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Title: York and Lancaster
       1399-1485

Author: William Garmon Jones

Editor: S. E. Winbolt
        Kenneth Bell

Release Date: December 15, 2017 [EBook #56180]

Language: English

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YORK AND LANCASTER

1399-1485

COMPILED BY

W. GARMON JONES, M.A.

ASSISTANT LECTURER IN HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 1914

v

This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with any ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively shown that such apparatus is a valuable—nay, an indispensable—adjunct to the history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by way of lively illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of inference-drawing, before the textbook is read, at the beginning of the lesson. The kind of problems and exercises that may be based on the documents are legion, and are admirably illustrated in a History of England for Schools, Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377-381. However, we have no wish to prescribe for the teacher the manner in which he shall exercise his craft, but simply to provide him and his pupils with materials hitherto not readily accessible for school purposes. The very moderate price of the books in this series should bring them within the reach of every secondary school. Source books enable the pupil to take a more active part than hitherto in the history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw material: its use we leave to teacher and taught.

Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can read into or extract from it.

In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the natural demand for certain "stock" documents of vital importance, we hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention that the majority of the extracts should be vilively in style—that is, personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan—and should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates, and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.

The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties in reading.

We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us suggestions for improvements.

S. E. WINBOLT.
KENNETH BELL.

NOTE TO THIS VOLUME

I have to thank Sir E. Maunde Thompson and the Council of the Royal Society of Literature for so readily permitting me to quote from Sir E. Maunde Thompson's edition of Adam of Usk's Chronicle. With three exceptions, the sources quoted in this volume are contemporary, and, where I have employed non-contemporary material, I have endeavoured to justify its use in a prefatory note to the extract.

W. G. J.

Postscript.—Mr. C. L. Kingsford, in his valuable critical account, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century, recently published, argues strongly against the accepted authorship of the Vita et gesta Henrici Quinti (quoted on pp. 15-19). Hearne erroneously attributes it to Thomas Elmham. Mr. Kingsford shows that the date of its composition lies between 1446 and 1449, and that its anonymous author was, in all probability, a foreigner.

vii

1399-1485

Source.—The Chronicle of Adam of Usk, edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, pp. 187, 188. (Royal Society of Literature, 1904.)

On the eve of his coronation, in the Tower of London and in the presence of Richard late King, King Henry made forty-six new knights, amongst whom were his three sons, and also the earls of Arundel and Stafford, and the son and heir of the earl of Warwick; and with them and other nobles of the land he passed in great state to Westminster. And when the day of Coronation was come (13th October), all the peers of the realm, robed finely in red and scarlet and ermine, came with great joy to the ceremony, my lord of Canterbury ordering all the service and duties thereof. In the presence were borne four swords, whereof one was sheathed as a token of the augmentation of military honour, two were wrapped in red and bound round with golden bands to represent twofold mercy, and the fourth was naked and without a point, the emblem of the executioner of justice without rancour. The first sword the earl of Northumberland carried, the two covered ones the earls of Somerset and Warwick, and the sword of justice the King's eldest son, the prince of Wales; and the lord Latimer bore the sceptre, and the earl of Westmoreland the rod. And this they did as well in the coronation as at the banquet, always standing around the King. Before the King received the crown from my lord of Canterbury, I heard him swear to take heed to rule his people altogether in mercy and in truth. These were the 2officers in the Coronation feast: The earl of Arundel was butler, the earl of Oxford held the ewer, and the lord Grey of Ruthin spread the cloths.

While the King was in the midst of the banquet, sir Thomas Dymock, knight, mounted in full armour on his destrier,[1] and having his sword sheathed in black with a golden hilt, entered the hall, two others, likewise mounted on chargers, bearing before him a naked sword and a lance. And he caused proclamation to be made by a herald at the four sides of the hall that, if any man should say that his liege lord here present and King of England was not of right crowned King of England, he was ready to prove the contrary with his body, then and there, or when and wheresoever it might please the King. And the King said: "If need be, sir Thomas, I will in mine own person ease thee of this office."

Source.—Capgrave's Chronicle of England, pp. 275, 276 (Rolls Series).

In the second year of this King the earls of Kent, Salisbury and Huntingdon, unkind to the King, rose against him. Unkind were they, for the people would have them dead and the King spared them. These men, thus gathered, purposed to fall on the King suddenly at Windsor, under the colour of mummeries in Christmas time. The King was warned of this and fled to London. These men knew not that, but came to Windsor with four hundred armed men, purposing to kill the King and his progeny, and restore Richard again unto the crown. When they came to Windsor, and thus were deceived, they fled to a town where the queen lay, fast by Reading, and there, before the queen's household, he blessed him this earl of Kent. "O benedicite," he said, "who may this be that Harry of Lancaster hath taken the Tower at London, and our very King Richard hath broken prison, and hath gathered a hundred thousand fighting men." So gladded he the queen with lies, and rode forth to Wallingford, and from Wallingford to Abing3don, warning all men by the way that they should make them ready to help King Richard. Thus came he to Cirencester, late at even. The men of the town had suspicion that their tidings were lies, (as it was indeed,) rose and kept the entries of the inns, that none of them might pass. There fought they in the town from midnight unto nine of the clock in the morrow. But the town drove them out of the Abbey and smote off many of their heads. The earl of Salisbury was dead there; and worthy, for he was a great favourite of the Lollards, and a despiser of the sacraments, for he would not confess when he should die.

The earl of Huntingdon heard of this and fled unto Essex. And as often as he assayed to take the sea, so often was he born off with the wind. Then was he taken by the Commons and led to Chelmsford and then to Pleshy, and his head smote off in the same place where he arrested the Duke of Gloucester.

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 2 Henry IV., c. xv.

Item, Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King on behalf of the Prelates and Clergy of his realm of England in this present Parliament, That although the Catholic Faith builded upon Christ and by his Apostles and the Holy Church sufficiently determined, declared and approved, hath hitherto by good and holy and most Noble Progenitors of our Sovereign Lord the King... [been] most devoutly observed, and the Church of England most laudably endowed and in her Rights and Liberties sustained.... Yet divers false and perverse People of a certain New Sect of the Faith ... do perversely preach and teach these days, openly and privily, divers new Doctrines, and wicked, heretical and erroneous Opinions contrary to the same faith.... They make unlawful Conventicles and Confederacies, they hold and exercise Schools, they make and write Books, they do wickedly instruct and inform People, and, as much as they may, incite and stir them to 4Sedition and Insurrection, and maketh great Strife and Division among the people, and other Enormities horrible to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit, in subversion of the said Catholic Faith and Doctrine of the Holy Church.

Then follow clauses forbidding the Lollards to preach without license, or to hold Schools for teaching the new doctrines, and a clause punishing by fine and imprisonment all offenders who abjure their heresy; finally:—

If any Person within the said Realm and Dominions, upon the said wicked Preachings, Doctrines, Opinions, Schools and heretical and erroneous Information ... be before the Diocesan, and do refuse duly to abjure, or by the Diocesan of the same place or his commission, after the abjuration made by the same person, fall into relapse so that according to the Holy Canons he ought to be left to the secular Court, whereupon credence shall be given to the Diocesan of the same place, or to his Commissionaries in this behalf; then the Sheriff of the County of the same place, and Mayor and Sheriffs or Sheriff, or Mayor and Bailiffs of the City, Town and Borough of the same County shall be personally present in preferring of such sentences; and they, the same persons and every one of them, after such a sentence promulgate, shall receive them, and before the People in an high place do them to be burnt; that such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions ... against the Catholic Faith, Christian Law and Determination of Holy Church, which God forbid, be sustained or in any wise suffered.

Source.—Chronicle of Adam of Usk, edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, pp. 237, 238, 246, 247.

In this autumn (1401), Owen Glendower, all North Wales and Cardigan and Powis siding with him, sorely harried with fire and sword the English who dwelt in those parts, and their towns, and specially the town of Pool. Wherefore the 5English, invading those parts with a strong power, and utterly laying them waste and ravaging them with fire, famine, and sword, left them a desert, not even sparing children or churches, nor the monastery of Strata-Florida, wherein the King himself was being lodged, and the church of which and its choir, even up to the high altar, they used as a stable, and pillaged even the patens; and they carried away into England more than a thousand children of both sexes to be their servants. Yet did the same Owen do no small hurt to the English, slaying many of them, and carrying off the arms, horses and tents of the King's eldest son, the prince of Wales, and of other lords, which he bare away for his own behoof to the mountain fastnesses of Snowden.

In these days, southern Wales, and in particular all the diocese of Llandaff, was at peace from every kind of trouble of invasion or inroad.... The commons of Cardigan, being pardoned their lives, deserted Owen, and returned, though in sore wretchedness, to their homes, being allowed to use the Welsh tongue, although its destruction had been determined on by the English, Almighty God, the King of Kings, the unerring Judge of all, having mercifully ordained the recall of this decree at the prayer and cry of the oppressed....

... On the day of St. Alban (22nd June, 1402) near to Knighton in Wales, was a hard battle fought between the English under sir Edmund Mortimer and the Welsh under Owen Glendower, with woeful slaughter even to eight thousand souls, the victory being with Owen. And alas! my lord, the said sir Edmund ... was by the fortune of war carried away captive. And, being by his enemies in England stripped of all his goods and hindered from paying ransom, in order to escape more easily the pains of captivity, he is known by common report to have wedded the daughter of the same Owen; by whom he had a son Lionel, and three daughters, all of whom, except one daughter, along with their mother are now dead. At last, being by the English host beleagured in the castle of Harlech, he brought his days of sorrow to an end, his wonderful deeds being to this day told at the feast in song.

6 In this year also the lord Grey of Ruthin,[2] being taken captive by Owen, with the slaughter of two thousand of his men, was shut up in prison; but he was set free on payment of ransom of sixteen thousand pounds in gold. Concerning such an ill-starred blow given by Owen to the English rule, when I think thereon, my heart trembles. For, backed by a following of thirty thousand men issuing from their lairs throughout Wales and its marches, he overthrew castles, among which were Usk, Caerleon, and Newport, and fired the towns. In short, like a second Assyrian, the rod of God's anger, he did deeds of unheard-of cruelty with fire and sword.

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. i., pp. 17-19. (London: 1827.)

Source.—Chronicle of Adam of Usk, edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, pp. 252, 253.

In the next year, on behalf of the crown of England claimed for the earl of March, a deadly quarrel arose between the King and the house of Percy of Northumberland, as kin to the same earl, to the great agitation of the realm...; and a field being pitched for the morrow of Saint Mary Magdalene (23rd July), the King, by the advice of the earl of Dunbar of Scotland, because the father of the lord Henry Percy and Owen Glendower were then about to come against the King with a great host, anticipating the appointed day, brought on a most fearful battle against the said lord Henry and the lord Thomas Percy, then earl of Worcester. And after that there had fallen on either side in most bloody slaughter to the number of sixteen thousand men, in the field of Berwick (where the King afterwards founded a hospice for the souls of those who there fell) two miles from Shrewsbury, on the eve of the said feast, victory declared for the king who had thus made the onslaught. In this battle the said lord Percy, the flower and glory of Christendom, fell, alas! and with him his uncle.... There fell also two noble knights in the King's armour, each made conspicuous as though a second King, having been placed for the King's safety in the rear line of battle. Whereat the earl of Douglas of Scotland, then being in the field with the said lord Henry, as his captive, when he heard victory shouted for King Henry, cried in wonder: "Have I not slain two King Henries (meaning the said knights) with mine own hand? 'Tis an evil hour for us that a third yet lives to be our victor."

8

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. i., pp. 33, 34. (London: 1827.)

William Venables and Roger Brescy to the King.

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 7 Henry IV., c. xv.

Item our Lord the King, at the grievous complaints of his Commons [in this present Parliament] of the undue election of the Knights of Counties for the Parliament, which be some9times made of affection of the Sheriff, and otherwise against the form of the writs directed to the Sheriff, to the great slander of the Counties and the hindrance of the business of the Commonalty of the said County; Our Sovereign Lord the King, willing therein to provide a remedy, by the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, hath ordained and established, that from henceforth the elections of such knights shall be made in the form that followeth: That is to say at the next County to be holden after the delivery of the writ of the Parliament, proclamation shall be made in the full County of the day and place of the Parliament, and that all they that be there present, as well suitors duly summoned for the same cause as other, shall attend to the election of their knights for the Parliament; and then, in the full County, they shall proceed to the election freely and indifferently, notwithstanding any request or command to the contrary; and after that they be chosen, the names of the persons so chosen, be they present or absent, shall be written in an Indenture under the Seal of all them that did choose them, and tacked to the same Writ of Parliament; which indenture, so sealed and tacked, shall be holden for the Sheriff's return of the said writ touching the knights of the Shires. And in the writs of Parliament to be made hereafter this Clause shall be put: Et electionem tuam in pleno Comitatu tuo factam distincte et aperte sub sigillo tuo et sigillis eorum qui electioni illi interfuerint nobis in cancellaria nostra ad diem et locum in brevi contentos certifices indilate.[4]

Source.—Rotuli Parliamentorum (Record Commission), vol. iii., p. 611, § 21.

Be it remembered that on Monday the 21st day of November, the King our sovereign lord being in the Council Chamber in the Abbey of Gloucester, there being in his presence the 10lords spiritual and temporal at this present Parliament assembled, there was a discussion among them concerning the state of the realm and the defence of the same to resist the malice of the enemies, who on every coast appeared to be harassing the said realm and the faithful subjects of the same.... And thereon it was demanded of the said lords, what aid would be sufficient and necessary in this case. To which demand and question the lords replied severally, that considering the necessity of the King on the one part, and the poverty of his people on the other part, a less aid could not suffice than to have a tenth and a half from the cities and boroughs, and a fifteenth and a half from other laymen. Further, to grant an extension of the subsidy on wool, leather and woolfels, and three shillings on the ton, and twelve pence in the pound, from Michaelmas next until Michaelmas in two years next ensuing. Thereon, by command of the King our said lord, it was conveyed to the Commons of this present Parliament that they should send to our said lord the King and the said lords a certain number of persons of their company to hear and to report to their colleagues what they should have as a command of our said lord the King. And thereupon the said Commons sent to the presence of the King our said lord, and the said lords, twelve of their number: to whom, by command of our said lord the King, was declared the question above-mentioned and the reply of the aforesaid lords to it. This reply it was the will of our said lord the King that they should convey to the rest of their colleagues [in the Commons]; finally that they (of the Commons) should conform as near as possible to the purpose of the aforesaid lords. This report thus conveyed to the said Commons, they were greatly perturbed by it, saying and affirming this to be in great prejudice and derogation of their liberties; and when our said lord the King heard this, not wishing that anything should be done at present nor in the future, which could turn in any wise against the liberty of the estate for which they were come to Parliament, nor against the liberties of the lords aforesaid, willed and granted and declared, with the advice of the said lords, in the following 11manner: That is to say, that it is lawful for the lords to debate among themselves in this present Parliament, and in every other [Parliament] in time to come, in the absence of the King, touching the state of the realm and the remedy necessary for it. And that, in like manner, it is lawful for the Commons, on their part, to debate together touching the state and remedy aforesaid. Provided always that the lords on their part and the Commons on theirs, make no report to our said lord the King of any grant granted by the Commons and assented to by the lords, nor of the communications concerning the said grant, before the said lords and Commons shall be of one assent and of one accord in this matter, and then in the manner and form that is customary, that is to say by the mouth of the Speaker of the said Commons for the time being, so that the said lords and Commons should have the agreement of our said lord the King. Also our said lord the King wills, also with the assent of the aforesaid lords, that the communications held in this present Parliament as aforesaid shall not be treated as an example for the future, nor be turned to the prejudice or derogation of the liberty of the estate for which the Commons are now come together, neither in the present Parliament nor in any other in the future. But he [the King] wills that the said, and all the other estates, be as free as they had been before.

Source.—Gregory's Chronicle in the Collections of a London Citizen (Camden Society), pp. 105, 106.

And that year there was an heretic, that was called John of Badby, that believed not in the Sacrament of the Altar, and he was brought into Smithfield for to be burnt, and bound unto a stake; and Sir Harry Prince of Wales counselled him to hold the very right belief of Holy Church, and he should fail neither lack no good. Also the Chancellor of Oxford, one Master Courteney, informed him in the faith of Holy Church, and the Prior of Saint Bartholomew brought the Holy Sacra12ment with twelve torches and brought it before him. And it was asked him how that he believed. And he answered and said that he wist well that it was holy bread, and not God's own blessed body. And then was the tonne put over him and fire put unto him; and when he felt the fire he cried mercy. And anon the prince commanded to take away the fire, and it was done so anon. And then the prince asked him if that he would forsake his heresy and believe on the faith of all Holy Church, and he would give him his life and goods enough while he lived; but he would not, but continued forth in his heresy. And then the prince commanded him up to be burnt at once, and so he was. And John Gylott, vynter, he made two weavers to be taken, the which followed the same way of heresy.

Source.—Fabyan's Chronicle, edited by Ellis, p. 576. (London: 1811.)

In this year and 20th day of November, was a great council holden at the White Friars in London, by the which it was among other things concluded, that, for the King's great journey that he intended to make in visiting of the holy sepulchre of our Lord, certain galleys of war should be made, and other purveyance concerning the same journey. Whereupon all hasty and possible speed was made; but after the feast of Christmas, while he was making his prayers at Saint Edward's shrine, to take there his leave, and so speed him upon his journey, he became so sick that such as were about him feared that he would have died right there, wherefore they for his comfort bore him into the Abbot's place and lodged him in a chamber, and there upon a pallet laid him before the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain of time. At length when he was come to himself, not knowing where he was, he enquired, of such as there were about him, what place that was; the which showed to him that it belonged to the Abbot of Westminster, and for he felt himself so sick, he commanded to 13ask if that chamber had any special name, whereunto it was answered that it was named Jerusalem. Then said the King: "Loving be to the Father of Heaven, for now I know that I shall die in this chamber, according to the prophecy of me before said, that I should die at Jerusalem"; and so after he made himself ready and died shortly after.

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 1 Henry V., c. 1.

... That the Knights and Esquires and others which shall be choosers of those knights of the shires be also resident within the same shires in manner and form as is aforesaid. And moreover it is ordained and established, That the citizens and burgesses of the cities and boroughs be chosen men, citizens and burgesses resident, dwelling and free in the same cities and boroughs, and no other in any wise.

Source.—"Chronicle of King Henry V.," printed in Nicolas's Battle of Agincourt, pp. viii-ix. (London: 1827.)

And his lords gave him [Henry V.] counsel, to send ambassadors unto the King of France and his council, and that he should give up to him his right heritage, that is to say Normandy, Gascony, and Guienne, the which his predecessors had held before him, or else he would it win with dint of sword, in short time, with the help of Almighty God. And then the Dauphin of France answered our ambassadors, and said in this manner, that the King was over young and too tender of age to make war against him, and was not like yet to be no good warrior to do and to make such a conquest there upon him; and somewhat in scorn and despite he sent to him a tonne full of tennis balls because he would have somewhat for to play withal for him and for his lords, and that became him better than to maintain any war; and then anon our lords that was ambassadors took their leave and came to England again, and 14told the King and his Council of the ungoodly answer that they had of the Dauphin, and of the present the which he had sent unto the King; and when the King had heard their words and the answer of the Dauphin, he was wondrous sore aggrieved ... and thought to avenge him upon them as soon as God would send him grace and might, and anon made tennis balls for the Dauphin, in all haste; and they were great gun-stones for the Dauphin to play withal.

Source.—Rotuli Parliamentorum (Record Commission), vol. iv., p. 22.

Item be it remembered, that the Commons presented to our sovereign lord the King in this present Parliament a petition, the tenor of which follows word for word.

Our sovereign Lord, your humble and true lieges that have come for the Commune of your land beseech your right righteousness, That so it hath ever been their liberty and freedom that there should no statute nor law be made unless they give thereto their assent: Considering that the Commune of your land, the which that is, and ever hath been, a member of your Parliament, be as well assenters as petitioners, that from this time forward, by complaint of the Commune of any mischief asking remedy by the mouth of their Speaker or else by petition written, that there never be no law made thereupon and engrossed as statute and law, neither by addition, neither by diminutions, by no manner of term or terms the which that should change the sentence and the intent asked by the Speaker's mouth, or the petitions beforesaid given up in writing by the manner aforesaid, without assent of the aforesaid Commune. Considering our sovereign Lord, that it is not in no wise the intent of your Communes, that it be so that they ask you, by speaking or by writing, two things or three or as many as them lust: But that ever it stand in the freedom of your high regality to grant which of those that you lust, and to refuse the remnant.

The King of his grace especially granteth that from hence15forth no thing be enacted to the petitions of his Commune that be contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their assent. Saving always to our liege Lord his real prerogative to grant and deny what him lust of their petitions and askings aforesaid.

Source.—Nicolas's Battle of Agincourt, p. lxxvii. (London: 1827.)

And then fell there a great disease and a foul mischief, for there were three lords which the King trusted much on and through false covetousness they had purposed and imagined the King's death and thought to have slain him and all his brethren or that he had taken the sea, which were named thus—Sir Richard, earl of Cambridge brother to the duke of York, the second was the lord Scrope Treasurer of England, the third was Sir Thomas Gray knight of the north country, and these lords aforesaid, for lucre of money, had made promise to the Frenchmen for to have slain King Henry and all his worthy brethren by a false train suddenly or they had beware. But Almighty God of his great grace held his holy hand over them and saved them from this perilous mien. And for to have done this they received of the Frenchmen a million of gold and that there was proved openly. And for their false treason they were all judged unto the death. And this was the judgement, that they should be led through Hampton and without Northgate there to be beheaded, and thus they ended their life for their false covetousness and treason.

Source.—Elmham's Vita et gesta Henrici Quinti, pp. 59 et seq. (Oxford: 1727.)

A.—The Disposition and Order of the English Army.

The night being spent but Titan not yet risen above the horizon, scarce had Friday dawned (on which the day the martyrdom of the blessed Crispin and Crispinian is celebrated) 16than the King neglected not to lead out his troops into the field, having first said matins and heard mass, and thinking that his enemies would be more engaged in fighting than in plundering, he ordered the horses of his men and whatever other things his army had brought with them except their arms, to be left in the village in which they had been quartered in the night, and assigned to the care of a few soldiers.... But in order that his army, which was very small in comparison to the French, might be able to fight without a wide separation, he arrayed it for battle in this wise: to the middle battalion, which he himself led, and in which under the mercy of God he proposed to fight, he assigned and chose a likely place about the middle of the field, so that it might meet the middle battalion of the enemy. On his right, at scarcely any distance, he placed the vanguard of his army and joined it to the wing at his right hand. But on the King's left was the rearward of the army, to which the left wing was likewise joined. These being so placed the providence of the divine grace was manifestly displayed, which provided for so small an army so apt a field enclosed within hedges and bushes ... to protect them from being surrounded by the ambuscades of the enemy. Now the King was clad in strong and very glittering armour; on his head he bore a helmet with a large resplendent crest and a crown of gold glistening with precious stones; his body begirt with a surcoat with the arms of England and France, from which heavenly splendour there sprang forth, on the one side, three golden flowers in a field of azure, on the other side three golden leopards sporting in a ruby field.... [He], seated on a noble horse of snowy whiteness, having also horses following bedecked in kingly fashion with the richest trappings, wondrously incited his army to deeds of valour. The nobles also, by the King's side, were arrayed with coats of arms as became those about to engage in conflict. And when the King heard someone wishing that whatever nobles of the realm of England, who were well-disposed thereto, were present at this affair, with kingly steadfastness he thus replied, "Truly I would not that by one single person the number of 17this army should be increased. For if in the number of fighting men, we were equal to, or perhaps, stronger than, our enemies, and they were delivered into our hands by the hazards of war, our indiscreet judgement would attribute the victory to the greatness of our strength, and so due praise would by no means be accorded. But if, after God's own manifold chastisement for our sins, the divine judgement should determine to deliver us into the hands of the enemy,... certainly then our army would be too great to be exposed (which God forbid!) to so great a calamity. But if the divine mercy should deign to deliver so many adversaries to so trifling a force of fighting men, we should deem so great a victory certainly bestowed by God upon us and return thanks to Him and not to our own numbers. Lo! he who is splendidly and safely defended and armed in body is fortified in mind much more gloriously by stern hope and unbroken fortitude."

B.—The Disposition and Order of the French Army.

The enemy, despising the idleness and inaction of the King's army, endeavoured to prepare their numerous formations in proper order for battle.... They drew up their army after their own fashion, as the King had drawn up his; nevertheless the breadth of the field was not sufficient to draw up so numerous a host into proper battle array. For whereas the English army, throughout all its lines, was scarcely strengthened with files of four men, one behind another crosswise, all the French lines throughout their length were strengthened with files of twenty or more fighting men, one behind the other. Also, in the outermost flank of their army were placed a thousand soldiers, to break through the English lines with cavalry charges; also certain saxi-voma,[5] which might scatter the English when about to engage in battle, or at least throw them into disorder, were drawn up along the flanks of the army. But the number of standards and other warlike ensigns, which were displayed by the French army, fastened on the 18points of lances and rustling in the wind, seemed to exceed the multitude of lances in the English army....

C.—The Battle.

Thus drawn up across the fields on both sides and three bow shots, or thereabouts, distant from each other, each army awaited the movements of the other, but neither advanced against the other for some time. Yet the French cavalry, advancing a little into the field, were by the King's command forced to retreat hastily, through certain of the royal archers, on to their army. Also certain French barons, by their own wishes, came into the King's presence, and without being able to find out anything the King proposed to do, were soon ordered to return to their own army. Now King Henry, when he considered that a great part of the short day was already passed, and readily believing that the French were not disposed to move from their position, consulted the nobles and experts as to what they should do, viz., whether he should advance with his army, in the order in which it stood, against the enemy who refused to move against him. They, having fully considered the circumstances of so important a matter, decided that the King should advance with his army towards the enemy, and mightily charge them in the name of God.... Without delay both men-at-arms, unheeding their heavy arms, and the archers, leaving behind in the field their sharp stakes which they had previously prepared to meet the French cavalry, all having bowed the knee and taken lumps of earth in their mouths,[6] with a warlike shout piercing the heavens and with wonderful dash, flew fiercely along the plain, and their outward bearing shewed how much courage fired their hearts. And when they had approached within twenty paces of the ranks of the enemy, not far from Agincourt, and the sounds of the trumpets rending the air had stirred the spirits of the warriors to battle, the enemy, now for the first time moving, advanced to meet the English. Immediately the battle commenced with such fury 19that at the first attack of such brave warriors, by the dire shock of lances and the violent blows of swords the joints of their strong armour were broken, and the first rank on both sides dealt deadly wounds. But, on the other side, the warlike band of archers, with their strong and numerous volleys, darkened the air, shedding, like a cloud laden with rain, an unbearable multitude of piercing arrows, and, inflicting wounds on the horses, either threw to the ground the French cavalry who were drawn up to charge them, or forced them to retreat.... In this deadly conflict be it remembered among other things that that bright shining Titan of Kings so much exposed the precious treasure of his person to every chance of war that he thundered upon his enemies swift terrors and intolerable attacks.... After a while all the King's battalions, foremost and hindmost, were victorious, each wing having overthrown the enemy.... And, by divine mercy, having gained so glorious a triumph, the magnanimous King ... was gratefully minded to return thanks most devoutly for so great a victory. And, because so great a victory was vouchsafed to him on the feast of St. Crispin and Crispinian, every day throughout his life he heard mention of them in one of his masses.

Source.—"Customs of Hereford," in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, vol. xxvii., pp. 460 et seq. (London: 1871.)

[The customs of Hereford were placed on record in the reign of Henry V., and rewritten in 1486. Many of the customs were of much older date; even in 1486 some were of a duration from "time immemorial."]

Election of Bailiff.—First of all we use at the Feast of St. Michael to choose unto us a bailiff of our fellow-citizens, by the whole consent of the city, who is powerful to labour and discreet to judge, holding some tenements or hereditaments in the fee of our Lord the King; and he to be our head next under the King, whom we ought, in all things touching our King or the state of our city, to obey chiefly in three things,—first, when we are sent for, by day or by night, to consult of 20those things which appertain to the King or the state of the city; secondly, to answer if we offend in any point contrary to our oath, or to our fellow-citizens; thirdly, to perform the affairs of our city at our own charges, if so be they may be finished sooner or better than by any other of our citizens.... And this shall be the oath of the bailiff when he is chosen. He shall not have respect to anyone's person who hath been heretofore elected.

The Mayor's Oath.—First, that he shall be true to our Lord the King in all things; secondly, that as much as in him lies, as well by day as by night, he shall faithfully defend and keep the city of Hereford, the city of our Lord the King; thirdly, he shall defend and maintain the laws and customs of the city during his time;... fourthly, that he shall administer justice and judgement to every one, not having respect to any one's person; fifthly, that he shall not hold or keep the office of his mayoralty but for one year after his election; sixthly, if so be that he be a layman, he shall do all things belonging to his office by the counsel of his faithful citizens....

Concerning our courts, we use to keep them on a Tuesday, from the fifteenth day until fifteen days; unto which courts all citizens of our Lord the King ought to come, and chiefly all those which hold any tenement of our Lord the King; and especially to the two first courts holden after the feasts of Michaelmas and Easter, at which two courts the assize of bread and beer shall be ordained, and keepers to keep the same assize; and unto the said courts and other courts [shall come] all others who complain of any trespasses committed, or any other thing touching the state of the city or themselves, and they ought to speak the truth upon their own peril, not bringing with them any stranger ... because we do not use that strangers shall come and implead amongst us, and know the secrets of the courts, for divers dangers that thereby may ensue....

Night-Walkers.—And it shall be commanded ... that, among other things, it shall be proclaimed that no vagabond or night-walker be within our city, nor in the suburbs, after 21the ringing of our common bell; and if anyone be taken after the ringing of the bell, let him be brought unto the gaol of our Lord the King, and there he shall stay until the morrow.... Concerning our bell, we use to have it in a public place, where our chief bailiff may come, as well by day as by night, to give warning to all men living within the said city and suburbs. And we do not say that it ought to ring unless it be for some terrible fire burning any row of houses within the said city, or for any common contention whereby the city might be terribly moved, or for any enemies drawing near unto the city, or if the city be besieged, or any sedition shall be between any, and notice thereof given by any unto our chief bailiff.... Also we use that if any one of our citizens hath any tenements situate in the High Street of the city, or having over part of the pavement, and it be ruinous, so that danger may happen to us or to our children, or to others going along the city; and especially if the Lord our King, or any of his, should happen to pass along that street ... in such case our chief bailiff shall cause them to be warned that have such tenements, that they amend them in more safer manner within three days; and unless they do so, let three days more be given them, in the behalf of our Lord the King and the commonalty; and unless it be then done, our chief bailiff, taking with him the power of the city, if it be needful, shall go to such a tenement, and in his presence let it be thrown down at the costs of him to whom the tenement belongeth, or if needful, at the costs of the commonalty;...

Brewers to the Cucking-Stools.—... And if any brewer hath brewed and broken the assize of our Lord the King, allowed and publicly proclaimed in the said city, she ought by the bailiff to be amerced the first and the second time; and if she break the assize the third time, she ought to be taken by the bailiff and to be led to the judgement which is called the Gongestole....

Scolds.—Also it was agreed upon concerning scolding women, that by them many evils do arise in the city viz. by wrangling, fighting, defaming, troubling by night those which are at rest, 22and often times moving schisms between their neighbours, and by contradicting the bailiff and ministers and others; and in their prison, by speaking ill or cursing them,... wherefore, at all times when they shall be taken and convicted, they shall have their judgement, without any redemption to be made; and there they shall stand, with their feet bare, and their hair hanging about their ears, by so much time as they may be seen of all those which pass by that way ... and afterwards, the judgement being finished, let her (the scold) be brought to the gaol of our Lord the King, and there stay until she hath made redemption at the will of the bailiff. And if she will not be amended by such punishment, let her be cast out of the city.

Source.—Brief Chronicle of Sir John Oldcastle. ("Harleian Miscellany," vol. ii., pp. 276, 277.)

And upon the day appointed he was brought out of the Tower with his arms bound behind him, having a very cheerful countenance. Then was he laid upon an hurdle, as though he had been a most heinous traitor to the Crown, and so drawn forth into Saint Giles Field, where they had set up a new pair of gallows. As he was come to the place of execution, and was taken from the hurdle, he fell down devoutly on his knees, desiring Almighty God to forgive his enemies. Then stood he up and beheld the multitude, exhorting them, in most goodly manner, to follow the laws of God written in the Scriptures and in any wise to beware of such teachers as they see contrary to Christ in their conversation and living; with many other special counsels. Then was he hanged up there by the middle in chains of iron, and so consumed alive in the fire; praising the name of God so long as his life lasted. In the end he commended his soul into the hands of God, and so departed hence most christianly, his body resolved into ashes.

23

Source.—John Page's "Poem on the Siege of Rouen" in the Collections of a London Citizen. (Camden Society.)

The Sufferings of the Inhabitants.

The Surrender.

Source.—Rymer's Fœdera, vol. ix., pp. 916-920. (London: 1709.)

Henry by the grace of God, King of England, Heir and Regent of France, and Lord of Ireland to perpetual mind, to all Christian people, and to all that be under our obedience we notify and declare that ... we have taken a treaty with our aforesaid father [Charles of France], in the which treaty it is concluded and accorded after the manner that followeth:

First, it is accorded between our aforesaid father and us that: for as much as, by the bond of matrimony between us and our most dear and most beloved Catherine, the daughter of our said father and of our most dear mother, Isabel his wife, the same Charles and Isabel having been made our father and mother, we shall have and worship, as it fitteth such and so worthy a Prince and Princess for to be worshipped, principally before all other temporal persons of this world.

Also, we shall not disturb, disseize nor let our said father, but that he hold and possess, as long as he liveth, as he holdeth and possesseth at this time, the Crown and dignity royal of France, and rents, fruits, and profits of the same....

Also, that the aforesaid Catherine shall take and have dower in our Realm of England, as Queen of England, towards her 25wont for to take and have—that is to say the sum of forty thousands scutes the year.

Also, that, after the death of our said father, and from thenceforward the Crown and realm of France, with all their rights and appurtenances, shall remainder and abide and be of us and of our heirs for evermore. Also, forasmuch as our said father is holden with divers sickness, in such manner as he may not attend in his own person for to dispose for the needs of the aforesaid realm of France, therefore, during the life of our said father, the faculty and exercise of the governance and disposition of the public good and common profit of the said realm of France, with the counsel of the nobles and wise men of the same realm,... shall be and abide to us....

Also that we, to our power, shall defend and keep all and every peers, nobles, cities, towns, commonalties and singulars[8] now or in time coming, subject to our said father, in his rights, customs, privileges, freedoms and franchises.

Also, that we, to our power and as soon as it may commodiously be done, shall strive so to put into obedience of our said father all manner of cities, towns, castles, places, countries and persons with the realm of France, inobedient and rebel to our said father, holding the party being, or have been, of that party commonly called Dauphin or Armagnac.

Also, by God's help, when it happeneth us to come to the Crown of France, the duchy of Normandy and also all other places conquered by us in the said realm of France, shall be under the commandment, obedience and monarchy of the crown of France.

Also, that henceforward perpetually shall be still, rest and all manner of wise shall cease all manner of dissensions, hates, rancours, enemities and wars between the said realms of France and England....

26

Source.—Monstrelet's Chronicles, translated by Johnes, vol. ii., pp. 371-372. (Hafod Press, 1809.)

King Henry, finding himself mortally ill, called to him his brother the Duke of Bedford, his uncle of Exeter, the earl of Warwick, sir Louis de Robesart and others, to the number of six or eight of those in whom he had the greatest confidence, and said that he saw with grief it was the pleasure of his Creator that he should quit this world. He then addressed the Duke of Bedford:—"John, my good brother, I beseech you, on the loyalty and love you have ever expressed for me, that you show the same loyalty and affection to my son Henry, your nephew, and that, so long as you shall live, you do not suffer him to conclude any treaty with our adversary Charles, and that on no account whatever the duchy of Normandy be wholly restored to him. Should our good brother of Burgundy be desirous of the regency of the Kingdom of France, I would advise that you let him have it; but should he refuse, then take it yourself. My good uncle of Exeter, I nominate you sole regent of the Kingdom of England, for that you well know how to govern it; and I entreat that you do not, on any pretence whatever, return to France; and I likewise nominate you as guardian to my son,—and I insist, on your love to me, that you do very often personally visit and see him. My dear cousin of Warwick, I will that you be his governor, and that you teach him all things becoming his rank, for I cannot provide a fitter person for the purpose. I entreat you all as earnestly as I can, that you avoid all quarrels and dissensions with our fair brother of Burgundy; and this I particularly recommend to the consideration of my fair brother Humphrey,—for should any coolness subsist between you, which God forbid, the affairs of this realm, which are now in a very promising state, would soon be ruined." ... The King then sent for his physicians, and earnestly demanded of them how long they thought he had to live. They delayed answering the question directly; but, not to discourage hope, they said that it depended solely 27on the will of God whether he would be restored to health. He was dissatisfied with this answer, and repeated his request, begging of them to tell him the truth. Upon this they consulted together, and one of them, as spokesman, falling on his knees, said, "Sire, you must think on your soul; for, unless it be the will of God to decree otherwise, it is impossible that you should live more than two hours." The King, hearing this, sent for his confessor, some of his household and his chaplains, whom he ordered to chant the seven penitential psalms. When they came to "Benigne fac Domine" where mention is made "Muri Hierusalem,"[9] he stopped them, and said aloud, that he had fully intended, after he had wholly subdued the realm of France to his obedience, and restored it to peace, to have gone to conquer the Kingdom of Jerusalem, if it had pleased his Creator to have granted him a longer life. Having said this, he allowed the priests to proceed, and shortly after, according to the prediction of his physicians, gave up the ghost.

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, second series, vol. i., pp. 95-96. (London: 1827.)

To the King our Sovereign Lord.

Beseecheth meekly your poor liegeman and humble orator Thomas Hostell, that in consideration of his service done to your noble progenitors of full blessed memory, King Henry IV. and King Henry V., whose souls God assoil; being at the Siege of Harfleur, there smitten with a dart through the head, losing one eye and his cheek-bone broken; also at the battle of Agincourt, and after, at the taking of the Carracks[10] on the 28sea, there with a rod of iron his plates smitten in sunder, and sore hurt, maimed and wounded; by means whereof he being sore enfeebled and bruised, now fallen to great age and poverty; greatly in debt, and may not help himself; having not wherewith to be sustained nor relieved but of men's gracious alms; and being for his said service never yet recompensed nor rewarded:—it please your high and excellent Grace, the premises tenderly considered, of your benign pity and grace, to relieve and refresh your said poor orator, as it shall please you, with your most gracious alms at the reverence of God and in work of charity; and he shall devoutly pray for the souls of your said noble progenitors and for your most noble and high estate.

Source.—Waurin's Chronicles, 1422-1431, pp. 73-78. (Rolls Series.)

The Duke of Bedford, the regent, took the field in very fair array, and rode on until he had passed the woods near Verneuil; and when he found himself in the plain he beheld the town and all the force of the French arranged and set in order of battle, which was a very fair thing to see; for without doubt I, the author of this work, had never seen a fairer company, nor one where there were so many of the nobility as there were there, nor set in better order, nor showing greater appearance of a desire to fight; I saw the assembly at Azincourt, where there were many more princes and troops, and also that at Crevant, which was a very fine affair, but certainly that at Verneuil was of all the most formidable and the best fought.... At the onset there was a great noise and great shouting with tumultuous sounds of the trumpets and clarions; the one side cried "Saint Denis!" and the others "Saint George!" And so horrible was the shouting that there was no man so brave or confident that he was not in fear of death; they began to strike with axes and to thrust with lances, then they put their hands to their swords, with which they gave each other great blows and deadly strokes; 29the archers of England and the Scots, who were with the French, began to shoot one against the other so murderously that it was a horror to look upon them, for they carried death to those whom they struck with full force. After the shooting, the opponents attacked each other very furiously, hand to hand; and this battle was on a Thursday, the seventeenth day of August, commencing about two hours after noon.... Many a capture and many a rescue was made there, and many a drop of blood shed, which was a great horror and irreparable pity to see Christian people so destroy one another, for during this pitiable and deadly battle mercy had no place there, so much did the parties hate each other; the blood of the slain stretched upon the ground, and that of the wounded ran in great streams about the field. This battle lasted about three-quarters of an hour, very terrible and sanguinary, and it was not then in the memory of man to have seen two parties so mighty for such a space of time in like manner fight without being able to perceive to whom the loss or victory would turn.... Elsewhere, the duke of Bedford, as I hear related, for I could not see or comprehend the whole since I was sufficiently occupied in defending myself, did that day wonderful feats of arms, and killed many a man, for with an axe which he held in his two hands he reached no one whom he did not punish, since he was large in body and stout in limb, wise and brave in arms; but he was very greatly harassed by the Scots, especially by the earl of Douglas and his troop, insomuch that one knew not what to think nor to imagine how the affair would terminate, for the French, who had more men by one-half than the English, fought only to conquer....

Then the French began to be dismayed, losing altogether the hope of victory which a little while before they thought was in their hands, but each one of them sought a place where he could save himself, taking flight as best he might, and abandoning the rest; some drew towards the town and others took the fields....

Finally, the English pursued the French so, that they 30obtained the complete victory on that day and gained the battle, but not without great effusion of their own blood.

Source.—Wright's Political Poems, pp. 141, 145. (Rolls Series.)

Source.—Monstrelet's Chronicles, translated by Johnes, vol. ii., pp. 495, 496. (Hafod Press, 1809.)

The regent duke of Bedford, while at Paris, had collected about five hundred carts and cars from the borders of Normandy and from the Isle of France, which different merchants were ordered to load with provisions, stores and other things, and to have conveyed to the English army before Orleans.... This armament left Paris on Ash Wednesday, under the command of Sir John Falstaff, who conducted the convoy with his forces in good order, by short marches, until he came near the village of Rouvroi in Beauce, situated between Genville and Orleans. Many French captains, having long before heard of his coming, were there assembled to wait his arrival, namely Charles duke of Bourbon, the two marshals of France, the constable of Scotland and his son ... and others of the nobility, having with them from three to four thousand men. The English had been informed of this force being assembled from different garrisons which they had in those parts, and lost no time in forming a square with their carts and carriages, leaving but two openings, in which square they enclosed themselves, posting their archers as guards to these entrances, and the men-at-arms hard by to support them. On the strongest side of this enclosure were the merchants, pages, carters, and those incapable of defending themselves, with their horses. The English, thus situated, waited two hours for the coming of the enemy, who at length arrived with much noise, and drew up 32out of bowshot in front of the enclosure. It seemed to them that, considering their superior numbers, the state of the convoy, and that there were not more than six hundred real Englishmen, the rest being composed of all nations, they could not escape falling into their hands, and must be speedily conquered. Others, however, had their fears of the contrary happening, for the French captains did not well agree together as to their mode of fighting, for the Scots would combat on foot, and the others on horseback.... In the meantime the constable of Scotland, his son and all their men, dismounted and advanced to attack their adversaries, by whom they were received with great courage. The English archers, under the shelter of their carriages, shot so well and stiffly that all on horseback within their reach were glad to retreat with their men-at-arms. The constable of Scotland and his men attacked one of the entrances of the enclosure, but they were soon slain on the spot.... The other French captains retreated with their men to the places whence they had come. The English, on their departure, refreshed themselves and then marched away in haste for their town of Rouvroi, where they halted for the night. On the morrow they departed in handsome array with their convoy and artillery, and in a few days arrived before Orleans, very much rejoiced at their good fortune in the late attack from the French, and at having so successfully brought provision to their countrymen.

This battle was ever afterward called the Battle of Herrings, because great part of the convoy consisted of herrings and other articles of food suitable to Lent.

Source.—Waurin's Chronicles, 1422-1431, pp. 171,172. (Rolls Series.)

... The troops in Orleans then seeing that they were very strongly pressed by the diligence of the besiegers, both by their engines and by the towers which they had made around the town, to the number of twenty-two, and that by the con33tinuance thereof they were in danger of being placed in servitude and obedience to their enemies the English, prepared themselves for all risks and decided to resist with all their power and in all the ways that they well could, so that, the better to help, they sent to King Charles to obtain aid in men and provisions; and there were then sent to them from four to five hundred combatants, and soon after fully seven thousand were sent to them, and some boats loaded with provisions coming down the river under the guidance and protection of these men-at-arms, in which company was the maid Joan, who had not yet done anything for which she was held in much esteem.

Then the English captains holding the siege, knowing of the coming of the said boats and of those who convoyed them, at once and in haste endeavoured to resist by force in order to prevent them from landing in the town of Orleans, and on the other hand the French exerted themselves to bring them in by force of arms. On the vessels coming up to pass there was many a lance broken, many an arrow shot, and many a bolt shot by the engines, and so great a noise was made both by the besieged and by the besiegers, both by defenders and assailants, that it was horrible to hear them; but whatever force or resistance the English could make there, the French in spite of them brought their boats in safety into the town, at which the said English were much troubled and the French joyful at their good fortune, so they also entered the said town, where they were welcomed as well for the provisions they had brought as for the maid whom they had taken back with them, great rejoicings being made everywhere for the good succour King Charles sent them, whence they plainly perceived the good will that he had towards them, at which the inhabitants of the city rejoiced greatly, making such a clamour that they were heard quite plainly by the besiegers.

Then when the next day came, which was Thursday, when every one was refreshed, the maid Joan, rising early in the morning, spoke in council to some captains and chiefs of squadrons, to whom she showed by forcible arguments how 34they had come there on purpose to defend that city against the ancient enemies of the kingdom of France, who were greatly oppressing it, and to such a degree that she saw that it was in great danger if good provision were not speedily made for it; so she admonished them to go and arm themselves, and effected so much by her words that she induced them to do so, and said to them that if they would follow her she doubted not that she would cause such damage that it would ever be remembered, and that the enemy would curse the hour of her coming.

The maid preached so well to them that they all went to arm themselves with her; then they sallied out of the town in very fair array, and setting out she said to the captains: "Lords, take courage and good hope; before four days have passed your enemies will be vanquished." And the captains and men-of-war who were there could not wonder sufficiently at her words.

So they marched forward and came very fiercely to attack one of the towers of their enemies that was called the tower of Saint Leu, which was very strong, and therein were from three to four hundred combatants, who in a very short time were overcome, captured, or slain, and the tower burnt and demolished; then, this done, the maid and her people returned joyfully into the city of Orleans where she was generally honoured and praised by all kinds of people. Again the next day, which was Friday she and her men sallied from the town, and she went to attack the second tower which was also taken by a fine assault, and those within all slain or captured; and after she had caused the said tower to be broken down, set on fire, and entirely annihilated, she withdrew into the town, where she was honoured and exalted more than before by all the inhabitants thereof. The Saturday following, the maid sallied forth again and went to attack the tower at the end of the bridge, which was marvellously large and strong, and besides occupied by a great number of the best and most tried combatants among the besiegers, who long and valiantly defended themselves, but it availed them nothing, for at last, 35like the others, they were discomfited, taken, and slain; among whom died there the lord of Molines, Glacedale, a very valiant esquire, the bailly of Evreux and many other noble men of high rank.

After this brilliant conquest the French returned joyfully into the town.

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 8 Henry VI., c. vii.

Item, Whereas the Elections of Knights of the shires to come to the Parliaments of our Lord the King, in many counties of England have now of late been made by very great, outrageous and excessive number of people dwelling within the same Counties, of the which the most part was of people of small substance and of no value, whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy Knights and Esquires dwelling within the same Counties; whereby manslaughters, riots, batteries and diversions among the gentlemen and other people of the same counties shall very likely rise and be, unless convenient remedy be provided in this behalf: Our Lord the King, considering the premises, hath provided ordained and established, by the authority of this present Parliament, that the Knights of the Shires to be chosen within the same realm of England to come to the Parliaments, shall be chosen in every County by people dwelling and resident in the same, whereof every one of them shall have free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year, at the least, above all charges; and that they which shall be so chosen shall be dwelling and resident within the same Counties.... And every sheriff of England shall have power to examine upon the Evangelists every such chosen, how much he may expend by the year.

36

Source.—Waurin's Chronicles, 1422-1431, pp. 239-244. (Rolls Series.)

... "It is a sufficiently common report already spread abroad, as it were everywhere, how this woman who caused herself to be called Joan the maid, a false soothsayer, for two years or more, against the divine law and the condition of her female sex, has clothed and conducted herself in the dress and manner of man, a thing displeasing and abominable to God, and in such condition was carried before our capital enemy and yours, to whom and to those of his party she often gave it out, and even to churchmen, nobles, and people, that she was sent by God, presumptuously boasting herself that she often had personal and visible communication with Saint Michael and a great multitude of other angels and saints of Paradise, with Saint Katherine and Saint Margaret; by which false givings-out, and by the hope of future victories which she promised, she turned away the hearts of many men and women from the truth, and turned them towards fables and lies: she also clothed herself with armour suitable for knights and esquires, raised a standard, and with too great excess, pride, and presumption demanded to have the very excellent arms of France, which in part she obtained, and bore them in many expeditions and assaults, that is to say, a shield with two fleurs-de-lis of gold on a field azure, and a sword with the point fixed upwards in a crown; and in this condition she has taken the field, with the leadership of men at arms and archers, in armies and great companies, to do and perpetrate inhuman cruelties, wickedly shedding human blood, and causing also commotions and seditions of the people, inciting them to perjuries, rebellions, superstitions, and false beliefs, perturbing all good peace and renewing mortal war, suffering herself to be revered and adored by many persons as a sanctified soul, and otherwise acting damnably in many other matters too long to express, which nevertheless have been well enough known in many places, whereby nearly all Christendom has been greatly 37scandalized. But the Divine Power having pity on His loyal people, whom He has not long left in peril, nor suffered them to remain in the vain, perilous, and novel cruelties into which they had thoughtlessly thrown themselves, has been pleased to permit it in His great mercy and clemency that the said shameful woman has been taken in your army and siege which you were then maintaining on our behalf before Compiègne, and put by your good help into our obedience and governance. And because we were afterwards requested by the bishop in whose diocese she had been taken that this Joan, branded and charged with crimes of high treason against God, we would cause to be delivered to him as to her ordinary ecclesiastical judge, as well for reverence of our mother holy church, whose sacred ordinances we desire to prefer to our own deeds and wishes as is right, as also for the honour and exaltation of our true faith, we caused the said Joan to be given up in order that he might try her, without wishing that any vengeance or punishment should be inflicted upon her by our secular officers of justice, as it was reasonably lawful for us to do, considering the great damages and inconveniences, the horrible homicides and detestable cruelties and evils, as it were innumerable, that she had committed against our seignory and our loyal and obedient people. This bishop, the inquisitor of errors and heresies being associated with him, and a great and notable number of famous masters and doctors of theology and canon law being summoned with them, commenced with great solemnity and due gravity the trial of this Joan, and after he and the said inquisitor, judges in this behalf, had on many different days questioned the said Joan, they caused her confessions and assertions to be maturely examined by the masters and doctors, and generally by all the faculties of learning of our very dear and much loved daughter the University of Paris, before which the said assertions and confessions were sent, according to whose opinion and deliberation the said judges found this Joan superstitious, a soothsayer by means of devils, a blasphemer of God and of the saints, a schismatic, and erring many times from the law of Jesus 38Christ. And to bring her back into the union and communion of our holy mother the church, to cleanse her from such horrible and pernicious crimes and sins, and to keep and preserve her soul from perpetual torment and damnation, she was often, during a long time, very lovingly and gently admonished that all her errors being rejected by her should be put away, and that she should humbly return into the way and straight path of truth, or otherwise she would put herself in great peril of soul and body; but the very perilous and mad spirit of pride and outrageous presumption, which is always exerting itself to try to impede and disturb the path and way of loyal Christians, so seized upon and detained in its bonds this Joan and her heart, that for no holy doctrine, good counsels or exhortation that could be administered to her, would her hardened and obstinate heart humble or soften itself, but she often again boasted that all things that she had done were well done, and she had done them at the commandment of God through the angels and the said holy virgins who visibly appeared to her: and what is worse, she recognized not, nor would recognize, any upon earth save God only and the saints of Paradise, rejecting the authority of our holy father the pope, the general council and the universal church militant. And then the ecclesiastical judges, seeing her said disposition pertinaciously, and for so long a space, remain hardened and obstinate, caused her to be brought before the clergy and people there assembled in very great multitude, in whose presence her case, crimes, and errors were preached, made known, and declared by a notable master and doctor of theology, for the exaltation of our faith, the extirpation of errors, the edification and amendment of Christian people. And there, again, she was lovingly admonished to return to the union of holy church, correcting her faults and errors, in which she still remained pertinacious and obstinate. This the judges aforesaid seeing and considering, they proceeded further and pronounced against her the sentence in such case by law prescribed and ordained; but before the said sentence was read through she began seemingly to change her disposition, 39saying that she wished to return to holy church, which willingly and joyfully heard the aforesaid judges and clergy, who thereto received her affectionately, hoping that her soul and body were redeemed from perdition and torment. Then she submitted herself entirely to the ordinance of the Church, and orally revoked and publicly abjured her errors and detestable crimes, signing with her own hand the schedule of the said revocation and abjuration; and so our pitiful mother holy church rejoicing over the sinner showing penitence, desiring to bring back to the shepherd, with the others, the returned and recovered sheep which had wandered and gone astray in the desert, condemned this Joan to prison to do salutary penance; but she was hardly there any time before the fire of her pride, which seemed to be extinguished, rekindled in her with pestilential flames by the breathings of the enemy, and the said unhappy woman immediately fell back into the errors and false extravagances which she had before uttered and afterwards revoked and abjured, as has been said. For which causes, according to what the judgements and institutions of holy church ordain, in order that henceforward she might not contaminate the poor members of Jesus Christ, she was again publicly preached to, and as she had fallen back into the crimes and faults she was accustomed, left to secular justice, which immediately condemned her to be burned. And then she, seeing her end drawing near, recognized clearly that the spirits which she had said had appeared to her many times before were wicked and lying spirits, and that the promises which these spirits had formerly made to her of delivering her were false, and so she confessed it to have been a mockery and deceit; and she was taken by the said lay justice to the old market-place in the town of Rouen, and was there publicly burnt in the sight of all the people."

40

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 18.

For the good rule, demising and surety of the King's person, and draught of him to virtue and cunning, and eschewing of anything that might give hindrance or let thereto, or cause any charge, default, or blame to be laid upon the Earl of Warwick at any time without his desert, he, considering that peril and business of his charge about the King's person groweth so that that authority and power given to him before sufficeth him not without more thereto, desireth therefore these things that follow.

First, that considering that the charge of the rule, demising and governance, and also of nurture of the King's person resteth upon the said Earl while it shall like the King, and the peril, danger, and blame if any lack or default were in any of these, the which lack or default might be caused by ungodly or unvirtuous men, if any such were about his person; he desireth therefore, for the good of the King, and for his own surety, to have power and authority to name, ordain, and assign, and for that cause that shall be thought to him reasonable, to remove those that shall be about the King's person, of what estate or condition that they be, not intending to comprehend in this desire the Steward, Chamberlain, Treasurer, Controller, nor Serjeant of offices, save such as serve the King's person and for his mouth.

Responsio.—As toward the naming, ordinance, and assignation beforesaid, it is agreed, so that he take in none of the four knights nor squires for the body without the advice of my Lord of Bedford, him being in England, and him being out, of my Lord of Gloucester, and of the remnant of the King's Council.

Item, the said Earl desireth that where he shall have any person in his discretion suspect of misgovernance, and not behoveful nor expedient to be about the King, except the 41estates of the house, that he may put them from exercise and occupation of the King's service, till that he shall more have speech with my Lords of Bedford or of Gloucester, and with the other Lords of the King's Council, to that end that, the default of any such person known unto him, [they] shall more ordain thereupon as them shall think expedient and behoveful.

Responsio.—It is agreed as it is desired....

Item, that considering how, blessed be God, the King is growing in years, in stature of his person, and also in conceit and knowledge of his high and royal authority and estate, the which naturally causing him, and from day to day as he groweth shall cause him, more and more to grudge with chastising, and to loath it, so that it may reasonably be doubted lest he would conceive against the said Earl, or any other that would take upon him to chastise him for his defaults, displeasure, or indignation therefore, the which, without due assistance, is not easy to be borne. It like, therefore, to my Lord of Gloucester, and to all the Lords of the King's Council, to promise to the said Earl, and assure him, that they shall firmly and truly assist him in the exercise of the charge and occupation that he hath about the King's person, namely in chastising of him for his defaults, and support the said Earl therein; and if the King at any time would conceive indignation against the said Earl, my said Lord of Gloucester, and Lords, shall do all their true diligence and power to remove the King therefrom.

Responsio.—It is agreed as it is desired.

Item, the said Earl desireth that forasmuch as it shall be necessary to remove the King's person at divers times into sundry places, as the cases may require, that he may have power and authority to remove the King, by his discretion, into what place he thinketh necessary for the health of his body and surety of his person.

Responsio.—It is agreed as it is desired....

Item, forasmuch as the said Earl hath knowledge that in speech that hath been had unto the King at part and in privy, not in the hearing of the said Earl nor any of the knights 42set about his person, nor assigned by the said Earl, he hath been stirred by some from his learning, and spoken to of divers matters not behoveful, the said Earl doubting the harm that might fall to the King, and the inconvenience that might ensue of such speech at part as if it were suffered; desireth that in all speech to be had with the King, he or one of the four knights, or some person to be assigned by the said Earl, be present and privy to it.

Responsio.—This article is agreed, excepting such persons as for nighness of blood, and for their estate, owe of reason to be suffered to speak with the King.

Item, to the intent that it may be known to the King that it proceedeth of the assent, advice and agreement of my Lord of Gloucester, and all my Lords of the King's Council, that the King be chastised for his defaults or trespasses, and that for awe thereof he forbear the more to do amiss, and intend the more busily to virtue and to learning, the said Earl desireth that my Lord of Gloucester, and my said other Lords of the Council, or great part of them, that is to say, the Chancellor and Treasurer, and of every estate in the Council, spiritual and temporal, some come to the King's presence, and there to make to be declared to him their agreement in that behalf.

Responsio.—When the King cometh next to London, all his Council shall come to his presence, and there this shall be declared to him.

Item, the said Earl, that all his days hath, above all other earthy things, desired, and ever shall to keep his truth and worship unblemished and unhurt, and may not for all that let [prevent] malicious and untrue men to make informations of his person, such as they may not, nor dare not, stand by, nor be not true, beseecheth therefore my Lord of Gloucester and all my said Lords of the Council, that if they, or any of them, have been informed of anything that may be laid to his charge or default, and namely in his occupation and rule about the King's person, that the said Earl may have knowledge thereof, to the intent that he may answer thereto, and not dwell in heavy or 43sinister conceit or opinion, without his desert and without answer.

Responsio.—It is agreed.

Cromwell.
J. Ebor.
W. Lincoln
Suffolk.
J. Huntington.
H. Gloucester.
P. Elien.
J. Bathon. Canc.
J. Roffen.
H. Stafford.

Source.—Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. v., p. 31. (Record Commission.)

To the King our Sovereign Lord; Shewen meekly your true liege people, here by your authority royal in this present Parliament for the Commons of this your noble realm assembled; how that a sickness called the Pestilence, universally through this your realm runneth more commonly than hath been usual before this time, the which is an infirmity most infective; and the presence of such so infect most to be eschewed, as by noble physicians and wise philosophers before this time plainly it hath been determined and as experience daily sheweth. Wherefore we your poor liege people, above all earthly thing tendering and desiring the health and welfare of your most noble person, beseech your most noble grace, in conserving of your most noble person and in comfort of us all, in eschewing of any such infection to you to fall, which God defend, graciously to conceive how where that any of your said Commons, holding of you by Knight's service, oweth in doing you homage, by your gracious sufferance, to kiss you, to ordain and grant by the authority of this present Parliament, that every of your said lieges, in doing of their said homage, may omit the said kissing of you....

44

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, Second Series, vol. i., pp. 110, 111.

To the King our Sovereign Lord.

Please it unto your Royal Majesty of your grace especially to grant unto John Earl of Oxford, owner under God of a ship called the Jesus of Orwell, that the said ship, without any fine or fee to be paid unto you, may have licence, in the worship of God and of St. James, to make the first voyage unto St. James[12] with as many persons as therein would thitherward take their passage. Considering that by cause of the loss of another ship ... the said Earl hath done upon the said ship great cost to make it the more able to do you service and to withstand your enemies in time of need.

Endorsed—Donné à n're Palais de Westm. le xxviij jour de Feverer, l'an etc xxiij. [February 28, 1445.]

Source.—Early Naval Ballads, vol. ii., pp. 1-4. (Percy Society.)

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 23 Henry VI., c. 14.

The statute recites 1 Henry V. c. 1 (see p. 13), and 8 Henry VI. c. 7 (see p. 35), then proceeds:

... By force of which statutes elections of knights to come to Parliament sometimes have been duly made and lawfully returned until now of late that divers sheriffs, for their singular avail and lucre, have not made due elections of knights, nor in convenient time, nor good men and true returned, and sometime no return of the knights, citizens and burgesses lawfully chosen to come to the Parliaments; but such knights, citizens, and burgesses have been returned which were never duly chosen, and other citizens and burgesses than those which by the mayors and bailiffs were to the said sheriffs returned; and sometimes the sheriffs have not returned the writs which they had to make elections of knights to come to the Parliaments, but the said writs have imbesiled, and moreover made no precept to the mayor and bailiffs, or to the bailiffs or bailiff, where no mayor is, of cities and boroughs, for the elections of citizens and burgesses to come to the Parliaments, by colour of these words contained in the same writs—"Quod in pleno comitatu tuo eligi facias pro comitatu tuo duos milites, et pro qualibet civitate in comitatu tuo duos cives et pro quolibet burgo in comitatu tuo duos burgenses;" and also because sufficient penalty and convenient remedy for the party in such case grieved is not ordained in the said statutes against the sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs, which do contrary to the form of the said statutes: The King considering the premises hath ordained by Authority aforesaid, that the said statutes shall be duly kept in all points: and moreover that every sheriff, after the delivery of any such writs to him made, shall make and deliver without fraud a sufficient Precept under his seal to every mayor and bailiff, or to bailiffs or bailiff where no mayor is, of the cities and boroughs within his county, reciting the said writ, commanding them by the same precept, if it be a 47city, to choose by citizens of the same city, citizens; and in the same manner and form, if it be a borough, by burgesses of the same to come to the Parliament. And that the same mayor and bailiffs, or bailiffs or bailiff where no mayor is, shall return lawfully the precept to the same sheriffs by indenture betwixt the same sheriffs, and them to be made of the said elections, and of the names of the said citizens and burgesses by them so chosen; and thereupon every sheriff shall make a good and rightful return of every such writ, and of every return by the mayors and bailiffs, or bailiffs or bailiff where no mayor is, to him made.

Source.—Excerpta Historica, p. 5. (London: 1833.)

Henry by the grace of God King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland: To our Chancellor of England greeting. Forasmuch as the right reverend father in God the Archbishop of Canterbury and the reverend father in God the bishop of London, considering the great abuses that have been of long time within our city of London that many and divers persons, not sufficiently instructed in grammar, presuming to hold common grammar schools in great deceit as well unto their scholars as unto the friends that find them to school, have of their great wisdom set and ordained five schools of grammar, and no more, within our said city. One within the churchyard of St. Paul's, another within the collegiate church of St. Martin, the third in Bow church, the fourth in the church of St. Dunstan in the East, the fifth in our hospital of St. Anthony within our said city; the which they have openly declared sufficient, as by their letters patent thereupon made it appeareth more at large. We, in consideration of the premises, have thereunto granted our royal will and assent. Wherefore we will and charge you that hereupon ye do make our letters patent under our great seal in due form, declaring in the same our said will and assent, giving furthermore in commandment by the same our letters unto all our subjects of our said city 48that they nor none of them trouble nor hinder the masters of the said schools in any wise, but rather help and assist them inasmuch as in them is. Given under our privy seal at Guildford the 3rd day of May, the year of our reign xxiiij.

Source.—"Le recouvrement de Normendie," par Berry, Herault du Roy, printed in Reductio Normannie, pp. 245 et seq. (Rolls Series, 1863.)

[Note.—The author of this and other extracts relating to the loss of Normandy was Jacques le Bouvier, surnamed Berry, the first King-of-Arms of Charles VII. of France.]

The duke of Bretagne everywhere sent to all his subjects, well-wishers, friends and allies, asking them to be so good as to help him to avenge himself upon the English, and to help him to recover his town of Fougères. And on this occasion to please the said duke of Bretagne, M. Jehan de Bressay, knight, a native of the country of Anjou, Robert de Flocques, esquire of the country of Normandy, bailly of Evreux, Jacques de Clermont, esquire of the country of Dauphiné and lord of Mannay, and Guillaume le Vigars, esquire, made the attempt to take the town and castle of Pont de l'Arche, on the river Seine, by means of a merchant of Louviers who often took a cart by the said Pont de l'Arche to go to Rouen, which is about four short leagues above it.... And the said merchant, with two others, upon a day in the month of May, being the Thursday before the Ascension of our Lord, set out from Louviers and went to take his cart, as he had often done, through the town of Pont de l'Arche, pretending that he was taking merchandize to Rouen; and in passing he asked the porter of the castle to be so good as to open the gate of the castle for him very early next morning, and he would give him a good gratuity, for he made him believe that he wished to return speedily to Louviers for some merchandize. And so the merchant passed through the town; and he returned about the hour of midnight, accompanied by many of the said ambuscade on foot; and they lodged at an inn in the country, adjoining 49the castle. They entered into the said inn secretly, where they found the wife in bed alone, (who was exceedingly terrified), for her husband was absent on his business. And when it drew near daybreak, the said merchant went all alone to call the said porter, who came to open the gate of the castle and the bulwark for him, as he had promised the day before; and immediately two persons came out of the inn to come to the bulwark along with the merchant, of whom the said porter was apprehensive when he saw them approach. But the said merchant told him that they were people of Louviers, and then he was satisfied. Then the merchant entered with all his wares, leaving the cart upon the bridge until such time as he had thrown upon the ground for his (the porter's) reward, two bretons and a placque; and as he was stooping to gather them, the merchant killed him with a dagger.... The men of the castle heard the noise, and an Englishman came down in his night-shirt, (a handsome fellow, young and brave), who attempted to raise the bridge of the said castle, because he saw that the said bulwark was already lost; but the said merchant hastened to go to him, and killed him before he could raise the bridge, which was a pity, for he was one of the bravest and most active young men of his party. And thus the castle was won.

And then all the foot-soldiers went along the bridge making great shouts, to enter the town which they took; for the greater part of the inhabitants were still in their beds, excepting one Englishman, who valiantly and for a long time defended the gate of the bridge, to hinder them from entering; but in the end he was killed and the town taken.

Source.—"Le recouvrement de Normandie," printed in Reductio Normannie, pp. 254 et seq. (Rolls Series, 1863.)

The King of France was duly informed of the war which the English made upon the realm of Scotland, which was 50comprehended in the truce; and also of the war which they made by sea upon the King of Spain, his ally, who was also in the said truce; and in like manner upon his subjects of La Rochelle and Dieppe, and elsewhere.... For as long as the truce had continued, the English came from Mantes, Verneuil and Loigny upon the roads from Paris and Orleans, robbing and murdering the merchants and the honest people who were travelling along the roads ... and they went by night to their houses in the open country, and took prisoners in their beds the gentlemen who were of the party of the King of France, cut their throats and murdered them vilely in their beds. And it was their custom to cut the throats of these gentlemen during the said truce. And these malefactors were called False-Faces, because, when they did these things, they disguised themselves with disorderly and frightful dresses and headpieces, painted with various colours, and other clothes, so that they should not be known....

At this time a miller of the town of Verneuil who had his mill opposite the walls of the town, was beaten by an Englishman who was going the rounds, because he was asleep at his post. And for revenge he went to the bailly of Evreux, and, after a certain treaty made between them, he promised that he would admit him within the said town. Hereupon assembled messire Pierre de Bressay, seneschal of Poitou, the said bailly of Evreux, Jacques de Clermont and others. They came on horseback and found themselves on Sunday 19th July in this year, at break of day, near the walls of the said town. The said miller (who had been on watch that night) made the others who kept watch with him go down from the wall sooner than usual, because (in order to accomplish his purpose) he made them believe that, as it was Sunday, they should hasten to go, the bell having rung for Mass. By the help of the miller the French placed their ladders to the right of the wall, and entered the town without anyone noticing them. Six score Englishmen were within, of whom some were slain and taken prisoners, and the others betook themselves in great haste to the keep of the castle.

51

Source.—"Le recouvrement de Normendie," in Reductio Normannie, pp. 333 et seq. (Rolls Series.)

... On the fifteenth of April they (the French) came up with the English in a field near a village named Formigny, between Carentan [Triviers] and Bayeux. And when the said English saw and perceived them, they put themselves in order of battle, and sent very hastily for the said Matthew Gough, who had left them that morning to go to Bayeux, and he immediately returned. And then the French and the English were one in the presence of the other, for the space of three hours, skirmishing. And in the meantime the English made large holes and trenches with their daggers and swords before them, in order that the French and their horses should stumble if they attacked them. And at the distance of a long bowshot behind the English there was a little river between them, with a great abundance of gardens full of various trees, as apples, pears, elms, and other trees; and they encamped in this place because they could not be attacked in the rear.

And in the meantime the lord of Richmond, Constable of France, the lord of Laval, the lord of Loheac, marshal of France, the lord of Orval, the marshal of Bretaigne, the lord of Saint-Severe, and many others set out from Triviers, where they had slept that night, and joined them, to the number of three hundred lances, and the archers. And when the said English saw them come, they left the field, and the troops marched and came to the river to place it behind them; for they were afraid of the Constable's company, who had slept the night at a village named Triviers, and had put himself in order of battle upon the arrival of the said English at a wind-mill above the said Formigny. And then marched the troops of the said lord of Clermont and his company, in which were from five to six hundred lances and the archers, and they charged the said English, as did also those of the said Constable, who crossed the river by a ford and a little bridge of stone. And there they attacked the English on both sides 52very bravely, so that in the end they discomfited them close by the said river.

And there there were killed, by the report of the heralds who were there, and of the priests and good people who buried them, three thousand seven hundred and seventy-four English.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 91.

["Whoever has read this affecting composition will find it difficult to persuade himself that the writer could have been either a false subject or a bad man."—Lingard.]

The Duke of Suffolk to his Son.

My dear and only well-beloved Son,

I beseech our Lord in Heaven, the maker of all the world, to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love him, and to dread him; to the which, as far as a father may charge his child, I both charge you, and pray you to set all spirits and wits to do, and to know his holy laws and commandments, by the which ye shall with his great mercy pass all the great tempests and troubles of this wretched world. And that also, wittingly, ye do nothing for love or dread of any earthly creature that should displease him. And there as any frailty maketh you to fall, beseech his mercy soon to call you to him again with repentance, satisfaction, and contrition of your heart never more in will to offend him.

Secondly, next him, above all earthly thing, to be true liege man in heart, in will, in thought, in deed unto the King our most high and dread Sovereign Lord, to whom both ye and I be so much bound to; charging you, as father can and may, rather to die than be the contrary, or to know any thing that were against the welfare or prosperity of his most royal person, but that as far as your body and life may stretch, ye live and die to defend it, and to let his highness have knowledge thereof in all the haste ye can.

Thirdly, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, as ye 53be bound by the commandment of God to do, to love, to worship your lady and mother, and also that ye obey always her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in all your works, the which dread not but shall be best and truest to you. And if any other body would stir you to the contrary, to flee the counsel in any wise, for ye shall find it nought and evil.

Furthermore, as far as father may and can, I charge you in any wise to flee the company and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and of flattering men, the more especially and mightily to withstand them, and not to draw, nor to meddle with them, with all your might and power. And to draw to you and to your company good and virtuous men, and such as be of good conversation, and of truth, and by them shall ye never be deceived, nor repent you of. Moreover, never follow your own wit in no wise, but in all your works, of such folks as I write of above, ask your advice and counsel; and doing thus, with the mercy of God, ye shall do right well, and live in right much worship, and great heart's rest and ease. And I will be to you as good lord and father as my heart can think.

And last of all, as heartily and as lovingly as ever father blessed his child in earth, I give you the blessing of our Lord and of me, which of his infinite mercy increase you in all virtue and good living. And that your blood may by his grace from kindred to kindred multiply in this earth to his service, in such wise as after the departing from this wretched world here, ye and they may glorify him eternally among his angels in heaven.

Written of mine own hand

The day of my departing from this land

Your true and loving father
Suffolk.

54

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 93.

Right worshipful Sir,

I recommend me to you, and am right sorry of that I shall say, and so washed this little bill with sorrowful tears, that on these ye shall read it.

As on Monday next after May day there come tidings to London that on Thursday before the Duke of Suffolk come unto the coast of Kent full near Dover with his two ships and a little spinner; the which spinner he sent with certain letters to certain of his trusted men unto Calais wards, to know how he should be received; and with him met a ship called Nicolas of the Tower, with other ships waiting on him, and by them that were in the spinner the master of the Nicolas had knowledge of the duke's coming. And when he espied the duke's ships, he sent forth his boat to know what they were, and the duke himself spake to them, and said, he was by the King's commandment sent to Calais wards, etc.

And they said he must speak with their master. And so he, with two or three of his men, went forth with them in their boat to the Nicolas; and when he come, the master bade him "Welcome, Traitor," as men say; and further the master desired to know if the shipmen would hold with the duke, and they sent word they would not in no wise; and so he was in the Nicolas till Saturday next following.

Some say he wrote much things to be delivered to the King, but that is not verily known. He had his confessor with him, etc.

And some say he was arraigned in the ship on their manner upon the impeachments and found guilty, etc.

Also he asked the name of the ship, and when he knew it, he remembered Stacy that said, if he might escape the danger of the Tower, he should be safe; and then his heart failed him, for he thought he was deceived, and in the sight of all his men he was drawn out of the great ship in to the boat; and there was an axe and a block, and one of the lewdest of 55the ship bid him lay down his head, and he should be fair fared with and die on a sword; and took a rusty sword, and smote off his head within half a dozen strokes, and took away his gown of russet, and his doublet of velvet mailed, and laid his body on the sands of Dover; and some say his head was set on a pole by it....

And the sheriff of Kent doth watch the body, and sent his under-sheriff to the judges to know what to do, and also to the King what shall be done.

Source.—Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, pp. 66-68 and 94-99. (Camden Society.)

A.—A Proclamation made by Jack Cade, Captain of the Rebels in Kent.

These be the points, causes and mischiefs of gathering and assembling of us the King's liege men of Kent, the iiij day of June the year of our Lord Miiijcl, the which we trust to Almighty God to remedy, with the help and the grace of God and of our sovereign lord the King, and the poor commons of England, and else we shall die therefore:

We, considering that the King our sovereign lord, by the insatiable covetous malicious pomps, and false and of nought brought up certain persons, that daily and nightly is about his highness, and daily inform him that good is evil and evil is good, as Scripture witnesseth, Ve vobis qui dicitis bonum malum et malum bonum.

Item, they say that our sovereign lord is above his laws to his pleasure, and he may make it and break it as him list, without any distinction. The contrary is true, and else he should not have sworn to keep it, the which we conceived for the highest point of treason that any subject may do to make his prince run into perjury.

Item, they say that the commons of England would first destroy the King's friends and afterwards himself, and then bring the Duke of York to be King....

56 Item, they say the King should live upon his commons and that their bodies and goods be the King's; the contrary is true, for then needed him never parliament to sit to ask good of his commons.

Item, it is to be remedied that the false traitors will suffer no man to come into the King's presence for no cause without bribes where none ought to be had, nor no bribery about the King's person, but that any man might have his coming to him to ask him grace or judgement in such case as the King may give.

Item, the law serveth of nought else in these days but for to do wrong....

Item, we say our sovereign lord may understand that his false council hath lost his law, his merchandise is lost, his common people is destroyed, the sea is lost, France is lost, the King himself is so set that he may not pay for his meat and drink, and he oweth more than ever any King of England owed, for daily his traitors about him, where anything should come to him by his laws, anon they ask it from him.

Item, his true commons desire that he will avoid from him all the false progeny and affinity of the Duke of Suffolk... and to take about his noble person his true blood of his royal realm, that is to say, the high and mighty prince the Duke of York, exiled from our sovereign lord's person by the noising of the false traitor, the Duke of Suffolk and his affinity.

Item, taking of wheat and other grains, beef, mutton, and other victual, the which is unbearable hurt to the commons, without provision of our sovereign lord and his true council, for his commons may no longer bear it.

Item, the statute upon the labourers and the great extortioners of Kent.

57

B.—The Capture and Death of Cade.

... Then the commons of Kent arose and had chosen them a captain the which named himself John Mortimer, whose very true name was John Cade, and he was an Irishman, and so he come to Blackheath with the commons of Kent. And the King with all his lords made them ready with all their power for to withstand him.... And the Mayor of London with the commons of the city came unto the King beseeching him that he would tarry in the city and they would live and die with him and pay for the cost of his household an half year; but he would not, but took his journey to Kenilworth. And when the King was gone, the captain with the commons of Kent came again to Blackheath. And the iij^rd day of July he came to London; and as soon as they came to London they robbed Phillip Malpas. And the iiij^th day of July he beheaded Crowmer and another man at Mile End; and the same day at afternoon the Lord Say was fetched out of the Tower to the Guild Hall for the mayor to have judgement, and when he came before the mayor he said he would be judged by his peers. And then the commons of Kent took him from the officers and led him to the Standard in Cheap and there smote off his head. And then the captain did draw him through London, and over London Bridge to Saint Thomas, and there he was hanged and quartered, and his head and Crowmer's head and another man's head were set on London Bridge.... And the v^th day of July at night (and being Sunday) the commons of London set upon the commons of Kent, for they began to rob.... Then the xij^th day of July was in every shire proclaimed that what man that could take the aforesaid captain and bring him to the King quick or dead, should have a thousand marks, and as for any man that belonged to him x marks; for it was openly known that his name was not Mortimer, his name was John Cade.... And so one Alexander Iden, a squire of Kent, took him in a garden in Southsea the xiij^th day of July; and in the taking of him he was hurt and died that same night, and on the morrow he was 58brought into the King's Bench, and after was drawn through London and his head set on London Bridge.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 155.

Master Paston, we commend us unto you, letting you know the Sheriff is not so whole as he was, for now he will show but a part of his friendship. And also there is great press of people and few friends, as far as we can feel yet.... Also the Sheriff informed us that he hath writing from the King that he shall make such a panel to acquit Lord Molynes. And also he told us, and as far as we can conceive and feel, the Sheriff will panel gentlemen to acquit the lord, and jurors to acquit his men; and we suppose that this is by the motion and means of the other party. And if any means of treaty be proferred, we know not what means should be to your pleasure. And therefore we would fain have more knowledge, if ye think it were to do.

No more at this time, but the Holy Trinity have you in his keeping. Written at Walsingham, in haste, the second day of May,

By your true and faithful friends,
Debenham, Tymperley and White.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 158.

Sir Thomas Howys to Sir John Fastolf.

Right reverend and worshipful master, I recommend me lowly unto you.... The more special cause of my writing at this time is to give you relation of the untrue demeaning of this our determiner, by the partiality of the judges of it; for when the council of the city of Norwich, of the town of Swafham, yours, my master Inglos, Pastons, and many other plaintiffs had put in and declared, both by writing and by word before the judges, the lawful exceptions in many wise, 59the judges by their wilfullness might not find in their heart not as much as a beck nor a twinkling of their eye toward, but took it to derision. God reform such partiality.... It was the most partial place of all the shire, and thither were called all the friends, knights and squires and gentlemen that would in no wise do otherwise than they would. And the said Tudenham, Heydon and other oppressors of their set came down hither with four hundred horse and more; and considering how their well-willers were there assembled at their instance, it had been right jeopardous and fearful for any of the plaintiffs to have been present....

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 201.

These be divers of the riots and offences done in the hundred of Blofeld in the county of Norfolk, and in other towns by Robert Ledham, of Wytton by Blofeld, in the county of Norfolk.

In primis, on the Monday next before Easter day and the shire day, the thirtieth year of our sovereign lord the King, ten persons of the said rioters, with a brother of the wife of the said Robert Ledham, lay in wait in the highway under Thorpe wood upon Phillip Berney, esquire, and his man coming from the shire, and shot at him and smote the horse of the said Phillip with arrows, and then overrode him, and took him and beat him and spoiled him. And for their excuse of this riot, they led him to the Bishop of Norwich, asking surety of the peace where they had never warrant him to arrest. Which affray shortened the life-days of the said Phillip, which died within short time after the said affray.

Item, three of the said riotous fellowship the same day, year, and place, lay in wait upon Edmond Brown, gentleman, and with naked swords and other weapons fought with him by the space of one quarter of an hour, and took and spoiled him, and kept him as long as they list, and after that let him go.

60 Item, forty of the said riotous fellowship, by the commandment of the same Robert Ledham, jacked and saletted, with bows and arrows, bills, and glaives upon Maundy Thursday, at four of the clock at afternoon, the same year, coming to the White Friars in Norwich, and would have broken their gates and doors, feigning them that they would hear their evensong. Where they were answered such service was none used to be there, nor within the said city at that time of the day, and prayed them to depart; and they answered and said that afore their departing they would have some persons out of that place, quick or dead, inasmuch the said friars were fain to keep their place with force. And the mayor and the sheriff of the said city were fain to arraign a power to resist the said riots, which to them on that holy time was tedious and heinous considering the loss and letting of the holy service of that holy night. And thereupon the said rioters departed.

Item, the said Robert Ledham on the Monday next after Easter day, the same year, took from one John Wilton four cattle for rent arrear as he said, and killed them, and laid them in salt, and afterwards ate them.

Item, in likewise the said Robert Ledham and his men assaulted one John Coke of Witton, in breaking up his doors at eleven of the clock at night, and with their swords maimed him and gave him seven great wounds, and took from him certain goods and chattels, of which he had, nor yet hath, no remedy nor restitution.

Item, the same day and year they beat the mother of the same John Coke, she being four score years of age and more, and smote her upon the crown of her head with a sword; of which hurt she might never be healed to the day of her death.

Item, on Mid Lent Sunday, the thirtieth year of our sovereign Lord the King that now is, Robert Dallyng, Robert Church, Robert Taillor, Henry Bang, Adam at More, with others unknown, by the commandment and assent of the said Robert Ledham, made affray upon Henry Smith and Thomas Chamber 61at South Birlingham, the said Henry and Thomas at that time kneeling to see the using of the mass, and then and there would have killed the said Henry and Thomas at the priest's back, unless they had been prevented.

Item, the said Robert Ledham, continuing in this wise, called unto him his said misgoverned fellowship, considering the absence of many of the well-ruled of the said hundred, of afore-cast malice concocted, purposed and laboured to the Sheriff of the shire that the said Robert Church, one of the said riotous fellowship, was made baillie of the hundred; and after caused the same Roger to be beginner of arising and to take upon him to be a captain and to excite the people of the country thereto. And thereupon, by covin of the said Robert Ledham, to impeach all these said well-ruled persons, and as well other divers substantial men of good fame and good governance that was hated by the said Robert Ledham, and promising the said Roger harmless and to sue his pardon by the men of Danyell; to the which promise the said Roger agreed, and was arrested and taken by the said Ledham by covin betwixt them, and impeached such persons as they list, to the intent that the said substantial men of the country should be by that means so troubled and endangered that they should not be of power to let and resist the misrule of the said Ledham and his misgoverned fellowship, the which matter is confessed by the said Robert Church.

Item, six or seven of the said Ledham's men daily, both work day and holy day, use to go about in the country with bows and arrows, shooting and playing in many closes among men's cattle, going from alehouse to alehouse and menacing such as they hated, and sought occasion to quarrel and debate.

Item, notwithstanding that all the livelihood that the said Ledham hath passeth not £20, besides the repairs and out-charges, and that he hath no cunning nor true means of getting of any good in this country, as far as any man may conceive, 62and yet keepeth in his house daily twenty men, besides women and great multitude of such misgoverned people as [have] been resorting to him, as is above said, to the which he giveth clothing, and yet beside that he giveth to others that be not dwelling in his household; and of the said men there passeth not eight that use occupation of husbandry; and all they that use husbandry, as well as other, be jacked and saletted ready for war, which in this country is thought right strange, and is verily so conceived that he may not keep this countenance by no good means.

Item, the said Ledham, hath a supersedeas out of the Chancery for him and divers of his men, that no warrant of justice of peace may be served against him.

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, Second Series, vol. i., pp. 117 et seq. (London: 1827.)

[A report, drawn up by the chief persons in the County of Kildare, to Richard Duke of York, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.]

Right high and mighty Prince and our right gracious lord, Richard Duke of York, we recommend us unto you as lowly as we can or may; and please your gracious Highness to be advertised that the land of Ireland was never at the point finally to be destroyed, since the conquest of this land, as it is now, for the true liege people in these parts dare nor may not appear to the King our sovereign lord's courts in the said land, nor none of the true liege people there to go nor ride to market towns nor other places, for dread of being slain, taken or spoiled of their goods; also the misrule and misgovernance had, done and daily continued by divers gentlemen of the county and your liberty of Meath and the county of Kildare, and namely because of a variance between the earl of Wiltshire, lieutenant of the said land, and Thomas Fitzmaurice of the Geraldines for the title of the manors of Maynooth and 63Rathmore in the county of Kildare.... For Henry Bonyn knight, constituted Treasurer of the said land under the great Seal, assembling with him Edmund Butler cousin germane to the said Earl of Wiltshire and William Butler, cousin to the said Earl, with their following, of the which the most part was Irish enemies and English rebels, came unto the said County of Kildare and there burnt and destroyed divers and many towns and parish churches of the true liege people, and took divers of them prisoners and spoiled them of their goods. And after the departure of the said Henry and Edmund, the said William ... did so great oppression in the said county of Kildare and in the county and liberty of Meath that twenty-seven towns and more which was well inhabited on the feast of St. Michael's last passed are now wasted and destroyed.... Also please your Highness to be advertised that the said William Butler, Nicolas Wogan, David Wogan and Richard Wogan came, with divers Irish enemies and English rebels to the castle of Rathcoffy there, as Ann Wogan sometime wife to Oliver Eustace, then being the King's widow,[15] was dwelling, and burnt the gates of the said place, and took her with them and Edward Eustace, son and heir to the said Oliver ... of the age of eight years, and yet holdeth them prisoners, and took goods and chattels of the said Anne to the value of five hundred marks.

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, p. 419. (Bohn Edition.)

In the meantime, you might plainly perceive public and intestine broils fermenting among the princes and nobles of the realm, so much so, that in the words of the Gospel, "Brother was divided against brother and father against father"; one party adhering to the King, while the other, being attached to the said duke by blood or by ties of duty, sided with him. And not only among princes and people had such a spirit of contention arisen, but even in every society, 64whether chapter, college, or convent, had this unhappy plague of division effected an entrance; so much so, that brother could hardly with any degree of security admit brother into his confidence, or friend a friend, nor could any one reveal the secret of his conscience without giving offence. The consequence was that, from and after this period of time, the combatants on both sides, uniting their respective forces together, attacked each other whenever they happened to meet, and quite in accordance with the doubtful issue of warfare, now the one and now the other for the moment gained the victory, while fortune was continually shifting her position. In the meantime, however, the slaughter of men was immense; for besides the dukes, earls, barons, and distinguished warriors who were cruelly slain, multitudes almost innumerable of the common people died of their wounds. Such was the state of the kingdom for nearly ten years.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., Nos. 195, 226.

A.—January, 1454.

As touching tidings, please it you to wit that at the Prince's coming to Windsor, the Duke of Buckingham took him in his arms and presented him to the King in godly wise, beseeching the King to bless him; and the King gave no manner of answer. Nevertheless the Duke abode still with the Prince by the King; and when he could no manner answer have, the Queen come in, and took the Prince in her arms and presented him in like form as the Duke had done, desiring that he should bless it; but all their labour was in vain, for they departed thence without any answer or countenance saving only that once he looked on the Prince and cast down his eyes again, without any more.

65

B.—January, 1455.

Edmund Clere to John Paston.

To my well-beloved Cousin, John Paston, be this delivered.

Right well-beloved cousin, I recommend me to you, letting you wit such tidings as we have.

Blessed be God, the King is well amended, and hath been since Christmasday, and on Saint John's day commanded his almoner to ride to Canterbury with his offering, and commanded the Secretary to offer at Saint Edward's.

And on the Monday afternoon the Queen came to him, and brought my Lord Prince with her. And then he asked what the Prince's name was, and the Queen told him Edward; and then he held up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew till that time, nor wist not what was said to him, nor wist not where he had been while he hath been sick till now. And he asked who were godfathers, and the Queen told him, and he was well pleased.

And she told him that the Cardinal[16] was dead, and he said he knew never thereof till that time; and he said one of the wisest Lords in this land was dead.

And my Lord of Winchester and my Lord of Saint John were with him on the morrow after Twelfth day, and he speak to them as well as ever he did; and when they come out they wept for joy.

And he saith he is in charity with all the world, and so he would all the Lords were. And now he sayeth Matins of Our Lady and evensong, and heareth his Mass devoutly; and Richard shall tell you more tidings by mouth.

Source.—Archæologia, vol. xx., p. 519.

Be it known and had in mind that the 21st day of May the twenty-third year of the reign of King Henry the sixth, our Sovereign Lord the King took his journey from Westminster 66toward Saint Albans, and rested at Watford all night; and on the morrow betimes he came to Saint Albans, and with him... gentlemen and yeomen to the number of two thousand and more. And upon the twenty-second day of the said month above rehearsed assembled the Duke of York, and with him came in company the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Warwick with divers knights and squires unto their party into the field, called the Key Field, beside Saint Albans. Furthermore, our said sovereign Lord the King, hearing and knowing of the said Duke's coming with other Lords aforesaid, pitched his banner at the place called Boslawe in Saint Peter Street, which place was called aforetime Sandiford, and commandeth the ward and barriers to be kept in strong wise; the aforesaid Duke of York abiding in the field aforesaid from seven of the clock in the morning till it was almost ten without any stroke smitten on either party. The said Duke sent to the King our sovereign Lord, by the advice of his Council, praying and beseeching him to take him as his true man and humble subject; and to consider and to tender at the reverence of Almighty God, and in way of charity the true intent of his coming—to be good and gracious sovereign Lord to his liegemen, which with all their power and might will be ready at all times to live and die with him in his right.

"Moreover, gracious Lord, please it your Majesty Royal of your great goodness and righteousness to incline your will to hear and feel the righteous party of us your subjects and liegemen; first, praying and beseeching to our Lord Jesus of his high and mighty power to give unto you virtue and prudence, and that through the mediation of the glorious martyr Saint Alban to give you very knowledge to know the intent of our assembling at this time; for God that is in Heaven knoweth that our intent is rightful and true. And therefore we pray unto Almighty Lord Jesus, these words—Domine sis clipeus defensionis nostræ. Wherefore, gracious Lord, please it your high Majesty to deliver such as we will accuse, and they to have like as they have deserved and done, and ye to be honoured and worshipped as most rightful King, our governor. 67For and we shall now at this time be promised, as afore this time is not unknown, of promises broken which full faith fully hath been promised, and there upon great oaths made, we will not now cease for none such promise, surety, nor other, till we have them which have deserved death, or else we to die therefore."

And to that answered the King our sovereign Lord and said: "I, King Henry, charge and command that no manner of person, of what degree, or state, or condition that ever he be, abide not, but void the field, and not be so hardy to make any resistance against me in mine own realm; for I shall know what traitor dare be so bold to raise a people in mine own land, wherefore I am in great distress and heaviness. And by the faith that I owe to Saint Edward, and to the Crown of England, I shall destroy them every mother's son, and they be hanged, and drawn, and quartered, that they may be taken afterward, of them to have example to all such traitors to beware to make any such rising of people within my land, and so traitorously to abide their King and governor. And for a conclusion, rather than they shall have any Lord here with me at this time, I shall this day, for their sake, and in this quarrel myself live or die."

Which answer come to the Duke of York, the which Duke, by the advice of the Lords of his Council, said unto them these words: "The King our sovereign Lord will not be reformed at our beseeching nor prayer, nor will not understand the intent that we be come hither and assembled for and gathered at this time; but only his full purpose, and there none other way but that he will with all his power pursue us, and if taken, to give us a shameful death, losing our livelihood and goods, and our heirs shamed for ever. And therefore, since it will be none otherwise but that we shall utterly die, better it is for us to die in the field than cowardly to be put to a great rebuke and a shameful death; moreover, considering in what peril England stands in at this hour, therefore every man help to help power for the right thereof, to redress the mischief that now reigneth, and to quit us like men in this 68quarrel; praying to that Lord that is King of Glory, that reigneth in the Kingdom celestial, to keep us and save us this day in our right, and through the help of His holy grace we may be made strong to withstand the great, abominable and cruel malice of them that purpose fully to destroy us with shameful death. We therefore, Lord, pray to Thee to be our comfort and Defender, saying the word aforesaid, Domine sis clipeus defensionis nostræ."

And when this was said, the said Duke of York, and the said Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Warwick, between eleven and twelve of the clock at noon, they broke into the town in three divers places and several places of the aforesaid street. The King being then in the place of Edmond Westby hundredor of the said town of Saint Albans, commandeth to slay all manner men of lords, knights, and squires and yeomen that might be taken of the foresaid Duke of York. This done, the foresaid Lord Clifford kept strongly the barriers that the said Duke of York might not in any wise, with all the power that he had, enter nor break into the town. The Earl of Warwick, knowing thereof, took and gathered his men together, and furiously brake in by the garden sides between the sign of the Key and the sign of the Chequer in Holwell street; and anon as they were within the town, suddenly they blew up trumpets, and set a cry with a shout and a great voice, "A Warwick! A Warwick! A Warwick!" and unto that time the Duke of York might never have entry into the town; and they with strong hand kept it, and mightily fought together, and anon, forthwith after the breaking in, they set on them manfully. And of them that were slain and buried in Saint Albans, forty-eight. And at this same time were hurt Lords of name—the King, our sovereign Lord, in the neck with an arrow; the Duke of Buckingham, with an arrow in the visage; the Lord of Stafford in the hand, with an arrow; the lord of Dorset, sore hurt that he might not go, but he was carried home in a cart; and Wenlock, knight, in like wise in a cart sore hurt; and other divers knights and squires sore hurt. The Earl of Wiltshire, Thorpe, and many others fled, and left their 69harness behind them cowardly, and the substance of the King's party were despoiled of horse and harness. This done, the said Lords, that is to wit, the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Warwick, come to the King, our Sovereign Lord, and on their knees besought him of grace and forgiveness of that they had done in his presence, and besought him of his Highness to take them as his true liegemen, saying that they never intended hurt to his own person, and therefore the King our sovereign Lord took them to grace, and so desired them to cease their people, and that there should no more harm be done; and they obeyed his commandment, and let made a cry in the King's name that all manner of people should cease and not so hardy to strike any stroke more after the proclamation of the cry; and so ceased the said battle, Deo gratias.

Source.—Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. v., p. 285.

... There be great and grievous riots done in the West Country at the city of Exeter by the earl of Devonshire, accompanied with many riotous persons, as it is said, with eight hundred horsemen and four thousand footmen, and there have robbed the church (cathedral) of Exeter, and taken the canons of the same church and put them to ransom, and also have taken the gentlemen in that country, and done and committed many other great and heinous inconveniences; that in abridging of such riots ... a Protector and Defensor must be had ... and that he, in abridging of such riots and offences, should ride and labour into that country, for but if the said riots and inconveniences were resisted, it should be the cause of the loss of that land, and if that land were lost, it might be the cause of the subversion of all this land.

70

Source.—Gascoigne's Loci e Libro Veritatum, edited by Rogers, pp. 108, 109. (Oxford: 1881).

Formerly, when there were many good and mature rectors of churches resident there, the quarrels and dissensions which arose within a parish or between parishioners, were generally settled by the good handling and advice of such rectors, and there were few pleas and actions through lawyers.... But now, by the lack of such good rectors, strifes, quarrels, dissensions, actions and pleas are multiplied and prolonged, and thus the money, which might have gone to good works, owing to the number of the quarrels goes to the lawyers, advocates, and counsel; whence by the multiplication of such dissensions and actions, the number of these lawyers, jurists, advocates and defenders of evil (who defend evil for love or for fear of evil) is far greater than it need be. And yet many times the cause which has been pleaded long and at great expense is settled and concluded by the interference of the great.

Source.—An English Chronicle, edited by Davies, pp. 75-77. (Camden Society, 1856.)

And this same year, and the year of our Lord 1457, master Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, a secular doctor of divinity that had laboured for many years for to translate Holy Scripture into English; passing the bonds of divinity and of Christian belief, was accused of certain articles of heresy, of the which he was convicted before the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops and clerks, and utterly abjured, revoked and renounced the said articles openly at [St.] Paul's Cross in his mother tongue, as followeth hereafter: "In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I, Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester unworthy, of my own power and will, without any manner of coercion or dread, confess and acknowledge that I here before this time, presuming 71of my natural wit, and preferring my judgement and natural reason before the New and the Old Testament, and the authority and determination of our Mother, Holy Church, have held, written and taught otherwise than the holy Roman and universal church teacheth, preacheth or observeth... and specially these heresies and errors following, that is to say:

'In primis, quod non est de necessitate fidei credere quod Dominus noster Ihesus Christus post mortem descendit ad inferos.

'Item, quod non est de necessitate salutis, credere in sanctorum communione.

'Item, quod ecclesia universalis potest errare in illis quæ sunt fidei.

'Item, quod non est de necessitate salutis credere et tenere illud quod consilium generale et universalis ecclesia statuit, approbat, seu determinat in favorem fidei et ad salutem animarum, est ab universis Christi fidelibus approbandum, credendum et tenendum.'[17]

"Wherefore I, miserable sinner which here before long time have walked in darkness, and now by the mercy and infinite goodness of God reduced into the right way and light of truth, and considering myself grievously to have sinned and wickedly have informed and infected the people of God, return and come again to our Mother, Holy Church; and all heresies and errors written and contained in my said books, works and writings here solemnly and openly revoke and renounce... submitting myself, being now very contrite and penitent sinner, to the correction of the Church and of my said lord of Canterbury.... And over this declaration of my conversion 72and repentance, I here openly assert that my said books, works and writing, for declaration and cause above rehearsed, be deputed unto the fire and openly burnt in example and terror of all other.

This made the said Pecock, as it was said.

And after this he was deprived of his bishopric, having a certain pension assigned unto him for to live on in an abbey, and soon after he died.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. i., No. 317.

John Jerningham to Margaret Paston.

... Right worshipful cousin, if it please you for to hear of such tidings as we have here, the embassy of Burgundy shall come to Calais the Saturday after Corpus Christi day, as men say five hundred horse of them. Moreover, on Trinity Sunday in the morning, came tidings unto my Lord of Warwick that there were twenty-eight sails of Spaniards on the sea, and whereof there was sixteen great ships of forecastle; and then my Lord went and manned five ships of forecastle, and three carvels, and four pinnaces, and on the Monday, on the morning after Trinity Sunday, we met together afore Calais at four at the clock in the morning, and fought that gathering till ten at the clock; and there we took six of their ships, and they slew of our men about four score, and hurt two hundred of us right sore; and there were slain on their part about twelve score; and hurt five hundred of them.

And it happed me, at the first aboarding of us, we took a ship of 300 ton, and I was left therein and twenty-three men with me; and they fought so sore that our men were fain to leave them, and then come they and boarded the ship that I 73was in, and there I was taken, and was prisoner with them six hours, and was delivered again for their men that were taken before. And as men say, there was not so great a battle upon the sea this forty winter. And forsooth, we were well and truly beat; and my Lord hath sent for more ships, and like to fight together again in haste.

Source.—Gascoigne's Loci e Libro Veritatum, edited by Rogers. (Oxford: 1881.)

Unworthy promotions [pp. 13, 14].

It is notorious now in the realm of England that boys, youths and men dwelling in the courts of the worldly are placed in churches, in high offices and in prelacies, others being set aside who have long been occupied in study and preaching and in the guiding of the people without thought of worldly lucre.... Among others unworthily promoted, one foolish youth, eighteen years of age, was promoted to twelve prebends and a great archdeaconry of the value of a hundred pounds, and to one great rectory, and a certain layman received the rents of all the said benefices, and spent upon the youth just as much as he, the layman, pleased, and never rendered an account, and that youth was the son of a simple knight, and, like an idiot, was drunk almost every day.

Non-residence [pp. 3, 149].

Some never or seldom reside in their cures, and he to whom a church is appropriated and who is non-resident, comes once a year to his cure, or sends to the church at the end of the autumn, and having filled his purse with money and sold his tithes, departs again far away from his cure to the court where he occupies himself in money-making and pleasures.... O Lord God! incline the heart of the Pope, Thy vicar, to remedy the evils which arise through the appropriation of churches, and by the non-residence of good curates in the same. For now in England a time draweth nigh when men 74will say, "Formerly there were rectors in England, and now there are ruined churches in which cultured men cannot decently live...."

Church dues oppressive [p. 13].

For Rome, like a singular and principal wild beast, hath laid waste the vineyards of the church, reserving to herself the elections of bishops, that none may confer an episcopal church on anyone unless they first pay the annates or first-fruits and rent of the vacant church. Also she hath destroyed the vineyard of God's church in many places, by annulling the elections of all the bishops in England. Also she destroys the church by promoting wicked men according as the King and the Pope agree.

The abuse of the Sacraments [pp. 197].

It is now known that many infants die without baptism because the parish churches have no fonts, and divers abbeys have licence and custom that everyone of certain parishes should baptise in their monasteries, and yet they cannot come conveniently by night, or at other times to the font there.

Proud Prelates [pp. 22, 23].

Bishops were wont, as is manifest in the Life of St. Cuthbert, to talk humbly and familiarly with their inferiors and every day to give everyone of their flock an audience if he sought to speak with his bishop. Recently a poor man came to the servant of a certain archbishop, the son of a lord, and said "I marvel that the archbishop does not give audience in his own person to his flock as his predecessor was wont to do." The servant replied "My lord the present archbishop was not bred in the same way as his predecessor" (meaning by this that his lord the archbishop, who was so strange and distant to his flock, was the son of a lord, and his predecessor was the son of a poor man); the poor man answered the said servant, "Truly the present archbishop and his predecessor were bred in different fashions, but it is manifest that the predecessor was the better man and more useful to his flock and to their souls and to the whole diocese."

75

Source.—An English Chronicle, edited by Davies, pp. 79, 80. (Camden Society, 1846.)

In this same time the realm of England was out of all good governance, as it had been many days before, for the King was simple and led by covetous counsel, and owed more than he was worth. His debts increased daily, but payment there was none; all the possessions and lordships that pertained to the Crown the King had given away, some to lords and some to other simple persons, so that he had almost nought to live on. And such impositions as were put to the people, as taxes, tallages and quinzimes (fifteenths), all that came from them were spent in vain, for he held no household nor maintained no wars. For these misgovernances, and for many other, the hearts of the people were turned away from them that had the land in governance, and their blessing was turned into cursing. The queen with such as were of her affinity ruled the realm as they liked, gathering riches innumerable. The officers of the realm, and especially the earl of Wiltshire, treasurer of England, for to enrich himself, peeled the poor people and disinherited rightful heirs and did many wrongs. The queen was defamed and slandered, that he that was called Prince was not her son.... Wherefore she, dreading that he should not succeed his father in the crown of England, allied unto her all the knights and squires of Cheshire, for to have their benevolence, and held open household among them ... trusting through them to make her son King.

Source.—An English Chronicle, edited by Davies, p. 93. (Camden Society, 1846.)

Ballad set upon the Gates of Canterbury.

Source.—An English Chronicle, edited by Davies, pp. 96-98. (Camden Society, 1846.)

The King at Northampton lay at Friars, and had ordained there a strong and mighty field in the meadows, armed and arrayed with guns, having the river at his back. The earls [March and Warwick] with the number of sixty thousand, as it was said, came to Northampton and sent certain bishops to the King beseeching him that, in eschewing of effusion of Christian blood, he would admit and suffer the earls for to come into his presence to declare themselves as they were. The duke of Buckingham that stood beside the King, said unto them, "Ye come not as bishops for to treat for peace, but as men of arms;" because they brought with them a notable company of men of arms. They answered and said, "We 77come thus for surety of our persons, for they that be about the King be not our friends."

"Forsooth!" said the duke, "the Earl of Warwick shall not come to the King's presence, and if he come he shall die." The messengers returned again and told this to the earls....

Then on the Thursday the x^th day of July, the year of our Lord 1460, at two hours after noon, the said earls of March and Warwick let cry through the field, that no man should lay hands upon the King nor on the common people, but only on the lords, knights, and squires: then the trumpets blew up, and both hosts encountered and fought together half an hour,... The duke of Buckingham, the earl of Shrewsbury, the lord Beaumont, the lord Egremont were slain by the Kentishmen besides the King's tent, and many other knights and squires. The ordinance of the King's guns availed not, for that day was so great rain that the guns lay deep in water, and so were quenched and might not be shot. When the field was done, and the earls through mercy and help had the victory, they came to the King in his tent, and said in this wise: "Most noble Prince, displease you not, though it hath pleased God of his Grace to grant us the victory of our mortal enemies, the which by their venomous malice have untruly steered and moved your highness to exile us out of your land. We come not to that intent for to inquiet nor grieve your said highness, but for to please your most noble person, desiring most tenderly the high welfare and prosperity thereof, and of all your realm, and for to be your true liegemen while our lives shall endure." The King of their words was greatly recomforted, and anon was led into Northampton with procession, where he rested him three days, and then came to London, the xvj day of the month abovesaid, and lodged in the bishop's palace. For the which victory London gave to Almighty God great laud and thanking.

78

Source.—Gregory's "Chronicle" in the Collections of a London Citizen, pp. 208, 209. (Camden Society.)

And that same night the King [Henry VI.] removed unto London, against his will, to the bishop's palace of London, and the Duke of York come unto him that same night by torch-light and took upon him as King and said in many places that "this is ours by very right." And then the Queen, hearing this, voided unto Wales, but she was met beside the Castle of Malpas, and a servant of her own that she had made both yoeman and gentleman and after appointed for to be in office with her son the prince, spoiled her and robbed her and put her so in doubt of her life and son's life also. And then she come to the castle of Hardelowe [Harlech] in Wales, and she had many great gifts and [was] greatly comforted, for she had need thereof. And most commonly she rode behind a young poor gentleman of fourteen year age, his name was John Combe, born at Amysbery in Wiltshire. And there hence she removed full privily unto the Lord Jasper, Lord and Earl of Pembroke, for she durst not abide in no place that was open, but in private. The cause was that counterfeit tokens were sent unto her as though they had come from her most dread lord the King Harry the VI.; but it was not of his sending, neither of his doing, but forged thing;... for at the King's departing from Coventry toward the field of Northampton, he kissed her and blessed the prince, and commanded her that she should not come unto him till that he send a special token unto her that no man knew but the King and she. For the lords would fain had her unto London, for they knew well that all the workings that were done grew by her, for she was more wittier than the King, and that appeareth by his deeds.

79

Source.—Hall's Chronicle, pp. 250, 251. (London: 1809.)

[Note.—Hall's Chronicle was first published in 1542, and therefore the following extract is by no means contemporary with the events it describes. But it is the only account of the battle of Wakefield, and it derives some authority from the fact that Hall had an ancestor who was slain in the fight.]

The duke of York with his people descended down the hill in good order and array and was suffered to pass forward, toward the main battle: but when he was in the plain ground between his castle and the town of Wakefield, he was environed on every side, like a fish in a net or a deer in a buckstall: so that he, manfully fighting, was within half an hour slain and dead, and his whole army discomfited.... While this battle was in fighting a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chaplain and schoolmaster to the young earl of Rutland, second son to the abovenamed duke of York, of the age of twelve years, a fair gentleman and a maidenlike person, perceiving that flight was more safeguard than tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly conveyed the earl out of the field ... but or he could enter into a house the lord Clifford espied, followed and taken, and by reason of his apparell demanded what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees imploring mercy and desiring grace both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. "Save him," said the Chaplain, "for he is a prince's son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter." With that word the Lord Clifford marked him and said, "By God's blood, thy father slew mine, and so will I do thee and all thy kin," and with that word stuck the earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade the chaplain bear the earl's mother and brother word what he had done.... This cruel Clifford and deadly blood-supper, not content with this homicide or child-killing, came to the place where the dead corpse of the duke of York lay, and caused his head to be stricken off, and set on it a crown of paper and so fixed it on a pole and presented it to the Queen, 80not lying far from the field, in great despite and much derision, saying, "Madame, your war is done; here is your King's ransom."

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, pp. 421, 422. (Bohn Edition.)

The duke being thus removed from this world, the north-men, being sensible that the only impediment was now withdrawn, and that there was no one now who could care to resist their inroads, again swept onwards like a whirlwind from the north, and in the impulse of their fury attempted to overrun the whole of England. At this period too, fancying that everything tended to insure them freedom from molestation, paupers and beggars flocked forth from those quarters in infinite numbers, just like so many mice rushing forth from their holes, and universally devoted themselves to spoil and rapine, without regard of place or person. For, besides the vast quantities of property which they collected outside, they also irreverently rushed, in their unbridled and frantic rage, into churches and the other sanctuaries of God, and most nefariously plundered them of their chalices, books, and vestments, and, unutterable crime! broke open the pixes in which were kept the body of Christ, and shook out the sacred elements therefrom. When the priests and the other faithful of Christ in any way offered to make resistance, like so many abandoned wretches as they were, they cruelly slaughtered them in the very churches or church yards. Thus did they proceed with impunity, spreading in vast multitudes over a space of thirty miles in breadth, and, covering the whole surface of the earth just like so many locusts, made their way almost to the very walls of London; all the moveables which they could possibly collect in every quarter being placed on beasts of burden and carried off. With such avidity for spoil did they press on, that they dug up the precious vessels, 81which, through fear of them, had been concealed in the earth, and with threats of death compelled the people to produce the treasures which they had hidden in remote and obscure spots.

Source.—Gregory's "Chronicle," in the Collections of a London Citizen, p. 211. (Camden Society.)

Also Edward Earl of March, the Duke of York's son and heir, had a great journey at Mortimer's Cross in Wales the second day of February next so following, and there he put to flight the Earl of Pembroke,[18] (and) the Earl of Wiltshire. And there he took and slew of knights and squires to the number of 3,000.

And in that journey was Owen Tudor taken and brought unto Hereford, and he was beheaded at the market place, and his head set upon the highest grice[19] of the market cross, and a mad woman combed his hair and washed away the blood of his face, and she got candles and set them about him, burning more than a hundred. This Owen Tudor was father unto the Earl of Pembroke, and had wedded Queen Catherine, King Harry the VI.'s mother, thinking and trusting all the way that he should not be beheaded until he saw the axe and the block, and when that he was in his doublet he trusted on pardon and grace till the collar of his red velvet doublet was ripped off. Then he said: "That head shall lie on the stock that was wont to lie on Queen Catherine's lap," and put his heart and mind wholly unto God, and full meekly to his death.

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, pp. 425, 426. (Bohn Edition.)

Edward pursued them as far as a level spot of ground, situate near the castle of Pomfret and the bridge at Ferry82bridge, and washed by a stream of considerable size; where he found an army drawn up in order of battle, composed of the remnants of the northern troops of King Henry. They, accordingly, engaged in a most severe conflict, and fighting hand to hand with sword and spear, there was no small slaughter on either side. However, by the mercy of the Divine clemency, King Edward soon experienced the favour of heaven, and, gaining the wished-for victory over his enemies, compelled them either to submit to be slain or to take to flight. For, their ranks being now broken and scattered in flight, the King's army eagerly pursued them, and cutting down the fugitives with their swords, just like so many sheep for the slaughter, made immense havoc among them for a distance of ten miles, as far as the city of York. Prince Edward, however, with a part of his men, as conqueror, remained upon the field of battle, and awaited the rest of his army, which had gone in various directions in pursuit of the enemy.

When the solemnities of the Lord's day, which is known as Palm Sunday, were now close at hand, after distributing rewards among such as brought the bodies of the slain, and gave them burial, the King hastened to enter the before-named city. Those who helped to inter the bodies, piled up in pits and in trenches prepared for the purpose, bear witness that eight-and-thirty thousand warriors fell on that day, besides those who were drowned in the river before alluded to, whose numbers we have no means of ascertaining. The blood, too, of the slain, mingling with the snow, which at this time covered the whole surface of the earth, afterwards ran down in the furrows and ditches along with the melted snow, in a most shocking manner, for a distance of two or three miles.

83

Source.—Archæologia, vol. xxix., p. 130.

"On Thursday the first week in Lent came Edward to London with thirty thousand men, and so in field and town everyone called Edward King of England and France."

Source.—Gregory's "Chronicle" in the Collections of a London Citizen, pp. 222, 223. (Camden Society.)

This year, about Midsummer, at the royal feast of the Sergeants of the Coif, the Mayor of London was desired to be at that feast. And at dinner time he came to the feast with 84his officers, agreeing and according unto his degree. For within London he is next unto the King in all manner [of] thing. And in time of washing the Earl of Worcester was taken before the mayor and set down in the midst of the high table. And the mayor seeing that his place was occupied held him content, and went home again without meat or drink or anything, but reward him he did as his dignity required of the city. And took with him the substance of his brethren the aldermen to his place, and were set and served as soon as any man could devise, both of cygnet and of other delicacies enough, that all the house marvelled how well everything was done in so short a time....

Then the officers of the feast, full evil ashamed, informed the masters of the feast of this mishap that is befallen. And they, considering the great dignity and costs and charge that belonged to the city, anon sent unto the mayor a present of meat, bread and wine and many divers subtleties. But when they that come with the presents saw all the gifts and the service that was at the board, he was full sore ashamed that should do the message, for the present was not better than the service of meat was before the mayor and throughout the high table. But his demeaning was so that he had love and thanks for his message and a great reward withal. And thus the worship of the city was kept and not lost for him. And I trust that never it shall, by the grace of God.

Source.—Gregory's "Chronicle" in the Collections of a London Citizen, pp. 226, 227. (Camden Society.)

Now take heed what love may do, for love will not nor may not cast no fault nor peril in nothing.

That same year, the first day of May, our sovereign lord the King Edward IV. was wedded to the Lord Rivers' daughter; her name is Dame Elizabeth that was wife unto Sir John Grey.... And this marriage was kept full secretly long and many a day, that no man knew it; but men marvelled that our 85sovereign lord was so long without any wife, and were ever feared that he had been not chaste of his living. But on All Hallows' day at Reading there it was known, for there the King kept his common council, and the lords moved him and exhorted him in God's name to be wedded and to live under the law of God and Church, and (that) they would send into some strong land to inquire a queen of good birth according to his dignity. And then our sovereign might no longer hide his marriage, and told them how he had done, and made that the marriage should be opened unto his lords.

Source.—The Boke of Nurture, by John Russell (1460-1470). (Roxburghe Club, 1867.)

The furst Course.

The Second Course.

The iij Course.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. ii., No. 620.

Margaret Paston to Sir John Paston.

I greet you well, letting you wit that your brother and his fellowship stand in great jeopardy at Caister, and lack victuals; and Dawbeney and Berney be dead, and divers others greatly hurt; and they fail gunpowder and arrows, and the place sore broken with guns of the other party, so that, but they have hasty help, they be like to lose both their lives and the place, to the greatest rebuke to you that ever came to any gentleman, for every man in this country marvelleth greatly that ye suffer them to be so long in so great jeopardy without help or other remedy.

The Duke hath been more fervently set there upon, and more 87cruel, since that Wretyll, my Lord of Clarence's man, was there, than he was before, and he hath sent for all his tenants from every place, and others, to be there at Caister at Thursday next coming, that there is then like to be the greatest multitude of people that came there yet. And they purpose them to make a great assault—for they have sent for guns to Lynn and other place by the seaside—that, with their great multitude of guns, with other shoot and ordnance, there shall no man dare appear in the place. They shall hold them so busy with their great people, that it shall not lie in their power within to hold it against them, without God help them, or have hasty succour from you.

Therefore, as ye will have my blessing, I charge you and require you that ye see your brother be helped in haste. And if he can have no means, rather desire writing from my Lord of Clarence, if he be at London, or else of my Lord Archbishop of York, to the Duke of Norfolk, that he will grant them that be in the place their lives and their goods; and in eschewing of insurrections with other inconveniences that be like to grow within the shire of Norfolk, this troublous world, because of such conventicles and gatherings within the said shire for cause of the said place, they shall suffer him to enter upon such appointment, or other like taking by the advise of your council there at London, if ye think this be not good, till the law hath determined otherwise; and let him write another letter to your brother to deliver the place upon the same appointment....

Do your devoir now, and let me send you no more messengers for this matter; but send me by the bearer here of more certain comfort than ye have done by all other that I have sent before. In any wise, let the letters that shall come to the Earl of Oxenford come with the letters that shall come to the Duke of Norfolk, that if he will not agree to the tone, that ye may have ready your rescue that it need no more to send therefore. God keep you.

Written the Tuesday next before Holy Rood Day.

In haste by your mother.

88

Source.—Chronicles of the White Rose (Warkworth's Chronicle), pp. 117-118. (Bohn, London: 1845.)

Here is to know, that in the beginning of the month of October in the year of our Lord 1470, the bishop of Winchester, by the assent of the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick, went to the Tower of London, where King Harry was in prison, (by King Edward's commandment,) which was not worshipfully arrayed as a prince, and not so cleanly kept as should beseem such a prince. They had him out and new arrayed him, and did to him great reverence, and brought him to the palace of Westminster, and so he was restored again to the Crown.... Whereof all his good lovers were full glad, and the more part of people also.... [For] when King Edward the Fourth reigned the people looked after ... prosperities and peace, but it came not; but one battle after another, and much trouble and great loss of goods among the common people; as first the fifteenth of all their goods, and then a whole fifteenth, and yet at every battle [they had] to come far out of their countries at their own cost; and these and such other causes brought England right low, and many men said King Edward had much blame for hurting merchandize, for in his days they were not in other lands, nor within England, taken in such reputation and credence as they were before.

Source.—Chronicles of the White Rose, pp. 37, 38, 50, 51. (Bohn, London: 1845.)

The same night following upon the morn, Wednesday and Thursday, the 14th day of March fell great storms, winds and tempests upon the sea, so that the said 14th day, in great torment, he came to Humber Head, where the other ships were dissevered from him, and every from other, so that of necessity they were driven to land, every one far from the 89other. The King, with his ship alone, wherein was the Lord Hastings, his Chamberlain, and others to the number of five hundred well chosen men, landed within Humber on Holderness side at a place called Ravenspurne. The King's brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, and in his company three hundred men landed at another place, four miles from thence. The Earl Rivers, and the fellowship being in his company, to the number of two hundred, landed at a place called Powle, fourteen miles from whence the King landed, and the remainder of the fellowship where they might best get land. That night the King was lodged at a poor village two miles from his landing, with a few with him; but that night, and in the morning, the residue that were coming in his ship, the rage of the tempest somewhat appeased, landed, and alway drew towards the King.

... The King at that time being at Warwick, and understanding his near approaching, upon an afternoon issued out of Warwick, with all his fellowship, by the space of three miles, into a fair field towards Banbury, where he saw the Duke [of Clarence], his brother, in fair array come towards him, with a great fellowship. And when they were together within less than half a mile, the King set his people in array, the banners displayed, and left them standing still, taking with him his brother of Gloucester, the Lord Rivers, Lord Hastings, and a few others, and went towards his brother of Clarence. And in like wise the Duke for his part, taking with him a few noblemen, and leaving his host in good order, departed from them towards the King. And so they met betwixt both hosts, where there was right kind and loving language betwixt them two, with perfect accord knit together for ever hereafter, with as heartily loving cheer and countenance as might be betwixt two brethren of so great nobility and estate.

90

Source.—Chronicles of the White Rose, pp. 63-68. (Bohn, London: 1845).

On the morrow, betimes, the King, understanding that the day approached near, betwixt four and five of the clock, notwithstanding there was a great mist, and hindered the sight of each other, yet he committed his cause and quarrel to Almighty God, advanced his banners, did blow on trumpets, and set upon them, first with shot, and then, and soon, they joined and came to hand-strokes, wherein his enemies manly and courageously received them, as well in shot as in hand-strokes, when they joined; which joining of their both battles (armies) was not directly front to front, as they so should have joined, had it not been for the mist, which suffered neither party to see the other, but for a little space; and that of likelihood caused the battle to be the more cruel and mortal; for so it was that the one end of their battle overreached the end of the King's battle, and so at that end they were much mightier than was the King's battle at the same end, that joined with them, which was the west end, and therefore, upon that part of the King's battle they had a greater distress upon the King's party; wherefore many fled towards Barnet, and so forth to London, ere ever they left off; and they (the Earl's party) fell into the chase of them and did much harm. But the other parties, and the residue of neither battle, might see that distress, neither the fleeing, nor the chase, because of the great mist that was, which would not suffer any man to see but a little from him; and so the King's battle, which saw none of all that, was thereby in nothing discouraged, for, save only a few that were near unto them, no man wist thereof; also the other party by the same distress, flight, or chase, were therefore the greater encouraged. And in likewise at the east end, the King's battle, when they came to joining, overreached their battle, and so distressed them there greatly, and so drew near towards the King, who was about the midst of the battle, 91and sustained all the might and weight thereof. Nevertheless upon the same little distress at the west end, anon ran the news to Westminster, and to London, and so further to other countries, that the King was distressed, and his field lost; but the laud be to Almighty God! it was otherwise; for the King, trusting verily in God's help, our blessed Lady's and Saint George, took to him great hardiness and courage, for to suppress the falsehood of all them that so falsely and so traitorously had conspired against him, wherethrough, with the faithful, well-beloved, and mighty assistance of his fellowship, that in great number dissevered not from his person, and were as well assured unto him as to them was possible, he manly, vigorously, and valiantly, assailed them in the midst and strongest of their battle, where he, with great violence, beat and bare down before him all that stood in his way, and then turned to the range, first on that hand, and then on that other hand, in length, and so beat and bare them down, so that nothing might stand in the sight of him, and the well assured fellowship that attended truly upon him; so that, blessed be God! he won the field there, and the perfect victory remained unto him, and to his rebels the discomfiture of thirty thousand men, as they numbered themselves. In this battle was slain the Earl of Warwick....

On the morrow after, the King commanded that the bodies of the dead lords, the Earl of Warwick, and his brother, the Marquis, should be brought to St. Paul's in London, and, in the church there, openly shewed to all the people; to the intent that after that the people should not be abused by feigned seditious tales, which many of them, that were wont to be towards the Earl of Warwick, had been accustomed to make; and, peradventure, so would have made after that, had not the dead bodies there been shewed, open and naked and well known; for, doubtless, else the rumour should have been sown about in all countries that they both, or else at the least, the Earl of Warwick was yet alive, upon the cursed intent thereby to have caused new murmurs, insurrections and rebellions amongst indisposed people.

92

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., Nos. 675, 681.

Sir John Paston to John Paston.

... I pray you send me word if any of our friends or well-doers be dead, for I fear that there is great death in Norwich, and in other borough towns in Norfolk, for I assure you it is the most universal death that ever I wist in England; for, by my troth, I cannot hear by pilgrims that pass the country nor none other man that rideth or goeth [through] any country, that any borough town in England is free from that sickness; God cease it when it please Him. Wherefore, for God's sake, let my mother take heed to my young brethren that they be not in any place where that sickness is reigning, nor that they disport not with any young people which resort where any sickness is, and if there be any of that sickness dead or infect in Norwich, for God's sake, let her send them to some friend of hers in the country....

Margaret Paston to her son John.

... As for tidings here, your cousin Barney of Wichingham is passed to God, him God assoil. Veyly's wife and London's wife, and Pycard the baker of Twmlond be gone also; all this household and this parish is as ye left it, blessed be God; we live in fear, but we know not whether to flee, for to be better than we be here.

A. Source.—Chronicles of the White Rose (Warkworth's "Chronicle"), p. 131. (Bohn, London: 1845).

And the same night that King Edward came to London, King Harry, being in ward, in prison in the Tower of London, was put to death, the twenty-first day of May, on a Tuesday night, betwixt eleven and twelve of the clock; being then at the Tower the Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward, and many others; and on the morrow he was coffined and 93brought to St. Paul's, and his face was open that every man might see him. And in his lying, he bled on the pavement there; and afterward at the Black Friars was brought, and there he bled anew and afresh; and from thence he was carried to Chertsey Abbey in a boat, and buried there in our Lady Chapel.

B. Source.—Chronicles of the White Rose (Fleetwood's "Arrival of King Edward IV."), p. 93. (Bohn, London: 1845.)

Here it is to be remembered, that from the time of Tewkesbury-field, where Edward, called Prince, was slain, then, and soon after, were taken and slain at the King's will, all the noblemen that came from beyond the sea with the said Edward, called Prince, and others also their partakers as many as were of any might or puissance. Queen Margaret herself was taken and brought to the King, and in every part of England, where any commotion was begun for King Henry's party, anon they were rebuked, so that it appeared to every man at once, the said party was extinct and repressed for ever, without any manner of hope of again quickening; utterly deprived of any manner of hope or relief. The certainty of all which came to the knowledge of the said Henry, late called King, being in the Tower of London. Not having before that knowledge of the said matters, he took it to so great despite, ire, and indignation, that of pure displeasure and melancholy, he died the twenty-third day of the month of May. Whom the King did order to be brought to the friars preachers at London, and there his funeral service done, to be carried by water to an Abbey upon Thames' Side, sixteen miles from London, called Chertsey, and there honourably interred.

Source.—Archæologia, vol. xxvi., pp. 276 et seq. (London: 1836).

The coming into England of the Lord Gruthuyse from the right high and mighty Prince Charles duke of Burgundy.

When he [Gruthuyse] came to the castle of Windsor, into the quadrant, my lord Hastings, chamberlain to the King, Sir 94John Parr, Sir John Don with divers other lords and nobles received him to the King. The King had caused to be imparrailled on the far side of the quadrant three chambers richly hanged with cloths of Arras and with beds of state, and when he had spoken with the King's grace and the queen, he was accompanied to his chamber by the lord chamberlain and Sir John Parr with divers more, which supped with him in his chamber; also there supped with him his servants. When they had supped, my lord chamberlain had him again to the King's chamber. There incontinent the King had him to the queen's chamber where she had there her ladies playing at morteaulx,[30] and some of her ladies and gentlemen at the closheys[31] of ivory, and dancing. And some at divers other games accordingly. The which sight was full pleasant to them. Also the King danced with my lady Elizabeth, his eldest daughter. That done, the night passed over, they went to his chamber. The lord Gruthuyse took leave, and my lord chamberlain with divers nobles accompanied him to his chamber, where they departed for that night. And in the morning when Matins was done, the King heard in his own chapel our Lady's mass, which was melodiously sung, the lord Gruthuyse being there present. When the mass was done, the King gave the said lord Gruthuyse a cup of gold garnished with pearl. In the midst of the cup is a great piece of unicorn's horn,[32] to my estimation, seven inches compass. And in the cover was a great sapphire. Then went he to his chamber where he had his breakfast. And when he had broken his fast, the King came to the quadrant. My lord prince also, borne by his chamberlain called Master Vaughan, which bade the aforesaid lord Gruthuyse welcome. Then the King had him and all his company into the little Park, where he made him to have great sport. And there the King made him ride on his own horse, a right fair hobby, the which the King gave him.... The King's dinner was ordained in the lodge, and before dinner they killed no game save a doe; the which the 95King gave to the servants of the lord Gruthuyse. And when the King had dined, they went a-hunting again. And by the castle were found certain deer lying; some with greyhounds and some run to death with buck-hounds.... By that time it was near night, yet the King shewed him his garden and Vineyard of Pleasure, and so turned into the castle again where they heard evensong in their chambers.

The queen ordained a great banquet in her own chamber. At which banquet were the King, the queen, my lady Elizabeth the King's eldest daughter, the lord Gruthuyse (etc).... There was a side table at which sat a great view of ladies, all on the one side. Also in the outer chamber sat the queen's gentlewomen, all on one side. And on the other side of the table over against them, as many of the lord Gruthuyse's servants, as touching to the abundant welfare like as it is according to such a banquet. And when they had supped, my lady Elizabeth danced with the Duke of Buckingham and divers other ladies also. Then about nine of the clock the King and the queen, with all her ladies, brought the said lord Gruthuyse to three chambers of Pleasance, all hanged with white silk and linen cloth, and all the floors covered with carpets. There was ordained a bed for himself, of as good down as could be gotten, the sheets of Rennes, also fine fustians; the counterpoint cloth of gold, furred with ermine, the tester and celer also shining cloth of gold, the curtains of white sarcent; as for his head suit and pillows, they were of the queen's own ordering. The second chamber was another of state, the which was all white. Also in the same chamber was made a couch with feather beds, hanged with a tent knit like a net, and there was a cupboard. In the third chamber was a bath or two, which were covered with tents of white cloth. And when the King and the queen, with all her ladies, had showed him these chambers, they turned again to their own chambers, and left the said lord Gruthuyse there, accompanied with my lord chamberlain, which disrobed him, and went both to the bath.... And when they had been in their baths as long as was their pleasure they had green ginger, confits and ypocras, and then they went to bed.

96

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., No. 869.

[Note.—The original manuscript is much decayed, and the portions between brackets represent attempted reconstructions of the text.]

The inventory of the English books of John [Paston] made the fifth day of November, anno regni regis E. iiij....

1. A book had of mine hostess at the George ... of The Death of Arthur beginning at Cassab[elaun, Guy Earl of] Warwick; King Richard Cœur de Lion;[33] A chronicle ... to Edward III.

   [33] A romance of the fourteenth century, first printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1509-1528).

2. Item, a book of Troilus[34] which William Bra ... hath had near ten years, and lent it to Dame ... Wyngfeld, and ibi ego vidi.

   [34] Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida.

3. Item, a black book with the legend of Lad[ies,[35] la Belle Dame] saunce Mercye; the Parliament of Bird[s;[36] the Temple of] Glass;[37] Palatyse and Scitacus; the Me[ditations]; the Green Knight.[38]

   [35] Possibly Chaucer's Legend of Good Ladies.

   [36] Possibly Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls.

   [37] A poem by Lydgate (circa 1370-1451). For a text of this poem see Early English Text Society, Extra Series, lx. (1891).

   [38] An anonymous ballad of the fourteenth century.

4. Item, a Book in print of the Play of the [Chess].
5. Item, a book lent Midelton, and therein is Belle Da[me sans] Mercy; the Parliament of Birds; Ballad ... of Guy and Colbronde; of the Goose ... the Disputation between Hope and Despair; ... Mare haunts; the Life of Saint Cry[stofer].
6. A red book that Percival Robsart gave me ... of the Meeds of the Mass; the Lamentation of Childe Ypotis;[39] a prayer to the Vernicle;[40] [a book] called the Abbey of the Holy Ghost.

   [39] In this ballad Ypotis = Epictetus (see Horstmann's Altenglische Legenden (1881)).

   [40] The "Vernicle," or "Veronica Kerchief" was one of the most popular legends of the Middle Ages. Veronica, a lady of Jerusalem (afterwards identified with the woman that had an issue of blood), seeing Christ sinking beneath the burden of the Cross, wiped His face with a veil. After this work of mercy the face of Christ was found imprinted on the veil.

   97

7. Item, in quires:—Tully de Senectute[41] in divers [places] whereof there is no more clear written.

   [41] Cicero's De Senectute.

8. Item, in quires:—Tully or Cypio[42] de Ami[citia] left with William Worcester.

   [42] Scipio. In Cicero's dialogue, De Amicitia, the friendship of the chief speaker, Gaius Lælius, with the younger Scipio, is taken as the model of the theme. "Equidem ex omnibus rebus, quas mihi aut fortuna aut natura tribuit, nihil habeo quod cum amicitia Scipionis possim compare."

9. Item, in quires, a book of the Policy of In[gelond].
10. Item, in quires, a book de Sapientia[43] ... wherein the second person is likened to Sapi[ence].

    [43] Lydgate's Werke of Sapience.

11. Item, a Book de Othea,[44] text and gloss ... in quires. Memorandum, mine old Book of Blazonings of Arms.
    Item, the new Book portrayed and blazoned.
    Item, a copy of Blazonings of Arms and the names to
    be found by letter.
    Item, a book with arms portrayed in paper....
    

    Memorandum, my Book of Knighthood and the man[ner] of making of Knights, of Jousts, of Tour[nements], fighting in lists, paces holden by so[ldiers] ... and challenges, statutes of war, and De Regim[ine Principum].[45]

    Item, a new Book of new Statutes from Edward IV.

    [44] A treatise on Wisdom. Dr. Gairdiner notes that the name is derived from the Greek Ὠ θεὰ but was used in the Middle Ages as the name for the Goddess of Wisdom (Paston Letters, vol. ii., p. 335, n. 1).

    [45] Thomas Hoccleve (1370?-1449) wrote the Regement of Princes, based on the De Regimine Principum of Ægidius Colonna (see Early English Text Society, Extra Series, lxxii., 1897).

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, pp. 479, 480. (Bohn Edition.)

Now each began to look upon the other with no very fraternal eyes. You might then have seen (as such men are generally to be found in the courts of all princes) flatterers running to and fro, from the one side to the other, and carrying backwards and forwards the words which had fallen from the 98two brothers, even if they had happened to be spoken in the most secret closet. The arrest of the duke for the purpose of compelling him to answer the charges brought against him happened under the following circumstances. One Master John Stacy, a person who was called an astronomer, when in reality he was rather a great sorcerer, formed a plot in conjunction with one Burdet, an esquire, and one of the said duke's household; upon which he was accused, among numerous other charges, of having made leaden images and other things to procure thereby the death of Richard, Lord Beauchamp, at the request of his adulterous wife. Upon being questioned in a very severe examination as to his practice of damnable arts of this nature, he made confession of many matters, which told both against himself and the said Thomas Burdet. The consequence was, that Thomas was arrested as well; and at last, judgment of death was pronounced upon them both, at Westminster, from the Bench of our lord the king, the judges being there seated, together with nearly all the lords temporal of the kingdom. Being drawn to the gallows at Tyburn, they were permitted briefly to say what they thought fit before being put to death; upon which, they protested their innocence, Stacy indeed but faintly; while, on the other hand, Burdet spoke at great length, and with much spirit, and as his last words exclaimed with Susanna, "Behold! I must die; whereas I never did such things as these."

On the following day, the Duke of Clarence came to the council-chamber at Westminster, bringing with him a famous Doctor of the Order of Minorites, Master William Goddard by name, in order that he might read the confession and declaration of innocence above-mentioned before the lords in the said council assembled; which he accordingly did, and then withdrew. The king was then at Windsor, but when he was informed of this circumstance, he was greatly displeased thereat, and recalling to mind the information formerly laid against his brother, and which he had long kept treasured up in his breast, he summoned the duke to appear on a certain day in the royal palace of Westminster: upon which, in presence 99of the Mayor and aldermen of the city of London, the king began, with his own lips, amongst other matters, to inveigh against the conduct of the before-named duke, as being derogatory to the laws of the realm, and most dangerous to judges and jurors throughout the kingdom. But why enlarge? The duke was placed in custody, and from that day up to the time of his death never was known to have regained his liberty.

The circumstances that happened in the ensuing Parliament my mind shudders to enlarge upon, for then was to be witnessed a sad strife carried on before these two brethren of such high estate. For not a single person uttered a word against the duke except the King; not one individual made answer to the King except the duke. Some parties were introduced, however, as to whom it was greatly doubted by many, whether they filled the office of accusers rather, or of witnesses; these two offices not being exactly suited to the same person in the same cause. The duke met all the charges made against him with a denial, and offered, if he could only obtain a hearing, to defend his cause with his own hand. But why delay in using many words? Parliament being of opinion that the informations which they had heard were established, passed sentence upon him of condemnation, the same being pronounced by the mouth of Henry, duke of Buckingham, who was appointed Seneschal of England for the occasion. After this, execution was delayed for a considerable time; until the Speaker of the Commons, coming to the upper house with his fellows, made a fresh request that the matter might be brought to a conclusion. In consequence of this, in a few days after, the execution, whatever its nature may have been, took place (and would that it had ended these troubles!) in the Tower of London, it being the year of our Lord, 1478, and the eighteenth of the reign of King Edward.

100

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., No. 827.

William Paston Junior to John Paston.

Right reverend and worshipful brother, after all duties of recommendation, I recommend me to you, desiring to hear of your prosperity and welfare, which I pray God long to continue to His pleasure, and to your heart's desire; letting you wit that I received a letter from you, in the which letter was eight pence with the which I should buy a pair of slippers.

Furthermore certifying you, as for the 13s. 4d. which ye sent by a gentleman's man, for my board, called Thomas Newton, was delivered to mine hostess, and so to my creditor, Mr. Thomas Stevenson; and he heartily recommended him to you.

Also ye send me word in the letter of 12 lbs. figs and 8 lbs. raisins. I have them not delivered, but I doubt I shall have, for Alwedyr told me of them, and he said that they came after in another barge.

And as for the young gentlewoman, I will certify you how I first fell in acquaintance with her. Her father is dead; there be two sisters of them; the elder is just wedded; at the which wedding I was with mine hostess, and also desired by the gentleman himself, called William Swanne, whose dwelling is in Eton.

So it fortuned that mine hostess reported on me otherwise than I was worthy; so that her mother commanded her to make me good cheer, and so in good faith she did. She is not abiding where she is now; her dwelling is in London; but her mother and she come to a place of hers five miles from Eton, where the wedding was, for because it was nigh to the gentleman which wedded her daughter. And on Monday next coming, that is to say, the first Monday of Clean Lent, her mother and she will go to the pardon at Sheen, and so forth to London, and there to abide in a place of hers in Bow Church Yard; and if it please you to inquire of her, her mother's name is 101Mistress Alborow; the name of the daughter is Margaret Alborow; the age of her is by all likelihood eighteen or nineteen year at the furthest. And as for the money and plate, it is ready whensoever she were wedded; but as for the livelihood, I trow not till after her mother's decease; but I cannot tell you for very certain, but you may know by inquiring. And as for her beauty, judge you that when ye see her, if so be that ye take the labour, and specially behold her hands; for and if it be as it is told me, she is disposed to be plump.

And as for my coming from Eton, I lack nothing but versifying, which I trust to have with a little continuance.

And these two verses aforesaid be of mine own making. No more to you at this time, but God have you in His keeping. Written at Eton, the even of Saint Mathew the Apostle.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., No. 829.

Edmund Alyard to Margaret Paston.

Right worshipful mistress, I recommend me unto you as lowly as I can, thanking you for your goodness at all times; God grant me to deserve it, and do that may please you.

As for your son Walter, his labour and learning hath been and is in the Faculty of Art, and is well sped therein, and may be Bachelor at such time as shall like you, and then to go to law. I can think it to his preferring, but it is not good he know it until the time he shall change; and as I conceive there shall none have that Exhibition to the Faculty of Law. Therefore move the executors that at such time as he shall leave it, ye may put another in his place, such as shall like you to prefer. If he shall go to law, and be made Bachelor of 102Art before, and ye will have him home this year, then may he be Bachelor at Midsummer, and be with you in the vacation, and go to law at Michaelmas. What it shall like you to command me in this or any other, ye shall have mine service ready.

I pray you by the next messenger to send me your intent, that such as shall be necessary may be purveyed in season.

And Jesu preserve you.

Written at Oxford, the iv day of March.

Your scholar,
Edmund Alyard.

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, pp. 485-90. (Bohn Edition.)

The body of the deceased King [Edward IV.] being accordingly interred with all honour in due ecclesiastical form, in the new collegiate Chapel of Windsor, which he had erected of the most elaborate workmanship from the foundations; all were most anxiously awaiting the day of the new King's coronation, which was to be the first Lord's day in the month of May, which fell this year on the fourth day of the said month. In the meantime the duke of Gloucester wrote the most soothing letters in order to console the queen, with promises that he would shortly arrive, and assurances of all duty, fealty, and due obedience to his King and lord Edward the Fifth, the eldest son of the deceased King, his brother, and of the queen. Accordingly, on his arrival at York with a becoming retinue, each person being arrayed in mourning, he performed a solemn funeral service for the King, the same being accompanied with plenteous tears. Constraining all the nobility of those parts to take the oath of fealty to the late King's son, he himself was the first of all to take the oath. On reaching Northampton, where the duke of Buckingham joined him, there came thither for the purpose of paying their respects to him, Antony, earl of Rivers, the King's uncle, and Richard Grey, a 103most noble knight, and uterine brother to the King, together with several others who had been sent by the King, his nephew, to submit the conduct of everything to the will and discretion of his uncle, the duke of Gloucester. On their first arrival, they were received with an especially cheerful and joyous countenance, and, sitting at supper at the duke's table, passed the whole time in very pleasant conversation. At last, Henry, duke of Buckingham, also arrived there, and, as it was now late, they all retired to their respective lodgings.

When the morning, and as it afterwards turned out, a most disastrous one, had come, having taken counsel during the night, all the Lords took their departure together, in order to present themselves before the new King at Stony Stratford, a town a few miles distant from Northampton; and now, lo and behold! when the two dukes had nearly arrived at the entrance of that town, they arrested the said earl of Rivers, and his nephew Richard, the King's brother, together with some others who had come with them, and commanded them to be led prisoners into the north of England. Immediately after, this circumstance being not yet known in the neighbouring town where the King was understood to be, they suddenly rushed into the place where the youthful King was staying, and in like manner made prisoners of certain others of his servants who were in attendance on his person. One of these was Thomas Vaughan, an aged knight and chamberlain of the prince before-named.

The duke of Gloucester, however, who was the ringleader in this outbreak, did not omit or refuse to pay every mark of respect to the King, his nephew, in the way of uncovering the head, bending the knee, or other posture of the body required in a subject. He asserted that his only care was for the protection of his own person, as he knew for certain that there were men in attendance upon the King who had conspired against both his own honour and his very existence. Thus saying, he caused proclamation to be made, that all the King's attendants should instantly withdraw from the town, and not approach any place to which the King might chance to come, 104under penalty of death. These events took place at Stony Stratford on Wednesday, on the last day of April, in the year above-mentioned, being the same in which his father died.

These reports having reached London on the following night, queen Elizabeth betook herself, with all her children, to the sanctuary at Westminster. In the morning you might have seen there the adherents of both parties, some sincerely, others treacherously, on account of the uncertainty of events, siding with the one party or the other. For some collected their forces at Westminster in the queen's name, others at London under the shadow of the lord Hastings, and took up their position there....

... On the Monday following, they came with a great multitude by water to Westminster, armed with swords and staves, and compelled the cardinal lord archbishop of Canterbury, with many others, to enter the sanctuary, in order to appeal to the good feelings of the queen and prompt her to allow her son Richard, duke of York, to come forth and proceed to the Tower, that he might comfort the King his brother. In words, assenting with many thanks to this proposal, she accordingly sent the boy, who was conducted by the lord cardinal to the King in the said Tower of London.

From this day, these dukes acted no longer in secret, but openly manifested their intentions. For, having summoned armed men, in fearful and unheard-of numbers, from the north, Wales, and all other parts then subject to them, the said Protector Richard assumed the government of the kingdom, with the title of King, on the twentieth day of the aforesaid month of June; and on the same day, at the great Hall at Westminster, obtruded himself into the marble chair. The colour for this act of usurpation, and his thus taking possession of the throne, was the following:—It was set forth, by way of prayer, in an address in a certain roll of parchment, that the sons of King Edward were bastards, on the ground that he had contracted a marriage with one Lady Eleanor Boteler, before his marriage to queen Elizabeth; added to which, the blood of his other brother, George, duke of Clarence, had 105been attainted; so that, at the present time, no certain and uncorrupted lineal blood could be found of Richard duke of York, except in the person of the said Richard, duke of Gloucester. For which reason, he was entreated, at the end of the said roll, on part of the lords and commons of the realm, to assume his lawful rights. However, it was at the time rumoured that this address had been got up in the north, whence such vast numbers were flocking to London; although, at the same time, there was not a person but what very well knew who was the sole mover at London of such seditious and disgraceful proceedings.

These multitudes of people, accordingly, making a descent from the north to the south, under the especial conduct and guidance of Sir Richard Ratcliffe; on their arrival at the town of Pomfret, by command of the said Richard Ratcliffe, and without any form of trial being observed, Antony, earl of Rivers, Richard Grey, his nephew, and Thomas Vaughan, an aged knight, were, in presence of these people, beheaded. This was the second innocent blood which was shed on the occasion of this sudden change.

After these events, the said Richard, duke of Gloucester, having summoned Thomas, the cardinal archbishop of Canterbury, for the purpose, was on the sixth day of the month of July following anointed and crowned King, at the conventual church of Saint Peter at Westminster, and, on the same day and place, his queen, Anne, received the Crown. From this day forward, as long as he lived, this man was styled King Richard, the third of that name from the Conquest.

106

Source.—The History of King Richard the Third, by Sir Thomas More, pp. 67 et seq. (London: 1557.)

[Note.—More's life of Richard III. was written about 1513. It has, however, almost the value of a contemporary authority, as much of the information was derived from Cardinal Morton.]

But in the mean time for this present matter I shall rehearse you the dolorous end of those babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after that way that I have so heard by such men and by such means, as methinks it were hard but it should be true. King Richard, after his coronation, taking his way to Gloucester to visit in his new honour the town of which he bore the name of his old, devised as he rode to fulfill that thing which he before had intended. And forasmuch as his mind gave him that, his nephews living, men would not reckon that he could have right to the realm, he thought therefore without delay to rid them, as though the killing of his kinsmen could amend his cause, and make him a kindly king. Whereupon he sent one John Green, whom he specially trusted, unto sir Robert Brackenbury, Constable of the Tower, with a letter and credence also, that the same sir Robert should in any wise put the two children to death. This John Green did his errand unto Brackenbury kneeling before our Lady in the Tower, who plainly answered that he would never put them to death, with which answer John Green returning recounted the same to King Richard at Warwick, yet in his way. Wherewith he took such displeasure and thought, that the same night he said unto a secret page of his: "Ah! whom shall a man trust? Those that I have brought up myself, those that I had thought would most surely serve me, even those fail me, and at my commandment will do nothing for me." "Sir," quoth the page, "there lieth one on your pallet without that I dare well say, to do your grace pleasure, the thing were right hard that he would refuse,"—meaning by this sir James Tyrrell, which was a man of right goodly personage, and for nature's gifts 107worthy to have served a much better prince, if he had well served God, and by grace obtained as much truth and goodwill as he had strength and wit. The man had a high heart, and sore longed upward, not rising yet so fast as he had hoped, being hindered and kept under by the means of sir Richard Ratcliff and sir William Catesby, which longing for no more partners of the prince's favour, and namely not for him whose pride they wist would bear no peer, kept him by secret drifts out of all secret trust. Which thing this page well had marked and known. Wherefore this occasion offered, of very special friendship he took his time to put him forward, and by such wise do him good that all the enemies he had, except the devil, could never have done him so much hurt. For upon this page's words King Richard rose ... and came out into the pallet chamber, on which he found in bed sir James and sir Thomas Tyrrell, of persons alike and brethren of blood, but nothing of kin in conditions. Then said the King merely unto them: "What, sirs! be ye in bed so soon?" And calling up sir James broke to him secretly his mind in this mischievous matter. In which he found him nothing strange. Wherefore on the morrow he sent him to Brackenbury with a letter, by which he was commanded to deliver sir James all the keys of the Tower for one night, to the end he might there accomplish the King's pleasure in such thing as he had given him commandment. After which letter delivered and the keys received, sir James appointed the night next ensuing to destroy them, devising before and preparing the means. The prince, as soon as the protector left that name and took himself as king, had it showed unto him that he should not reign, but his uncle should have the Crown. At which word the prince, sore abashed, began to sigh and said: "Alas! I would my uncle would let me have my life yet, though I lose my kingdom." Then he that told him the tale used him with good words, and put him in the best comfort he could. But forthwith was the prince and his brother both shut up, and all other removed from them, only one called Black Will or William Slaughter excepted, set to serve 108them and see them sure. After which time the prince never tied his points[46] nor ought heeded of himself, but with that young babe his brother, lingered in thought and heaviness until this traitorous death delivered them of that wretchedness. For sir James Tyrrell devised that they should be murdered in their beds. To the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four that kept them, a fellow fleshed in murder beforetime. To him he joined one John Dighton, his own horse keeper, a big, broad, square, strong knave. Then all the others being removed from them, this Miles Forest and John Dighton, about midnight (the innocent children lying in their beds) came into the chamber and suddenly lapped them up among the clothes, so bewrapped them and entangled them, keeping down by force the feather bed and pillows hard unto their mouths, that within a while, smothered and stifled, their breath failing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of heaven, leaving to the tormentors their bodies dead in the bed. Which, after the wretches perceived, first by the struggling with the pains of death, and after long lying still to be thoroughly dead, they laid their bodies naked out upon the bed, and fetched sir James to see them. Which upon the sight of them, caused those murderers to bury them at the stair foot, fairly deep in the ground under a heap of stones.

Source.—Harding's Chronicle, pp. 547, 548. (London: 1812.)

... He was but of a small stature having but a deformed body; the one shoulder was higher than the other; he had a short face and a cruel look which did betoken malice, guile and deceit. And while he did muse upon anything standing, he would bite his under lip continually, whereby a man might perceive his cruel nature, within his wretched body, strove and chafed alway within himself; also the dagger which he 109bore about him, he would always be chopping of it in and out. He had a sharp and pregnant wit, subtle, and to dissimulate and feign very fit. He had also a proud and cruel mind, which never went from him to the hour of his death, which he had rather suffer by the cruel sword, though all his company did forsake him, than by shameful flight he would favour his life, which after might fortune by sickness or other condign punishment shortly to perish.

Source.—Statutes of the Realm, 1 Richard III., c. ii.

The King remembering how the Commons of this his realm by new and unlawful inventions and inordinate covetise, against the laws of this realm, have been put to great thraldom and importable charges and exactions, and in especial by a new imposition named a benevolence, whereby divers years the subjects and Commons of this land against their wills and freedom have paid great sums of money to their almost utter destruction; For divers and many worshipfull men of this realm by occasion thereof were compelled by necessity to break up their household and to live in great penury and wretchedness, their debts unpaid and their children unpreferred, and such memorials as they had ordained to be done for the wealth of their souls were anentised and annulled to the great displeasure of God and to the destruction of this realm. Therefore the King will it be ordained, by the advice and assent of his lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons of this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that his subjects and the commonalty of this his realm from henceforth in no wise be charged by none such charge or imposition called benevolence, nor by any such like charge; And that such exactions called benevolence before this time taken, be taken for no example to make such or anylike charge of any his said subjects of this realm hereafter, but it be damned and annulled for ever.

110

Sources.—(a) Llanstephan MSS. 136, f. 80. (National Library of Wales.) (b) Ceinion Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, i., pp. 220, 221. (London, n.d.). (c) Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, p. 477, lines 3-12. (Oxford: 1837.)

[Note.—The following extracts are translated from contemporary Welsh poems. The first two are selected as examples of the 'bruts' or vaticinatory poems, written and circulated to stir up the Welsh chieftains to support Henry. The third extract illustrates the excitement among his countrymen on the eve of Henry's landing.]

(a) The knell of the Saxon shall be our satisfaction; a prince shall we have of our own race.... Cadwaladr[47] will come to his own again with his eightfold gifts and his doughty deeds.... Woe to the black host beside the wave if misfortune should come to the strangers. Jasper[48] will breed for us a Dragon; of the fortunate blood of Brutus[49] is he. The Bull of Anglesey[50] is our joy; he is the hope of our race. A great grace was the birth of Jasper from the stock of Cadwaladr of the beautiful [spear] shaft.

(b) We are waiting for him [Henry] to show, when he comes, the Red Rose in high pomp. The Thames will run with blood on that day, and there shall we be satisfied.... There is longing for Harry, there is hope for our race. His name comes down from the mountains as a two-edged sword; and his descent from the high places; and his sword wins the day. He will win, ere his life be done, the unbelieving to the Creed of the Cross.

To Jasper Tudor.

(c) In what seas are thy anchors, and where art thou thyself? When wilt thou come to land and how long must we tarry? On the feast of the Virgin[51] fair Gwynedd,[52] in her songs, 111watched the seas. In the month of May she awaited, expecting thy coming from afar. God! August has come,[53] and yet thou hast delayed ... Lord of Pembroke, awake thou!

Source.—Ellis's Original Letters, Second Series, vol. i., pp. 162-166. (London: 1827.)

Forasmuch as the King our Sovereign Lord hath certain knowledge that Piers, Bishop of Exeter, Jasper Tudor son of Owen Tudor calling himself Earl of Pembroke, John late Earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Woodeville, with other divers his rebels and traitors, disabled and attainted by authority of the High Court of Parliament, of whom many be known for open murderers, adulterers and extortioners, contrary to the pleasure of God and against all truth, honour and nature, have forsaken their natural country, taking them first to be under the obedience of the Duke of Brittany, and to him promised certain things which by him and his Council were thought things too greatly unnatural and abominable for them to grant, observe keep and perform, and therefore the same utterly refused. The said traitors seeing that the said Duke and his council would not aid and succour them, nor follow their ways, privily departed out of his country into France, there taking themselves to be under the obedience of the King's ancient enemy Charles, calling himself King of France; and to abuse and blind the commons of this Realm, the said rebels and traitors have chosen to be their captain one Henry Tudor, son of Edmund Tudor, son of Owen Tudor, which of his ambitions and insatiable covetousness encroacheth and usurpeth upon him the name and title of royal estate of this Realm of England, whereunto he hath no manner [of] interest, right, title or colour, as every man well knoweth;... and if he should achieve this false intent and purpose, every man's life, livelihood and goods should be in his hands, liberty and disposi112tion; whereby should ensue the disheriting and destruction of all the noble and worshipful blood of this realm for ever. And to the resistance and withstanding whereof, every true and natural Englishman born must lay to his hands for his own surety, and well. And to the intent that the said Henry Tudor might the rather achieve his said false intent and purpose by the aid ... of the King's said ancient enemy of France, [he] hath covenanted and bargained with him, and with all the Council of France, to give and release in perpetuity all the right, title and claim that the Kings of England have had and might have to the crown and realm of France, together with the duchies of Normandy, Anjou and Maine, Gascony and Guienne, the castles and towns of Calais, Guisnes, Hammes, with the marches appertaining to the same, and to dissever and exclude the arms of France out of the arms of England for ever.... And over this ... the said Henry Tudor and other the King's rebels and traitors aforesaid, have intended at their coming, if they can be of power, to do the most cruel murders, slaughters, robberies and disherisons that were ever seen in any Christian realm. For the which and other inestimable dangers to be eschewed ... the King our Sovereign Lord desireth, willeth and commandeth all and every of the natural and true subjects of this his realm, to call the premises into their minds, and like good and true Englishmen to endeavour themselves with all their powers for the defence of themselves, their wives, children, goods and hereditaments.... And our said Sovereign Lord, as a well-willed, diligent and courageous Prince, will put his royal person to all labour and pain necessary in this behalf ... and our Sovereign Lord willeth and commandeth all his said subjects to be ready in their most defensible array, to do his Highness service of war, when they by open proclamation or otherwise shall be commanded so to do for the resistance of the King's said rebels, traitors and enemies.

113

Source.—A Short View of the Long Life of that ever wise, valiant and fortunate Commander, Rice ap Thomas, Knight. (Cambrian Register, 1795.)

[Note.—The original manuscript, from which this account is taken, was written about the year 1605, and therefore cannot claim to have the value of a contemporary authority. But the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle, the only contemporary account, is extremely meagre in its details of Henry's journey through Wales; and this biography was based on contemporary materials, the traditions of the Welsh bards and similar matter. Moreover, in representing Rees as a confederate with Richmond before the landing, it agrees with the contemporary English ballad of the Lady Bessy.]

The Earl [of Richmond] having received Rice ap Thomas's answer, with other joyful and comfortable advertisements from Morgan of Kidwelly, he was so greatly encouraged therewith that no hopes of auxiliary forces from the French King or any other necessary provisions whatsoever, could make him any longer to disappoint his friends and confederates with an expectation of his coming, and therefore with all convenient speed furnishing himself with such men, money and munition as he could readily procure, he enshipped himself and weighed anchor from Harfleur, having but two thousand men in all, and they, God wot, poorly provided, and so in seven days, with a prosperous gale, he landed at Milford.

In the interim, Rice ap Thomas stood all upon thorns, as conceiving there might be some private compact and underhand working between the usurper and the French King, whereby the just pretences of Richmond should be for ever confounded.... Hereupon Rice musters up all his forces, calls all his friends about him, and where he found any want among them either of arms or other necessaries for the war, he supplied with his own store, whereof he had sufficient as well for ornament as for use; so that in few days he had gathered together to the number of two thousand horse and upward, of his own followers and retainers, bearing his name and livery. His kinsmen and friends who came besides with brave companies to do him honour were Sir Thomas Perrott, Sir John 114Wogan, and John Savage.[54] ... Arnold Butler, Richard Griffith, John Morgan and two of his own brothers, David the younger and John, all of them worthy soldiers and very expert commanders, with divers others.... There came likewise out of North Wales to this service many worthy gentlemen both of name and note, especially of the Salisburies, under the conduct of Robert Salisbury, a fast friend of Rice ap Thomas in the French wars.... He [Rice] then set forth in most martial manner towards the Dale, as his prophet whilom had advised him, a place not far from his castle of Carew, from whence at that time he led his army, and there meeting with the Earl of Richmond ready to take land, he received him ashore, to whom he made humble tender of his service, both in his own and in all their names who were there present, and laying him down on the ground, suffered the Earl to pass over him, so to make good his promise to King Richard that none should enter in at Milford unless he came first over his belly.... Rice ap Thomas having made an end of what he would say, the Frenchmen, lying aboard all this while, were sent for to land; who upon their coming were marvellously well received by the Welshmen, and entreated with all courtesy, (for that sole virtue of courtesy towards strangers I think the Welsh go beyond all nations of the world); every man, I say, striving to give them all contentment, and cheering them up with fresh victuals.... The Earl of Richmond then entreated the Earls of Oxford and Pembroke to muster the French, and to take a view of their defects, who, upon inquiry, found they wanted both necessary 115furniture of arms and other munition, besides that they were very raw and ignorant in shooting, and handling of their weapons; men, as it seemed, raised out of the refuse of the people and clapped upon the Earl to avoid his further importunities. Rice ap Thomas ... in his heart wished them back again in France, there being not one man of quality among them.... This being done they (Richmond and Rice) with the Earls of Oxford and Pembroke drew aside to consider of their present state and condition, and what course was best to be taken for their putting forward. In fine they concluded the Earl should shape his course by Cardigan, and Rice ap Thomas by Carmarthen, that so going several ways, the Welsh and the French might be kept asunder, to prevent such jars and quarrels as commonly arise between strangers; appointing Shrewsbury for their place of meeting.

Source.—Wynne's History of the Gwydir Family, pp. 55, 56. (London: 1770.)

[Note.—On his landing in Wales, the Earl of Richmond, relying on the promises of support he had received, wrote letters to his Welsh friends and kinsmen. The following summons was sent to his relative, John ap Meredith, a powerful chieftain of South Carnarvonshire.]

By the King

Right trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. And whereas it is so that, through the help of Almighty God, the assistance of our loving and true subjects, and the great confidence that we have to the nobles and commons of this our principality of Wales, we be entered into the same, purposing by the help above rehearsed, in all haste possible, to descend into our realm of England, not only for the adoption of the crown, unto us of right appertaining, but also for the oppression of the odious tyrant, Richard late Duke of Gloucester, usurper of our said right; and moreover to reduce as well our said realm of England into its ancient estate, honour and property, and prosperity, as this our said principality of Wales, and the 116people of the same to their erst liberties, delivering them of such miserable servitude as they have piteously long stood in: We desire and pray you, and upon your allegiance strictly charge and command you, that immediately upon sight hereof, with all such power as ye may make, defensibly arrayed for the war, ye address you towards us, without any tarrying upon the way, until such time as ye be with us, wheresoever we shall be, to our aid, for the effect above rehearsed, wherein ye shall cause us in time to come to be your singular good lord; and that ye fail not hereof as ye will avoid our grievous displeasure, and answer it unto your peril. Given under our signet at our [place and date omitted in the MS.].

To our trusty and well-beloved John ap Meredith ap Jevan ap Meredith.

Source.—Life of Rice ap Thomas. (Cambrian Register, 1795).

The Earl having taken Livery and Seisin of part of his kingdom, and now in the way of possessing himself with the whole, Rice ap Thomas forthwith commanded the beacons to be set on fire, thereby to give notice to all the countries adjacent of his landing, and withal to summon his friends and kinsmen from all parts where his power was extended, to come in with their forces, some in one place and some in another, in his way to Shrewsbury.... Being in this glorious equipage and so strongly provided on all hands, Rice ap Thomas made with all speed for Shrewsbury, and, as he went, met with the Earl of Richmond in his way, to whom he made humble obeisaunce, vowing to follow him through all dangers, to the utter subversion both of the tyrant and his wicked accomplices.... When the Earl was, as I said, in his way to Shrewsbury, met and saluted by Rice ap Thomas with so goodly a band of Welshmen, it was no small joy to him.... For you must know the Earl all this while was much appalled and troubled in his mind, not knowing well what to think of Rice ap Thomas, 117there being divers rumours dispersed up and down through his army that the said Rice meant to side with Richard, and for that purpose was ready to give him battle; which rumour indeed, Rice himself, out of policy, had caused to be blown abroad, to hoodwink the tyrant until he were in his full strength.[55] And this his device he acquainted the Earl withal, at their first meeting, and so together they marched on to Shrewsbury, where the Earl was received with an Ave cheer and "God speed thee well," the street being strewed with herbs and flowers, and the doors adorned with green boughs in testimony of a true hearty reception.... From Shrewsbury they went to a small village called Newport, and there Sir George Talbot came unto the Earl with two thousand tall men.... After this for Stafford they go; thence to Lichfield and so to Atherstone, where he and his father-in-law, the Lord Stanley, met and consulted touching the ordering of their affairs, and how to give battle to King Richard, which done they departed each to his charge.

Source.—Paston Letters, vol. iii., No. 884.

The Duke of Norfolk to John Paston.

To my well beloved friend, John Paston, be this bill delivered in haste.

Well beloved friend, I commend me unto you, letting you to understand that the King's enemies be a-land, and that the King would have set for the assumption Monday but only for Our Lady Day;[56] but for certain he goeth forward assumption Tuesday, for a servant of mine brought to me the certainty. Wherefore I pray you that ye meet with me at Bury ... and that ye bring with you such company of tall men as ye may goodly make, at my cost and charge, beside that ye have 118promised to the King; and I pray you ordain them jackets of my livery, and I shall content you at your meeting with me.

Your lover
J. Norfolk.

Source.—Ingulph's Chronicles, pp. 503-504. (Bohn Edition.)

At daybreak on the Monday following there were no chaplains present to perform Divine service on behalf of King Richard, nor any breakfast prepared to refresh the flagging spirits of the King; besides which, as it is generally stated, in the morning he declared that during the night he had seen dreadful visions, and had imagined himself surrounded by a multitude of demons. He consequently presented a countenance, which, always attenuated, was on this occasion more livid and ghastly than usual, and asserted that the issue of this day's battle, to whichever side the victory might be granted, would prove the utter destruction of the kingdom of England. He also declared that it was his intention, if he should prove the conqueror, to crush all the supporters of the opposite faction; while, at the same time, he predicted that his adversary would do the same towards the well-wishers to his own party, in case the victory should fall to his lot.

At length, the prince and knights on the opposite side now advancing at a moderate pace against the royal army, the King gave orders that the Lord Strange[57] should be instantly beheaded. The persons, however, to whom this duty was entrusted, seeing that the issue was doubtful in the extreme, and that matters of more importance than the destruction of one individual were about to be decided, delayed the performance of this cruel order of the King, and, leaving the man to his own disposal, returned to the thickest of the fight.

A battle of the greatest severity now ensuing between the two sides, the earl of Richmond, together with his knights, 119made straight for King Richard, while the earl of Oxford, who was next in rank to him in the whole army and a most valiant soldier, drew up his forces, consisting of a large body of French and English troops, opposite the wing in which the duke of Norfolk had taken up his position. In the part where the earl of Northumberland was posted, with a large and well-provided body of troops, there was no opposition made, as not a blow was given or received during the battle. At length a glorious victory was granted by heaven to the said earl of Richmond, now sole King, together with the crown, of exceeding value, which King Richard had previously worn on his head. For while fighting and not in the act of flight, the said King Richard was pierced with numerous deadly wounds, and fell in the field like a brave and most valiant prince; upon which, the duke of Norfolk before mentioned, Sir Richard Ratclyffe, Sir Robert Brackenbury, keeper of the Tower of London, John Kendall, secretary, Sir Robert Percy, controller of the King's household, and Walter Devereux, lord Ferrers, as well as many others, chiefly from the north, in whom King Richard put the greatest confidence, took to flight without engaging; and there was left no part of the opposing army of sufficient importance or ability for the glorious conqueror Henry the Seventh to engage, and so add to his experience in battle.

Through this battle peace was obtained for the entire kingdom, the body of the said King Richard being found among the dead. Many insults were also heaped upon it, and, not exactly in accordance with the laws of humanity, a halter being thrown round the neck, it was carried to Leicester; while the new King also proceeded to that place, graced with the crown which he had so gloriously won.

While these events were taking place, many nobles and others were taken prisoners; and in especial, Henry, Earl of Northumberland, and Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey.... There was also taken prisoner William Catesby, who occupied a distinguished place among all the advisers of the late King, and whose head was cut off at Leicester as a last reward for 120his excellent offices. Two gentlemen, also, of the western parts of the kingdom, father and son, known by the name of Brecher ... were hanged. As it was never heard, nor yet stated in writing or by word of mouth, that any other persons, after the termination of the warfare, were visited with similar punishments, but that, on the contrary, the new prince had shown clemency to all, he began to receive the praises of all, as though he had been an angel sent down from heaven, through whom God had deigned to visit His people, and to deliver it from the evils with which it had hitherto, beyond measure, been afflicted.

Source.—Bosworth Field, in Percy Folio MS., iii. 256, 257. (1868.)

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