. The position was admirably selected, and the work capitally executed. The masonry of the whole of the walls is of a very superior kind, as to strength and beauty; and much of it promises, unless disturbed by violence, to resist the efforts of time for centuries to come. Here Richard, with proper precautions and a moderate force, might have felt himself secure: or, as a last resource, might have found means of escaping by sea. Conway must have been neglected, or very ill defended after the king was enticed out of it. Gwilym ap Tudor and Rhys, his brother, received a pardon 2 Henry IV. for having, with many of their people, taken the castle and burnt the town.1This fortress had been or was afterwards used as a prison. John Claydon, a Lollard of London, was confined in it for two years, when Braybrook, who died in 1404, was Bishop of London.

^{page 169 note 1} Cal. Rot. Pat. 3. p 2 Hen.IV. No. 24, p. 244 a.

^{page 169 note 2} Concilia, III. p. 372. Godwin in Braybrook.

^{page 170 note b} Richard and his council had listened with approbation to the visions of Robert the hermit. In the course of the king's dissension with the Duke of Gloucester, some of his favourites told him, that it had been discovered by calculation and necromancy, that he would be ruined unless certain lords were put to death; and this, the commons asserted in the parliament that deposed him, was the cause of the death of that duke. Henry was a believer in art magic. In his reply to the challenge of the Duke of Orleans in 1403, he solemnly accuses him of having used sorcery towards his father Charles VI. and thereby brought on his distemper. On January 2,1406, a writ was addressed to the Bishop of Lincoln for the suppression, in his diocese, of those who had recourse to such practices for stirring up the people; and they are thus variously enumerated; “Sortilegi, Magici, Incantatores, Nigromantici, Divinatores, Arioli et Phitones.”(Pythones?) But the charge of credulity on this head was not exclusively applicable to the people of England. France had her prodigies and spectres, prophets and necromancers. Montfaucon, quoting Juvenal des Ursins, has recorded of the inhabitants of the capital, “II y avoit à Paris grant nombre de gens qui faisoient metier de sorcellerie, et invoquoient les diables.

The oath of champions, according to the form of duel in the marshal's court, set forth by the Duke of Gloucester, during this reign, shew the reliance that was placed in charms. The parties are to swear that they have no other weapons about them, save those assigned by the court, “nee lapidem potentem, nee herbam, nee carmen, nee experimentum, nee characterem, nee ullam aliam incantationem juxta te aut pro te, per quam speres quod facilius vincas C. de B. adversarium tuum.”

^{page 170 note 1} Froissart, XL c. 25.

^{page 170 note 2} MSS. Bodl. 2376, p. 212.

^{page 170 note 3} Rymer, poedera, VIII. p. 310.

^{page 170 note 4} Ibid. p. 427.

^{page 170 note 5} See, for instance, the prodigies that were said to have occurred in France during the year of Richard's marriage with Isabel. Mezeray, I. p. 345. The Spectre of the Forest of Mans, Ibid. p. 540. The Spirit Orthon, Froiss. VII. c. 40. The prediction of Thomas de Pisan, credited by Charles VI. Id. V. c. 39. The story of the necromancer and the Duke of Anjou, Id. VI. c. 8.

^{page 170 note 6} Mem.de la Monar. Franchise, III. p, 131.

^{page 170 note 7} Spelman, Gloss, v. Campus.

^{page 171 note c} One of the readings suggests the following sense; “Were it for no other reason than that you deigned not to speak to my lord the Duke of Lancaster,” &c. The cutting insinuation conveyed in this message can only be thoroughly understood by reference to what had occurred at Paris during the Christmas of 1398. The Earl of Derby in his banishment had repaired to the court of Charles VI. where he was received with the most marked hospitality and attention. During his stay he offered his hand to Marie, youngest daughter of the Duke of Berry, who had lately lost her second husband Philip of Artois, Count of Eu, and Constable of France, who perished in Turkey. This intelligence awakened the jealousy of Richard, who apprehended that it might defeat the advantages that he expected from his union with a daughter of France. He therefore charged the Earl of Salisbury to go to Paris, and set aside the match. This is what John of Gant, in Shakespeare, calls”

“The prevention of poor Bolingbroke

About his marriage.”

Salisbury was as averse to the mission as his master was to their union. However he executed his charge most effectually: but the French were scandalised at the employment of the term “traitor” against their visitor; and Salisbury's behaviour towards him highly offended him. “He knew,” says Froissart, “of the Earl of Salisbury being at Paris; but they never saw each other; and the Earl of Salisbury returned to Calais without speaking to him.” And again, “The Earl of Derby was much displeased that the Earl of Salisbury should leave Paris without seeing him.” He afterwards put these expressions into the mouth of Henry's friends; “The Earl of Salisbury has done very wrong to carry such a message to France, and make so heavy a charge against the most honourable man in the world. The day will come when he shall repent of this, and say; “It weighs heavily on me that I ever carried a message to France against the Earl of Derby.”

Carte offers a reason for the facility with which Richard interrupted the match between Henry and Marie. “This was the easier done, because, according to the feudal law, received both in France and England, the principal nobility of each kingdom could not marry in the other without leave of their sovereign, on pain of forfeiture of their honours and estates. “His statement throws some light upon the origin of Richard's, extraordinary conduct towards Bolingbroke, after the gracious manner in which he had dismissed him into temporary exile; but it is not generally adverted to by historians; and the Rolls, which announce the abrupt and tyrannical revocation of the king's indulgence, are silent upon this exciting cause. It is indeed rather matter of private history than public record, and could not have been inserted to any advantage. But had Henry actually married in opposition to him, Richard could then only have proceeded against him as he did; when he might have had some shew of justification. The duke's sole offence in this case was, that he had not previously asked his sovereign's consent, when he placed his affection on a foreign lady; and, notwithstanding the defence attempted by Hume, it seems no slight exertion of arbitrary authority, that such an omission should have been visited with the confiscation of all his estates. Richard, however, was glad of a pretext to inflict additional chastisement upon one whom he had long regarded with aversion; and, having called him traitor, his next step, right or wrong, was to deal with him as such. These provocations were fresh in Henry's mind; the sight of the king and Salisbury appear to have revived his irritation; and in his demeanour towards the helpless offenders, he leaned not so much, perhaps, to the public feeling as to his own resentment. It is less difficult to give the reasons than the vindication of his behaviour on this occasion.

^{page 171 note 1} He received from the French treasury every week-five-hundred golden crowns for his expenses, which his people were most punctually paid. Froiss. XII. c. 12.

^{page 171 note 2} Ibid. c. 14. Her first husband was Louis de Blois, who died in his youth. Marie was not more than twenty-three years old.

^{page 171 note 3} Ric. II. Act ii. Sc. I.

^{page 171 note 4} Froiss. XII. c. 15.

^{page 171 note 5} Hist. of Engl. II. p. 630.

^{page 172 note 1} Rymer, Foedera, III. p. 926.

^{page 172 note 2} Anglia Sacra, pars II p. 370. The celebrated Judge Gaseoigne firmly refused to obey the orders of Henry in passing; judgment upon Scroope. “Neither you, my lord king, nor any of your lieges in your came, can legally, according to the laws of the kingdom, sentence any archbishop to death.” Fulthorpe, however, was more complying.

^{page 173 note e} Barnes gives the value of a frank at two shillings in 1352; and Anderson says, that a gold frank was at this time worth three shillings and fourpence sterling. But he must here be speaking of silver money; otherwise might not the price have warranted a less contemptible article? Much of the gold and silver coin of France and Flanders was current in England.

^{page 173 note f} A proverbial expression, familiar to the old French writers. Thus in Le Roman de Garcin, quoted by Du Cange:

Li Loherans a nostre Dame vint,

Et la Roine moult grant joie li fist;

Li seint sonnerent tost contreval Paris

Nes Dex tonant r'i poit on oir.

Another instance occurs in Le Roman de la Prise de Jerusalem:

Moult part font grant noise en l'ost li oliphant,

Li cors, et li bocines, et li tymbres sonant,

Que on ne o'ist pas ne'is Dant Diex tonant.

^{page 173 note g} Humphrey Plantagenet, son of the late Duke of Gloucester by Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford. Upon the murder of his father in 1397, Richard took him in ward, made him reside with him, and appropriated his estates to his own use. When the king went into Ireland, he obliged his cousin to attend him, and, at his departure for England, left him with young Henry of Lancaster shut up in Trim castle. Duke Henry lost no time in sending for them; and his commands must have met with little opposition in Ireland, since Humphrey was able so soon to join the army. Froissart affirms, that he made his escape to Henry with the young Earl of Arundel. In this he must have been misinformed. His death happened in this year; but the accounts of it differ; some reporting that he was drowned on his passage, others that he died of a fever at Beaumaris, in Anglesey, on his return. Neither of these representations can be correct. His illness must have occurred either on the march or after he reached London. The event occasioned the death of his mother on the third of October ensuing. A violent fever prevailed this year in some parts of England. Henry IV. was urged by parliament, that, in consideration of the great plague in the north, it would please him to lie in the midst of the realm. The disease continued it's ravages during the ensuing summer.

^{page 173 note 1} Hist. of Edw. III. p. 517.

^{page 173 note 2} Hist. of Commerce, I. p. 372.

^{page 173 note 3} Stat. 2 Hen. IV. c. 6.

^{page 173 note 4} Gloss, v. Campanarum pulsatio.

^{page 173 note 5} Roquefort, p. 129.

^{page 173 note 6} Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 187.

^{page 174 note h} Thomas Fitz Alan, son of Richard Earl of Arundel, beheaded in 1397. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of William de Bohun Earl of Northampton. He had been consigned to the care of the Duke of Exeter during his minority, and was kept at his castle of Ryegate, in Surrey, under the custody of Sir John Shelly; but he contrived to elude him by the assistance of one John Scot, and went over to Duke Henry in France.

In 1 Hen. IV. the judgment of his father was reversed, and he was restored in blood. He was made Knight of the Bath at the coronation; and 6 Hen. IV married Beatrix, illegitimate daughter of the King of Portugal. 12 Hen. IV. he went with a force to the aid of the Duke of Burgundy against the Duke of Orleans; and 1 Hen. V. was appointed Constable of Dover Castle, Warden of the Cinq-ports, and Lord Treasurer of England. He died October 13, 1415, without issue.

When Henry gave the king in charge to these young men, he said to them; “Here is the murderer of your father; you must be answerable for him.”

^{page 174 note 1} Froissart, XII. c. 3.

^{page 174 note 2} Id. XI. c. 23, Waking. Hist. Angl. p. 357f Otterbourne, p. 206.

^{page 174 note 3} Dugdale, Baronage, II. p. 172.

^{page 174 note 4} Cotton's Abridgement, p. 394. Walsing. Hist. Angl. p. 364.

^{page 174 note 5} Leland, Collectanea, II. p. 483. MS. Chronic. Petri de Ickham. MSS. Had. 4323. p. 67. Holinshed.

^{page 174 note 6} Dugdale, Baronage, I. pp. 320, 321.

^{page 174 note 7} Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 225.

^{page 175 note i} The king professed, see page 139,that he would assign this as a reason for separating from Henry and taking a different road through Wales. Great mischief had certainly been done in the country. Among the petitions in the first parliament of Henry IV. is one from the commons requesting that every man may pursue his remedy for all havock and spoils made since the king's coming; and another from the commons of Salop, that enquiries may be made touching great losses by them sustained by the king's late army there.

^{page 175 note k} How must the recollection of what had passed a few months back in this city have affected the wretched king! Lichfield seems to have been a favourite spot with him. Here, on his way to Shrewsbury, he had kept the Christmas of 1398, accompanied by foreign noblemen and the pope's nuncio, with magnificent tournaments and feasting. The monk of Evesham states the daily consumption to have been twenty-six or twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep. He had also been here during the spring and autumn of the same year, at the installation of Bishop Burghill, his confessor; and previously at that of Bishop Scroope in 1386. From these frequent visits he may be supposed to have been well acquainted with the place, which sufficiently accounts for his attempt to escape.

The anecdote related by Hall of another effort of this kind at Flint, to which allusion has been made in page 147, note, gravely and circumstantially as it is delivered, is little better than a fable. He says, that Richard, “by councell of Ihon Pallet and Rieharde Seimer his assured servauntes, departed out of the castell (of Flint), and toke the sandes by the ryver of Dee, trusting to escape to Chester, and there to have refuge and succour; but, or he had far passed he was forelayed and taken and brought to the duke, who sent him secretly to the tower of London.” This is probably made up out of what occurred at Lichfield, where the parties above-named might have endeavoured to aid him in regaining his liberty.

^{page 175 note 1} Cotton's Abridgement, pp. 394, 396.

^{page 175 note 2} Vita Ric. II. p, 148.

^{page 175 note 3} MSS. Cotton. Julius B. VI. 27.

^{page 175 note 4} Anglia Sacra, p. I. pp, 450,451. Godwin, p. 343.

^{page 176 note l} “Guarded as a thief or a murderer. Of his wailings and complaints no one knew any thing, except those who guarded him.” MS. Ambassades. According to Otterbourne he was watched every night by a thousand men: but that writer gives too favourable an account of the duke's treatment of him. The king requested that he might not be intruded upon nor insulted by the common people at meals on his journey; and his friends were permitted to sup and pass the night with him.

^{page 176 note m} The Londoners had not forgotten the quarrel they had with him in 1392, when, upon their refusal to lend him money, he threatened to deprive them of their rights and privileges, and fleeced them often thousand pounds. Froissart enlarges upon their disaffection. They had laid a plot, in conjunction with the Duke of Gloucester, to seize his person, and that of the queen, and set up another king. These political animosities were not likely to be expressed in any way short of extremity by a set of persons who are represented at this period to have been disorderly in their morals and manners. The spirit of insubordination, which had manifested itself in the great insurrection, had infected the lower classes; and the merchants in their hatred of foreign competition had been known to proceed to such outrage as to hire ruffians in 1377 to assassinate a Genoese trader before the door of his house, whose speculation would have interfered with their monopoly of spices. The clergy complained of their neglect or violation of religious usages and ordinances. Walsingham gives them a very bad character; he says that the account of their iniquities would be sufficient to fill a volume.

^{page 176 note 1} Union of the families of Lancaster and York. Introduction, f. 6. b.

^{page 176 note 2} P 142. Mr. Allen's Extracts, Accounts and Extracts, II. p. 225.

^{page 176 note 3} Otterbourne, p. 208.

^{page 176 note 4} Hist. Angl. p.347, et seq.

^{page 177 note n} The route of the army is thus laid down by the Evesham historian; and the line he has given seems right; but it might easily be shewn that he is mistaken in allotting a day to every stage:—After the capture, to Chester, Leycester, Nantwich, Newcastle, Stafford, Lichfield, Coventry, Daventry, Northampton, Dunstable, Saint Alban's, London.—The king never changed his clothes during the whole of the way.

^{page 177 note 1} Froiss. XII. c. 14.

^{page 177 note 2} Hist. Angl. pp. 227, 228.

^{page 177 note 3} Concilia, III. pp. 195, 218, 230.

^{page 177 note 4} Hist. Angl. p. 348, in 1392.

^{page 177 note 5} This is not an error, Chester and Leycester being formerly synonymous, Thus in Scroope's manifesto; “Eundem usque ad Leicestriam secum tanquam proditorem duxit. Anglia Sacra, p. II. p. 364. Chester was of old called Legaoeaster. Pennant, Tour in Wales, pp. 119, 121. Camden.

^{page 177 note 6} Hither the old Earl of Warwick, who had been banished to the Isle of Man, and was afterwards imprisoned in the Tower, came to upbraid him with his severity. Complete Hist. of Engl. I. p. 285. Dugdale, Baronage, I. p. 237.

^{page 177 note 7} Vita Ric. II. p. 156.

^{page 178 note o} There is either an unintentional dislocation in the introduction of this passage respecting the Welsh mountains, or an error in his geographical recollections of the country between Lichfield and Coventry.

^{page 178 note P} Sir Drew Baretyn or Barentin, Goldsmith, who lent Henry, soon after, fifteen hundred pounds. The civil authorities and companies went out in the same sort of array to meet the Black Prince when he brought over his prisoner, the King of France, from Poitiers.

^{page 178 note q} “The Earl of Derby was a hundred times more beloved than King Richard.” The mayor and principal citizens had attended him to Dartford, on his departure into banishment.

^{page 178 note 1} Arnold's Chronicle, p. xxx. Stem's Survey, fol. 31 b.

^{page 178 note 2} Cal. Rot. Pat. 2. p. 2 Hen. IV. p. 257 a.

^{page 178 note 3} Froiss. II. c. 170.

^{page 178 note 4} Id.XII. c. 13. Ibid. c. 7.

^{page 179 note r} “The duke then sent for the king, who arrived with his face bathed in tears, and delivered him in charge to the mayor and commons of the city, who carried him to Westminster.”

“Next day the king was carried through the city from Westminster on a sorry horse, with an open space around him, that all might see him, and lodged in the Tower. Some had pity of him, but others expressed great joy, abusing him, and saying, “Now are we avenged of this little bastard, who has governed us so ill.” Froissart explains the origin of this charge of illegitimacy.

Several citizens had contrived to kill him as he passed through the city; but the mayor and aldermen, having timely notice of their design, prevented it by their vigilance.

^{page 179 note 1} MS. Ambassades, pp. 143,144, MS. No. 635, p. 23. Mr. Allen's Extracts.