CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Mr. & Mrs. Gurley Cornell University Library DA 28.3.D69 Book of the princes of Wales, heirs to t 3 1924 027 915 242 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924027915242 f o mg dfabsonr, HAROLD HOLDEN WHITE, THESE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OP THE PRINCES OP TALES, HEIRS-APPARENT OP ENGLAND, %xt sfttttionattlg |nstribir, — TO HIM, THE HEIR-APPARENT GP GOOD EXAMPLE AND MANY VIRTUES, — BY THE AUTHOR. THE BOOK OX THB PRINCES OF WALES, f^etrs to tije ffltofon of lEnslantr. --, -■j^-i t-tA "^H I -7 "". T" ■ T~f' 'i 1 ' . j ' EDWARD OF CARNARVON ALBERTOF VII THE BOOK PEINCES OF WALES, §tm is % toton 0f $n#M. DE.DOEAN, F.S.A., AUTHOR 09 e LIVES OJ" THB QUEBN5 Of ENGLAND OF THE HO USB OF HAHOTEB," ETC. ' LONDON: EIOHAED BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. fttblisfcjr in ©rbinarg in J« Itsjesiig. 1860. THE ROLL OF THE PRINCES OF WALES. PAGE I. EDWAED OE CAEBNABVON . . . .14 II. EDWAED or WINDSOB . . . . . HO III. EDWAED Or WOODSTOCK .... 140 IT. BICHAED OP BOBDEAUX .... 184 T. HEFBY OE MONMOUTH ..... 201 VI. EDWAED OE WESTMIITSTEB . . . 239 VH. EDWAED OE THE SANCTUABY . . . 277 VIII. EDWAED OE MIDDLEHAM .... 294 IX. ABTHTJB OE WINOHESTEB .... 305 X. HENBY OE GBEENWICH .... 332 XI. HENBY OE STIBLING ..... 350 XII. CHAELES OE DUNEEBMLINE . . . 387 XIII. CHABLES OE ST. JAMES'S .... 410 XIV. GEOEGE, AUGUSTUS OE HABTOVEB . . 445 XV. EEEDEBICK LOUIS OE HANOVEB . . . 476 XVI. GEOEGE WILLIAM EEEDEBICK OE FOBEOLK HOUSE 496 XVII. GEOEGE AUGUSTUS EEEDEBICK OE ST. JAMES'S, 513 BOOK I. PRINCES OF WALES OF THE HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. CHAPTER I. WALES AND ENGLAND. When the triumph of the Saxon invaders of Britain was consolidated by the death of the great Cadwallader, ex- British king, and monkish recluse at Rome, a prophecy went forth among the people of the land that they would never again recover their freedom until the bones of the ''benign monarch" were restored to the soil over which he once reigned. Awaiting this event, tribe after tribe, and people after people sunk in slavery to the Saxon. Cymra alone, that district which the invaders contemptuously named "Wales : — indicative of its being a strange or unknown land to them — became the fortress within whose limits there assembled the stout hearts who refused to despair of their country. A nation was there organized, the chiefs of which, occasionally styled " Kings," were more gene- rally known as " Princes." In the last quarter of the ninth century, the Princi- pality, which had been hitherto governed by one sove- reign lord, was divided between three brothers, in accordance with the will of their father, Roderic the Second. In carrying out this division, an agreement was made that throughout all coming time, the Prince of Gwyned, or North Wales, should enjoy a precedence of dignity and authority over his princely brothers and b 2 4 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. cousins who ruled in South Wales, and over the turbu- lent but brave tribes settled in Powis land. This division did not tend to strengthen the govern- ment of Wales. Within little more than half a century, the princes paid tribute of money to Athelstan, the English sovereign; and subsequently they furnished tribute of wolves to Edgar, monarch of England. The rod of the Saxon stranger was hard to bear, but the finger of the Norman weighed heavier still on the loins of the Welshmen; and in the fact that, about the opening of the twelfth century, Griffith ap Conan ren- dered homage to William the Conqueror, for all Wales, we recognise a progress of humiliation hitherto unat- tained. Further progress in a similar direction had yet, how- ever, to be made. The Princes of Wales were not re- markable for peace or fair dealing amongst themselves. They did not respect each other's landmarks, and in mutual negotiations they disregarded truth to an extent which has never been equalled in a Christian country — till recently, perhaps, by Governments on the continent of Europe. Amid the anarchy which prevailed, one voice was ultimately heard, and one authority acknowledged, in the person of Llewellyn III., whose claim to be sovereign ruler was not in itself clearly legitimate, but was rendered indisputable by the sanction of the people. The accession of Llewellyn dates from 1246. It was the not unreasonable custom of the English kings to take advantage of the anarchy which distracted the Welsh, in order to punish them for their arrogance towards, and their aggressions against, England. In the bloody encounters which ensued, the sons of the chap. I.] WALES AND ENGLAND. 5' Britons frequently inflicted terrible defeats on the lieu- tenants of the Anglo-Norman kings, and spread desola- tion far within the frontier of the English Marches. There is a passage in Puller singularly illustrative of the difficulties experienced by the English in their attempted conquest of Wales. It is illustrative, too, of the sufferings they endured, and of the antiquity of our evil system of neglect for the well-being of the poor but brave fellowswho fight our battles. "I am much affected," says Fuller, "with the ingenuity of an English noble- man who, following the camp of King Henry III. in these parts (Caernarvonshire), wrote home to his friends, about the end of September, 1245, the naked truth, indeed, as followeth : ' We lie in our tents, watching, fasting, praying, and freezing. We watch, for fear of the Welshmen, who are wont to invade us in the night ; we fast, for want of meat, for the half-penny loaf is worth five-pence; we pray to God to send us home speedily ; and we freeze, for want of winter garments, having nothing but thin linen between us and the wind.' " When the English sovereigns were sorely pressed within their own border by rebels, noble or simple, both equally dangerous, the Princes of Wales testified the liveliest alacrity in effecting diversions in favour of the latter, or in rendering them aid more immediate. In this and other hostile ways, the Welsh had become intolerable as neigh- bours to our English forefathers ; and thereupon an in- ternecine war ensued which terminated fatally to the Welsh patriots. In 1268, Llewellyn was reduced to such straits that he was compelled to accept the terms which Henry III. chose to dictate. The sum of these 6 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. L B00K *-' terms was, that the vanquished chieftain should pay a heavy indemnity to the victor; that though his nobles should do homage to him for their estates, he should perform the same service to the King of England for the whole land, save one baronial property, the owner of which was to acknowledge the English monarch for his liege lord. Therewith, Llewellyn was to enjoy the now barren title of " Prince of Wales." Such as it was, he enjoyed it in comparative tran- quillity till the death of Henry, and the accession of that sovereign's son Edward, " first of the name." Soon after this latter event he received evidence that there was one man, at least, in London by whom he was not forgotten; that person was Robert Burnel, a Shrop- shire man, at whose paternal house at Acton Burnel the cry of the coming of the Welsh had been heard more than once. Burnel was at this period Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Chancellor of England. The testi- mony of his having held the Prince of Wales in his official, rather than affectionate memory, was forwarded to Llewellyn in the shape of a courteous, yet stringent summons, to repair to London, and pay homage to the new King, according to the terms of his agreement with Henry. In this summons, the Welsh chieftain saw " a few of the unpleasant'st words that ever blotted paper." He knew that Burnel had the English conquest and settlement of Wales at heart, and that it was by fol- lowing the counsels of the same statesman that a triumph had been achieved over Llewellyn's friend and ally, Simon de Montfort. The Prince of Wales was in a grievous state. He addressed a supplication to the chap, i.] WALES AND ENGLAND. 7 episcopal heads of the Church assembled in Convocation at the Temple, begging to be excused, on the ground that " the place was not safe, and indifferent for him to appear at." His request was not granted ; and then he explained, with a touch of humour in the explanation, that he was willing to repair to Westminster, if, mean- while, his old neighbour the chancellor would betake himself to Snowdon, to remain as a hostage there for Llewellyn's safe return ! "What could not be effected by the threats of an angry chancellor, or the official cajolery of a king, was ac- complished by, or for the sake of, a beauty in distress. Llewellyn was true knight to his love, if false to his liege. During the period of his connexion with the seditious or patriotic Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, he had been promised the hand of that earl's daughter, Eleanor. What opportunities the Prince had possessed of seeing the young lady, I know not, but the story descends to us with the assurance of his deep attachment to the daughter of that doughty noble. When the for- tunes of De Montfort had suffered irretrievable ship- wreck, Eleanor had accompanied her mother to Montar- gis, a royally endowed nunnery in France. At a period when peace seemed likely to be a guest for a season at the hearth of the Prince, he had besought Lady Leicester to grant him the hand of his betrothed bride. The widow of Simon thought the match no ill one for the daughter of a dishonoured lord, and forthwith despatched her to Wales, to preside over the household of Llewellyn. But it was precisely at this time that feud arose between that Prince and the King of England. Some sharp-witted Bristolians, probably anxious to 8 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [iook i. obtain the favour of Edward, watched for the coming of the bride by sea, and ungallantly captured her off the Scilly Isles. The rich prize was borne in triumph to the King, who treated Eleanor with a gallant courtesy worthy of the principles of chivalry which he was sup- posed to assume for his guide ; but candied as were his phrases, he would not let her. go ; and in her gilded cage she was hung out, as it were, a lure or a menace to the perplexed lover over the Welsh Marches. In presence of such a fact Llewellyn yielded. He consented to the hardest terms, agreed to pay an oppres- sive tribute, to render personal homage to Edward an- nually, to be — and each successive heir after him — the mere locum tenens, the steward and deputy of the King of England, in Wales. Many other hard clauses were there in the treaty, which seems ill-called by the name of " agreement ;" but Llewellyn accepted them all, because of his great love for Eleanor de Montfort. His actual presence in London, to render homage and confess himself subject to a master, was proof enough of the lowliness to which his pride had descended, and the height reached by his affection. I hope the Londoners respected this, eager and faithful lover. They certainly did not the country gentlemen, rather savage and un- fashionable barons, who came hither in his train. Some suspicion seems to have been entertained of these wild and proud followers, for they were located at Islington— a remote and perilous district at that time, with 1 little about it to remind them of their distant home, save the hill to the north, the thieves in Hornsey Wood, and the pastures covered by cows yielding a milk for which Islington was long famous. ohap. I.] WALES AND ENGLAND. D The cows, however, could not yield sufficient to satisfy the appetites of the thirsty retainers of Llewellyn ; and at the ale supplied to them they turned up their noses in scorn, mindful as they were of the more soft and spark- ling heverage of their own happier country. Of mead there was not a drop, a melancholy fact which must have passed for a proof of harharism, in the minds of men at the court of whose Prince the Maker of Mead took pre- cedence of the Physician. The wine of London was no compensation to them for the lack of mead ; and the English bread sat uneasily on their proud stomachs. This is the more singular, as in those days the making and baking of bread formed a process strictly watched and artistically .accomplished. Carte, the historian, quotes from the Mostyn manuscripts concerning the excitement caused by these Snowdon barons and their serfs. The Cockneys ridiculed the outlandish strangers as they passed through the streets and highways ; while • the angry, queer-spoken, and quaintly-dressed Welsh- men vented inexplicable epithets of wrath in return. To this account other writers add that the wild Cymri replied to the rude people who took them for savages, in fierce but tuneful choruses, implying that when they again visited Islington it would only be in the character of conquerors. Their lord, it may be presumed, kept better guard upon his temper; and he wore the air of as good a gen- tleman as any at court when, ,on an autumn morning of 1278, he entered Worcester Cathedral, there to espouse the lady whom he had long sought, and for whose dear sake he had made such large sacrifice. Edward himself, the Queen by his side, gave away the bride. It was the b 3 XIWUOJCj UI luiuiinuiiiiiji. second of the eleven visits which he paid to the shrine of his favourite saint, Wulstan ; under whose patronage, with Bishop Godfrey Giffard for high official, the nuptials were celebrated with solemnity and rejoicing. The feast over, the happy couple, in modern phrase, set out for their seat in North "Wales. For a very short season they had a happy time of it, and the voice of an infant princess was heard crowing to the music of the harp-strings of the bards of Llewellyn. But her birth slew her mother, and she only survived to live a nun in the Lincolnshire Abbey at Sempringham. Treason at home and oppression from abroad ultimately drove this much-vexed Prince again to the field, and this time the quarrel was fought out to final issue. The contest for the possession of Wales was long and varied in its inci- dents of alternate triumph and defeat. Sorely did the thought of Wales and of the cost of its conquest sit on the bosoms of the friends, relatives, and those dearer than friend or relative, of English soldiers. " Beware," says a poem, " The Libel English Policy," in Hakluyt's collection : — " Beware of Wales, Christ Jesu must us kepe, That it make not our childers childe to weepe." Gradually, however, the gallant Prince lost the fairest portion of his inheritance,, and therewith the hitherto most faithful and enduring of his friends. These for the most part made terms with the King favoured by fortune, and Llewellyn was at last brought to bay by his pursuers. The details of the last scene in which he played a part, I subjoin as given by Caradoc of Llangarfan, in chap. I.] . WALES AND ENGLAND. 11 the century following that of the Prince's death, and translated by Dr. Powel in 1584 : — " In the meantime was the Earl of Gloucester and Sir Edmund Mortimer with an army in South Wales, where were many that served the King, and there fought with the Prince's friends at Llhandillo Vawhr, and gave them an overthrow, wherein, on the King's side, young "Wil- liam de Valence, his cousin-german, and four knights more were slain. And all this while the Prince destroyed the country of Cardigan and all the lands of Rees ap Mere- dith, who served the King in all these wars. But after- wards the Prince separated himself from his army with a few, and came to Buehlt, thinking to remain there quietly for awhile ; and by chance, as he came by the water Wye, there were Edmund Mortimer and John Gifford with a great number of soldiers, and either party were abashed of other. Edmund Mortimer's men were of that country, for his father was lord thereof. Then the Prince departed from his men, and went to the valley, with his squire alone, to talk with certain lords of the country who had promised to meet him there. " Then some of his men, seeing his enemies come down from the hill, kept the bridge called the Pont Orewyn, and defended the passage manfully, till one declared to the Englishmen where a ford was, a little beneath, through the which they sent a number of their men with Elias Walwyn, who suddenly fell upon them that defended the bridge, in their backs, and put them to flight. The Prince's esquire told the Prince, as he- stood secretly abiding the coming of such as promised to- meet him in a little grove, that he heard a great noise and cry at the bridge; and the Prince asked 1 2 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. whether his men had taken the bridge, and he said, ' Yes/ ' Then/ said the Prince, ' I pass not, if all the power of England were upon the other side.' But sud- denly, behold the horsemen about the grove; and as he would have escaped to his men, they pursued him so hard that one Adam Francton ran him through with a staff (?), being unarmed, and knew him not. And his men being but a few, stood and fought boldly, looking for their Prince, till the Englishmen, by force of archers, mixed with the horsemen, won the hill, and put them to flight. And as they returned, Francton went to de- spoil him whom he had slain ; and when he saw his face he knew him very well, and stroke off his head, and sent it to the King at the Abbey of Conway, who received it with great joy, and caused it to be set upon one of the highest turrets of the Tower of London. This was the end of Llewellyn, betrayed .by the men of Buehlt, who was the last Prince of Briton's blood who bore dominion and rule in "Wales." Carte, in his General History of England, speaks only of the hand being cut off, and he adds that the corpse of the Prince lay for some time unburied. The friends of Llewellyn naturally desired to deposit the remains of their unhappy master in consecrated ground. But how could such burial be granted to a rebel who> dying un- repentant, lay there unsanetified by absolution? At length one with pious fraud and convenient memory— or it would have served him sooner — affected to remember what indeed was not unnatural, that the Prince, ere he yielded his last breath, had asked for a priest. This cir- cumstance was reported to the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and the charitable prelate accepting the request of chap. I.] WALES AND ENGLAND. 13 Llewellyn as a sign of his repentance, accorded the prayed-for absolution ; and with maimed body, but not with maimed rites, the last of the British princes of the blood of Cadwallader the Blessed was appropriately in- terred. The prophecy is still repeated, if not believed, that the Ancient Britons will not recover their freedom till they have brought back the bones of the old King from Italy. But this is a prophecy which is not likely to disturb the peace of the wearer of the crown of England, nor of the young heir thereto who bears the old title of Llewellyn — Prince of Wales. It would be as diffi- cult to discover the bones of Cadwallader, as it would be to select a number of pure-blooded Batons sufficient to carry anything that remains of that monarch of blessed but sorrowful memory. 14 HOUSE OE PLANTAGENET. L B00K : CHAPTER II. EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. Boen 1284 Died (Kino) 1327. The tide of the Welsh war rapidly ebbed after the death of Llewellyn, but a huge wave would occasionally rush and shatter itself into spray against the bulwarks reared by Edward I. expressly to check and break such assailants. Before the storm had quite lulled, the King manifested his sense of security by leaving his daughters, Eleanor and Joanna, to keep their little court in some Welsh castle alone, under ordinary guard, but with such good look-out as to insure the uninterrupted conveyance of supplies. Pennant calls Caernarvon Castle the magnificent badge of his countrymen's subjection. This palace-fortress, the very shell of which reflects honour on the names of its various architects, was commenced, by order of the King, in 1282, and was completed in about forty years. As portions were finished, they were inhabited ; and, in 1284, a legend says that Edward's consort was brought there for the purpose of working out a political end which the astute King had in view. Hitherto he had been unlucky in his sons. He had had three, but two were dead ; and the infant Alphonso surviving in the early part of 1284, was in such poor health that he too passed away before the year itself had died out. On the other hand, the Princess Royal chap, ii.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 15 Eleanor, was at this time a handsome and healthy girl, reckoning in age just a score of years. Even in the lifetime of her sickly hrothers she had been designated by Edward as his successor. But the sceptre was not destined, in this instance, to go to the distaff. The Welshmen are reported to have longed for a na- tive prince as vicegerent of their royal conqueror.' The Queen of England was, in good old English phrase, in the family- way; and when she gave birth to a prince in such room as could be prepared for such an event in Caernarvon town, if not in Caernarvon Castle,* men speedily learned why the place was selected for such an achievement. When the messenger arrived at Rhudlan Castle, where Edward was residing, on political business, and announced to him that his Queen had given birth to a boy at Caernarvon on the preceding day, the 25th of April, 1284, Edward, in his joy, made a knight of the messenger, stuffed his pouches with gold pieces, and gave him house and lands to enable him to support his new dignity becomingly. Subsequently, after reaching Caernarvon, on which city he conferred the first English charter of rights and privileges granted in Wales, he assembled there certain leaders of the Welsh people who had clamoured for a native prince. If the legend be true, they were not very acute Welshmen to be caught in the trap laid for them by the King, who, after re- ceiving from them the expression of their willingness to submit to a prince born within the country, of blame- less life and free from prejudices, proceeded to the Queen's chamber, and, taking the infant prince in his * The " Eagle Tower," said to be the birthplace of the Prince, was not yet in existence. 16 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. arms, brought him to the Welsh chieftains, claiming their allegiance to him according to promise. A local tradition, picked up by Prince Puckler Mus- kau, states that when Edward, with the infant in his arms, approached the Welshmen, " he presented to them his new-bom son, exclaiming, in broken Welsh, ' Meh Dyn !'. that is, ' This is your man V " The verbal trans- lation is simply " Your man !" and the expression would have been exceedingly appropriate, considering the occa- sion. The German traveller believes that these words were subsequently corrupted into Ich Dien, which is more questionable, and will have to be inquired into in a subsequent chapter. The christening of the young Prince Edward was of the very gayest. He was held at the font by Auian, Bishop of Bangor. Never had officiating prelate a more royal and liberal fee for performing such an office. The King, so to speak, heaped upon him manors and regalities, in various parts of Anglesea and Caernarvon, adding thereto the ferries of Borthnan and Cadnant, over the MeDai, which contributed no little increase of revenue to the bishop. Such a christening fee (which is duly recorded in a manuscript presented to the British Museum, in 1844, by the governors of the Welsh School) had never before been presented to a prelate admitting a young prince into the Church of Christ, but the liberal example set by the jubilant and grateful Edward has never since been followed. Speedily after this remarkable christening, the Prince was removed from Caernarvon to Conway, thence to Chester, and subsequently to London, — all by easy stages of some threescore miles in a fortnight. Of his chap, ii.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. ] infancy, as far as I can learn, there are no inciden worth the telling ; but as influencing his after charactc it may be stated, that it was the misfortune of Prin Edward to lose his mother, Queen Eleanor, when ] was in his sixth year. All the aflection of his fir nurse, Mary of Caernarvon, could not compensate f the loss of such a parent; but Edward, nevertheles did not forget the care taken of him by his Weli foster-mother. When he became King, she went ' London to behold him in his capital, and Edward ga 1 her twenty shillings — equal to 151. of our presei money — to defray her travelling expenses. Of oth nurses who tended him in childhood, we shall find hi equally mindful — and such gratitude has been a commc trait among our princes. Great, too, has been the loi of these foster-mothers for their princely wards ; loi lasting beyond the grave, and, indeed, not confined 1 our country, or to a Christian one. It was the nurse < Domitian who mingled his ashes with those of Juli and the foster-mother of Alexander united Ids wit those of Patroclus. During the years 1286, 7, and 8, King Edward ws absent in Aquitaine, and the record of the young Prince life would not be worth the telling, even if it, could 1 written. At an early period his young eyes reste on three marvellously splendid shows — namely, tl marriages of his three sisters, Eleanor, Margaret, an Joanna. In 1289, he was too young to understan why his sister Mary went through the solemn ceremon of becoming a nun at Amesbury. The little nui who had entered on her probation in the year 128< when her grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, too 18 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. the veil, and who now assumed the religious habit, with thirteen young ladies of noble families, against the inclination of the King and Queen, experienced the quietest and happiest lot of all; but, nuns or brides, the daughters of King Edward left their sire's palace without regret, for he was a stern and violent father alike to all his children. He had scarcely seen his daughters well-matched, and the Maidens' Hall at Westminster no longer tenanted, than he occupied him- self with the project of uniting Scotland to England by a marriage between his son Edward and Margaret of Norway, heiress, through her mother, to the Scottish crown. This project was defeated only by the early death of the intended bride, and the King was left to work out the acquisition of the northern kingdom by other means than family unions. Meanwhile, the little Prince kept house of his own, long before he could have understood the method of its keeping. Thus, we hear, not only of his taking a conspicuous part at his sisters' weddings, appearing in gallant array, and showering coin liberally even on court-fools accompanying the bridegrooms, but we are told of the married couples visiting their precocious brother at his separate house at Mortlake. Mrs. Everett Green, in her " Life of the Princess Joanna," quotes, from ancient authorities, the incidents of two such visits made by the Princess and her husband, the Earl of Gloucester. That they do not appear to have been formal, but that there was some frolicsomeness and becoming jollity on the occasion will be seen from what the authoress, just named, has collected touching two visits of the newly-married couple to the Prince at Mortlake. chap, ii.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 19 "The first was on Thursday, January 22nd, 1293, when she remained with him until the following Satur- day ; the second on the 3rd of May, when she was accompanied by her husband. On both occasions a ' decent company' of soldiers, ladies, damsels, clerks and squires attended her. They received nothing from the Prince's stable, having brought their own horses' provender with them ; but their presence at his table nearly doubled his ordinary expenditure, especially iu the article of wine, the usual allowance of twenty-two measures per day being increased to forty or forty-two." If Prince Edward partook freely of what was on the board, we may the less wonder that his health occa- sionally suffered. His house had a hard run upon it, for thither, too, went his sisterEleanor and her husband, Henry, Duke of Bar ; also his sister Margaret and her consort, John of Brabant. Prom whatever cause, it is on record that the Prince and Lady Margaret, his sister, were laid up with tertian fever, in 1294, from the Peast of the Annunciation till Easter-tide, when the royal patients were slowly recovering. Por the cure of these and other maladies in the household of Edward, medical practice was not alone relied upon. When the young Prince or any of his sisters were seriously indisposed, St. Edmund, St. Wulstan, or some other saint dear to the line of Plantagenet, was appealed to, and the length or weight of the patient in wax-candles was burnt out at the shrine ! If the desired result followed, the royal chil- dren had their purses filled with gold pieces, which they deposited on the altars of churches, to which they were allowed to pay a visit, by way of holiday. 20 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book l The saints, certainly, could not have been so bar- barous to the young Prince of Wales as his own doctor was. This sage was the favourite physician of Edward's step-mother, Queen Marguerite; his name was Gad- desden. "When the young Prince was attacked by small- pox, the learned doctor assailed the disease according to a fashion which long after prevailed. " I ordered the Prince," such is his own account in his Latin work, " to be enveloped in scarlet cloth, and that his bed and all the furniture of his chamber should be of a bright-red colour; which practice not only cured him, but prevented him from being marked." So satisfied was Gaddesden with the efficacy of this prac- tice that, according to his own words, he " treated the sons of the noblest houses in England with the red system, and made good cures of all." The saints must surely have saved Prince and young gentlemen, in spite of the treatment, and they merited all the golden acknowledgments that gratitude could lay upon the altar. An entry in. King Edward's Household Book records the purchase of a " Primer" for the Prince, when the latter was sixteen years of age. We are not to conclude therefrom, that he only then began to learn to read. The " Primer" . may have been a gift made by him to one of his young half-brothers. We have a proof of the care taken for the suitable education of the heir of Eng- land, in the fact of the appointment of an eminent scholar of his day to be the young Prince's tutor. This was Walter Reynaud or Reynolds, subsequently a Privy Councillor, Bishop of Worcester, Chancellor, and Arch- bishop of Canterbury. Lord Campbell says apologeti- cally of his great predecessor on the Woolsack, that the chap, n.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 21 tutor of Edward " cannot be held accountable for the defective character or conduct of his royal pupil, who, though he might have been expected to have inherited great talents from both his parents, was by nature of an understandiug narrow, frivolous, and incapable of culti- vation or correction." Lord Campbell's judgment of the Prince is probably more unfavourable than existing testimony would warrant, though he is undoubtedly right in his estimate of Rey- nolds, who was one of those able and industrious men who having risen from a very humble starting point — the shop of his father, a "Windsor baker — and progressively rising to the primacy of England, both in the Law and the Church, was scornfully spoken of by great men of small minds and little industry. If the Prince neglected the teaching of Walter, he at least never ceased to respect his old tutor; and when that tutor ultimately became archbishop, Edward attended at his enthronization, in proof of the regard he had for a man whose material interests he was always ready to promote. The King had a poor library, and a meaner wardrobe. Edward's taste was of a more splendid character with respect to the gold and jewels among which his books were deposited. On this point the Prince had an example of magnificence before him, which he was not slow to adopt, to the heavy cost of his treasury ; and he was more frequently the patron of Ade, the fashionable gold- smith of the day, than he was of the copiers of manu- scripts and the limners of initial letters. . It would seem that when young Edward made gifts of cups and clasps to his sisters, or of jewels at the shrines of saints in favour at court, the liberality was not so extensive as would at first sight appear ; an order upon 22 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. Ade the goldsmith was all that was necessary, and, in the spirit of the old Welsh law which enacted that the sovereign should, without grumbling, pay the debts of the etheling, Edward Longshanks settled the accounts of Edward of Caernarvon. The latter, about this time, began to show that if he had not read history, yet was he not entirely ignorant of what it taught. He appears to have especially remembered the rights and privileges of the British ethelings, heirs to the sovereignty of Wales. Among other laws regarding the princes of this rank, it was enacted that the heir-apparent should be held in the greatest honour, after the King and Queen; that at table he should have the chief guest of the day on one side of him, to awaken his interest by stories of travel, and the chief falconer on the other, to amuse him with incidents of sport. At the fire, he had a right to one corner, opposite to that occupied by the sovereign ; and if a solemn judge was placed next to him to fill him with judicial wisdom, he had behind him the Chief of the Bards, whom he could call upon for a song, when weary of the process of being filled with wisdom. There were even higher privileges than these enjoyed by the Princes of Wales before the Saxon era. It was the duty of their royal father (as I have before recorded) to pay all their expenses ungrudgingly ; and never to grumble at any extravagance of banquet or amount of good liquor called for by the Prince and the companions who officially attended him. The servants of his very household were not paid for out of the Prince's privy purse, but out of that of his much-suffering and dutiful sire. The horses of his stud, his carfach or war-charger, not excepted, were provided after the same agreeable fashion ; and the chap, rr.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 23 only curb, or seeming curb, placed upon the Prince him- self, was to be found in the regulation laid down, to the effect that the Prince was never to make a night of it out of the palace — unless he chose to do so ! While he was away, his gentleman-woodman looked to the main- taining of a good fire in his bedroom; and when his royal highness returned, the same official put on another faggot or two, and carefully closed the door, in order to keep out the thieves, the wind, and the wolves. The most pleasant portion of these old laws, young Edward seemed to think were still in force ; for he soon took to himself false friends, fell into evil ways, and quarrelled with his sire, who was roused to anger by his son's lack of obedience and his astounding extravagance. "While yet a boy, the Prince's manners were marked by some rudeness, which was afterwards cited as a proof that the Prince was not the son of King Edward. "When John the Tanner, after the death of Edward Longshanks, proclaimed himself as heir to the throne — and Edward of Caernarvon as an impostor — he partly supported the latter assertion by alluding to the churl-like want of grace and culture in the so-called Prince. But if young Edward possessed neither the grace nor talent of his sire, neither was he torn by the violent temper to which his father too readily gave way. One instance of this occurred about the middle of January, 1297_, at a mixed, gay, and unpleasant scene at Ipswich, where the King kept court, and the Prince's sister, Isabella (or Elizabeth), married the Earl of Holland. The scene, in some respects, was one of much joyousness; and " Maud Makejoy" earned . two shillings by dancing a lively measure for the express gratification, and in presence of " the eldest son of the King," in the great 24 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. hall at Ipswich. Minstrels and fiddlers, or vidulatores, were remunerated at above twenty times that rate, which seems warrant of their excellence ; and official services rendered to the bride were paid by costly fees. : This was the most unseemly day for a father to fall out with the bride — that bride being his daughter — but at some cause of offence not now known, the excitable Longshanks snatched the coronet from the bride's head, and " the King's Grace," as the Wardrobe Book records,. " was pleased to throw it behind the fire." The loss to the coronet was a large ruby and an emerald, which the King had to supply when his wrath had subsided. The Prince had only just entered his " teens," in that same year, 1297, when he was present at a ceremony, which should have been rich to him in lessons of wisdom, had he but known how to learn and to apply them. His father, to provide for the expenses of his wars in Wales, Scotland, and France, had almost crushed every class of his subjects beneath an unparalleled burden of taxation. When all were equally oppressed, there was some chance of relief for the poorer as well as for the richer classes, and the cry of the former was heard as a cry of anguish by the latter, now that it happened to be their interest to listen to it. On a new royal order, issued in the year above named, for an increase to taxes already insupportable, and decreed in order to enable Edward to carry on a foreign war, there arose an universal outcry of indigna- tion. The nobles, the clergy, and the people, all shame- fully plundered, lost all restraint of speech at this new- trial of their patient loyalty. The officers appointed to enforce the levy declined to carry out their instructions ■ chap, n.] .EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 25 and Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Bohun, Earl of Here- ford, incited the citizens to disobedience, and encouraged them in their opposition. When this opposition had assumed a menacing aspect, Edward condescended to meet his people, and, by this acknowledgment of .the force of public opinion, to confess that he owed them at least the explanation of a course of conduct which they bitterly denounced. A platform was erected in front of Westminster Hall, on which appeared the King and Prince Edward, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Warwick. The Prince appeared there, because he had recently been appointed regent or guardian of the kingdom in his father's absence — a nominal appointment which was in reality exercised by the most celebrated prelates and lawyers, who were the Lords of a Council of Begency. While Prince Edward stood silently near his father's side, the King addressed the highly-interested multi- tude before him, and by crafty words, and a display of sentimental no - meaning, — by representations of the perils of the country, of the blood-thirstiness of its enemies at home and abroad, of the sacrifice which he was about to make of his own life, if necessary, and of his love for his son, the Prince, for whom he besought their allegiance, should he himself perish in the field, he so wrought upon their feelings that the honest- hearted audience, forgetting altogether the question of taxes, burst, some into shouts, and some into tears, and dispersed, commenting the while on the noble spirit of the King, and the willing duty they owed to that princely boy at his side. With that boy Edward withdrew, silent and rejoicing ; c 26, HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. and, taking his sympathizing people in their humour, he left an order, as he departed from London for Winchelsea, where he embarked on his foreign expedi- tion, for an immediate levy of the newly-increased tax. The people at once swept all sympathy for the King and affection for the Prince out of their hearts ; and, finding themselves deluded, they assumed an attitude of resolute resistance. Young Edward was then sojourning at Tonbridge Castle, but he was brought up to London by the Lords of the Council in order to appease, if possible, the outraged citizens. The latter may be said to have held the young guardian of the realm in their keeping, but they confined themselves to one object, to the accomplishment of which they were manfully helped by the nobles and clergy. That object was their exemption from all taxation, save by their own consent, given by themselves or their representatives. Nothing less would satisfy them, and, despite all open opposition and subterfuge, they gained their great and good object. Prince Edward was entirely under the guidance of Chancellor Langton, to whom, at Tonbridge Castle, he had recently presented a new Great Seal, in place of that which the King had taken with him beyond the Channel. By the Parliament presided over by Langton, it was enacted that, in future " no tax henceforth be levied or laid by us (the King) or our heirs, in this our realm without the good will and common assent of the arch- bishops, bishops, and other prelates, the earls, barons, knights, lurgesses, and other freemen of our realm" The Act, of which the very pith and marrow are contained in chap, n.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 27 those words, received the signature, at all events the official sanction of the Prince, as the representative of his absent sire ; and thus it may be said that one of the most important clauses in the roll of our freedom — a clause which was as a dead letter in the Magna Charta of King John, and which, with quiet felony, was omitted from that of Henry III., was restored permanently to the people, by the first Prince of "Wales of English blood* In the year 1299, there was less of law than of love- making. King Edward's marriage with Marguerite of France was then being negotiated ; and that of Prince Edward, with her niece Isabelle of Prance, was also in course of arrangement. When the former match was solemnized in the autumn of this year, at Canterbury, that of young Edward and Isabelle was formally agreed upon, at the same time and place. For some months previously, however, the Prince had himself been made to sign documents for the securing of this marriage j and from a royal manor on the eastern side of London, he, nominally, at least, wooed his young bride — then barely five years old — by deputy. Stepney is not now a locality in which one would expect to find a prince, or to see a bishop's palace, or the gateway of the inn of a noble. Neither is " fra- grance" a term which could now be applied to this dirty and destitute district. It was otherwise in days gone by. Six hundred years ago, the King had a manor here. * This restoration was effected, not very willingly, under the auspices of the Chancellor Langton, whose ancestor, Stephen Lang- ton, Archhishop of Canterbury, was more illustriously connected with the establishment of Magna Charta itself, c2 28 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. Here, too, princes were located, and prelates and nobles here resided; here, in the woods of the diocesan of London, men and maidens, centuries ago, were wont to go a-Maying, and to carry homearmsful of the fragrant booty. Here, in 1299, at the age of fifteen, was Edward located, and hence he issued the missive on one of the May days of that year concerning his projected marriage with Isabelle of France. In this missive, which Mr. Halliwell has taken from the Cottonian MSS., and printed in " Letters of the Kings of England/' &c, the Prince of Wales states that peace and goodwill being then established between his father and the King of Erance, — to strengthen this happy condition of things, the espousals of himself and the young Princess had been resolved upon. The Prince then writes, or is made to write : — " "Wherefore we wishing and desiring humbly to obey the Apostolic Ordinary, and to comply with the wishes of our nobles (as we are bound), the advice and assent of pur father being thereto added, do constitute and appoint a notable personage, Amadeus, Count of Savoy, as our true and lawful proxy and especial messenger, to contract the espousals, for us and in our name, with the aforesaid Isabelle ; and to confirm the same espousals by certain oaths and penalties ; and to swear on our behalf, upon our soul, whatsoever kind of oath is lawful ; and to do all and every that ourself should or could do if we were personally present, even if they should require a special mandate from us : we holding and intending to hold good and ratified whatever may have been done per- formed, or attornied by the before-named Count in the premises or any of them. And this we make known to chap, ii.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 29 all whom it concerneth, or may or can concern, or will concern in future, by these our letters-patent, confirmed by the force and sanction of our seal. Given at Stepney, the 15th May, 1299." In this way commenced the wooing of the first Prince of Wales. For some years, however, the affair made no progress. Meanwhile this year, 1299, was in other respects an eventful one to young Edward. It was the year in which Piers de Gaveston, probably, first appeared at court. This probability is founded on an entry in the household expenses of the King (Carlton Ride MSS.), which marks the period at which the old Gascon knight Arnold de Gaveston arrived in England. "To the: Lords Arnold de Gaveston, R. de Caupenne, and Ber- tram Povisalls, who were lately in the King of France's prison and escaped, for their expenses in journeying through Brabant, and passing into England, 11. 10s." The accepted story has always been, that the father of Piers, having rendered important services to the King in Gascony, obtained as a portion of his reward the admission of his son into the royal household, where he enjoyed a companionship with the heir-apparent. In proportion as the fortunes of the boy Piers, or Perot, as the Prince was wont affectionately to call him, brightened, so did those who envied his elevation hate him for the fact, and assail him as being altogether" unworthy, from his alleged lowly birth and evil ways, to- hold companionship with a Prince. "What good, it was said, could come of friendship with a youth whose mother, it was added, had been burnt for a witch in Guienne ? The biographers, however, of Piers de Gaveston agree 30 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. in styling him of " gentle birth." Christopher Marlowe, in his long, rambling chronicle-tragedy, "Edward the Second," has adopted the popular tradition that the favourite was of humble origin, and he puts into the mouth of the enemies of the "minion" who led the Prince of "Wales first into folly, and from folly into sin, some very hard, not to say, unsavoury terms. The popular tradition, however, followed by the poet, can hardly be the true one. Prince Edward's early friend was the son of a gentleman of Gascony, who had performed such welcome service to Edward I., that the King readily agreed to make of the then boy Piers a friend and companion — half friend and half servant, that is — to the Prince of Wales. They lived together on terms of the freest familiarity. To such light studies as were in fashion then, they addressed themselves in company, and were united in learning or neglecting such lessons as each was expected to master. In their general tastes, the two boys are said to have closely resembled each other; but the stronger, at least the more imperious mind was with Piers ; and in this case, as in all other such companionships, the more crafty and resolute intellect shaped, ruled, and here unhappily misled, the weaker understanding. It is not too much to say, nor is the term itself, as applied to the young Gascon, in any sense too strong, that the bosom friend of the first Prince of Wales led him into evil, laid enmity between him and his father, and finally set the Prince upon a course which tended to the destruction alike of the Gascon and his patron. In all probability, nevertheless, Perot was not quite so vicious as he was described to be. And yet he was chap, ii.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 31 an evil friend and counsellor to the Prince. Setting aside as totally untrue that he led the latter into crimes ahhorrent to nature itself, there was evil example enough to arouse the better counsellors of the Prince to strongly reprove the youth whom the King had given to his son for a companion. Thus, Bishop Langton, according to the chronicle of Henry Knyghton, the Canon of Leicester, often rebuked the young Gascon for his evil conduct with respect to Prince Edward, by alluring him into much that was base and wicked, and into empty frivolities and contemptible follies. Perot, with true Gascon impudence, treated such rebuke and rebukers with an infinite disdain which secured for him bitter enemies. If he tempted the Prince into the path which led to their common ruin, he would seem, on the other hand, to have been met half way. Knyghton describes the Prince as one whose person exhibited a combination of grace and strength ; but when alluding to his morals, he says — with a saving clause of " if what is commonly reported may be believed" (" si vulgo creditor") that the Prince was naturally inconstant, — which he certainly was not in his friendships, however wayward he may have been in other matters. The canon adds, that young Edward despised the society of nobles, and " stuck to" {adhmit) that of buffoons and minstrels and players, and stable- folk, and labourers, and watermen and sailors, and to people of such low vocations generally. In addition, Knyghton records that he was addicted to drinking, and was so talkative in his cups, that he betrayed the secrets of his friends. Light of hand as of tongue, under such circumstances, he would strike bystanders for slight cause; and, in short, says the Leicester canon, the 32 . HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. Prince was ever more ready to follow the advice of others than his own counsel (which be it said has been often profitably done by the wisest of men) ; he was lavish in giving, we are told, magnificent in his convivial entertainments, and "more ready to promise than to perform." On such a nature, the vivacious, bold, clever, crafty and ambitious Gascon could easily work to bad purpose. The more easily, perhaps, after the death of his father, which event is fixed by an entry from the same register which makes record of the father's arrival in England, and which, under the date of 1302, states that "two cloths of silk were granted by the King for the ceremony of the funeral of Arnold de Gaveston, knight, deceased at Winchester." The Day Book of the Comptroller of the Wardrobe, (published last century by the Society of Antiquaries) enables us to learn something of the every-day life of the Prince at this time. On several days he is pre- sent in the old chapel at Windsor while the oblations made for the souls of deceased men of note are being divided. On other occasions, he has what would now be called musical parties. The names of the artists are not given, but due notice is taken of the sums paid for their minstrelsy. Then, anon, there is an incident which must have made the courtiers hilarious. The King, Queen, and Prince, had each his or her particular tailor — the cissor of that day working indifferently for men or women. John, the King's tailor, had received what was due to him for making robes for the Kins', but the Prince, seeming to think the pay exorbitant, impounded the tailor, and compelled him to make chap, n.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 33 another set of robes for the Prince, out of the allowance made to John by the King ! Thus, the cheating of tailors was a fashion set by a high authority. The other entries in this book refer to the expenses of the Prince for boating on the Thames — sometimes from "Windsor to London. Then there is the famous entry "To William Bookbinder, of London, for a Primer bought of him for the use of Edward the King's son, %l." Some entries show him to have been a frequent writer of letters, fuller proof of which I shall show in a succeeding page. One item of 10s. to his nurse, Lady Eleanor of Moulton, adds another name to the list of ladies to whose good keeping the Prince was, in his childhood, entrusted. I have already shown that the Prince did not forget Mary of Caernarvon, and I find in Mr. F. Devon's description of certain hitherto unex- amined rolls at the Chapter House, that four years later than the date of the above wardrobe account, the Prince, then at Wye, wrote to Henry Bray and the bishop, in favour of the Prince's nurse, Alice de Ley- grave, directing them to take care that no harm come to her in the grant respecting the marriage of her daughter, thanking them for their courtesies to her, and praying their continuance. The. Prince, it is well known^ was extravagant in many of his pastimes ; and there is one of the latter which has sorely puzzled the commentators. It is named in this very Wardrobe Book, where record is made of the large sum of 100 shillings being paid to John de Leek, the Prince's: chaplain, as the cost of his Highness's playing at, " creag," and at other games, " per vices." Some persons have concluded that the term implied fishing, while the c3 34 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book r. grave member of the Society of Antiquaries, who edited this wardrobe account, playfully, not to say audaciously, suggests that the word creag may, perhaps, serve to show that the first Prince of Wales was acquainted with " cribbage !" In this wise, amid the storm and its lulls by which the kingdom was affected, the life of the Prince passed, for the most part, joyously on. Often, too, it must have been spent in a tranquillity for which he has not enjoyed much credit. During a portion of this same year, 1300, for instance, Edward was residing at Langley, with his step-mother, Marguerite. The cir- cumstance is only worth noticing for the fact that what- ever the locality afforded in other respects, it did not suffice to supply the royal table with fruit. Mr. Blaauw, in one of his numerous contributions to the reports of the Sussex Archaeological Institute, quotes an entry, certifying that Nicholas de Gorham, fruiterer, sent the Prince, from London, pears, apples, nuts, and other fruits, to the value of twenty-one shillings, save a penny. But the time was now approaching when the Prince was about to assume increase of responsibility with increase of dignity. Hitherto, he had been styled "Lord Edward," or "the King's eldest son," a title, which, like that of " Child of France," was, as Selden remarks, commonly given to the heir to the throne who had no other distinctive title. The same learned writer states that he was not acquainted with any letters of creation of a Prince of Wales earlier than the document which conferred that title and its privileges on the Black Prince. But the letters patent for the investi- chap, n.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 35 tnre of Edward of Caernarvon have been since dis- covered, and it is to that fact that I now invite the notice of my readers. That indefatigable archaeologist, Mr. Wynne, searching among the Welsh Rolls in the Tower, found the enrol-* ment of the original letters patent, by which Edward was raised to the dignity of Prince of Wales. A copy of the patent will be found in the " Reports of the House of Lords touching the dignity of a Peer of the Realm." It is in Latin, and commences to this effect :— " To the reverend the Archbishops, &c, health. Know ye thab we Have given, conceded, and by this charter we have confirmed to our dearly beloved son Edward all our lands of North Wales, Anglesey, and Hope j and also all our lands of West and South Wales ; and, indeed, all the territory of Wales which is in our hands on the day of the completion of this deed, except the castle and town of Montgomery, with what may belong thereto, and which we assigned to our very dear consort Margaret, as her dower." The deed, which thus confirms the grant of the Principality, goes on to make equal concession of the county of Chester and some places of less note, with all rights and privileges and profits connected therewith, among which is enu- merated that to be derived from wrecks at sea. So that in the olden time a wreck like that of the " Royal Charter," in October, 1859, would have been, in common parlance, a " God-send" to the Prince of Wales. It is then declared that this grant is made to the Prince and to his heirs, Kings of England, in per- petuity, as they had been heretofore held by the King himself. The King immediately claims such service for 36 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. these gifts as he rendered to Ms father of beloved memory, Henry III., who, it is to be remembered, con- ceded much which it was not in his power to grant. For what Edward of Winchester really held, he doubtless rendered the requisite homage ; but he never possessed the Welsh territory completely, as his son Edward of Caernarvon did, by this deed. I refer my readers to the copy of the original document in the Lords' Reports, iadding here the simple fact that it is witnessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and five other prelates, five earls, and " by others ;" and that it is subscribed as given " by the King's hand, at Netteham on the 7th of February," of the year 1301; the 29th of the reign of Edward. It is observable, however, that throughout this charter, young Edward is not once styled " Prince of Wales;" the first time of the occurrence of that title in a solemn legal deed, is in that given at " Kemeseye on the 10th day of May, 1301." By that document he is made possessor of the town and castle of Montgomery, and the whole of the Principality being placed under his government, he is then, for the first time, distinctly styled, not, as before, simply " our beloved son," but " our very dear son, Edward Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester." From this tenth day of May, then, 1301, may it be said, in the words of an old Welshman, that Wales was conquered for its gain and undone for its advantage. Mr. Courthope (Somerset Herald), in his edition of " The Historic Peerage," thinks it probable that " the grant of the Principality was immediately pre- ceded by investiture with circlet, ring, and rod for the Chap, n.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 37 Principality of Wales, and by the girding on of the sword for the Earldom of Chester;" and the learned " Somerset" founds his conjecture on the ground that " we have no account of any ceremony attendant upon the creation of Edward of Caernarvon to be Prince of "Wales and Earl of Chester." The ceremony of investiture, when a Prince first appeared in Parliament, presenting his letters patent, and taking his seat among the Peers, has always been one of great pomp and solemnity, although the circum- stances of that pomp and ceremony have varied under different reigns. In early times, the chancellor ad- ministered the oath, and then placed on the brow of the Prince a wreath, for which, at a later period, a gold eoronet was substituted ; on one of the Prince's fingers the same official put a golden ring, and deposited in his hand the silver rod, emblem of princely rule. The whole ceremony was fittingly concluded by the father kissing his son, in token of affection as well as of con- gratulation; and a magnificent banquet crowned the glories of the day. Prom the time that Edward of Caernarvon was created Prince of Wales, the accounts of the Principality in connexion with the lands he held and the fees due to him, were dated from the year in which the dignity was conferred on him. Mr. W. E. W. Wynne (" Archseo- logia Cambrensis," vol. i. 143) notices two instances — one in a receipt from Vivian de Staundon for his fee as constable of the castle of Harlech, Merionethshire, from Michaelmas, in the sixth year of Prince Edward (1306) to the same festival in the following year, the first of King Edward (the Second). The second instance is 38 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. afforded by a document signed by John le Colliere, referring to pecuniary matters extending from Whit- sunday, the seventh year of Prince Edward (14th May, 1307), to the Michaelmas of the same year, the first year of " King Edward, son of Edward," a title, says Mr. Wynne, " commonly given to Edward II., and to him only." Speed, in his " Succession of England's Monarchs," shows that, by whatever title called, the Welsh had always considered Edward as their Prince. His creation " so greatly contented the Welsh, because, in regard of his birth-place, they held him as one of theirs, that when all friends did afterwards forsake him, they always stuck most loyally unto him, expressing won- derful love and affection, and bewailing his heavy fortunes in woful songs, which neither the dread of his enernies, nor length of time, could ever make them to forget." The Prince's household was now placed on a more splendid basis than it had been before his investiture. Its spiritual condition was cared for by the Pontiff, Boniface, himself. The Prince of Wales had asked a small favour, and the Pope accorded it in a grandi- loquent letter. The Servant of the servants of God writes " to his noble and beloved son, Edward, the eldest born of our dearest son in Christ, the illustrious Edward King of England, health and benediction," and thus proceeds : — " We hold it to be a pious and agree- able thing to be prompt in granting favours which regard the health of souls, more especially to individuals exalted by their generous dispositions, distinguished by the purity of their faith, and who are devoted to God chap, n.] EDWARD OE CAERNARVON. 39 and the Church. Being inclined, therefore, by thy supplications," continues Pope Boniface, " we grant thee this indulgence, by the authority of this present document, that the servants and officers of thy house- hold, commonly owing thee obedience, whether they be clerics or laics, present or future, when they are unable to have access to their own priest, may confess their sins to thy own private chaplain. That official is authorized to enjoin them wholesome penance, unless the matter be of such moment as to specially regard the Holy See itself." The little epistle concludes with a thundering warning to all men not to impede the licence here granted, on pain of the wrath of God, and of His chief apostles, and the perilling of the salvation of the evil-doers.* In a household so provided and favoured, the presence of a wife could not but be desirable ; and though young, yet it must be admitted that in 1303 the Prince of Wales was better fitted than in 1299 to woo a princess for himself. This pleasant work, however, was still done for him by commission. In the present instance, perhaps such work can hardly be so qualified; for, although the suitor was in his nineteenth year, the bride was only in her ninth, and the preliminaries to the wedding were as uninteresting as they could be under such circumstances. The lady in question was Isabelle, daughter of Philip the Pair, King of Prance^ and at this period, four years had elapsed since the sovereigns of England and Prance had determined on this unlucky match. But in 1303, the ceremony of affiancing took place, and the Earls of Lincoln and * Eym. Act. Peed. v. iii., a.d. 1301. 40 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book fc Savoy, procurators of the Prince of Wales at the Court of France, in set phrase plighted to the little bride the words of troth of Edward of Caernarvon. The child listened to the words repeated to her by Gill, Arch- bishop of Narbonne, whereupon she did as the prelate directed her to do — placed her little hand in his, in token of her assent to a union which had been sanc- tioned by the Pope. The actual marriage did not take place till after the accession of the Prince of Wales to the throne. Between the wooing and the wedding, his sister, the Countess of Holland, became a widow, and remarried with Bohun, Earl of Hereford — a match which brought back to Bohun estates he had been compelled to sur- render to the King. On the 30th of October, 1303, the first child of this marriage was born, and when Robert le Norreys, of the countess's household, brought word to the Prince of Wales of that interesting event, Edward manifested his pleasure, by putting into the hands of the messenger the then liberal donation of twenty-six pounds thirteen and fourpence. With his well-known love for music, we shall subsequently find him looking after the musical well-being of this sister's private chapel. chap, in.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 41 CHAPTER III. EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. THE HISTORY OF A TEAR. As an illustration of some passages in the life of the first Prince of Wales, and of the customs and morals of the times, there is a document in the Rolls House which is of the greatest value. The document or roll in ques- tion was discovered eleven years since, by Mr. Frederick Devon. It is of the thirty-third year of Edward I., 1304, the Prince of Wales then being twenty years of age, and it contains copies or abstracts of between seven and eight hundred of the Prince's letters. Mr. Devon conjectures that " from what must have been the extent of this roll five centuries and a half since, and in its perfect state, it would be reasonable to infer the existence of a complete system of registration or enrolment of the private letters of the Prince." It is for us to hope that further discoveries of the familiar correspondence of Edward and other historical per- sonages, who are less to be heard than heard of in history, may yet help to elucidate characters round which there have long settled much uncertainty, obscurity, and doubt. In the roll illustrating this year of the Prince's life, he presents himself to us under various aspects. Frequently he is exerting himself in providing for old 42 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. disabled servants, or for particular friends — not at his own. cost, however, except in rare instances, but at that of the persons or communities to whom the Prince addresses himself. For instance, he writes from Sunbury, on the 18th of May, to the Abbot of Chertsey a letter the purport of which is to recommend the bearer, Robert le Gaytere, the "beloved valet" of the Prince, to the reverend abbot. The " beloved valet" is described as being incapable of duty, from his wounds, and the abbot is requested to provide for the sufferer what his condition may require. It appears that the " valet" travelled under charge of the King's surgeon, Roger Cautin, who is also commended to the abbot's hospitality. Two days subsequently, the Prince, then at Kenning- ton, concerns himself touching the welfare of another " valet" of his household, one John Makerel, who had been named to the Prior of Twynham as a person who was to be provided for by the Prior. To a preceding letter no reply had been sent, at which the Prince much wonders, requiring at the same time such an answer now as may be satisfactory to John Makerel's patron. Ere a week has expired — namely, on the 26th of May — the indefatigable Prince is again occupied with request- ing others to recompense the fidelity of another of his servants. On this occasion, it is Walter " Reymond," the keeper of the Prince's wardrobe. Being no longer careful to look after robes, the Prince fancies he may be suitable for the Church. At all events, he writes from Langley to the Abbot of Westminster, to prefer '.' Reymund" to some ecclesiastical benefice, as soon as one should offer. He is not particular as to wliat benefice. Prince Edward, on this occasion, does not ohap. in.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 43 seem to Lave expected that his demand could be imme- diately attended to ; hut meanwhile he is not forgetful of his client, but asks the Abbot of Westminster to assign to him a competent pension till a fitting benefice should be vacant. The King's confessor, at this time, appears to have had charge of less delicate matters than the care of the sovereign's soul. Edward of Winchester left to him, occasionally, the settling of certain of his old servitors in comfortable offices or sinecures. The Prince heard that Father Lucas had been thus commissioned with regard to several of the King's sergeants-at-arms ; and forthwith the heir to the throne bethinks him of a servant of his own, one Colin Artaud; in behalf of whom an epistle is sent from Langley on the 6th of June, begging provision for a man who had not only served the King, but the Queen, the Prince's brothers, and the Prince himself. For ecclesiastical favours, the English priors and abbots are applied to in their several turns. Here, in June, a note is addressed to the Prior of Olveston, who is pleasantly besought to find a piece of preferment for the Prince's chaplain, Sir Geoffrey de Castre. The Prince modestly asks for some benefice in their gift, and " as soon as possible." A pension, meanwhile, from the prior's house is named as an arrangement that would agree with Sir Geoffrey's views ; and as the Prince had hitherto applied to the prior on this subject without success, he now prays that his request may be graciously acceded to, and that the prior will speedily act in this matter in a way that will please the Prince. Three days only have elapsed when young Edward, 44 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. again from Langley, turns to another abbot — of Eyne- sham, and having the advancement of Adam de Carleton much at heart, looks to the abbot to effect this in a liberal and courteous manner, "that his good wishes may be shown, and the Prince thereby bound to act well to him." Though the Prince was about this time grievously out of favour with his father because of certain unprincely conduct hereafter to be noticed, the writing or dictating of letters continued without intermission. There were still proteges for whose welfare he was to trouble other people. He had knocked, as it were, at many a priory or abbey -gate, and it is now at the door-way of the convent at Coventry that a messenger dismounts with a letter from the Prince, written at Battle, and dated the 28th June. It is the old story. A "little thing" had been asked of the prior and convent for the Prince's "dear clerk, Sir William de Melton," and they had exhibited indications of presenting him to the church at Southam. The Prince is astonished, remarking at the same time that "the church is not worth thirty marks a year more than his pension; and therefore is not sufficient for his support." Urgent is the appeal for Sir William, and Prince Edward prays prior and convent to do what, he remarks, they had "often been required to do before." There was seldom a benefice vacant, that Edward of Caernarvon did not think of some old retainer of his own who could, more or less satisfactorily, fill it. Thus, at the end of June this year, there died that shameless pluralist, Sir Giles Daudenard, who held prebends in Ripon, Chichester, and Hastings. The Prince of Wales .chap, m.] .EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 45 would fain have preferred to these his good friend, Sir Walter " Renaud ;" but the triple appointment was in the King's hands, and the Prince of Wales was the last person likely to find favour at such hands. The Prince, however, in his character of solicitor, was never without resource. He accordingly writes from Wye, on the 2nd of July, to the Queen. He reminds his step-mother that he dared not make any request whatever to the King, hut he prays her Highness to interest herself in obtaining one of the three benefices — the prebend of Eipon — for Sir Walter. Having done this, he on the same day again shakes a priory gate with his solicitations, or rather sharp Tequests (for the Prince had hitherto begged in vain) to the Prior of the Hospital of Dover, to grant the right of a brother, and a yearly robe for life, to Nicholas Archer of that town, and he now reminds him of the neglect, and prays that it may be remedied. I have noticed in a previous page (p. 33), the acts of kindness performed by the Prince in behalf of his nurse, Alice de Leygrave. In the same month, July, Edward applied to the Abbot of Chester, sending to him his old Welsh servant, Yeman ap Lewelyn, who is so feeble that he can no longer fitly serve the Prince, and praying the abbot to receive and support him in his house. How this request sped, it were bootless to inquire and would not profit us much to know ; but it is clear that the 'desires of the Prince of Wales were often entirely disregarded by the persons to whom they were expressed. Even the smallest favours asked were sometimes silently neglected; and such a small matter as a "bedelry" in the Isle of Wight, which the Prince had asked of William Russel, 46 HOUSE OF PIANTAGENET. [book i. the warden of the island, for his "valet" Michael de Leybrok, having been uncivilly passed over, the Prince, in a letter from Sunning, dated 28th July, "wonders much that his previous request for the same had not been regarded." On the 10th September, the Prince, who was constantly changing his place of residence, — not resting many days and nights in the same locality, was at Windsor, and thence, on the day indicated, he forwarded a missive — not to abbot or prior, nor for a dear clerk or a valet, but to the Warden and Scholars of Merton College, Oxford. This time it was to gratify not a friend or servant of his own, but one of a friend — namely, Sir John de Londres, a priest in residence at Windsor, at whose prayer the Prince requested the college authorities just named to receive John de Hoo and his brother William into their company, to reside as scholars. This request was pro- bably made to help two dunces to a position which they could not easily have attained without the protection of the Prince. On one occasion, young Edward's interference is exer- cised for a singular purpose. There was a common and notorious robber at large at this time, named Peter de Weswyk. Whether he had grown weary of his calling, or had a sincere desire to altogether reform and live cleanly — or whether he simply had strong and natural inclination to save his neck, Peter, for whatever reason, had applied to the Bishop of Ely, for permission to come in and make his purgation. To this course the bishop had assented. There seems to have been something in common between the Prince and the robber; and Edward wrote, in October, to the bishop to "hinder chap, in.] EDWAKD OF CAEENAKVON. 47 his purgation as much as he can." The Prince puts the prelate on his guard against those who may speak for the bandit Peter, as persons likely to take false oaths ; and of the robber himself, Edward remarks, that he has such hatred to the Prince that no favour should be shown him. The dislike must have been intense and mutual ; and one might lose oneself in conjecture now at trying to divine what there could have been between a common and notorious robber and the Prince of Wales, that should induce the latter to stand between the poor wretch and his purgation, and to bend his neck in the direction of further crime and the gallows. Subjoined is the note itself: — To the Lord Bishop ofBly \Bobert Orford.] " Greeting and affectionate love. Whereas we have heard that Peter de Weswyk, who is a notorious common robber, and who was committed to your prison as such, is about shortly to make his purgation, and that you have granted unto him that he may make the same ; we do pray you affectionately, that, for the eschewing of the false oaths of those who are about to purge him, and other evils that may happen, you will put in the way of such purgation such impediments as, for the love of us, you may. For he has taken such a spite against us and ours, that we would not willingly have it that grace or favour were shown unto him. Given, &c, at Quenetone,* the 27th day of October." We have seen the anxiety of Edward to place the beloved valets who had become incapable of serving him, in comfortable circumstances. He is no less desirous of * Probably Kennington. 48 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. seeing them gratified (not at his own expense) while they are still of his household. As a sample of this may be mentioned the case of a " beloved" individual of this class, named Michael Le Taillur. Upon this highly- valued official, certain rude men of London had committed an outrage — some assault, probably, for the assailants had been condemned "to pay 20 marks as amends thereof." The convicted defendants must have been at large, and with no intention of paying the fine to the outraged and beloved Michael. Michael's master, how- ever, was not so minded to let it pass. Resolved that the score of marks should, accordingly, compensate in Le Taillur's pocket for the anguish inflicted on his person, the Prince wrote to the Mayor of London, directing that official to bring the offenders to account, and to do all in his power to compel payment of the mulct, which had been often applied for, but which had not hitherto been paid. "When the Prince thus interfered for his valet, he was at Langley — the note is dated 8th June. On the 22nd of the same month he was at Midhurst, where he again interposed in a matter of justice. This time he wrote to Mr. Justice Brabazon in reference to a case which the Prince mentions as only having heard of, but in which he was, probably, more intimately interested. "What he had heard of was to the effect that "Mankin the Armourer, a burgess of London, was in prison, by indict- ment of some of his annoyers" and the Prince begged Justice Eoger Brabazon " to see that the inquest for his trial be not taken from his accusers, and that reasonable challenge of the jury may be allowed him." For friends in trouble abroad, as well as for clients at chap, ill.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 49 home, Edward was equally indefatigable. There is a pleasing instance of this in a letter addressed from Yate- ley, on the 1 Oth of August, to Amaneu de Labret, Ambassador from the Pope to the King of England. Some time previously, a certain Berd de Friscombald had made himself so agreeable to the Prince by services, the nature of which is not mentioned, that on Berd fall- ing into trouble in Italy, the Prince felt bound, as he says, to exert himself for Berd's rescue, in order that he might " see how his services have been valued." The trouble into which Berd had fallen was of a domestic, but painful nature. The prior and monks of the Augustin convent at Florence had stolen from him his son, a boy thirteen years old ; and in spite of his tender age, had clothed him in the habit of their order. The kidnapping was as complete in its way as that of the little Jew boy Mortara, in Rome, or of children here at home by respectable-looking priests, who commit the act of theft, and then unblushingly deny it. The good-natured and indignant Prince of "Wales did for young Bonacors,.the son of his poor friend Berd, what no Roman Catholic potentate has cared to do for later victims of this child-stealing system. Edward pointed out the cruelty of stealing the boy, and then shutting him up from his father and friends ; kept so strictly, as he observes, that neither could Berd nor any other of the boy's relatives communicate with him ; nor was the poor little friar in spite of himself, permitted to express any of his wishes to his friends. The Prince requires that young Bonacors should be restored to his home, that he might have an opportunity, in presence of his family, of freely stating whether he chooses to remain with D 50 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. them, or to return to the religious brotherhood. It is most creditable to the character of the Prince of "Wales, to find him urging this request, with a hearty hope that it will be complied with, for the sake of justice and his old friend Berd of Friscombald. The Prince had the affair deeply at heart, and not satisfied with writing to the Papal ambassador alone, he addressed notes equally urgent to Otho de Grandison and Lord Chastillon. To Amaneu de Lahret. " To Monsire Amaneu de Labret, greeting and affec- tionate love. We do especially pray you, that you will be assisting unto Monsire Berd de Priscombald, in pro- curing a letter from our dear father in God the Pope, unto the Prior and the Convent of the Priars of Saint Augustin in the city of Plorence, to the end that they may restore unto him Bonacors, his son, whom they have invested with their habit (and he is a young child of thirteen years, according to what we have heard) ; and when he shall be with his father and his friends, he shall choose the which he shall prefer, to remain with them, or to return unto the said order. For we hear that he is kept so strictly, that neither his father nor his friends can speak to him, nor can he make known unto them his wishes. And be ready so far to do, upon this our request, that the said MonsireBerd,to whom we are much beholden for the good services which he and his have done unto our lord the King, our father, and unto us, may be sensible that the same have availed him, and that we urge you especially to consult his wishes. Given under, &c, at Yateley, the 10th day of August." This honest-hearted correspondence is not that of a chap, m.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 51 young man who has no respect for the head of his Church, or who sets his ecclesiastical superiors at defiance. Only a month previous to this humane in- tercession in behalf of a distressed father, robbed of his child, Edward had written from Chartham to the Lord Cardinal of St. Mary, in Via Lata, to congratulate that personage and his brother cardinals on having elected to be Pope, Bertrand, Archbishop of Bordeaux (Clement V.) The Prince declares that his spirit rejoices in the Lord at the selection of a man so useful and requisite for the government of the Church and people. To the expression of his own content, he adds that of the certain approval of his royal father, and the satisfaction of the entire kingdom. To the Pontiff, thus qualified to administer justice, the Prince of Wales afforded a fine opportunity of dis- tinguishing himself in the case of the kidnapped boy converted into a friar. I regret that I cannot record the result of Edward's intercession for the son of Berd. There is, indeed, a letter of the 12th of August, from Sunning, written to Sir John de Havering, the Prince's steward in Gascony, two days after the writer had stated the case of Bonacors to the Pope's representative in London. In this letter, the Prince expresses to Sir John the pleasure he had experienced in receiving from him such " good news respecting the Pope." This, I fear, had no reference, anticipatorily, to the affair of the kidnapping. "Whatever it may have been, the Prince gives utterance to his desire to always hear such news, both as regards the Pope himself and his affairs. Sir John is exhorted frequently to write on these and similar pleasant topics, "as well as upon any other matters d 2 bZ HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. which he thinks the Prince may wish to know." For Sir John's stewardship of the bailiwick, his success in quieting the turbulent, and maintaining the country in tranquillity, the Prince expresses himself much pleased ; and exhorting the faithful steward to persevere, stimu- lates him to that perseverance by promising to closely look after Sir John's interests in England, while Sir John is furthering those of the Prince in Gascony. Of letters that are immediately personal to the Prince, there are many that exhibit him in a remark- ably pleasant light, manifesting an amiable and grateful disposition. Of what he had, he gave ungrudgingly to the friends he loved. On the 26th of May, from Langley, he announced a gift to Louis Count d'Evrenx. The gift consists of " a fine trotting palfrey, together with some Welsh harriers, which can well discover a hare, if they find it sleeping •" thereto are added, " run- ning dogs," probably gaze-hounds, whose swift chasing of the hare is vouched for. Should the young count not know how to manage these hounds, Edward is ready to send him any body or thing from Wales to help him to that end — even " gentz sauvages " — wild natives who are well skilled in the art of teaching the management of hounds to the young sons of great lords. The Prince concludes by thanking God for his good health, and trusting that the count is in equally satisfactory condition. . Some of Edward's letters are addressed singularly, considering the persons to whom they are written in connexion with the subjects treated of. It is not, at all events, likely that in these days a Prince of Wales would address himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury for the loan of an entire horse. Five centuries and chap, in.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 53 a-half ago it was otherwise, and the Prince having pur- chased the stud of the then lately-deceased Earl of Warren, and being desirous to improve his breed, was probably not wrong in asking the Primate for a horse, "bon pour estaloun." In case of failure, however, he applied also to some lay knights, and letters for borrow- ing the steed alluded to were addressed to Sir John de Northwode, Sir "William de Etchingham (whose parish church is still the prettiest object to be seen between London and Hastings), and Sir Robert de Burghersh; all country gentlemen of the period, who had pride in their stables. One evidence of the refinement of the Prince's taste is shown in several of these letters which denote a love for music. A man with such tastes is certainly, not consequently, a very good or a highly intellectual man : we have proofs among our own Princes to the con- trary ; but the taste is, nevertheless, a refined one. One of the notes treating of this matter would seem to indicate that the young Prince maintained a juvenile band — for, from Tenterden, on the 1st of July, he directs "Walter " Reginaud " to procure, in London, for his " little players," who seem to be at Tenterden, a pair of trumpets, good and strong for packing, and a pair of little mJcaires, or kettle-drums, for Erancekyn, or little Prank, the Prince's " nakerer." This note was carried from Tenterden to London by Janyn, the Prince's trumpeter, who had with him also patterns of the instruments that Walter was to purchase. A more pleasant instance still presents itself in a letter written at White Waltham, on the 12th of Sep- tember. The Abbot of Shrewsbury retained, in his 54 HOTTSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. pious and joyous household, a famous fiddler, whose fame had reached the ears of Richard, the Prince's rhymer. The latter hecame forthwith desirous to learn the art and mystery of the crowdy, crowthy, or fiddle ; and Edward despatched him, with a note to the abhot, begging of him to direct his fiddler to teach the minstrelsy of the crowdy to Richard the Rhymer, and to maintain the said rhymer in the convent till his musical education was perfected. The Prince of Wales, not too liberally, adds, as his assured payment of such services, the obligation to be thankful for it ! Besides the musical excellence of his own household, he did his best to further that of the household of his kinsfolk ; one letter here showing as much, in request (made at Kennington, October the 2nd) to that Sir John de Londres, for whom the Prince, it will be remem- bered, had done a good office, early in the previous month, praying that his clerk who had taught his children to sing, will go and stay with his sister Elizabeth, the Countess of Hereford, to teach the children in her chapel. Mr. Frederick Devon, in his introduction to the report on these letters, remarks that they show how affectionately the Prince remembered and spoke of his " dear mother." True as this is, there is unfortunately a remark to be added that Prince Edward uses this tender and natural phrase not only when speaking of the mother whom he lost so early, Eleanor of Castille, but also, though not always, when speaking of his step- mother, Marguerite of Prance. A letter written at Langley, on the 6th of June, addressed to John de Drokenesford, keeper of the King's wardrobe, prays him chap, in.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 55 to help Ladalli to recover the money due to him upon the King's jewels, " for he only stays in this country on account of that debt ; and the Prince is bound to help him for his good services done, and because he is of the country of the Prince's dear mother ; therefore he wished him on no account to depart complaining of the King or of him. Trusts he will so act to show how he had this business at heart for love of the Prince." I am afraid that Edward spoke of his " dear mother" as he did of his " dear clerk" or his " beloved valet ;" nevertheless, his respect for the deceased Queen is mani- fested in a letter written at Windsor, on the 3rd of August, to Sir John de Berwick. In this document, the Prince having heard that some part only of the money devised by his " dear mother" to the Prioress of Bromhale has been paid, desires that the last will of his mother be fulfilled for the quiet and good of her soul, and prays that the money in arrear be paid as soon as possible. On the very next day, we find the Prince treating his step-mother with the same degree of respect, as far as it could be conveyed, in the use of the term already referred to. The letter containing it is addressed to " Elizabeth, Countess of Holland." It is a remarkable letter, too, as containing a reference to Gaveston (Vascon or Gascon ?). The writer expresses his pleasure at hearing from the countess of the good estate of the King, the Queen, and herself; and thanks God that his own health is in good estate also. The Prince further notices that the King had allowed him two " valets" to live near him — viz., John de Hausted and John de Weston ; and he proceeds to beg of the countess that 56 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. she will pray his " dear mother" the Queen, to pray the King to permit him to have two other " gentlemen" to live with him — namely, Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gaveston. If he might have them also, it would much alleviate the anguish he had endured, and still suffers from day to day, owing to the directions of the King. The reference here to Perot de Gaveston, or Peter of Gascony, as a" gentleman," may he accepted, perhaps, as settling the question of his quality, which has long been disputed ; and although exalted by the historians, lowered by the poets and popular tradition. To return to the letters, it is to be observed that the reference to Gaveston is not as to one who had not already been in the Prince's service, but to one who had abused his office and misled the Prince. The cause of the harsh " directions of the King," alluded to by the Prince in his Windsor letter of the 4th of August, is to be discovered in a letter from Midhurst (Sussex) of the previous 14th of June. This lettei 1 , addressed to the Earl of Lincoln, relates " that he arrived there on Sunday, the 13th, where he found the King, his father, and on the Monday, on account of certain words related to have been had between the Prince and the Bishop of Chester, he, the King, was so enraged with the Prince, that he had forbidden him or any of his household to be so bold as to enter his house; that the King had forbidden all those of his own household, and of the exchequer, to provide anything for the support of the Prince's household." This narrative refers to a breaking into the bishop's park, in company with Gaveston — as tradition relates, and riding down the prelate's fences, and killino- his chap. lit.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON, 57 deer. The wrath of King Edward was fierce, hut the Prince, albeit offending, waited its subsidence with hope and respect. He remains at Midhurst, he states, awaiting the King's pleasure ; and to recover his father's good will, as he desires to do, the Prince will follow him humbly, at a distance. A prayer to the earl to come to him and give him the aid and counsel which he needs, is a promising trait in a young and seemingly thought- less offender. The anxiety of the Prince appears less intense in fact than in words. He was soon occupied in the business I have before alluded to, of getting the Archbishop of Canterbury to help him in the improvement of his stud, and on the 22nd of June, a letter to Walter " Heynaud," of whom he was a frequent correspondent, not only shows a mind gaily at ease, but betrays one of the weak points in the Prince of Wales's character— his love of finery. On this occasion, he has heard that Marie, Queen of Prance, and Louis, her son, are coming to England. He must of course welcome their arrival and escort them inland. To do this as becomes a Prince, he needs must have good palfreys and fine robes. Accordingly, Walter is directed to purchase "two fit and good palfreys, and two saddles, with the best reins kept by Gilbert de Taunton ; and that he purchase the best and finest cloths he can find in London, for two or three robes, with fur and cedeux for the same, and to send them to him as soon as he can." In about a month, a letter from Lambeth to the Countess of Gloucester, contains the Prince's thanks for the good offices of his sister ; and further, a comforting assurance that the information she had received of the d 3 58 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. . [book i. King's harshness towards him was unfounded. His father had at least allowed him the necessaries which he had once refused. Father and son, however, were not yet reconciled. On the 1st of September, at Windsor, we hear of thanks from the Prince to the Queen for the trouble she had taken in his affairs. He was then employing Sir Eoger de Clifford to negotiate between him and the King ; but the Queen was made previously acquainted with the nature of his commission, in order that she might instruct him in the way most likely to find favour with the offended father. Edward prays his step-mother to listen to the knight, and as she loves her step-son, to counsel him in this matter, and to reply by Sir Roger, as to her wishes with reference to the Prince. He would seem also to have engaged an intercessor in his sister Mary, to whom, on the 7th of September, he sent a hare, by Robert de Wygmore, with a prayer for her favourable offices in the business in which he was then concerned. The Princess was, at the time, forbidden to visit her brother; but subse- quently the prohibition was raised, and Mary was to have an interview with Edward at Amesbury. The Prince, then at White Waltham, was pleased, yet perplexed. He evidently experienced some awe of his irascible sire. A Parliament was about to assemble, and the King might at any moment command the Prince's presence. That he might not fail to attend, if sum- moned, he dared not depart from White Waltham, and was reluctantly compelled to abandon the idea of yet .meeting his young sister. The administration of the Prince's affairs seems, at this period, to have been completely in the hands of the chap, in.] ED WARD OF CAERNARVON. 59 King. So completely was this paternal control exercised even over the Prince's household, that he could not, of his own free will, lend the services of one of his gentle- men, who held his appointment of the King and not of the Prince of Wales. This is exemplified in a letter from Kennington, October 2nd, to an earl, supposed to be of Lincoln. This nobleman was about setting out on a mission to the Court of Rome, and he desired to have Miles de Stapleton to manage his household. The Prince's reply to this letter states, that he would ■willingly permit the earl to take any knight or squire of his establishment that he might choose — always excepting Sir Miles ; to whom he cannot give leave to transfer his services to the earl, seeing that the King has charged Sir Miles with the direction of the Prince's household and affairs generally. He can do nothing without the command of the King, to whom the Prince refers the earl. Notwithstanding this control, the Prince of Wales was evidently master of his actions in some of the affairs of his estate and household. This is observable in another letter written from Kennington, on the 26th of October, to Walter Reynaud, to whom the Prince often wrote, with remarkable variations in the spelling of Reynaud's name. The letter is to the effect that the King, in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, had granted to the Prince the land of Wales, and subsequently all the debts due to the King in that principality. Under this grant, the Prince had received from Joan, widow of Owen de la Pole, 120£. as part of a fine due to the King on her marriage. Meanwhile, the King's Court of Exchequer had distrained the property of Joan for this 60 HOUSE OF ELANTAGENET. [book i. debt. The Prince denied the right of the court to do this. He clearly and properly held, that whatever por- tion of the fine remain unaequitted was due to him, and not to the King; and he accordingly directed his agent Walter to repair to the Barons of the Exchequer, and obtain the release of the distress. Acts of this nature showed that the first Prince of "Wales lacked neither spirit nor generous feeling. In- deed, men who had suffered wrong had recourse to him to see them righted, and Edward of Caernarvon does not appear to have been dilatory in performing the services required. We have an illustration of this in a matter regarding the Earl of Ulster and Eustace le Poer. The former, styled by Prince Edward his "dear cousin," with his friend Eustace had had some feud with certain "men of the Court," who must have been personages of great influence, for they were powerful enough to throw the earl and Eustace into prison, and to call down upon them some over-rigorous measure of "jus- tice" at the hands of the King. For false imprison- ment and other grievous wrong, thus inflicted on them, they turned to the Prince for redress. King Edward was not then on very friendly terms with his son ; but the Prince, albeit unable to mediate with his father in person, determined to do so by deputy ; and he accord- ingly wrote to John de Benstede, praying him to present to his father, "at a fitting time" (for who knew the wayward and irascible temper of the King better than his son?) the petition of the earl and his co-sufferer; and with it the Prince's own letter to De Benstede. The King had already assigned justices to try the matter on which the respective parties were at issue, but the Prince chap, in.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 61 manfully desires John to teg of the King, in his son's name, that he would assign such justices as would redress the grievances of those who had been wronged. With these evidences of active good-will before us, we may the less wonder that the Prince possessed friends warmly attached to him. For small services from these he returned thanks gracefully and promptly, and repaid the services themselves with interest. He was at Pur- bright on the 19th of September, when Sir Hugh le Despenser forwarded to him, by a servant, a present of some grapes. The Prince not only gratefully acknow- ledged the kind homage, but entered into details which showed his appreciation of the pleasant and useful gift. Sir Hugh's man, he says, arrived opportunely, on Sunday morning, before the Prince had broken his fast, consequently, he could not have arrived at a better time ; to eat grapes, fasting, being a healthy regimen. The Prince rewarded the attention tenfold, by sending Le Despenser a horse. He confessed, indeed, that it was but " a poor beast ;" but he will send Sir Hugh a better as soon as he has the power to do so. ■ In less than a week he was again kindly busy, and apologizing for failure in having been so ; as may be seen in a note to the " Lady Mary," his sister, whom he prays not to take it ill that he has not sent the wine and the organs to her convent, according to his promise. The latter he had ordered, but though they were at Langley, they had not yet been sent to him. With regard to the wine, he had ordered his men in London to purchase a quantity, but they had hitherto been unable to find any sufficiently good in quality to send to the Lady Mary's convent — a noticeable fact ! The con- 62 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book I. vent in question was that at Amesbury, where the Lady Mary had taken the veil in the year 1289. It was there that she was to have been permitted to see her brother when he was in disgrace, and he was afraid to profit by the permission, lest a summons should be sent to his residence from the King, and he should give offence by failing to pay it the required obedience. I have thus indicated the nature of these notes or letters, most of which are, by the neat hand of a secre- tary, written in Norman French ; the less familiar and more official letters are in Latin, or an abstract of them is given in that language. The letters addressed to relatives are certainly creditable to the character of the Prince, if they really represent his sentiments, and were, at least, dictated by him. There is room for suspicion, perhaps, that the letters written in reference to his quarrel with his father, were written as they are, because the Prince hoped that the persons to whom they were addressed would lay them before the King. This does not necessarily make a hypocrite of young Edward ; for as he dared not write to his father, he might naturally wish that the King should know of his loving and obe- dient spirit through missives addressed to his sisters or friends. I proceed, in the next chapter, to give some further samples of those early royal letters, hitherto unpublished. chai. it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 63 CHAPTER IV. EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. HIS CHARACTER AS DEVELOPED IN HIS LETTERS. pEEViotrs to gathering from the letters of the first Prince of Wales manifestations of his character in its moral, social, and various other aspects, I will beg per- mission to return my best thanks to Mr. Blaauw, Mr. W. E. W. Wynne, and Mr. T. Duffus Hardy, for various services and suggestions which I owe to their kindness ; and especially are my acknowledgments due to Mr. Henry T. Riley, the learned editor of " The Chronicle of Croyland," and of the " Liber Albus," for his co-ope- ration in the examination and translation of these time- worn and time-honoured documents. Prom the mass, which affords a wide field to archaeo- logical inquirers, I submit the following. The first letter has reference to the quarrel between the Prince of Wales and his father. To (Henry ie Lacy) the Lord Earl of Lincoln. "Edward, &c, to the Earl of Nicole [sic], health and dear friendship. — Know, sieur, that on Sunday, the 13th day of June, we came to Midhurst, where we found our lord the King our father, and on the follow- ing Monday, on account of certain words which were told him, that had been between us and the Bishop of 64 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book l Chester, he is so angry with us that he has forbidden us that neither ourselves nor any one of our suite should be so bold as to enter within his household ; and he has forbidden all the officers of his household and of the Exchequer that they should neither give us nor lend us anything whatever for the sustenance of our house- hold ; and we have remained at Midhurst, in order to wait for his good pleasure and his pardon ; and we will at any rate proceed after him in the best manner that we shall be able, as at ten or twelve leagues from his household, until we may be able to recover his good pleasure, for which we have great desire. "Wherefore we especially entreat you that on your return from Canterbury, you would come towards us, for we have great need of your aid and your counsel. Given under our Privy Seal, at Midhurst, the 14th day of June." On the day that the reproof alluded to in this letter was given, the King left Midhurst for Cocking and Chichester, subsequently passing by Arundel and Lewes to Canterbury. The Prince followed out his penitential programme, and kept the same road, but at the respectful distance indicated in his letter. Disregard to an officer of the King was a serious offence in the eyes of Edward, whose anger at his own son for using insulting words— as some say to the Bishop of Chester, in the bishop's court, or in a court where that prelate was present— was so well known, that notice of it is made in the report of a trial which took place soon after that incident, as an illustration of the iniquity of the offender, one William de Brewes, who had insulted a Baron of the Exchequer for pro- obap. it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 65 nouncing against William in a suit at law. De Brevves was severely dealt with, on the ground that such dis- respect to the royal officers was " especially odious to the King, as was openly shown of late when the said King had removed his first-born and dearest son Edward from his household for nearly half a year because he had uttered certain gross and bitter words to a certain officer of his ; nor would he permit his own son to come into his presence until he had made satisfaction for the offence to the said officer." The Prince strove hard to provide for the friends in his household after the King's ebullition of wrath; and he had to petition warmly for himself. Thus, on the 14th of June, he writes to his old tutor, Walter Reynaud : — " Inasmuch as our lord the King is so angry with us on account of the Bishop of Chester, that he has prohibited us or any one of our suite from entering his household, and has also forbidden the officers of his household and of the Exchequer, to give or lend us anything for the sustenance of our house- hold, we send to you, that you may devise means to send us money in great haste for the sustenance of our household, and do not in any manner show anything of the wants which touch us to the Bishop of Chester, nor to any person belonging to the Exchequer." I have noticed the Prince's rapid movements from place to place. These changes were sometimes to suit the pressure of circumstances, compelling him .to seek hospitality ; sometimes they were made to bring him meekly nearer to the King ; and occasionally they seem to have been made at the royal command, obedience to which ameliorated, for a less or longer period, the 66 HOUSE OF PLA2TTAGENET. [book i. unpleasant position of the offending son. Thus, in the letter (already referred to) to Elizabeth, Countess of Hereford, he writes : — " To the sister of the Prince. — Very dear sister, do not be dismayed at these news which you tell us they chatter in the parts where you are, about our lord the King, our father, and us ; for it is quite right that he should say and do and ordain concerning us whatever pleases him, and we shall be always ready to obey all his wishes, for whatever he does at his own pleasure, so is it for our profit, and for love of us ; and be pleased not to listen to anything to the contrary whatever they may tell you. May the Lord preserve you. Given at Tenterden, July 1." And again, three weeks later, he writes from Lambeth to the Earl of Gloucester, who had evidently aided the young offender in his need : — " Because you have so kindly given up your goods to us, we thank you very dearly, and we let you know that our lord the King, our father, does not consider himself so ill-treated by us as some people perhaps have made you believe, for he wishes and has commanded that we should have of his bounty what is needful for us." Throughout, there is a manifestly honest desire on the part of the Prince of Wales to appease his father, not only by obedience, but by not exposing himself even to an act of involuntary disobedience. I have before given the abstract of the note to his nun-sister Mary, stating why it was out of his power to meet her at Amesbury. Here is a similar note to his sister, the Countess of Gloucester, who had invited him to chap, it.] EDWAED OF CAERNARVON. 67 her residence. The note is dated " August 6." "Know, my very dear sister, that we would willingly come to you, hut my lord the King has commanded our stay in these parts, near Wyndesore, hetween this and the Parliament, or until otherwise is ordered, and we wish to ohey his commands in all things, without doing anything to the contrary. — Very dear sister, may the Lord have you in his keeping !" That the son was correct in stating that his father was not harsh beyond measure with him, and wished to starve neither his son nor his son's household, is proved by an extract, made by Mr. Blaauw, in the second volume of the Reports of the Sussex Archaeological Institute (from the C. R. MSS. E. B. 2042), to the effect, namely, that the sum of 100 marks (66£. 3s. 4>d.) had been advanced by the King's order for the Prince's expenses. The stoppage of supplies, too, for the Prince and his attendants, had reference apparently only to substan- tial meats, and not to sauces, fruits, condiments, or lights, wherewith to enjoy themselves. In the last work named above, the reader, curious in such matters, may peruse a long list of deliveries made this very year to the Prince of "Wales's household out of the stores of the King's wardrobe. The list includes ample supplies of almonds, rice, sugar, fruit, jellies, and gingerbread, candied orange, powdered cinnamon to strew on bread or fish, aromatics, various peppers, nutmegs, and pickles, baskets of figs, raisins, dates, and currants — and 17271bs. of wax, to shed light over the consumers of these dainty articles. For more substantial fare, the Prince, naturally hungry, applied to the Earl de Warenne, his " dear cousin," entreating him " to be pleased, for the love of 68 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. us, to give one or two does to our well -beloved John de Monteney; and may the Lord preserve you!" And here may be cited the text of the letter, showing how, in the love of venison, he forgot not his love for his friends ; and in which he asks his sister to ask the Queen to ask the King to grant him a very great favour, the com- panionship of his valet Gaveston : — "Edward, &c, to his very dear sister, my Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Holland, Hereford, and Essex, health and dear friendship. — Right glad are we of the good health of our lord the King, our father ; and of our lady the Queen, and of yours, which we have learnt by your letters ; and as to ours, we let you know that we were in good health, thanks to God, when these letters were written ; and inasmuch as our lord the King has granted us two valets, John de Hausted, and John de Weston, we entreat and request you especially to be pleased to beg our lady the Queen, our dear mother, that she would be pleased to beg the King to be pleased to grant two more valets to dwell with us ; that is to say, Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gaveston ; for if we had these two with the others whom we have, we should be much relieved from the anguish which we have endured, and yet daily suffer, from the restrictions at the pleasure of our lord the King. Very dear sister, may our Lord preserve you." The Gilbert de Clare, mentioned as equally dear to the Prince of Wales as Gaveston, was probably the Prince's cousin. They were subsequently knighted together. Two days after the above letter was de- spatched the Prince wrote to the Queen, thanking her chap, it.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 69 for her happy success in obtaining for him " the greater part of the servants of his chamber to live with him, as they used to do." But the writer urges the Queen to intercede further for Clare and Gaveston. It was this persistence in behalf of the latter, especially, which ultimately brought on — if we may believe the chroniclers — a fearful scene between the monarch and his son . ' To her Ladyship the Queen of England. " To his most dear lady and mother, from Edward, her dutiful son, all reverence and love. — Most dear lady and mother, forasmuch as our lord the King, our father, has granted unto us the greater part of the servants of our chamber to live with us, as they used to do ; and we well know that this is at your request, for which we do thank you as affectionately as we know how to do ; we do pray you, most dear lady and mother, that you will still be willing, if so it please you, to labour for us, and to pray our dear lord and father that he will grant unto us two attendants [valletz] in addition to those whom we have ; that is to say, Gilbert de Clare and Perot de Gavastone. For truly, Madam, if we had these two in addition to the others, we should be greatly comforted and lightened of the anguish that we have endured, and do still suffer, by reason of the ordinance of our said lord and father. Madam, if so it please you be willing to have this matter at heart, and bring about the same in the most gracious manner that you may, so affectionately as you do love us. Madam, our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Windsor, this 6th day of August." 70 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. The next note exhibits in its request some love for venison, and his own inner-man. It appears to have been a secret enclosure in the preceding letter. "Most dear Lady and Mother, — As to the matter contained in this letter, be willing, if so it please you, to believe our dear servant, Guillemot Pointz, as to what he shall tell you by word of mouth on our behalf. And whereas, my most dear lady and mother, you gave unto us the last year, in your affectionate kindness, the fat deer of the forest of Odiham, and we took thereof two stags only, we do pray you affectionately that, if so it please you, you will again give us the fat deer of the same forest for this year ; and that you will send unto us by the said Guillemot your wishes hereupon." The following are samples of (sometimes) his readi- ness to serve his friends, at others, to interfere with the course of justice, or to support the rights of ecclesiastics, and (often) of his general business-like qualities : — To Simon de Leilurne. "Whereas we have heard that one Henry de Norfolk, your servant, has lately committed violence and outrages upon our dear clerk, Sir Walter Reginald, at his church of Angreham, such as beating down his corn, and selling and destroying it in other ways at his will, and wasting and carrying away other chattels there found in his manor ; and that his people threaten in many respects to subtract from and disturb the rights of his church, to the great contempt and grievous damage of himself— we do command, and do pray you in especial, chap, rv.] EDWAKD OF CAERNARVON. 71 that such grievances and acts of violence you will chastise, and will send word unto him and your other bailiffs, and command that the-J ~ i- |- of the said church shall be saved unto the said Walter, according to the feoff- ment of the first founders, and in such manner as all his predecessors have held and used the same for all time ; and that you will in due manner redress what has been done therein, for the love of us, that so we may be the more especially [gratified] therein, in that the said Sir "Walter has no occasion to seek redress against him else- where. And what you are ready to do as to this matter you are to send us word by your letters, through the bearer hereof. Given at Langele [Langley] &c, 25th May." To Sir Ralph de Hengham. "Edward, &c, to his dear clerk, Sir Ealph de Hengham, Justice of our lord the King, health and good love. — We do pray you in especial that you will hear our dear and well-beloved Roger Loveday, and well and kindly aid him in his business, that so his right may be saved unto him; and that you will pray Roger Bra- banzon* also, as though it were yourself, tbat if any wrong has been done unto the aforesaid Roger, he will in due manner redress the same. And so much do therein for our entreaties, that the said Roger may feel that he has been aided thereby, and that we may be bound to thank you for the same, and to acknowledge our obliga- tions. Given at Langele, &c, 26th May, in the 33rd year/' * A brother-justice of Hengham's. This Hengham was subse- quently punished for taking bribes. 72 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. To Sir Eustace de Hacclie. " Edward, &c, to his dear and well-beloved knight Monsire Eustace de Hacche, health and good love. — We do thank you affectionately for the good will which you entertain towards us, and always have entertained, and for that you keep better worked [mieuz emploie] your manor of Peckesham,* with the appurtenances, and that for our benefit rather than for any other manf in the world ; and that it is not your wish to make any bargain with us except at our own will ; as our dear servant Rothiry d'Espaigne has informed us on your behalf. Wherefore we send you our dear clerk John de Bohun, and do pray you that you will cause to be shown unto him all the lands and fields, mills, and other rents and homages, and all other appurtenances that to the said manor pertain, and the certain value of each thino- all in writing. For we wish to be advised upon all things that unto the manor belong. And with him we send our servant John de Karleford, to survey the said manor and the lands; and the said John, our clerk (with your aid therein) will know how to make the necessary deeds secure, such as befit such a feoffment. And upon all [these] things signify unto us your will, which we Jcnoio for certain is favourable unto us. Our Lord preserve you. Given under, &c, at Langele, 26th May." * The manor of Peckham, in Kent. Peckham in Surrey was in- cluded in that of Hatcham, which was then in the hands of the Burnett family. f From this and the concluding words, it would seem that the title to the lordship in capite of this manor was then in dispute. De Hacche was only a tenant. chap, rr.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 73 To Sir°Peter de Maulay [and others.'] "To Monsire Peres de Maulay, Monsire Edmond Deincourt, Monsire "William le Vavassur, Monsire John del Isle, Justices of our lord the King, health and good love. — "Whereas we have heard that a great assault has been committed upon Robert de Stoteville, a servant [vallef] of our dear cousin Madam Joan Wake, whereby the said Robert is maimed for life, by one William de Saint Barbe ; we do pray you in especial, that you will be aiding unto the said Robert in recovering his fair rights and proper amends for the said assault. For we have his matter much at heart, by reason of the good and loyal service which he has done unto our cousin aforesaid. And do so much herein at our request, that he may be sensible that our entreaties have well availed him. Given at Langele, the 27th day of May." • To Sir William Ormesby, " Edward, &c. to his dear and well-beloved Monsire William de Ormesbi, Justice of our lord the King, health and good love. — Whereas we have heard that Mahen of the Exchequer is imprisoned by your command, we do pray you affectionately, that you will send your letter to Sir William de Carletone, in due manner, as speedily as you can, that he may cause the said Mahen to be delivered upon good mainprise; and we will acknow- ledge ourselves greatly indebted to you for the same. And if the offence is so great that the law will not allow of his being delivered upon mainprise, you are to send us word, for certain, as to the truth, by the bearer of this letter, why he is thus detained in prison. Given at Langele, under, &c, the 3rd day of June." 74 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. L B00K L To the Mayor of London. " To the Mayor of London, greeting, &c— We do pray you in especial, that you will, for the love of us, show unto our much-beloved HamondGresse,who is imprisoned in the City of London, as we have heard, all the favour, aid, and friendship that, for the love of us, you fairly may, to the end that he may be sensible, and may per- ceive that our entreaties serve him in good stead with you, as we do desire to be the case. And we shall be especially bound to thank you for the same, and to acknowledge our obligations therein. Given at Langele, under, &c. the 5th day of June." To Sir William Howard [and another.] " Edward, &c, to his dear and well-beloved Monsire William Howard and Monsire John de Ashtone, greeting. Whereas our lord the King, our father, has assigned you his justices to inquire upon oath of the reputable men of the county of Northampton, as to a great injury which has been done unto our dearly beloved in God, the Friars Preachers of Northampton, by the Mayor and many other misdoers of the town of Northampton, and to hear and determine upon the said oifence, according to the law and the usage of this realm ; and we have it greatly at heart that this offence should be speedily and effectively punished, and full redress given, by reason of the great affection that we have for the Order of Friars Preachers, for many causes moving us thereto, and by reason of the insolence that the said mayor has shown us ; seeing that since we besought him by our letters in behalf of the said friars, he has done them still more injury than he had done them before : — we do pray you chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 7'5' in especial, that you will attend to make inquiry, heat, and determine as to the said offence with all haste that you may, and use all pains and diligence that it may be punished, and redress given as effectually and peremptorily as possible, for the love that you bear unto us ; that so we may be enabled to acknowledge our obligations to you therein. Given at Langele, on the 5th day of June." To the Mayor of Northampton. " Edward, &c. to the Mayor of Northampton. — We besought you of late by our letters in behalf of our dear and especially beloved in God, the Friars Preachers of Northampton (unto which order, for many reasons, we are especially indebted) that you would be favourable unto them, and aiding them in all matters which they might have to transact with you; and in particular, that you would not allow any innovation to be made or begun to the detriment or the aggrievance of them. And now we have heard that, despising our said entreaties, you yourself, in your own person, together with many other misdoers, have broken the doors and locks of the said friars at Northampton by force of arms, and have beaten down their trees there growing, and have committed other great injuries and outrages against them ; to the very great contempt of us, seeing that you have committed more outrages and mischiefs against them, since you received our said letter, and were aware of the good will that we entertained towards them, than you had done before, to the very great injury of the said friars, and against the peace of our lord the King. "Wherefore, it would be well that such insult and such injuries were so speedily, so duly, and e % 76 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. so peremptorily redressed, that no further evil could arise therefrom, and that you send us word forthwith how you were prepared to make amends for the same. For we shall take counsel how to cause the same to be redressed in such manner that others may be the better warned henceforth, by your example, to refrain from the commission of such insults. Given under our Privy Seal at Langele, the 5th day of June." The subjoined letter was written in behalf of a lady of foreign birth, in whom the Prince of Wales evidently - took considerable interest. She was probably a pretty young widow at this time. There are several letters on the roll, having reference to her case, but the details throw no additional light on the case itself, except that we may gather therefrom that a portion of her troubles was caused by disputes about property. The barony of " Mortimer of Richard's Castle" is mentioned in Nicolas. It is uncertain whether the " Sanderdene" from which this letter is dated is in Sussex or Kent, or if it be Sandown in the Isle of Wight. To the Mayor and Sheriffs of London. "Edward, &c, to his dear and well-beloved, the Mayor and the Sheriffs of London, health and good love. — Whereas we are bound to aid and advantage our dear and well-beloved the Lady Mortimer, of Richard's Castle, by reason that our most dear lady and mother had her given in marriage in this country; and we have heard that she is imprisoned in the City of London upon the indictment of her persecutors, and' that they are CHAp.iy.] ED WARD OF CAERNARVON. 77 inflicting upon her more duress than they ought, seeing that she is not convicted of the things of which she is accused, as it is said : — we do pray you affectionately that for the love you hear unto us you will cause command to he given that she shall he relieved from the duress that is so unreasonably inflicted upon her, and shall he treated ■in the most courteous manner that right will allow of; that so we may perceive that [redress] has been done unto her by your order, and may feel ourselves bound to acknowledge ourselves indebted therefore. Given under, &c, at Sanderdene, the 29th day of June." And again, touching this lady. To Adam de Kyngeslieiride. "Edward, &c, to his well-beloved Adam de Kynges- heinde, greeting.— Whereas we are bound to aid and assist our dear and well-beloved lady Dame Maut \Maud or Matilda] de Mortimer, of Richard's Castle; and we have heard that she has been too hardly treated at your suit, and without any fault of hers, as we have been given to understand : we do pray you that you will abstain from inflicting duress or aggrievance upon her, against reason, and we will hold ourselves indebted to you therefore. Given under, &c, at Chartham, this 8th day of July." To the Bailiffs of Bruges. "Edward, &c, to his dear and well-beloved, the Bailiffs and Echevins of Bruges, health and good love. — We do pray you affectionately that for the love of us^ you will give all the good counsel and aid that you may, 78 HOUSE OE PLANTAGENET. [book l for the deliverance of Boydyn Vayn Lapscure, servant of {Reginald de Thunderlee, our well-beloved merchant, who is in prison at L'Escluse [Sluys] in Flanders, without any fault of his ; that so our said merchant may have to congratulate himself upon what you shall have done for his servant at onr request, and we may hold ourselves indebted to you therein. Given under, &c, at Chart- ham, this 8th day of July," To her Ladyship the Queen. " To the Queen, greeting. — Most dear Lady, foras- much as we greatly desire the advancement of our dear clerk Sir Walter Reginald,* keeper of our wardrobe, as we are bound to do for the long services which he has done us ; and we have 'heard that our late clerk, Sir Giles Daudenarde, who held a prebend in Rypon, another in the church of Chichester, and a third in Hastyngges, has been called unto God, whereby the donation of these three prebends belongs to our lord the King, our father; to whom we cannot, and dare not, make any request, of ourselves, hereupon or upon other matters, as you are aware : — Madam, we do pray your Highness that you will be pleased to be aiding us as towards our lord and father, as though, Madam, it * Walter Keginald (or Keynaud) was also the Prince's treasurer, and seems to have been in high favour with Edward, who was at this period eternally worrying prelates, abbots, and holders of advow- sons, with entreaties for his advancement. Of letters of this descrip- tion there are probably about twenty in the roll. Immediately following the above, there is a letter to the Archbishop of Canter- bury, asking him, in behalf of Eeginald, for the Church of Croyn- done (Croydon, no doubt), now vacant through the death of Giles Daudenarde. chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 79 had been on your own behalf; and that, for you, be will consent to advance the said clerk to the prebend of Rypon, the more especially as he has often made promise of his advancement. Most dear Lady, may our Lord save and keep you by his power always. Given under, &c, at "Wy, this 2nd day of July." To Sir Lambert de Trikynham. "Edward, &c, to his well-beloved Sir Lambert de Trikynham, Warden of the Archbishopric of York, upon the vacancy of the see, greeting. — "Whereas we have heard that by the sufferance and maintenance of John, your under-bailiff at Southwell, a blacksmith has begun to raise a forge, and other persons are about to raise other edifices, abutting upon the walls and enclosures of the burying-ground of the church of Southwell, in places where there were no such edifices before, to the great prejudice of the said church, and to the aggrievance of the canons who dwell there ; and we well know that our lord the King, our father, does not wish that any innovation should be begun by his officers in this time of vacation, to the prejudice of the said church, or to the injury or aggrievance of the said canons ; we do pray you that you will not suffer any forge or other new edifice to be raised where no such used to be before, or any other innovation to be begun, to the prejudice of the said church or aggrievance of the said canons, so far as you can in due manner prevent the same. Given under, &c, at Wy, this 6th day of July." The consequences of the reduction of the Prince's SO HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. household, by order of the King, and his own temporary want of money, are especially indicated in the two fol- lowing letters, the first of which is a good specimen of the earnestness, with which the Prince of Wales sought to provide for the lowest as well as the most dignified of his dependents. The allusion to "Little London" I cannot explain. Mr. Riley suggests that such may have been the name of a spot at Langley, where the Prince kept his stud, and perhaps something else — an establish- ment, it may be, like that of the " Jericho " of Henry VIII., in Essex. To William de Doncastre. " Edward, &c, to William de Doncastre, burgess of Chester, greeting. — Whereas Thomas de la Chaumhre, who has been in our service, has a great wish to work and to be apprenticed in your Company, as he says ; we send him unto you, and we pray you that you will receive him among your people, and will put him into some office where he may be serviceable unto you, and learn, to his own profit and yours. And we shall acknowledge ourselves indebted to you therefore. Given under, &c, at Ospringe, this 14th day of July." To the Bailiff of Langele {Langley). " Edward, &c., to Robert le Parker, his bailiff at Langele, greeting.— Whereas our lord the King has charged us that we should cause to be removed all those who have their abode at ' Petite Lundres ;' that so no one may dwell there, but the place be kept in such manner as it was in the time of our dearest lady and chap.it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON, 81 mother, whom may God assoil ; we do command that you remove all those who have their abode there as regards us, if any such there be ; and in particular .Sir Thomas, the chaplain, Joy this he has commanded us. And cause the place .to be kept in the manner aforesaid ; and see yourself that the parker performs his duties. Given under, &c., at Chartham, this 12th day of July." To her Ladyship the Countess of Gloucester. "The Prince announces his thankfulness to the Countess of Gloucester for her gift of things, and the use of her seal; and that, contrary to what she had been told, the King had not continued to act so harshly with him ; for he had wished and ordered that his son should be sufficiently supplied with what was necessary for him." This abstract of the original letter, which is in Latin, concludes by announcing that " The King hath sent back the Prince's seal by Ingelard de Warle, cleric, to whom the same seal was delivered under the King's signet, on the 21st of July, in the chamber of the archbishop, at Lambeth, in presence of Sir William de Leybeirne, Roderick of Spain, William de Melton, and many others. It is to be remembered that the seal was delivered there on that same day, not under signet ; the Lord Chancellor doing that with the seal of the King." To his Lordship the Bishop of Durham. "To the honourable Father in God, his very dear friend, Sir Anthony, by the grace of God, Bishop of Durham, Edward, &c, greeting .and affectionate love. We do thank you very affectionately for that you have e3 82 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. so well managed our business with our lord the King, our father ; and we do pray you, and do well know, that you will at all times bestow upon our affairs all the aid and good will that you can, as being one who is entirely and for certain our friend. Given under, &c.> at the Park of Wyndesore, this 23rd day of July." To the Lord John of Britanny. " To Monsire John of Britanny, greeting and affec- tionate love. We have carefully listened to the message which you have sent us, and we admit ourselves to be culpable as to what was contained in the same message, and do pray your pardon thereon. Still for all that, at our next interview we will tell you such things that you will hold us as excused thereon, and will be fully satisfied as to the same. Our Lord have you in his keeping. Written at the Park of Wyndesore, this third day of August." To Sir John de Berewyk. " Edward, &c, to his dear clerk, Sir John de Berewyk, health and good love. Whereas we have heard that of the devise which our dearest lady and mother, (whom may God assoil,) whose executor you are, made to our dearly-beloved in God the prioress and the convent of Bromhale, a part is paid, and that a great part thereof is still in arrear, and we do greatly wish that her last will was fulfilled, for the rest and welfare of her soul : we do pray you in especial, that so much as is in arrear of the devise made unto the said ladies, you will cause to be paid in due manner as speedily as you can, for the love which you bear to us ; chap, it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 83 and we shall acknowledge ourselves greatly indebted therefore. Our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this third day of August." Rothery or Rotherik (Roderic) d'Espagne was his chamberlain in August, as mentioned in a letter to the Sheriff of Bedford of the 5th of that month. To the Mayor of London. " To his well-beloved Sir John le Blund, Mayor of London, health and good love. Whereas we have heard that certain persons of the city of London are bound unto our well-beloved servant Michael Le Tailleur, in a certain sum of money for the assault which in the said city they committed upon him, we do pray you that you will be assisting unto our said servant, that he may recover the debt which is so due to him, as speedily as in due manner, for love of us, you may be enabled to effect the same. Given under, &c, at Yatele [Yately], this 12th day of August." To Almaricus [Emery) de Friscolald. " Edward, &c, to Emery de Friscobald, greeting. Whereas we are bound unto our well-beloved Emeric Martyn, a merchant of Gascony, in the sum of 70 pounds sterling, for wines which were bought of him for our use, and consumed in our house j for which he has letters obligatory of our dear clerk, Sir Walter Reginald, keeper of our wardrobe : we do command you, that you will cause to be paid unto the said Emeric the said 70 pounds as speedily as you may, receiving from him the said letters obligatory. And we send you our 84 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. letters written, unto our chamberlain at Chester, by which we command that, upon receiving from you these letters together with the said letters obligatory, he shall cause to be paid unto you the said 70 pounds without any delay. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, the 13th day of August." To Sir Walter Reginald. " To Sir Walter Reginald, &c, greeting. We send you our letters of credit, written to Barouncyn, a merchant of Luke [Lucca] ; by which we pray him that he will give you credit for that which you shall mention to him, and do that which you shall request him to do on our behalf, in the matter of making us a loan of money until some convenient term. And we do require of you, that you will make it your care to say such words unto him, and make of him such request in our behalf as concerning the said loan, as you know that the state of our affairs demands ; and until such term as you shall be sensible that we shall be enabled well and easily to repay the same. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, this 15th day of August." To Baroncin, the Merchant. " To Baroncin, the merchant of Lucca. Whereas we have charged our dearly-beloved clerk, Sir Walter Reginald, &c, to tell you certain things by word of mouth in our behalf, and to request that you will make us a loan of money until some convenient term, for weighty matters that concern us : we do pray that you will confidently believe our said clerk as to that which he shall tell you, and do that which he shall request you in our behalf, as concerning the loan above men- chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 85 tioned. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, this 15th day of August." To Sir Hugh le Despenser. " Edward, &c, to his dear and well-heloved Monsire Hugh le Despenser, health and good love. Whereas we have heard that our welUbeloved John de Bonynge is indicted for a trespass that has been committed in your Park of Wokkynge [Woking ?] ; for which trespass he has come unto you to ask your pardon : we do pray you affectionately that herein you will be unto him so gracious and so merciful, that he may he sensible that this our prayer has availed him, and that we may feel ourselves bound to thank you and to acknowledge ourselves indebted therein. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, this 16th day of August." To John de Foxle. " To John de Foxle, greeting. We do command that you send unto us a sparrow-hawk, in full wing, for partridges, and that you lend unto us a spaniel; and that you send the same to-morrow by a man who well knows how to carry the said hawk. And also, send unto us to-morrow one of the foresters, from whom we may have advice as to our sport in the forest. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, this 16th day of August." To Sir Walter Reginald. " Edward, &c, to his dear clerk, Sir Walter Reginald, &c, greeting. We do command that you cause to be paid unto Adam le Poleter, of Redinges [Reading], bearer of these letters, the money which we owe unto him, of which you well know, and as to which we have 86 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. already commanded you to pay the same ; that so he may not have hereafter to return to us for the said payment. Given under, &C, at Sunninge, this 16th day of August." To Sir Robert de Touny. " Edward, &c, to his dear and faithful friend Monsire Robert de Touny, health and affectionate love. For that you did not speak to us lately, when you were at our house (hostel), we hold you excused ; and we do pray you that you will come to speak to us as soon as, in due manner, you may ; and that, for so long as we remain in the forest, you will lend us a horn that you have, and will send it by some one of your people, if you yourself cannot bring it us at an early moment. Our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at Bagge- shete, the 21st day of August." To Sir Soger le Brabanzon [and others], " Edward, &c, to his dear and well-beloved Monsire Roger Brabanzon, Monsire Peter Malorre, and Sir Gilbert de Roubire, justices, &c, health and good love. Whereas we have heard that Simon de Pinkenye, and Christina his partner (who is sister to our dear and well- beloved in God, brother John de Lenham, our Con- fessor,) have been indicted by the procurement of one Edmund Cok, their persecutor ; we do pray you as espe- cially as we can, that if so be that they shall have to come for judgment before you, you will show unto them all graciousness and friendship, favour and kindness, that law and reason will admit of, for the love that you bear unto us ; and that the inquest that shall be taken as concerning them shall be of other persons than of chat, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 87 those who indicted them, or of the kindred of those who caused them to he indicted. For we desire greatly that their deliverance were made to their honour, by reason of our said Confessor. Given under, &c, at Sunnynge, the 30th day of August." To Sir Hugh le Despenser. " Edward, &c, to his dear and faithful friend Monsire Hughe le Despenser, health and affectionate love. "Whereas we have made request of you heretofore as to the matters that concern our dear servant, Master Richard de Clebury, our cook, in reference to the bailiwick of Kynefare ; and, for the love that you bear to us, you have been a good friend to him, so that his business has been wholly completed by your aid : we do further pray you, in especial, that you will be assisting him, and that you will speak to Monsire John Fitz- Philip, (who is an old man, as we have heard, and has no power to help himself in keeping his bailiwick,) that he give up his office to our said servant for a certain sum which you shall think proper to name, and which shall be suitable for the one and the other. For well know that the said Monsire John will do at your request all things that are reasonable. And we do pray you that you have this matter so much at heart, that our said servant obtain a certain income ; for we ourselves have his interests and his advancement much at heart. Our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this third day of Sep- tember." To Sir John Fitz-Philip. " Edward, &c, to Monsire John Fitz-Philip, health 88 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book I, and good love. Whereas our lord the King/ our father, at our request has given the bailiwick of Kynefare, after your decease, unto our dear servant Master Richard de Clebury, our cook ; and we have heard that you are in so feeble a state of body that you cannot help yourself in safely keeping the bailiwick; we do pray you in especial that you will make him certain of the bailiwick in such manner as your friends and his sball look upon as reasonable for yourself and for him. And whatever . you shall do for him at our request, we shall be much bound to thank you for the same and to acknowledge ourselves indebted therein. For know that we have his interests and his advancement much at heart, for the good and praiseworthy services that he has done us heretofore, and still does from one day to another. And as to what you shall be pleased to do at this our request, you will send us word by your letters, by the bearer hereof. Given under, &c., at the Park of Wyndesore, this third day of September." To Sir Walter Reginald. "We command- that the monies whicb you have re- ceived on loan, to our use, of Baroncyn, merchant of Lueca, you cause to be paid unto our creditors, in the district of Langele, to the amount of 200 marks; to those, namely, who shall have the greatest need thereof. And we send you our letters, written unto the said Baroncyn, whereby we thank him for the loan which he has made unto us, and the which we desire you should make of avail unto him. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fourth day of September." chap, rv.] EDWARD OP CAERNARVON. 89 To the Bailiffs and Commonalty of Bruscels [Brussels] . "Edward, &c, to the bailiffs and commonalty of Brussels, health and good love. Whereas we have heard that the Pope has given a place unto our dearly-beloved in God, the brethren of the Order of Friars Preachers, which belonged to the Friars of the Sack, in the same town of Brussels ; we do pray that, as to such place, you will for love of us allow them to enjoy the same to their profit in all due and proper manner that they may ; and we shall in especial hold ourselves indebted to you therefore. Given under, &c, at the Park, of Wyndesore, this fourth day of September." To Ms Lordship, the Abbot of Abyndone. "Edward, &c, to his dearly-beloved in God, the Abbot of Abyndone, and the convent of the same place, health and affectionate love. Whereas, at the request of our Lord the King, our father, you have granted unto our dear servant, Master Simon, our cook, ten marks per annum, to be received of your house, as we have heard; we do pray you in especial, that, in addition thereto, you will give him your robes. For we are sensible, and do well know, that he will both wish and know how to show himself well deserving of the same. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, the fifth day of September." To his Lordship, the Abbot of Bedynge. " To his dearly-beloved in God, the Abbot of Hedynge, and the convent, &c, health and all due honour. Whereas our well-beloved , John Lalemand, keeper of one of our chargers, has had one of his hands 90 .HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. badly wounded, and we have heard that there is a good surgeon with you ; we do pray that you will receive him to remain in your house until such time as his hand is cured, and that in the meantime you will find him his sustenance, and see that the said surgeon takes good care of him, for the honour of ourselves. And we do desire in especial to he hound to thank you for the same. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fifth day of September." To Henry de Say. "To his dear servant, Henry de Say, his brother, &c., greeting. "Whereas, we have heard that our dear ser- vant, Laurence de Baggeshete, our palfreyman, is about shortly to have his daughter married ; we do command that you will cause to be delivered unto him one tun of wine as our gift for the nuptials of his said daughter. And we will cause that due allowance shall be made you, therefore, in your account. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fifth day of September." To Sir Walter Reginald. "To Sir Walter Reginald, keeper, &c, greeting. Whereas we have heard that you have not yet delivered unto Gunnore, our laundress, her gown which she ought to have had of us for the feast of Christmas last past ; we do command that if the same is still due to her, you will cause her to have the same in due manner as speedily as you may. For we have heard that she will shortly have her daughter married ; wherefore it is our wish that this matter should be the more expedited. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fifth day of September." chap, rr.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 91 To Sir Roger Sauvage. " To Monsire Roger le Sauvage, constable of Wyn- desore, &c. We do pray you that you will let John Gounage, servant in our butlery, who is dwelling at Wyndesore, have two fitting oaks for timber, from the Park of Wyndesore, on our behalf. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fifth day of September." To Sir Hughe le Despenser. "Edward, &c, to Monsire Hughe le Despenser, health and affectionate love. We do pray you in especial, that you will hasten unto us as soon as, in due manner, you can, and that you will send us word by your letters where you will be the Sunday next to come. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this seventh day of September." ' To his Lordship the Liar I of Lincoln. " To the noble man, his dear cousin, Monsire Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, health and affectionate love. We do pray you in especial that you will be tender of our business touching us at this next Parliament ; and more particularly as to Gower, that our jurisdiction and our rights there may be saved. And be pleased to be aiding and counselling unto our well-beloved Monsire William de Langetone, who will maintain our suit before you in the said Parliament for the saving and maintain- ing of our rights. Our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this tenth day of September." To Master Boiert de Cisterne. " To Master Robert de Cisterne, our physician, greet- 92 .HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. ' [book i. ing. We do command you that, upon seeing these letters, you forthwith come unto us, wherever we may be, in the vicinity of Wyndesore. And this omit not, in any manner. Given under, &c, at Bray, this fifteenth day of September." To her Ladyship the Countess of Hereford. "To the noble lady, his -most dear sister, Madam Elizabeth, Countess of Holland, Hereford, and Essex, on part of Edward, her brother, health and affectionate love. Dearest sister, whereas we have a beautiful white* harrier dog, we pray that you will send us the white harrier bitch that you have ; for we have a great desire to possess some of these dogs. Dearest sister, our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at Bray, this fifteenth day of September." To his Lordship the Earl of Lancaster. "To the Earl of Lancaster, health and affectionate love. Most dear cousin, we hold you well excused in that you have not come to see us ; and we are greatly grieved at your illness, and if we could have come to where you are, we would have done so willingly, for the purpose of seeing and comforting you. Most dear cousin, our Lord have you in his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Windsor, this twenty-second day of September." To Sir John de Dro/cenesford. " To Sir John de Drokenesford, health and affec- * The word is "liverer." It is doubtful whether it means "harrier," "retriever," or the one known as the "levinner," or " lyemmer," by i he old naturalists, also called the " lyme-hound," -probably a sort of bloodhound. chap it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 93 tionate love. Whereas you have promised us a cartload of walnuts, we pray you that you will send your letter written to the keeper of the place where the nuts are, and we will send thither a cart to fetch them. Our Lord have you Jin his keeping. Given under, &c, at the Park of Windsor, this twenty-fifth day of Sep- tember." To Reginald de Thunderlee \and another. ,] " Edward, &c, to Reginald de Thunderle and to William Cosin, Sheriffs of London, health and good love. As hy our letters we made entreaty of late for our well-heloved Robert Poun, that you would make him serjeant to carry the mace hefore you, we do pray you again that you will receive the said Robert, and make him your said serjeant, for the love you bear us. And we will in especial be bound to thank you and to acknowledge ourselves indebted for the same. Given at Kenytone [Kennington], this third day of October." To the Abbot of Saint Edmund's. "Edward, &c, to his dearly-beloved in God, the Abbot of Saint Edmund's, health and good love.. Whereas we have heard that some outrage ' has been committed by the people of your Abbey upon the people of the town of Saint Edmund's ; which offence your said people are putting upon our servant, Robert Sauvage ; we do pray you, that you will by no means allow that anything should be put upon our said ser- vant, other than is consistent with reason and truth, and that you will cause an inquisition to be held thereon, of good and lawful persons of the said city; 94 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. and that wlien the same shall have been so taken, you will send us a copy thereof under your seal, that so we' may know the true state of the matter. Given at Kenytone, this fourth day of October." The following are cited on account of the singular sirnames contained in them : — "To Richard Oysel, warden of Kingestone-upon- Hulle, health and good love. We do pray you in especial in behalf of our well-beloved John Roten- herynge, of Kyngestone, that in the matters which concern him before you, you will, for the love which you bear to us, show him the favour and friendship that rightfully you may. And we will be especially indebted to you therefore. Given, &c, at Quenetone,* this 25th day of October." "Edward, &c, to all bailiffs and officers of our lord the King, and to our own, greeting. As our beloved Hamond Dandy, bearer of these letters, who is with us of our household, is on his way towards his country of Cestreshrie (Cheshire) , we do pray that when he shall come your way, you will hold him as recommended unto you, for the love of God, both in going, sojourning, and returning ; and that you will not do unto him, or suffer to be done unto him, so long as he is among you, any evil, mischief, or molestation, without reasonable cause therefore. These letters to continue in force until the * I have little doubt but that this is merely an affected way of writing, "Kenytone" meaning " Kennington." In several cases I have met with it, the letters of the day before and the day after being dated from " Kenytone." It is just possible, however, that " Quenetone" (Queen's Town) may have been some now forgotten adjunct of " Kenytone" (King's Town). chap, it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 95 Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist next ensuing. Given under, &c, at Langele, this 1 1th day of May, in the year of, &c., 33." To Sir Walter Reginald. "To his dear clerk, Walter Reginald, keeper, &c. Whereas we have heard that you have bought of John Launcegruel, of London, a horse at the price of 30 pounds; of which 15 pounds are paid him, and the other 15 pounds are still to pay; we do command that, if so it is, you will cause to be paid unto him the other 15 pounds which are so in arrear, in due manner, as speedily as you may. Given under, &c, at the Park of Wyndesore, this fourth day of September." The following two notes show his regard for one of his old nurses : — To Henry de Bray. " Edward, &c, to his well-beloved Master .Henry de Bray, greeting and good love. Whereas we have heard that some persons, by your abetting, are about to molest our dear and wellJbeloved Dame Alice de Leygrave, our nurse, in reference to a wardship which our lord the King, our father, had given to her, lately belonging to Fraunke Scolaunde, to whom the daughter of our said nurse is married ; we do affectionately pray you, and do command that you will wholly abstain from doing, or causing to be done, by yourself or by others, anything that may turn to the hurt or damage of the said daughter of our nurse, or to the hindrance of the gift aforesaid, contrary to what is right— for we are greatly 96 .HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. troubled that she, or hers, should incur evil or damage unreasonably— so far as it is in our power duly to give our counsel thereon ; for the saving of the right of our Lord the King, and the good services which our said nurse has borne us. Given under, &c, at Wye, the 5th day of July." To the Bishop of Bath {Walter Haselshaw], " To the honourable Father in God, his dear friend, Sir "Walter, by the grace of God Bishop of Bath, Edward, &c. "We do thank you affectionately for the honours and courtesies which you have oftentimes done unto our dear nurse, Dame Alice de Leygrave, as to the which she has spoken unto us in terms of high commendation ; and we do especially request, that the benefits which you have so begun you will continue, if so it please you, in such manner that we may be still more beholden to you. Our Lord, &c. [have you in his keeping]. Given under, &c." (as above as to place and date) . The subjoined is one more case of interference in the matter of his tailor. To Sir Soger Brdbanzon [and others], " Edward, &c, to Monsire Roger Brabanzon, and his companions, justices of our Lord the King, greeting. "Whereas certain persons of the city of London lately beat, wounded, and maltreated Michael, our tailor, against the peace ; and we did thereupon, by our letters, demand of the Mayor and the Sheriffs of London, that all those who were present at this assault, and who should by inquisition be found guilty, should be chap, rv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 97 attached and imprisoned; to do the which, the said mayor and sheriffs were hound by virtue of their office. And of late we have heard for certain that one Walter Balloke, who was in such manner attached and im- prisoned for the said offence, has made plaint before you of false imprisonment, and has sued the sheriffs who made the attachment aforesaid, as unto their office pertained : — we do pray you in especial that you will not suffer any grievance or duress to be inflicted upon the said mayor and sheriffs for the attachment which they made upon the misdoers aforesaid by our command in form before-mentioned. And whereas we have heard that he is prosecuting the said sheriffs by reason of the malice of certain persons, it would please us much that you should take this matter wholly under your supervision, until such time as we shall come into the neighbourhood of London, that so you may then be fully informed by our people, who are acquainted with the truth of the said matter. Given under, &c, at Chartham, this 8th day of July." To Michael the Tailor. "Edward, &c, to Michael, his tailor, greeting. — Whereas we have heard that you have lately agreed before our dear and faithful Monsires Robert de Hausted, our seneschal, and Sir Walter Reginald, keeper of our wardrobe, to look to our wardrobe for payment of a debt which yon claim from Osbern de Gray and his sureties for the assault which was com- mitted upon you in the City of London; we do command you that if so it is, you will not molest or cause to be molested or aggrieved, by reason of the F 98 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. said debt, the said Osbern or his sureties, against the tenor of your agreement aforesaid ; and that you will take measures speedily that their houses, which for this reason are shut up at your suit, be given up to them, that they may consult their profit as to the same. Given under, &c, at Chartham, this 8th day of July." One of the latest-dated letters exhibits strong signs of the country gentleman, in the concern of the writer for a suitable steed. To the Executors of the Earl de Warenne. "Edward, &c, to his dear friends the executors of our dear uncle the Earl de Warenne, whom God assoil, health and loving friendship. — Inasmuch as our people have already spoken to you in our behalf, that we wished to have the steed that belonged to the said earl for the value as it shall be appraised by honest persons, we again entreat that the same steed may be kept for us wherever the earl had it, and fix a time sure and convenient, when our people and your people may examine the said steed, and fix both a certain price and day to make the payment. And we pray you that the said steed may be nowhere removed from where it is, until our people and your people have examined it, as is before said. Give credence to our dear clerk Sir Eobert de Chishell in what he shall say to you in this matter. Given under our privy seal at Langley, the 20th day of November (1304.)" Edward had a real love for horses, and in this he imitated his friend the Archbishop of Canterbury. The high position of Eobert of Winchester, however, chap, it.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 99 could not protect him, in 1306, when the Prince of "Wales was in greater disfavour than ever with the King. That the Prince had a good friend in so good a man as this archbishop, shows that young Edward could admire other companions than the wretched crew catalogued by Knyghton, the Canon of Leicester. It is true that both seem to have had one taste in common for horses. But it was the intimacy of the relations between the prelate and the Prince that caused the former to be charged with the crime of treason. He made an abject submis- sion to the King, who seized on all his property, and prohibited all persons from giving him aid or shelter. Had it not been for some good monks of Canterbury, who disobeyed the King's orders, the primate would have died of starvation. Having illustrated the character of the Prince by these samples from his correspondence, I return to the course of his life, and have to state that the day of Pentecost, 1306, was long remembered in London for its glories and its cost. On the previous first of April, the King, before setting out for Scotland, had summoned all noblemen and gentlemen, bound by fee to take such service, to repair to Westminster in order that they might receive the honour of knighthood. At the same time notice was given to them that their costumes on the occasion would be furnished from the royal wardrobe. The royal tailors and embroiderers must have had a busy time of it, for the candidates for knighthood amounted to several hundreds, and the costumes, including caps and mantles, were as brilliant as purple velvet, gold, and p 2 100 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. other costly finery, could make them. The number of recipients was larger than usual, because the Prince of Wales was himself to be received into the order of chivalry. There were so many — the lowest number is eiven at 300, which did not include twice as many attendants — that there was no one room in the Palace of Westminster spacious enough to contain them. Recourse was had to the New (the present) Temple Gardens. Here walls were levelled, apple trees pulled down, and tents and wooden booths erected, the bill for which the young Prince had to "settle " some time after his accession to the throne. Edward and his companions — that is to say those of the noblest birth among them — kept their vigils, on the eve of the day of the great ceremony, in the cathedral church at Westminster. Such vigils, in ordinary cases, comprised (after bathing) prayer, fasting, and meditation. How these customs were observed by the mere gentlemen who kept their vigils at the Temple, I cannot say. Mr. Planche, in his " History of British Costume," simply records that the young knight-companions generally " crowded in their glittering dresses the gardens of the Temple which were set apart for their reception, and received much injury in this novel service." Of what occurred at Westminster, a more distinct account is given in the seventh volume of the "Archaeological Journal." From this account, founded on ancient documents, we learn that the vigils were of a rather uproarious character. In place of silence or prayer, trumpets were sounded, pipes squeaked forth a treble accompaniment, and unruly shouts now and then ascended to the roof, creatine alto- gether such confusion that the monks at either side of chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 101 the choir could not hear the voices of those who were seated opposite to them. On the Whit-Sunday, the Prince of Wales was duhbed knight, hy his father, in the Palace at Westminster. After which solemnity the Prince proceeded to the abbey to confer knighthood on his riotous companions of the vigils. To these were now added an immense crowd of spectators who had obtained possession of the abbey, and through whom armed men on horseback in vain endeavoured to ride and keep clear the way. Such an indecent sight of crowding and peril could only be seen in these days at a modern Drawing-room. At Westminster, however, there was something more than peril, there were fatal accidents. Each knight com- panion was escorted towards the altar by two knights, who had charge to take care of him during the cere- mony. Some idea of the tumultuous scene may be had from the fact that, even with this protection, the struggle through the crowd was so fierce that several knights fainted, and two of them were actually killed. The Prince of Wales himself was so closely surrounded that he was unable to use his arms in order to belt the ■newly-made knights. So intolerable was the pressure that he was at last compelled to mount on the altar itself, and on that unusual stage he performed the cere- mony of making knights of the fatigued and fainting young nobles who could fight their way to his feet. No wonder is it, if, after a night of such vigils, and a day of such toilsome seeking of knighthood under difficulties, they enjoyed a cool and joyous evening in the Temple Gardens, where they made the blossoms shake for it. The scenes of the Prince's private life were sometimes 1 02 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. in strange contrast with the splendour of those which marked his appearance in public. The restoration of Gaveston to his service did not, of itself, content him ; and this dissatisfaction brought on a particular scene of violence, of which we have a record in the Latin chronicle of Hemingford, and in which the King and the Prince are the chief actors. Hemingford relates that young Edward had raised De Gaveston from the lowest condition — of poverty, if not of rank — and had enriched him to the utmost of his power. To riches, the Prince wished to add honours, and fearing, as he invariably did, to ask his father, in person, to confer a favour on a friend, he applied to the King's especial favourite — Walter de Langton, the royal treasurer, whom Edward had elevated from a subordi- nate post in the wardrobe to a seat on the episcopal bench — to petition for this favour in the Prince's name. The favour was no light one, it was to the effect that young " Perot," Little Peter, as the Prince was accus- tomed to write and speak of him, might be exalted, to the dignity of Count of Ponthieu ! The Bishop of Chester was an agent who had carried many difficult commissions to a successful conclusion, but he accepted the one imposed on him by the Prince with ominous reluctance. He went straightway, how- ever, to the King, and briefly and without interlocution, explained what had brought him into such presence. " My lord King," said he, " I come here on the part of my lord, the lord Prince, your son, and unwillingly enough, as the living God is my witness. He requires that I should solicit, in his name, that the title of Count of Ponthieu should be conferred on the Lord Peter de ohap. 17.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 103 Gaveston, his bachelor, if such might be done by your good permission." The King burst forth into a fit of uncontrollable wrath. " And by the living God/' he exclaimed, " who art thou who darest ask such a thing ? Had I not the fear of God before me, and the remembrance of what you said, that thou art an unwilling agent in this matter, thou shouldst not escape rough treatment. But now I will see what he has to say who sent thee hither ! And stay thou, meanwhile, where thou art !" Prince Edward was accordingly summoned, and speedily obeyed the command. On seeing him, his father exclaimed, " What business is this that thou hast sent this man upon ?" The Prince at once replied, " To ask, with your per- mission, that Lord Peter de Gaveston might be created Count de Ponthieu." At this cool rejoinder, the King became wilder in his wrath than before, and even flung unsavoury names at the, deceased Queen Eleanor, whom he had certainly loved and respected. " Oh, ill-begotten son of a wanton mother," shrieked the foolish and false-spoken King, " thou art in the mood to give away lands, thou who hast never won any !" Then turning from this sarcasm on the non-military disposition of Edward, he cried out, " God alive ! were it not that the kingdom might fall into anarchy, I would take care that thou shouldst never come to thy inheritance." And from these violent words he passed to violent deeds. Seizing the Prince by the head, with both hands, he tore away his hair by handfuls, or as much as he could — " in quantum potuit," to use the phrase of the chronicler ; and forthwith he 104 . HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. ordered the Prince to be kept under arrest. Then summoning such of his Council as had accompanfed him on the expedition to Scotland, and conferring together, they came to a resolution which is explained by what followed. Peter de Gaveston was called before the board and made to swear that, be the King living or dead, he (Peter) would never accept a gift of lands from the Prince. He was then made to listen to a decree of perpetual exile — a certain day being named, by which time had he not voided the kingdom, his life would be forfeit. The Prince of Wales was also obliged to make oath that he would never confer on Gaveston titles and estates, which the latter had sworn he would never receive, even if proffered. The chronicler Knyghton states that Gaveston in his exile waited near the sea and in Flanders, for the death of King Edward. The Prince meanwhile made more open manifestation of his special love for his absent friend, and of his hostility against those who had been the more immediate cause of his favourite's banishment. At length came the period, 1307, when King Edward was arrested by death on his progress to Scotland, on which progress he was accompanied by his son, who at Lanercost was summoned to the bedside of his dying father. The traditionary account of the last scene between Edward and the Prince of Wales introduces us to an eloquent dying King, and a silent, self-willed heir, whose respect for the will of the sovereign when dead, was shown like that of the French Regency for the will of Louis XIV., by entirely disregarding it. The young Prince was enjoined to exercise the virtues of mercy, chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 105 justice, courtesy, and truth ; to have fellowship with the good, and condescension for the lowly } to love his half- brothers Thomas and Edmund, but especially to love and reverence their mother, Queen Marguerite. His heart the King bequeathed, he said, to the trusteeship of 140 knights, who should bear it with them to the Holy Land (since he could not fulfil a vow to go thither in person), and find prosperity in battle, according as they kept the deposit safely and honourably. " I have provided two and thirty thousand pounds of silver for the support of these knights," said Edward; and — un- comfortable remarks in the ears of such a son — he calmly observed that he trusted eternal damnation would be the award of him who turned this money-legacy from its destined use. The Prince of Wales was, probably, equally uneasy under another portion of the counsel given by his dying father. This related to Gaveston, concerning whom, the Prince was told that, unless he would incur his father's curse, he should never recall the pernicious favourite, who had abused the tender years of the Prince with wicked vanities. The King remembered that he had bound the Prince of Wales by oath, not to recall or receive Piers without his royal sanction ; and now to bind him, when that sanction could not be given or refused, he enjoined the Prince never to summon his former friend to England without the common consent ; seeing, said the King, that he was banished by common decree. Edward further endeavoured to control his son's impatience, by counselling him not to hasten to take the crown of England till he had revenged the injuries the King had experienced at the hands of the Scots. The mori- bund King was not fain to be at peace with all men. He f3 106 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. could forgive every one save his enemies and a few- individuals, dislike for whom he could not surmount. Kevenge on the Scots was uppermost in the royal heart, and the Prince of Wales was enjoined to accomplish that end ; and even to " carry" (as Walsingham and Speed assure us) " his father's bones about with him in some coffin till he had marched through all Scotland, and subdued all his enemies, for none should be able to over- come him while his skeleton marched with htm." Although this account is vouched for by more than the historians I have cited, it has been doubted by others; while a third class maintain that the Prince of Wales was not present at all at the deathbed of his father. Perhaps the most terribly circumstantial of all the historians and chroniclers who record the incidents, real or imaginary, of the last scene between father and son, is Proissart. That picturesque gossiper writes, that the Prince of Wales, standing in presence of the King, the latter made him swear before all his barons, "by the saints, that as soon as he should be dead, he would have his body boiled in a large cauldron, until the flesh should be separated from the bones ; that he would have the flesh buried, and the bones preserved; and that every time the Scots should rebel against him, he should summon his people, and carry against them the bones of his father, for he believed most firmly, that as long as his bones should be carried against the Scots, these Scots would never be victorious." Such a minute description was enough to excite the disgust, if not terror, rather than sympathy of the Prince for the King. But perhaps it is as apocryphal as what is said to have taken place immediately after the death chap. IT.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 107 of the sovereign who had expressed to his son his intense desire for wreaking vengeance on the Scots. It is a Scottish poet historian who now speaks, in the " Buik of the Chronicles of Scotland, or a Metrical Version of the History of Hector Boece, by William Stewart/' who deposes that — " Eight as the soul did from the body draw An English knight into a vision saw Great Lucifer, the master-fiend of hell, With many demons furious and fell, Some at the head, and others at the feet Of King Edward, there raving out the spirit; Then flew with it, with many rueful roar ; Judge ye yourself, for I cannot tell where." That some such mission as that said to have been delivered to the Prince by the dying King, was really assigned to him, seems to be confirmed by a speech of Robert Bruce, reported by Matthew of Westminster — " I am more afraid," said he, " of the bones of the father dead, than of the living son ; and by all the saints, it was more difficult to get a foot of land from the old King, than a whole kingdom from the son." Edward himself did not more severely satirize the unwarlike disposition of the Prince of Wales when he ridiculed him — a man who knew not how to win territory, for wishing to confer it on a worthless favourite. There is one incident to be mentioned by which we are enabled to measure the extravagance of the first Prince of Wales. His debts, at his father's death, amounted to 28,000^. sterling — a sum which would be represented by nearer a half than a quarter of a million of money of the present value. This testifies to a vast expenditure on the part of a young man 108 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i.. not much above twenty years of age, and whose household expenses were chiefly supplied — but per- haps only nominally supplied — by the King. How- ever this may be, the latter could hardly reproach his son on the score of extravagance ; and among the first acts of Edward of Caernarvon, after his accession, was the drawing of a bill on the Exchequer to the amount above named, for the discharge of his debts when Prince of Wales. At the same time, and in the same way, he satisfied his father's creditors ; and then, with impoverished treasury, commenced a new career of costly extravagance.* Twenty miserable years with a few brief days of extravagant joy, and a few, very few, of calm felicity, intervened between the accession of the first Prince of Wales to the throne and his death, 1307 — 1327. There was a brilliant marriage with Isabelle ; a pro- digality of luxury with a poor treasury to meet the cost, and a revolt of the barons, which soon dispersed all thoughts of inglorious ease. To be the King's favourite was but to inherit death, though the fate of one brought with it no experience to his successor — Despenser perishing as miserably as Gaveston. The military reputation of England was humiliated at Bannoekburn ; famine followed upon defeat ; sickness attended famine; and the children of Edward were born . when particular calamity was pressing upon England or the King. The end of all was that dreadful scene at Berkley Castle, the horrors of which contrast * Axchseologia, v. xxviii. p. 248. chap, iv.] EDWARD OF CAERNARVON. 109 so strongly with the joyous shouts that welcomed Edward's birth at Caernarvon. Around his cradle, gay and gallant groups of ladies, priests, and nobles ; around his death-bed, a couple of murderers and their assistants. Cries of joy hailed his birth, his own shrieks heralded his death ; but they were heard far over the village near the castle, and the startled inhabitants there listened in terror, and prayed for the poor soul that was passing away in such unutterable torture. Thus the first English Prince of Wales was the first King of England who was deposed and murdered. 110 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book I. CHAPTER V. EDWARD OF WINDSOR, SECOND PRINCE OF WALES. Boen 1312. Died (King or England) 1379. In a painted glass window, in one of the canon's houses in Windsor Castle (the window is over the cloisters adjoining the chapel), there is a horoscope or astrological scheme of nativity. It was cast to show the aspect of the heavens at the moment of the birth of the first child of Edward II. and the youthful Isabelle of France. That child, subsequently the renowned Edward III., was born at Windsor, at twenty minutes to six on the morning of the 13th of November, 1312. The horoscope informs us that the sixth degree ol Scorpio was then ascending, and the eighteenth degree of Leo was, at that auspicious moment, culminating. What this foretold it would be difficult to say, but in the Scorpion and the Lion, those who placed faith in horoscopes affected to see — when Edward of Windsor had completed his career — a foreshadowing of the Prince who was made to depose his father, and of the King who raised the fame of the military glory of England to a height it had never reached before. King Edward II. was then sorrowing for the loss of his favourite Gaveston, who had been executed by the barons a few weeks previously. But the birth of a son made some amends for the death of his bosom friend ; and a life-annuity of twenty pounds conferred on chap, v.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. Ill the happy couple of the Queen's household from whom he learned the long-desired intelligence, proved the value at which he estimated the news. The birth of a Prince at Windsor was considered of such importance that the Queen herself notified the auspicious circumstance in a letter to the Mayor of London, purporting to he from her own hand, and written on the day that the Prince was born. The letter, a copy of which, in Norman French, is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MSS., 15,664) is to this effect : — " Isabelle, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Aquitaine, to our well- beloved the Mayor and Aldermen of the community of London, health. — Because we believe that you will hear the good news with alacrity, we make known to you that our Lord, by His grace, delivered us of a son, on the 13th day of November, to the safety of ourselves and of the child. May our Lord keep you ! Given at Windsor, on the above-named day." This missive was entrusted by the Queen to John de Phalaise, the tailor of her household. The date above given fell on a Saturday, but the tardy tailor did not reach London till the following Tuesday ; and he found, to his chagrin, that the joyous news had been made known to the mayor and aldermen, by another an- nouncer, on the day previous — the Monday. The earlier Martinmas Mercury had set the whole City in an uproar of delight, and John the tailor arrived with his letter when the rejoicings were nearly half over. On the Mon- day in question, the mayor and aldermen and a great crowd of the commonalty assembled at the "Gyhalli," (as 112 HOUSE OE PLANTAGENET. [book i.. we are told in the " memoranda " appended to the copy of the royal letter) at vesper time, they set the bells a-chiming, manifested a world of joy, and went proces- sionally through the City by a resplendent light from torches, to the sound of trumpets and other gladdening minstrelsy. And on the Tuesday morning early, long- before the lagging tailor had reached the City, the special holiday had commenced. Orders had been proclaimed that no sort of work, labour, or opening of shop should be done that day. Accordingly, every one apparelled himself in the most honourable fashion with which he was acquainted (in las plus honurable maudeq'il saveit), and repaired to the " Gyhalli," whence the mayor and good people went " togetherly," or ensemblement, as the original has it, to St. Paul's, for two especial pur- poses — to give praises and "offerings," in honour of God who had bestowed on them this grace — of a Prince, and also to show their reverence for the child so recently born. This done, they returned to the Guildhall, and there did what was devised, and amused themselves till the hour of afternoon service. At this later period there was another joyous and God-praising assemblage, again on their way to St. Paul's, with the chief magistrate and aldermen at their head. In the cathedral, the metropolitan bishop him- self officiated, singing, as we are told, with great sollemp- nete. Again the citizens deposited their thank-offerings, and then the bells were again swung, and carillons of brazen gladness were " fired" over the City. A musical procession was then formed to the Guildhall, where the good people separated, and each man went in peace to his own house. chap, v.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 113 Meanwhile that slow-paced tailor had made his appearance ; and, laggard as he was, it was not thought convenient to allow a Queen's messenger to go unrewarded, even for news which no longer possessed the quality of novelty. On "Wednesday morning, there- fore, the City authorities met together, and inviting her Majesty's leaden-heeled herald to appear before them, thanked him for the information of which he had been graciously made the bearer by the Queen; and in acknowledgment thereof, presented him with " xii di- sterling," and a silver cup of four ounces in weight. John de Phalaise accepted the present sulkily, kept it for a day, and on the Thursday morning "returned the gift, because it appeared to him to be too little" {remaunda la dour avant-dit pur cet q'ili sembloit trop poi). The un- reasonable tailor was probably offended because he was not presented with the freedom of the City in a gold box studded with diamonds ! What came of his discontent is not recorded. It did not, at all events, check the hilarity which had not yet concluded. On the following Monday there was a wonderful cavalcade from the City to Westminster, in which aldermen went fearlessly on horseback, and the draper-mercers especially distinguished themselves by their equestrian efficiency and the splendour of their dresses — in a troop, where mayor and aldermen rode like knights, and were apparelled like monarchs. At Westminster they made fresh thank-offerings in the abbey, and thence returned to the Guildhall, where they dined in state ; and probably dined exceedingly well, for the old writer of the " memoranda" states that, after dinner, the good fellows went en karole joyously 114 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. throughout the City, not only during the rest of the day, but during a great part of the night ! It was altogether a glorious Monday, for the conduit in Cheap ran with wine, of which all who chose might drink; and at the jousting-cross before St. Michael's Church, in West Cheap, a tent was raised in the middle of the street, beneath which stood a lusty butt of wine for every passer-by who desired to quaff thereof to the health of Prince Edward of Windsor. Those were something like popular rejoicings for the birth of an heir to the throne ! The people were not only bidden to feel joy, but the wine was provided for them that should make their hearts glad. It was not a mere passing joy, for on the morrow after Candlemas the fishermen of London, in bright and costly dresses, carried up to Westminster a superb ship which they had constructed, and freighted with offerings, and presented it there to the royal mother of the little Edward. And it happened that, on that very day, the Queen set out on pilgrimage to Canterbury; and the citizens of high degree, commonalty and all, turned out, dressed in their best, escorting the Queen, or other- wise doing her honour as she passed. In such wise did the Londoners rejoice for the happy birth of the second Prince of Wales. The royal father soon conferred more brilliant gifts upon the little Prince. Before the latter was two days old, the King formally granted him the counties of Chester and Flint, reserving certain specified manors. He also presented to the unconscious boy a gift of the castle and manor of Holt ; and on the evening of the second day after the Prince's birth, the King had signed a deed in chap, v.] EDWARD OP WINDSOR. 315 which the Prince was styled — " Edward, Earl of Chester, our dearly-loved son ;" JEdwardus, Comes Cestrice, Jilius noster eharissimus.* It does not appear, however, that the little Earl of Chester was baptized under that Christian name till four days after his birth. Indeed, there had been some difficulty in reference to the name he was to bear. The young Queen's nephew, heir to the throne of France, was a Prince Louis ; and the young Queen's uncle, Louis, Count of Evreux, was then residing, an honoured guest, at "Windsor. This visitor was to be one of the godfathers of the heir of England ; and he suggested to his niece that the name which was borne by himself and by the eldest " Child of France," was a very fitting one to give to his English grandnephew, the Earl of Chester. There were many French nobles and ladies at Court who warmly supported the suggestion ; but the suggestion itself, however highly approved by Isabelle of France, was most distasteful to the father and kinsmen of the Earl in the cradle. It would not have been more acceptable to the English people at large. To lay so thoroughly foreign a name on the head of a Prince descended from Alfred the Great, would have been unkind to the heir, and almost an insult to the nation; and accordingly that heir was carried to the ancient chapel of Saint Edward, where Arnold, Cardinal of Santa Prisca, received him at the font, and christened him by the name of his father and the royal " Confessor." The chroniclers of the day have omitted to record the list of godmothers on this occasion ; but, on the other hand, we possess that of the godfathers, which com- * Tighe and Davies : Annals of Windsor. 116 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. prises seven persons — three bishops, Eiehard of Poictiers, John of Bath and Wells, and William of Worcester ; one duke, John of Bretagne; one earl, Ayrner de Valence of Pembroke; and that doughty and ill-fated old knight, Hugh le Despenser. Under these auspices was the infant christened; and Prince Edward was then processionally taken back to his apartments, as handsome and vigorous a baby as was ever sprinkled with holy water by the hand of cardinal or priest. Edward of Windsor grew in strength and beauty, and the chroniclers unite in informing us that Edward was well instructed in all things that seemed " necessary or proper" for princes to excel in. He was of vigorous parts, improved rapidly, and his judgment, nature, and discretion are said to have been of excellent quality. The Prince's next brother, John, came into the world at Eltham, when King Edward was prosecuting the war which came to such fatal end at Bannoekburn. In 1318, when England was yet suffering from the famine that had succeeded the war, the Princess Eleanor first saw the light; and in 1322 another sister was born, also amid circumstances of gloom. The Queen's uncle, the Earl of Lancaster, had just before been con- demned by the King to suffer death as a traitor ; and the two Mortimers, one of whom was the evil genius of Isabelle, were lying, prisoners, in the Tower. In that palace and prison, the royal family, all except the King, were then residing, and there the Queen gave birth to " Joanna of the Tower." There was discom- fort there, as well as gloom abroad, and John de Cromwell was removed from the constableship of the fortress, "because he neglected to look at the chap, v.] , EDWARD OP WINDSOR. 117 dwelling-places of the Tower, and because the rain came down upon the bed of the Queen of England, when she gave birth to the girl named Johanne;" or, as the pleasant author of the Liber Albus (vol. ii. 409) graphically expresses it — " Johanne de Crombewelle . . . a Constabularia Turris . . . amotus, eo quod male custo- diebat domos Turris, et quia pluviebat super lectnm Reginse Anglias, puellam nomine Johannam parturientis ibidem." "With his brother and sister, Prince Edward was for no considerable period associated; but, as heir of England, there were appointed certain noble youths as his " companions ;" and in his early boyhood his position with respect to the principality seems to have been marked by the appointment of a young Griffin, son of a " Sir Griffin of Wales," to be one of the companions of the youthful Prince Edward of Windsor. Of the influences of this and other companions we know nothing. It is otherwise when we come to speak of the Prince's tutor; this was Richard de Bury, or Aungerville — the latter being his family name, the former that of the Suffolk town in which he was born. He was an excellent divine, an efficient philo- sopher, a holy and a cheerful-hearted man. Lord Campbell traces to the tutor that love for literature and the arts which the royal pupil ultimately displayed. Richard was, at all events, a brilliant wit ; but he was an indifferent Latinist, if we may judge from his own work, the " Philobiblon." His services to Prince Edward, however, gave great satisfaction, and this poor priest, of a knightly family of Bury, rose to be Treasurer of Gascony, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of England. 118 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book I. Prince Edward " loved him, as he said, beyond all the clerks in the realm ;" and in after life when striving to obtain preferment for him from the Pope, he supported his application, on his experience of his old tutor as one ever ready to aid him, and as being a man foreseeing and far-seeing, pure of life and conversation, rich in learning, and circumspect in the conduct of affairs. Altogether, it may be said, that Prince of Wales had never a tutor better qualified (save in Latinity) for his responsible task. Aungerville was especially distinguished for his love of books. In his Pkilobiblon, that agreeable rhapsody on literature and literary works, he glorifies himself, as it were, that he was attached to the Prince's house, inasmuch as it afforded him leisure and opportunity for looking after the sole game which he cared to hunt for. He does not especially refer to his tutorship and the Prince's pupillage, but he slily intimates how Philip of Macedon blessed God that his son was born when Aristotle was alive to be his tutor ! We may infer from his book something of what he taught, or of the spirit of his teaching. Throughout all Greek and Latin history, he says, rather boldly, that there was no instance of a prince of true nobility who was not well skilled in lite- rature. He is especially glad that Julius Caesar wrote his own Commentaries, and some poetry to boot ; that Tiberius composed lyrics, and Claudius verses of various quality; that Julius and Augustus invented secret modes of writing by transposition of letters, and that Titus was so skilful in imitating other people's handwriting, that he might, had he chosen it, have been the most successful forger in the world! These examples chap, v.] EDWARD OP WINDSOR. 119 presented to the Prince failed, however, to make him either the historian of his achievements, or the bard of his own deeds. Edward could hardly avoid being influenced by the enthusiasm of his tutor for books. At every spare moment of his time, whatever his ostensible or positive duties may have been, his relaxation and his delight was to visit monasteries, cells, monks, and dealers in manuscripts and books, in search of his beloved volumes. For this search he abandoned palaces and companionship with the great — though for the latter he affected to be working — laying down as a law that literature and learning generally became a prince, statesman, judge, and cleric, but that other people had no claim to the privileges indicated by those two words. He liberally gave all his own books as the foundation of a lending library at Oxford. He did it, he said, for the good of his own soul, the souls of his parents, and of his pupil Edward of Windsor, and some others; but the volumes were prohibited from being lent to any but clerical students ; ledgers he held to be the proper books for laymen — and yet his epigraph on the " Philobiblon" is " Non gutero quod mi/ii utile est, sed quod multis" — " I do not seek what is useful to myself only, but to many." It was not of the spirit of the times that the Prince's tutor should be desirous to be profitable "to all." Such was the tutor to whom the tall, well-shaped, stoutly -built Prince of Wales was indebted for his know- ledge of Latin and of law, history, and divinity — French, Spanish, and German he acquired from other teachers, and altogether, this vivacious and graceful young Prince was exceedingly well informed. 120 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. Of the amusements of the Prince with his " com- panions," there is no record on close or patent roll, nor any trace elsewhere with which I am acquainted, except one, perhaps, in the Topographical Collections, MSS., vol. iii. p. 153, in the British Museum, wherein I find the roll of accounts of " John de Crumbewell," that lieutenant or constable of the Tower, who lost his place for not keeping the rain from the Queen's bed. This official, who received 10Q£. a-year — a salary which was often taken up in his absence, by his thrifty wife Idonea, rendered an account of his thirteen years' stewardship on resigning his charge. The roll has considerable interest, but there are two entries only which are con- nected with my subject. The first runs thus : — " In support of the leopard of our lord the King, being in the Tower, and of his keeper, from Sunday before the feast of St. Hilary, viz., the 11th of January, in the eighth year of Edward II. to Easter day following, the 13th of April — fourscore and thirteen days, at 3d. per day, 11. 3s. 3d." " The leopard of our lord the King," was doubtless a spectacle for the young Prince and his com- panions ; and was, perhaps, a descendant of the family of three leopards sent by the Emperor Frederick to Henry III., as a liviiig illustration of the English shield of arms. Prince Edward seems to have had some love for collecting animals, as he subsequently added to the single leopard maintained in his father's time; and after he became King, there was not only the old leopard, but " one lion, one lioness, and two eat lions," says Stowe, "in the said Tower, committed to the custody of Eobert, son of John Bowre." Thus the second Prince of Wales may be said to have been the chap, t.j EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 121 true originator or origin of the menagerie in the Tower, which was only abolished in the year 1834, and the exhibition of which did not tend to edification, seeing that nearly five centuries after the establishment of Edward's leopard, any person was allowed to enter gratis, who brought with him a little dog to be thrown to the lions ! The second entry on the Constable's Roll shows that the new dignity which now seemed natural to heirs apparent had had its peculiar influences — the lane outside the Tower Gate being called "Petit Wales." The Constable acknowledges " 9s. received from Walter Coleman, Esq., for the King's tenement in the lane called Petit Wales, without the Tower Gate." In Stowe's days, the ruins of stone mansions in Petty Wales testified to the ancient splendour of the locality ; but he is inclined to give credit to a tradition of his time that " this great stone building was sometimes the lodging appointed for the old native Princes of Wales when they repaired to this city; and that therefore the street in that part is called Petty Wales, which name remaineth there most commonly unto this day, even as where Kings of Scotland used to be lodged betwixt Charing Cross and Whitehall, it is likewise called .' Scotland ;' and where the Earls of Bretagne were lodged without Aldersgate, the street is called Britain- street" — now " Little Britain." One of the characteristics of royal life, at this time, seems to have been perpetual restlessness. The sovereigns and their children were never long together in the same place. When Prince Edward was seven years old (1319), and the King was advancing on Ber- G 122 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book x. wick, lie resided with his mother at Brotherton. There an attempt was made by Earl Douglas, to carry off the whole family, prisoners ; but before the earl, at the head of a large force, could reach the royal residence, infor- mation was despatched to the Queen, of the peril she was in; one of the scouts of the earl having been captured, and examined by the authorities, to whom he was communicative in proportion with his own risk. Officers having been sent with the alarming news, the Queen was enabled to carry off her children in safety to York, and, subsequently, for greater security, to Nottingham. In these flights, and indeed in the ordinary course of constant travelling, the illustrious wayfarers generally sought or constrained the hospitality of the monasteries. If the heads of these had given any offence to the travellers, their liberality was taxed to the utmost. This seems to have been the case with the abbot of Peterborough, whose guests the royal family became, to his very sore cost. This renowned personage was even made for a time — a long eight weeks — the guardian of the Prince and his two sisters, with their attendants, all of whom were quartered on the abbot, converting the tranquil abode into a noisy locality, and causing an outlay of money which heavily grieved the community. Of the extreme childhood of Edward little more is known; and what befel him when his parents had quarrelled and held separate households, it were fruitless to inquire. The King, estranged from his wife, rested on the friendship of the Despensers. The Queen, who is supposed to have formed an acquaintance in the Tower with Roger Mortimer, the forager on the Despensers' chap, v.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 123 Welsh lands, cared now little for her husband, but very- much for Roger. Miserable were the dissensions that ensued, and the misery was increased by the intelli- gence from Prance, of the intention of the new King Charles the Fair, to seize on the territory held there by Edward, unless he immediately rendered for them the accustomed homage. Isabelle must have exercised some influence still over the King, or the latter and the Despensers must have been glad to be relieved of her presence, for, when the difficulty was at the greatest, the resolution was acted on that the Queen should repair to France, and mediate for a peace between the two monarchs. Meanwhile, in 1322, was held that Parliament at York, the earls, barons, and " communities " forming which, granted to the King one-tenth of the goods of the community of the kingdom, and one-sixth of those of citizens, burgesses, and tenants, of ancient demesnes. The gratification of King Edward was considerable, and it is a tradition that it was in this Parliament the inves- titure of Edward of Windsor took place as Prince of Wales. No documentary evidence of the fact exists, and, therefore, some writers assert, that Edward of Windsor is nowhere found to have used that title, although he is almost universally reckoned as the second Prince of the illustrious line. On the other hand, that accomplished archaeologist, Mr. Wynne, says that in not one of the minister's accounts for Wales, nor in any other authentic document of the reign of Edward II. that he has seen, "does it appear that at any time during that reign, Wales was under the government of a Prince." g2 124 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book r. This doubt may permit us to observe greater brevity in narrating the outlines of the Prince's life. When his mother set out for France, in March, 1325, she parted apparently on good terms with Edward, and was gracious towards the Despensers, whom she hated. She went unaccompanied by the young Prince, but certainly not without the intention of causing him to follow her. To dupe her husband was no difficult task, but she duped the favourites also, and from the day she sailed across the Channel, the King began to slip from the throne on which the young and innocent Prince was so soon to replace him. Prom the day of Isabelle's landing at Whitsand, near Calais, till that of her arrival in Paris, about three weeks had elapsed. She landed on Saturday, the 9tk of March, and reached the capital on the 1st of April following. Sir Thomas de Londres accompanied her, with lOOQl. in hand for her expenses, and power to draw, in Paris, on the King of England, for more ; but even this did not suffice for the cost of the expedition, as she had designed it. Slowly she crept on from town, to town, and on her devious route passed by that field of Cressy where her son and her son's son were, here- after, to reap so golden a crop of what men gloss over by the name of " glory." The details of her route and residence may be read in ledger-book correctness in the Archasologia. Her out- ward life was that of an extremely fashionable lady of her day. She gave superb dinners at her apartments in the Castle of Vincennes, her brother, Charles the Pair, helping to load the table with viands. The most sumptuous banquets were those at which she entertained chap, t.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 125 the bishops. One of these dinners cost her not less than SZl., more than double the ordinary amount of her household expenses for a day. Conferences with the King, her brother, and correspondence with the King, her husband, and communications to her son, the Prince, proceeded from day to day,all on the subject of the homage to be rendered by Edward to Charles. Meanwhile, the Queen made pleasant excursions into the provinces, visited churches and shrines, made trips to view various relics, and entered prodigally into the other dissipations then in mode, such as having gay little parties of ladies, where wine and sweetmeats were the aids to communicativeness. It required two months to enable her to bring about a peace, under condition that Edward should personally render homage for his possessions in Prance. This con- clusion was made on the 31st May ; and, for more than three months that ensued, Edward was for ever pre- paring to perform the arduous task, and never advancing a step sincerely towards accomplishing it. At length came that apparently innocent proposal from the Queen, that her son, the Prince of Wales, should repair, as his father's representative, to France, and pay the homage owing by his sire. This little formality concluded, Isabelle and the boy would imme- diately return to England together; there would be peace then at home and abroad. There were two things of which Edward stood in dread — his wife's influence over their son, and the boy's being drawn into a marriage distasteful to the King; and yet he adopted a course which led inevitably to the catastrophe which he was most desirous to avoid. There 126 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. is something touching in the memory of his anxiety, his helplessness, and his fitful joy. The last feeling was occasioned by his hopes of success in bringing about a betrothal between the Prince of Wales and a Princess of Spain. But whatever his transient joy, his fears and his weakness were paramount. In August he had formally appointed the Prince to exercise royal authority in England, under certain guidance, during his own absence in Prance to pay that hateful personal homage ; but soon after, he gladly revoked the appointment, resigned his Continental dominions to the Prince, and resolved to send him, as suggested by the Prench faction, in his stead. It was falling into the net spread for him, and spread by cunning fowlers, for, as Fosbrooke remarks, in his History of Berkeley, " Ladies and gentlewomen were great practisers in the rebellion against Edward II." In September of this year, 1325, the King accom- panied the Prince to Dover, and on the progress, and especially before parting with him by the seaside, he laid down rules for his conduct, and particularly im- pressed on the boy the misery into which he would plunge, were he to be married, by any intrigue of his mother, and against his father's sanction. The Prince answered with good will and simplicity, that " he would not transgress nor disobey any of his father's injunctions in any point, or for any one." To new counsel and new warnings given by the perplexed father, that the young Prince should neither contract marriage, nor suffer it to be contracted for him by others, without the King's knowledge and consent, the boy, probably even more perplexed than his father, replied, " that it should be chap, v.] .EDWARD OF "WINDSOR. 127 his pleasure to obey the King's commandments, as far as he could, all the days of his life." Edward again impressed the Prince with the necessity to remember that he should not only never marry without his consent, but that if such a fatal course was laid open to him, he should at once seek for his advice. The idea of such a marriage was abhorrent to him. "No other thing that you could do," said the King, " would occasion greater injury or pain of heart to us." Edward did not fail also to'warn his son, although he was formally put in possession of the King's duchy of Aquitaine, not to make any alterations, injunctions, or ordinances without his father's advice and instructions. To this warning, the Prince replied in the spirit of the dear and well-beloved son such as he had been hitherto to his father. And thus Edward parted from the boy whom he never beheld again. His own after-expression that the prince was of " too tender an age to guide and govern himself, and therefore ought to be under paternal care," absolves from guilt the really most innocent of usurpers. The Prince of Wales carried with him 2400 florins of 50J. each to defray his expenses. They appear not to have sufficed, even with his mother's allowance, to accomplish the ends which that mother had in view. It must have been to further such accomplishment, that after the arrival of the Prince in Paris, towards the end of September, his tutor De Bury, or Aungerville, fol- lowed him with a large sum of money, which King Edward must have considered as feloniously carried off, for as soon as the flight of the Prince's tutor was discovered, the King's lieutenant, with twenty-four 128 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book l lances, was despatched after him to Paris. The search was hot after the alleged delinquent, hut he was well- protected, and during a whole week of the pursuit, he was quietly ensconced in the belfry of the convent of the Brother Minors, reading his dearly beloved books, and little troubled by the turmoil made about him, below. On the 24th of September, the Prince of Wales per- formed the long-delayed service of homage at the castle in the wood of Vincennes. The solemnity was followed by a rare Michaelmas dinner given by the Queen, as if she rejoiced to see a Prince of Wales at the feet of a King of France. For this commemorative banquet, Charles the Fair sent four does to his sister's larder, and when the intelligence reached Westminster, Edward II. hoped that the worst was over, and that the Queen and the Prince would now return to England. Isabelle did not see that the convenient period for such return had yet arrived. Two whole months she spent in excursions and visits to various parts of France; and on her again reaching Paris, made various pretexts for not setting out for England with the Prince. The English commissioners whom Edward had placed about her, she treated with contempt ; and for a whole year there was a cry of anguish from the King at the loss of his son, and of indignation and remonstrance at the conduct of his wife. He had but one friend near the Prince's person, Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter; and he saw himself exposed to such peril from the enemies of the King, surrounding the Prince and his mother, that he hurriedly and privately withdrew, and, on reaching chap, t.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 129 England, increased the terrors of Edward, by revealing to him the treasonable intrigues then in progress — - to .which his innocent son was unconsciously lending power. Then commenced those appeals, now frantic, now touching, all more or less pitiful — in the old acceptation of the word — and which did not cease till a terrible certainty had alike crushed hope and suspicion. These appeals were addressed, alternately, sometimes to the Queen's brother, more frequently to the Queen, and very frequently and earnestly to young Edward himself. On the day, December 1, 1325, on which the King had written from Westminster to Isabelle and her brother, he wrote also to the Prince, reminding him of the promises of love and obedience by which he had bound himself before parting from his father at Dover — and adding, " Since your homage has been received by our dearest brother the King of France, you must be pleased to take your leave of him, and return to us with all speed, in company with your mother, if so be that she will come quickly ; and if she will not come, then come you, without further delay, for we have great desire to see you and to speak with you; therefore, stay not for your mother, nor for any one else, on our blessing," The replies of the Prince of Wales to his father's letters have not been preserved, or have not been dis- covered, but their sense is to be collected from the epistles again despatched by the King. Prom these, which are printed in Halliwell's " Letters of the Kings of England," it appears that the Prince acknow- ledged the force of the pledges by which he was bound, g 3 130 HOUSE OF PLAHTAGE.NET. [book i. but pleaded that his inability to return was because of his mother. This, says the King, in a letter written from Lichfield, on the 18th of March, 1326, " causes us great uneasiness of heart that you cannot be allowed by her to do that which is your natural duty, and which not doing will lead to much mischief."* The father subsequently alludes to the possibility that the Prince was not under so much restraint as his letters affirmed him to be, and says impressively that, if he has done his utmost to obey his King and father, he has " done wisely and well, and according to your duty, so as to have grace of God, of us, and of all men ; and if not, then you cannot avoid the wrath of God, the reproach of men, and our great indignation." King Edward's utmost wrath was excited, however, by the course adopted by Isabelle, who had declared to her brother, the French sovereign, that she dared not return to England, for fear of peril to her life, at the hands of the King's favourite, Hugh Le Despenser. " By God I" writes Edward to Charles the Fair, " if either Hugh or * Such, at least, is the sense given hy Mr. Halliwell, hut the original which is, indeed, imperfect, wanting a word or two, would seem to imply that the Prince was moved by a tender feeling towards his mother. " As for what you say to us, that it seems to you impossible to speedily repair to our presence, as we commanded, because of your mother, who suffers, as you inform us, from sickness of heart, and that you cannot leave her as long as she is in such a con- dition, nature and duty commanding you " In the original thus : — Et quant a cesque vous nous maundez q'il vous semble que vous ne pouez si toust venir par devers nous come vous avons maundez, par cause qe vestra mere q'est suque vous dites, a tris grant mesaise de cuer, e que vous ne la purriez lesser taunt come ele est en tiel point, pur natura e fkire vestre dever." — Kymer, "Act. Foed.," vol. iv. r. 196. chap, v.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 131 any other living man in our dominions sought to do her ill, and it came to our knowledge, we would chastise him in a manner that should be an example to all others." Edward vouches for the demeanour of Hugh as being exactly what it ought to be " in all points to so very dear a lady." This very dear lady, while professing to the Prince of Wales and King of France that her fear for her life kept her from approach- ing a court where Hugh lie Despenser triumphed, was writing friendly epistles to Hugh himself, " loving letters," exclaims her husband, " which he has shown to us." Edward pointed out to his son the difference between two such men as the Despenser, whom he loved for his service and fidelity, and the Mortimer, in whose society Isabelle kept the young Prince. " The Mortimer, our traitor and mortal foe, proved, attainted, and adjudged — him she accompanies in the house and abroad, despite of us, of our crown, and the right ordering of the realm And worse than this she has done, if worse than this can be, in allowing you to consort with our said enemy, making him your counsellor, and you openly to herd and associate with him, in the sight of all the world, doing so great villainy, and dishonour, both to yourself and us." Thereupon come mingled prayer and injunction to the Prince to return home. " We are not pleased with you," writes the father, " and neither for your mother, nor for any other, ought you to displease us. We charge you, by the faith, love, and allegiance that you owe us, and on our blessing, that you come to us, without opposition, delay, or any further excuse, for your mother has written to us that, if you wish to 132 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. return to us she will not prevent it, and we do not understand that your uncle the King detains you against the form of your safe-conduct." This was written in March, 1326, about which time the Queen's agent, Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, had carried his agency to such a successful point that the barons, confederated in England against the King, sent a deputation to Isabelle, with the assurance, that " if she could raise a thousand men and would come with the Prince to England, at the head of that force, they would place the Prince on the throne, to govern under her guidance."* It is not astonishing that the King, who knew of confederacies against him, although he may have been unacquainted with the extreme objects contemplated, was more anxious than ever to secure the safe return of his son. To the mother, as to her brother, he had ceased to make appeals. To the former he had represented the dishonour she was bringing on herself, her child, and husband ; he had promised her that on the matter of income she should be generously treated, if she would only bring with her that dear son, Edward, whom he longed to see, and with whom he as dearly longed to speak. To Charles, he had appealed, begging of him not to believe, (" saving his reverence,") half that Isabelle might say against him ; imploring the King to compel her to return and live with him as became a lady with such a lord, — and affording some justification for the assertion of Isabelle that slie even dreaded the effects of her husband's temper, by reminding Charles, that if he wished her well, he " would chastise her for this misconduct, and * De la Moor. chap, t.] EDWARD OF WINDSOR. 133 make her demean herself as she ought, for the honour of all those to whom she belongs." The last appeal of all was made to his young son, Edward. It com- prises all the prayers, entreaties, and monitions con- tained in former letters, concluding with the words : — " Edward, fair son, you are of tender age : take our commandments tenderly to heart, and so rule your conduct with humility as you would escape our reproach, our grief, and indignation, to advance your own interests and honour. And follow no advice contrary to the will of your father ; knowing this, that if we find you hereafter disobedient to our will, we will take care that you shall feel it to the last day of your life, and that other sons shall learn from your example not to disobey their lord and father."* The Prince, however, was unable to obey his father's commands. Outwardly there was no apparent con- straint upon him. He was even permitted to visit Guienne, while the Queen was in Paris, or engaged in visiting shrines and relics. But his absence was brief, and no doubt there was a watchful eye upon him, as constraining as bonds themselves. The King tried persuasion and menace in vain ; at last, to recover his son, Edward scattered gold profusely. By that powerful aid, he is said to have bought the reproof administered by the Pope to the King of France for detaining the Prince and his mother. By the same * "Entendant certeinement que si nous vous troessons desors contrair ou desobeissant (par qi conseil que le soit) a nos volontez, nous ordonnerons par teile maniere, que vous le sentirez a fous les jours de vostre vie; e que touz autres Pittz, par tanfc en prenderont en- saumple, de desobeer a leur seignurs et pieres."— Bym., torn. iv. p. 212. 134 HOUSE OE PLANTAGENET. [book i. help, the King of France was brought to the conclu- sion that the reproof could not be withstood, — and the Prince, Queen, Roger de Mortimer, and that John de Cromwell who had been so inefficient a groom of the chambers when Isabelle was ill in the Tower, were compelled to leave France. For the furtherance of her son's cause, however, she took with her 28,000^. borrowed from Italian merchants, the Bardi, and repaid out of King Edward's treasury after his murder, Charles of France had, moreover, secretly provided for the Prince and his companions an asylum in Hainault, and thither the pretended fugitives bent their way. They departed from Paris in the month of July, at which time every effort had been made to impress on the mind of the Prince that his mother was the worst-used of women, and that he was the son of a father conspiring to deprive him of his inheritance. In Hainault, the party was received by the sovereign count as cordially as the friends of the King of France could be; and there were carried out all the preparations which were to bring about the ends of which Kino- Edward stood in the utmost terror — the triumph of his wife and the marriage of his son. From this period to the moment when the young Prince was proclaimed King, he only appears occa- sionally on the scene, playing the part for which he had been dexterously cast by others. There was a predetermination on the side of the Queen and Mortimer to marry Prince Edward, then in his fifteenth year, to Philippa, daughter of the Count of Hainault, who was his junior by some months. The count had three other daughters — Margaret, Joanna, and Isabel; but chap, v.] EDWARD OP WINDSOR. 135 Philippa was evidently put forward — if Proissart's description of the wooing of this boy and girl be the true one— to win the young heir. She was the most demonstrative of attention to him, insinuated herself into his society when her sisters kept aloof, and so charmed him by her conversation that the young Prince soon grew, naturally enough, to care more for sitting by and talking with her than with any of her sisters. For one fortnight the gentle and graceful Edward was thus in the company of the tall and buxom young lady — ruddy as the sunkissed cheek of an apple, of whom, in the following year, he became the husband. The above brief period of love-making and treache- rous plotting having elapsed, the Prince embarked, the nominal head of that expedition which landed near the mouth of the Orwell on the 25th of September, and which, through so much crime, was to lead to such imperishable glory. The invaders were met, not only by friends who believed they were aiding a young wife to reconciliation with her husband, and a young Prince to a home where domestic felicity was to be established, but by partisans who had other ends in view; and also by the very men — nobles, priests, soldiers, and civilians — commissioned by Edward to do their utmost to resist this army of invasion. The King was not paralysed : his decrees and letters show him to have been frantically active, although vary- ing in his humours and perplexed even immediately after resolution. There is, however, in all his decrees at this time one circumstance demonstrating his own gentleness of nature. When denouncing his kingly wrath against the traitorous invaders, he invariably 136 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book L makes exception in favour of the persons of the Prince his son, and the Queen his wife. The exception did not avail him, nor touch the heart of the heautiful fiend who was dragging that son forward to destroy his father. She affected, indeed, to believe that to return to the society of the King, as he invited her and the Prince to do, would only be followed by peril to her life. And accordingly she hurried onward, announcing that she and her son came only to free the country from the tyranny of the Despensers which weighed heavily on every class, and which stood in the way of the King being reconciled with his son and herself. As the invaders advanced, the King fled, and the -Queen followed in eager pursuit. The Queen and Prince occasionally rested by the way, and, on one of these occasions, they found themselves at Oxford, where Isabelle ordered Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, to preach a sermon to the University, herself and Prince Edward being present. Historians are not agreed as to the text. Some say that the bishop selected the words from the nineteenth verse of the fourth chapter of the Second Book of Kings — " My head, my head acheth." As these words are incorrectly quoted, probably Lingard is right in stating that the bishop selected for his text that passage in Genesis — " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. She shall bruise thy head." These words were made applicable to the Queen and the Despensers ; and Lingard adds, " that many thought that they discovered in the sermon" — what, let us hope, was not understood by the Prince — " dark and chai. v.] EDWARD OP WINDSOR. 187 prophetic allusions to the fate which afterwards befel the unfortunate Edward." This dark and prophetic allusion was probably in the concluding observation, which the young Prince himself could hardly fail to comprehend, and in which he was told, of his father, " that when the head of a kingdom becometh sick and diseased, it must of necessity be taken off without useless attempts to administer any other remedy." The words probably startled the young listener ; for, as the denoument of the drama drew near, his co-ope- ration in it was only secured by assuring him that his father was anxious to resign his crown, and to hail his successor in his son. London declared for this son j and Bristol would not protect the King's favourites. It was there the Despensers were captured; and in presence of the Prince, the older favourite was condemned to a cruel death, which he suffered, it is said, in presence of the Queen ! The younger Despenser suffered an equally cruel death on the march of Isabelle and the Prince to London. King Edward made a vain attempt to escape, and it was during his absence that he was tauntingly summoned to reappear and assume the government. The kingdom being left without a ruler, young Edward, " Duke of Aquitaine," as he was called, was appointed guardian of the kingdom, in the name and by the right of his father. " A Parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster, December 15th, in which Isabelle, Queen Consort, and Edward, son of the King, the guardian of the realm, and the lords may treat toge- ther." When the King was captured, the Parliament was summoned to meet on the 7th of January, 1327, 138 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. " to treat with the King himself, if he were present, or else with the Queen Consort, and the King's son, guardian of the realm." This summons was tested by Edward, as King, who was thus made to convoke a Parliament which only met to pronounce his deposition and the accession of the Prince his son — a son, says Barnes, who was made to believe " that his father had freely and willingly resigned the government;" and besides, says the historian, on behalf of the innocent Prince, " We are to consider the tenderness of his age, he being not then fourteen years old ; whereby he might very easily be imposed upon by the treacherous subtlety of Mor- timer and his accomplices, who were always about him." The proclamation that was issued on this occasion told the people that the old King had willingly, and of his own spontaneous movement, given up the crown to his son ! At the subsequent coronation, medals were flung among the crowd, on the pile of which was seen the young Prince, crowned, his sceptre lying on a heap of hearts, and the inscription " He gives laws to a willing people." On the reverse, was a hand receiving a crown which was falling from Heaven, and the inscrip- tion here was, " He does not snatch it — he receives it." In such way did contemporary statesmen and artists illustrate the history of their times. A reign of half a hundred years followed this usurpation. During that period, Edward avenged his father by slaying his father's murderers, and keeping his mother in a sort of captivity at Castle Rising : — " Where the Queen looked looks of passion, Prom behind her prison bars." chap, v.] EDWAKD OF WINDSOR. 139 He triumphed over his enemies both in France and Scotland ; victor by sea as well as conqueror by land ; and bringing home Kings as his prisoners and guests. "With glory abroad he possessed happiness at home. Feared beyond the limits of the kingdom, he maintained within it a chivalrous and feudal splendour such as had never hitherto been attained. His proud spirit success- fully withstood the Pope; but it was not equally successful in withstanding the people, who resolutely refused to be taxed without the consent of the Commons in Parliament. After years of conquest, glory, and brilliant progress, Edward of Windsor encountered the destiny of most men of his especial vocation — defeat and humiliation. Of him, his career, and his end, the lines of Shakspeare are strikingly illustrative where he says : — " Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court ; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a little breath, a scene To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks. Infusing in him self and vain conceits, — As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable. And humoured thus, — Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle-wall, — and farewell king!" It was so with Edward, who was indebted for much of his glory to the valour and the virtue of that son whose story and character are so familiar to English minds, that a sketch of each may be more appropriate here than a lengthened detail. 140 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book CHAPTER VI. EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK, THE BLACK PRINCE. Boen 1330. Died 1376. The third, and the most celebrated of the Princes of Wales, was born at Woodstock, at ten o'clock in the morning of the 15th of June, 1330. The young father, who was then only in the eighteenth year of his age, manifested his paternal delight by conferring money and lands on the announcer of the intelligence to him, and by settling an annuity of 100^. on the Prince's nurse, Joan of Oxford, and a tenth of that number of marks on his Yorkshire " rocker," Maud of Plumpton. Old Joshua Barnes, of Emmanuel College, who wrote the life of the father of this Prince nearly two centuries ago, appears to have consulted as many chronicles as he wrote lines on the birth of this illustrious baby, and the conduct of his admirable mother. According to this united testimony, the infant was " very fair, lusty, and well-formed. Great hopes were immediately conceived of the royal babe," says the old bachelor of divinity, " by all that beheld the beauty of his shape, the large- ness of his size, and the firm contexture of his body." Queen Philippa nursed the stout boy herself — as, indeed, she did all her children — and " for all that," says the erudite Joshua, "her beauty and flower of youth was nothing impeded thereby ;" and he impresses this fact chap, vi.] EDWAED OF WOODSTOCK. 141 on the " delicate madams" of his time, who thought the tender Philippa's example beneath their care to follow. The boy took kindly of the maternal bounty, and nourished thereon abundantly. When the brother of the first Prince of "Wales, Thomas of Brotherton, re- fused to take similar nutrition from his mother, Marguerite of France, or from any French nurse engaged to supply the Queen's place in this respect ; — and when the obstreperous baby was only to be tranquillized and satisfied by placing him on a fair English bosom, pleasant jokes were made, by his sire, as to the future warlike consequences of this manifestation of sympathy and antipathy. The omens thus con- jectured were never realized ; but Philippa was a Queen fit to be truly the mother of men ; and at the fountain from which the future hero of Cressy and Poictiers. drew his strength, subsequently quaffed and waxed strong, or grew up in beauty and virtue, that "long lad Lionel," of Antwerp, who stood seven feet two out of his armour; John of Gaunt, sinewy as a giant j his next brother, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York ; Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester — four other sons, whom death claimed early; and then 01 daughters, the fair Elizabeth, the tender Joanna, Blanche of the violet eyes, and Margaret, the pearl of princesses. When Philippa became mother of the eldest Prince of this family, a fairer mother aud a more beautiful child were not to be found in Christendom. Artists acknow- ledged the divine quality of that beauty by taking matronly young Queen and infant Prince as models for their groups of the Madonna and her Son. And art 142 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. had some justification for this apparent flattery, seeing, as Barnes truly puts it, that " now, as if all things con- spired to make this blessing more acceptable to the nation, a new face of things began from this time to appear; and all publique affairs happily succeeded hence- forward both to the King and his people." The first ten years of the life of Edward of Woodstock present an epitome of all that followed. In his third year he was created Earl of Chester, with ample means to enable him to support the dignity. Four years later, the young Prince was distinguished by a higher creation — that of Duke of Cornwall. On this latter occasion, he was invested with the sword only ; and he was the first Duke created in England. Youthful Duke as he was, and as yet no knight himself, he celebrated the creation of his dignity by admitting twenty new candidates to the order of chivalry. Greater powers than these were invested, or seemingly invested, in him. During the absence of his father in Flanders, the boy twice presided over Parliaments held at Northampton and Westminster, during two successive years, 1338 and 1339. He occupied the throne at these times as his father's re- presentative ; and, probably without comprehending much about the matter, saw taxes imposed in wool or in cash, and gave his sanction to the levying of those aids as a matter of course. It is just possible that he was not altogether un- conscious, mere boy as he was, of the importance and nature of these proceedings ; for since the time he was able to read he had been confided to the care of his mother's old almoner, who had undertaken the charge of tutor to the heir to the throne. This respon- sible ofiice was undertaken by Dr. Walter Burley, chap, vi.] EDWAED OF WOODSTOCK. 143 or Burleigh, of Merton College, Oxford; according to the not useless fashion of that time, the doctor, while especially instructing one illustrious individual, taught also a compact little class of pupils. These latter consisted of sons of noblemen, and therewith a boy, kinsman of the tutor's, one Simon Burleigh, who subsequently became distinguished and unfortunate. The tutor was himself a man of erudition, and his good offices and instruction were not lost upon the Prince. Had the latter been idle or impertinent, he was too sacred, of course, for chastisement, however thoroughly he may have deserved it ; but then there were his fellow-pupils, any one of whom the doctor might, and did, whip as often as the august class-fellow merited the infliction. If the princely boy was not unlearned, neither was he untravelled, having visited Antwerp when his sire held court there in 1340 ; and by his grace, good looks, and precocious gallantry, made an impression on all juvenile hearts of Flemish damsels who were in the least degree susceptible of being impressed — as the hearts of young lords and ladies in those days were willing or ordered to be, at an exceedingly early period. In little tournaments, too, he gave token of stout- heartedness which well promised for the future man; and, at ten years old, could doubtless have kept the Tower of London itself— as, indeed, he was once left to do — albeit, against no foe. This incident occurred after his return from Antwerp, where he resided in the metro- politan fortress with his sister Elizabeth, his brother William, and a household and guard to correspond. The King and Queen, with long Lionel, then two years old, and John of Gaunt, a baby of great vivacity and 144 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. vigour, had left Flanders without proclamation of their coming, and ascending the Thames during a dark December day, cast anchor before the Tower long before they were either expected or welcome. De la Beche, the Constable or Lieutenant of the palace-fortress, was absent in London, being intent upon wooing a maiden beyond Cheapside. With such an example before them the men-at-arms followed the bent of their inclinations also, and scattered themselves in the vicinity in pursuit of drink, or of those who would pay for it ; and thus the proudest and most wrathful of kings stepped ashore, and walked unwelcomed, ungreeted, and undesired into the palatial bulwark that defended his capital ! Only the royal children and their ordinary household were there to offer love or respect to the new comers ; and it would have gone hard with the philandering Lieutenant on his return, had it not been for Queen Philippa, whose tender heart had sympathy for loving couples, and whose intercession saved the Constable's life, if not his office. The chief offender pardoned, the punishment of the tippling guards, as they dropped in from drinking, was not to be thought of; and nothing worse occurred than a general reprimand all round. Thus dignity, duty, glory, study, court-life, and perils, marked the path of the Prince during the first ten years of his life. The time soon after commenced when each succeeding period of ten years was the stage or station of a new path of glory unparal- leled. And never yet did other Prince live who so well merited the praise due to tliis Edward for acquiring his glory only by pursuing his duty, trusting nothing to chance, exercising prudence, providing for all con- chap, vi.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 145 tingencies, calming rather than arousing his valiant and eager heart ; confidently leaving the issue to God, and giving Him the praise when the duty was accomplished and the glory achieved. Young Edward of Woodstock was created Prince of Wales in the thirteenth year of his age, on a Monday morning in the month of May, on the twelfth day of the month, and in the palace at Westminster. In full Parliament there, the boy was invested with coronet, gold ring, and silver rod, and to these emblems of his princely power were added grants of money and of lands, of profits prospective, and of privileges immediately to be enjoyed, which, added to what he already possessed, rendered him a rich and powerful Prince, albeit so young. Since the Principality had reverted to, or continued in, the King, many a Welsh tenant had been in arrear, and many a rich fee and fine remained unpaid. All such debts and arrears were at once made over to young Edward of Woodstock, as also, according to the chroniclers, " all victuals, arms, horses, oxen, cows, and other things in and upon all castles and lands which he held by the King's grant." In honour of the event, too, a score of young noblemen were made knights on this occasion ; but the knighting of the Prince himself Was deferred till a less festive and a more solemn occasion, which presented itself about two years subsequently. I must not omit to notice that the author of the " Chro- niques de Londres" (p. 93), states that the title of Prince of Wales was conferred upon Edward " by assent of all the nobility of England. On the morrow of Hokkeday " (the anniversary of an English victory over the Danes), " the Parliament was opened at Westminster, 146 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. and there Sir Edward, the King's son, Duke of Corn- wall, was made Prince of Wales hy the assent of all the nobles of England " — " par assent de touz les grauntz d'Engleterre." I notice this circumstance, because, subsequently, when the Parliament assumed a right to have a voice in the creation of a Prince of Wales, that assembly was informed that such right resided in the King only. Edward of Woodstock was the first Prince of Wales who, while Prince, nobly distinguished himself in the field — so distinguished himself, in fact, that none of his successors, however brave (save Henry of Monmouth), has equalled him in valour, or approached him in glory. Early in life he ran tournaments under the encouraging eye of his mother, and gained as much honour as is to be reaped by hard hitting. His repute in this respect must have been considerable, or he would never have been loaded with such responsibility as rested on his young shoulders, when he was but in the fifteenth year of his age. He was then called away from playing the puppet in Parliament, representing his father on the throne there, to carry arms, and lead a battalia in his father's presence. His brother Lionel, then eight years old, succeeded to the part of mock-monarch, and Edward crossed the seas to France. In that country the King was pursuing his unjust claim to the throne ; and from this period till the first foregoing of the claim at the peace of Bretigny, the evil pretension was splendidly supported by the arm of an English boy. The first station of the glory of that boy was on the heights above La Hogue, where in open field he was knighted by his father, with several others little older chap, vi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 147 than himself. This knighting was not a recompence hut an incentive; and they who received the honour were hidden to remember it, when serious work drew near to hand, and King Edward was about to force the well-watched ford on the River Sonime. " Let him who loves me follow me !" is said by old Samuel Clarke, the logogriph, to have been the cry of Edward when he dashed into the stream. He was ac- companied, rather than followed, by the Prince of Wales, who acquitted himself well on the other side, without having, however, much opportunity of showing himself brilliantly worthy of the spurs that had so recently been clapped to his heels. That opportunity was afforded this " proper young gentleman" on the memorable 26th of August, 1346 — the day of Cressy, and on the land that belonged to his grandmother Isabelle. Rarely indeed has it ever occurred for the van of battle to be entrusted to one so young. But his father knew the boy's mettle, and must have had faith in his prudence too, confiding to him the first line, but wisely placing with him valiant old Chandos and wary Warwick, as resources to which he might apply, if he found himself at fault. In such condition, however, it was never his fate to find himself. The Prince never suffered a defeat ; and though a valiant enemy may have placed him in momen- tary peril, his prudence and his courage, the combination that makes up the true bellica virtus, never failed to secure the victory. To him may most aptly be applied the words by which Tully described young Pompey and his career as a noble soldier : " Extrema pueritia miles fuit summi imperatoris, ineunte adolescentia maximi h 2 148 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book ipse exercitus imperator." So, of young Edward, a bo soldier under a noble commander ; and, in his early mar hood, a noble commander himself. And now, in the front of thirty thousand English, stoo this young Prince of Wales, with exactly four time that number of foes before him. In this bloody argu ment the odds seemed heavily against him, but th young disputant bad his own logical method ; and, oi going up for his degree in the university of militar; glory, had no doubt of ultimate success. There was ni favour shown him on that memorable day. With th commonest man he shared the common danger, and th glory of the Prince was reflected on the entire army. Against bis line the Genoese rather felt than flun^ themselves. The first rude shock was when D'Alencoi cut his way through those inefficient mercenaries anc reached the Prince's line, only to be driven back witl death and ruin to his own. Thrice was the attack repeated ; each time with reno- vated squadrons, and each time made in vain. It was at the third attempt that Warwick grew for a momenl fearful of the endurance of the marvellous boy; and he sent to the King, who was with the reserve behind the second line, for succour. But the King, entertaining no such doubts as troubled Warwick, would not lessen the boy's glory by sending him support. He bade the Prince win all the honour of the day ; and when this message reached him and his valiant fellows, their weak arms were rendered strong; ceasing to act on the defensive, they became the assailants, and, supported by the second line, went forward with a shout. Before that tide of war many a chief and many a flaunting banner chap. 71.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 149 went down. That of the Marquis of Moravia dis- appeared, and the rallying sign lost, the Marquis fled. That of the old King of Bohemia sank before the im- petuosity of the Prince, and since that day his device has been an entanglement and perplexity to antiquaries. To snatch a victory, King Philip of France himself dashed with the flower of French chivalry against the band of heroes led by the English Prince ; but Philip's banner went down as did so many which had preceded it, and wounded and sick at heart, he rode away, in haste and scantily accompanied, from the field. On that field, the son and father met, the latter all exultant, the former all sincere humility. Of honest pride there could have been no lack in the heart of either. The French had lost as many nobles and men as amounted in number to the whole army of England. On our side, three knights, a single esquire, and a few " men" — as good as any knight or squire there, made up the tale of our loss in killed. Not a man fell in our ranks above the degree of a knight. No wonder that England was joyful at such an achievement, and that she gloried in her Prince, even as his father did. Right well did that father know how to turn to his use that humour in his people. He sent the young soldier home, the laurels fresh upon him, to raise supplies to enable the King to prosecute the war. The people gave cheerfully all that was asked by the young god of their idolatry. Wool or money, in cash or in kind, they poured into his lap the tribute of more than their love. And thus furnished, the Prince repaired to Calais, beleaguered by his father. With him was his stout- hearted mother Philippa, under whose auspices the 150 HOUSE OF PLANTA GENET, [book i. battle of Neville's Cross had been recently won; and when the three met in the royal tent, near Calais, there must have been a joy such as is known only by those who have not merely conquered in a perilous strug- gle, but carried out of it much honour and equal glory. I have said that the origin of the ostrich feathers as a badge of the Princes of "Wales, has been a matter of 1 perplexity to the antiquaries. Old Randall Holmes solved the difficulty in his summary way, by asserting that they were the blazon on the war-banner of the ancient Britons. The only thing that in any way resembles the triple feathers in ancient British heraldry, with which I am acquainted, is to be found on the azure shield of arms of King Roderick Mawr, on which the tails of that monarch's three lions are seen coming between their legs, and turning over their backs, with the gentle fall of the tips, like the graceful bend of the feathers in the Prince's badge. The feathers themselves, howevei', do not appear in con- nexion with our Princes of Wales, until after the battle in which the blind King of Bohemia — too blind to read a manuscript, yet not so blind but he could see a foe within the swing of a battle-axe — lost his life. The crest of the Bohemian monarch was an eagle's wing ; as for the motto of Ich dien, it was assumed by the Prince to characterize his humility, in accordance with a fashion followed, to a late period, even by princesses — Elizabeth of York, for instance, took that of "Humble and Reverent." Edward of Woodstock, therefore, did not adopt either the badge or the legend of the dead King of Bohemia ; such is the conclusion at which nearly all persons who have examined into chap, vi.] EDWAED OP "WOODSTOCK. 151 this difficult question, have arrived. Nevertheless, I am inclined to have faith in the old tradition, as far as the badge is concerned. John, Count of Luxemburg, was the original style and title of him who was elected King of Bohemia, and fell so bravely and unnecessarily at Cressy. Now, the ostrich feather was a distinction of Luxemburg, and it is from such origin that the Princes of Wales derive the graceful plumes, which are their distinguishing badge, but not their crest. This much is stated by Sir H. Nicolas, in the Archseologia (xxxi. 252), and Mr. D'Eyncourt (Gent. Mag. xxxvi. 621) suggests that the King of Bohemia's crest looks more like ostrich feathers than a vulture's wing. The question may be considered as having been set at rest by John de Ardern. He was a physician contemporary with the Black Prince ; and, in a manu- script of his, in the Sloane Collection (76 fo. 61), Ardern distinctly states that the Prince derived the feathers from the blind King. Subsequently to the truce agreed to by the two sove- reigns after the affair at Calais, the King, Queen, the Prince, and a numerous suite sailed for England, about Michaelmas day. The fleet was sorely shaken by a terrific storm, and several lives were lost. It was on this occasion that Edward gave to the Prince an instance of his piety and perplexity, by addressing himself, when the tempest was at its worst, to our Lady of succour, " O blessed Mary, my mistress," exclaimed the King, " how is it, and what does it mean, that, when I am on my way to Prance, you give me fair wind, a smooth sea, and all attendant prosperity, but when I am returning to England I 152 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. meet with nothing but cruel misfortune, and am exposed to the most disagreeable circumstances?" So writes Adamus Murimuthensis, a contemporary of the Prince ; but that gossiping historian does not inform us of the effect of this royal remonstrance against a rough passage over the Channel. Between Cressy and Poictiers was as a rehearsing for another great drama after the completion of that which had won the applause of millions. At the siege of Calais, after Cressy, there was abundance of hard and honourable toil before the eight burghers appeared, roped and ready for hanging, in presence of their conqueror. Voltaire has endeavoured to render this incident insignificant, but in vain ; and the fact remains that the Black Prince preceded his mother Philippa in interceding for the brave men who had defended their homes, as every man will defend his when threatened by an invader. During a short period of comparative peace we trace the Prince to Windsor, where he shares in the honour and glory of the newly-created order of the Garter, stands godfather, at new Windsor Castle, to his little and short-lived brother, William ; and, on occasion of that rough tournament play, near the Castle, called hastiludes, he presents a courser to the Queen, which bears the knightly name of Bawzan de Burgh. Clarke rather hastily remarks that between the two periods above indicated, " the presence of the father obscured the actions and virtues of the son," even " as the splendour of the sun darkens the stars." This, however, is rendering small justice to the Prince, who when by his father's side equalled his father, and when chap, vi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 153 exercising an independent command was equal to the reputation which he bore. In illustration of the former I may mention the sea- fight with the Spanish fleet off Rye, in Sussex, in 1350. This was brought about by the piratical conduct of that fleet towards English vessels on our coast. King Edward and the Prince, with a noble company, set sail from Sandwich, on an August morning, in a little flotilla which, when it ranged alongside of the huge Spanish carracks off Rye, seemed to lie at the mercy of its gigantic opponents. But a score of the stupendous vessels left in the hands of the victors, after a fight running into the second day, illustrated the chivalry by which they had been won. In fairness, too, it must be added, that the Prince's friend, Sir John de Goldsbrough (whose Yorkshire seat is now occupied by a branch of the family of Lascelles), was the hero of the day. Young Sir John's heroism cost him his life, and " to repair his loss," says Arthur Collins, " King Edward advanced no less than fourscore young gen- tlemen, who performed well in the fight, to the honour of knighthood." The valour of the Prince's Yorkshire friend must have been great, since eighty new knights were only considered his equivalent. But, says Collins, " the Prince of Wales had a great value for him, on account of his extraordinary qualities, and almost equal age, and conformity of will and inclination." The incident ' may remind my readers of " La petite monnaie de Turenne." Against a Prince of such renown, however, his Cheshire subjects, if they may be so called, once rose in rebellion. The Prince advanced to subdue, accompanied tt 3 154 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book I. by a chief justice, to hang the subdued. Before this double terror the Cheshire men offered to compound with their princely master by paying him 5000 marks, provided he relieved them of the presence of that terrible chief justice. The matter was not definitively settled until after a little furnishing of the gallows, and levying of fines, and seizing of lands and tenements into the hands of the Prince. And the more pious chroniclers have praised him for his generous piety, seeing that, on passing by Vale Royal, and beholding there the gorgeous but unfinished church founded by good King Edward, his great-grandfather, he liberally contributed towards its completion 500 marks, the tithe of the original fine received by him as Earl of Chester. The reopening of the French quarrel afforded the Prince another opportunity for displaying his valour, courtesy, and generosity. When that quarrel, in the year 1356, drifted the two nations into war, all the ships of a certain tonnage between the Thames and the Tyne were pressed for transport service. What followed on the landing of our troops is a familiar story in every household. The Prince, it will be remembered, held an independent command in the south of France, while the King held a menacing position in the north. Heaven had encouraged our army by favouring omens ; and the popular heart was cheered by a legend, that a banner gules and a banner azure had been seen contending in the skies, and that the latter had fallen before the national flag of England. From city to city, the Prince of Wales passed on, after what now would be rather considered the fashion of a barbarian than of a Christian soldier. He passed on as chap, yi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 155 a destroyer, refusing tribute money, and asserting that he came to overthrow towns and ruin populations. Heaven was propitiated by such a course, for had not a hare crossed the march of the English army? Success made that army careless of all besides ; and when they suffered so that there was no water even for the horses, and the latter staggered with drunkenness, under the wine which had been given them as a substitute, the wayworn soldiery only laughed at the unusual spectacle. To rouse the courage of his weary men the Prince delivered heart-stirring addresses, which are reported in the chronicles with all the minuteness of Livy. Good tidings were also despatched to cheer hearts at home ; and when Narbonne was taken, men repeated with congratulatory smiles, that " it was a city little less than London !" For two months the Prince rode forward, devastating as he advanced, rarely leaving a town behind him worth garrisoning ; and when he did, providing so well for the commissariat of his soldiers that the worst grievance that ever issued from the garrison of a city so occupied, was on account of an in- sufficiency of fresh fish and cabbages. King John of France turned back from encountering King Edward, in order that he might meet and over- throw the Prince of Wales. He had with him above 60,000 men to our poor 8000; and the Prince was hard put to it by the siege of Romorantin, from which he could not move ;-— for he had sworn by the most solemn oath he was ever known to use — by his father's soul — that he would not strike banner from before the place till it had fallen into his power. 156 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. ■ [book i. He kept his word, but still was he in sore straits, when on Monday, the 19th of September, 1356, after much of negotiation and interference of priests, and mutual propositions, the French came on to eat up the little English army amid the vines and hushes of the field of Poictiers. They came on as to a festival, decked in their brightest and their best, and with the lightest of hearts under the gayest of apparel. They were light of heart because they had reason to know the English were in such distress that the Prince him- self, in his excess of prudence, had been willing to con- clude a treaty, or a peace, on terms almost humiliating to himself. In proportion as he was humble, the Prench King was arrogant ; and when the latter insisted that the Prince of Wales should not only yield all he had, but even surrender himself and a hundred knights captives to the King of France, the wrath of the Prince was as good as a thousand men to him. " England shall never have to pay ransom of mine," cried the noble young leader. If he could not conquer, he would surely die gloriously — and that willingly, too, albeit he left behind him many a heart he loved, many a heart by which he was beloved — as did most of his followers. And leader and followers, stout of heart, firm of purpose, calm of aspect, and resolute to win, awaited the assault. How often have we not contemplated that gallant band on the point of being overwhelmed during the three hours, from nine till noon, of that September morning, during which it repeatedly foiled every attempt — some rash, some prudent, all full of peril — to sweep it from its stronghold. Archers plied their chap, tl] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 157 winged death; men-at-arms thrust lance or drove pike till their arms were weary before their hearts ; a shot now and then, at very rare intervals — for a cannon was a marvellously slow deliverer of death in those days — told of the horrors of war in louder tongue than usual; but the bravest, the boldest, the most terrible of that never-to-be-forgotten day, were among the English knights and noblemen ; men who, like the Earl of Warwick and other good fellows of the true blood, came it whence it might, pounded away with battle-axe, or worked at death's harvest with the sword, till the fle'sh on their hands was worn to the bone. The present Duke of Aumale, in his recently published account of the residence of King John in England, gives him more credit for his courage than for his strategic ability, and laments that the army, of which he was the head, was not true to its established reputation for bravery. The assertion seems only partially well-founded; humanly speaking, a victory achieved by a handful of men over a large army, argues that something must have been wrong in the leading or the following of the great multitude, but it cannot deprive the handful of its glory. With his small means the Prince of Wales accomplished a mighty end, and crowned a glorious name. At a critical moment, on a hint from Chandos, he took up the offensive ; and the result of the bold move forward was a victory at which France stood aghast, and England, as is her wont in triumph, felt content in its heart of hearts, bearing its glory with tranquil dignity. The victory was one morning's work, but sundown had come before the hunt was up ; and the evening and 15S HOTTSK OP PLANTAGENET. [book I. the morning were worthy of each other. At night, the French King and his young son, Philip the Bold, sat rather guests than captives in the tent of their princely vanquisher, who waited on them as respectfully as the King's own page would have done, praising their courage, consoling them in their ill fortune, alluding to the chances of war, and yet ascribing all to the will of God. It is true, that it is easy for a conqueror to be courteous ; but Edward of Woodstock was always so by principle and by inclination. He sympathized in a certain degree with his cousins of France — especially with that bold young cousin Philip, whose heart was so resolute, even when the sword had been stricken from his grasp, and whose tongue was as ready to assail as that sword would have been to smite, had it been placed in his hands, and the boy had had the chance of renewing the combat, with hope of successful issue. For courtesy's sake, indeed, and to save the self- respect and soothe the honest pride of the royal prisoners, they were permitted to wear their arms. This chivalrous courtesy King Edward had taught his son, and Prince Edward was of so apt a disposition that such instruction was improved by him in its practical application. "Upon the field where the English left one man dead, and the French left a score, bards with small inspiration struck their jingling harps. Notable indeed were the war poems and elegies sung on this occasion — notable for their pedantic dulness and their bombastic nonsense. The French epigram -makers, were as busy as the English poetasters, the former sneering in copious but inharmonious measure at the victory achieved by the chap. VI.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 159 Prince ; and the poetasters replying in forty meaningless stanzas to half-a-dozen lines of epigrams without point and satires without smartness. The curious may read these in the old chroniclers, and he neither edified nor amused. Far better worth repeating are the paragraphs in a letter which the Prince of Wales addressed from Bor- deaux, in the following October, to the Bishop of Wor- cester, giving a brief account of the battle — an account which did not reach the prelate till December. " We are quite certain," says the writer, " that by reason of your devout prayers and those of others, God hath in all our needs lent us His aid, for which we are bound all our days to thank Him;" After this acknowledgment, a few words suffice to tell of the great achievement. " We heard news that the King of France with great force, very near to our quarters, was coming in order to battle with us, and we approached each other, so that the battle took place between us in such manner that the enemy were discomfited— thanks be to God for it." There is no Gasconade here about being covered with " glory." All the glory he ascribes to God. " Gaudete Domino semper!" (Rejoice in the Lordalway); and " Iterum dico, gaudete !" (Again I say, rejoice), indicate the piety and humility of this great and modest con- queror. When the Prince wrote the letter we have cited, King John was with him — indeed, the royal prisoner spent the winter with his princely captor at Bordeaux ; and when King Edward summoned his son and King John to England, the discontent of the Gascons at losing both, was only appeased by a gift of a hundred thousand florins anions' the venal barons. 160 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. From the outset to the close of this voyage from Bordeaux to England, the courtesy of the Prince was remarkable. He allowed his illustrious captive to cross the sea in a ship by himself, attended by his suite, and this, although he was informed that the French were on the watch to rescue their sovereign. After eleven days and nights the whole squadron reached Sandwich, whence, after repose, the travellers journeyed to London, visiting the churches by the way, and leaving offerings at the various shrines. After four days of this wayfaring, that splendid May- morn entry was made into London, in which the Prince rode on a black palfrey by the side of his prisoner, who was mounted on the white war-horse he had ridden so bravely at Poictiers. The London Companies did their splendid best to welcome this illustrious pair, but the Goldsmiths excelled them all by the costliness, the quaintness, and the good taste of their device. Over the path by which the King and the Prince rode, were suspended fantastic cages, within each of which stood an English girl of rare beauty, whose pretty office it was to scatter flowers of gold and silver filagree work upon the heroes. As King John gazed at these fair ones he may have contrasted them, to their advantage, with the damosels of France ; and as the Prince looked too, and beheld those pretty birds, he applauded a device which manifested the superiority of English beauty, while it rendered honour to bravery triumphant and to valour in misfortune. This show of English charms, added to the enormous crowd which filled the streets, may account for the fact that it took the King and chap, vi.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 161 Prince nine hours to ride from the City to the Savoy — but there was probably also some feasting by the way. Thus far Prince Edward as soldier and as host. We have had some note of his early gallantry, too ; and, indeed, it must be confessed that the love-passages in the life of this renowned Prince commenced wonderfully early even for the period when precocity in those tender matters was a rule — among Princes at least. Thus, at Antwerp, in 1339, we have seen him, to use the words of Barnes, a ''proper, hopeful young gentleman of almost ten years of age, whose great grace and exact shape made him as acceptable to the ladies' eyes as his large and well-proportioned limbs raised a full expecta- tion of his future manhood among the lords both of England and Almain." For this little man a little lady was provided, that is, proposed; and even before the " hopeful young gentleman " arrived in Antwerp, a pro- ject of marriage with him was entertained, the designed bride being Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Brabant, whose heart was as unoccupied as that of a damsel of four years old could be. This projected marriage with Margaret of Brabant, however, came to nothing, and many other proposed unions between the Prince and ladies of various great families failed in like manner to be realized. In few cases can this failure be attributed to the ladies them- selves ; for the Prince was of such figure, fame, quality, and disposition, as to render the proudest young ladies of his day gratified by his notice and attention. The fact appears to have been that the heart of the Prince of "Wales was pre-occupied when his family was pointing 162 HOUSK OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. out to him objects worthy of its homage. But there was one object to which that homage was already paid — Joan of Kent, the Fair Countess, as she was called — daughter of Edmund Earl of Kent; and of such peerless beauty that romance claimed her for its own, and made of the loves of Edward and the Lady Joan a story that for centuries wearied no listeners, and which has its willing audience still. Wonderful is it that in our villages throughout all England, and even brave Scotland too, the tradition of the loves of the Black Prince and the Fair Joan of Kent has survived, and is at least as well known as his victories, his generosity, and his chivalry. To this day the chap-books repeat the old story, with marvellous additions of circumstance and speech, that mark the interest of the public who purchase the pamphlets that have issued in great numbers from Falkirk and North- ampton. In these old country legends, the Black Prince is first stricken by the charms of his fair kins- woman, at a dinner at Dover, in the house of her hospitable father, where the Prince and his parents are guests, after the crowning triumph so splendidly achieved at Poictiers. The style of the story cor- responds with its anachronisms — it is " all abroad ;" but it is made for a public whose taste has not changed since the tale was first told by cottage fire, or village common, or read in shady lanes to sympathetic listeners. The very courtesy of the couple is perched on the very highest of stilts, and the flowers of speech are showered in whole nosegays. The lover is a wooer that chivalry might be proud of, and Joan is a lady willing to be won, yet not too anxious to appear so. In absence, the chap, vi.] EDWARD OF "WOODSTOCK. 163 Prince addresses her in letters, the originals of which are not so easy to find as to look for, as " fairest of creatures ;" and the Pair Countess, " who often bedewed her rosy- cheeks with tears for his absence," wipes them away to kiss the pleasant words, and pen a loving answer in return, beseeching him, " if he had any compassion for her life, that he would not too far hazard himself among the hands of his enemies." There are sufficient impe- diments in the course of this true love to render the narrative interesting to rustic swains and rural maids ; and when the Prince has been commended for that his virtue is honourable, and the dread fathers on either side give their consent, a jubilant shout goes up from the heart of the old framer of the legend, with a joke upon the happy conclusion, likely to render village maidens more merry than ashamed. I have alluded to this tradition, otherwise worth little, because it manifests the interest which must have early attached itself to the story of the love of Edward for the brilliant Joan of Kent. There has been no marriage of a Prince of Wales — and this Edward was the first who ever married while bearing the title — -in which the people of England felt and maintained a more warm and enduring interest. The old romance was probably founded on circum- stances with which we are now unacquainted. At what period the Prince began to look with something more than merely friendly eye on Joan, is now unknown, but he must have been early and intimately acquainted with the daughter and heiress of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, the half-brother of the first Prince of Wales. In her infancy, a marriage contract bound her to Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, but in her girlhood she espoused Sir 1(54 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. 1 Thomas Holland, who, by right of such union, assumed the title of Earl of Kent. If Collins's narrative may- be relied on, Salisbury, to whom she had been pre- engaged, endeavoured, during the knight's absence, to enforce the terms of the old contract; and Sir Thomas had to appeal to the Pope, who deeming the accomplished fact of marriage to be of more im- portance than the earlier contract, pronounced the union between this celebrated beauty and the knight to be valid. Salisbury consoled himself with another wife. Joan became the mother of one daughter and three boys. To two of the latter, it is said, but certainly to the eldest of them, the Prince of Wales fulfilled the responsible office of godfather. This office, together with the kinship of Joan and Edward, was an impedi- ment to their subsequent marriage, which could only be levelled, and was so levelled, by the hand of the Pope. Meanwhile, the lady grew as famous for her wit and amiability as for her beauty. How far she may have been discreet as well as fair and witty, there is some doubt ; for Queen Philippa's little love for her is said to have been founded on her lack of moral character ; and Proissart, who was often near her, does not appear to have had a very profound reverence for this lady. How- ever this may have been, in the year 1361 Sir Thomas died ; and he was scarcely entombed when the Prince of Wales was at the widow's side, urging her to re- marry, and probably feeling his own way to the not too disconsolate lady's heart, by proposing some match to her as much below her royal birth as that she had entered into with the knight, or was nearly entering into with the earl. chap, vi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 165 At this period Edward of Woodstock is described as " the glory of his sex for military performances and all princely virtues ; and she the flower of hers for a most surprising beauty, sweetened with a sprightly wit and honourable mind." When a man thus endowed recom- mended a lady of such qualities to wed with a gentleman whom the Prince affected to favour, the lady's prompt and repeated refusal was probably founded on the con- viction that the Prince was not seriously prosecuting the suit of another. At all events she continued to deny that suit; and the same being pressed more or less earnestly, Joan at length explicitly declared : — " How, when she was under ward, she had been disposed of by others, but that now, being at years of discretion, and mistress of her own actions, she would not cast herself below her rank. She remembered that she was of the blood royal of England, and therefore she was resolved never to marry again but to a Prince, for quality and virtue like himself." This was a bold speech, but Joan was in her thirty-third year, when a woman may be daring in such business, if she ever be. The pretty audacity did not displease the Prince, who " was a passionate admirer," says Collins, " of every gallant spirit ; and knowing what she said was true, he presently returned her compliment in an endearing manner, and, from that instant, became a suitor for himself. Having imparted his affections to his royal father, he was pleased with his thoughts of marriage ; and they being within the degrees of consanguinity, he procured a dispensation from the Pope, which bears date at Avignon, the 7th of the Ides of September, 1361." On the 10th of October, 1361, this marriage, so un- 166 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. lucky in its issue, was celebrated with extraordinary- splendour at Windsor. Among those in whose presence the ceremony was performed, some chroniclers omit the King; but all agree in mentioning that the Queen, much as she had once objected to the bride, was there, with the Queen of Scotland, Maud Countess of Hainault, and Edward's most attached sister, Isabel or Elizabeth. The bridegroom was supported by his brothers, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley. Earls of more modest quality of blood, and a numerous noble company, also graced a ceremony, the more seriously active portion of which was brought to an end by the official services of the Bishops of Winchester, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Worcester, one single Abbot of Westminster, and a leash of Deans — of Lichfield, Lincoln, and the Chapel Royal. By such good and effectual help was married to an English lady the Prince whom his father had thrice sought in vain to unite with ladies of foreign birth — namely, with Margaret of Brabant, and with two respec- tive daughters of the Kings of France and Portugal.* The newly-married couple of mature age resided for several months after their union, at Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, where they kept a gay house, as became the event and their condition; and where a cheerful family circle was frequently assembled, leaving state, and the anxieties attendant thereon, in the world without. At the Prince's town residence there was not less gaiety ; for he was addicted, when serious duties did not prohibit it, to a joyous life amid accessories of splendour. * As a memorial of this marriage, the Prince founded the chapel, still to be seen, in some decay, but also much beauty, in the crypt of the Cathedral of Canterbury. chap, vi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 167 This London mansion of the Prince was not very far from the Tower. Thousands of happy excursionists and anxious men of business daily pass the spot where once stood the London residence of Joan and Edward. If a man stand now with his back to the Monument, looking northward, he will have before him] the site of the noble stone mansion in which the flower of chivalry kept house. Stowe describes it as above Crooked-lane end, upon Fish-street Hill. In his time the edifice existed, but its dignity was lowered, it being then an inn, bearing the sign of " The Black Bell." The old Bell-yard, which was a portion of the way which led from the Prince's house to the old London Bridge, was swept away more than thirty years ago, when the erection of the present bridge required the improved street- way, which has since been accomplished. The expenses of the Prince's course of life probably exceeded his own income, and had to be defrayed out of his father's purse. So much, at least, may be inferred from a passage in Froissart (vol. i. eh. 214), wherein he states that a full Parliament was held in England in the very year of the marriage of Edward and Joan, in which the formation of establishments for the King's sons was seriously considered. The younger sons had some jealousy of the eldest. " They considered," says the last-named chronicler, " that the Prince of Wales kept a noble and grand state as he well might do ; for he was valiant, powerful, and rich, and had besides, a large inheritance in Aquitaine, where provisions and everything else abounded. They therefore remon- strated with him, and told him from the King, his father, that it would be proper for him to reside in his 168 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. duchy, which would furnish him withal to keep as grand an establishment as he pleased. The barons and knights of Aquitaine were also desirous of his residing among them, and had before entreated the King to allow him so to do; for, although the Lord John Chandos was very agreeable and kind to them, they still loved better to have their own natural lord and sovereign than any other." This request was complied with, and the departure of the Prince and Princess for Aquitaine soon took place, amid a prophetic mingling of gloom and splendour. I do not know whether Edward had at this time manifested any symptoms of constitutional weakness, but it is certified by Froissart that men then spoke of the small probability of his succeeding to the throne. It must have been a suspicion of the ambition of John of Gaunt that induced the same prophets to foretel that the sceptre would soon depart from the direct heirs of Edward III. Amid such vaticination, but surrounded by circumstances of great splendour, Edward and Joan departed for their new duchy, sailing across the seas in one of the most completely equipped fleets that had ever left these shores ; and finding in the duchy a welcome as hearty as if every man there recognised in the illustrious pair a double source of happiness for his country. In that country the Prince and his consort resided from the year 1362 to 1371. The details of their government in Guyenne dazzle by their extravagant splendour, and fatigue the mind as excess of splendour is wont to weary the eye. Wherever they held court, or he kept camp, there reigned a glory agreeable to the fashion of the times, but costly alike to Prince and to chap, vi.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 169 people. At Angoul&me or at Bordeaux, in their favourite city of Limoges, or in any other locality within the limits of their rule, there were they sur- rounded by warriors, and nobles, and troubadours, and poets, philosophers and fools. So renowned became this court for its brilliancy, and the head of it for liberal courtesy, that even the travelling kings of the day, who had seen all that was beautiful and marvellous in the world, accounted of themselves as having beheld nothing if their eyes had not witnessed the glories of the court and the charms of the presence of the Prince of Wales in Guyenne. Probably, the two most joyous events, in the palace, at least, and which gave rise to entertainments that might have afforded suggestive hints to a framer of Eastern romances, were the successive births of the two sons of this marriage — Edward of Angouleme and Richard of Bordeaux. The former, heir to a prin- cipality and a kingdom, at whose coming into the world Gascony and England alike shouted for joy, and in congratulating whose happy mother, kinsfolk and subjects manifested a deliriously expensive gladness, died in his childhood, and they who had hailed his coming, deplored him as unfortunate, in being snatched from that glorious inheritance to which he was born ! What he lost, the second brother gained, and with it his own destruction; but at the birth of Richard of Bordeaux, too, there were jousts and tournaments, and minstrelsy and dancing, and a world of fatiguing and foolish delights, as though he had been heir to an empire the eternal felicity of which had been irre- vocably fixed by Heaven. When Richard was born, 170 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. there were two Kings sojourning at the court of Edward — James, King of Minorca, and Charles, King of Navarre. These two Kings tarried for the christen- ing, at which King James and Richard, Bishop of Agen, were the godfathers of that most unlucky babe— the prelate giving to the Prince his own Christian name, but conferring on him no charm against deep misery thereby. During a few years, the gaiety and splendour of this court increased rather than diminished. There was a season of peace, during which Edward and his men-at- arms would have sickened for lack of martial exercise, but for the joyous and brilliant activity of the court. But, whether it was gladdening peace or grievous war. Joan bloomed and nourished in buxom excess of health, heartiness, and beauty, and praise the most disin- terested vaunted the grace, the goodness, and gay bearing of the fair and matronly Princess of Wales. At length came that symphony of war, overture to the last gorgeous drama of action, in which the Prince was to take part. It came from Spain, where Prench influence had dethroned Pedro the Cruel, and set up in his place his brother Don Henry. The influence so exercised at once inclined the Prince to second the cause of Pedro ; and this course he was authorized to take by his father, King Edward. The Spaniard, at the same time, urged the Prince to active measures in his favour, to purchase which studied falsehoods fell from his lips as fast as he could give utterance to words. The Prince believed all, or feigned to believe all. He was eager to be in the field ; for the decade of his glory had arrived, and as 1346 had its Cressy, and '56 its chap, ti.] EDWARD OF WOODSTOCK. 171 Poictiers, so now in '66 he set out to his crowning fight and his closing triumph. In this last affair, the statesmanship as well as the soldierly qualities of the Prince become apparent. In aiding Don Pedro, Edward hoped to obtain possession of Biscay. The former had entered into an engagement which had this end in view; had offered to make Edward's son King of Galicia, and on the ample person of Joan had suspended, as pledges, his richest jewels. Further, he was lavish of promises to the English captains and soldiery, for the perform- ance of which the Prince became security, and the disregard of which chafed his proud spirit and stricken body sorely. In short, Pedro of Castile both borrowed money from the Prince of Wales, which he did not mean to repay, and promised large recompence for aid which he hoped to obtain for nothing. Some proofs of this are to be met with in Sir Francis Palgrave's "Ancient Kalendars and Inven- tories of the Treasury of his Majesty's Exchequer." (1837.) In one of these Treasury memoranda, Don Pedro of Castile gives his bond to the Prince of Wales for the repayment of sixteen thousand florins before the feast of St. John the Baptist next ensuing. In another, the same monarch agrees to pay the Prince and his army for their aid against his brother, Don Enrique. In a third, Pedro cedes to the Prince and the Prince's heirs, for ever, certain fortresses on the northern coast of Spain. These bonds are to an enormous amount, and in their very magnitude some have seen a proof that Pedro had no intention of observing them. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales converted his own I 2 172 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. plate into money, and distributed the produce among his officers, in order to enable them to equip themselves. In January, 1367, he penetrated into Spain, t6 support a cause which was, perhaps, not so bad as the man for whose sake it was upheld. The Spanish and French chivalry in the pay of the bastard brother of Pedro, Don Enrique, whom the people had adopted, knowing well that the English were invincible in a pitched battle, maintained at first a guerilla warfare, and, on the ground where this was maintained, the name of many a spot commemorates some feat of England's knighthood. The Prince of Wales, however, soon induced his adversaries to meet him on the plains near Najera, in Castile. Sickness had reduced the army of which the Prince was the leader, below that of Don Enrique ; but it is scarcely credible that the respective numbers were so wide apart as 30,000 English Gascons against 100,000 Spaniards, French, and Free Companies ; or that with such odds the victory was gained at the cost of about sixty men and four knights to the victors, and of above 2000 to the vanquished, exclusive of the noblest knights numbered apart ! However this may be, the Prince of Wales, previous to battle, put up a prayer, which Froissart has preserved, and which is to this effect : " Very God, Jesu Christ, who hath formed and created me, consent by your benign grace that I may have this day victory of mine enemies, as that I do is in a rightful quarrel to sustain and to aid this King chased out of his own heritage, the which giveth me courage to advance myself to re-establish him again into his realm." In this way, the Prince with a considerable share of chap, vi.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 173 Gascon conceit, and probably in the sharp Gascon dialect, which he spoke habitually and perfectly, re- minded Heaven distinctly that he was in the right and looked for the support due to him accordingly ! Into the narrative of the battle it is not necessary to enter. Let it suffice to say, that the issue was uncertain, till Don Enrique and Duguesclin had to contend with the second line commanded by the Prince of Wales in person. Then, the invincible English archers threw the Castilian infantry into disorder, and the gallant Edward advancing, from that moment the battle was lost to his antagonists. From the moment, too, that it was gained for Don Pedro, that unworthy individual sought to depreciate the services of the English Prince, to fix a quarrel against him, and to cheat him alike out of the honour of the achievement, and the money he had advanced, or for which he had rendered himself responsible, and lacking which, the triumph would not have been accomplished. The angry Prince, his discontented captains, and his daily decreasing army tarried in Spain till the autumn of this year, 1367, and then with a hearty disgust for Spanish honour, marched wearily back towards their quarters in Gascony. From the fatal Spanish expedition the Prince and his army returned in equally deplorable condition, worn out by want, fatigue, hard fighting, and general misery. Edward, on his return to Joan and the young Prince their son, wore the air of a doomed man, not strong enough to bear the burden of glory under which he walked. Some who knew the proud ambition of his brother, John of Gaunt, laid his illness to the effects of 174 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. poison. Others saw in it the consequences of toil, exposure, and lack of support under a deadly atmo- sphere. "Walsingham quotes a story to the effect that " the Prince having one day got intoxicated" — (intoxica- tus — poisoned) " never from that period to the end of his life, enjoyed health of body." But it was not to an over-draught of deadly wine that the Prince owed the shattering of his strength. He shared all things with his army, be it good or ill, and Walsingham in adding that " many strong and valiant men after the glorious Spanish campaign perished by dysentery and other dis- orders, to the great detriment of the kingdom of England" — might have seen therein the cause of the Prince's premature decay, which was no more induced by the poison of Spanish wine than it was by the poison of his brother of Lancaster. With his bodily decay all other evil followed. Pedro, true Spaniard in his profuseness of promise, true Spaniard in his carlessness of performance, acquitted no debt which he had incurred, nor paid back any sum advanced for him by the Prince. True Spaniard, he hugged dishonour and repudiated his most solemn en- gagements. He was satisfied with repaying the hard cash lent him and the too generous aid afforded him, in empty words and vain-glorious compliments. " When- ever," he said, " England should again lend a Prince's or a general's hand to assist Spain in the attainment of victory, that English leader should have the vanguard of the battle ; and whenever such leadership or succour was wanting, the banner of England should alwavs be carried in front of the warriors of Spain, in memory of the bloody and triumphant day of Najera." chap. Tt.] EDWAKD OP WOODSTOCK. 175 This was all the Prince received for the loan of thou- sands of pounds and the outpouring of English blood to help Pedro to a greatness which he little merited. The government of his duchy became accordingly full of difficulty to him. He was unable to pay his soldiers for past services, or to efficiently carry on an adminis- tration which was hourly rendered more difficult still by the intrigues of France. By way of remedy, he decreed a general taxation, an impost being laid on every hearth. This proved a spark which spread into a flame, before which the English ultimately lost nearly all their material triumphs in Prance. The people re- sisted the levying of the tax, and appealed to the King of France. Charles, who had succeeded King John, summoned Edward to give an account of his conduct; and the sick warrior, fired with indignation at this act of sovereignty on the part of Charles, exclaimed that he would give his account with 60,000 men to back him. Then burst forth that war so desolating to the people, and in which no party ever gained a triumph, but something attended it which caused it to take the ap- pearance of a calamity. In the midst of it Queen Philippa died, but her sons had not leisure to mourn her loss. As the war raged, the invincible Chandos was slain in Poitou, and the 400,000 francs which Edward inherited of this friend who had no other heir, could not compensate him for the loss of such a soldier ; especially as while we had lost the handsome Chandos, the French still possessed the ugly but hard- hitting Duguesclin. There was Robert Knolles, indeed, who was almost as good as Chandos, and who might 176 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. have carried the English hanner as triumphantly as Sir John, had it not been for foolish lords and lordlings, who disobeyed the orders of Robin, preferring rather to be beaten by hostile nobles than to be led to victory by an English plebeian ! The lion was roused by the cry of anguish from his best men, and by the fact of his fair city of Limoges having fallen into the power of the enemy. The Prince shook with wrath, vowed he would spare no man who had had hand in surrendering the city, flung himself on the devoted locality, took it by assault, swept through its streets like a devastating hurricane, and would have destroyed all that opposed or who had offended him, but for the untiring bravery and prowess of three French captains, in honour of whose valour he sheathed his sword, and pronounced words of peace. This was his supreme effort. Henceforward, slow disease laid hold upon him, and in 1371, leaving a lieu- tenant as vice-duke in his duchy, the pale Prince, with Joan, more buxom than ever, and the little Richard of Bordeaux, proceeded to England, where his widowed father received him with open arms — willing even then to hail in him the heir come to his inheritance. That father, whose heart had been riven by the death of his consort Philippa, did his utmost to preserve the precious life of a son so capable of sustaining the glory and furthering the prosperity of England. But this was not to be. Por five years the Prince of Wales lingered between life and death, slowly but surely draw- ing nearer to the grave, and deprived of the consolation of seeing a happy future for his little son. He sojourned, during this season of his decay, now at his mansion near chap, vi.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 177 London Bridge, occasionally at Berkhamstead, and finally at his father's palace of Westminster. A year previous to his demise, a bearded comet of considerable magnitude appeared in the heavens, and this was looked upon as a summoner of the dying Prince. He still lingered on, and he was lying in the great chamber of his father's palace, when, says Barnes, "there was celebrated a famous opposition of Saturn and Jupiter, in Aquarius and Leo, the abject parts and places of his geniture." This occurred a brief period previous to the Prince's death, and when that lamentable event occurred, astro- logers accused the "famous opposition" of being "no small cause of so great a calamity." But his time had come. The manner of his life is more popularly known than that of his death, the dignity of which (singular as some incidents of it were) well became him. The writer of the (contemporary) chronicle, printed in the 22nd volume of the " ArchsBologia," represents the Prince of Wales as resting his claim for mercy at the hands of the Trinity, on the ground of his having ever honoured that mysterious Godhead himself, and caused it to be ho- noured by others. His death occurring on the festival of the Trinity is assumed to be a proof that the claim of the Prince was recognised ! His frequent faintings, con- sequent on hemorrhage, did not make him unmindful of the duty of being liberal in his gifts to all of his house and heart ^therewith, wise of counsel to his son Richard ; and at once firm and merciful towards those who had offended against the law or moral right. At length, the Bishop of Bangor witnessing his utter prostration, solemnly announced to him that death was undoubtedly at hand, and asked him if he would, needing forgiveness, ask I 3 178 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. pardon of God and of all whom lie had injured. The Prince faintly replied, " I will." " And the bishop said, ' It sufficeth not to say only, ' I will j' hut when you have power, discharging the same by words, you ought to ask pardon. But he answered nothing else, but only ' I will.' And when he had often times done this, the bishop said, ' I suppose some evil sprites to be here pre- sent that let his tongue, whereby he cannot express his mind with words;' and taking the sprinkle, he cast holy water by the four corners of the chamber where lie lay, and behold suddenly the Prince, with joined hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, said, ' I give thee thanks, oh God, for all thy benefits ; and with all the pains of my soul, I humbly beseech thy mercy to give me remis- sion of those sins which I have wickedly committed against thee ; and of all mortal men whom willingly or ignorantly I have offended, with all my heart I desire forgiveness.' "When he had spoken these words, he gave up the ghost to God, as we believe to his banquet, whose feast he thus worshipped on earth. "Who depart- ing, all hope of Englishmen departed, for he being pre- sent, they feared not the incursions of any enemy — he being present, they never suffered any rebuke for that they had done evil or forsaken the field." The writer finally intimates that this Prince of Wales was taken from his father and the nation (he has no words of pity for Richard, his son), lest people should trust in him more than they did in the Almighty, on whom he calls to be a defender of England, now that its old defender had passed away. " Never before, nor since, died there a Prince of Wales so loved and honoured of his fellow- men. chap, vi.] EDWAED OP WOODSTOCK. 179 A decade of years had elapsed since his great expe- dition into Spain, and on the 8th of June, 1376, in the forty-sixth year of his age, this foremost man of all his time peacefully, yet prematurely, yielded up his brave and gentle spirit. His virtues have been recorded by biographers of all nations, who have been unable to detect a flaw in a character judged from the point of view of his times and the morals of those times. His enemy, the King of France, had funeral services cele- brated in his honour at Paris. Those whom he had vanquished rendered justice to his noble qualities. The man who best knew and most loved him — his father, the King, mourned for him just one year and thirteen days, in his melancholy retirement at Eltham, and then moving to Shene, and finding no solace in his com- panion, Alice Perrers, died oppressed by this great calamity, and the sorrows which he saw would be born of it. The books are numberless which render an account of the Prince's will, his funeral, and his monument in Canterbury cathedral, — details of all which are widely familiar. I will confine myself to noticing here that the Prince bequeathed an estate to the cathedral which was to contain his bones, which estate is only, at the moment I write, finally losing its trees and rurality, and being converted into streets. I allude to " Vauxhall Gardens." The manor ground of King John's follower, Pulke de Breante, on which Fulke had built his hall, had been the property of the Despensers, and had ultimately fallen to the Crown. Edward III. had conferred it on his gallant son, whose bequest of the same to Canterbury Cathedral was respected by Henry VIII., and it is, 180 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i. probably, the only legacy made by this Prince of Wales which remains to the representatives of the original legatees. When Edward bequeathed the manor to the Church for the good of his immortal soul, he little thought what quality of worship would be established there so little profitable to the souls of others. Of Edward's widow, the fair Countess of Kent, there remains but to be recorded, that she becomingly sor- rowed as the " relict of a hero," — and, I am sorry to say it, grew exceedingly corpulent ; so " fat," indeed, did the once beautiful widow of the Prince of Wales become, that motion was to her a rather troublesome process, — and yet good will, or force of circumstances, occasionally compelled her to move more nimbly than agreed with her weight and proportions. During the ten years that she survived the Prince, she resided chiefly at Kennington, in the Tower, or at the Royal Wardrobe, in Carter Lane. At Ken- nington she had with her for awhile her son Richard, fourth Prince of Wales, to whom his father had left for guardian that dear friend of his, Simon Burleigh, who was, as may be remembered, one of his early class- fellows — a circumstance which did not save Simon's head, after Richard became King. Young Prince and dowager Princess were at Ken- nington, when the Duke of Lancaster burst in upon them from his palace on the Strand, — whence he had escaped, with broken shins, to implore the Princess to in- tercede for him with the citizens, who, accusing him of treason, were devastating his mansion, and seeking to slay him. The citizens loved the Princess, and out of chap. Tl.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 181 pure love for her, as they informed her, ceased to molest, though not to suspect, the Duke. After her son's accession, the Princess of Wales again saved the Duke's life, then threatened by that son's favourites, and in peril from the King. Between the then unpopular King and . the then popular Duke, she again mediated, and " though she was very corpulent and unfit for travel," says Collins, ' she made many journeys from the one to the other, and in the end wrought a perfect reconciliation between them." The poor lady was herself in imminent peril, when the Wat Tyler rioters broke into her very apartments in the Tower, and pursued her from her bed, which they de- stroyed, down to the water-side, whither she was con- veyed by her ladies, — a fainting and heavy burden, to a covered barge, which quickly carried her to safer quar- ters in the Wardrobe House, in Carter Lane. Then poor Joan had family troubles of another sort. There was her son by her first husband, Sir Thomas Holland, who was continually committing some offence or another, for which he deserved to be hanged, and to save him from which penalty, his obese mother beset her other son, the young King, with prayers. At length, Eichard's half-brother stabbed a monk — and though it was only a monk, Joan barely succeeded in wresting the offender's pardon from the King. Subsequently, when Sir Thomas was accompanying Eichard into Scotland, his servants happened to quarrel with those of the Earl of Stafford; and the arrogant knight showed how thoroughly he agreed with his own domestics, by stab- bing the earl dead in the streets of York. The 1S2 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. murderer fled to the sanctuary at Beverley, and the King swore that nothing should save him from the halter. Joan once more moved her tender heart and mountain of flesh to the north, to pray for mercy for her wretched son, and out of pure hopelessness of succeeding, fainted and died. Whereupon, the earl's slayer was pardoned; all too late for the purpose of Joan. Por such a moment, however — a sudden moment of death — provident Joan was not unprepared. On having recourse to her papers, all her desires were found fully expressed, and were complied with ; particularly the one that declared that she the Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Aquitaine, Countess of Chester and Kent, and Lady Warke, wife of Edward the Black Prince, desired to he buried close to her husband, — Sir Thomas Holland, in the church of the Grey Friars at Stamford ! And there she was laid down to her last sleep, preferring in death companionship with the old knight to sharing a tomb in Canterbury with her second husband, Edward of Woodstock ! Edward of Woodstock left two natural sons, Sir John de Sounder, of whom nothing more is known, and Sir Roger de Claringdon, or Clarendon, who was beheaded in the reign of Henry IV., for asserting that his half- brother, Richard II., was still alive. Sir Roger bore his father's badge in his arms — a shield or, on a bend sable, three ostrich feathers argent, passing through as many scrolls of the first, with the Prince's motto, Ich Dien. The birthplace of Roger was Clarendon, near Salisbury ; and — proud conjecture for the Smiths — Gwillim sup- poses this son of the Prince of Wales to have been the founder of the family of that name in Essex ! In 1641, chap, ti.] EDWARD OP WOODSTOCK. 183. a cornet of horse, of the name of Clarendon, settled in Ireland, and his descendants, towards the end of the last century, declared that the cornet, according to family tradition, was a descendant of a son of the Black Prince. This last circumstance is recorded by " Sylvanus Urban," (vol. liii. part 2, p. 724), and, if it be well founded, then it is only in the descendants of the cornet that can now be traced the male blood of the hero who was the son, and father of a king, yet never king himself. 184 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i. CHAPTER VII. RICHARD OP BORDEAUX. Boen 1367. Died (King) 1399. Richard of Bordeaux, the son of English parents, was a foreigner by accident of birth — born, indeed, within the dominions of his grandfather, but exposed to foreign influences. Among the Provencals he acquired Provencal tastes, was addicted to the unprofitable avocation of " lotus-eating," had a soul for song, and a love for music, and was naturally indolent. There was little in him of his spirited father, much of his blithe and easy mother, Joan — a mother whom he dearly loved — and whose sons by her first marriage, by taking advantage of the defects in the character of their royal half-brother, very materially helped him towards his ruin. Nevertheless, his birth gave rise to unusual re- joicing. The Prince, his father, was about to start on his expedition in aid of Don Pedro, when at Bordeaux, Joan, " his dear consort, fell in travail on the day of the Three Kings of Coin, commonly called the Epiphany, being Wednesday, the 6th of January, 1367." Hardynge asserts that gladness accompanied this birth because of the accredited worthiness of the babe. .The expression perhaps conveys a slur upon the weakness of the elder and short-lived brother, Edward of Angouleme. Of Richard's birth, says Fabyan, " Some writers tell chap, vn.] RICHARD OP BORDEAUX. 185 wonders, the which I will pass by." Three Magi were present thereat, writes the old chronicler, William Thome, meaning thereby three Kings — of Spain, Navarre, and Portugal — " which Kings gave precious gifts to the child." But Pedro of Spain was on that day at Bayonne. Nevertheless (as I have previously stated) James, King of Majorca, Charles, King of Navarre, and Richard, Bishop of Agen, were at the court of the Black Prince in Bordeaux ; and the first and last of these stood as godfathers to the child, when on the Friday after his birth he was carried in state to the cathedral of St. Andrew, and there christened by the archbishop, who conferred on the unconscious Prince the name of his ecclesiastical godfather, the Bishop of Agen. At this time Froissart, the chronicler, was in the city, and was sitting at dinner at noon-day — the fashionable hour — when Sir Richard Pontcharden called on the gos- siping canon, and informed him how the Princess Joan had "got her bed." Now Sir Richard was a valiant knight, with a weak-minded belief in astrology ; and from some astrological book he had worked out a problem which had brought him to the conclusion that the little Prince born that day, the younger son of a King's son, would reach the crown, which his father should not wear, and yet be violently deprived of it, the same being seized by a Prince of the House of Lancaster. Prophecies of this sort Proissart had heard before. The very maids of honour, and knights fond of gossiping with them, had talked of these things, in his hearing, at the Black Prince's manor of Berkhamstead. What the chronicler thought of them at the time, he does not say. The ambition of the Black Prince's second brother, John of 186 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book : Gaunt, may have been a basis on which such a prophec; may have seemed to him to be justifiably built. How ever this may be, he lived to see and to register it realization ; but he pleasantly remarks that the prophet probably "knew nothing for certain when they mad their vaticination." The birth on " Twelfth Day," the Epiphany or th festival of the " Three Kings of Cologne," was a tex on which ecclesiastics and others made sundry quain comments during Richard's life. "We shall find ; bishop making especial reference thereto when Richan himself was first introduced to Parliament as Prince o Wales. Meanwhile, the Sunday after his birth, hi father set out on the last of his memorable expeditions and the young Prince was left to the care of hi mother. When that expedition was at an end, Edwan of Woodstock was too occupied or too ill to super intend the education, or have much of the society c little Eichard of Bordeaux. The latter, with hi elder brother, Edward of Angouleme, was left to th care of Joan, a loving but an easy mother. Fo half a dozen years the boys knew each other ; — at th end of that time, death called away the elder, an Richard was thenceforth sole heir of his father. To tha father, whose own death, as is observed by some monkis annalist, " bore away all the sickerness of thys lande,' no resemblance could be traced in him. He lacked hi father's energy of character, his bravery, and his occa sional sternness of resolution". On the other hand, h inherited the beauty and the indolent disposition of h: dear mother, Joan; and therewith, says Grafton, "h was overmuch given to rest and quietness, and love chap, vn.] RICHARD OF BORDEAUX. 1ST little deeds of arms and martial prowess ; and for that he was young, he was most ruled by young counsel." When the father of Richard was dying of a disease which had so wasted him that the double infirmity* had, for five years, nearly wrested all shadow of strength from him, he called "hys sonne unto hym (although but a little one), he commanded hym, upon payne of hys curse, he sholde never chaunge or taike away the gyftes that he atte hys deathe gave unto hys servantes." By this deathbed Richard sate, and witnessed his father's piety, and heard of his liberality to his followers and friends of every degree ; and beheld a sight that must have been unusual even in those days — namely, the free access which the dying Prince of Wales gave to all who cared to approach to make a request, or see how a Prince could die. " For," says the author of the contem- porary manuscript, printed in the " Archseologia," ' ' the Prince had commanded that hys doore sholde be shutt to none, nor to the leaste boy" (page) . He was the only Prince of Wales who may be said to have died in public ; and as young Richard was with him at the last, his feeble spirit must have been startled when his father was unable to reply to the exhortations of the Bishop of Bangor, till the prelate recognising the presence of evil spirits, plentifully besprinkled the dying Prince with holy water, drove away the demons, and unloosened the tongue of the moribund Edward, so that he burst forth into confession and prayer, such as might have edified the mind of the son for whom he had sent, if that weak mind had not been terrified by the exorcism. * Archseologia, vol. xxii. p. 228. 188 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book i Stricken as old King Edward was by the prematura death of his eldest son, he lost little time in advancing Richard to some part, at least, of the greatness enjoy ec ' by his father. Accordingly, in the jubilee year of thi reign of Edward III., on the 20th day of November, a Havering-at-Bower, that monarch assigned to his littli grandson Richard the principality, duchy, earldom, titles and privileges so lately held by his own lamented son Edward of Woodstock. The deed which invests th< young Prince with a greatness and profits he never, ir truth, enjoyed, is a long document, very minute in it: details, explicit in its signification, and replete with ai iteration which would exact from the weary reader ai expletive as strong as ever was forced from patien hearer averse to tautology. The document may be reac at length in the Additional Manuscripts, No. 15,663 in the British Museum, where it occupies nine largi folio sheets. Some of its provisions, however, meri notice here. It confers on Richard of Bordeaux even possession, title, right, and so forth, which his illustriou father held — making exception, however, of that ti which he was subsequently to succeed by reversion— namely, " the third part of the principality, duchy, an< earldom, and of the lands and tenements which Joan who was the wife of the late Prince, mother of the sai< Richard, holds in dower, since the death of the sam late Prince, by our assignment." Joan's " thirds" ar especially protected throughout the lengthy document In conferring on the youthful Richard the principality duchy, and earldom, the prizage and customs of wines the profits of the ports in Wales, and in some other loca lities, a record is also made of the sources whence th chap, vii.] RICHARD OF BORDEAUX. 189 Prince may draw his revenues, including honours, lord- ships, castles, cities, boroughs, towns, manors, members, hamlets, lands, tenements, knights' fees, advowsons of cathedrals, churches, internal as well as others, abbeys, ' priories, chapels, and other religious houses, with mines, royalties, liberties, free customs, prizes, and exercise of all justice of chancellorships, homages, services, rents, profits, meadows, feedings, pastures, wreck of the sea, fisheries, moors, marshes, turbaries, forests, chaees, parks, woods, warrens, hundreds, commons, raglories, woodwards, constabularies, bailiwicks, forestaries, cor- matories, reversions of tenants, fairs, markets, wards, marriages, reliefs, escheats, &c. Nothing, indeed, is omitted from which the little Prince could derive profit ; and of his Welsh tenants, it is said, that their service is due to him, "as well free as native" — a very significant distinction. The document, when referring to " wreck of the sea" as connected with Cornwall, is more explicit than when dealing with the same delicate subject with regard to the Principality. After granting everything in, the duchy to Richard, it adds thereto all " wreck of the sea," as well of whale and sturgeon, and other fishes which belong to us by reason of our prerogative, as other things whatsoever to wreck of the sea in any wise belonging in the whole county of Cornwall." So that if the Cornish people, gentry and clergy included, became " wreckers," and took as their own whatever the sea cast at their feet to be kept for the rightful owners, they derived the evil practice from the example set them by their Princes. Justice, royal jurisdiction, and coinage are among the 190 HOUSE OF PLANTAGENET. [book l further privileges granted to the new Prince of Wales, with some other profitable matters to which the King is moved by his especial love for the only child of his noble and favourite son. Finally, the huge document is witnessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Earls of Cambridge, Arundel, Warwick, Suffolk, and Salisbury, Henry de Percy, John de Nevyll, the King's chamberlain, Eoger de Beau- champ, and his steward of the household, John de Ipre. Pinally, the grant is subscribed " By the King himself." The popular joy rose high at this advancement of the young Prince. He was loved not only for his own, but for his father's sake. The public expectation looked to him for a revival of a career of honour and glory. There was even hope that the son might perhaps exceed the brilliancy of the father, enjoying, as he surely would, the privileges and opportunities of a monarch. The hope was fallacious, as such hope generally is. The sons of righteous Aaron were unworthy of their sire, and the children of perfect Samuel fell off into sin. The early nomination of Richard to the Principality was a response to an injunction of the Black Prince to his father, not to neglect to inaugurate Richard as Prince of Wales with all possible speed, commending him thereby to the care of the nation. When the crea- tion took place, according to the decree of Havering-at- Bower, in November, 1376, Richard had not completed his tenth year ; and in addition to asking for him the love of the English people, Edward sought to defend his young I grandson against the malice of his uncles, John of Gaunt, Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, and chap, vii.] RICHARD OF BORDEAUX. 191 Thomas of Woodstock. To these brothers, King Edward declared that Richard was the only lawful heir to the throne, and he exacted from them a solemn oath of allegiance, which was subsequently violated with more than ordinary alacrity. A more public manifestation of the position to which the boy-prince had been advanced was made on. the succeeding Christmas-day, when a grand banquet in his honour was given by the King his grandfather, at which royal feast young Richard was seated at the King's table next to his grandsire, and above all the sons of Edward III. This advancement of Richard of Bordeaux gave general satisfaction to the people of England who had loved his 'father, and who now honoured the memory of Edward of Woodstock. The citizens of London were especially active and ostentatious in manifesting their affection, prodigal in their liberality, and servile, not to say abject, in their flattery. On a Sunday evening of February, 1377, just previous to Candlemas, not less than one hundred and thirty "prime citizens," as the annalists call them, dis- guised themselves as mummers, but in splendid costume, and mounting horse, rode from the City to congratulate the Prince. Bands of music, including every variety of minstrelsy, accompanied them, and the night being dark, the cavalcade was illuminated by numberless torch- lights of wax, which made a gay spectacle as they danced along, the music ringing the while, and the citizen horsemen gaily caracolling from Newgate, through Cheapside, over London Bridge to Kennington. At the royal manor-house there, they were heartily received by the Prince of Wales and his portly mother, Joan. 192 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [booe i. Accompanying these were Richard's nearest male relatives; and in attendance on this illustrious group were the Earls of Stafford, "Warwick, and Suffolk, a gallant assembly of lords and a gay crowd of mirth- ful ladies. The torch-light procession defiled before this illustrious body of spectators, in three divisions. In the first, four dozen citizens in the guise of esquires in scarlet coats and gowns of "say or sen- dal," their features concealed beneath comely vizards, rode forward in couples. These were followed by an equal number of mummer-knights, in a livery re- sembling that of the esquires. Then proudly rode by, a mimic Emperor, whose magnificent attire was only exceeded by that of a pseudo-Pope, who rode at due in- terval after the Kaiser. A couple of dozen of pretended cardinals supported the feigned dignity of the fictitious Pontiff; and the horsemen behind their Eminences were strangely attired, and wore black visors, so as to pass, for the nonce, as ambassadors from foreign po- tentates. The worthy and respectable mummers having finished their caracolling, dismounted, and were then ushered into the great hall. When fairly marshalled there, the Prince and his mother entered from an inner chamber, and received the sincere salutations and congratulations of the unreal squires, knights, cardinals, Kaiser, Pope, and foreign envoys. Then ensued a strange but cha- racteristic scene. The primest of the prime citizens flung a pair of dice on the table as a challenge to the Prince to play. Richard accepted the challenge, and ran no risk thereby of losing a single noble, for the citizens had so prepared the dice that the Prince ohap.tii.] RICHARD OF BORDEAUX. 193 should always win, whether he cast against the London mummers or they at him. In this way a luck as pre- tended as themselves emptied the citizens' purses of large sums of gold, which passed to the capacious pockets of the delighted Prince of Wales. The prime cockneys then placed on the tahle a bowl, a cup, and a ring, gold and jewelled, and set these to the Prince, who wonderfully won them all at three casts ! Such result was, of course, held to he typical of his future ^ fortune, which, however, proved to be of another quality. .. Meanwhile, the never- sufficiently- to-be - gratified - by-losing Londoners, set money and jewels to the dowager Princess of Wales, the royal dukes and earls, the lords of lower degree, and the laughing and eager ladies. And, of course, every throw brought a costly stake to the residents in the manor-palace at Ken- nington, till the joyfully plucked citizens had lost their all. The royal hosts could not do less than regale those who had exhibited such a loyal share of ill-luck achieved for the purpose ; and accordingly the chroniclers have ecstatically and lengthily narrated the said regaling, lauding the splendour of the entertainment, the ex- quisiteness of the music, the grace of the little Prince, and the efficiency of the various dancers, whether they were the noble lords and ladies who moved statelily by them- selves or the citizens who tripped it, in hearty fashion at least, also by themselves, in another part of the hall. The revelry was concluded by a gorgeous banquet of wines and spices, with which being well warmed, the mummers took leave,, and facing the fierce February night, rode jollily home, hot with loyalty to a Prince who was especially called the Londoners? Prince — but at K. 194 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book i, whose pulling-down they danced as vigorously as they had ever done in his honour at Kennington. Such was the meeting of the Prince of Wales with the representatives of the Londoners generally ; and let us render justice to the latter. If there was much folly in the manner of their exhibiting their loyalty, there was abounding temporary sincerity of feeling beneath it. So attached were they to the helpless Prince of Wales, that when, in the summer that followed this winter — mummery, the old Lion of England, King Edward, lay ill of that sickness which ended with his death, they de- spatched a body of aldermen, with John Philpott for their mouth-piece, to Richard and his mother, who were then abiding the course of events at Kingston, in Surrey. It must surely have been a singular incident, even in those unscrupulous times — the municipality of London standing before the Prince of Wales while the sovereign was alive, and daintily intimating that the latter could not long remain so, and that God in his mercy was about to summon him^ away, bespeaking for themselves and the City the Prince's favour, and promising in return such an|allegiance as might be testified, need requiring it, by the sacrifice of their goods and lives.* The Prince of Wales, tutored by his mother and other friends, rendered an appropriate answer, and the citizens testified their uncivil alacrity at the prospect of soon having him for King. This homage to the rising sun having been so fully performed at Kingston, the citizens rode back to j town, as complacently as if they had failed in no decent duty owing to old Edward,. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had recognised * Holinshed, iii. 415. chap, til] RICHAED OP BORDEAUX. 195 the Prince of "Wales as the rightful heir to the throne, with as much seeming alacrity as the citizens had shown; but he sought to make himself the next heir after Richard, by proposing to Parliament that the succession should be in the male line only. The Parliament re- jected a proposal which annihilated the rights of the daughter of Lancaster's elder brother Lionel ; and that body further requested that the Prince of Wales should be at once introduced to the legislative assembly as heir apparent to the crown. The love of the Commons for the young Prince had been testified by their previous petition that Richard should be declared Prince of Wales ; but it was answered that such a creation be- longed not to Parliament, but to the King only, who ordinarily exercised such a prerogative on some high festival. The request of the Parliament with regard to the introduction of Richard as heir apparent was complied with on the Tuesday after the festival of the Conversion of St. Paul. In the midst of a splendid gathering young Richard sate, the representative of his grandfather, then too sick to attend. Of all the introductions of a Prince of "Wales to the Parliament of the realm, this was the most remarkable. When the preliminary formalities had been gone through, the youthful Prince expressed his will and command that the Bishop of St. David's, Chancellor of England, should address the assembly, and explain the cause for the summons which had called them together. For a full report of the quaint Norman French speech delivered by the prelate, I refer my readers to the " Rolls of Parliament" (vol. ii. p. 361) ; but there are some passages in it, especially those referring directly to 196 ' HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book r. the Prince, which merit citation, because of their singu- larity, or because they otherwise show the taste, or the want of taste, of the parliamentary orators of the period. After quoting St. Paul to prove that the wise must needs occasionally lend ear to fools, the bishop added : — " And, albeit you are wise men, and I but a fool, yet do I give you credit for willingness to hear me ; seeing that you will have joy therein, inasmuch as, according to the Scriptures, every messenger bearing good news, ought to be always welcome — and I am a messenger bringing pleasant tidings, and therefore shall, doubtless, be welcome to you." The pleasant news thus indicated referred to the health of the King, which was said to have improved, as was to be expected of a monarch whom for virtues, and zeal, and love of the Lord, the Bishop of St. David's com- pared with St. Paul, not altogether to the advantage of the apostle. " See now, my lords," said the prelate, " was there ever Christian King or other lord in the world who possessed so noble and so gracious a lady for a wife, or such sons as our lord the King has had, Princes, Dukes, and the rest of them ? All Christendom has heard of them ; and by them has the realm of England been nobly improved, honoured, and enriched, more than it has ever been in the time of any other Prince. And now, God be praised for it, our lord the King may see here the son of his son ! Whereby it is evident that he enjoys the grace and favour of God, at which we ought to experience great joy and gladness." The prelate, proceeding to show that the King was a vessel of grace by the election of God, and that if they would drink of the rich contents of such vessel, they chap, vii.] BICHAED OP BOBDEAUX. 197 must exercise towards him faithful service, as members of a body of which he was the head, then remarked, that as the Lord loved King Edward, so did that King love them ; " for you see, my lords, how that since God had executed his will on Edward the late Prince of Wales, you have continually desired the honour and increase of my lord the Prince Richard, his son and heir, who is here present, whom may God save. And our lord the King has fulfilled your desires by giving and granting as much as in him lay to the Prince, the Principality of Wales, the dukedom of Cornwall, and the county of Chester. The King has also sent the Prince to this Parliament, as his lieutenant, that here in his presence you may have comfort and rejoice in him, even according to the manner spoken of in the Scriptures : ' This is my beloved son ; this is the de- sired of all nations.' To this young Prince you are bound to pay honour and reverence, as to your lord, the heir apparent of the kingdom. And," added the cun- ning prelate, "you may honour him after the man- ner of the Pagans. I mean those three Kings of Co- logne who honoured the Son of God, by presenting to him rich gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." On this text of tribute-paying the bishop dwelt for a con- siderable time, urging loyalty and liberality, and much gratitude ; since now, in beholding the Prince in Par- liament, they might exclaim, as Simon did at beholding the Saviour in the Temple, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." " And so," resumed the diocesan of St. David's, " may you embrace your noble King with the arms of 198 HOUSE OP PLANTAGENET. [book I. your perfect love ; since he has sent you him whom you longed for. And after the King, embrace with love as perfect my lord the Prince who is here present (God save him !), whom you so ardently desired, and at now seeing whom you may repeat your Nunc dimittis, for there is through him that peace over Israel which the Scriptures name — Israel being the heritage of God, and that heritage being also — England ! For in good truth, I believe that God would never have honoured this country by victories such as had given glory to Israel, had he not intended it for His heritage also \" Within five months after this speech was delivered by the Chancellor-Bishop Houghton, King Edward died, — on the 21st of June, 1377, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and the fifty-first of his reign. Richard had then been Prince of Wales just seven months — a period which he passed in retirement with his mother, undergoing no preparatory training for the high position and the heavy responsibilities which awaited him. BOOK II. PRINCES OF WALES OP THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. '■'- CHAPTER VIII. HENRY OP MONMOUTH (LANCASTER). Boen1387. Died 1422. Richard II. was twenty years of age, and had been on the throne half that period, when in August, 1387, the Earl and Countess of Derby were residing at Monmouth Castle. The former was one year older than the King, the latter was only sixteen. In the month and year indicated above, the lady gave birth to a son, named, like his father, the Earl — Henry. Father and son were alike subjects, the Earl being the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster ; but father and son became successive Kings of England, although Mary Bohun, the mother of Henry of Monmouth, did not become Queen, dying when her son was seven years old, five years previous to the accession of her husband as Henry IV. The birth of a subject was not of national interest, but that of an heir to the great Duke of Lancaster, who was known to court the throne which his son ascended, was of great local and family interest. In the villages in the vicinity of Monmouth, the event was felt to be of importance. A courier killed his horse, or himself, in his eagerness to bear the tidings from Monmouth to Goodrich ; and when the father of the child, the restless Henry of Bolingbroke, was hastening homeward, hurried thither by the news, the ferryman of Goodrich congra- k3 202 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. tulated him on the fact of his being father of a noble prince. To these traditions is to be added that which assigns to the Countess of Salisbury the office of nurse to young Harry of Monmouth, and another which points to Court- field, an adjacent village, as a place of residence at which the noble foster-mother reared, for a time, the future conqueror at Agincourt. The usual local proof of these alleged facts was long maintained in the neighbourhood, in the shape of the cradle in which this notable child was, probably, not rocked. This evidence has disappeared, but tradition cleaves closely to the old story, which is, perhaps, not without some foundation. Wardrobe accounts are of a less questionable quality, however, than legends, and in that of the mother of Henry of Monmouth we find a less illustrious nurse set down for him than the Countess of Salisbury — namely, Johanna Waring. It seems to have been one of the good fashions of these olden times for Kings to have loving and grate- ful memories of their nurses. I have cited cases in point, when treating of Edward of Caernarvon ; and when this Henry of Monmouth ascended the throne, one of his first acts was to settle the liberal annuity of 20£ on Johanna, "in consideration of good services done to him in former days." Again, although the character of the father of Henry of Monmouth has suffered some disparagement, there was a fashion observed by him which might be re- adopted with profit to each party therewith concerned. Annually, on the Holy Thursday of Passion Week, it was his custom to clothe as many poor persons as equalled the number of years he had attained on his chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 203 preceding birth-day. This was a good example to his son ; and throughout the period of the early Princes of Wales those young gentlemen had one other example set them which might be beneficially, and indeed uni- versally, followed. I allude to several entries in • the wardrobe accounts of that time, which show that when- ever the royal family, or single members of it, refrained from attending divine worship, they, in a certain mea- sure, compensated for the neglect by forwarding a gene- rous pecuniary gift to the poor. Similar documents connected with the household affairs of Bolingbroke and his wife enable us to just glance or guess at the whereabout of the young lord and the brothers and sisters who were born after him. At these births, 21. was the handsome fee of the wise- woman who officiated. The family of Bolingbroke and Mary Bohun consisted, at the death of the Countess, of four sons and two daughters. Henry of Monmouth's brothers were Thomas Planta- genet, Duke of Clarence; John, Duke of Bedford; and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. These three Dukes were married, but left no issue. The sisters of Henry were Blanche and Philippa, married respectively to the Duke of Bavaria and the King of Denmark. Both died childless. Jaqueline, the widow of John, became the wife of Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers, by whom she had that Elizabeth Woodville who was the consort of Edward IV., and the mother of the Prince of Wales who was slain in the Tower. The children of Bolingbroke figure in the Wardrobe Books, where we find money paid for a "long gown" for the year-old Lord Henry; notice of the birth of 204 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND TORE. [book n. Lord Thomas (Duke of Clarence) at London, 1388 ; of outlays of cloth for the bed of his nurse, and canvas for his own cradle, when the family were, soon after, sojourn- ing at Kenilworth. Like all other English boys of their rank and times, they were served, and like them they occasionally suffered. Mr. Tyler cites an entry from the records of the Duchy of Lancaster of the year 1395, in the March of which year one Thomas Pye was paid 6*. 8^. for riding from London to Leicester, " with all speed, on account of the illness of the young Lord Henry." He had his toys and delights too, even when a boy, and some of these gave evidence of his good taste. " Musicis delectabatur" is the expression of the Italian chronicler who, under the pseudonym of Titus Livius, has left an account of this " young lord ;" and this fondness for music was early developed, for when he was ten years old, another household entry register, in regard to him, notices " 8d. paid by the hands of Adam Garston, for harpstrings purchased for the harp of the young Lord Henry." Titus further remarks, that Henry at one time cared more for music than for martial affairs ; but he, nevertheless, early played at that game, of which in his youth and manhood he made such a serious business for his enemies, and such glory for himself. He is still in his tenth year, when the purse of his father is drawn upon to the amount of " \%d. to Stephen Furbour for a new scabbard of a sword for young Lord Henry;" and " Is. 6d. for | of an ounce of tissue of black silk bought at London of Margaret Stranson for a sword of young Lord Henry." Meanwhile, Henry and his brothers were not left without tutors and grave instruction. Indeed; a year chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 205 previous to the notices of harps and weapons, there is one of " 4s." (spent) " for seven books of grammar" con- tained in one volume, and bought at London for the young Lord Henry ; and Mr. Tyler, not unreasonably, suggests that Beaufort (afterwards the famous cardinal) directed the grammatical studies of his nephew. Those of Henry's brother, Humphrey, were superintended by one Thomas Rothwell, whose " salary" of 13s. 4sd., for the term ended at Easter, is duly entered in the ac- counts of the Receiver General. It is certain that Bolingbroke himself had little to do, personally, with the education of his children ; — nothing at all with that of Henry. During portions, at least, of the years from 1390 to 1393, that unquiet Earl was ab- sent from home, travelling in Europe, Asia, and Africa ; and even when at home, jousts, and tournaments, and fencings seem to have engaged much of the time of " Sir Harry of Derby, the Duke's son of Lancaster." In the year after that in which this Sir Harry, as he is sometimes called, returned from a visit to the Holy Sepulchre — namely, in 1394, his home was despoiled of its brightest ornament, and Henry of Monmouth lost one of the best of mothers ; a mother whose memory he cherished, and a tribute of respect to whom was one of the first acts of his reign, when he came to be King, and •placed an effigy of that illustrious lady over her tomb at Leicester. Henry's grandmother, the Countess of Here- ford, presented him with a missal and breviary; and from Henry's intentions with respect to her, mentioned in his will, he appears to have been grateful to the maternal relative who in some wise cared for him after he had been bereaved of his mother. 206 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOKK. [book n. He was early, however, given up to the companion- ship and guardianship of men. His paternal uncle Beaufort, a member of Queen's College, was Chancellor of the University during one year, 1398. Henry is said to have studied under his kinsman, at Queen's, and he could then have been not more than eleven years of age. In the old building, tradition long pointed to a room as inhabited by him; and this tradition was strengthened if not confirmed by the portrait of the august student in the painted-glass window of the chamber. In Fuller's time there was, in the room, what the church-historian describes as the Prince's picture in brass. Long after the illustrious pupil him- self had passed away, a Latin inscription in the apart- ment informed all visitors that to perpetuate the remembrance of the fact for ever, this record was made that " The Emperor of Britain, the triumphant Lord of France, the conqueror of his enemies and of himself, Henry V. was of this little chamber once the great inhabitant." There is no record of such residence in the archives of the university, but Mr. Tyler suggests thereupon, that the young student, " though perhaps without himself being enrolled among the regular academics, lived with his uncle, then Chancellor, and studied under his super- intendence ;" a general superintendence, the details , being entrusted, it is supposed, "to others more com- petent to instruct him in the various branches of litera- ture." The favour exhibited subsequently by Henry, when King, for certain eminent Oxford men of learning and merit, whose fortunes he advanced, is conjectured to have arisen from acquaintance made with them during this pupilage at the university. chap, vm.] ■ HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 207 Henry's brief residence there may have been inter- rupted by an event most important in its results. His father, who had been recently created Duke of Hereford, accused the Duke of Norfolk of reporting that the King, Richard II., had it in mind to murder themselves and others whom he considered as his personal enemies. On the denial of Norfolk, that trial of battle was about to commence at Coventry, which the King so strangely impeded by separating the adversaries, ordering Bolingbroke into exile for ten years, and Norfolk to a banishment for life, with confiscation of all his property save one thousand pounds a-year. The wayward King subsequently reduced Bolingbroke's term of exile to four years ; but a few months later, when John of Gaunt died, in February, 1399, the capricious monarch made the penalty on Bolingbroke as severe as that on Nor- folk, banishing him for life, and confiscating his pro- perty, but leaving certain money for his maintenance. Forty thousand sympathizers saw Bolingbroke depart, and accompanied him far upon his way, some all the way, to Dover. Richard, having exiled the father, immediately laid hands upon the son, and young Henry of Monmouth was placed under restraint, gentle enough, but sufficient to shut out all hope of escape. The boy- prisoner was narrowly watched, and yet notwith- standing the terms on which King and Lord mutually stood, — oppressor and oppressed, the captive and the gaoler learned to love each other ; and Richard settled on his cousin 500£. a-year, which was after all not excessively liberal, seeing that he had plundered Henry's father of a thousandfold that amount. The King, too, laid out various sums for dresses and 208 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. light coat-armour for young Henry, as part of his outfit necessary for the journey to and the sojourn in Ireland ; hut the generosity this may seem to denote, is for the reasons alleged ahove, not of a high order. Richard's subjects were now fast drifting towards, rebellion ; but the King not seeing, or affecting not to see, the coming calamity, proceeded on an expedition to subdue certain troublesome chieftains in Ireland. Young Henry accompanied him, landing with Richard at Waterford, after a two days 5 passage from Milford Haven, and having for his especial companion the little Lord Humphrey, another captive guest and kinsman of Richard. Humphrey was the son of Thomas of Wood- stock, Duke of Gloucester, and youngest brother of the Black Prince. The Duke's hostility to Richard was the cause of his murder at Calais — a crime in which that King was confederate. Thus, of both the boys now with him, he had done violent wrong to the fathers. About three weeks after the landing at Waterford Richard advanced against the most turbulent of the Irish chieftains — Mac Murchard. On the eve of Mid- summer Day, 1399, the future hero of Agincourt saw . for the first time the serious face of war. Mac Mur- chard, with 3000 wild, hardy men, was posted in a wood, which the King could only reach by traversing a desert district, which furnished no supplies ; and there the rightful King of Ireland, as the great Mac (Mac More) called himself, awaited Richard, and the result of victory or death. The King of, England declined to enter the pathless forests, in which lay the undismayed Irish ; but he set fire to the asylum, destroying there- with many villages which favoured the Mac Murchard chap, vm.], HENEY OF MONMOUTH. 209 faction. By the light of this conflagration, to the music of wailing, shouts, or curses, and amid a space cleared by the flames, around which the royal leopards, and many a gay pennon and standard were pitched, that fair and handsome young bachelor, Henry of Monmouth, was knighted. The honour was conferred on this boy, not yet twelve years of age, out of the King's true and entire affection.* "My fair cousin" — thus spoke Richard to Henry — "henceforth be gallant and bold, for unless you conquer, you will have little name for valour." The time, scene, and circumstances, had a gloomy grandeur, as may be conjectured by the words of an eye-witness, who tells us, "that for his (Henry's) greater honour and satisfaction, and to the end that it might be better imprinted on his memory, the King made eight or ten other knights. But indeed," says the timid Frenchman, " I do not know what their names were ; for I took little heed about the matter, seeing that melancholy, uneasiness, and care, had formed and altogether chosen my heart for their abode, and anxiety had dispossessed me of joy." A military promenade to Dublin, a gay sojourn in. the chief society, — and then came the great change, and the great news, that Bolingbroke was in England, his lips speaking of reform, his heart bent upon obtaining the crown ! Richard too long delayed to meet him, entrust- ing that work to emissaries, who failed in their attempt or in their allegiance. At length, in August, the King crossed the Irish Channel to his doom; but he took with him neither of his captive cousins. Previous to his departure, however, he summoned young Harry to * Creton. 210 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. his presence. " Henry, my child/' said he — according to the minute details of the writer known as Otterbourne — " see what your father has done to me. He has actually invaded my land as an enemy, and, as if in regular warfare, has taken captive and put to death my liege subjects without mercy and pity. Indeed, child, for you individually I am very sorry, because for this unhappy proceeding of your father you must, perhaps, be deprived of your inheritance." If the reply given by Henry be correctly reported, it affords proof of the discreetness of his character : — " In truth, my gracious King and lord," was his remark, " I am sincerely grieved by these tidings, and, as I conceive, you are fully assured of my innocence in this proceeding of my father." " I know," answered the King, " that the crime which your father has per- petrated does not attach at all to you, and therefore I hold you excused of it altogether." "With this kind sentiment he shut up Henry and Humphrey within the strong, yet dilapidated, walls of Trym Castle. In that melancholy fortress the two companions awaited their respective doom. It came to one in the shape of heirship to a crown ; to the other, in the form of possession of a grave. Young Humphrey never saw England again, he dying of a fever; and his widowed mother dying soon after, because she was childless. Richard landed at Milford, fell into Bolingbroke's hands, and reached London a captive monarch — all within the month of August, 1399. At the end of another month he had formally resigned the crown ; and about a fortnight later, the young Lord Henry, who was so recently a prisoner in Trym Castle, was released, chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 211 carried up to Dublin in all honour, and conveyed to England in a ship the property of one Henry Dryhurst, of West-Chester, hearing with him the ornaments of the private chapel of King Richard. He saw his father crowned at "Westminster, and two days later, on Octo- ber 15, was himself created Prince of Wales. He was then twelve years and two months old. As on the occasion of the creation of his unfortunate predecessor, Richard, so now the Commons prayed that they might be entered on the record at the election of the Prince. On the former occasion, the Commons were truly informed that the creation was not the effect of parliamentary privilege, but of royal prerogative ; and their prayer was not granted. On the present occasion, a different course was taken ; and out of politic courtesy, probably, King Henry IV. affected to consult the Par- liament in this national and popular act ; and it was by the assent of all the Estates that Henry of Monmouth was created Prince of Wales, and invested with the titles of Duke of Cornwall, Aquitaine, and Lancaster, Earl of Chester ; and was declared heir to the throne. High on that throne sate Henry IV. when the Prince of Wales was brought into his presence, at Westminster. With his own hands he placed on the head of his son a gold coronet adorned with pearls, on his finger a ring, and delivered into his hand the emblematic rod, kissing him the while, and then blessing him. The King conferred on the Prince the whole of the land of Wales. " But I think," Says Creton, an eye- witness of the ceremony, " I think he must conquer it if he will have it ; for in my opinion the Welsh will on no account allow him to be their lord, for the sorrow, 212 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK. [book ii. evil, and disgrace which the English, together with his father, had brought upon King Eiehard." The French chronicler proved to be right ; but meanwhile, Boling- broke thought not of coming difficulties, and joyfully blessed and invested his son. Thus invested, and thus blessed, the Commons pro- vided for his safety by obtaining from the King a promise that a Prince of such tender age might not be permitted to leave the kingdom, lest enemies should deprive him of his inheritance. The King, however, had no fears. He had obtained the crown by conquest, fortified his right thus acquired by exacting from Richard his own appointment as successor, and claiming, moreover, to be next heir-male, and, so, rightful King, What had he or his son to fear ? Of whom was the former — hares malus, as he styled himself — to be in dread ? Of a quiet gentleman living quietly on his estate at "Wigmore. He was not meddlesome, for he loved little to be called to account. Moderately wealthy, plain of dress, a county nobleman rather than a feudal lord, he was overlooked when less dangerous persons were watched and feared. " They that esteemed men," says old John Trussell, " by the outward appearance only, could see in him no great show of wit." Yet he made a pun — an indifferent one it is true — on the King's in- different Latin. "Hares malus/' quotha, "aye, as a pirate is to the merchant whom he hath utterly de- spoiled !" The familiars of the gentleman by whom this was said, nodded and smiled. The gentleman himself was Mortimer, Earl of March, and descended from Philippa, the child of long Lionel, Duke of chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 213 Clarence, and married to Edmund, Lord March. As Lionel was an elder brother of John of Gaunt, his daughter's children had prior claims to the succession, and this bad pun of one of the Mortimers was the first and quiet protest of a rival House, afterwards that of York, against the usurpation of the House of Lancas- ter, of which house, Henry of Moumouth, Prince of Wales, was now next heir. Those days were days of mingled piety and supersti- tion, and on a basis composed of both these elements young Henry's heirship was considered secure ; for his father had just been anointed with a charmed oil, the virtue of which was to make of the anointed a champion of the Church, and to make of the Church the protector of its champion. This oil had been given, so ran the legend, by a holy man in France to Henry, the first Duke of Lancaster, when the latter was fighting under Edward III. in the French wars. The giver informed the duke of those virtues which I have named, whereby the oil was rendered so precious. The duke loyally presented the sacred fluid to Edward of "Woodstock, Prince of Wales ; and the hero of Cressy jealously guarded the magic gift that he might be anointed therewith when the day of his accession should arrive. That day never came to Prince Edward, and the vial, locked within a chest, with a legendary certificate of its excellence, lay where the Prince of Wales had deposited it in the Tower, forgotten. When Richard, the succeeding Prince of Wales became King, no man thought or knew of this wonder-working oil. Sub- sequently to the coronation of that monarch, the vial, too carefully put away by Edward of Woodstock, was 214 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK. L B00K n " discovered, with the document attesting its powers. His son, Richard of Bordeaux, vehemently desired to be anointed with this marvellous liquid ; but the highest churchmen opposed such a desire, for who had ever heard of crowned King being twice anointed to the Lord ? The oil in short would not flow for Plantagenet. It had been brought into England by Lancaster, and to the line bearing that name it alone would be efficacious. Richard indeed concealed the vial, carrying it with him to Ireland, but he was forced to surrender it at Flint, and it was used for the anointing of an usurper. But that anointing sanctified the usurpation, and thus super- naturally strengthened, Henry of Bolingbroke looked upon himself as a King chosen of the Lord, and on Harry of Monmouth as a Prince of Wales whose suc- cession to the throne would be unopposed and his occu- pation of it glorious. The prophecy pointed to a championship of the Church being the distinction of the King and his house. This championship was affected both by Henry and the Prince. Indeed the exemplary churchmanship of the latter is made matter of great laudation by his priestly chronicler, who notified, with great admiration, the im- portant fact, that whenever Harry of Monmouth went to church he steadily sat out the whole service from beginning to end ! Old Trussell, on the other hand, seems to have had some suspicion of the non-efficiency of the oil, as of the non-fulfilment of the prophecy ; for he remarks, " To discourse either of the authority or certainty of these prophecies, I presume not ; but this is observed — many of them fail, or are fulfilled in another sense than as chap. Tin.] HENRY OP MONMOUTH. 215 they are ordinarily conceived and taken." And there- with he slily records a fact illustrative of the Lancas- trian championship of the Church, to the effect that during the time of the Kingship of Bolingbroke, when Harry of Monmouth was Prince of Wales, " execution by fire was first put in practice within this realm, for controversies in point of religion." With the dignity of Prince the active life of Henry of Monmouth soon commenced. The question of his marriage, not with one particular, but with any of the daughters of the King of France was entered upon, and passed by, not to be resumed till the lover wooed his French bride in person. Thus early, too, was discussed the question of his establishment, and the Privy Council was memorialized by the young Prince, who describes himself as destitute of every kind of appointment rela- tive to his household. He was not yet fourteen, but was ripe for housekeeping ; all that the young gentle- man lacked for that purpose, were " chapel," including priests' vestments, and chapel-furniture, " chambers, halls, wardrobe, pantry, buttery, kitchen, scullery, saucery, almonry, anointry, and generally all things necessary for his establishment." All these items are noticed in the memorial ; but the memorialist had to wait ere he kept joyous house in the neighbourhood of Eastcheap, and meanwhile he remained rather more under the guardianship of Henry Beaufort, now Bishop of Winchester, than in the companionship of his father the King. Between his boyhood and his manhood, let us look at the picture of this young Prince as he is pourtrayed by the chroniclers. 216 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. In the memorials of Henry of Monmouth, written by an anonymous Benedictine attached to the Prince's household, and edited by Mr. Cole, we are told that Henry was, as a child, brought up in orthodox prin- ciples, imbued with a pure morality, and addicted neither to laziness nor gluttony. As he grew older, he was trained in manly exercises, and found his recreation in hunting, hawking, fishing, riding, or walking. " His exercitiis teneros annos tenuisti, Doctis conoiliis seniorum teque dedisti." Of the Prince's person the Benedictine gives us a finished sketch, in which we see his spherical skull and ample forehead — sign, as the writer remarks, of one wise in council. An excellent thing, writes the priest, is such a head for one who rules, for a lofty fore- head is evidence, or ought to be, of a healthy mind. His hair was brown in colour, thick and straight ; his nose Grecian in shape, face oblong, complexion florid, and his eyes large, bright, and hazel {subrvfe jpatentes); when tranquil, sweet as the dove's ; when excited, flash- ing like the lion's. The Benedictine continues, as if he were making out a passport in verse, to set down the other features : teeth white and regular, ears small and well-shaped, chin dimpled, or is it " doubled" — mentum fissum — throat full, cheeks mingbng the rose and lily, lips red, and the whole frame well built and held toge- ther. Hall, in his Chronicle, adds some other charac- teristics — namely, that the Prince was "stout of sto- make," and that his hair was black. Redmayne, who composed (in the reign of Henry VIII.) the Life of Henry, which has been recently Chap, vni.] HENRY OP MONMOUTH. 217 edited by Mr. Cole, says that " in his earliest years he gave many promises of his future excellence, from which one might have conjectured that Almighty God, in his compassion for humanity, would place him at the head of the kingdom of England. Infinite evidences occur of incidents which teach us that there were in him not the foreshadows but the express signs of his great virtues." The chronicle then continues, at great length, to praise the industry of the young Prince, his aptitude for mili- tary studies, his godlike pity for the miserable, his zeal for religion, his wisdom, and his moderation ; — crowning the Prince's praise by an assertion which reminds one of the inscription in his room at Oxford, to the effect that he achieved what was not only most difficult to the unskilled multitude, but also to the learned and the wise — a victory over himself even more frequently than over others. In this rare excellence, Redmayne recog- nised in Henry a touch of divinity, acknowledging a sign of the same superhuman power in the triumphs which he obtained by his statesmanship as well as by the sword. His first and chief glories were achieved by the sword; and that weapon he wielded on battle-field with the son of the Black Prince, in his bright boyhood. After the death of Richard, Henry IV. was speedily beset by enemies ; Scotland was up, and it is reported that in 1400 the Prince of Wales, then thirteen years old, was sent for- ward with the advanced guard. It is more certain — is,- indeed, an established fact — that in the spring of 1401 the Prince was himself in Wales at the head of a force charged to suppress a rebellion, at the head of which was Owen Glendower; no Welsh semi-savage, but a L 21'8 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. gentleman who knew London life, had studied in the Inns of Court, had served under Richard, and thoroughly hated the Lancastrians. To suppress such an insurrection was considered good military and political exercise for a Prince of about fourteen years of age. The King thought his son might have a fortnight's easy work before him, but to extin- guish that Welsh flame of war cost Henry as many years as Ms father had awarded days. In what style, however, this boy addressed himself to his work may be seen from his own despatch addressed to the Council, in his father's absence from London, the French original of which is among the Cottonian manu- scripts. Like all true soldiers, the gallant boy wrote with lucid brevity. ■" As to news from these parts, if you wish to know what has taken place, we were lately informed that Oweyn de Grlendvardy had assembled his forces and those of otlher rebels, his adherents, in great numbers, purposing to commit inroads, and in case of any resistance to his plans on the part of the English, to come to battle with them; and so he boasted to his own people. Wherefore we took our men, and went to a place of the said Owyn, well-built, which was his chief mansion, and called Saghorn, where we thought we should have found him if be wished to fight, as he said ; but on our arrival there we found no person. So we caused the whole pfoce to be set on fire, and many other houses around it, belonging to his tenants ; and then we went straight to bis other place of Glyndvardy, to seek for him there. There we burnt a fine lodge in his park, and the -whole country round. And we remained there all that night. And certain of our people sallied forth chap, mi.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 219 and took a gentleman of high degree of that country, who was one of the said Owyn's chieftains. This per- son offered 500£. for his ransom to save his life, and to pay that sum within two weeks. Nevertheless, that was not accepted, and he was put to death, and several of his companions who were taken the same day met with the same fate. We then proceeded to the Com- mon of Eadruyon, in Monmouthshire, and there laid waste a fine and populous country ; thence we went to Powys, and there being in Wales a want of provender for horses, we made our people carry oats with them, and we tarried there several days. And to give you further information of this expedition, we send to you our well-beloved esquire, John de Waterton, to whom you will be pleased to give entire faith and credence in what he shall report to you on our part with respect to the above-mentioned affair. And may our Lord always have you in his holy keeping." The above is " Given under our signet at Shrewsbury, the 15th day of May, 1401 ;" and we see therein that as yet the Prince has done more by torch and rope than by the sword. And this shows how apt he was in bet- tering the instructions afforded him by Richard, when the latter took him to witness the assault on the strong position of the Great Mac. Fire did good service there, without reaching the Irish Prince ; and it did good ser- vice in Wales, without reaching the Welsh one. I use the term Welsh Prince, because Owen so styled himself, his title was acknowledged by foreign nations, and, moreover, he had supporters whose aid was as useful in its way as that of Kings or soldiers. In the attempt of Owen Glendower to deprive Prince l2 220 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. Henry of his Principality, the clergy were to be found among the supporters of the rebel chief. Among ministers of note outlawed for being confederated with Owen Glyndyfrdwy, as that notable person was called by those who could pronounce his name, I meet in a collection of manuscripts (167 e) presented in 1844, by the Governors of the Welsh School to the British Museum, with an extract from an ancient manuscript of fines and amercements of the inhabitants of Anglesea for taking part with the redoubtable Owen, to the following effect : — " Leweleinus "Wifort voc. Episcopus Bangor; Ienan ap Bleddyn ap Grono, Glerc, qui se vocat Archdiacon Anglesey. Grif le Yonge Archdiac. Asaph." The elections of these officials are supposed to have been irregular, and advantage was taken therefrom to condemn them to outlawry, a penalty which was shared with them, however, by David Archdeacon of Bangor, of the regularity of whose appointment no question is made. Down to the period of the battle of Shrewsbury, in July, 1403, the still boy-prince was active in forays against the Welsh ; but sometimes so distressed for pay for his troops that he had to pawn his own " little stock of jewels," as he says, in a letter to the Council, in order to procure money for that end. His thoughts were not, however, all given up to war. He had leisure enough to visit the South, and to be in London to give his consent to a marriage which was never to be accom- plished — namely, his own with a daughter of Erie King of Denmark — a monarch to whom the Prince's sister, Philippa, was subsequently espoused. Meanwhile, Henry was created Lieutenant of Wales, and the young chap. Tin.] HENRY OP MONMOUTH. 221 hero was speedily placed upon his mettle, for Henry- Percy, the gallant Hotspur, who had been the best soldier on the King's side that had maintained his cause in the Principality, now fell off from his alle- giance. The whole of his family and followers joined with the rebel, and the envenomed quarrel was, at length, brought to issue in Heytely Field, adjacent to the city of Shrewsbury. The defection of the Percies had not lasted five days before the royal forces attacked them, unsupported as they were by Glendower. A fiercer war-lesson of three hot hours' duration no student of the bloody science could have received, than that which Harry of Monmouth obtained in this the first pitched-battle in which he was ever engaged. It was fought on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, the 21st of July, 1407. As chroniclers are altogether divided as to the circum- stances under which this decisive action commenced, it may suffice to say that from its opening to its close it raged with excessive fury on both sides. Hotspur's terrible archers opened this festival of death by incessant discharges of arrows, every one of which found its aim in a soldier's breast. The King's bow- men rendered as good service, on their side, in Heytely Field ; and the presence of King and Prince, and the encouragement given by their voice and example, nerved each follower of the royal standard to do his very utmost to carry the honours of the day. After an ineffectual general attack, Percy made a last resolute assault upon the King's own position, and the slaying of his person as the great end and glory of the struggle. Thitherward he flung himself (the " English Chronicle" 222 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. says, with only thirty men) with unparalleled bravery, his archers clearing lines of men in the direction of the royal standard, and his swordsmen and himself smiting down all who rushed in to occupy the gaps. In this fierce struggle the Prince of Wales received his first wound, from an arrow in the face. He hardly needed this spur to increased audacity ; hut, under the sting, he rolled back a tide of war that had more than once imperilled the life of his father, and in which three or four soldiers, habited like the King, had loyally perished. The royal standard had thrice been cast down, recovered, and raised, and the issue of the day was as yet uncertain, when Hotspur was seen to go down, smitten by a chance flight from an English bow. The cry, " Henry Percy is slain !" effected more than all besides. It withered the arms of his followers, and strengthened those of his enemies. The hearts of the rebels were chilled, those of the royalists beat high with security of triumph, and one crowning effort left the King and Prince of "Wales victors, and secured for them the crown which was, more than once, nearly lost in the field by Shrewsbury. So conspicuously did the Prince bear himself in this school of blood and battle which he first seriously entered on this day, as to give, so Speede remarks, " no small hope of that perfection which afterwards shone in him." The wound in his face was his baptism of blood, and, from this anniversary of St. Mary Magdalen, the boy was henceforth a true and gallant soldier. On his own side, that day, there fell fifteen hundred men-at-arms, "many esquires and gentlemen," half a score of young knights (who fell about the standard whither Hotspur ohap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 228 cut his way), and one earl — of Stafford. "Thrm thousand sorely wounded/' suggests the obstinacy o£ a struggle, in which the vanquished lost five thousand common soldiers, and most of the esquires and gen- tlemen of Cheshire, to the number of a couple, of hundred. The slaughter on the latter side had been greater had the King and Prince pursued the affrighted multitude which took to flight after their great leader was slaini; but, out of compassion, it is said, these were left to shift for themselves. The few illustrious prisoners taken in this flight were executed on the following Monday — as traitors. And thus ended a contest,, in the three hours of whose raging the boy -prince, at Shrewsbury, distinguished himself as brilliantly as had been done on a previous occasion, by the boy-prince, at Cressy. Such was the training of a Prince of Wales> such the work expected of him, such the perils to which he was exposed, in the old days when might was right ! One feature of the times which was exhibited after the issue of the " sad and sorry day" had been accom- plished, merits attention. This was a commission of mercy, of which the Prince of Wales was appointed the head; and for some time the youthful warrior sat: at Shrewsbury, extending, in his father's name, pardon and assurances of safety to all who came from the side of the rebels to ask the boon. The Prince's own establishment in town, the settling of which was occupying the Lords of the Council, pro/- fited greatly by the issue of the battle of Shrewsbury. All the prisoners of note who carried their plate with 224 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOEK. [book II. them to the field, forfeited their property to the King, and he made over the plate to the Prince of Wales, who had previously pawned his own jewels in order to pro- vide pay and food for his troops. This " prize" was well earned. Brief time, too, did the Prince retain it in his possession, seeing that before his victory over the "Welsh at Grosmont, in 1405, he was again compelled to pawn plate and jewels. Within that period he kept, for a while, a " small household" at Worcester, where, when visited by great nobles of large retinues, the visitors paid their own expenses ! There, too, he devised means to crush the continued attempts of the Welsh to secure Glendower's rule in Wales ; and applied those means on the 11th of March, 1405, when "with a very small force in all he encountered 8000 rebels, near Grosmont, in Monmouthshire, and routed them with a loss of nearly a 1000 slain." "Very true it is," writes the Prince of Wales to his father, " that victory is not in a mul- titude of people, but in the power of God." The young soldier of eighteen was as kind as he was brave. v Prisoners," he writes, "there ] was none taken save one, who was a great chieftain among them, whom I would have sent to you, but he cannot yet ride at his ease." For several years, however, the young Prince, even with a large force, found it difficult to keep the Welsh in check. Their rebellion was hydra-headed. Trodden down in one district, a flaming crest arose in another. Supplies forwarded to the Prince were mis- applied ; and the royal treasury was too exhausted to repair the evil effectually. Nevertheless, he main- tained way gallantly, won the admiration of the chap, mi.] HENRY OP MONMOUTH. 225 people, the praise of Parliament, and the love of his father. For his brilliant performance of his arduous duties, no poor acknowledgment, the King conferred on him the castle and estates at Framlingham, which had been confiscated from the Duke of Norfolk. Alternating expeditions in "Wales with short sojourns in London, where he took part in the regulation of national affairs, his sword and name had become so famous that he was engaged, in 1407, to suppress an outbreak in Scotland ; and performed his task with his usual brilliant success. On his return to Wales, the rebellion there finally died out before him ; and Owen Glendower himself vanished from the scene, never again to be heard of. Honours flowed in upon the pacificator, who, after his return to London, was at various periods made President of the Council, Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Dover, and Captain of Calais. His revenues, when keeping house in London, and, indeed, elsewhere, were exceedingly scanty ; but the King found means to increase them by giving him the custody of disaffected persons, and assigning him compensation for his trouble, from the duties on skins and wools. In 1408, Henry of Monmouth finally quitted Wales, where he had first appeared in 1401 ; thus serving, as it were, an actual apprenticeship of war from his four- teenth to his twenty-first year. His master-hand, in later years, testified to the efficiency of the school in which he had been reared. Three different negotiations were carried on sub- sequently to this for the marriage of the young Prince. The families of the sovereigns of France, Norway, and Burgundy were successively applied to, to yield a l3 226 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book h. daughter ; but difficulties supervened, and Henry con- tinued a bachelor till after he was King ; and wooed in person young Katherine of France. Meanwhile, the Prince often presided at the Council for or with his father, who ultimately settled upon him his mansion in Cold Harbour, near Eastcheap, where it is certain Harry held a joyous establishment. Thence he frequently repaired to court accompanied by crowds of followers ; and thither such liberal supplies of wine were conveyed as probably justify the legend, that he was at the head of a hilarious, if not of a riotous house- hold. Of actual wild living, such as might agree with the term "madcap Harry," there is no evidence. In this respect his brothers Thomas and John seem to have been more audacious libertines than he. One instance is cited by Stowe. It occurred on a grand Mid- summer holiday of 1410. In the chronicler's words : — " The King's sons, Thomas and John, being in East- cheap, at supper, or rather at breakfast (for it was after the watch was broken up, between two and three of the clock, after midnight), a great debate happened between their men and others of the court, which lasted for an hour, even till the mayor and sheriffs with other citizens, appeased the same ; for the which afterwards the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs were sent for to answer before the King ; his sons and divers lords being highly moved against the city. At which time, William Gascoigne, Chief Justice, required the mayor and aldermen, for the citizens, to put them in the King's grace." This was accomplished, the city authorities justifying the course which they had adopted, and the King expressing his satisfaction therewith. chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 227 I now come to two points in the Prince's life which have heen turned to his disadvantage, but which, fairly examined, will be found to redound to his credit. In the second year of his father's reign, a statute was levelled against heretics, which was called the " burning statute," and which surrendered them and their offence to spiritual cognizance. One of the earliest acts of the Prince of Wales, after his appointment to the Presidency of the Council, was the presenting to the King the petition of " his humble son, Henry the Prince, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in this present Pariia>- ment assembled," praying that " Lollards and other speakers and contrivers of news might, after the feast of Epiphany next ensuing, be apprehended and kept in safe custody till the next Parliament, and there to answer to the charges against them." To this petition, which rescued heretics from the spiritual tribunal, and ■sent them for judgment to the Parliament, the King- assented; "but," says Mr. Hallam, "the clergy,. I suppose, prevented its appearing on the roll." Subsequently, there was a poor Worcestershire tailor — a meek vocation which furnished some of the most valiant-hearted of religious martyrs — one John Badby, whose examinations and trial for heresy had, after fourteen months' duration, brought him to the stake in Smithfield. The Prince of Wales was present at his execution, by fire, from which he attempted to save this most dignified and courageous of tailors, who resolutely denied transubstantiation. To all counsel of the Prinea, to all the expoundings of the Prior of St. Bartholomew, the consistent Badby uttered his resolute nay ! And,, tied to the stake as he was, a butt or tun was passed 228 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book n. over him, and fire set to the faggots heaped up around it. Badby was then heard appealing to the mercy of God. The Prince thought he was appealing to the mercy of man, and ordered the fire to be quenched, and the butt raised. Again was pardon and even money offered to the tailor if he would recant. But no, even with the foretaste of the horrible torture, he would not surrender his opinion touching the real presence. The Prince had gone as far as his rank and authority per- mitted — perhaps somewhat further, and leaving the calmly heroic tailor to his awful sufferings, he rode slowly, and no doubt sadly, away. From this period till the year of the King's death, the history of this Prince of Wales is divided into the certain and the uncertain — dry fact and interesting legend. Since 1407, the King's health had been failing. He was almost as a leper, and the Prince had been assigned by consent of the council to be near his father's presence, that he might devote himself more peculiarly to the public service. In 1412 he ceased to be of the council at all, and was deprived of the virtue and exercise of the royal authority, which he had so sub- stantially possessed, that foreign potentates, the Prince's own brothers, and the supreme Pontiff himself, addressed their letters to the Prince of Wales and not to the King. Within the period marked by the two dates, the activity of the Prince was very great, whether acting as President of the Council, Captain of Calais, or pursuing pirates, as Warden of the Cinque Ports. Within that period, too, negotiations for his marriage with the Duke of Burgundy's daughter were commenced and broken off. The Duke had offered his daughter as a wife for chap, m] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 229 the Prince, subject to the King furnishing him with aid in his quarrel with the Duke of Orleans. Henry seems to have been dissatisfied with the proposed dower of the bride, and though he first espoused the quarrel of Bur- gundy, he subsequently went over to the Orleans faction. The Prince did not readily follow his father's example, and this is said to have commenced an ill-feeling between them, which was embittered by slanderous enemies of the Prince, among whom has been reckoned his father's second wife, Queen Joanna, who is said to have been jealous of the power of her step-son. At one period of their lives, at least, the Prince of Wales and his step- mother were on friendly terms. When the former held in his custody the young Earl of March, he bribed the Queen to use her influence with her husband Boling- broke to obtain his consent that the Earl should contract a marriage. It was an extraordinary course for the Prince to take, the Queen to sanction, or the King to further, for the Earl had a better claim to the throne (as the descendant of an elder brother of John of Gaunt) than the King himself. The Issue Bolls of the first year after the accession of the Prince of Wales to the throne record as follows : — " To Joanna Queen (dowager) of England. To money paid to her by the hands of Parnelle Brocket and Nicholas Alderayre, in part payment of a greater sum due to the said Queen upon a private agreement made between the said Queen and our present lord the King, especially concerning the marriage of the Earl of March, purchased and obtained of our said lady the Queen, by our said now lord the King, whilst he was Prince of Wales. By writ Privy Seal, 100£." Another entry notes the payment of an 230 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book it. equal sum to the Queen Dowager, instalment of a bribe administered with the same end in view. To return to the aspersions on the Prince's character. One of them lay in the accusation of his having misap- propriated money supplied for the pay of the troops guarding Calais ; but this charge was triumphantly re- futed. The year before he ceased to be of the Council he is also said to have exhibited unseemly eagerness that his father should resign his sovereign authority alto- gether ; but this, too, would seem to be greatly exagge- rated, although the troops of friends, and crowds of lords and gentles whom he assembled around him, looked more than ever like the founding of a hostile court, which was already more numerous and brilliant than that of his father. Traces there are, too, of the paternal mistrust of the heir-apparent. Thus we read of the Prince entering London numerously attended, and taking up his residence with the Bishop of Durham. Of this the King is no sooner informed, than he hastily leaves the Priory of St. John where he was sojourning, repairs to the house of the Bishop of London, and finally to his own residence at Rotherhithe. Finally, we come to the famous story of the Prince and the Chief Justice, a story accepted by some historians and alto- gether denied by others. I have alluded to the undoubted circumstance of the dismissal of the Prince of Wales from the Royal Council, and of the substitution of his brother Thomas in his place. Popular tradition recognises in this fact the penalty inflicted by the King in return for the extreme contempt of court exhibited by the Prince in striking, or raising his hand against, Chief Justice Gascoigne, chap, vni.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 231 who had committed a follower of the Prince to prison, refused to release him at the Prince's request, and who committed the Prince himself to the same restraint, for his disrespect of the King's authority in the person of the Chief Justice. The truth of this well-known legend has been hotly contested, — some upholding, others stoutly denying it altogether. The old chroniclers — grandsons and great-grandsons of the contemporaries of the Prince, accept the story, with such variations, more or less important of detail, as rather add to than detract from the possibility of this remarkable legend. Mr. Tyler, in his history of Henry V., has gone into the question at very great length, and refuses to give any credence whatever to the story as told, or to the alleged " mad- cap " doings of the Prince of Wales. This biographer, very much in love with his hero, grounds his objections to the authenticity of the story, on the circumstance that no contemporary makes record of the alleged fact, while those who do speak of the Prince mention him as a pious, learned, well-regulated young man, whose tastes were not in accordance with indulgence in Eastcheap revelries, and swaggering ruffianly in court next morning. The dramatists who brought the story on the stage, and the chroniclers who registered it a century or more after it was said to have occurred, Mr. Tyler treats these as gossips whose slander is not worthy of attention. On the other hand, Lord Campbell is at the head of an adverse faction, who hold that even gossip has some foundation, and that although the facts may not be as Shakspeare and the other play-writers, and Elyot, Elmham, and successive chroniclers have represented them, yet that they have in them many ingredients of 232 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. truth. The evidence on either side has been sifted with great care, and elaborately analysed. I will rather refer my readers to Tyler, Campbell, Foss, Cole, and the editors of the Chronicle-biographies of Henry V., than reproduce the conclusions arrived at by those gentle- men; satisfying myself with remarking that the learned judge named above, who has most experience in ex- amining testimony and detecting its value, is of opinion that there is a foundation for the reports of the gay and joyous life led by the Prince, and that the incident of assaulting the judge on the bench, though it may have been exaggerated, is in substance possible and probable. Allowing the tradition of the committal of the Prince to be true, another question has arisen, as to whether Gascoigne of the King's Bench, or Markham of the Common Pleas, was the committing judge. That the former was the individual who exercised the act of virtuous audacity has been established as nearly as such a circumstance can be established, by Lord Campbell. On the other hand, the Reverend D. F. Markham, in " A History of the Markham Family," cites a written memorandum made by his ancestor, Francis Markham, a lawyer, author, and soldier of the age of Elizabeth, to the following effect : — " In Henry IV/s time, Sir John Markham was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, when a servant of the Prince of Wales, for coining money, was in Newgate to be judged before him. The Prince, sending to have him released, the judge refused. The Prince with an unruly rout came and required it. The judge refused. The Prince stroke the judge on the face ; the judge committed the Prince to the Fleet. The Kino- being told it, thanked God he had so good a judge, and so chap. Tin.] HENEY OF MONMOUTH. 233 obedient a son to yield to the law." To this a ready answer may be found in the fact that false-coining being a felony, such an offence could not be tried in the Com- mon Pleas, but must have been brought before the King's Bench. Mr. Markham, however, makes one more attempt to connect the name of his ancestor with the act, by stating his belief that " every authority agrees that the Prince was committed to the Fleet, the prison of the Common Pleas." This is far from being the case, as is manifest in the fact that for a long period a room was pointed out in the King's Bench as being the actual chamber occupied by the Prince of Wales when under committal. This last fact, which has escaped the notice of those who have hitherto discussed the question, is mentioned by Oldys, in a note to his "Life ofGaseoyne," in the " Biographia Britannica." It is the more singular that this fact has not been alluded to by Mr. Markham, as he quotes the "Biographia" on another occasion, and must necessarily have perused the article on the judge. Leaving my readers to exercise their own discretion on this vexed question, I proceed to notify the increas- ing illness of the Prince's father, and to remark, that as the death of King Henry grew imminent, the enemies of his house grew more active than ever in obstructing the peaceful succession of the Prince of Wales to the crown. The old fable of a living King Richard was revived, and emissaries from Scotland traversed the villages of England, in the last year of Bolingbroke's reign, declaring that Richard was residing at the Scottish Court, awaiting only a signal from his friends to repair to London and recover his throne. The mdi- 234 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. [book ii. vidual who represented the dead King in the Court of Scotland was one John Ward of Trumpington. His features were of the Plantagenet cast, and one Wight- lock who had been for thirty years groom and yeoman to Richard, on seeing Ward, acknowledged him for his old King and master. The boldness of the conspirators was calculated in some degree to alarm the Prince for the security of his inheritance. On the gates of Westminster Abbey, on the public buildings of London, and about the royal manor of Bermondsey, Wightlock posted papers in which he vouched that King Richard was alive in Scotland, and that he himself was prepared to enter any prison as a hostage, till the identity was satisfactorily established. He proposed that Ms King Richard should be brought to London, protected by a safe conduct ; and, should that individual be clearly proved to be an im- poster, Wightlock " offered himself freely to submit to the most cruel death that rage could invent ;" adding that, " he was as sure that King Richard was alive in England as that he had a father and mother, and was born into the world and redeemed by Christ. And he imprecated that the devil might take him to lie body and soul in hell eternally — that he might never have mercy from God, nor the prayers of the holy church from that day to the last judgment, if what he asserted was not true." This bold fellow was seized and confronted with the King, to whose face he resolutely maintained that the Prince of Wales was not heir to the crown, which Henry unrighteously kept from Richard of Bordeaux. They chap. Tin.] HENRY OF MONMOUTH. 235 committed Richard's daring yeoman to the Tower ; but- to the universal astonishment, Wightlock made his escape. Constable and lieutenant were degraded, fined, and imprisoned, but the penalties imposed on those ex- alted officials were remitted. It was necessary, how- ever, to punish some one, and accordingly choice was made of one Bathe, to whose ward Wightlock had been committed, and the humbler officer was hauged, drawn, and quartered. The last days of Bolingbroke were, however, again embittered, and the peaceful transfer of the crown to his son the Prince again impeded by the partisans of the pseudo Richard. Again, on the gates of Bermondsey Church, and on those of St. Thomas's Hospital, was Wightlock's declaration planted, and Southwark was excited to insurrection by Sir Elias Lyvet and one Thomas Clark, who promised aid from Scotland and the Principality to carry out the attempt towards success. Again, too, were the offenders taken, and unequal justice administered ; for the knight was set at liberty, while his poor follower was remitted to the Tower, not to be released till the Prince of Wales was firmly seated on the throne, which he already, it was said, too eagerly and impatiently coveted. . However this may be, it is certain that father and son were reconciled before the former was summoned away. Stowe relates that the Prince vindicated his character, in letters distributed over the realm, and that he was granted an interview by his sick father, in which the Prince so successfully explained his own conduct that the King pronounced him free from all suspicion, fell on his 236 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. neck, kissed him, called him his "right dear and heartily- beloved son," and undertook that he should have justice of his slanderers. Whenever this scene occurred it was closely followed by the death of Bolingbroke. Romancer and poet have depicted this last scene according to the spirit of their vocation. The time is certain, March 20, 1412, but the incidents are variously related. Perhaps Trussell, without abandoning all romance, has preserved the essential truths of the story ; and with his account I conclude the subject. Having stated that the King was at Westminster, preparing a crusade, he adds : — "The enemy of mankind seized upon him with an apoplexy, the fits whereof divers times would show him dead to those about him ; but ever upon his recovery again of sense, he would demand for his crown, which he appointed, all the time of his sickness, to be placed upon a cushion in his sight. At length, the extremity of his disease increasing, he lay as though all his vital spirits had forsaken him, insomuch, that those that were about him deemed him dead, and covered his face. The Prince having notice thereof, came and took away the crown, and departed. The father reviving, de- manded for the crown ; and hearing that the Prince had taken it, he sends for him, and angrily demandeth his reason of his so doing ; to whom the Prince, with a confident brow, made an answer, that in his and all men's judgment there present, he was dead ; and then ' I being next heir-apparent to the same, took it as my indubitable right, not as yours, but mine.' ' Well/ said the King, and sighed, ' fair son, what right I had to it God knoweth.' ' But/ saith the Prince, ' if you die chap, vni.] HJENRY OP MONMOUTH. 237 King, I doubt not to hold the garland as you have done, with my sword, against all opposers.' 'Then/ saith the King, ' I refer all to God, but charge thee on my blessing, and as thou wilt answer it before the tribunal of God, that thou minister the laws indifferently ; that thou ease the oppressed ; that thou avoid flatterers ; that thou do not defer justice, nor be sparing of mercy, but punish the oppressors of thy people; and suffer not officers to make their places the stalking-horses to their will. So shalt thou obtain favour of God, and love of thy subjects; who, whilst they have wealth, so long shalt thou have obedience; but being made poor by oppression, will be ever ready to stir and make insurrec- tions.' And so, turning about, said, ' God bless thee, and have mercy upon me !' And so he gave up the ghost in a chamber of the Abbot of Westminster, which the servants there called Jerusalem." Thus died Bolingbroke. On Trinity Sunday, his obsequies were performed at Canterbury, Henry of Monmouth being present, making offering at the altar, and depositing his father by the side of that Black Prince, Edward of Woodstock, whose son he had deposed and murdered. Henry of Monmouth occupied the throne from 1413 to 1422. Within that period he took advantage of the anarchy in France to invade that kingdom with 30,000 men ; whence, after the surrender of Harneur, he was about to return with his enfeebled army, when he was encountered at Agincourt by a French force quadruple his own; which he conquered with little loss to himself, but with that of 10,000 slain, and 15,000 238 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOKK. [book n. prisoners, on the part of the foe. The victory led him to become heir of the French throne and husband of Katherine, the King's daughter. In the midst of a triumphant career he was cut off, through the unskilful- ness of his doctors, leaving his English crown and his French heirship to his only son, Henry VI., at that time but a few months old. This occurred in 1422 ; and by the time that Henry VI. had reached man's estate, Joan of Arc had stripped the English of nearly 1 all their conquests in France. England itself had sunk into a condition of extreme misery; and, one bright feature of a generally gloomy lot, Henry VI. had espoused, in 1445, Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Rene, titular King of Sicily and Jerusalem, and the prince of troubadours. This ill-matched pair, King almost too bashful to look his fair wife in the face, she as energetic and as ambi- tious as she was beautiful and accomplished, were married at Titchfield Abbey, on the 22nd of April, 1445. The bridegroom was in his twenty-second year, the bride in her sixteenth ; and nearly nine years elapsed before a son, an only child, was born to them — first of the three young and hapless Edwards. I will add, by the way, that Henry VI. was the last English-born and first-born son of an English-bom King, who succeeded his father on the throne, until the accession of George IV., in 1820. The intervening period com- prises an extent of upwards of 400 years. chap, nc.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 239 CHAPTER IX. EDWARD OE WESTMINSTER (LANCASTER). Boen 1453. Slain (Pkince of Wales) 1471. When the only child of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou was born in the palace at Westminster on October 13, 1453, there was an universal uneasiness in, and gloom resting on, the nation. The country had been humiliated by the loss or surrender of nearly all the English possessions in France. The people were oppressed by taxation, and suffering from scarcity. The King had already manifested a tendency towards that insanity by which he was more grievously afflicted on several later occasions. Margaret was un- popular, for she was at once poor and proud ; and the internal 'peace of the kingdom was menaced by the birth of this child of infelicity. Until Edward was born, the heir-presumptive to the crown was Richard, Duke of York. Henry VI. was the great-grandson of John of Gaunt. In the Lancaster view of the succession, Richard of York was the pre- sumptive heir, because he was the grandson of Edmund of Langley (Duke of York), next brother of John of Gaunt. Edmund's son, Richard (Earl of Cambridge), had married Anne Mortimer, and their son, Richard of York, was the presumptive heir of Lancaster, till Edward of Westminster was born. 240 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. But there was a York view of the succession ; and according to that view the birth of young Edward did not set aside the claim of Richard of York as the right- ful heir to the throne. My readers will, of course, not have forgotten a son of Edward III. — " Long Lionel." This Lionel, Duke of Clarence, was an elder brother of John of Gaunt; and his children, and not those of John, were nearest to the throne when Richard II. was compelled to lay down the sceptre. Now, Lionel had but one child, Philippa, married to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. This illustrious couple had a son, Roger, who became the father of that Anne Mortimer, mentioned above, as the wife of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. Of this last marriage was born Richard, Duke of York, whose right to the crown rested on his descent from Lionel. The York claim was undoubtedly a legal claim ; but the nation had accepted the rule of Lancaster, had reaped glory under it, and had legalized it by more than half a century of loyal obedience. Such was the state of things in England when a birth which made a mother's heart glad brought such calamity on England as it never knew before — and happily, will never know again. Poor Prince ! He paid the penalty as if he had been the prime offender, and the cause of all. Born on St. Edward's day, the Queen conferred on him the popular name. The pious would be glad to hear him called after the saintly King ; they who sighed for the prosperity of England hoped his future reign would be as long and as glorious as that of Edward of Windsor ; and old and young soldiers might be expected to augur well of the namesake of the Black Prince. chap. Et] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER . 241 Save that he had no royal gossips, he was right royally christened. Waynflete of Winchester was the bishop who held him at the font, around which was spread a score of yards of russet cloth of gold, and on this stood Cardinal Kemp (Archbishop of Canterbury), the Duke of Somerset, and the Duchess of Buckingham, the sponsors. The monks of Westminster were liberal with their tapers, flinging light on the baby whose chris- tening mantle cost the extravagant sum of 554£. 16*. 8d. Five thousand pounds sterling of our present coin would not represent the value, and how Henry's treasury ever supplied it, save by pawning the royal jewels, a course to which he and other English Kings have been compelled, I cease to conjecture, for I can find nothing that will account for this marvel. At the ceremony at the Abbey, the King was not present. His mental imbecility even then oppressed him. The mother, however, was there ; and within and beyond the Abbey, Yorkist partisans scorningly remarked that the King's absence did not imply that of the father of the child. The young Queen was already assailed by calumny, charging her with a conspiracy to force an infant impostor upon the heirship of England. Henry was in retirement at Windsor. After the new year, 1454, a trial was made upon his feelings and his powers of observation, both of which had, during several months, continued inactive, — by showing him his infant son. The child's godfather, Buckingham, bore him in his arms into the King's chamber. Henry looked on incurious and unconscious. Buckingham performed his task tenderly, presented the little Prince to M 242 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. his father in " goodly wise," and earnestly besought the King to bless the child. The King remained untouched and mute. The Duke continued his appeal, but Henry also continued unaffected, heedless, silent. And then Margaret herself advanced, hoping to have more suc- cess than Buckingham. The young mother took her boy in her arms, stood with him before the King, and showing the child to the father, asked him to bless his son. For a moment she had hope that the magic of her voice and presence had not failed, for the King turned his eyes towards her and upon the child, but they fell again languidly, the mind discerning nothing of that on which they had idly rested. And so, in disappoint- ment, Margaret and the ducal godfather retired with the Prince. Not till the happy Christmas time of this year, 1454, was any change in this mournful condition worked, for the better. On that day, however, the mental health of the King began to amend, and there- with his sense of piety, marked by an order, given by himself to his almoner, to ride to Canterbury with an offering; and to his secretary to repair to St. Edward's shrine in Westminster Abbey, to perform the same grate- ful service in the King's name. Encouraged by this spon- taneous act, Margaret, on the afternoon of the very day on which intelligence of it was communicated to her, went into the King's chamber, carrying her child in her arms. Henry recognised one and looked joyfully on both, asking as he gazed upon the fair and delicate boy, by what name he had been called. The Queen re- plied, that the Prince had been named " Edward." At that name consciousness and memory appeared to ac- chap, ix.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 243 quire strength, for the King at the mention of it threw up his arms and thanked the Lord. And (writes Mar- garet to John Paston in the collection of letters made by Sir John Penn), "he said he never knew, till that time, nor wist not what was said to him, nor wist not where he had been, whiles he hath been sick till now. And he asked who were godfathers, and the Queen told him, and he was well content." Meanwhile, however, much had been done during the King's illness at which, whether he were well content or otherwise, there are n» means of discovering. Parlia- ment had appointed Richard of York " Protector and defender of the King," offices to be exercised " during the King's pleasure, or until such time as Edward the Prince should come^to age of discretion." Patents, which ran in the King's name, notified various grants, among which was one which settled on the infant Prince the same amount of revenue as his father had enjoyed at the same early age ; and another received the sanction of Lords and Commons for creating young Edward Prince of Wales. While some historians state that Edward was created Prince of Wales in his first, others declare it to have been in his fourth year. The earlier period is the cor- rect one, and the circumstance is only worth noting as it has reference to the first heir apparent who was created to that title at so tender an age. "Worshipful sir," writes William Botoner, " to my Master Paston " (in the collection above named), — "Worshipful sir and my good master, after due recommendations, with all my true services preceding, like you to wit (know) that as to novelties, &c, the Prince shall be created at Windsor, M 2 244 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. upon Pentecost Sunday, the Chancellor (Neville, Earl of Salisbury), the Duke of Buckingham, and many other lords of estate present with the Queen." The letter containing this passage is dated " Saturday, 8 June, 1454," and the next day, Pentecost Sunday, as Sir John Fenn remarks, "was the 9th; whereas the same festival, in 1457, fell on the 5th of June, of which year's festival a writer could not speak on the 9th in the future tense." But whatever the date, no happiness accrued with the title to the young wearer of it. • He was not yet two years old when that series of battles began, in 1455, which ended with his own murder, and the entire downfall of the House of Lancaster in 1471. Those sanguinary contests, amounting tg twelve, divide them- selves into three parts. During the first eight years of this unparalleled struggle, eight battles were fought, in six of which the Yorkists carried off the victory. During nearly eight years that followed, the Queen and Prince of Wales were refugees in France. Two actions took place while the royal fugitives were abroad, in one of which each faction gained a triumph. The two con- cluding contests which followed were alike favourable to York, and Tewkesbury confirmed the promise made by the first struggle at St. Albans. Throughout this period, the young Prince of Wales is, with slight exceptions, more heard of than seen. Till the fatal day of Tewkesbury he is generally covered by his mother's robe. Now and again, he is near a stricken field, but we only catch a distant glimpse of the boy, generally fleeing with his bold but tender- hearted mother. It is only at Tewkesbury we see him chap. rx.J EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 245 close at hand, armed and striking, more gracefully than forcibly, in his own cause. I have said that the first of these contests took place at St. Albans. It was brought on by an attempt of the Duke of York to enter London, seize upon the King, and recover the supremacy he had held during Henry's illness. To intercept him, Henry, or rather his friend the Duke of- Somerset, gave the Duke of York battle near the town just named. While it was fought and lost, the Prince of Wales was in the good keeping of his mother at Greenwich, where she heard of that calamitous May day in which Lancaster lost 5000 friends, York scarcely more than as many hundred, and the King himself was taken. He had quietly walked into the thatched cottage of a village baker, and there, as quietly, yielded himself captive to York, expressing no other feeling but horror at the mutual slaughter of Englishmen. The household at Greenwich was alarmed, and the Prince's godfather, Buckingham, felt that if his godson's inheritance was imperilled when York made of Henry but " a Whitsuntide Lord," it was even worse now that the King was a captive. With York restored to the protectorate, the Prince's rights were not ignored, and whether child and mother were under surveillance at Hertford or Greenwich, the claims of the former were upheld by Parliament. That assembly granted him 10,000 marks annually till he should, reach the age of eight years, and double that amount for the following six years. This sum was for his wardrobe and pay of servants. His own diet and resi- dence were ordered to be provided for him in the King's court. 246 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. "When Margaret subsequently contrived to obtain a parliamentary decree which restored the King to her and to himself, she might have held her own more securely had she been less daring and ambitious* To avoid the Yorkist plotters in London, Margaret made a progress into Warwickshire, with the King and Prince, hawking and hunting by the way, enjoying various pastimes, and making a joyous sojourn at Coventry, where she was personally popular, and the people were the stanch upholders of her husband and son. Thereupon followed a reconciliation between the illus- trious adversaries, and peace seemed for awhile to smile promisingly upon the land. But sharp-sighted per- sonages beheld wonderful things — huge cocks rising from the sea, and crowing like thunder ; and gigantic whales floundering in the Thames; and births very much opposed to the order of nature ; and they natu- rally concluded that mischief was portended. Then, after the return of the court to London, quarrels ensued and increased in intensity till the Earl of Salisbury flew to arms ; and, in 1459, the Prince's inheritance was once more in peril. Now, young Edward possessed in Margaret of' Anjou, a mother as ambitious as she was energetic. Her ambition, however, was rather to secure her son's power than establish her own, and although she and her foreign kindred ruled the realm and applied the revenue, as seemed most fitting to them, the succes- sion of Prince Edward was the object. Meanwhile, her favourites "peeled the poor people;" and the popular voice, in return, again denied the legitimacy of the Prince ; ridiculing the lawfulness of his heirship as a CHAP. IX.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 247 Lancastrian, and declaring him to be a bastard Lan- castrian, " gotten in Coventry." Margaret speedily; however, made use of the Prince to further he? own purpose. " 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 their benevolence, and held open household among them ; and made her son, called the Prince, give a livery of swans to all the gentlemen of the county, and to many other throughout the land, trusting through their strength to make her son King ; making privy means to some of the Lords of England for to stir the King that he should resign the crown to her son ; but she could not bring her purpose about." So writes the author of " An English Chronicle," seventeen years subsequent to the period to which the above passage refers, and, though • his statement may not be in the main true, it reflects much of the feeling and opinions of the day. However this may be, a present issue was fought out on the 13th of September, 1459, at Blore Heath, in Shrop- shire, where Salisbury routed the Lancastrian army, under Lord Audley, slaying that leader in the fight. York thus strengthened, bent himself to increase of effort, to counteract which, full pardon was offered by Henry to all who would lay down their arms. Mar- garet's voice was heard in the proclamation, and the Yorkists returned for answer that " there was no trusting the King's promises as long as the hett crowed." To her, all activity, good or evil, was attri- buted ; and not altogether without reason. The King was at Coleshill, in Warwickshire, when Margaret saw the battle of Blore Heath fought, especially to make his 248 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. residence there secure. She saw Audley defeated from the tower of Macclestone Church, and thence fled to the Prince at Eeeleshall Castle. Henry had to move, or rather to he removed, from Coleshill, and he was so far interested in the matter as to faintly ask those who were carrying him off, " Which side has gained the day?" Distrust of Margaret led to the next slaughter, the dreadful two hours near Northampton, in July, 1460. From seven to nine o'clock on that summer morning, Margaret and young Edward looked upon the fight, at a distance, and the Prince of Wales beheld that other Edward who was to rob him of crown and life— Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of Richard of York, win a triumph of which Margaret thought her husband secure. That husband followed his wont when beaten, quietly sat down in his tent, and there solitarily awaited his being taken prisoner. From the field, in which the Prince's godfather, the Duke of Buckingham, was slain, the King was carried off prisoner to London, while Margaret fled with the Prince of Wales, first to Durham, thence by Eggeshall to Chester, and finally to Harlech Castle, in Wales. There followed the august fugitives a retinue of only eight persons, and these went not unmolested on their way. The Queen had jewels with her to a considerable amount, and before entering Wales she was stopped and robbed of them, she escaping with the Prince, while the robbers were inspecting a booty which is said to have been of the value of 10,000 marks. Poor as they were, the wearied pair found refuge amongst faithful Welsh lieges. Meanwhile extraordinary chap, ix.] EDWAED OF WESTMINSTER. 249 events were taking place in London, where York was paramount, and exacting from the Lancastrian King and the Parliament, the abolition of all right to the throne of Prince Edward of "Westminster. Therewith must be recorded a circumstance of some singularity, namely, that in this year, 1460, there were two Princes of "Wales in England. The rival of Prince Edward of Westmin- ster was this Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who was so soon afterwards to be slain at Wakefield, but who now laid claim to the crown, as nearest heir, which could not be gainsaid, of Richard II. In the year just named, holding (as I have said) King Henry in his power, the now Yorkist Parliament recognised his claim as heir, and " it was ordained by the said Parliament, that the said Richard, Duke of York, should be called Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester, and he was made also by the same Parliament, Protector of England."* This title was conferred on Richard Plantagenet, on the last day of October, 1460, and he possessed it, without however publicly bearing it, just two months, being slain at Wakefield on the last day of the following December. The triumph for Lancaster, at Wakefield, was thus brought about. Margaret and Edward leaving Har- lech, reached Scotland, where they at first took up their abode at the Monastery of Linclooden, near Dumfries. At this monastery conferences took place between the Scottish Queen, Mary of Gueldres, and Margaret, which lasted twelve days, at which were drank, doubtless by the lords who "assisted," three pipes of French wine ! The two Queens had each a young son, but the Scottish * English Chronicle. Edited by the Rev. J. S. Davies. M 3 250 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOKE, [book ii. boy, James III., was in possession of his inheritance, while the Prince of Wales had now even his title of Prince, as indicating his heirship, denied. In Scotland, however, his rights were recognised, and the hoy lived the life of a Prince, lodging in royal palaces, riding abroad, and having grooms to attend him. Better than all these, the Scottish Government lent his mother aid in money and in troops, and with them she made that dash into England which was gal- lantly met by Richard of York, at Wakefield, to his utter ruin, the loss of his life, and the slaying of his own young son, Rutland, screaming for mercy, at the hands of the ruthless Clifford, who knew it not. If the Prince of Wales beheld this battle, or the scenes of revenge and cruelty which followed it, he had a sorry sight for one so young. But he had, in such case, little leisure to dwell upon acts for which, indeed, ample vengeance was ultimately taken. First, on the Candlemas-day next succeeding, when Edward, Earl of March, routed a Lancastrian army at Mortimer's Cross, with fearful slaughter during and after the fight. The Queen, meanwhile, pushed towards London, but was encountered by the way, at St. Alban's, by the Earl of Warwick, who carried King Henry captive in his train. The fight which here took place, on Shrove Tuesday, is said to have been the first in which the Prince of Wales was actually concerned, but even here we have no means of following him through the fray, though we have the assurance of his mother that he bore himself gallantly where his presence was required. If he was really in "the thick of it," he must have shared in the repulse by Warwick's terrible bowmen, and the counter chap, ix.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 251 repulse which drove Warwick back on his camp, on Barnet Heath. The issue of the bloody struggle here left Margaret mistress of the field, and it was when her surviving enemies were in confused flight that intelligence was brought her of the King being alone, save with three or four who remained with him, in a tent within the hostile camp. The King had despatched one Thomas Hoe, a bar- rister, to thank the victors for their pains, and to ex- press his desire of meeting his deliverers. With a noble retinue the Queen and Prince moved forward to the King's tent, where a joyful reunion took place. The exultation of Margaret was uncontrollable, and it was pardonable when she presented her son to his father; requesting him at the same time to make a knight of the gallant boy, who certainly witnessed the conflict from a very short distance, but was not more actively engaged in it than Margaret herself. " At the Queen's request," says Trussell, " Henry honoured with the order of Knighthood thirty that had fought against the part where he was. The Prince likewise was by him dubbed knight." King, Queen, and Prince slept at the Abbey of St. Albans that night, after a solemn service of thanks- giving, which the abbot and priests would have offered with equal fervour and sincerity had victory sat upon the helms of the Yorkists, and Warwick had been there to command the performance. On the following morning,' that of Ash Wednesday, executions took place as if to intimate that success had not taught the victors mercy. In this work of vengeance the Prince of Wales grievously distinguished himself, if confidence is to be placed in 252 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. the author of the "English Chronicle," who states that Lord Bonwyle, having attempted to escape with War- wick and the other nobles who had recently held the King in captivity, the King had induced him to remain with him, on oath that he should receive no bodily harm. "Nevertheless, notwithstanding that surety," says the chronicler, " at instance of the Queen, the Duke of Exeter, and the Earl of Devonshire, by judg- ment of him that was called the Prince, a child, he was beheaded at St. Albans." But the English chronicler was an arrant Yorkist, recognising no virtue in a Lan- castrian, save valour, nor any vice in a Yorkist at all ; and I am not disposed to place much faith in his asser- tion that a boy so young could have been allowed to have any voice in the sentencing to death a man of any quality, much less a man whose safety had been gua- ranteed on the word of a King. Yet who can say? Margaret herself let loose her northern troops upon the country to plunder it up to the gates of London, through which, soon after, the Londoners righteously refused her entrance. The Prince of Wales issued a proclamation in which he, or rather his mother in his name, disclaimed all intention of inflicting injury on person or property. Is it likely, he asks, that he, "descended of the blood royal, and inheriting the pre-eminence of the realm, should in- tend the destruction of that city which is the King our lord's greatest treasure?" The citizens would not weigh probabilities. Their refusal drove back Margaret and her friends to the North, and on the 4th of March, 1461, the announcement of the accession of the eldest son of Bichard of York to the throne, by the title of chap, n.] EDWAED OF WESTMINSTER. 253 Edward IV., sounded as a death knell in the hearts of the Lancastrians. A fortnight later, King, Queen, and Prince were sheltering in York, their army standing between them and the forces of King Edward. The two opposing powers came into collision at Towton, near Tadcaster, in Yorkshire, on Palm Sunday. There took place that fierce contest of. ten hours' duration, amid fog, then snow and howling wind, at the end of which nearly 37,000 bodies, dead or dying on the field, attested to the obstinacy of the combatants and the hard-won prize carried off by Edward IV. The issue of the day drove the Prince and his royal parents from York to Alnwick, where they tarried some time securely in the castle of the Percy whose body lay on Towton field. But the Yorkists drove northward, and Margaret and Henry carried the heir of England into Scotland, wandering with him through Galloway, and finally obtaining shelter in the old town of Kirkcudbright. To hard straits were the royal party here driven, but they were not without hope of recovering all they had lost. Henry promised English dukedoms to Scottish Earls, for their aid. Queen Margaret, casting her eyes on the young Scottish Princess, her- namesake, promised that the Prince of Wales should- take her for wife, and the throne of England be her future seat, if present succour were yielded them in their extremity. " The King of Scots" (says Trussell) " comforteth them with promise of relief, but maketh a sure bargain, and receiveth, in lieu of a pension to be assigned to, King Henry during his abode there, from him, upon St. Mark's . day, the town and castle of 254 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book h. Berwick-upon-Tweed, to such poor shifts was this potent King driven to pawn his best fortress for bare food." This picture is clearly not overcharged, for as Henry pawned his fortress, so did Margaret pawn a gold cup to the Scottish Queen for a hundred pounds, she being in need of ready money, and Mary of Gueldres probably admiring Margaret's golden cup. In other respects, however, the royal fugitives were not ill-cared for. Old palace apartments were newly furnished for them, provisions were liberally supplied to them, Margaret drew upon the government for about fifty pounds sterling per month, and the dignity of our young Prince of Wales seems to have been fairly sustained, inasmuch as the exchequer-rolls of Scotland make mention of supplying " grain and provender for six horses of the Prince of England in Falkland during twenty-three days, by order of our lady the Queen." Nevertheless, comfort and plenty were not the attendants of each coming day. Queen, King, and Prince on one occasion spent five days together with one day's provision of bread, and one solitary herring between the three ! Of persons so destitute, of course the credit was not very good, and we are told of the royal party being at mass when, the Queen finding her- self without money for the usual offering, asked a Scottish archer at her side to lend her a small sum for the purpose. The Scot weighed the request, and con- sidered it, and did not like it. Neither would he be uncourteous to a lady and a Queen. Slowly, therefore, did he take his bag from his pouch, and reluctantly drew therefrom the smallest current coin of the realm- — • one shabby half-farthing, and unwillingly dropping it chap. IS.] EDWAKD OF WESTMINSTER. 255 into^'the Queen's hand, respectfully invited her to re- member that it was only lent — not given ! Margaret accepted the insult and the loan ; and she acknowledged in after years that of all the painful in- cidents of her adversity, the most painful and the least tolerable was this fact of the un gallant Scottish archer and his wretched half-farthing. In Scotland the royal refugees remained till April, 1462. They were not idle all that time. Emissaries on the continent and in England were fruitlessly active on their behalf. Margaret was impatient, but two of these emissaries, Hungerford and Whyttingham, ad- dressed a joint letter to her, in which they said — " Madam, fear not, but be of good comfort, and beware ye venture not your person, nor my lord the Prince, by sea, till ye have other word from us, .unless your person cannot be sure where you are, and extreme necessity drive ye thence." That necessity soon presented itself. Margaret was at Kirkcudbright when she suddenly heard of the presence of Warwick and a train of Yorkist nobles at Dumfries, only a morning's ride from thence. Warwick came there as a wooer, by proxy, from Edward IV., who sought, or affected to seek, the Scottish Queen in marriage. Margaret, however, suspected that some- thing more serious than wooing was intended, and pro- curing pecuniary aid from merchants and princes, who alike took interest for their money, she set sail with her son from Kirkcudbright, and landed in France. For a loan from Louis XI., to meet with whom she dragged her son with her from town to town, she pawned the town and fortress of Calais — an act which made her 256 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND VOKK. [book ii. execrable in England. She procured foreign levies, too/ and with these she made for Northumberland, in the month of October. Her levies failed her, her landing was opposed, and, in a fisherman's boat, the Queen, Prince of Wales, and Peter de Breze, a faithful Norman knight, carried, not without difficulty, the intelligence of their failure into Berwick. With the spring of 1463, however, Margaret was again in arms. Henry, who had been shut up in Harlech Castle, had joined her. Leaving the Prince of Wales in Berwick, Margaret tempted fortune for awhile with- out her son; it was the first time that the two had been separated, but she carried the Prince with her, when King and Queen made that forward movement which was checked by Lord Montague, King Edward's general, at Hexham. Near the water of Dowill this May strife occurred, and at its conclusion 2000 corpses covered the ground, and all the Lancastrians who could fly, followed or rather outstripped King Henry, who was so closely pursued that three of his body-guard were taken. One of these was supposed to be the King himself, for he wore the Monarch's cap with a double golden coronet, and his doing so saved, as was intended, the person of his master. Margaret let her husband fly, but she kept the Prince of Wales close in her guard, and, hand in hand, the wanderers turned towards the Scottish border. Then followed incidents which seem to belong to romance, but which are said to make part of history. Queen and Prince, with some few followers, were attacked by rob- bers, despoiled of their costly garments, robbed of their jewels, and only saved from violent death because the chap, ix.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 257 sons of violence quarrelled and fought over their booty. During this contest/ Heaven darkened their vision, and they were not conscious of the Queen's appeal to a knight in behalf of her son, — so urgently and success- fully made, that the knight in question took the young Prince of Wales up before 'him on his saddle, and, with Margaret en croupe, rode away in search of further safety. But the roads were full of peril, and the party were obliged to strike into the forest, where they wan- dered about in ignorance of the way, and where the knight either abandoned, — or was of little service to them. The Queen, alone of the three, possessed courage or presence of mind, and these valuable qualities she exhibited in a remarkable degree, when she beheld advancing towards them a man, hideous of aspect, wild in attire, and apparently murderous of intention. Throughout this incident, the sole anxiety of Margaret was for the Prince of Wales. Her eyes never ceased to return to him, after being drawn away for an instant, and her hand was always upon or near him. Accordingly, when the ferocious-looking denizen of the forest of Hexham approached with outstretched arm and weapon, and roughly bade the travellers "stand!" the Queen threw her arm round the Prince, and addressed to the robber such a volley of strong terms, such a reproof for the villanous life he was leading, such a heavy sermon on the consequences of his wicked ways, and such de- nunciations on his folly as well as his wickedness, — that one cannot but admire the meekness, patience, and good nature of the villain in question. The words used were of the very harshest, but not once did they irritate the highway-robber, for k they were mingled with terms of 258 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. pity, and flattery, and beseeching, and little parentheses, phrased like modern tracts, touching sudden conversion, and hints at the advantages of being virtuous, and, finally, confidential communications of the most inte- resting nature. All this while the Prince of Wales modestly, but not too timidly, stood at his mother's side ; and, taking him by the hand, she introduced her- self and boy to the most extraordinary of assassins, — as; Queen of England and Prince of Wales. The polite robber bowed, and Margaret continued to point out to him how much greater profit he might derive by saving than by despoiling them. She expatiated on her son's prospects, and how, if they were realized, the robber might one day be made a gentleman of. Then she added no inconsiderable amount of information, which might have been better reserved for the robber's wife, who, as we subsequently learn, lived in a hut hard by. Margaret continued by assuring the hideous-looking villain that whatever amount of hard fare, — in food, life, and lodging, the Prince now underwent, if he were only kept in safety, the remembrance of it when he came to his own again would be a pleasant memory; and whatever opportunity he might have of forwarding the interests of his Hexham friend, he was not at all likely to forget to prove his gratitude. The robber, probably unused to listen to fervent appeals and strange confi- dences of half an hour long, was naturally. confused, and looked undecided,— on which the indefatigable Queen attacked him again with reproaches for his life, hints of heaven's wrath, assurances of profit here and hereafter if he would but behave like a gentleman and a Lancas- trian; and, finally, she said to him, — (as we are told by chap. IX.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 259 Chastillain, the old Burguiidian Chronicler, who heard her recount the story to the Duchess de Bourbon,) — by- way of last appeal to his humanity : " Je te fais aujourd'hui le ventre de mon enfant, je te constitu© seing et tettin qui l'a nourry ; je te fais pere et mere de mon portage ;" and, in conclusion, she more than hinted that an outlaw and a reprobate, such as he was, should be rejoiced at the honour done him, and should seize with alacrity a chance which was not likely to be pre- sented to him again ! George Chastillain wisely notifies here that he is not so sure that these were the words used ; but he avers that the substratum of the narrative is correct. As for the robber, the Burgundian assures us that the Holy Ghost visibly descended upon him, and that this, added to the official capacity, — to the exercise of which he had just been appointed-' by the Queen, so wrought upon him that his heart gave way ; he rolled himself in the dust at the Prince's feet, and promising henceforth to prove loyal and live cleanly, offered to devote his life to the protection of the youthful heir to the throne. Margaret accordingly entrusted her son to him, while she went off with the mute and unchivalrous knight in search of the King, whom she failed to discover. The robber himself fulfilled his promises like a noble man. Indeed, Prevost hints that he was a ruined Lancastrian gentleman who had taken to the road, and who lived with his lady in a hut in Hexham forest, which became for a while the humble palace of the Prince of Wales. The Duchess de Bourbon remarked that it was an inconceivable story - r and certainly Jerningham's drama and Colman's tragi- comedy founded on the incident, are far less stirring 260 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK, [book h. than the narrative ; and such Queen Margarets as Miss Younge, Mrs. Stephen Kemble, or Mrs. Pope, with such a gallant robber as Bannister, Holman, or Elliston, and especially such a Prince of Wales as Master Tokely, never could have realized this scene, as the Burgundian herald has painted it, in his prolix and^apparently matter- of-fact chronicle. By aid of the gentle Lancastrian robber, and the help of Lancastrians of less equivocal vocation, Margaret and the Prince of Wales are said to have been enabled to return by sea to Scotland. By whatever succour, it is certain that they safely arrived in the northern king- dom ; and an historian, much drier than the Burgun- dian, but addicted like him to weave romance with history, — the almoner of the Prince de Conti, the Abbe Prevost, relates that after Margaret and the Prince had reached Kirkcudbright, they were induced to go on board a vessel, by an Englishman named Cork, who designed to deliver them to King Edward. The Queen's faithful Peter De Breze, and his squire Barville, had been pre- viously carried on board by violence, — a fortunate cir- cumstance for the royal couple, as by their aid a rescue was effected for them at the cost of killing or throwing overboard the five persons who manned the boat. The boat thus cleared, was not governable by such a crew as was left in her, — a woman and boy, and a couple of Norman soldiers. After driving through the perils of a stormy night, the boat went ashore opposite Kirkcud- bright, but with no further injury to the precious freight, De Breze carrying the Queen, through the waves, to the beach, on his shoulders, and Barville performing the same office to the Prince of Wales. chap, ix.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 261 In utter destitution, and with no promise of brighter prospects, the miserable mother and boy were but ill- considered by the Scottish authorities, who exhibited no alacrity in affording succour, except succour to enable the poverty-stricken fugitives to leave Scotland, which was done with an intimation that the Prince of Wales, now heir to nothing, was no longer a fitting match for the little sister of James III. The fortress of Bamborough, off the coast of Northum- berland, received the exiles whom Scotland rejected, and from that Lancastrian nest— the last that had not been blown from the old tree — the Queen set sail for France, her son still, as ever, holding by the folds of her robe, and a couple of hundred of forlorn Lancastrians sharing her fortunes, in two vessels. They designed for France, but a hurricane drove them to the port of L'Ecluse, in the dukedom of unfriendly, York - loving Burgundy. Queen and Prince went ashore, on the 31st of July, 1462, in costumes whose condition matched the lowliness of that of their warriors. Seven ladies of honour fol- lowed perforce the fashion of their mistress ; and the two hundred Lancastrian refugees looked as men might do in their plight, though that was not at the worst, since they had reached a land where swords, and arms to wield them, were in constant request, and were liberally paid for. Insulted by the people, suffering from fatigue and want, the greater portion of the party soon moved on to Bruges, where Margaret left her son ; while in peasant's costume, and in a tilted cart, she courageously went forward to ask help and asylum from Philip of Burgundy — he a man whom she hated, she a woman whom he abhorred. She encountered the Duke, in spite of him- 262 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOEK. [book n. self, and so wrought upon that obdurate man by her beauty, her simplicity, her seductive tone and earnestness, her sad story eloquently told, her wonderful tact, and her glorious promises, that when she returned to the Prince of Wales at Bruges, she poured out before the boy gold crowns and jewels — the noble largesse of the Duke, and told him the while how these were only the •earnest of greater benevolence to come. Could they have forgotten all that had passed, the refugees at Bruges might have enjoyed the life that was now afforded them. They lacked nothing, save by the roguery of stewards, who essayed to rob them occasionally. They even lived in splendour, and honours were paid to them as if ^Margaret were on the throne, and young JMward its acknowledged heir. Thus, at one of the great Burgundian banquets, when water was previously offered to the Prince of Wales to dip his hands therein, before he sat at table, the young Prince, with a tact derived from his mother's example, declined to go through the formality till the Count de Charolais, son of the .sovereign-duke, had taken precedence of him, by washing first. The Count, in his turn, declining, Prince Edward courteously invited him to wash at the same time with himself, that thus at least they might be placed upon terms of equality. The Count, not to be excelled in politeness, declared that he could not think of raising himself to such a height. The Prince of Wales having gone through the forms taught him by a similar scene between his mother and the Count, ceased to importune the latter ; but therewith struck by a natural thought, as it would seem, asked a very natural question, which took the form of inquiring whether such courtesy was due chap, rx.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 263 to poor fugitives, such precedency in the dominions of a powerful Prince to Princes who were without dominions, • — without even shelter, or the means of procuring it ? " Nay," said Count Charles ; " in spite of that, you are etill the son of a King of England. My father is ■Sovereign-Duke of Burgundy, and my rank is- below your own." It was a courteous speech; but unfortunately the Count uttered it, not so much to do honour to the Prince as to annoy his own father, by acknowledging the claims of young Edward in presence of the nobles of Burgundy. The Sovereign-Duke, however, fulfilled his duty gal- lantly, and sent the Queen and Prince, under sufficient escort, to Lorraine, where Margaret's father, Rene, was poor in everything but minstrels and minstrelsy. The old man, nevertheless, did his best for child and grandchild. He entertained them himself, in his musical way, and got his folk and kinsfolk to entertain them. Finally, Duke or King Rene located the wandering pair in the xiastle of Kuerere, near the town of St. Michel ; and, out of his Duchy of Barr, the titular King of Sicily and Jerusalem allowed the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales 8(V. yearly towards keeping house. The sum seems pitiable, but it was larger than it looks, and besides, it was all that King Rene had to give. - And here, for the first time, young Edward had a settled home and rest, and leisure to learn something ; for hitherto he has learnt nothing, save that life was full of misery, that sorrow was enduring, and that to be a Prince was to bear unmerited suffering, and to pay undue penalty. This poor boy, not yet ten years of age, had everything to learn; and, as events proved, he had 264 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOEK. [book ii. seven years of not comfortless exile in which to acquire some portion of that wide field of knowledge, ere he returned home to blaze in battle, for a day, and to be murdered at the end of it. In the exiled court was that faithful and accomplished Lancastrian, Sir John For- tescue. The Prince was his pupil, and Sir John set about rendering him fit to govern, by writing a treatise for his perusal, on the laws of the realm of England. Of the personal life of the Prince of Wales during his long exile, little is known that can be relied on. Prevost states, generally, that when the Queen was not engaged in furthering her husband's cause in England, she was exclusively employed in the education of her son. Young Edward is described as possessing excellent natu* ral qualities, which only needed cultivation, and that the latter was assiduously furnished by the anxious care of the Queen. The best masters that her means could procure in France were provided for him, but these were under her superintendence, and she alone tem- pered the heart and formed the judgment of her son, whose prompt progress exceeded her warmest hopes. Between the period of their arrival in France and their re-appearance in England, a rapid succession of events had occurred. King Henry had been captured, sitting quietly at dinner in Waddington Hall, and with no other resistance than a "Forsooth!" and a " Verily I" War- wick had been despatched to France to negotiate a mar- riage between King Edward and the Lady Bona, sister of the French Queen. When the negotiator had suc- ceeded, he learned of Edward's marriage with that lively widow, Elizabeth Woodville, whose Lancastrian husband, Lord Gray of Groby, had fallen at St. Albans. This act chap, rx.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 265 was the commencement of the dissension which resulted in Warwick entering into opposition against King Ed- ward, and drawing the King's brother Clarence to unite •with him — an ally won, by Warwick giving him his daughter Isabel in marriage, and presenting to him a ■prospect of the crown hereafter. The temporary capture and the subsequent escape of King Edward followed ; and Warwick appeared in France, an adherent of Margaret and Lancaster, and the proposer of a marriage between ' the Prince of Wales and his second child, Lady Anne Neville. Thereupon ensued his invasion of England, the flight of King Edward — during whose absence a future Prince of Wales was born — the temporary restpration of Henry VI., the return of Edward, and the collision at Barnet, which cost Warwick his life, re-consigned Henry to prison, and left only one fight more to be fought out, before King Edward was securely placed upon the throne. It was to share in the anticipated triumph which War- wick was to achieve for Lancaster, that Margaret and Prince Edward quitted France and repaired to meet utter defeat in England. Previously to coming to this period, let me briefly notice what may be collected touching their sojourn in the former kingdom, where they had the most selfish of patrons in Louis XL, who only aided them because he thereby brought profit to himself. At his court at Amboise they were occasional visitors, but never, probably, except when serious business was on •hand. With her son, she made short progresses to various chateaux, whose lords were proud to entertain the royal exiles ; and the Prince of Wales was, on one occasion, so far deemed to possess the warrant of pro- 266 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YOEK. [book n. sperity, that, at the invitation of Louis, he stood as one of the sponsors for the infant dauphin, Charles. In the French capital, too, the exiles occasionally resided, and there tradition asserts that the youthful Prince of "Wales first saw " Lady Anne," whose childish beauty so im- pressed his boyish heart, that at the age of fourteen he became as enamoured as a page, and as faithful as any belted knight in the romaunt of love. Tradition, too, extends much farther than this. During the intrigues nrhich Louis XL carried on, professedly for the interest of others, but invariably for his own, he despatched the Archbishop of Narbonne on a mission to the court of King Edward. In the ecclesiastical suite of the archi- episcopal ambassador were two ecclesiastics — one ex- tremely young, the other several years his elder, whose real names and quality were known to none of the party save the Archbishop himself. The younger individual, a theological student, was Edward Prince of Wales ; the grave, yet handsome abbe, who accompanied him, was Margaret of Anjou. The Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, and the Earl of Devon, were in the secret, and the former, who must have been in considerable peril himself, con- trived to lodge the illustrious pair of clerical gentlemen in a house of his own, or one belonging to a follower of his house. On, or rather from, this stage a pretty drama was played out. Margaret, by dint of various disguises, much money, and tender-hearted gaolers, actually — so tradition asserts, and the Abbe Prevost accepts it for history — actually penetrated to the interior of her hus- band's prison in the Tower, where she remained, mar- vellously undisturbed, for a whole week, and then re- turned to her private residence, only to find the son chap, ix.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. from whom she had never before been separated, gone, no one knew whither, nor how whence. Margaret's despair was intense; but the Duke of Somerset, who had kept careless supervision over his charge, attempted to soothe the maternal inquietude by pointing out that the Prince's confidential servant had accompanied his lord, that they had taken few things with them, and that everything portended a certain and speedy return. As the Duke calculated, so did" it hap- pen. After a few days the truant Prince and the chosen attendant regained their temporary home, not a little surprised, it is said, to find the Queen already returned from her secret sojourn in the Tower; and amid her joy, her anger, and her fear, looking for an explanation of this strange escapade. It was all for love ! Such was the excuse of the amorous Prince. He had crossed to Calais, still in disguise, where Warwick was " Captain," and Lady Anne was resident, and that lady the magnet which drew him to that port. The lovers had met — very much, it would seem, without regard to propriety— in secret, had renewed the old fond terms on which they had first entered at Paris, and had altogether passed a busy and a delicious time of it. Delicious, for personal reasons; and busy, inasmuch as he had gained from the too ready young lady such secrets concerning her father's intentions as she was likely to get from one of the most impenetrable men that ever breathed ! Well, the tale told, the wandering troubadour was pardoned, for Margaret was rather proud of the unusual boldness of a boy, who had never shown forwardness till thus stimulated by love. She longed more than ever to carry him to a throne and seat his chosen wife by his N 2 268 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. side ; and when, soon after this, she had reason to believe that her presence was suspected by the government, she had her son secretly conveyed over the Channel to Bou- logne, while she loitered about Kent, but ultimately crossed the Channel from Sussex to Dieppe. As good fortune or tradition would have it, there crossed in the same vessel a young lady whom she discovered to be the unmarried daughter of Warwick, and these two persons, revealing themselves to each other, entered into such confidential details, and became so affectionate and un- reserved towards each other, that Margaret was ready to accept Anne for her daughter-in-law long before they had landed ! On the slight foundation that Lady Anne and Prince Edward had met before Warwick proposed this match to Margaret as the price of his aid in lifting Lancaster once more to power, has this romantic story been con- structed. The first idea of such a match was hateful to Margaret, for Warwick had denied the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales himself. To the latter, however, it seems to have been highly acceptable, and the mar- riage was celebrated at Amboise with extraordinary mag- nificence, — but which seemed to bespeak the confidence of all parties present, that Lady Anne was the future Queen of England ; as indeed she proved to be, though not as the wife of Edward of Westminster. While the wedded pair prolonged their wedding fes- tival, Warwick invaded England, to prepare their trium- phant path to the steps of the throne ; and while he was advancing rapidly to the ruin which overwhelmed him at Barnet, the fugitive Lancastrians slowly moved for- ward to the final ruin which completed the shipwreck of chap, ix.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 269 Lancaster at Tewkesbury. Their progress is thus alluded to by a Yorkist chronicler : — " Here it is to be remembered that at this season oi the King's (Edward IV.) coming towards and being at Warwick, and of the coming to him of his brother, the Duke of Clarence, — Edward calling himself Duke of Somerset ; John of Somerset, his brother, calling himself Marquis of Dorset; Thomas Courtney, calling himself Earl of Devonshire, being at London, had knowledge out of France that Queen Margaret and her son, called Prince of Wales, the Countess of Warwick, the Prior of St. John's, the Lord Wenlock, with other many their adherents and part-takers, with all that ever they might make, were ready at the sea-side coming, pur- posing to arrive in the west country ; whereupon they departed out of London and went to the west parts, and there bestirred them right greatly to make an assembly of as much people for to receive them at their coming, then to accompany, fortify, and assist against the King (Edward IV.) and all his part-takers in the quarrel of Henry, called King, and occupying the regalia for that time. And true it was that she, her son, the Countess of Warwick, the lords and other of their fellowship, entered their ships for that intent, the 24th of March, and so continued their abode in their ships, ere they might land in England, to the 14th day of April, for default of good wind and for great tempests upon the sea that time, as who saith, continuing by the space of twenty days."* , Sea-tossed, the expedition at length entered Wey- * Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV. Edited by John Bruce, Esq., E.S.A. 270 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. mouth harbour, on Easter-eve. The Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and a gallant following of hopeful friends, proceeded to Cerne Abbey, where on the succeed- ing day the intelligence of the overthrow at Barnet was conveyed to them. In momentary despair, the affrighted party betook themselves to the abbey at Beaulieu, seek- ing temporary safety by registering their names there as those of persons privileged to take sanctuary. There they must have remained despairing, but for the visit of Lancastrian chiefs who came to promise new levies, and who recognised assurance of success in the presence of young Edward. Habington in his history, figures forth the image of their argument and hopes : — " But above all, what a confluence of the boldest youth there would be to the Prince, would he but take the field and appear in his own quarrel. Nothing having ad- vanced the title of York but March's presence in all battles, or foiled the reputation of Lancaster, but King Henry's inactive piety and fighting still by deputies. The soldiers thinking it vain for them to hazard their lives, when the Prince whom it concerns timorously re- fuseth to venture his own." The mother's heart was severely tried by the sugges- tion that in this last struggle for Lancaster, young Prince Edward should carry his own banner into the field, draw his own sword, and peril his own life for the sake of securing victory. Margaret repeatedly urged his ex- treme youth, — but the Black Prince was youno-er when he won Cressy. She spoke of his inexperience, — but this boy of girlish beauty had at least seen more fields than Henry of Monmouth when the latter was entrusted with the conduct of the war in Wales. Earnestly, poor chap, ix.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 271 Margaret prayed that her only child might be sent hack to France, there to await the issue of this imminent enterprise. Should that issue he unprosperous, he at least would be in safety, and might have leisure to per- fect himself in a training, the result of which might re- store the fortunes of Lancaster. But her entreaties were quietly disrespected, her sentiments overruled, and her son put prominently forward as the leader in this last venture. " His very name," says Habington, " like a dia- mond, attracted multitudes to the war." With this force the last effort was made. The Lan- castrians now had a divided army, — one at Bristol, the other under Jasper Tudor, in Wales. It was the object of Edward IV. to prevent the union of these di- visions, by beating them in detail ; and it was in order to accomplish this object that he at length encountered the Lancastrian army at Tewkesbury. The latter was exhausted by want and long marching, and Somerset, the leader of the van, saw plainly that there they must perforce take such fortune as God should send. Whe- ther, as some say, the Prince of Wales was with Somerset in the van, or led the middle division, with tardy Lord Wenlock, — the third was under the Earl of Devonshire, is variously stated. Before the fight commenced, on the memorable 4th of May, 1471, the Queen rode through the ranks accompanied by the Prince of Wales; real warrior, for the first and last time, and of gallant spirit now that he had to be self-reliant. And yet in the details of the battle which on the part of the Yorkists was a rush, on that of the Lancastrians a rout, he is only dimly seen. We hear of his unavailing gallantry without hearing of an especial exhibition ; and in the 272 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. general flight in which he joined, yet fighting as he Sew, he was captured by Sir Richard Croft ; who did aot deliver him to King Edward till the latter had pro- claimed a reward of 100 1, annuity for the captor, and the grace of life for the captive. Thereupon Sir Richard brought the young Prince to the King's tent, wherein ivere Edward, his brothers, Clarence (returned to his illegiance) and Gloucester, with various Yorkist nobles. What ensued is variously related by nearly contemporary chroniclers, or by historians who founded their narrative ya. the faith of chroniclers. Among the latter is Habing- fcon, who says : — " For King Edward, presently upon the delivery of the Prince, caused him to be brought into his presence, and entertained him with some demonstration of courtesy ; — moved, perhaps, thereunto by the innocency of his pouth, compassion for his misfortune, or the comeliness oi his person, the composition of his body being guilty of qo fault, but a too feminine beauty. At first it was supposed that the King might have some charitable in- bention, and resolved happily to have settled him in the Duchy of Lancaster, his father's inheritance, a patrimony too narrow for a king, and something too large for a subject ; and for that end is said to have entered dis- course with him to make trial whether his spirit would stoop to acknowledge a superior. He therefore ques- tioned him what mad persuasion had made him enter into so rash an enterprise as to take up arms against him, where the very attempt was rebellion, being against his sovereign, and folly, being in opposition to a Prince so far in power above him. He expected a humble chap, ec.] EDWARD OF WESTMINSTER. 273 answer, as if he were to beg his life, as soft and gentle according to the complexion either of his fortune or his face. But he, with a resolution as bold as his grand- father Henry V. would have replied with, answered ' that to recover his father miserably oppressed, and the crown violently usurped, he had taken arms. Neither could he be reputed to make any unjust claim, who de- sired no more than what had been possessed by Henry the Sixth, the Fifth, and Fourth — his father, grand- father, and great-grandfather, Kings of England; and acknowledged by the approbation, not of the kingdom only, but the world, and even by the progenitors of King Edward.' " Habington adds, that at this speech, the King, with a look of indignation, turned from him, thrusting him disdainfully aside with his gauntlet. " Which so mighty rage observed, and his so distempered parting out of the room, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the Marquis of Dorset and Lord Hastings, seized suddenly upon the Prince, and with their poig- nards most barbarously murdered him." Fabyan's account is, that the King actually struck Edward ; and that, thereupon, the " King's servants," the officers in attendance there, slew him. The chronicler in Leland's collection affirms that young Edward was killed while ''crying on the Duke of Clarence, his brother-in-law, for help ;" a phrase which would im- ply that the Duke did not actively interfere. De Comines simply records that the Prince of Wales was killed on the field. Trussel writes that King Edward at first received the young Prince " with a kind of countenance expressing N 3 274 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book il more signs of rejoicing to see a friend, than triumph; of taking an enemy, and began to move familiar questions unto him ; but not receiving such submissive, satisfactory answers as he required, and it may be some of riper years, on the like occasion, would have done, he disdain- fully thrust him from him, when presently the Duke of Tort (Gloucester ?) and Clarence ; Thomas, Marquis of Dorset ; and the Lord Hastings (the King's back being then turned), with their poignards barbarously stabbed into the breast, and inhumanly murdered, against the law of God, nature, and nations, which occasioned the revenge of his blood afterwards in general upon them all, and in particular upon every one of them." This account agrees with that of Polydore Virgil, in this much ; the last-named chronicler asserting that King Edward made no reply to the spirited speech of the Prince of Wales,, but that he " set aside the youth with his hand," and that the Prince was then set upon by Clarence, Glouces- ter, and Hastings. The cautious " Continuator of the History of Croyland," on the other hand, hints, rather than asserts, mingles the slain, the murdered, and the executed ; and notifies that Prince Edward, the only son of King Henry, and many lords of lesser note, were "slain either on the field, or after the battle, by the- avenging hands of certain persons." Finally, George Bucke, the semi-apologist of Richard III., quotes an ancient Flemish chronicler, not only to prove that the Duke of Gloucester did not strike the young Prince, but that his hand was restrained out of love for the young Prince's wife. " Anne was with her husband, Edward of Lancaster, when that unfortunate chap, ix.] EDWARD OP WESTMINSTER. 275 Prince was hurried before Edward IV. after the battle of Tewkesbury, and it was observed that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the only person present who did not draw his sword on the royal captive — out of re- spect to the presence of Anne, as she was the near rela- tive of his mother, and a person whose affections he had always desired to possess." I could and do wish that this were true ; and though it may be otherwise, there is another reason why Gloucester may not have stabbed the Prince of Wales. Like him, Gloucester was at this time but a boy, in his nineteenth year, so little above the age of the Prince, that it would have been at least natural in any other boy so placed, to have felt sympathy with, rather than antipathy against, so gallant a youth oppressed by so heavy a calamity. Moreover, the French tradition, as handed down by Prevost, asserts that the Prince was slain in fight. His pursuers saw him strike fiercely at a foeman, his sword entering the body of tho latter ; and before he could recover his arm, his eager enemies set upon and slaughtered him. On the day succeeding this catastrophe, the young Prince was buried, with maimed rites, in Tewkesbury Abbey, directly under the tower of the church, at the entrance of the choir. A grey marble slab, which once marked the spot, has been removed, and now serves to support the font, but a brass tablet has been erected near the place once occupied by the slab, with a Latin inscrip- tion, to the effect that " in order that the memory of Edward Prince of Wales should not perish, the pious care of the people of Tewkesbury provided this tablet to indicate the spot where he is interred." 76 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. The mother of the Prince graced the conqueror's ■iumph, but the King ultimately released her, and she ied in Prance, the pensionary of Louis XI., in August, 481. The wife of the Prince fell into the power of her rother-in-law, the Duke of Clarence ; but in 1473, she larried the young Duke of Gloucester, one of the alleged mrderers of her first youthful husband. chat, x] EDWAUD OF THE SANCTUAEY. 277 CHAPTER X. EDWAED OF THE SANCTUAEY (YOEK). Boen 1470. Died (Edwaed V.) 1483. When the battle of Tewkesbury was fought, on the 4th of May, 1471, the successor in title to the Prince of Wales there slain was a six months' old baby, whose birth had occurred at a time when rebellion was driving his father Edward IV. from the throne, for a season, and all the Yorkists in London and the provinces were begin- ning to despair of the permanent establishment of the sovereignty of the house of York. At that time, the unpopular marriage of Edward with the Lancastrian Elizabeth Woodville had produced three daughters, but as yet no male heir. In the month of September, or, as some say, in November, 1470, a lady with three young girls, a scanty retinue, and in hot haste, sought a refuge in the Sanc- tuary at Westminster. That lady was the Queen of England. Her husband, Edward the Fourth, had at that time occupied the throne during nine years, but when his terrified consort was knocking at the gates of the Sanctuary at Westminster, and her friends and rela- tives hastily sheltering themselves at shrines in other churches, Tie, the King, was in eager flight also, for priests were preaching his people into rebellion at Paul's Cross, and the terrible Warwick was pursuing him over 278 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ii. the eastern counties, driving him into that stormy sea heyond which he found a resting-place and breathing- time, in Holland and Burgundy. Under such unhappy circumstances was born the most luckless of our Princes of Wales; "poorly, in sanc- tuary," as Habington expresses it, "and, if Fortune beyond expectation altered not, heir-apparent only to his father's misery." This event occurred on the 14th of November, of the year above-named. Gloomy as were the attendant auspices, the Queen was not entirely des- titute. Her physician Serigo was near her ; a compas- sionate woman, " old mother Cobb," lent her welcome aid, and Abbot Milling supplied all that the imagination of an abbot could suggest as likely to be required by mother and child. The good abbot called in the Prior at the christening which followed, and the reverend men stood godfathers to the heir of England; Lady Scrope undertook the duties of godmother ; and thus, humble as these sponsors may have been for a prince, was the young Edward admitted into Christ's flock, though we can hardly agree with the annotator on Sir Thomas More's history, that " the whole ceremony of the christening (was) as mean as a poor man's child." In this sanctuary the young Prince remained with the Queen and his elder sister Elizabeth, till the triumphant return of the "King to England, in April, 1471. On his arrival, says the " Fleetwood Historic," edited by Mr. Bruce, Edward " sent comfortable messages to the Queen at Westminster, and to his true lords, servants, and lovers, being at London, whereupon by the most covert means that they could, they avised and practised how he might be received and welcomed at his said city chap, x.] EDWARD OF THE SANCTUARY. 27 &• of London." Prom entering the city, neither Warwick nor the Archbishop of York could prevent the invader. Edward, having obtained possession of the Tower and of King Henry, repaired to both cathedrals, and in St. Paul's and at Westminster publicly thanked God, St. Peter, and St. Edward, for his success. This done, he " then went to the Queen and comforted her, that had a long time abiden and sojourned at Westminster, assuring her person only by the great franchise of that holy place ; in right great trouble, sorrow, and heaviness, which she sustained with all manner of patience that belonged to- any creature, and as constantly as hath been seen at any time any of so high estate to endure. In the which season, nevertheless, she had brought into this world, to the King's greatest joy, a fair son, a prince, wherewith she presented him at his coming, to his heart's singular comfort and gladness, and to all them that him truly loved and would serve. From thence, that night," con- tinues the chronicle so ably edited by Mr. Bruce, "the King returned to London and the Queen with him, and lodged at the lodging of my lady, his mother ; where they heard divine service that night, and upon the morrow, Good Friday." The residence of the Queen's mother was at Baynard's Castle, near the river, from whence the King, with the royal family, removed to the Tower, in which they were all soon after besieged, but unsuccessfully, by the Lan- castrian Falconbridge, from the Thames. Thus the young Prince's first peril was encountered there where he met his death. King Edward was firmly seated on the throne, when two years later he conferred a costly gift on his little 580 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. ion, then at Windsor. He had recently confiscated all ;he property of Warwick's brother, the Archbishop of STork; and, says Warkworth's Chronicle, "the King woke the Archbishop's mitre, in the which were full nany rich stones, and precious, and made thereof a :rown for himself. And all his other jewels, plate, and ituff, the King gave it to his eldest son and heir, Prince Mward." Touching the heirship of the Prince, his father seems ,o have held diverse opinions as to its being an heirship ;o the crown. When the Queen was about to give birth ,o her first child, the court physicians skilled in astro- ogy, predicted that the child would be a son. It proved o be a daughter, and the maids of honour laughed at he " medicos " and called them " fools," while Edward olaced himself with another prophecy, which said, that vhether his eldest child were girl or boy, it should wear he crown of England. But now, when little Edward if the Sanctuary was growing in strength and beauty, he King misdoubting astrologers, betook himself to the tudy of the stars and books of magic, and became so rise in the profitless lore thereby gained, that he was ble to draw his son's horoscope with his own hand. lis eldest daughter, Elizabeth, on one occasion, came Lpon him when he was sitting mute, but not tearless, mid a group of lords, who dared not break the silence. ?he Princess, bolder than they, knelt at his knee and sked him for a blessing. Edward looked upon her, ook her to a recess in the chamber formed by a bay pindow, and seating her there, showed her the horo- cope he had cast, whereby he had come to the condit- ion, odious to himself, that no son of his would really chap, x.] EDWARD OP THE SANCTUARY. 281 ever wear the crown. The science further taught him that though Edward of the Sanctuary would never actually be King, she, Elizabeth of York, would, assuredly, one day be Queen. The above is a well-known legend, of which greater use has been made by the poets than by the painters. Concerning its probability, I have nothing to add; but will remark, that the King, despite horoscopes and his lessons from the stars, took such a course with the young Prince as may convince us that he had little doubt of his one day wearing the " garland of the realm," and was resolved to render him more worthy of it than he was himself. The Prince was only three years of age when the King drew up letters of instruction to the Earl Rivers, and Russell, Bishop of Rochester, for the education of his son. These instructions are in themselves remarkable, and singular, moreover, as coming from a father of evil life, — one who afforded the vicious exam- ples which he forbade others to exhibit in presence of his children. Edward expressed himself anxious for "the politic, sad (serious), and good rule" of his son's household. This rule was to be established at Michael- mas, 1473, and the King required the earl and bishop to see that his instructions were stringently kept and observed. The first ten " ordinances" in these letters of in- struction are addressed exclusively to Earl Rivers, for the guiding of the little Prince's person. Three, in succes- sion, command that young Edward be made to arise every morning at a convenient hour, according to his age ; and that, till he be ready, no man have access to 282 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOKK. [book ii. him, but the Earl, his chaplains and chamberlains, — or my other by permission of the Earl. It is then directed bhat the chaplains say matins in the Prince's presence, " and when he is ready, and the matins said, forthwith to go to his chapel or closet, to have his mass there, and in no wise in his chamber, without a cause reasonable ; and no man to interrupt him during his mass time." The amount of religious service appointed for this little boy of three years of age was something appalling. Not only, in addition to the above, was he on every holy Say to " have all the divine service in his chapel," where tie was to " offer afore the altar," but " upon principal feasts and usual days of predication," the sire, almost as cruel as young Edward's uncle, enjoined that sermons should be preached in presence of this infant, and that ill his household should attend the same, unless duty sailed them elsewhere. There was nothing permitted in the way of sport for this luckless little Prince of Wales, until he had risen from dinner. In the interim, his day was thus shaped for him : — " We will that our said son bave his breakfast immediately after his mass ; and be- tween that and his meals to be occupied in such virtuous learning as his age shall suffer to receive. And that he be at his dinner at a convenient hour, and thereat to be honourably served, and his dishes to be borne by wor- shipful folks and squires, having on our livery ; and that all other officers and servants give their due attendance, according to their offices." In the next rule there is an ample provision made for his mind and morals, as there is above with respect to his meat. This rule enjoins, — " that no man sit at his board but such as shall be thought fit by the discretion cha*. x.] EDWARD OF THE SANCTUARY. 2S3 of the Earl Rivers ; and that there he read before him such noble stories as behoveth to a prince to understand and know ; and that the communication at all times in his presence be of virtue, honour, cunning (that is, knowledge), wisdom, and of deeds of worship, and of nothing that should move or stir him to vice." The King, who was himself all vice, then directs that this royal infant, " after his meat, in eschewing of idle- ness, be occupied about his learning ; and after, in his presence be showed all such convenient disports and ex- ercises as behoveth his estate to have experience." Anon, " our son must break off sport and go to even- song; and that soon after done, to be at his supper — served in such form as I have noticed above." This meal over, the boy was to have all such honest disports as may be conveniently devised for his recreation ; and then, to bed. " We will," says Edward, " that our said son be in his chamber, and for all night livery to be set,, the travers" (curtain) "drawn anon upon eight of the clock, and all persons from thence then to be avoided,, except such as shall be deputed and appointed to give their attendance upon him all night ; and that they en- force themselves to make him merry and joyous towards his bed;" — where, thus sadly-joyously ensconced, his princely person is to be " under sure and good watch," duly kept for safeguard of " our son." A subsequent set of rules is committed to the Bishop and the Earl conjointly, regarding the household of the Prince. These direct that mass shall be said in the hall for the officers of the household, at six o'clock every morning ; at seven, matins in the chapel ; and at nine,. " a mass by note, with children." The last indicates a 34 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book ir. usical service, and it sent the officials after these three ities, tunefully to breakfast. Three chaplains guide this household, the chief of horn is the general confessor, and the Prince's almoner. his officer is directed, to " duly, discreetly, and dili- mtly give and distribute the Prince's alms to poor iople." Again, we find an anxiety on the King's part lat his child should in nowise resemble himself, here was no person at court who so commonly offended : he in the matters censured in the following regula- sn. " We will that no person, man nor woman, being . our said son's household, be customable swearer, rawler, backbiter, common hazarder, adulterer, and use ords of ribawdery, and especially in the presence of our dd son." It was a good custom of the times that gave daily impanions to the young Prince — his friends to be here- 'ter. These were not more playmates than school, or ass-fellows, and their hourly course of life was duly larked by its appointed duties. " We will," so runs the rdinance for their especial observation, " that the sons I noble lords and gentlemen being in the household ith our said son, arise at a convenient hour, and hear leir mass, and be virtuously brought up, and taught in rammar, music, or other training exercises of huma- ity, according to their births and after their ages, and in o wise to be suffered in idleness, or in unvirtuous occu- ation." On fasting days these well-trained lads, who on ordi- ary occasions dined, perhaps breakfasted, at ten, had to fait for their repast till noon. The daily supper hour ras four; and a hospitable ordinance directed that chap, x.] EDWARD OF THE SANCTUARY. 285 "strangers be served and cherished according to their behaviours." Those " strangers" were, doubtless, invited visitors, none of whom could approach the Prince, but under certain regulations. Stringent rules also directed that his council and household officers should dwell within his court, not without the gates — the ushers being di- rected to lodge them in as close proximity to each other as was possible. These gates were closed, from Michaelmas to May at nine in the evening; — during the other part of the year they remained open an hour later. After that hour, and before six in the morning, no person could enter the Prince's residence without especial licence of some member of his council, who thought there was " cause reasonable." The gate-wardens were further directed to suffer no man to enter the said gates with weapons, but they be left at the same, and no dis- honest or unknown person to come in without his cause be well understood and known ; and that they suffer no stuff to be embezzled out of the gates. A prohibition to the purveyors from taking of others " stuff without true contentation for the same," is in fact only one of several decrees against bribery on the part of the Prince's tradesmen to the purveyors of his household. Indeed, there was strict supervisal of the servants generally, they being ordered to " indent" (sign a book, or make their mark) with the Prince's council, "for all such stuff as shall be delivered unto them for their offices." In such a household, royal as it was, there would naturally be quarrelsome fellows, but there were also certain pairs of stocks to which they were consigned, if they broke the Prince's peace,— particularly, if they drew S6 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. sapon within the precincts of his residence. A second fence of this brawling nature cost them their places. All accounts were made up weekly ; and for regular ty, honest and regular service was expected. If an Eicer of the household was absent, a very troublesome Bcial called Clerk of the Cheque notified the fact to the mptroller. Every man under the Prince's roof was quired to "give his time and due attendance and pediently exercise his office, and at all times be furnished ith horse and harness" (armour) " according to their igrees ; and not to be absent without sufficient licence ; id such as shall have servants, that these be personable id able to stand in a man's stead, and no children." A financial clause directs the receivers and chamber- ins of the counties and principalities from which dward of the Sanctuary had his titles, to deliver all ims due to him, — to his council, who were to keep the ,me in a chest, under three keys ; — "our dearest wife, le Queen, to have one : the Bishop of Rochester and arl Rivers to have the other two, — and that our said m's signet be put into the said coffer, and not to be scupied (used) but by the advice of his council." To te latter two individuals power was also given to remove le Prince at any time and to any place, as necessity tight require; or " shall be thought by their discretion jcessary." This illustrates the uncertainty of the mes and of Edward's tenure of the throne. In this jry year, when such regulations were being made to icure the comfort of a child who was soon to be cruelly lurdered, the distress in the land was sore, but the lergy of the government, on the other hand, to relieve was immense. One illustration of this energy we cim?. x.'J EDWARD OP THE SANCTUARY. 287 find in the exacting of a " voluntary contribution," to enable the King to maintain his and his son's household at home, and to supply means for carrying on an immi- nent war. The exaction was occasionally pleasant enough in its method, as may be guessed from an incident mentioned by Trussel who says, that, — " The King's kiss to a sparing, and therefore a rich, widow (amongst many others drawn in by court holy water, to make oblation) brought in twenty pounds more than was demanded, for that being but twenty, she gave forty." Had the performance thus rewarded taken place, not in the King's,, but the Prince's household, the Bishop of Rochester might have put the actors in the stocks. King Edward was especially concerned for the good of that household, of which it only remains further to be said, that there was continually ordained therein " a physician and surgeon sufficient and cunning" to keep the little Prince and his retinue in good bodily health."* Such was the house-rule of a Prince of Wales in the year 1473. I use here the term "Prince of "Wales," — although Edward of the Sanctuary was not so created until the year 1477. The above regulations, however, show him to be in possession of the revenues not only of Cornwall and Chester, but of the Principality — which revenues were held for him by his mother, his kinsman Eivers, and the Bishop of Rochester. All these precautions for the comfort, well-being, and education of the Prince only served, however, a temporary purpose. The effect of their exercise was to form a well- trained boy full of promise ; — but before the fruit ripened the branch was blasted. * Lambeth Pal. MSS. 647, f. 1. Halliwell citante. 288 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. Meanwhile, the usual distinction was conferred upon him. In 1477, when the death of the Duke of Clarence, "drowned without water, upon dry ground," as Sir Thomas More quaintly expresses it, — when the murder of the first brother to a King who was ever attainted in England, might have been expected to cast, if not mourning, a decent quiet upon the court, there appeared no face there but that of jollity and magnificence. For "at that time was Edward, eldest son to the King (during Christmas, to mingle solemnity with liberty) inaugu- rated, Prince of "Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester; and his younger brother Richard, created Duke of York, — the fate of their honours and their ruin being still the same." At this creation, adds Moor, " according to the ceremony, many young lords and gentlemen of principal name, were made Knights of the Bath, among whom Brian, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Littleton, that learned father of the laws, are registered/' After this creation, young Edward of the Sanctuary only appears occasionally, on state occasions. He seems to have been kept much apart from his brother and sisters ; but something is to be collected touching his outward adornment and appearance, from the "Wardrobe Book of his father, the King. For example : — " To the right high and right mighty Prince Edward, by the grace of God, Prince of "Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, the first-begotton son of our said sovereign Lord King Edward IV. — to have of the gift of our said sovereign Lord the King, 5 yards of white cloth of gold tissue for a gown, by virtue of a warrant under the King's signet, and sign manual, bearing date the 17th day of August, in the 20th year of the most noble reign of our said sovereign Lord the King, — unto the said Piers chap, x.] . EDWAKD OF THE SANCTUARY. 289 Courteys for the delivery of the said cloth of gold direct : — which cloth of gold tissue, 5 yards. The above is the only entry in the Wardrobe account of Edward IV. for the year 1480, in which the Prince of Wales, who was then ten years of age, is named. His little brother of York is more frequently noticed; — in one entry, he is presented with a mantle of blue velvet, lined with white damask, garnished with a " garter of ruddeur," and a lace of blue silk with buttons of gold. At another time he has purple and green velvet, green damask, and white cloth of gold, for gowns ; and again, crimson velvet, and " velvet upon velvet green cloth of gold," for covering for the harness and saddle for his use ; and further entries this year of parcels of blue satin for gowns and purple velvet for lining, and green satin gowns lined with black sarsnet, show that he must have been a remarkably well-dressed little Prince, — and doubt- less his elder brother of Wales was not inferior to him in splendour and costliness of attire. From the very earliest age, the heir apparent was present at all state and ordinary court ceremonies. When only eighteen months old he was brought in to add his welcome to that of others given to illustrious visitors to the King and Queen ; — and on these occasions, he was carried, not by his nurse, but by his chamberlain, Master Vaughan, who also bore the young Prince, decked-out in robes of state, at such ceremonies as creating a peer or begirding a knight. On more inte- resting occasions, too, than this, we have a glimpse of the young Prince ; as, for instance, when Lord Rivers introduced to Edward and his consort, his printer Caxton, with a newly-printed book. Between his parents, seated o 290 HOUSES OP LANCASTER AND YOKK. [book ii. on handsome chairs, stood the fair young Prince, looking through his clustering curls at the marvellous man, by whose art the sad story of the little spectator was to be made more familiar to a world of sorrowing readers. Nor is his presence to be detected only at solemn and stately ceremonies. Once in his life he was present at the most curious and frolicsome of weddings — that of his brother Richard with Anne Mowbray, heiress of the Duchy of Norfolk. The bridegroom was in his fifth year, the little lady had just entered her fourth, and there was a vast amount of mirth at this match, which ended by a banquet and romps in the Painted Chamber. This event occurred in the same year that Edward of the Sanctuary was created Prince of Wales. There was also a similitude of business created for him, as well as a reality of fleeting pleasure, of both of which he was to enjoy so little. Thus, in the last year of the reign of Edward IV., 1483, the Prince of Wales, all young as he was, was sent down to Ludlow Castle, there to nominally preside over the adjacent Principality, and to keep in submission the Welsh, who, without being in insurrection, gave much trouble to the sick and languid King; and, unheard-of vexation to municipal authorities, striving in vain to keep them from acts of violence. Edward of the Sanctuary proved a pacificator, and the Welsh, who refused to respect the laws, had reverence for this helpless boy. Moor finds a reason for this, in that the Welsh "have always been very affec- tionate to those Princes who have borne the title of their Principality, as being memorials of their ancient liberty and dominion." For this reason we are told that they showed wonderful respect to Edward, to whom, though chap, x.] EDWARD OF THE SANCTUARY. 291 but a child, " they were more obedient than ever they were known to be to their ancient magistrates." Edward was surrounded by a court consisting chiefly of his own kinsmen on his mother's side. The Queen had so surrounded her youthful son in order that his interests might be the better protected, and chief among these guardians of the Prince was his loyal and valiant governor, his uncle Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers. While the Prince was at Ludlow, his father lay dying at Westminster, surrounded by relatives and nobles bit- terly antagonistic to each other, and foreboding in his heart, evil to his son, from the dissensions that were likely to ensue. Trussel cites a very long speech which Edward is said to have delivered on his death-bed. It is brilliant with morality, piety, philosophy, and policy, and is perhaps founded on a few words of farewell and warning which he may have uttered. Its chief object is the safety and prosperity of his heir. After this royal death, in April, 1483, Edward of the Sanctuary was brought on his way to London, in the «are of. Earl Rivers, and unescorted except by a few menial servants. Small as this company was, it became ■divided, young Edward sleeping one night at Stony Stratford, when his tardy uncle was only at Northampton. Between those two localities, the Dukes of Gloucester .and Buckingham appeared with an armed force, and no man was permitted to pass that night between those towns, save the emissaries of the two Dukes. At an inn, in Northampton, the two Dukes supped in familiar and friendly fashion with the Earl, ending the night by forcibly placing him in arrest, and then riding forward to Stony Stratford, where with much show of loyalty o 2 292 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YOKK. [book il they saluted, and took possession of young Edward of the Sanctuary. From this moment to that of his death he was a prisoner. The last gleam of seeming life and liberty allowed him was at Hornsey, where he was entertained at a banquet, given in his honour by the City of London, and where, for the first time, his health was drunk in public, as King Edward V. Further, therefore, it is not my province to accompany him. How the brief life, commenced in captivity in the Sanctuary, ended by murder in the Tower, need not here be recapitulated. I will only add a word of his brothers and sisters. Of these young Edward was most associated, after the establishment of his household, with his elder sister Elizabeth, whose love for him and his unhappy brother, the little Duke of York, is well known. The family of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville consisted of ten children. Of this family three were boys, Edward, Eichard of Shrewsbury (Duke of York), and George. The last named died in his infancy. Of the seven daughters, Elizabeth became the wife of Henry VII. ; Mary died unmarried, in her twenty-sixth year. Cicely had a peculiar destiny; affianced to a King (of Scotland), the downfall of her father's house prevented the mar- riage; she subsequently espoused a lord — Viscount Willes — and on his death united herself with a Lincoln- shire esquire, one Thomas Kyme. The period of her death is unknown, but it is said to have occurred in the Isle ot Wight. Anne, the next daughter, was engaged to the Emperor Maximilian, but she was ultimately con- bent to marry Thomas Lord Howard, who was allowed by Henry VII. to draw 1ZQL per annum for her diet. chap, x.] EDWARD OP THE SANCTUARY. 293 She died before her husband, and left no children sur- viving. The next daughter, Katharine, like her sisters, was affianced to crowned princes, but subsequently mar- ried in a much lower degree, namely, to Lord William Courtney, afterwards Earl of Devon. Like her sisters, too, she was almost entirely supported by the court. She was left a widow, in 1511, when thirty- three years of age, and to keep off all suitors, she made a vow before the Bishop of London never to change her widowed condition. The youngest daughter of this remarkable family, Bridget, enjoyed perhaps the most enviable, certainly the most tranquil, fortune of them all. In early youth she took the veil at Dartford, her sister, the Queen, paying 131. 6s. M. per annum for her sup- port in the nunnery, in which she remained till the period of her death, in the thirty-seventh year of her age. !94 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. CHAPTER XI. EDWARD OP MIDDLEHAM (YORK.). Bobn 1474. Died 1484. 3n the south bank of the Yore — that pleasant stream which runs like a line of light through Wensleydale, ia iforkshire — stands the neat and quiet little town of Mid- lleham, once the capital of the Dale district. Above the iown, frown the grim ruins of a castle, which was com- nenced by the Eitz-Randolphs, was completed by the Nevilles, and was destroyed, so far as it is now seen, by iime and — of course — Oliver Cromwell ! Middleham was the property of the Earl of Warwick, :he father of the Lady Anne who was the first Princess )f Wales who became a Queen-Consort, and who brought vith her hand this castle and territory of Middleham to ler second husband, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. There s a tradition — or supposition rather — that, in their shildish days, Richard and Anne passed some time together mder the old roof of the castle, whose masters were the 'Peacocks of the North." That they met in their routh is well known, and that Richard, who was alto- gether a precocious individual, loved the little Lady Anne n his boyhood, and met with small return of affection, is ilso a portion of the Middleham legend. We come to facts concerning this ill-matched pair, as oon as we have passed away from the bloody field of chap, xi.] EDWAKD OP MIDDLEHAlfr. 295 Tewkesbury, where Gloucester made no secret of his purpose to marry the widow of the Prince of Wales, Edward of "Westminster. She was under attainder, and Middleham is said to have been a forfeited estate, already conferred by the King, on Gloucester. But Richard, at all events, coveted the lady as well as the land ; and the lady, having no heart for such a wooer, concealed her- self in London, and even passed, in the disguise of a servant, for a menial in a citizen's family, the better to hide from her high-shouldered and cruel-minded suitor. In her purpose she was abetted and aided by Glouces- ter's brother Clarence, who had married Anne's sister and great co-heiress, Isabella, and who was interested in Anne's remaining a widow, in order that her rich pos- sessions might fall to his wife and himself, or to their children. Notwithstanding this opposition and concealment, the young Duke of Gloucester overcame his brother, dis- covered the lady, and married her, consenting or other- wise, in the year 1473. He was then twenty-one years of age, his bride just two years younger. Their only child, Edward of Middleham, was born in the following year, in the castle so named, the residence of his parents. For nine years little is known of him ; they included the best years of his father's life — for, during their course, the Duke of Gloucester recovered from the Scots that town and castle of Berwick which had been sold to them by the last Lancastrian King ; and he had founded those religious and charitable establishments in and about Middleham, the relics of which, whether in ruins, or in alms yet available, have preserved a grateful memory of Richard in that part of Wensleydale. 296 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book il About the castle precincts and the tranquil valley the little Lord Edward rode in cloth of green, a feather in his cap, and whip in hand, upon a northern pony. From the tranquil routine of such a life he was suddenly sum- moned with his mother, in 1483, to repair to London, where his father already held as King. Mother and child set out on a brilliant progress, the last in which Anne took part — the first and last in which the Prince had share. They slept in convent or castle by the way, offering alms at the nearest shrines, as they arrived and departed. Early in July they reached London, where they were lodged at Baynard's Castle, the house of Queen Elizabeth Woodville. On the first Sunday in the July of that year, Prince Edward was of the water- pageant which illustrated the passage of his parents from the last-named residence to the Palace of the Tower. On that same day, he was proclaimed Prince of Wales ; and on the evening of that day the " young Princes" in the Tower were removed from the state- apartments, which were occupied by the new heir and his royal parents. Edward of Middleham slept that night in the bed previously occupied by Edward of the Sanctuary. The latter, with little Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of STork, slept for the first time in the bed wherein they svere soon after murdered. Such were the changes of ihe royal family of that period. The following day was that of the first coronation of Richard and Anne, a gorgeous spectacle, at which the Prince was present. Then ensued a trip to Windsor, md thither came, now that he was heir of England, the Spanish Ambassador, to propose a marriage between Sdward of Middleham and the eldest daughter of chap, xi.] EDWARD OF MIDDLEHAM. 297 Ferdinand and Isabella of Arragon. The lady in question was that Isabella who subsequently married Don Juan, the heir of Portugal, and was the eldest of four daughters, the youngest of whom, Katherine of Arragon, not yet born, ultimately married two brothers, both Princes of Wales, Arthur and Henry Tudor. From Windsor, Prince Edward accompanied his mother to Warwick Castle. This residence was then the property of the young Earl of Warwick, son of " Malm- sey Clarence" and Isabel Neville, the sister of and co-heiress with the consort of Richard III. Here they kept court alone, for the space of three weeks, at the termination of which period they were joined by the King, who had unsuccessfully commenced a work at London, for the perfecting of which the only fitting tool was to be found in Warwick Castle. This person was James Tyrrell, afterwards " Sir James," the directing murderer in the assassination at the Tower. Did Richard, whose heart for his only child was as tender as that of any young mother's, look on his sleeping son that night on which he despatched Tyrrell to murder the sons of his brother in the Tower ? If he did, he probably re- conciled himself to any vexed conscience by which he may have been possessed, by murmuring that the deed was to be done to secure the glory, greatness, and safety of that unconscious and innocent boy. When that dire deed was accomplished, Richard and Anne, andyoung Edward passed on in triumphant progress through Coventry to York, where, as if to make assur- ance doubly sure, the King and Queen were once more crowned, and Richard re-created his son Prince of Wales, investing him a second time with garland, ring, o 3 98 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book h. nd sovereign-rod. So much did he do, to have re- ognised as heir in the North, where Kichard was per- onally popular — that hoy, "whose singular wit," he aid, " and endowments of nature wherewith (his young ge considered) he is remarkably furnished, do portend, y the favour of God, that he will make an honest many ?hus,' the eldest and the youngest son of Richard of fork, alike agreed in a desire to make of their respec- Lve offspring men of superior quality to themselves. And here let me remark that Richard had a heart, owever cold it may have been towards others, that loved 3 dwell on the perfections of his own children. Thus rhen he appointed his youthful son, John of Gloucester, natural child, to the office of Captain of Calais, he was ;d to do so, he said, because the great liveliness of his rit, the agility of his limbs, and his proneness towards •ood manners, afforded a great and undoubted hope of eceiving from him, through the divine grace, good ser- ice in time to come. The deed which gives to John of xloucester the important office named above, is dated ilarch 11th, 1485. The Prince of "Wales had then been everal months dead ; his mother was then dying, and iter the former great calamity, Richard seemed to find lonsolation in exalting the virtues and ennobling the >erson of his illegitimate son. The legitimate boy, for whom Richard had accom- >lished so much in London and York, walked through he streets of the northern capital that afternoon, jewelled, nd mantelled, and " demi-crowned," as became an heir- ipparent, led by his mother and preceded by the King, bid so passed on the brilliant company to Pontefraet, vhere intelligence arrived of menacing outbreaks, which chap, xi.] EDWARD OP MIDDLEHAM. threatened the crown of Richard, and the succession of young Edward. To suppress these, the King turned southward, accompanied hy Anne ; the Prince being sent under careful escort to Middleham Castle ; and there or elsewhere parents and child never, I think, met again. But the welfare of this child was ever uppermost in Richard's mind. In whatever public act he took part that had respect to the affairs of the kingdom, he thought of this boy. When the father was in London, in the February of 1484, the Continuator of the Chronicle of Croyland tells us, that " one day at this period, in the month of February, shortly after mid-day, nearly all the lords of the realm, both spiritual and temporal, together with the higher knights and esquires of the King's.house- hold (among all of whom John Howard, who had lately been created by the King Duke of Norfolk, seemed at that time to hold the highest rank) met together, at the special command of the King, in a certain lower room, near the passage which leads to the Queen's apartments, and here each subscribed his name to a kind of new oath, drawn up by some persons to me unknown, of adherence to Edward, the King's only son, as their supreme lord, in case anything should happen to his father." At this time the affairs of Richard wore promise of prosperity. King Edward's widow and daughters were in his power ; he had trodden out the first flame of insur- rection, and seated firmly on the throne himself, he sought to render the accession of his son secure. He thought he had just accomplished this desired fact when the young Prince himself, in the midst of good health, was taken suddenly ill, growing gradually and mysteriously worse, and finally passing away, by "an unhappy death," as 00 HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, [book n. /Ous calls it — referring to some conceived evil manner of eath (it would seem) rather than to actually dying, on le last day of March, 1484. The Continuator of the hronicle of Croyland, alluding to the King's designs, ad the counter disposition of Providence, remarks that, sspite the securing the allegiance of the nobles for the >n at Westminster, — " In a short time after it was fully seen how vain are le thoughts of a man who desires to establish his inte- nts without the aid of God. For in the following month - April, on a day not very far distant from the anniver- iry of King Edward, this only son of his, in whom all le hopes of the royal succession, fortified with so many iths, were centred, was seized with an illness of but lort duration, and died at Middleham Castle, in the 3ar of our Lord 1484, being the first of the reign of le said King Richard. On hearing the news of this at fottingham, where they were then residing, you might ive seen his father and mother, in a state almost bor- sring on madness, by reason of the ir sudden grief." So ied, beneath the house-roof where he was born, and so r as lamented this youthful Prince of Wales, Edward of [iddleham, the boy of Wensleydale. In some document which Richard had to sign after is son's death, the name of the young Prince occurred, ad that' name is followed by the words " whom may rod pardon !" This expression was probably not a mere irmality. It may have been wrung from the heart of man who had shown no mercy towards other fathers id their cbildren, and to whom pardon from God seemed le highest blessing he could ask for the innocent child chap. 33.] EDWARD OF M1DDLEHAM. 301 whom Heaven, in its mercy, had removed to the far and better land. In the March of the following year, the body of his mother was entombed in Westminster Abbey. In the August following, the crown of England was hanging on a hawthorn-bush on Bosworth field, and the corpse of the first English Monarch who had fallen in fight, since Harold, was carried to Leicester with a halter round the neck. Thus terminated in 1485 the dream of Richard, with whose death ended a struggle unrighteously com- menced by Henry of Bolingbroke, in 1399. It began with the displacing of a Richard by a Harry, and it ended in the triumph of a Harry over a Richard ; and, by the period that York and Lancaster became united in the persons of Henry VII. and Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., this unnatural contest had cost the precious lives of not less than one hundred thousand Englishmen, slain by each others' hands ! BOOK III. PRINCES OF WALES HOUSE OF TUDOE. CHAPTER XII. ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER, Bobn 1486. Died (Pbince of Wales) 1502. HENRY OP GREENWICH, Boen 1491. Died (Henby VIII.) 1547. THE BROTHER-PRINCES OP WALES. The marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., only united the illegitimate blood of Lan- caster with that of York. Henry was descended from John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, eldest natural son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford. His Valois and "Welsh blood was derived from his grandmother, Kathe- rine (widow of Henry VI.) and her second husband, Owen Tudor. The mixture of blood was completed by the descent of each of the royal pair from an ancient ioyal lineage of Wales — that of Henry pretending to go back to Cadwallader himself. Thus, in him was accom- plished the prophecy of the British King. The blood, though not the bones of the great monarch, had returned to Britain, and the dragon of the great Pendragonship blazed once more on the helm of the monarch of the Isle. The royal marriage was celebrated on the 18th of January, 1486. In the autumn of that year, Henry and Elizabeth were residing at "Winchester — the great stage of the bright glories of the Arthur of romance. In the 306 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book m. September of that year, in the old castle of that renowned city, their first child was born — a prince, strong and able, though prematurely entering on the world, the which, as Lord Verulam remarks, "physicians do pre- judge." This royal birth, premature as it may have been, was distinguished by the general satisfaction it afforded. It brought happiness to the King, gave a young mother's joy to the Queen, excited in the Church a sovereign delight, filled the courtiers with excess of pleasure, and rendered the entire nation jubilant. And Henry Tudor called his son Arthur. He despised Norman " William," and Saxon "Edward," and ''Richard," and even " Henry," which distinguished the Lancaster kings, and to the new-born child he gave the name borne by the flower of guileless kings — the British name of Arthur. The father augured for the child a glory like that of the monarch of old time ; the boy's fate, in one point, at least, rather resembled that of his prince-namesake, who was heir to the throne which he was never to ascend. So, Arthur he was named, although his tardy godfather, the Earl of Oxford, arrived too late at the christening, to pronounce the name by which he should be called. There seems to have been much more in it then, than may be discovered now; "for thereat," says Grafton, " Englishmen no more rejoiced than outward nations and foreign princes trembled and quaked, so much was that name to all most terrible and fearful." In the description of the christening of Prince Arthur, (Addit. MSS. 6113) it is stated that although the royal infant was born on the "Wednesday, about one chat, xn.] ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER. 307 of the clock in the morning, he " was not christened till the Sunday next following, because the Earl of Oxford was at the time in Suffolk, which should be one of the godfathers at the font, and also the season was rainy." The writer further states that immediately after the birth of this heir to the throne, Te Deitm was sung in the Cathedral Church and all the other churches of Win- chester, "and many great fires in the streets, and messengers sent to all the estates, &c, of the realm of the comfortable tidings, to whom were great gifts given." While Te Deum was being sung, all the church bells " fired" by way of accompaniment. A new font of silver gilt was placed near the ordinary font of the cathedral on a stage, " with a step like a block for the bishop to stand on." The font was " hallowed" by Bishop Alcock. Then, long preparatory ceremonies had to be gone through, such as delivering the salt, after solemn assay, to the Earl of Essex, and gilt basons and new towels to my Lord Strange, and a grand marshalling of officials in readiness to receive the future King Arthur — which he was not to be. Then came the procession ; torchbearers flinging their light on high; nobles, knights, and esquires; eccle- siastics, and heralds, and pursuivants, and cupbearers, and then tapers shedding soft light on Lady Anne, the Queen's sister, who advanced with "a rich chrysom pinned on her right breast;" and was followed by Lady Cicely, the Queen's sister, who bore the little Prince wrapped in a mantle of crimson cloth of gold furred with ermine ; the Marquis of Dorset and the Earl of Lincoln rendering her assistance. This brilliant com- pany, gorgeously waited on, proceeded under a canopy, the Queen the while watching the procession, and bishops 308 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book ra. clustering around her, and the whole illustrious assembly growing cold and impatient, as well they might, seeing that " they tarried six hours and more for the coming of the Earl of Oxford." Tidings reached the cathedral that he was drawing nigh, but the tardy Earl approached not, and finally, by the King's command, the solemnity proceeded, " and the Earl of Derby and Lord Maltravers were godfathers at the font, and Queen Elizabeth was godmother." Into the font the little Prince was put bodily. There was no " sprinkling," he was baptized by immersion, at which moment the long-expected Earl of Oxford arrived — too late for his office. When the young Arthur had been carried to his traverse, chrysomed and clothed, he " was borne to the high altar, and laid thereupon by his god- mother." After the Queen had deposited the Prince there, and while evening service was being celebrated, Prince Arthur was carried on an earl's right arm, " and the Bishop of Exeter confirmed him, and the Bishop of Salisbury knit the linen cloth about his neck." The usual costly offerings were then made at the altar, and spice and hippocras served round at St. Swithin's shrine; which pleasant portion of the solemnity being joyously gone through, Lady Cicely bore Prince Arthur back to his cradle in Winchester Castle ; the King's trumpeters and minstrels welcoming the young Briton with flourishes and congratulatory fiddlings as he reached his nursery door. Better still than sound of cornet or violin, he was there visited by the King and Queen, " and had the blessing of Almighty God, and of his father and mother." And, excellent arrangement too, in its way, several chap, xii.] ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER. 309 pipes of wine were broached in the churchyard, " that every man might drink enough ;" for in those days the common folk were recognised as guests, and although the locality was not one for jollity, the King and Queen furnished them with a cup of wine, to be " crushed" to the health of the heir-apparent. In Arthur's grandmother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, he and the succeeding children of the royal family possessed one of the most notable superintendents of a nursery that ever sovereign's house was blessed with. The nursery of Prince Arthur, however, seems to have been maintained beyond the period when he could have been reckoned amongst the babies. This I find by a paragraph in " Original Letters," edited by Ellis (Vol. i. 2nd Series), the date of which is the sixth year of the King's reign; and which directs that the sum of twenty marks sterling, due to " our dear and well-beloved Dame Elizabeth Darey, lady mistress unto our dearest son, the Prince ;" and five marks to the King's well-beloved Agnes Bathe and Emlyn Hobbes, "rockers of our said son," for "wages of half year ended at Easter, last past," shall be forthwith paid to them. Arthur, at least, could hardly have stood in need of being rocked to his sleep when he was above five years of age ! His father, we are told by many a chronicler, hated the House of York, and had no particular affection for his consort, inasmuch as she was a member of that house. But however much the sire of Arthur hated "York," there are numerous circumstances by which we may infer that he loved the lady. Henry was not demonstrative in anything but his antipathies ; and Elizabeth of York 310 THE HOUSE OP TUDOE. [book m. had her full portion of what little warmth there was in the heart of Henry Tudor. The family that grew up around them, and filled with noisy joy the galleries of Windsor and Westminster, and the passages at Shene, Croydon, and Greenwich, consisted of two sons and five daughters. The grateful joy of the Queen at the birth of her eldest son was testified by her foundation of a Lady Chapel at Win- chester. When the next prince, Henry, was born at Greenwich, June 28, 1491, there was less excitement in the land, if not less gratitude in the mother, for he was considered a personage of inferior interest ; remarkable, indeed, for his young health and strength, but one who was not at all likely to make such a figure in the world, or be at all of as much importance and influence as Arthur of Winchester ! The latter was then Prince of Wales, and heir to the throne. Henry was Duke of York, and of no more account than so illustrious a "younger brother" could well help being. Arthur was, for the time, the cynosure of court and people, and the jewel of the household, but most dear in the father's heart. When sickness sat heavily on that boy, hearty were the King's prayers put up for his recovery to Our Lady of Walsingham. Of the brief-lived Prince Edmund, it is only necessary to record the name. The sisters, who housed with the young Princes, till Arthur kept house apart, were four in number — Mar- garet, born in 1489, who was afterwards Queen of Scotland, and whose son, named Arthur, from the brother whom she loved, like him, failed to reach the throne of which he was the heir. The remaining sisters were Elizabeth, who died young; Mary, the "pearl of chap, xn.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 311 England/' as she was called by the French during the short time she was Queen-consort of France ; and who did not ill deserve the name when she married her old lover, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The other daughter was Katherine, the last Princess who was horn in the Tower, and whose birth Cost the Queen her life, in February, 1502-3. The discipline of this household of young people was under a varied control. The King's mother was the great controller for a time ; while the King's wife was only as the eldest child in the establishment. Dame Jane Guilford was the governess ; and of her we know little, except that she was a lively dancer. But it is with Arthur and Henry, who in succession bore the title of Prince of Wales, that we have most to concern ourselves. The aptness of both boys for learning was remarkable ; and if little Prince Arthur, under his tutor, Bernard Andreas, an Italian, really acquired the proficiency which is assigned to him by chroniclers, he probably owed in part his early death to the labour which he had been compelled to undergo in his mere childhood. In his earliest years, as we are told, the lights of all noble virtues began to shine in him. His tutor, Bernard Andreas (or Andrew Bernard), avers, what is most incredible, that he either " learned without book," by rote, or otherwise "studiously learned and revolved with his own hands and eyes/' the following authors:— in Grammar, Garin, Perot, Sulpicius, Gellius, and Valla; in Poetry, Homer, Virgil, Lucan, Ovid, Silius, Plautus, and Terence; in Ora- tory, the Offices, Epistles, and Paradoxes of Tully, and the works of Quinctillian ; in History, Thucy- dides, Livy, Csesar, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Valerius 312 THE HOUSE OP TUDOK. [book in. Maximus, Sallust, and Eusebius. Speed, in quoting this terrific load for the brains of a child, does it with pride ; being, he says, the more particular to signify "what authors were then thought fit for the elementary and rudimental instruction of princes ! and to " lay their example to all of noble and gentle birth, whose super- ficial boldness in books in these frothy days is become most scandalous and injurious to the honour and use of learning." Perhaps, after all, we may discover in the words of Andreas warrant to conclude that the learning of little Arthur was not so profound as would at first sight appear. The boy, however, was certainly a good Latinist; and assuredly he had occasional healthy re- laxation from assuredly heavy labour. He pitched his tent, set up his butts, and practised archery in the fields on the east side of London. His brother Henry was there too. At four years of age, the latter might have been seen trotting through the City, on his pony, to Mile End, to attend the tournament there, and figure at the butts. At this last practice, Henry never equalled his elder brother, who was so accomplished a toxophilite that the best archers of that day were called "true Prince Arthurs.' 5 But the grace and beauty of Henry acquired for him a distinctive appellation also ; and the women, in prophetic spirit, says M. Audin, hailed him by the name of " King." Such glimpses, however, as we can obtain of Arthur, Prince of "Wales, in his youth, exhibit him rather in the grave than the gay aspect of his age. He was but ten years of age when he made two visits to Magdalen College, Oxford. On each occasion he lodged with the chap, xu.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 313 President, while his attendant lords were accommodated in the fellows' apartments. Rushes were provided for the Prince's bedchamber ; his table was furnished with jack and tench, red wine, claret, and sack ; and the for- mality of presenting him and the courtiers with gloves was duly observed. The young scholar was a likely youth to be held in high esteem at Oxford ; and he would seem at this early period to have had his establish- ment apart from the other royal children. Prince Arthur must have completed his education early, if we may accept a phrase of Erasmus in its literal sense. The Hollander had been welcomed to court by Henry, on the introduction of the learned Lord Mount- joy. On one occasion he left Mountjoy's house, in com- pany with Sir Thomas More, and this illustrious couple visited the " neighbouring country palace, where the royal infants were abiding, Prince Arthur excepted, who had completed his education. The princely children," 1 continues Erasmus, "were assembled in the hall, and were surrounded by their household, to whom Mount- joy's servants added themselves. In the middle of the circle stood Prince Henry, then only nine years old, and he bore in his countenance a look of high rank, and an expression of royalty, yet open and courteous. On his right hand stood the Princess Margaret, a child of eleven years, afterwards Queen of Scotland. On the other side was the Princess Mary, a little one of four years of age, engaged in her sports, while Edmund, an infant, was held in his nurse's arms." Audin states that Mountjoy himself introduced the philosopher to the Prince, " who received him as one who had an European reputation, and begged, as a favour, to be allowed to correspond 314 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book ni. with him. This proposal from the young Prince, Erasmus accepted with ill-concealed pride. The child did not forget his promise, and a year after, Erasmus showed Richard Pace, with feelings expressive of sincere joy, a letter from the Prince, written in elegant Latin."* The letter alluded to merits the epithet applied to it ; but it was not written in Henry's tenth year, for in it he makes allusion to the death of his most esteemed brother, the King of Castile (Phillip), and never, adds the Prince, " did messenger bring me more unwelcome news, since the death of my most beloved mother." (" Nunquam enim post charissimse genitricis mortem nuncius hue venit invisior") While the elder brother of Henry was alive, there is said to have been a serious intention on the part of the King to educate him for the Church — having, as an end in view, the Cardinalate and the Archbishopric of Can- terbury. A recent biographer of Henry (Froude) treats this as an absurd idea originating in the foolish imagi- nation of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who asserts that much in his history. But other writers agree with Lord Herbert, and considering the character of Henry VII., his parsimony, his readiness to provide for his son at the expense of the Church, and the profit that might result to him from having a champion in a son who might be an ecclesiastical prince, the circumstance is divested of improbability. In this dream of the father, the papal tiara itself may have occupied a dazzling position. It once had temptations to Maximilian for himself, though that Emperor may have been mad when he informed his daughter that he entertained serious thoughts of attempt- * Erasmi Bpist. 451, pars ii. chap. XH.] ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER. 315 ing to procure his election to the Papal Chair. If a Kaiser dreamed of the tiara for his own hrow — or even if he did not — might not such a King as Henry VII. covet a cardinal-princedom in the Church and the primacy of England for his younger son ? The brother of King Stephen was only Bishop of Winchester. No doubt the profound theological knowledge and attainments of Prince Henry were the ripe fruits of a maturer study; but his early stages of learning and many of his early accomplishments had an ecclesiastical character about them. That character may have been imparted to them by one of the tutors whom King Henry assigned to his boys — a man who commenced with Prince Arthur alone, but who was also the in- structor of other of the royal children. A greater man than Bernard Andreas shared with him the care of Prince Arthur's education and health ; and this care could not have been confided to a more accomplished scholar or a more skilful physician than Bernard's colleague. The individual who undertook the task of making the mind and body of Prince Arthur grow in wholesome vigour, was Thomas Linacre, a native of Kent, though of a Derbyshire family. Two years previous to Prince Arthur's birth he was a fellow of Oxford, already of repute for his learning, although then only in his four-and-twentieth year. Subsequently, he travelled, and studied in Italy ; held companionship with Politian, and was highly esteemed at the court of Lo- renzo de Medici. In Italy he perfected himself in the knowledge of the Greek language, of the science of medicine, and natural philosophy. On his return to England, he lectured on physic, and taught the Greek p 2 316 THE HOUSE OF TUDOK. [book in language at Oxford; and became of such renown foi his scholarship and medical science that Henry VII. sent for him to court, and appointed him to the im- portant offices I have named above. Linacre, however, seems to have been concerned in the education of some of the other branches of the royal family. He translated " Proclus, on the Sphere/' and dedicated it to his pupil, the Prince of "Wales ; but he also composed (in English) a breviary of the rudiments of Latin Grammar, for the use of the little Princess Mary — a book so approved by Buchanan that he trans- lated it into Latin, with a strange idea of making it more generally useful. He is not stated to have been officially engaged with Arthur's brother, either when the latter was Duke of York or Prince of Wales. Never- theless, some of the accomplishments which most distin- guished Henry of Greenwich may, perhaps, be traced to Thomas Linacre of Knight Eider-street. If Henry owed his musical taste and skill, as he undoubtedly did, to the direction and example of his mother,, he must have been indebted to Linacre for several qualities which they held in common. Henry, it is well known, was no mean physician, and his study of theology was a " dear delight" to him, even at an early age ; at a later period, he mani- fested its profundity also. Now Linacre was constantly at court — at Westminster, Shene, or Croydon — and dis- tinguished as he was, there and abroad, as a philologist, he was also famed for his medical proficiency, and re- markable for the zeal with which he pursued his theo- logical studies, — a zeal which, subsequently, carried him into the Church. Was it not rather owing tc Linacre's example than to the King's wish to make of the Duke of York a churchman, archbishop — Pope, chap, xn.] ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER. 317 perhaps — that Henry became so partial to, nay, so perfect in, the knowledge and practice of physic, and so sharp a controversialist — so perilous to all adversaries who ventured to break a lance with him in a theological quarrel? Then his Latin, even when a boy, was so pure and so elegant, that it excited the admiration of Erasmus ; the Prince's subsequent correspondence with whom led him into a happy imitation of the Hollander's style. This fact shows his " impressionability," owing to which, added to better natural qualifications, he received from Linacre that purity and elegance, both " severe" of their kind, which perhaps distinguished the Latin of the renowned physi- cian above that of all his contemporaries. It is certain that Henry of Greenwich held Linacre in no ordinary esteem ; and when he changed the silver rod of Prince of Wales for that of the golden sceptre of Britain, one of his first acts was to appoint Linacre physician in ordinary to the King. But ere this occurred there was another Prince of Wales to enjoy his brief bachelor dignity, scholarship, and relaxation, and his still briefer married time with a bride from Spain, who was not wooed and won under a period of seven years ; the political arrangements com- mencing when Prince Arthur was eight years of age, and the marriage being celebrated when he was sixteen. For no two crafty sires in a comedy ever acted sin- cerity and meant the reverse more strikingly than Henry of England and Ferdinand of Spain did on this occasion. Each watched the course and prospect of the other's fortunes; each dallied and deferred, or turned to write protocols, as long as the " other side " failed to present the 318 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book, ni appearances of an advantageous match, and it was onh when Henry's throne seemed unassailable, and the crowi of Ferdinand was radiant with glory, that the two craft] fathers came to an agreement, and the marriage wai decided on of Arthur of Winchester and Katharine o Arragon. At the time of this decision, the Prince of Wales wa a graceful boy, brimful of Latin and other learning ardent in feeling, but having nothing of the vigour o his brother, Henry. Katharine, who was about a yea: older than Arthur — a mature age for a daughter of Spaii — was a lively girl, fond of dancing, and, without being unattractive, was not remarkable for beauty. Th Prince had, for several years previously, wooed his bridi by letter, and in very choice Latin — a stiff and pedanti course, but such was the course prescribed — and here i a sample of the young wooer's style, done into English:— " Most illustrious and most excellent lady, my deares spouse, I wish you very much health, with my heart] commendation. I have read the most sweet letters o your Highness, lately given to me, from which I havi easily perceived your most entire love to me. Truly then, your letters, traced by your own hand, have si delighted me, and have rendered me so cheerful anc jocund, that I fancied I beheld your Highness, and con versed with and embraced my dearest wife. I canno tell you what earnest desire I feel to see your High ness, and how vexatious to me is this procrastinatioi about your coming. I owe eternal thanks to your Excel lence, that you so lovingly correspond to this my s< ardent love. Let it continue, I entreat, as it has begun and like as I cherish your sweet remembrance, night anc chap, hi.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 319 day, so do you preserve my name ever fond in your breast, and let your coming to me be hastened, that in- stead of being absent we may be present with each other, and the love conceived between us, and the wished-for joys may reap their proper fruit. " Moreover, I have done as your illustrious Highness enjoined me, that is to say, in commending you to the most serene Lord and Lady, the King and Queen, my parents, and in declaring your filial regard towards them, which to them was most pleasing to hear, especially from my lips. I also beseech your Highness that it may please you to exercise a similar good office for me, and to commend me with hearty good-will to my most serene Lord and Lady, your parents, for I greatly venerate, value, and esteem them, even as though they were my own ; and wish them all happiness and prosperity. " May your Highness be ever fortunate and happy, and be kept safe and joyful, and let me know it often and speedily by your letters, which will be to me most joyous. From our Castle of Ludlow, 3rd nones of October (15th), 1499. Your Highness' most loving spouse, Arthur, Prince of "Wales, Duke of Cornwall, &c, eldest son of the King." — It is addressed " To the Most Illustrious and Excellent Princess, the Lady Catherine, Princess of "Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, &c., my most entirely and beloved spouse." As a sample of the youthful ardour of this Prince of "Wales, the above may suffice. There are other letters in the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts, but these are of a similar character, and in the same correct Latin. In them, Arthur informs Katharine that he is delighted to' 320 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book m. discover in her own epistles her love towards him. His impatience to behold her is indescribable. He asks her to keep his name in her memory and bosom, expresses the joy of his parents at hearing through him the messages of affection which she transmits to them, and prays that she will reply quickly to his inquiries. Later, the boy-lover informs his lady of the delight with which he has received her assurance of love and duty — the proofs of her good-will; next to the ecstasy of beholding her is that of seeing a letter written by her own hand. Her love for him is beyond his merits, how- ever much he may desire to be the object of so much affection. He is anxious to do all that lover can do for her honour and service, and he prays her sincerely to be sure to let him hear from her, full assurances of her health and safety daily. The marriage contracts which were to bind this youth- ful couple may be consulted in Eymer. They are re- markably explicit in some particulars which were said, when Henry married his brother's widow, not to have been fulfilled ; an assertion which was made, not for the sake of truth, but to suit an especial purpose. Katharine set out from the Alhambra, which she never again beheld, on the 21st of May, 1501, but she did not reach Plymouth — storm-tossed as all royal brides have been on their way hither to their home — till the 2nd of October. Prince Arthur was then in "Wales, but he made such speed southward as the roads and the season would admit, and on the 5th of November, as the bride was near East Hampstead on her way to the metropolis he passed within sight of Katharine, who thus pleasantly "encountered the pure and proper presence of Prince chas. xii.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 321 Arthur, who had set out to salute his sage father." On his way he would seem to have visited Oxford University, for the third and last time. Pie was kindly received at Magdalen College, with speeches; and afterwards visiting other colleges was received with the same ceremony. On the 6th of Novemher, at Dagmersfield, after a World of affected. coyness and reluctance, on the part of Katharine's noble and ecclesiastical escort, King Henry led Prince Arthur to his bride, whom he saw in her chamber for the. first time. Neither could speak the native language of the other ; and accordingly, recourse was had to Latin, and with the aid of the bishops pre- sent, the young people said handsome things of each ■other, and progressed so favourably, that the King made them, then and there, plight their mutual troth. A sup- per followed the ceremony, after which the lively Infanta fell to dancing with her ladies. The bridegroom appears to have lacked courage to dance with her ; but, to manifest his content, he took out his sister's governess, and went through a measure with sprightly Lady Guilford. It was the 12th of November before the Spanish Prin- cess entered London, when the city made for her a curious demonstration of welcome. " The mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, with other of the conservators, councillors, and aiders of the City of London, so orderly with good policy had provided the said city, that the fellowship of every craft should, 'all things laid aparte,' in the several liveries and bodies of their names, be present at the coming of this most exceL lent Princess. And for the said great number of crafts were barriers made on every side of the way, from the middle of Gracechurch-street unto the entering of the p 3 322 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. " [book hi. church-yard of Paul's, that they might, from the comers and common people, have their space and ease, and also he seen'' In other words, they wished to enjoy comfort- able inspection of the new Princess of Wales ; and they desired to afford her a competent idea of the grandeur and importance of London aldermen. For a November show, the affair was highly successful, but Katharine must have been well content to find her- self, at last, quietly within the Bishop's palace, on the eve of her marriage with a Prince who was lodging hard-by at the "Dean of Paul's." The night previous to the marriage, — in order that the Prince " should be most in a readiness," he was lodged at the " Dean of Paul's place," whence, on the wedding morning, he made his entry at " the south door, next westward to our Lady of Grace, in the body of the church." He had a gallant company about him, and so had the bride, who was not only accompanied by a bevy of maids, but by " a great estate of bachelors that have not been married," who were assigned by the King to lead her to the altar. The young Duke of York, — who was to be her second husband, — led her from the palace to the cathedral. Now, this illustrious couple were married by banns,, being publicly " asked" as they stood waiting on an elevated stage. And then, in a sort of solemn sport, the banns were denied. A doctor of laws, previously ap- pointed, brought forward objections openly against the said banns and marriage, alleging that the said marriage could not be lawful, exhibiting in support of his allega- tion, various reasons supposed to be grounded in the law of Christ's church. To this opposition another " famous chap, xn.] ARTHUR OF WINCHESTER. 323 doctor" made a confuting reply ; and then the Master of the Rolls gravely examined the arguments, and ended by pronouncing the marriage good and effectual in the law of Christ's church. This dialogue and replication was held " for the more honour of the said marriage, although there be no cause of substance nor in effect why the same ought to be done." So runs the text of the (C Traduction and Marriage of the Princess, &c," printed by Caxton's friend and successor, Richard Pynson. One paragraph in this admirably printed pamphlet would seem to authorize the bride and bridegroom to withdraw for awhile, should they grow weary of the length of the service in which the especial celebration of their marriage was not concerned. On this account pro- vision was made that they might have " always some place secretly to resort to for such casualty as may fall during the high mass :" but here a page has been lost from the old pamphlet now before me, and further en- lightenment on this extra portion of the august cere- mony is not to be procured. It dazzles the eyes of the mind only to read of all the " bravery," as it is called, which illustrated this wed- ding, — on the going to the cathedral, within the edifice, and after the ceremonial. And when it has been read, the mind fails to realize anything but a glittering con- fusion of all classes of living creatures, and all sorts of devices, and of every phase of brilliancy, gaiety, and jollity which the City of London could assume at such a season of the year. But, as Bacon, and other historians following him, remark, — "The vulgar annals can tell you the splendour and glory thereof, in apparel,. jewels, pageants, guests, and other princely compliments, the 324 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book m. only weighty business of many weaker brains." Let it suffice, therefore, to say, that it took a complement of nineteen bishops and abbots, with the Archbishop of Canterbury completing and heading the score, to make of the Princess Katharine and the Prince of "Wales, — both of them attired in white, — " man and wife." Feasting and music followed at the episcopal residence, where the guests admired a bride who brought with her a dowry of 200,000 gold crowns, half in money, and the remainder in promises; all which the King took into his own keeping. The bride was endowed, in re- turn, with a third of her husband's revenue arising from his possessions in Wales, Cornwall, and Chester. The guests augured well, too, of this match ; and, indeed, on that morning a player, representing the old star-learned King Alphonso, had appeared before the royal pair, and saluting them as Arcturus and Hesperus, promised them long connubial felicity, and a bright offspring ; but, — as a chronicler remarks, — " It is not good to tell fortunes from the stars." The fortunes promised never came to pass ; but had there really been any " cunning people" present that day, they might have recognised a fore- shadowing of the future in a singular circumstance. "When the ceremony was concluded, and the bridal pro- cession was about to return to the Bishop of London's palace, from which it had issued in the morning, it was not the bridegroom who led forth the bride, — but youno- Henry, Duke of York, who stepped forward and led hre forth — as if she were already the wife which she afterwards became. The records do not say in what humour he was followed by the Prince of Wales. But common fame has many a tale to tell of after- chap, xn.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 325 ceremonies and frolics. Some of these tales were evidently- framed, at a later period, to accommodate the views of those who furthered the second marriage of Katharine with the succeeding Prince of Wales. Of another story, referring to the day after the wedding, Eachard says of it, that " though light and disagreeable to the majesty of history, it cannot be omitted." Other annalists nar- rate the story without making a comment. I will neither make comment nor narrate story — it would only serve to show that Arthur was an impudent, boasting young fellow, who had the bad taste to speak coarsely of his Spanish bride, in order to excite a senseless langh among his attendants. Eachard accepts the narrative as true; but a better opinion of Arthur prevents me from arriving at the same conclusion. If I could do so, I might agree with Bacon, who, on this point, doeB not agree with himself, nor with fact, and who says, that " his father's manner of education did cast no great lustre upon his children." The entertainments in honour of this rare marriage lasted a whole weary fortnight, Sundays included, after mass, when the revellers renewed their revel with fresh zest. These entertainments included masques, and ban- quets, and queer devices, and tournaments in which the aspiring knights thwacked one another with right hearty good will. Some of the fun seems to have been of a very slow and solemn nature, and as Katharine and the Prince of Wales were present at every spectacle and exhibition, they must have experienced a sensible relief when a wet or windy day marred the revelry and gave them temporary repose. On some occasions they, of course, were actors as well as spectators. As, for instance, in Westminster 326 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book hi. Hall, where they descended from their elevated seats, and danced " bass dances" in presence of the King and Queen and the illustrious and delighted assembly. They danced not together on these occasions, nor in the same dance ; and perhaps the Prince of "Wales was weary, or affected a languor, for when his young brother Henry succeeded him, leading his sister Margaret by the hand, lie went at his work or sport with such vigour, that, flinging off his robe, he danced away in his jacket, and exhibited a vivacity that excited the laughter and ap- plause of that pleasure-stricken assembly. Thus Henry carried off the bride at the wedding, and now carried off the applause at the festival. He already seemed to take what of right belonged to Prince Arthur — precedence on this great solemnity and riot. At the end of a fortnight the Prince of Wales, with his bride, returned to Ludlow Castle, where he was re- siding on the arrival of Katharine in England. He went thither, thence to govern Wales ; and brief as his govern- ment endured, there are still documents extant showing he was not altogether given to idle dalliance there, and bearing his seal, which carries on the obverse the triple lions on a shield, surmounted by a cap of maintenance, and having for supporters a single lion holding the symbol-feather, with the motto Ich Dien. On the re- verse, the Prince himself is seen, armed, mounted, grasp- ing a sword in his outstretched hand; and on his left arm a shield charged with the roses of England. On his horse's head are the " feathers ;" on his own helmet, a lion, and the background of the whole is diapered with feathers and with roses. It scarcely need be said that this young and loving chap, m.] ARTHUR OF WESTCHESTER. 327 couple were not entrusted alone in Ludlow Castle to rule themselves or the Principality. A council took from •them all responsibility. It consisted of Sir Richard Pole, the Prince's kinsman, as great chamberlain ; Sir Henry Yernon, Sir Richard Crofts, Sir David Phillips, Sir Wil- liam TJvedale, Sir Thomas Englefield, Sir Peter Newton, Sir John Walliston, Sir Henry Morton, and Doctor Wil- liam Smith. This last gentleman had the most difficult mission and the greatest amount of responsibility, for to him (and our Lady of Walsingham) was confided the oversight of the precious health of him who was to be another Arthur, King of Britain, and whose Guinevere was wiser than that majestic and loving sinner of old. When the gates of Ludlow Castle closed on this princely young pair, they seemed to shut out all mankind, from any knowledge of passing events there. The tra- ditions of the locality preserve the memories of the youthful heads of a great household, handing them down to after ages as winning popularity, although in seclu- sion, and attracting congratulations and sympathy during the long honeymoon, but the brief married-life of a few months in extent, which they passed here together, divided from the outer world. Some state, too, they kept, and their court was that of a king and queen, but on a miniature scale ; and some occupation was found for the Prince, who, says Lingard, " amidst his vassals, was instructed by his council in the rudiments of govern- ment." Truly he was the hope and joy of the nation ; and his father loved him, probably, better than any other living being upon earth. But that father had put to death the 328 THE HOUSE OF TUDOE. [book ni young Earl of Warwick, the descendant of the Duke of Clarence, and the last of the Plantagenets. The young Earl's crime was his nearness to the throne, and after a sad captivity he had been judicially murdered. — It was said, in part justification of the act, that King Fer- dinand had refused to consent to the marriage of his daughter Katharine with the Prince of Wales, as long as so near a claimant of the house of York was alive. Ka- tharine herself must have been aware of this report, for she remarked, subsequently, that small was her right to expect happiness from her marriage with the family of Tudor, if it had been purchased at the price of innocent blood. For the shedding of that blood retribution fell upon the King of England. Whether Arthur was delicate, as some say, or robust, as is asserted by others, he sud- denly fell ill, and unexpectedly died on the 2nd of April, 1502, not having been then full five months married. A few days subsequently, the King's confessor, de- puted by the privy council, entered the royal chamber at Greenwich, early in the morning. To the inquiring look of the King, who was then alone, he answered with a maxim in Latin, implying that if we accept benefits from the hands of God, we are bound to receive affliction also, with submission ; and then he informed the King of the decease of his elder and best-loved son. Henry VII. straightway sent for the Queen, that they might endure this affliction the better together. When Elizabeth of York came and saw him oppressed with sorrow, she " besought his Grace that he would first, after God, re- member the weal of his own noble person, the comfort of his realm, and of her. She then said that my lady his mother had never no more children but him only, chap, xii.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 329 and that God by his grace had ever preserved him, and brought him where he was. Over that, how that God had left him a fair prince, two fair princesses, and that God is where he was, and we are both young enough ; and that the prudence and wisdom of his Grace sprung over all Christendom, so that it should please him to take this according thereunto." — "Then the King thanked her of her good comfort. After that she was departed and come to her own chamber, natural and motherly re- membrance of the great loss smote her so sorrowful to the heart, that those that were about her were fain to send for the King to comfort her. Then his Grace, in true, gentle, and faithful love, in good haste came, and relieved her, and showed how wise counsel she had given him before ; and he, for his part, would thank God for his son, and would she should do in like wise."* In other guise did the young Prince leave his castle of Ludlow than the gay one in which he had entered it, five months before. His last " state" there was that in which his sered and chested body lay, with his alms-folk around it, bearing torches night and day. In the after- noon of St. George's Day, the 23rd of April, the corpse was carried one stage towards Worcester Cathedral — to Ludlow parish church — the Prince's banner before it, and preceding and following, a crowd of ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries — among them "two Spaniards of the best degree, belonging to the Princess." De- posited in the church, an officer-at-arms demanded aloud " For Prince Arthur's soul and all Christian souls, Pater Noster." After gorgeous service, the dead was left under "goodly watch" for the night, and on the * Leland, Collectanea, vol. v. 330 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book hi. morrow there was more gorgeous service still — high mass, sermon, incensing, offerings — and then the raising of the body to a car drawn by six horses, all magnifi- cently arrayed according to the sorrowing splendour of death, with some touches of prudential economy in the provision of coverings of common material, to protect the more costly trappings of coffin, hearse, and car against dust and foul weather. Of the latter they had more than enough by the way. Foul roads, high winds, and rain beset the sad procession. The torches were extinguished, and in some places oxen had to be sent for to aid the six horses to drag the car through the ruts and mud. And thuswise, train, and nobles, and bishops, and gentlemen reached Bewdley, on St. Mark's Day, April 25 ; and placing the corpse of the Prince in the church, " went to their dinners, for it was fasting day " — a good reason for the course thus fol- lowed ! Next morning the same routine was pursued, until the sad but splendid company approached Worcester. On the road, doles of groats and half-groats were given to the poor, and all the honours that loyalty could devise and money pay for, were readUy offered by church, con- vent, town, village, prince and peasant, as young Arthur passed on. "When he reached the cathedral town of Worcester, the spectacle was more imposing than any the old city had before witnessed. Dead kings had lain and living princes lived, within its walls, but seldom was young prince carried to his rest with such an amount of pomp, such glorious circumstance of mourning, as marked the entombing of the Tudor Prince of Wales. This pomp and circumstance were at their highest, CHiP. xti.] ARTHUR OP WINCHESTER. 331 when young Lord Gerrard, heir of the Earl of Kildare, rode into the cathedral on the dead Prince's courser and covered with his armour, where he made offering of the horse to the gospeller of the day, the Abbot of Tewkes- bury, and then retired on foot, bearing a pole-axe in his hand, the head downwards, and was so led away. To see the weeping when this was done, and not have wept too, would have argued, we are told, a hard heart in the spectator. There were offerings made — of gold, and money, and rich palls, which were thrown over the coffin, and one of which Worcester has preserved to this- day. Meanwhile, service was sung and sermons preached, and doles of groats to the poor made throughout and about the church ; and, amid a wail of mournful melody, the princely corpse was lowered to its grave, "with weeping and sore lamentation." The herald, who details- the ceremony at great length in Leland, says, " The orisons were said by the Bishop of Lincoln, also sore weeping. He set the cross over the chest, and cast, holy water and earth thereon. His (the Prince's) officer of arms, sore weeping, took off his coat of arms and cast it along over the chest, right lamentably. Then Sir William Uvedale, comptroller of his household, sore weeping and crying, took the staff of his office by both ends, and over his own head broke it, and cast it into the grave. In like wise did Sir Richard Croft, steward of his household, and cast his staff broken into the grave. In like wise did the gentlemen-ushers their rods. This was a piteous sight to those who beheld it. All things, thus finished," writes the sorrowing herald, " there was ordained — a great dinner," which the great nobles in Church and State, doubtless, no less needed than en- joyed. 332 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book hi. " Thus God have mercy on good Prince Arthur's soul !" is the closing exclamation of the pious herald who wrote the account of the spectacle he had witnessed ; and even a " Reformer " might have given a harmless Amen to the hearty, if useless, Catholic formula. It was a prayer for a Prince of extraordinary hope, the sword of whose mind — to use an old phrase — wore through the sheath of his body. With naturally cheerful inclinations, he was half-worn out by study when he was a boy, and then at the canonical age admitting such a circumstance, fifteen years old, this poor and pleased lad was wedded to the young Spanish lady, in her seventeenth year, full of energy and liveliness, and so fond of dancing that, at their first or second interview, she so displayed her graceful and vivacious skill therein, that for very shame the princely scholar and lover took to dancing too. Then ensued those magnificent nuptials, with a fortnight of such continued dissipation as nuptials had seldom pre- ceded. Finally came the five months which the young couple passed together at Ludlow, in whose grounds and castle they remained embowered. But there the health of the young Prince of Wales gave way, and gradually declining, at the expiration of the above period Arthur of Winchester died — so some of his biographers think — of the plague ! With this death, Henry, Duke of York, rose into im- portance. At this time, when eleven years of age, he was lively to restlessness, not addicted to look in the face of people to whom he spoke, rapidly blinking his eyes, and giving bold, sharp, and curt replies. Yet he could be, and often was, extremely bland and affable. He was strikingly handsome, and the people were wont to follow him in crowds to the palace. He, in return, chap, an.] HENRY OP GREENWICH. 333 as lie grew up, is reported by the ballad-makers to have gone much among the people in disguise, noting their manners and customs, observing their bearing in respect to the law, and learning from them much instruction not to be acquired elsewhere. I have mentioned the obligations he was probably under to Linacre. He is also said to have had for his tutor the witty, coarse, and sarcastic Skelton, the laureate ; — and M. Audin, who thoroughly hates his hero, affirms that Empson and Dudley were the two iniquitous tutors " under whose tuition the Prince of Wales learned the art of oppressing the nation !" In another page the French biographer says, "his education was entirely clerical. He commenced chanting at seven, at ten he had his part assigned him in the choir of the Chapel Royal, and at twelve composed masses. One of his anthems is still sung at Christ Church, Oxford, com- posed while he was Duke of York — 'O Lord, the Maker !' " M. Audin further states that Henry had given to him the Summa " of St. Thomas, which was studied with much avidity in the sixteenth century ;" and that, "like Luther, Henry, when fatigued with his studies, used to amuse himself by playing on the flute." It has been said that half a year was allowed to elapse after the death of Arthur, before his brother was created Prince of "Wales. The reason assigned for the delay being, the possible birth of an heir to the first Prince. This, however, is incorrect. Henry was created Prince of Wales only a few weeks subsequent to Arthur's decease. Mr. Sharon Turner refers to Bymer (xiii. 11) for the 334 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book m. patent so creating Henry Prince of Wales, on the 22nd June, 1502; but the document thus referred to in Rymer simply expresses that the King gives on that day "to our dearest son Henry, Prince of Wales, the office •of Guardian and Capital Judiciary of the Forest de Gaultres," in the county of York, with William, Bishop of Carlisle (Bishop of Durham elect), for his deputy. This is proof enough that the creation of Henry dates from an earlier period. Soon after this arose the question of his marriage, resolving itself into the question of an union between himself and the widow of his brother. The negotiations were cautiously opened by the father, and craftily carried on, each side affecting a certain amount of pleasure, and both being desirous not to appear too eager for the conclusion. Ferdinand feigned a desire that his daughter and that part of her dowry paid with her, should be returned to him ; Henry desirous of receiving the portion which yet remained unpaid, seemed most to wish for the completion of the marriage between his son and Ka- tharine. Then Ferdinand expressed much delight at the projected espousals between "so noble a Prince" as he of Wales {Henry), and it was a comfort to him, he said, that his daughter Katharine should have " so noble a father-in- law as my brother of England." These words were merely formal, for the writer's experience of Henry VII. as a father-in-law to Katharine was in the utmost degree unsatisfactory. The Spanish nation, it appears, or a part of it, was as satisfied as the Spanish King. The English envoys there informed their master that the larger por- tion of the common people in Spain are utterly ignorant chap, xn.] HENRY OF GREENWICH. 335 of the existence of any other country beside their own •" but they add that " such of them as had been made par- takers of the erudite information that there did exist other nations under the sun, greatly rejoiced at the con- tract with England."* Katharine evinced some distaste at being transferred from one brother to another, but she submitted herself to her father's will. Accordingly, on the 25th of June, 1504 (or the 27th, 1503, according to Audin), she was betrothed to Henry, Prince of Wales, in the Bishop of Salisbury's house, in Fleet Street ; the bridegroom being then thirteen years of age, and the bride about nineteen. This was a simple formality, but when Prince Henry entered on the canonical age of puberty, he was forced to protest against the validity of any contract into which he had been compelled to enter during his nonage. This protest was made before the Privy Council at Rich- mond, but the Prince of Wales did not himself read it, nor had he entered into it at all, but in obedience to his father's wish. King Henry's object was to have in his possession means of objecting to the subsequent fulfil- ment of the marriage, if such an objection were likely to be profitable, in certain contingent circumstances. Meanwhile, Katharine, the widow of one and not yet the wife of another Prince of Wales, h^d but an uneasy life of it here in England. Her third portion of the revenues of her first husband was not paid to her, and she was compelled to contract debts in London and elsewhere. Her servants, unabje to obtain their * Introduction to the Letters of Catharine of Arragon, in the " Letters of Koy_al and Illustrious Ladies," by M. A. E. Wood. 336 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR, [book m. wages, remained unseemly clad. Her ladies were as badly off as her servants, and to these she had not a maravedi to give, that she might relieve their distress. "Each day," writes the Princess of Wales to her father, " my troubles increase ; since I came into England I have not had a single maravedi, except a certain sum that was given me for food ; and that such a sum that it did not suffice, without my having many debts in London." Instead of having a friend in the Spanish ambassador in London (Puebla), she had a bitter foe, a " rogue," as she calls him, who helped to reduce her to poverty, deprive her of her household, and force her into a humiliating dependence upon the Court. Ferdinand seems rather to have sanctioned the proceedings of his envoy than sup- ported his daughter in her adversity. She "will soon die," she writes, after suffering from ague for two months, if her father do not succour her, and punish that rogue severely. Ferdinand counselled her to be agreeable to the King in all things; but that was hard to compass, for he demanded the unremitted half of her dowry, depre- ciated the value of jewels and plate offered in lieu of cash, and she eagerly assures her father that " money" alone will be agreeable to her father-in-law. Wanting this, the King had been positively rude to her ; he had refused to relieve her distress, affirmed that he was not bound to give her anything ; that what he did furnish was of his own good will, and that he would do nothing more til] the arrears of her portion were paid. Katharine inti- mated that her royal father would keep his promise, and that the money would be forthcoming. The ungracious King replied that he was not so sure of that, and that, a1 all events, it remained to be seen. Poor Katharine should chap, xii.] HENRY OF GREENWICH. 337 have been supported in such a scene by the Prince of Wales, but she makes no allusion to him, uttering only complaints, and declaring that, in 1506, she lacked means to procure linen under-garments, and that from the day she had left Spain, with her Spanish wardrobe, she had only purchased two new dresses. She was even com- pelled to sell her bracelets that she might procure a black velvet robe, for the very good reason she gives, " I was all but naked." One request made to her father is for a Spanish Con- fessor, as she " knew no English," and could not com- municate with a priest in the latter language. This would show that she was never Linacre's pupil, although she is said to have learned Italian of him. The Prince of "Wales's tutor could teach it skilfully, but surely if Linaere had given her any instruction it would have been in English. Altogether the period between her betrothal and her marriage was one of suffering, during which, however, no thought of either of the Princes of Wales seems to have entered her mind. It is in such sufferings that royalty sometimes is wounded ; and such was the case here, for Katharine occasionally wrote, to please her father-in-law, sentiments entirely contrary to those she really enter- tained. The latter she occasionally explained to her father, in cypher, but even these despatches were often intercepted. The most striking instance of this occurred when the widowed King Henry sought to re-marry with Joanna, the sister of Katharine, and it was the interest of Ferdinand not to refuse, nor yet to accept such a proposal. Meanwhile Henry, of whom the affianced lady makes 338 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book it no more mention in her letters than she does of he: dead lord, Arthur, maintained a quiet and well-regu lated life, ohtaining thereby the admiration and affectioi of his contemporaries, and enjoying the particular esteen of scholars and philosophers. " When the King was hut a lad, he dared to challengi even Erasmus to a Latin letter written in his own hand Erasmus gave me this to read at Ferrara. He alwayi carried it about him wherever he went, in a little box, as a hidden treasure." Such is the story told bj Dean Pace, of St. Paul's, in 1517. Further, Erasmui stated to Servatius, " When I was in Italy, the King, 2 little before his father's death, sent me, in his owi writing, litems amantissimas." Sharon Turner points tc the fact that Henry had all the more leisure for literature while Arthur was alive, because he was not the nexl heir to the throne, and was really destined for th« church. When he became Prince of Wales, although so young when such a change in his prospects occurred his intellectual tastes were formed, these he never ceased to cultivate, and the example was influential with the people. Few witnesses to the early excellence of Henry's cha- racter have given more favourable testimony than Sii Thomas Chaloner, who was himself a gallant soldier, ar able statesman, a learned writer, and subsequently Eng- lish ambassador in the Netherlands. His Latin poetical works were collected by Lord Burleigh, and published bj his order — the noble editor prefixing to them a Latir poem of his own. The good old knight vouches for the precocity of the Prince in wit, dignity, and virtue, — ir sounding hexameters — chap, m] HENRY OP GREENWICH. 339 Hie igitur, longo Eegum de sanguine cretus Pene puer, didicit eceptris succedere avitis, Jam juvenis, jam Eex, jam se praestantior ipso, Si spectes animi sublimis pignora docto Quern Musse fovere sinu, Charitesque lepore Dotarunt, gratse multa gravitate loquelae. The personal beauty and majesty of the Prince are thus illustrated — Vicerat ille omnes tunc pulchros pulchrior unus, Tanta fait sacrse Majestas regia forma?. The Prince's mind, says Sir Thomas, was as fair as his body. Young Hercules had not such arms as his to bend a bow, or such strength to wield a club. Pollux could not wrestle, nor Castor tame wild horses like the Prince of Wales. In his armour he looked more resplen- dent than Hector ; and in the chase, Hippolytus was a fool to him ! Virtue breathed through his very pores, adds Sir Thomas, and then he turns to the maiden' Queen, in whose reign he penned his panegyric, and, after showing that in Elizabeth are centred all the virtues that adorned, the merits that distinguished, and the beauties that rendered remarkable her august father, as Prince and King, he earnestly implores her to marry, that another little Prince of Wales may be seen playing about court, whose beauty might remind beholders of that of Henry of Greenwich — though of course the little Prince asked for — would, as the poet thinks, certainly excel his marvellous grandfather, both in beauty of features and grace of action ! In youthful grace and beauty, in study and sports, in brief intercourse with his betrothed, and in commu- nity with scholars, the life of the Prince of Wales passed on, till the 25th of April, 1509, on which day his father, 340 THE HOUSE OP TUDOR. [book in. Henry VII., departed. What the popular estimate of the Prince was at this period is manifested in a letter from Lord Mountjoy to Erasmus: — "I do not for a moment doubt, beloved Erasmus," says the writer, " that your sorrow will be suddenly changed into joy on hearing that Henry Octavus, or rather Octavius, has succeeded his father. Oh ! if you could but witness the happiness of the people, you would weep with joy. Heaven smiles, the earth leaps with gladness, everything seems redolent with milk, honey, and nectar." At this burst of congratulation, we leave the young Prince, now King, with a few added words. Just two months after his father's death, he married his brother's widow — living with her as his wife twenty-four years, save one month. Two sons of this marriage, both of whom were named after their father, died prematurely. The Princess Mary was left the only living offspring of Henry and Katharine. A Queen regnant had never hitherto been known in England, which the King looked upon as a male-fief. It was not illegal for the crown to pass to an heiress ; but its due administration could only be derived from the hand of a male possessor. In the mind of Henry, the birth of a prince was the first object of his desire, and it was most so when there was the least likelihood of its accomplishment. But in the year 1519, a lady, who four years later became the wife of Sir Gilbert Taillebois, gave birth to a son, of which King Henry was the father, and Wolsey became the " Gossip." The boy gave such early promise of beauty and intelligence, that he easily won the especial love of his graceless sire. His mother, a Blount, of the Shropshire branch of that family, was very young at chap, in.] HENBJT OP GREENWICH. 341 the period of the birth of this child. Her second husband was Lord Clinton, the first Earl of Lincoln* She was a rare beauty, of sprightly character, and accomplished in all outward graces and goodly pas- times. The King's light o'love, however, appears to have been speedily relieved of all maternal superinten- dence of the young Lord Henry Eitzroy, who, in his sixth year, began his brief career of greatness, was created Earl of Nottingham, at Bridewell Palace, and subsequently Duke of Richmond and Somerset. He was only six years of age when he wore all these titles, and the Garter also, to add to their splendour. At Windsor, his stall was placed next to that of the sovereign, to whom, said his patent, he was " nearly related ;" and he had precedence given him over all the other dukes in the peerage. Young as he was in years, he was despatched under honourable convoy and escort, to Sheriff-Hutton in Yorkshire, where a household was established for him as (nominal) Lord President or Viceroy of the Northern administration. His journey occupied about three sum- mer weeks. His Grace " had a horse litter," which he was too manly to use often, preferring to ride a hack or " hobye." Hospitality was readily afforded as he passed on his way, burgesses met and presented him with fish, Lord Abbots and other godly men offered him their homage and heaps of fat venison and wild fowl ; nobles lodged him at night, and set him forward on his road, when it pleased his little " Grace " to leave them. At Sheriff-Hutton his household was mounted on a * Inventories of Wardrobe, &c., of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Rich- mond. Edited for the Camden Society, by J. Gr. Nichols. 342 THE HOUSE OE TUDOR. [book iil footing which could not have been exceeded had he been residing in Ludlow Castle, as acknowledged Prince of Wales. Sir Edward Seymour, afterward the Protector Somerset, was Master of the Horse, and the Dean of York was Chancellor of the Household, the check-roll of which numbered 245 servants, whose annual stipends amounted to nearly 900£. In this household, where nobles beld office, and to the Lord of which a Fairfax acted as Serjeant-at-Law, there was one indispensable official in the person of the well- known "John Palsgrave, schoolmaster." This office was subsequently undertaken by Dr. Croke of the Uni- versity of Cambridge, which learned gentleman lived on the very worst of terms with George Cotton, the comp- troller of the household and governor of the little Duke's person. Croke was a rigid disciplinarian. He required early rising, mass before lessons, and plenty of instruction after it. But Cotton, who was a layman, ridiculed the priest, kept the "Prince" in bed, persuaded him to eschew early mass, expressed a contempt for Latin, taught the handsome boy to address impertinent speeches to his master, introduced to him buffoons and such-like worth- nothings, and when the Prince had acted worse than usual, actually rescued from beneath the rod of the pre- ceptor one of the half-dozen fellow-pupils of the Duke, whose privilege it was to be soundly flogged whenever their more illustrious school-fellow had offended, and stood in need of understanding what his offence would have brought upon him, bad not his person been sacred, Dr. Croke, in short, was very ill-used both by pupils and governor. His authority was entirely set at nought chap, xn.] HENRY OP GREENWICH. 343 Duke, in his spare moments of application, that at eight years of age he could read Csesar, and could write a fair Roman hand, which that villain Cotton did all he could to spoil and convert into a vulgar illegible secretary pen- manship. The dissension waxed in intensity and bitter- ness, till the poor Doctor at length surrendered his office. Subsequently, the Duke improved famously in the facility with which he read his " Caesar ;" and his sire marked his approval by bestowing on him a suit of armour. At this period Italy was in a state of confusion and anarchy which excited the pity of a disinterested monarch like Henry, and before his son was ten years of age he had entertained an idea of setting at least Lombardy free, by getting his natural son made Duke of Milan. Failing this, he began to consider how he might rid himself of his daughter Mary, by a foreign marriage, and exalt the Duke of Richmond by procuring for him a bride from the family of the Emperor of Germany, It was intimated to the Emperor, by the English nego- tiators of this last matter, how near the Duke was to the King, how excellent his qualities, how princely his con- dition, and how easily "he might be exalted to higher things, if the King so willed it." It is clear that Henry Fitzroy was never so near being Prince of "Wales as when Lee and his co-negotiators opened this view of things to the Emperor of Germany. This and other projects of a like nature came to nothing. Richmond when about twelve years of age visited the Court of France with the poet Earl of Surrey. The noble pair passed a year there, but when the Duke returned he found himself a person of less importance t.Tian before. Anne Bolevn was in her short-lived lustre 344 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book m. and power ; and she married the Duke, with the King's consent, to the only daughter of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. The bridegroom was only in his fifteenth year, but being a married man he attended parliament ! His last state, like his life itself, was only of brief duration, he dying in his 17th year, at St. James's palace. He was buried at Thetford, but his tomb is at Fram- lingham. The death of this handsome, graceful, and accom- plished lad terminated the uncertainty in which the succession to the crown had been during his life. " Well it was for them," (Mary and Elizabeth,) says Fuller, " that Henry Fitzroy, his natural son — but one of super- natural and extraordinary endowments — was dead; otherwise, some suspect, had he lived to survive King Fdward VI., we might presently have heard of King Henry IX., so great was his father's affection, and so unlimited his power to prefer him." After the divorce of Katharine, down to the death of Henry, five consorts, in fifteen years, shared his perilous greatness. Of these, Queen Jane Seymour gave birth, in 1537, to Prince Edward, at Hampton Court. This Prince, on his accession as Edward VI., was ten years old; but he was never created Prince of "Wales. A month before Henry's death a patent for the creation was about to be prepared ; but the King's sickness and death supervened, and Edward of Hampton, although Duke of Cornwall, was never ruler, by himself or by deputy, of the Principality * It has been asserted that, previous to the birth of Edward, the Princesses Mary * Courthope (Somerset Herald) in " Historie Peerage," by Sir H. Nicolas. chap, xn.] HENRY OF GREENWICH. 345 and Elizabeth were styled Princesses of Wales, enjoying all the privileges thereto belonging. Of this, however, there is not a shadow of proof. It remains to be stated that, until the creation of Henry of Greenwich as Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, there was always and at the same time a Charter passed for granting to such Prince the estates and revenues belonging to the principality of Wales and Earldom of Chester then in the possession of the Crown. These revenues, according to a survey made in the reign of Edward the Third, amounted to 5986£. 7*. 9d. yearly, after deducting the salaries to the judges, &c. It is said also, that there was sometimes passed another Charter, by which all arrears of rent, &c. were granted to the Prince. But the passing any such charters or grants was omitted at the creation of Henry, afterwards Henry the Eighth, and has been ever since omitted ; consequently, the Princes, since that time, have enjoyed nothing but the titles of Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, and the revenues, by being since granted away, are now reduced to little or nothing. " But/' says the anonymous author of ' A Succinct History of the Regencies, &c. in England,' published in 1731, " as to the estates and revenues of Cornwall, as they were by Act of Parliament annexed to the Crown, in the reign of Edward the Third, and therefore could not be granted away without an Act of Parliament, they remain the same, or rather better than they were in the reign of that King ; for no one of them has ever been granted away, except the Manor of Isleworth, near London, and the Manor of Wallingford, in Oxford- shire ; the former of which, Henry the Fifth granted by Q 3 346 THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. [book hi. authority of Parliament to Sion Monastery, founded by him ; and the latter, Henry the Eighth, by the same authority, made parcel of his honour of Newelme ; but by both these Acts, lands of greater value were granted and annexed to the Duchy of Cornwall, the yearly re- venues of which duchy cannot be computed, because many of them are casual ; but, at the highest, can never be near sufficient for supporting the honour and dignity of the heir-apparent to the Crown of Great Britain." From the year 1509, when Henry VII. died, till 1610, in which year King James I. created his son, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, that title was not in ex- istence in England. At the expiration of one hundred and one years, it revived in the House of Stuart, when it was again borne by two brothers, both of whom were natives of Scotland. Henry of Greenwich was the son of an English-born mother. Upwards of three centuries elapsed before England saw another Prince of Wales, born of an English mother, in the person of Albert Edward the son of our lady and sovereign, Queen Victoria, born in the year 1841. BOOK IV. PRINCES OF WALES HOUSE OP STUAET. CHAPTER XIII. THE BROTHER-PRINCES OP WALES. I. HENRY FREDERICK OF STIRLING. Bobn 19th Febbuaby, 1594. Died 1612. 1L CHARLES OF DUNFERMLINE. Bobn 19th Novembeb, 1600. Died (King) 1649. When Anne of Denmark, the consort of James L, King of Great Britain, set out from Holyrood to join that monarch in the English metropolis, she was accompanied by two of her children, Henry and Elizaheth — the latter born in 1596. Their brother, "Babie Charles," was left behind, a poor weakly boy, at Dunfermline. Few people augured long life for that delicate child, and it had heen a happy circumstance for him had the ex- pectation of his death been early realized. When the elder brother was christened, at Stirling, according to the rites of the reformed Episcopal Church of Scotland, the attendant ceremony had more of splendour about it than usually characterised the baptism of an heir to the Scottish throne. The King, and not the " gossips," gave the name ; and as James, either in joy or nervousness, repeated the appellation forwards and backwards, " Henry Frederick, Frederick Henry," so Cunningham, Bishop of Aberdeen, imitated the royal form, by pronouncing three times the names as they were*delivered by the father. The child was healthy, fair, and vigorous. 350 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. Six years later was born Prince Henry's brother Charles, at Dunfermline. Weak and languishing he came into the world, taking, as it were, a reluctant possession of life. So brief a tenure was the feeble Prince expected to enjoy, that he was hurriedly baptised, lest he should die before he was enrolled a member of Christ's flock. A month later, he was deemed strong enough to undergo a state- christening at Holyrood. This ceremony, however, lacked the pomp which had distinguished that of the christening of Henry Frederick. These two brothers, with their sister Elizabeth, after- wards Queen of Bohemia, formed the surviving family of James and Anne, when the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603 opened to them away to that throne which the Tudor Sovereign had occupied with glory and advantage to England. When James departed alone to take possession of his great inheritance, in April, 1603, his eldest son was in his tenth year, and was already remarkable for his attainments. His mind was of such precocity that, in his sixth year, James considered him capable of com- prehending the excellent advice pedantically given in the King's own work, the "Basilicon Doron." The principles of this tripartite book were not those which the monarch himself ever cared to follow; but he strongly impressed them on his son, with whose educa- tion he had little else to do, the young heir of Scotland being shut up in the strong Castle of Stirling, lest mischief should befall him, and the Crown lose its first begotten heir. He was yet but a mere child when he addressed a letter in French to the States General. His Latin letters to his sire bespeak marvellous proficiency, if they chap, xin.] THE BR0THEK-PE1NCES OP WALES. 351 were of his own composition, which the learned father himself sometimes doubted. Similar letters were ad- dressed by the little scholar to his kinsfolk — nicely phrased, but somewhat stilted, — altogether unchildish. By the time he had entered his ninth year he had already got beyond Phsedrus, into the elegancies and difficulties of the comedies of Terence, and the epistles of Cicero. Nor was he a mere bookish boy ; he could ride, dance, and sing with skill; and Richard Preston, a good soldier, instructed him in the use of arms, — sword and gun, how to bend a bow, toss a pike, and use a target — services which were munificently recompensed by planting the said Richard in the peerage of Ireland by the proud and ancient title of Earl of Desmond. The instruction of the youthful Prince was indeed a matter of wonderful interest to others besides his kinsfolk. No less an individual than Pope Clement VIII. was anxious to have the direction of it. James was informed that if he would permit this papal superintendence, Rome would assist him with all her power against any opposi- tion to his accession to the throne of England. The King wisely declined the offer, and bided his time. That he was opposed to the proposal was sufficient ground for so perverse a lady as his wife to look upon it with favour. No wonder that a Scottish puritan minister intimated from his pulpit to the " guid Lord," that people might pray for the Queen for the fashion's sake, but that there was no justification for their doing so, " for she will never do us any guid." When James had reached the English throne without papal aid, he wrote a letter to his son, remarkable for its proud tone and deep sagacity. " Let not this news," he 352 THE HOUSE OP STUART. [book it. says, " make you proud or insolent, for a King's son and heir was you before, and no more are ye yet. The augmentation that is hereby like to fall unto you, is but in cares and heavy burthens." Prince Henry, however, considered, or was taught to consider, that the throne of Great Britain was a higher seat than the sovereign chair of Scotland ; and in a missive to " Madame, and most honoured mother," he congratulates her on "the happy success of this great turn, almost above men's expecta- tion." The Prince's Latin reply to his sire's epistle is only worth noticing for the sake of stating, at the same time, that it must have been dictated. It has no trace in it of the simplicity of young Arthur's letters to Katharine of Arragon. Anne of Denmark, with the son at her side who had hitherto been in the keeping of the Earl of Mar, and accompanied also by her young daughter Elizabeth, left Holyrood for Windsor in May, 1603, arriving at the latter palace in June, after a month's progress. Of all the welcomings that greeted the travellers, the most brilliant was that at Althorpe, where Ben Jonson met the illustrious company with a masque, and in Spenser's woods poured out his musical felonies from Paradise, in the ears of the Queen and of the Prince, on whom Ben's eager eye " Did feed itself, but could not satisfy." Ben hoped for a hero in young Henry, such as Eng- land had possessed in the other Henry of Agincourt, — or the Edward of Cressy and Poictiers. Therefore sang the poet to the Prince : — " Shine bright and fixed as the Arctic star, And when slow time hath made you fit for war, chap, xiii.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OF WALES. 353 Look over the salt ocean, and think where You may hut lead us forth who grow up here, Against a day when our officious swords Shall speak our actions better than our words." The same idea took possession also of more prosaic men. Soon after the little Prince was settled at Oat- lands, Lord Spencer sent him a copy of the " Memoirs of De Comines ;" and Colonel Edmondes, when pre- senting him with a suit of armour and the works of Froissart — a gift from Holland, — declared his " hope in God that Henry should follow the footsteps of the Prince of Wales, King Edward III.'s son." Swords, guns, and targets were also the appropriate and signi- ficant gifts made to this child, after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Kings and princes, English nobles and gentles, made him at various times similar offerings. Henri IV. of France sent him a panoply ; and if he slept for a night at the house of an English gentle- man, it was not uncommon for the host to pray his acceptance, when leaving, of a suit of armour, worth several hundred pounds. Henry of Stirling, too, acted up to his warlike reputation, and young as he was when, in 1603, his sire buckled the garter beneath his knee, he exhibited all the graces of chivalry at the ceremony, — a nobly modest bearing, quickness of wit, and at the altar a reverence of action worthy of young Samuel. In aid of his knighthood, levies were made on the public. London alone, on one occasion, contributed nearly 13001. The clergy and laity of Rutlandshire especially distinguished themselves by expressing their willing- ness to be taxed, as the first fruits of their love for such a Prince. The product of the impost was increased by a politic artifice. Formerly the levy in aid for knight- 354 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book rv. ing a prince was made at the rate of one shilling in. the pound, on the value of land ; but on this occasion land- holders were informed that no compulsion would be employed. They were left to mete the levy by the measure of their love, and out of affection or policy they replied liberally to the intimation. Whenever the young Prince entered a new order of chivalry, the occasion was made use of to mulct the landholder, whose inclination was often directed by the government. Such ceremonies " admitted of a willing contribution from the people," says sly old Wilson, " and such old customs as bring in money are never out of date." After all, young Henry was only a home-keeping knight. The most terrible passage at arms in which he was ever engaged previous to his being created Prince of Wales (in 1610), was at the famous tilting behind the barriers, which followed the famous challenges in White- hall. The mock affrays sustained by the Prince and troops of friends divided into antagonists, were performed — for such is the proper term — in presence of illustrious and applauding spectators. It was a jousting of four days' continuance, so systematic in its theatrical aspect, that registrars noted the numbers of pike-thrusts and cuts of the sword made by the carpet chevalier, who was then older than the Prince of Wales was at the time he stood victor on the field of Cressy. The mimic fray was followed by carousing. On the evening that succeeded Twelfth Night, in the year last mentioned, as Chamberlain writes to Winwood " the Prince with his assistants all in a livery, and the defendants in their best bravery, rode in great pomp to convoy the King to St. James's, whither he had invited chap, xin.] THE BKOTHEE-PRINCES OF WALES. 355 him and all the court to supper, the Queen only being absent, and there ended his table, the allowance whereof, from the publishing his challenge, had been 100£. a-day." There was, perhaps, more of the admiral than of the general in the eldest son of James I. ; the interest he took in the navy seemed to be marked by more of serious earnestness. He had scarcely been a year in England, when Phineas Pett, one of the masters of Woolwich Dockyard, constructed for the Prince a model ship, twenty-eight feet by twelve, which lay off the King's private stairs at Whitehall, and which Henry himself had named the "Disdain." In this vessel he made fresh-water voyages, and the " Disdain" became a fami- liar sight on the river. The princely admiral was pro- moted to a larger vessel in 1606, when in his twelfth year. On this occasion he had accompanied his uncle, King Christian of Denmark, a recent visitor at court, to Gravesend, where lay the Danish fleet waiting to convoy its master home. The King made a present of his vice-admiral's ship to little Henry, the value of which was 2500£, adding thereto a naval rapier and hanger, worth a couple of thousand marks. In the barge belonging to the Dane, the Prince frequently rowed to Woolwich, where he inspected the yard, partook of very excellent cheer, and was saluted at arrival and departure with unusual salutes from brazen " chambers" cunningly disposed. When these were first fired in Prince Henry's honour, he approached this dread artillery, and ordered that they should again be loaded and discharged in his presence. Phineas Pett, however, fell into a loyal trepidation at the thought of 356 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. the peril to which such an exhibition of villanous salt- petre might subject the hope of the nation, and with much ado he persuaded the curious Prince to get into his barge and row out of harm's way, where, waving his handkerchief as a signal, the brazen mouths pealed forth such a song of war as proved highly agreeable to the nicely critical ears of the music-loving Prince. Phineas Pett was his especial favourite, and the friendship of Henry was manifested for him on the occasion when the master was involved with others in a hostile accusation of mal-practices in the dockyard. The young heir to the throne stood by him during the inquiry, and, when this had terminated to Pett's justi- fication, Henry expressed an indignant regret that Pett's accusers could not be rewarded with a halter. Almost from the month of the Prince's arrival in England he had his separate establishment — at first at Oatlands, with his sister Elizabeth, subsequently at Nonsuch and Hampton also; and in town at St. James's, where barns and stables were erected for him by the King's command. In the early years, at Oatlands, the establishment comprised seventy servants — of whom twenty-two were for " the chamber," serving in the Prince's presence, and forty -eight " below." Subsequently the number was more than doubled — the superintendence of the whole was in the hands of Sir Thomas Chaloner. So ill-regulated was this establish- ment, through the uncertainty of the pecuniary supplies promised by the government, that servants were con- stantly in arrears of wages; and purveyors enforced delayed payments by refusing to furnish provisions ! As Henry grew older his houses contained a gay com- chap, sm] THE BROTHEK-PKINCES OF WALES. 357 panionship of " sprightly blossoms," as Wilson calls them ; and these probably gave some trouble to Colmer, the King's " cock-master," whose privilege it was to decide all disputed wagers relative to cock-fighting. Three thousand pounds, yearly, was the sum allowed for the Prince's apparel and linen, but the expense was for ever in excess of the allowance. The apothecaries pre- sented large claims for " phisicale and odoriferous things" for the Prince's use ; and there was more money spent upon jewels than on books. The young master was not insensible to the uses of money ; and was so watchful of his rights, that in 1609 he claimed, as Duke of Cornwall, the rent and arrears of rent of land (amounting to about 100£. per annum) belonging for- merly to the recently-dissolved " Priory of Coventry." About his country houses were the Spanish hawks and Danish hounds sent as gifts from beyond sea. On his tables was the renowned linen manufactured in Holland, and presented to him by the Dutch government. At this time all the royal residences were distinguished by considerable riot and confusion. Those of Prince Henry are supposed to have formed an exception, from a fact which proves the rule — namely, that he had boxes in each house in which were deposited the fines levied on all persons detected in swearing. These were divided among the neighbouring poor. The more blasphemy reigned in the palace, the greater their comfort in their huts and villages. For companionship the Prince had more of the society of his sister Elizabeth than of that of his melancholy brother Charles. Between the two former there was a marked similarity of character and features. They fre- 358 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. quently rode out together, and the Princess loved her brother, as fondly as Elizabeth of York loved the Prince of Wales and precocious Richard who perished in the Tower. At four o'clock of an August morning, the Prince was out with his hounds ; and, though not unmeasurably addicted to hunting, his letters contain, in return for paternal permission to follow the chase, promise of increased application to his studies. And of these I will now say a few words. They were directed by Adam Newton, who, though a layman, was subsequently appointed Dean of Durham, a piece of pre- ferment which he ultimately resigned for a baronetcy. This appointment of laymen to ecclesiastical offices was then not uncommon — it was only suppressed by the Act of Uniformity. The year previous to the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales, Lord Eure, the president of the Principality, informed Chamberlain (in a letter to be found in the Domestic Series at the State Paper Office, a series in which I have found many scattered facts which I have here produced) that ministers were so scarce in Wales, the Bishop of Llandaff had been com- pelled to allow laymen to officiate in the churches. Mr. Newton was the Prince's " Psedagogue," keeping his pupil' close to his "humanities," and occasionally exchanging sharp words, on occasional provocation. Under his supervision, the Prince was wont to transmit New- Year's gifts to the King in the shape of Latin letters, themes, essays, and occasionally a bunch of lumbering hexameters. On the strength of this, the religious and literary world, and even English Senecas like Hall, or country simpletons, like Coryat, pelted him with dedications, for which he made a princely return chap, xrn.] THE BROTHEK-PEINCES OP WALES. 359 in diamonds. The King contemplated his scholarship with pride, and accordingly the Queen endeavoured to render him less inclined to the Muses than to amuse- ment. Indeed Harlay, the French minister, declared of her that she would make a Eomanist of the boy, if the King should die during his son's minority. Adam Newton's honorarium as " schoolmaster of Prince Henry" was 2001. per annum, but he had an occasional gift, by warrant on the treasury, of much more than that sum. Nor was this young Henry's only master. Ferabosco taught him music at a trifle less than one pound per week ; and Henri IV., whose admira- tion of the Prince's penmanship was known to all Europe, sent him Peter Bourdin, Lord of St. Anthoine, to make him equally skilful in horsemanship. It is a truth that at a very early period Henry showed a love for contemporary history, and Newton, to encourage this, willingly placed before him all letters from travellers abroad, containing accounts of the writers' experience in the morals, customs, and history of the nations they traversed. Henry further developed this taste for himself by appointing Lydyat, the famed opponent of Scaliger, to the offices of his chrono- grapher and cosmographer. The purchase made by the King of Lord Lumley's library for him, was another aid towards the acquirement of that knowledge which this modern Henry Beau Clerc loved to lay up. Nevertheless, his houses were not invariably localities where this love could be quietly and uninterruptedly cherished. " The Prince's household," writes Chaloner to Sir Julius Caesar, " intended by the King for courtly college or collegiate court, was become so great a court, 360 THE HOUSE OP STUART. [book rr. that it was ready to be overwhelmed with the charge and burden of itself." The master thereof was of more regular habits than his followers, and never while he lived, after the Gunpowder Plot, did he omit repairing to sermon on a Tuesday, the day of the week on which the conspiracy was to have been carried into effect. " I shall have lived to no purpose," once exclaimed the saintly and scholarly Hall, "if I fail to profit that princely soul !" Had all the learned and illustrious personages who admired or affected to admire Henry of Stirling, tem- pered their admiration as discreetly as that divine, they, too, might have profited rather than spoiled, or, as Salisbury did, polluted, the mind of the Prince. The adulation was in more than one sense offensive. Cornwallis wrote to him that he was "the perfect composition of the graces of God and nature," and he prattled of the lustre of the beams of his virtue, as something too bright for mortal to look upon. Salisbury's son, Lord Cranborne, informed him that the eyes and hopes of his youth were in Henry's person and fortune. To be deprived of the pleasure of the Prince's presence is, of course, to be in darkness worse than Cimmerian, and to behold that gracious countenance is once more to bask in the warmth and light of a new sun. Foreign ambassadors extolled in his hearing his virtues and accomplishments; and when they wrote to their royal masters recommenda- tions to procure influence in the princely household, by pensioning some of the inmates, the kings, wiser than their legates, procured the influence at a cheaper rate, by eulogizing the princely judgment as self-dependent, chap, xni.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OF WALES. 361 and not to be biassed by meaner souls. ■ Occasionally Henry had a neat answer at hand for the fulsome flatterers, and when Lord Dunfermline presented him with a catalogue of his virtues, Henry remarked that the list was of possessions to be acquired by him, not already enjoyed. Between the French and Spanish ambassadors, each coveting his alliance, he was nearly strangled by the stringency of their affectionate flattery. So habituated to incense, he well knew in his own turn to scatter it skilfully where there was a divinity to be propitiated, as in the case of that most Sacred Majesty his father, at the frequent recollection of whose vast benefits conferred on him, Henry declares that he is stricken into silence and amazement. It was the disease of the times, Even the most scholarly were affected by it, and Sir John Harrington himself, pretending inability to comprehend a passage in the Agricola of Tacitus, implores the Prince to enlighten him, or he must rest for ever in utter darkness ; and also to pardon the childish weakness of a letter destitute of the graces and learning which mark the epistles of his Royal Highness !' Worse than all these, however, was James's "little beagle," Salisbury the Lord Treasurer, of whom the Prince early entertained a jealousy which the wily states- man refused to discern. Does Salisbury inadvertently leave Royston without kissing the Prince's hand, he accuses himself of " gross and beastly oblivion." He avows himself a greater ass than "Tom Derry," the Queen's fool, and piles up the most nauseous adulation, such as might win contempt from the court buffoon. There is no species of flattery which Salisbury does not 362 THE HOUSE OP STXJAKT. [book re- employ. To flatter one man he vituperates thousands and the villain thinks he has said an acceptable thing tc a hoy of fifteen, when he intimates in the very coarsesl terms that all the maidens of England make small ac count of their honour, when they think of the irresistible beauty of this paragon of a Prince. Henry of Stirling matriculated at Oxford, at as earlj a period as Henry of Monmouth. Magdalen received him in 1605, when he was but eleven years old. His reception was made the occasion of a festival of severa. days, comprising much versifying, and Latin plays, anc disputations in law, divinity, philosophy, and medicine Some of these disputations were on recondite questions as " Whether children imbibe the temper with the mill of their nurses," and similar notable subjects. Ever James himself grew weary of the solemn trifling, anc showed his humour ; but Henry bore bravely up through it all, and Wake assures us that the University saw as much of the Prince's temper and genius as answerec their most sanguine wishes. In such wise the young years of this hopeful Prinet passed on till 1610 arrived, and Bacon and Hobart wer< employed to draw up the preamble of the patent for his creation as Prince of Wales. To the great act itself w« will now devote a few illustrative lines. The ceremony of making Henry Prince of Wales was not confined to a mere parliamentary solemnity but all London was provided with a gallant show on th< occasion. Never did May go out or June come ii accompanied by such "bravery" as made holiday ii honour of the event. On Wednesday evening, the 30th of May, the Princ< chat, xin.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OP WALES. 363 and a troop of young companions went from St. James's to Richmond, to sup, sleep, and return processionally next morning. This latter passage was made by water ; the day was fine, the river and shores covered with shouting specta- tors, and the progress so slow that the Prince landed for awhile at Barnes, where he " refreshed himself in an arbour by the waterside, and took a short repast of such sweetmeats and other things as could then be provided on the sudden."* On again getting afloat, the gay procession dropped down to Chelsea, where the City Companies in fifty-four stately barges, met the young hero of the day. Here, too, the fairest nymph the city could hire, and who had courage to mount a pasteboard whale, was towed along- side the royal barge, where, as Corinna, Genius of Great Britain, she addressed the " great Duke of Cornwall" in a speech as full of pedantic conceits as could justify the pedantic fashion of the times. From this spot, at two o'clock p.m., the City barges and sea-monsters escorted the Prince and his company to the capital. As the joyous array reached Whitehall, the tide was at flood, and the show at its brightest. To see the latter, the King and other members of the royal family stood at the Privy-gallery windows. Delicate seamanship extricated the Prince and his flotilla from the press of boats, and after some manoeuvring, he landed at Whitehall Stairs, on his way to which he was bidden farewell in another pedantic oration, delivered by Amphion, riding on a dolphin, and announcing himself as the Genius of Wales. * Nichols, Prog. James I. E 2 364 THE HOUSE OP STUAIIT. [book rv. At Whitehall the Prince had been expected at noon, and dinner had been commanded accordingly, but now it was getting late in the afternoon, and after much showy and solemn state observed at his landing and entering the palace, he sate down to meat, and wearied with the formalities of the day, went early to bed. Nothing further was done until the following Monday, when at half-past ten another water-procession was formed, in which the King conducted his son to the landing-place at Westminster, whence, suitably attended the august couple proceeded on foot to the Upper House of Parliament, heralded, surrounded and followed by a gorgeously-arrayed multitude of peers. After awhile, the King ascended the throne, royally robed, and there awaited a the coming of his son. Prince Henry speedily entered with his company. He wore a surcoat of purple velvet, and he walked bareheaded. He was preceded by Garter, bearing the Letters-Patent, and was supported by the Earl of Nottingham (Privy Seal) and the Earl of Northampton (Lord Admiral). The Prince bowed thrice as he advanced towards the throne, and then knelt there on a rich cushion while the important document which Garter, after respectfully kissing it, had delivered to the Earl of Salisbury, was read by that nobleman. The reading having been concluded, the King " put the robes upon him," girded him with the sword, invested him with the rod and ring, and set the cap and coronet on his head. Thus attired and adorned, the Prince was conducted by the Earls of Worcester and Suffolk to his place on the left hand of his father, the King. At this point James was informed that etiquette re- quired him to kiss the newly-created Prince, but James chap, xiii.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OF WALES. 365 was a strict disciplinarian, and he first extended his hand to his son to he kissed, before he arose and heartily- kissed his son. Some State formality followed, at the end of which the water procession was again formed, " the trumpets sounding in the row-barge all the way as they went, and the heralds going before them in the same." The chronicler quoted in "Nichols's Progresses of James" adds that, "the King that day dined above, but the Prince dined in the Hall and was served with great state and magnificence." He sat at the head of the centre table of three placed "longways," and with him his brother Charles Duke of York, and " divers great lords/' Instead of toasts and health-giving, and ' odious speech-making, the guests were edified by pro- claiming the style and title of the King and Prince in English, French, and Latin, with the usual largesses. " Then the trumpets sounding, the second course came in, and dinner done, that day's solemnity ceased." Four-and-twenty noblemen and gentlemen were created Knights of the Bath in honour of this occasion. This creation was a process of some length. They met at Durham House, in the Strand, on the previous Saturday, prayed, supped, bathed, " each in a several bathing-tub which was lined both within and without with white linen and covered with rich say, and a ticket of every man's name set upon his tub very orderly." After this ceremony the elevated gentlemen went all to their pallet beds in one room, each pallet spread beneath the sleeper's shield of arms. Sunday was a solemn day for them and a gay one for London. They went through much praying and changing of costume, before 366 THE HOUSE OF STUART. L B00K ""• they rode forth to "Whitehall to be invested by the King, and so rendered fit to feast with the Prince on Monday. They attended divine service in the Royal Chapel, and on retiring were encountered by the chief cook, gilt- handled hatchet in hand, who challenged their spurs, received his fees, and bade them to ever keep in mind their duty as knights, or he might yet have to hack off the spurs from the heels of any among them who should disgrace their chivalry. Thus warned and armed they were fitted for companionship next day with the Prince of Wales. A letter in " Winwood's Memorials,"* treating of this matter, states that after the Prince was invested, he offered with a low reverence to depart, but " the King stept to him, and as it were by the way of welcome to that degree of greatness, took him by the hand, and then kissed him." Of the banquet the same writer states that, " he who sat nearest unto the Prince, was the full distance of half the board from him." In addition to all this there were jousts in the tilt-yard, and a slashing sea-fight and fireworks on the Thames, and masques at Court, the machinery of which must have pressed heavily on the Treasury, and costly gifts, made to the Prince, and therewith a grand court ball, commenced by children and carried on by their elders till " it was high time to go to bed, for it was within an hour of the sun's, not setting, but rising. Howbeit a further time was to be spent in viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets I have ever seen." So that the Elizabethan school must have had a rude- ness in it to which modern discourtesy may proudly * Vol. iii. p. 179. chap, xiii] THE BKOTHER-PKINCES OE WALES. 367 turn at scrambling suppers, and cite as an authority. Altogether the investiture of this Prince of "Wales must have cost a large sum, and yet contemporaries saw a sort of shabhiness in it, as we gather from a letter of Dudley Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmonds, in which he says of the programme of all that was to follow the actual ceremony of investiture, that it was to be " per- formed in as private a manner as may be, and alto- ■ gether after the fashion of Prince Arthur, first son to Henry VII. who, you know, was a good husband" (of his money). " And the King in this time of necessity, which is so prest to the Parliament, is not willing to undergo any needless expense, which is the cause that makes the creation so. private; whereas, otherwise, there was to have been a solemn entry and passage through the City of London, which is now contracted betwixt "Whitehall and "Westminster, and that by water." Hitherto, our Princes of Wales had only added to that title those of Duke of Cornwall and Aquitaine, Earls of Flint and Chester and perhaps a nominal barony, as in the case of the Black Prince, who was Lord Warke in right of Joan. Henry of Stirling brought with him a garland of new titles, the most of which have been inhe- rited by successive heirs-apparent of the English throne — namely, Prince and Steward of Scotland, Duke of Eothsay, Earl of Carrick, Lord of the Isles, and Baron and Knight of Renfrew. For the support of his household he was allowed 1500£. monthly, but this did not include his entire revenue. Grants were made to him of ancient posses- sions in "Wales, to the amount, in round numbers, of 4000& annually. From the honour of Eye, in Suffolk, 368 THE HOUSE OP STUART. [book rv. and similar resources, he derived about 3000£. annually, and he had other means supplied by the treasury, when his expenses exceeded his income. It speaks ill for the bespeakers of the masques and other braveries which celebrated his creation, that, for years after, the honest men who provided the finery were still unpaid. The State Paper Office has preserved these testimonies against the improvidence of the Court. On the other hand, the occasion of the creation of the Prince was taken advantage of, in order to ask for various favours. One of the petitioners is Avis, Lady Cooke, who writes to Lord Salisbury the details of a domestic incident which had touched her ladyship nearly. There was a certain fascinating Mr. Fotherby, son of the Archdeacon of Canterbury, who had wooed and won her daughter. " Her worth and her birth are much degraded by that match," wrote the proud Lady Cooke, who had small regard for the son of an Archdeacon. If the Prince of Wales would but make him a knight, she might then look upon her son-in-law with complacency ! It was at the creation of the Prince that his brother Charles, then ten years old, made his graceful debut among the little lords and ladies, and noble young ballet dancers who figured on that occasion. He had had a slowly successful struggle for the life which it had been well for him had he lost early. The little Duke of Albany, as Charles was styled in his youth, remained in Scotland a year after the royal family had left for England. Lord Fife, his guardian, transmitted bulletins of his health. One of them says : — " Your Sacred Ma- jesty's most noble son, Duke Charles, continues, praised be God, in good health, good courage, and lofty mind ; chap, xin.] THE BROTHEK-PRXNCES OP WALES. 369 although yet weak in body, he is beginning to speak some words. He is far better, as yet, with his mind than with his body and feet ; but I hope in God he shall be all well and princely, worthy of your Majesty, as his Grace is judged to be by all, very like in lineaments to your royal person." In the summer of 1604, as the Duke made no further progress, the Queen despatched Dr. Atkins (with a fee of 50s. per day) to Scotland, and with him one Edward Phillipps, an apothecary, who had an honorarium of 4>Ql. The physician, in July, wrote to Cecil, that he had found Prince Charles recovering, and that he was beginning to walk alone, which (though now four years old) he had never done before. After he had perished on the scaffold, wise folk in the North thought nature had been unwilling that he should live. Equally wise folk, when Prince Henry died early, re- marked that it could not well have been otherwise, see- ing that he never cast his first teeth — a sure sign of death, sooner or later ! Five hundred pounds sterling were sent to Scotland to defray the charges of bringing the poor little Duke, who could neither walk nor talk, to England. He arrived in London in better condition than was expected ; and in the State Paper Office lies the solemn " discharge, for Alexander Seaton, Lord Fyvie, Chancellor of Scotland, of the custody of the Duke of York, with attestation of his being in perfect health." When taken to White- hall, there seems to have been some difficulty in pro- viding him with quarters, since 20£. yearly was accorded to Sir Thomas Knyvet for vacating his lodgings in the Palace, in order to accommodate the weak, deformed, and stammering Prince, who, in course of time, was ji 3 370 THE HOUSE OP STUAKT. [book it. carried from that palace to the throne, and, in a succeed- ing period, from the throne back to that palace, there to be slain. For the weakness in the boy's ankles, the King pre- scribed irons ; for the unintelligible attempts at speak- ing, he would have had the Prince's tongue cut. For the misshapen legs, even his brother Henry is said to have had his joke, intimating that Charles might be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and that in such case he would be able to conceal his ill-made limbs beneath his robes. But Charles fell into more tender hands than these, and Lady Carey, who had the charge of him, rendering to him mother's service which he had not from his mother, by care and wisdom and love born of her office, made of that poor " Prince Piquet with the tuft," as fair and straight and well-spoken a youth as the fairy made of the Prince by power of able woman's magic. With the new year 1606, Charles, who brought with him to Whitehall the titles of Duke of Albany, Marquis, of Ormond, Earl of Poss, and Lord Ardmannoch, placed an English title before them all. " See," writes Carle- ton to Chamberlain, in the January of that year, " little Charles is made great Duke of York." Previous to this advancement, the Duke's household was arranged. Indeed, as early as November, 1604, a warrant was issued to Lord Suffolk to administer the usual oath to Peter Young, Almoner of Scotland, over- seer of the household of " little Charles," and guardian of his education. The salary of 20 0£. attached to the office was not long enjoyed by Peter. In the following year, Thomas Murray was appointed to be the Duke's " pedagogue," with the mastership of Christ's Hospital, chap, xm.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OP WALES. 371 Sherborne, and a promised pension of 200 marks for life. Murray was otherwise paid by a curious process. For instance, in 1609, a grant was made to him and others of 10,000£, consisting of debts due to the deceased Duke of Somerset, Lord Hussey, and Archbishop Cranmer, attainted persons; — and Murray and his co-partners were authorized to enforce payment. Meanwhile, as in the case of Prince Henry, more money was expended on jewels for Duke Charles than for books. Besides these outlays, warrants were issued granting to Lady Carey 600£. yearly for apparel and linen for the Duke, and 501. for him to distribute in gifts and rewards. In learning he was apparently, but perhaps not actually, less precocious than his brother. " Sweet, sweet father," he writes, " i learn to decline substantives and adjectives. Give me your blessing." In his ninth year, an age when Arthur of Winchester wrote, and Henry of Stirling was supposed to write, excellent Latin letters, Charles says, in a Latin note to the latter, " To enjoy your company, to ride with you, to hunt with you, will yield to me supreme pleasure. I am now reading the 'Conversations of Erasmus,' from which, I am sure, I can learn both the purity of the Latin tongue and elegance of behaviour." This last phrase was probably Murray's opinion in Murray's own words. For by this time it had become a recognised fact that the pedagogue of a prince was the actual writer of his letters. There is in the Bodleian library a document, from the hand of King James himself, addressed to Murray, in which that sovereign says to his - son's tutor : — " Considering the pains and travails em- ployed by you, not only in the careful education of our 372 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. dearly beloved son the prince, and instructing him in all kinds of good learning, according to the capacity of his tender years, but also in penning and framing his missive letters in divers languages, directed either to ourself or foreign princes, we are willing both to testify our accep- tance of this your service, formerly done, and to encou- rage you with the like faithfulness and diligence to pro- secute the same. Therefore, we have thought good to command you to continue the penning and writing of all such missives as shall be directed by our dearly beloved son the prince, in any of his affairs within or without our realms ; giving and granting unto you, to this effect, the custody and keeping of our said son's signet, with such allowance as shall be thought reasonable and fit, and all other privileges and pre-eminences belonging there- unto." This is a pleasant insight into the inner chambers of quasi-learned young princes ! Henceforward we can only look for their true sentiments when they write simple English, under their own hand. As, for exam- ple, when Charles addressed a note to his lively mother, then rendered quiet by the gout. " I wish from my heart/' says the boy whom she especially loved, and who loved her, " that I might help to find a remedy to your disease ; the which I must bear the more patiently, be- cause it is the sign of a long life. But, I must for many causes be sorry ; and specially because it is troublesome to you, and has deprived me of your most comfortable sight, and of many good dinners, the which I hope, by God's grace, shortly to enjoy !" There spoke the loving and the hungry boy, and he adds, in the spirit of one who had some fun in him, grave as he looked in youth ohm. xin.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OF WALES. 373 and manhood — " when it shall please you to give me leave to see you, it may he I shall give you some good recipe, which either shall heal you, or make you laugh." And then kissing the " most sacred hands" of his "most worthy mistress," as he styles his mother, he subscribes himself, rather formally, her "most humble and obedient servant, Charles." The brother princes are not often to he met with together, — -save in the notice taken of them hy others, as by a flatterer who eulogized the piety and promise of Henry, adding of Charles, — " there is no great prince in Christendom that doth not wish himself such a son." The Duke of York was occasionally housed in Sir Christopher Hatton's old residence at Holdenby, which had been purchased for him hy the King, who had ap- pointed the wife of Sir Edward Coke to the office of keeper. In his lodgings at Whitehall he had been in some peril, as early as 1605, just previous to the "plot," after which one of his servants, Agnes Fortun, swore that Thomas Percy came to the duke's lodgings, ahout the 1st of Novemher, " inquiring the "way to his chamber, and as to the hours at which he rode out, and as to how he was attended." The object was to gain Charles's person, not his life. In after years the " plot," in its consequences, perilled the life of his brother, if we may credit the fact registered at the State Paper Office, that in the spring of 1608, Francis Tillotson, himself a priest, gave information to Lord Danvers, that a conspiracy was forming in four differentcountries, — at Rome, under one Parson ; in Madrid, under Cresswell ; by Fludd, in Lis- hon ; and by Baldwin, in the Low Countries ; — the object of which was to revenge on Prince Henry 374 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book rv. and his father the death of Garnet, executed for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot. The means to be employed consisted in the despatching of five disguised Jesuits to England, to assassinate the sovereign and the heir-apparent. Amid plots or rumours of plots, the chief incident which marked the short career of Henry, as Prince of Wales, was the important matter of his marriage. Wilson, when noticing the endeavours of the king to win a Spanish princess for the elder son, remarks that — " After some traverses, it was found that there was more time lost than ground gotten ; for princes in trea- ties lie at the snaps, and the most backward often gets the better of it. But the king being not so hot then for this, as he was for the other son with another sister (the eldest being matched into France) made a quicker and more honourable retreat." Prance was more ready to offer a bride, in the person of " Madame Christine," second daughter to the French King, who promised with her a dowry of 50,000 crowns, and ultimately bade, with the lady, twenty thousand more. In these affairs, Henry manifested no- thing of the ardour of young Arthur, — the probability being that he found " metal more attractive" at home, or certainly might have found, for it was cast in his path on purpose to draw upon it his princely regard. He was simply passive, and yet acute in detecting the lit- tleness of his father's mind; — as when, in 1612, he wrote : " The cause which first induced your Majesty to proceed in this proposition by your ambassador, was the hope which the Duke de Bouillon gave your Majesty of breaking their other match with Spain. If the con- chap, xni.] THE BROTHER-PKINCES OP WALES. 375 tinuance of this treaty hold only on that hope, and not upon any desire to effect a match with the second daughter, in my weak opinion I hold that it stand more with your Majesty's honour to stay your ambassador from moving it any more, than to go on with it." Rochester joked upon the extreme youth of the young lady, wished well she were not the acerba virgo, unripe maiden that she was, but he tried to render the Prince of "Wales an active wooer of the French bride of nine years old. There is a mournful tone in which the Prince, who was twice that age, replies, in probably the last letter which he ever penned : — " I choose rather to be- wray the weakness of my judgment by obedience, than that his Majesty should not find in me a willingness to do my best endeavours for the satisfying of all his commandments." This obedience, in a matter where the heart now, and future happiness were concerned, was perhaps carried beyond its proper limits; and such yielding was not characteristic of the Prince in all things. Not that the Prince was the rough, soldierly young fellow for which some have taken him. Lord Campbell suspects (in his Life of Lord Ellesmere,) that it was well for our liberties that Henry died young, " for," says his lordship, " if he had survived, and shown the genius for war of which he had given manifestation, such battles as Edge Hill, Newbury, and Naseby, would probably have had a different result, and the Long Par- liament would have been the last that would ever have assembled in England." But I think that Henry's martial character was greatly the result of his mother's influence, exercised in that direction, because the King hated the entire paraphernalia of war. On the other 376 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. hand, the young Prince possessed a decided taste of his own for serious men and serious pursuits. "When he heard Williams preach at Newmarket, he " took great notice of him," says Hackett, " as an honour to Wales, and gave him his princely word that he would reward him after the weight of his worth." Certainly, he had a heart for greatness in his fellow-men — he could not comprehend how his sire could keep captive in a cage so rare a bird as Sir Walter Ealeigh. Nor was this the only point on which he differed with his sire, or on the subject of the King's household. " I have heard," says Dr. Goodman, " that the Prince did sometimes abuse the King's servants, which the King took ill." And again, says the old Bishop of Gloucester, " I confess that the Prince did sometimes pry into the King's actions, and a little dislike them. A knight told me a tale that he was privily sent by Prince Henry to see how the Royal Navy was ordered; what defects there were, and to be a spy upon them; and no doubt but he had others in the Signet office." The old prelate believed the young Prince " had heroieal intentions ;" but these were ex- actly the sort of intentions which the King most heartily disliked ; and accordingly, the attendants on the Prince of Wales, who were suspected of having prompted him to this course, were dismissed from his household. The rules for the ordering of Prince Henry's house- hold after his creation as Prince of Wales, when I may mention by the way, — to be assured that he was in truth the sovereign prince he was said to be, he caused all tenants of land within the territory, whence a portion of his revenues was derived, to renew their leases, payin°- chap, mi.] THE BROTHER-PKINCES OP "WALES. 377 the customary fines — these rules, I say, regarding his household, form a good sized pamphlet in themselves, but certain extracts may serve to show their character as well as reflect something of that of the times. For example, all ragged and unsweet persons are warned from his vicinity. His gentlemen are to see him " decently arrayed and disarrayed ;" " unseemly speech" in his presence is forbidden, and express prohibition made that any of his gentlemen carry him out of the house, witbout leave of the Comptroller, Sir Thomas Cbaloner. The grooms of the chamber are reminded not to come into the Prince's sight " with their doublets unbuttoned or their hose untied." The grooms or the gentlemen are ordered to " lie nightly on a pallet in the privy- chamber," and to take care that the chambers "be strewed, aired, and made clean before the prince comes out of bis chamber/' Then, when he goes abroad, his chambers are to be locked till he returns ; when at study intrusion is forbidden ; cleanliness of speech and conduct is insisted on ; fear of infection is impressed, and if the gentlemen-ushers find any of the servants or pages with- out beds, they are ordered to billet them "in the towns nearest at hand." Other persons ordered to sleep out are " such as have not shift of apparel and linen." They were only permitted to make the house " noisome" in the daytime. Some of the rules serve as proofs that the interior of a palace could only be kept " sweet " by the most stringent orders; and that gambling and noisy sports were not uncommon is shown in the commands to the authorized officials to suppress them, whenever detected. 378 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [book it. The Prince's dinner is ordered to be served at half-past ten; his supper at half-past five, and a comfortable privacy is secured for him by an order for the ejection of all unemployed persons, from the apartment. No man below the degree of " quality" could pass the wicket, bearing his sword. The "pleb" was compelled to leave his dagger or rapier with the porter, who possessed a very large amount of authority. There is a symptom of early going to bed in the injunction to close the gates " without fail" at nine o'clock at night ; and the porters were to keep a sharp look-out that none of the household shirked a daily attendance at prayers, twice. Every embezzlement of kitchen-stuff is provided against, and a curious item has respect to certain daughters of mischief, threatening the dismissal of all persons who draw them to "haunt aboutthe stables, that are not by sufficient warrant to be there ;" adding that " all night-walkers" and other evil persons specified, shall be dismissed, " except there be appearance by their submission of amendment." There is a special word of warning too against " busy- bodies •" the poor are to be fed from the remnants at the various tables, and if any official in the house dare to omit taking the sacrament at least four times in the year, he is forthwith to be dismissed; twelve times in the year being the rule recommended to the house. As for the seats in his Highness's chapel, an officer is to have regard that such seats "be not pestered and taken up by men of mean quality." The scale of prices for provisions furnished by the pur- veyors, seems to have been nearly a fixed, or only a slightly sliding scale. " An ox should weigh 6001b. the four quarters, and cost commonly 91. 10s. or there- chap, xni.] THE BROTHER-PRINCES OP WALES. 379 abouts." Respecting wages, the salary of Sir Thomas Chaloner, the head of the household, amounted only to 66/. 13s. M. yearly, with his diet. Of gentle- men of the privy chamber, ordinary and extraordinary, the Prince had forty-nine. The wages of the pages of the bedchamber were only one-third less than those of Sir Thomas Chaloner, and they wore livery too. The highest salary was that of Dr. Hammond, and of two yeomen, Wilson and Bower, who had 100/. per annum. The Prince awarded to his librarian less than to his. pages, namely 30/. per year, with no additions, while Walter Meek, his barber, received 20/. yearly, with 48/. \Zs. 42 THE HOUSE OF STUART. [booe it. Nine years elapsed before he entered as a monarch the palace in which he was born. To bring him there earlier, Dunbar was fought for him in vain, and he himself with fruitless gallantry maintained the four hours' fight at Worcester. His after-story has been narrated in the King's own words, and does not belong to my subject. I will therefore conclude this sketch by stating that, in October, 1651, the fugitive monarch succeeded in es- caping from his pursuers into France, whence the force of political circumstances compelled him to withdraw to Spa, and subsequently to Cologne. In various cities of Flanders and Holland he led a life of poverty and plea- sure, and appears to have borne the former with a gay sort of philosophy, till the year 1660, when he was re- stored to his father's throne. That father left for the instruction of the Prince of Wales a document of con- siderable length, the purport of which was to enable him, should he ever gain the crown, to wear it with dignity, and to be remembered rather as Charles the Good than Charles the Great. To effect this, he enjoins his son to learn wisdom from his trials, to be faithful to the Church of England, never to strain the law, to use and not abuse the prerogative, to manifest himself by his virtues, to. respect truth, and never leave a promise unperformed ; — and the living son profited only as sons of his quality do, by his dead father's counsel. BOOK V. PRINCES OF WALES HOUSE OF HANOVER. CHAPTER XV. PRINCES OP WALES OP THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. Boen 1683. Died (King) 1760. From the year of the execution of Charles I. (1649) to that of the creation of George Augustus of Hanover, as Prince of Wales (1714), that title was unknown in England, — and yet it was borne by an heir to the crown, born in this country, and by that heir's son, born in Rome, who found no lack of followers to acknowledge its legality. I allude to the son and grandson of James II.; and although their right to assume such title was not recognised by the law, some notice of the two unfortunate Princes of the House of Stuart, who, successively, called themselves, and were called, by it, may be connected with the more lengthened details referring to their more fortunate cousins of the House of Hanover. Four sons of James II. (when Duke of York), by his first wife, Anne Hyde — three of which sons had borne the title of Duke of Cambridge, and one, Duke of Kendal, died early. One son by his second wife, Mary of Modena, Charles Duke of Cambridge, was born, and died in the year 1677. Eleven years later, in 1688, when his parents were on the throne, was born the Prince James Francis Edward. "People were not a little surprised," says Sandford, "to hear the Queen 446 THE HOUSE OP HANOVEK. [book t. was brought to bed of a Prince ; however, this account was published by authority: — "Whitehall, June 10. This day, between nine and ten in the morning, the Queen was safely delivered of a Prince, at St. James's ; his Majesty, the Queen Dowager, most of the Lords of the Privy Council, and divers ladies of quality being present." On the 15th of the following October, the Prince received private baptism, on which occasion he may be said to have been " Gazetted" Prince of Wales; the notice, by authority, running thus :— " Whitehall, Oct. 15. This day, in the chapel of St. James's, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, being before christened and solemnly named (amidst the ceremonies and rites of baptism) James Prancis Edward; his Holiness, represented by his nuncio, godfather, and the Queen Dowager, godmother. The King and Queen assisted at the solemnity, with a great attendance of nobility and gentry, and concourse of people, all ex- pressing their joy and satisfaction, which was suitable to the place and occasion." In this way, amid a rejoicing concourse of people, was privately baptized the first English Catholic Prince of Wales that the country had seen since the creation of Henry, after r wards eighth King of that name. The birth of this Prince of Wales removed William and Mary from their presumptive heirship to the throne, in some wise as that of Edward of Westminster deprived Eichard, Duke of York, of his expected inheritance. But the Stuart Prince soon ceased to be an impediment in the way of the Prince of Orange. At six months old he was, in his mother's arms, a fugitive. With his family, James Francis resided chap, xv.] GEOEGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER, 447 at St. Germains, under the title of Prince of "Wales- (late Prince of "Wales he was commonly entitled in the English papers), till 1701, the year in which his father died. The year previously he had been publicly con- firmed, or "taken his first communion." The Earl of Manchester, English ambassador in Prance, writing to Lord Jersey, informs the latter that the Arch- bishop of Paris received the so-called Prince of "Wales at the gates of Notre Dame, with the honours ordi- narily accorded to a King. The rite impressed the young communicant, for he subsequently declared to his delighted mother, that he would now rather die than offend God mortally. Poor boy ! like wiser per- sons, he forgot his own resolution, as he did the counsel of his dying father, who, following the course of many dying men, gave excellent advice which had never formed the rule of his own conduct. During the period he was acknowledged in France as Prince of "Wales, he won the hearts of not a few, who willingly indeed paid tribute of their love, where they never intended to offer tribute of loyalty. He grew up, — witty, lively, bold, and graceful; and made the poorer Jacobites ecstatic, by sharing among them his own small revenue in pocket-money. At the age of thirteen, he was tall for his age, of a slender figure, — and looking so attractive in his little bright cuirass and his rich point-lace cravat, — that Innocent XII. pro- nounced him, what no fine-art critic would ever have thought of calling him, in such attire, — " truly an angel !" In 1719, the titular King espoused Clementine, grand- daughter of the heroic Polish monarch, John Sobieski. 448 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book T. It was an unhappy marriage ; and the vices of the hus- band drove the wife to seek refuge in a convent, within six years of their union. A formal reconciliation was effected, and Clementine for forty years lived under the roof of the titular King, — as St. Bridget did with Prince Ulpho; and then died. Her consort followed her to the tomb the following year, 1766. At that date, George III., proud, as he said, of being born a Briton, was firmly seated on the throne of England. In his person the country had seen the third Prince of Wales of the House of Brunswick ; but at the period of his accession, both the sons of James Francis were alive, the elder of whom, Charles Edward, had borne for some time, on the Continent, the title which distinguishes the first heir of England. Charles Edward was born at Rome, in the year 1720, at which time George I. was King of Great Britain ; and his son, George Augustus, first Prince of Wales of the Hanover or Brunswick line, was in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and the sixth since his creation as ruler of the Principality. There was still a strong antagonism between the two branches of our ancient house. Five years only had elapsed since the affair of J 15, and a quarter of a cen- tury later the male line made a bold and almost suc- cessful stroke to unseat the descendant of James I., through his daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Hitherto the chiefs of the houses of Stuart and Brunswick ob- served dignity in their position of antagonists. Their respective partisans, however, had neither the temper nor good sense to follow so excellent an example. Seldom has there been so reckless a disregard for truth as that chap. XT.] GEOKGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. 449 exhibited on this occasion by the party-writers, — paid party-writers, chiefly, on behalf of the family reigning or of the family that had ceased to reign. He who reads the effusions of authors of one faction only will find ground enough therein to curse the opposing fac- tion. Men high in authority or power furthered this employment of " Captain Pen," and neither side is free from the reproach of having calumniated the other. This ignoble course commenced early. The fable of the warming-pan was devised to prove that the Stuart Prince of Wales was an impostor. For virulent slander against the father of that Prince, it is now known that Titus Oates, — at a time, too, when his rascality had brought upon him the confiscation of his civil rights, — was receiving the liberal wages of 101. per week. During ten years, Walpole expended more money in rewarding the newspaper and pamphlet writers adverse to the Stuarts, than was expended by Louis XIV. in annual pensions to learned men in various European countries. Best paid of all these slanderers was Arnall, whose glory was in writing for hire, and whose venal pen gained for its unscrupulous wielder, in four years, little less than 11,000£. Warburton has pilloried this fellow in his " Notes to the Dunciad ;" and he adds, that the hireling, in his unclean fury, sometimes so ex- ceeded the terms of his commission, that his very em- ployers blushed at his scurrilities. At a later period it was the practice of writers in what they chose to call the Hanoverian interest to " write down" the courage of the Stuart Prince of Wales. It was the great fault, at once, indeed, a blunder and a crime in that unhappy Prince, that he bore arms against 450 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEB. [book v. his country, and had the blood of Englishmen on his conscience. Bearing arms, however, he bore them like a gallant soldier. Equal terms of praise may be awarded to his son, who fought as bravely and as foolishly as he ; and not less to their cousins of Brunswick, who fought like the sons of a line that, man or woman, had never known fear. The Princes of both houses went under fire at as early an age as that in which the Black Prince saw his first field. On some occasions, they met as foes in the same contest. At Oudenarde, in 1708, the Stuart Prince of Wales, James Francis, was ranged against Prince George (afterwards George II.), whom Queen Anne had created, two years previously, Duke of Cambridge. In 1709, at Malplaquet, James Francis had well-nigh recovered the lost fortunes of the day by his vigorous charge against the brave German cavalry, whom he completely routed ; but the English troops were there, and against their " antique valour" and the skill of their glorious commander, no courage nor ability could prevail ; and the Stuart rode from the field, honoured but not triumphant. When George I. landed at Greenwich, on the 17th of September, 1714, he was accompanied by his only son, George Augustus, then in his 31st year. Ten days later, this son was created Prince of Wales. He had been already married nine years, to Caroline of Anspach, and he was the first Prince of Wales, since Edward the Black Prince, who had children of his own in the lifetime of his father. George Augustus was born at Hanover, on the 30th of October, 1683. His mother was Sophia Dorothea of Zell — a woman of much beauty, but small discretion, who chat. XT.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 451 was hated by her husband and loved by her son. The- hatred of her husband has been attempted to be justified by the recent publication of her alleged correspondence with Count Konigsmark, which are supposed to be con- clusive of her lack of loyalty as a wife.* We have her own repeated assertion, made when taking the Sacra- ment, and finally reiterated on her death-bed, that her fidelity to her husband had never been violated. Against this assertion we have the correspondence in ques- tion, with no shade of satisfactoryproof that the letters are genuine. "In no age," say a writer in the " Athenaeum," No. 1522, " has literature been free from the intrusion of spurious records into the domain of truth. One man forges in pure love of sport — throws his forged papers into a collection, to be found a hundred years later, merely to- perplex the pundits. Another forges to sustain a crotchet or a principle. But the most industrious and the most facile are those who forge for profit. Every one familiar with old papers is aware that the publication of historical documents — letters, plays, poems, maps, charts, and cylinders — has now ceased to be a learned profession,, and has become a manufacture. As the Old Bailey had its tribes of rascals ready to witness against anybody and anything for money, so literature has its race of outcasts ready to furnish any document that may be wanted, from a Wardour Street pedigree, derived from scrolls in a Cheshire muniment-room, up to a copy of Homer from a monastery at the summit of Mount Athos." With this passage in view, and the conviction that it was important for those who murdered Konigsmark, and destroyed the reputation of Sophia Dorothea, to blast * Blatter fur litterarische Unterhaltung, &o. 452 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. the character of that Princess for ever, we may find fair warrant in disregarding the correspondence to which I have alluded, and to accept the love of the sod as a hetter testimony to his mother's innocence, than the hatred of a faithless husband as evidence of the guilt of his wife. At the Electoral Court of his father, George Louis, George Augustus was brought up under the superinten- dence of his grandmother, the "old Electress" Sophia. That remarkably clever lady gained no credit by her pupil, nor is there any appearance of her having desired to do so, although she loved her grandson better than she ever did her son. Educated under the influences of superabundant precept and most unsavoury example, the Electoral Prince became unruly of temper, of contracted intelligence, and of an ever-recurring indiscretion. Till the Act of Succession little interest was felt in this country touching the young Prince ; but when that Act placed him near the English throne, reports of English travellers sojourning in Germany used to reach these shores ; and such as referred to George Augustus were received with curiosity, if not satisfaction. Nothing could well be more contradictory than these reports, for while some were in praise of the Prince, others were couched in terms of violent censure ; and a Jacobite pamphlet, addressed "To the Thing called Prince of Wales," repeats a current assertion of the day, that till the passing of the Act above noticed, George Augustus was brought up in a farmhouse ; and the book intimates that the habitual rudeness of that personage was owing solely to this early training, or the want of it. If one could credit this assertion, it would be more reasonable chap, xv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. 453 to refer the superstitious quality of the young Prince's mind to the teaching of his rustic tutors, than to the influence of the Electress Sophia, who was a woman distinguished in most things for her strong common-sense. The Jacobite pamphlet further reports that (for some cause not named) the Prince's "French schoolmaster, and others, had been whipped to death" — a fair specimen of the exaggerations of the lower members of the Tory faction of that day. But that faction could not deny the young fellow's bravery. Compared with that of his Stuart cousin at Oudenarde, it suffered nothing in its lustre ; and, saving a little too great exclusiveness of spirit, the birthday versifier was justified, who sang of the fair-haired and stout-hearted young soldier : — Let Oudenarde's field your courage tell ! Who look'd so martial, or who fought so well ? Who charg'd the foe with greater fire or force ? Who felt unmov'd, the trembling, falling horse ? Sound, sound, Tame, the trumpet loud and true, All, all, this blaze to my Prince George is due. In early life such deeds in arms were done, As prove you able to defend the throne. " He is hot-headed/' said his father of him ; " but, nevertheless, he is not without heart." This is the most affectionate speech on record, of that sire of whom St. Simon has remarked, that he always hated his son because of the bad opinion he entertained or affected to entertain of that son's mother, Sophia Dorothea. The imprisonment of that princess commenced when George Augustus was ten years of age. He was, there- fore, sufficiently old at that period to remember with an affection that never seems to have diminished, her early 454 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. good offices towards him. This filial memory will ac- •count for and justify the attempt he made, when yet a youth, to escape from a hunting-party and obtain en- trance into the Castle of Ahldin, where his mother was detained. He was pursued, overtaken, and brought back, a sort of prisoner, one at least condemned never to behold again the mother, to look on whom he had made such bold, though fruitless essay. At the age of twenty-two, he married Caroline Wil- helmina Dorothea of Anspach, who was of the same age as the Prince. This lady had refused the Arch- duke Charles, with a crown in view, rather than change her religion for his sake. The spirited Protestant princess did not immediately accept Prince George ; and as the definite acceptance happened not to take place till after the decease of her brother, the Jacobite writers gave a reason for her delay, at the very memory of which the heart itself turns sick. In the ensuing year, Queen Anne created him an English peer, under various titles, culminating in that of Duke of Cambridge ; but when Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian minister, applied to the Lord Chancellor for the Duke's writ of summons to the British Parliament, the Queen affected to believe that the Baron had acted without authority, and she wrote to the Duke that his presence here would interfere with her comfort and his interests ; and so he was fain to remain at Hanover, till the arrival here of his father, as King. This disap- pointment was compensated for by the Queen consenting to be godmother to the Prince's eldest daughter — that sharp-witted little Anne (born 1709), who was so vain and so ambitious — who admired male beauty, and yet chap. rv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 455 married the ugliest man of her day — the Prince of Orange — and who ultimately disliked her own father because he would not be ruled by her as he had been by his wife. Previous to the arrival of the Hanoverian family in England, there were born of the marriage of George Augustus and Caroline, four children, namely, Frederick Louis, born in 1707 (subsequently Prince of Wales); Anne, born two years later; Amelia, born in 1711; and Caroline, born in the following year. The three daughters accompanied their mother to this country, which was not even visited by Prince Frederick until ■after his father's accession to the throne. The new Princess of Wales did not reach London with her young charge until after the creation of her husband as " Prince of Wales." The first appearance of the party in public, after the coronation, in October, was at a corporation festivity at Guildhall. At this serio- comic affair, the Princess declined to kiss the Lady Mayoress— Queen Anne having broken through that civic formality — whereupon the chief lady in the city bawled loudly for her train-bearers, to show that she was as great a person on her own ground as any Princess -of them all ; and she cried to her page, " Boy, bring me my bucket (Bow-bell euphuism for bouquet), and altogether behaved so strangely, that some court wag told the chief members of the royal family present, that the Lord Mayor (Humphreys) had only hired her for the occasion. Ten days later was the anniversary of the birthday of the Prince of Wales. On turning over the news- papers of the day, I find none so satisfied with that 456 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. " Patriot." Prom columns of sugared laudation I cite a few passages, as they reflect something of the persons as well as of the opinions of the immediate period, and, I may add, the occasional quaintness of style then prevalent, however little approved of. "This," says the "Patriot" of October 30, 1714, " This is the anniversary of the birthday of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and by being so, in a more particular manner is made valuable to us, who daily reap the advantage of his virtue and valour." The valour at Oudenarde was thus remembered ; the virtue was attributed to the chief of the House, of whom it is drolly said : — " All the virtues of the King are so happily infused into his successor, and throughout his whole illustrious family, that he will ever live to make us happy, though (if I may so express it), he may sometimes change his dress." Could Madelon or Cathos have invented a prettier euphuism than this, for death and metempsychosis? But, turning to the sire and son, the " Patriot" remarks : — " To have an heir to a crown, young, brave, and active, in all monarchies has been esteemed the next blessing to the Sovereign's being just, wise, and valiant; but to have a Prince upon the throne, valiant, courteous, compassionate, politic, and religious ; to have his successor possess all the charms and gaiety of youth, furnished with all that knowledge and those accomplishments which are neces- sary for a gentleman, a prince, and a Christian, — these are distinguished blessings here only to be found." And then of the Prince of Wales alone, we find it said : — " To have the successor stand in the near relation of a son, a husband, and a father, and to fill each station with chap, xt.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. 457 that duty, that tenderness, and affection which they severally require, is a happiness to be found in no other nation in the world but our own." So much for the Prince ; of the Princess we find a character in prose, which Addison did not write, but which he copied closely in his panegyric in verse : — " In other reigns, a gentleman and a Christian have been esteemed inconsistent appellations, but in this all approved gallantry and fashion will take its rise from the religion we profess. The exemplary propriety of her Royal Highness the Princess has already broken in upon a custom which is no way agreeable to the purity of our religion. To be a tender wife and a fond mother will now be no longer a fashionable jest, but piety and affection esteemed as additional ornaments to beauty and wit. In short, virtue and innocence now surround the British throne." This last jubilate brings the writer to speak of the children of this marriage, and especially of the future Prince of Wales, who, however, hardly did justice to the generous praise of the "Patriot." " I have mentioned Innocence, which, methinks, sets before me those surprising infants which are the reward of their parents' virtue. The young Prince is not yet, indeed, arrived in these happy kingdoms, but the great- ness of his parts, at an age in which those of other chil- dren are scarce discernible, the majesty of his appearance,, and the gracefulness of his deportment, have already gained him here a reputation, not as a child, but as a finished man." And, finally, of the royal young ladies, we are told that " His sisters, the young Princesses, who are daily x t&8 THE HOUSE OP HA2TOVEB. [book T. the admiration of the British court, in every entertain- ing" answer which they make, and question which they isk, discover a capacity as much superior to that of other ihildren as is their condition." So wrote an independent Briton of an heir-apparent, whose father and mother never loved and always reviled him ; of a father whose jwn sire was wont to fling at him a whole vocabulary of filthy terms, and a mother for whom " she-devil" was the mildest term vouchsafed in his anger by her father-in- aw. Indeed, in justice to the Jacobite writers, it must be said that in the epithets which they applied to the Prince, and Princess in particular, they only a little ex- ceeded in bitterness those nearest akin to that illustrious pair. The Jacobite pamphlets show the hopelessness and the worthlessness of their authors in their want of temper and the unseemliness of their epithets. The Prince is told, in one, that as to his being a man, he is only " Quelque chose" resembling one. He is told that " the land is cursed with him and his," and that the east wind will be more than ever execrable in England, since, by its favour, he and his family arrived on these shores. All public calamities were laid to the charge of him and his family. Fires, storms, bankruptcies, diseases, and sudden deaths, seem to have comeinonly with Hanover and Hanover rats. I should disgrace myself and disgust my readers if I were to repeat the least offensive of the suggestions whispered to the Prince touching the Prin- cess of Wales— they are filthy beyond the most crapulous imagination. The writers, indeed, spare neither father nor wife ; and the writer of a pamphlet addressed to the -"Thing they call the Prince of Wales," while attributing- CKA2. xt.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 459 to the presence of the Hanoverian family the murrain which had heen destroying the horned cattle, expresses his wonder how, when such beasts were perishing/ his father, "the Elector," had been so lucky as to escape. How the authors and printers of such infamous books escaped, we may well wonder. That the authors were not necessarily low or illiterate men may be conceived from what learned and virulent old Hearne himself has left on record, touching the alleged drinking propen- sities of Caroline, and their exceedingly nasty con- sequences. In contrast with these men, if the anonymous Jacobite writers were men, stands fair, prattling, self-satisfied, brave-hearted Susan Centlivre. In May, 1714, she had boldly dedicated one of her plays to George Augustus, then Duke of Cambridge, and as the period was one in which, as the Whig " Patriot" remarks, it was esteemed almost a crime to name the electoral family, the dramatist lady was in 1715 extolled as " a mistress of a true British principle." So this gentle yet vivacious Susanna was the first to wish the Princess of Wales a " happy new year," on the 1st of January, 1715, in some highly- flown stanzas which represented Caroline at her toilette and admitted the universe to a contemplation of her charms. Susanna then told our ancestors that if Apelles could have seen the Princess at the toilette in question, he would have taken her as a model for Venus, rather than the goddess herself; in which ease, says the pow- dered Sappho to the wife of George Augustus, — Tour charming figure had enhanced his fame; And shrines heen raised to Carolina's name. The poetess, however, reflects that no artist could fix 30 THE HOUSE OE HANOVER. [book V. s his own the grace which hloomecl in her, and is then isposed to envy the glass which if gazed upon by the yal beauty — cold glass, she thinks, if not fired to unething exceedingly impertinent by the light and armth of such eyes ! Of those eyes Susanna becomes lamoured, as Cretan ladies were wont to be of one an- her. In them she beholds Love's conquering arrows; i her locks, Susanna distinguishes, carelessly hanging, an Cupid's darts, " a sharpened dart at every hair," id, seeing in Caroline the sum of all singular and se- iral beauties which distinguish some few poor mortal amen, pronounces her divine, and gifted with an immor- lity of youth. It is difficult to believe that such ex- ;gerated homage could ever have been offered or re- ived ; assuredly, the Sappho will have small chance of ing awarded a gilded laurel leaf, who may venture to mpare our next Princess of Wales against all woman- nd, after this fashion of Mrs. Centlivre : — Beauty from Fancy takes its various arms, And ev'ry woman some one breast may move ; Some in a shape, a lip, a look, find charms, To justify their choice and boast their love. Mere in one form Nature's whole forces join, And fix the standard of her sacred coin. The Prince and Princess of Wales had come to this untry with very different feelings. The former could th difficulty control his joy, or conceal his pride, or press expression of his first honest impulse to fulfil ery duty in the higher and more responsible station to rich he had been raised by the accession of his father, was otherwise with the Princess, if we may believe iron Pilnitz. She was coldly indifferent to the new nours awaiting her ; and, considering her husband as chap, xt.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. 461 good as any King before he became heir to one, thought nothing the better of him or of herself as they stood next to a throne. Such may have been the real senti- ments of Caroline, but it is to be remembered that there never lived a woman so well able to conceal her true feel- ings as that accomplished and, in many respects, ad- mirable Princess, George Augustus remained Prince of Wales, from the year 1714 to that of his father's demise in 1727. Those thirteen years were years of ignoble family dis- sension, and not of pure example either in father or son, whose, differences were aggravated by the selfish interests of politicians, and by the want of self-respect (and of mutual respect) in the unnatural adversaries. Long before the heir was driven from the royal palace by the King, people spoke and wrote of the "two courts," and of their widening disagreement. The first public display of this feeling was exhibited at the christening of the Prince's first son born in England: This was George William, in behalf of whom the Prince had asked the King and his brother, the Prince-Bishop of Osnaburgh, to stand as sponsors. The King had acquiesced, but he appeared at the bed-side of Caroline on the day of the christening, with the Duke of New- castle, who was execrated by the Prince, as his co- sponsor. The Prince of Wales nursed his wrath till the officiating prelate had concluded the sacred ceremony ; and then little edified the high personages present by raising his hand menacingly to the Duke, calling him a rascal, and warning him of future vengeance for the present insult. Whether the confusion that followed frightened the baby or not cannot be certified ; but in 32 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEK. [jsoox r. few weeks that lucky baby bad tbe good chance to e ; and the Duke of Newcastle, he being Lord Cham- jrlain, had the unenviable superintendence of the meral ; so that wicked people said that his grace had Dt only introduced the infant Prince into the bosom, it also into the bowels, of the church. From this period there was never real reconciliatioa it ween the father and son. They quarrelled so intensely lat the power to be mutually hateful seemed innate in lem ; and Lord Carteret expressed a belief that the imily would quarrel everlastingly from generation to eneration. The christening-scene led to some unhappy results. l deputation of noblemen waited on the Prince, by rder of the King, to know the exact words used by im ; which, the Prince said, were not " You rascal, I fill fight you \" but " You rascal, I will find you !" leaning an opportunity of having vengeance, as was till his Royal Highness's intention. The King's uvoys drew up a number of articles binding the Prince 3 the most absolute, not to say abject, dependence on is father. These he refused to sign ; though he was fcrongly urged to do so by the lords, on the ground bat he had had a taste of the King's power, and had robably found it greater than he had believed it to be. 'his sample of potentiality was in the ejection of the 'rince and his family from the royal palace; an account f the dissensions leading to which, and consequent cor- espondence, will be found in a manuscript once belong- ng to Sir Robert Walpole, and now deposited in the Jritish Museum.* * Egerton MSS. 921. chap, xv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 463 When the Prince and Princess, on the night of that unfortunate christening, in November, 1717, were ordered to leave the palace, people began to cast about for other reasons for such a violent conclusion than the ebullition of the Prince. They found it perhaps in the King's jealousy of his son, for the latter had executed his office of Regent the year preceding, during his sire's absence in Hanover, with such ability, that he had achieved a popularity which, if it did not alarm, very much dis- gusted the King, who never after reappointed his son to the same office. With the popularity of his son, that of his daughter-in-law had increased, and his Majesty's aversion from the " she-devil " became more marked than ever. Added to this, the Prince of Wales had a natural desire to be independent in his pecuniary affairs, whereas the King wished him to be in dependence on his father, and to be satisfied with a small revenue. " A small revenue," and one may fancy what the royal feel- ing was when the Tories joined in demanding for the Prince 100,000£. a-year, free from all paternal control ! So the quarrel went on from what was unseemly to what was criminal, exhibiting the latter phase, when the Earl of Berkeley saw such unnatural ferocity in the King's mind as to authorize him to offer to relieve the monarch and father of his intolerable torment, by carrying off the Prince of Wales to America, where the Earl undertook so to dispose of him that he should never again be heard of in England. A document containing this offer at the hands of the over-zealous Earl was found among the papers of George I., after his decease ; and the Earl himself died abroad in the year 1738. If this oft-cited circumstance be true, I take it as a proof of great im- j64i THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. movement in the tone and morals of the times as corn- ered with any preceding period beyond a hundred years >r so. Then, unpleasant kinsmen were got rid of with ilaerity,'by dagger, smothering, or drowning in Malmsey jasks, or judicial murdering. Now, a single peer is found ;vho only proposes deportation and perpetual imprison- nent. To the latter, the King had already condemned lis wife. The Earl only proposed to add banishment :o captivity in the person of her son. For the assassi- nation of the first Prince of Wales of the House of Plantagenet, Lord Berkeley lent his castle ; and for the kidnapping of the first Prince of Wales of the House of Brunswick, we find another equally ready. Is this an instance of the instincts of race ? If it be true at all, it clearly shows an improvement in certain social prin- ciples, indicating at least a respect for the sacredness of Life, unknown to the grand unscrupulosity of the feudal period. However this may be, nothing serious came of it. The King was satisfied with ejecting the Prince and his family from the palace, when both were in delicate lealth. They took temporary refuge in " private lodg- ngs," in Albemarle Street, where, in fact, Lord aiantham, Chamberlain to the Princess of Wales, gave up to them his own residence. Subsequently, they re- moved to old Leicester House, in the north-east corner of the square. There the Sidneys had domiciled, there [mperkl ambassadors had resided, there the ancestress sf the Prince, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, had found i home. It might well suffice, therefore, for a royal louple in disgrace. There, accordingly, they proceeded to keep house, establish a Court, and receive company ; chap, xv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 465 but visitors were menacingly warned off by a thundering proclamation in the " London Gazette." Since the days when Caraealla would not receive those who paid their respects to Geta, nor Geta ever bow to the visitors of his brother Caraealla, never had quarrel of royal kins- men taken such a spiteful aspect as this. London was but a dull metropolis under good Queen Anne. Gaiety, dissipation, and intrigue came in with the new reigning family. Even during the troubled year 1715, the Prince and Princess of Wales had esta- blished a brilliant court, and led a sort of joyous revelry of which St. James's had long been unconscious. The Prince loved pleasure, for the sake of the enjoyment, the Princess favoured it out of policy, and the fashionable world gratefully hailed them as public benefactors. For a season, the gay career of that section of the world was checked by the ejection of the heir-apparent and his family from St. James's ; but when that household was esta- blished at Leicester House, the fashionable world breathed again, and resumed its hilarious race. The King's house was a dull house, that of the Prince was laughingly astir from morning till half through the night. There, fashion fixed her head-quarters, and people of quality risked being repulsed from the levees at St. James's for the dear delights of a night of it in Leicester Fields. It was more a highly pleasant than an exceedingly proper court which was there established. Most con- spicuous, and most dignified figure of *all which there challenged attention was that of the Princess of Wales herself. That tall figure amid her maids, looked like Diana among her nymphs, towering over the tallest there. At a little distance, she wore an air of striking x3 166 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. beauty, but they who approached her nearly, distinguished the spoiling of that beauty, in the traces left by small- pox. In the later years of the Leicester House period, she grew corpulent ; thereby, her beauty and dignity suffered a little ; and therewith, Sir Eobert Walpole conferred on her a nasty name. The Princess had ladies about her not more fair than they were frivolous, but she was not attached to them because of their frivolity. She esteemed best those who were of better quality ; and made Lady Cowper her confidante, because she knew that that lady had an inviolable regard for truth. For this virtue, too, did she and the Prince also especially love the third of her five daughters — the gentle and truthful Caroline, who is unobtrusive in history, but whose life had its own pecu- liar, cherished, yet painful romance. It would be too much to say that Lady Cowper was the only honest woman at this court, but she was pro- bably the only serious one. In other qualities the nymphs of honour excelled her, as might be seen any night, when the brilliant rooms were occupiedby a select company, and the most accomplished of the maids and gentlemen were present, the Prince forming their centre, and the Princess seated apart with "Cowper," in an inner room, but still visible, playing at cards. Then might be heard the silvery laugh of the daughter of General Lepel, not yet out of her teens. The smartness of her humour passed^ for wit, and well sustained the general laughter. She was a sensible, well-bred, accomplished girl, of extraordinary vivacity, but this was under con- trol of her discretion. This saved her from being merely frivolous ; and, indeed, she could look as serious as Lady chap, iv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 467 Covvper herself, and could construe a page of Csesar as readily as any clerk, except Swift, who visited the court. The clerics philandered with her in return as readily as the courtiers, and this circumstance justified the assertion of Chesterfield in his own eyes, that " Should the Pope himself ever go roaming, He would follow dear Molly Lepel." His then erratic Holiness, however, would perhaps have hesitated, if he could have entered Leicester House, and beheld that other vivacious Mary, who had less discretion and more audacity than Mary Lepel — namely, Mary, daughter of Lord Bellenden. She, perhaps, touched more hearts than any other of the youthful and brilliant maids. She touched, at least, the Prince's, who wooed her in the mingled spirit of a miser and a libertine, and at whose adoration this Mary only laughed. Audacity was one of her characteristics, and yet Gay says she was " soft and fair as down." But, when in waiting, she would stand before the Prince with her arms folded, as if she were cold, as deliberately as newer maids of honour would thoughtlessly turn their backs upon the Princess herself. This exquisite creature's wit was of a coarser sort, but for that matter, so was her royal mistress's, who would both narrate and give ear to stories of the most ffattiarde description. Loudest laugher at such stories was Sophia Howe — the wild, frivolous, daring, careless, irreverent daughter of the General of that name. She laughed as loudly at church as she did at court, framed unclean jokes on her vocation of maid of honour, and gained not only pardon but applause, by right of her intoxicating beauty. 468 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEB. [book t. In strong contrast with these young ladies, and with many other older contemporaries at this princely court in " the Fields," was the virtuous Miss Meadows, whom the fine gentlemen called a " prude," light poets sneered at as " chaste," and whose self-respect afforded as much amusement to the licentious courtiers as the startling wit of Lepel or Bellenden. Had Miss Meadows pos- sessed the wit of either, she might have heen as virtuous as Mary Lepel was, without incurring more blame or mockery for being so. Amid these maids, love, true and false, found its ■way, especially when the Prince was not near, mono- polizing the fair train ; for he would sometimes take the whole bevy with him, on horseback, to Hampton Court, and there treat them or fatigue them with a whole day's hunting. Away they went, after a breakfast, at which Westphalia ham largely figured, on hired hacks, leaping hedges and ditches, and acquiring thereby a complexion that made them look like Philises of the dairy, and a constitution improved to the degree that rendered them eligible to be the wives of fox-hunting squires. When the Prince led his maidens back, and these had effaced the marks and got rid of the consequences of their morning's fatiguing pleasure, then came the time for the lovers, who plied their vocation while the Princess looked more or less concernedly on, as she was interested in the swains, of whom her husband is one. With the mental eye we may see him whispering to Mary Bellenden, or counting his gold before her eyes, till she contrives to knock the money out of his hand, and moves away to hold discourse with a likely youno' soldier, one Colonel John Campbell, whose earnestness chap, xv.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVER. 469 to further the young lady's immediate object is warrant of a wedding to come. Meanwhile, who is that handsome but effeminate young gentleman by the side of Mary Lepel ? He is one of the Prince's Gentlemen of the Bedchambei-, and is fresh from Clare Hall, Cambridge. They are the prettiest pair of philosophic infidels within the limits of this easy court; and no one doubts that Lord John Hervey can fail in any suit to the nymph whose ear — nay, whose cheek — is so near to his eloquent lips. With what a swagger does Nanty Lowther, Lord Lonsdale's brother, swing himself from the presence of the Prince, to pass over to the bold and beautiful Sophy Howe, who has displayed her telegraphic fan. I am not sure that she has not winked her eye to bring him to her side. Of that pair came much love, much trusting, on the part of the lady ; much promise, much treachery, on the part of the wooer ; and then followed despair and death to close the tumultuous life of this dazzling beauty. At present, however, they look happy enough, and the general aspect of things might lead us to doubt the assertion of Pope, on the alleged authority of some of these giddy girls themselves, who had given him a dinner in their rooms, and walked with him by moon- light in the gardens at Hampton Court, that the life of a maid of honour was of all things the most miserable ; that every one who envied it should try it in her own person ; and that the worst portion of it all was at night, when they had to simper and catch cold in the Princess's apartment, and then walked, worked, or thought, till midnight. If Richmond or Hampton Court were held as dull as a lone house in Wales with a mountain and a THE HOTJSE OF HANOVER. [book t. rery, such was not the ease with the court in Leicester ds, — though men of gloomy aspect came even there, here not, for instance, something sinister in the aspect that young peer whose attention the Prince is cting towards Mary Bellenden ? He is one of the Lee's Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, young Lord aley, whose father, the Earl of Scarborough, distin- ihed himself at Sedgemoor. He is handsome, of seful carriage, of amiable expression, and of profound rity; rarely smiling, yet when he does so unbend, heering as a sunbeam ; whose politeness sets on him m easy habit, and whose dignity has in it no taint iride. He is not without some fashionable vices, Mary Lepel could jest with him about these, or read 1 him a fervent ode from Horace. He looks what 3, a perfect gentleman, whose virtues outnumber his s, and whose excellences can hardly be enumerated, his fine features are overcast with melancholy j he 3sent, even when the Prince addresses him ; is silent i the crowd of courtiers by whom the Prince is sur- ided, and moves from the circle as if he heeded her man nor woman upon earth, fay, this son of gloom, whom incipient madness is lering familiar with the thought of suicide, surely s that intellectually-marked yet profligate-looking tier, another Gentleman of the Bedchamber, who es with him towards the table where the Princess is ards. They look on each other as men who nourish .utual warm regard. Lord Lumley's companion is very young, if not very honourable, member for St. mans, Mr. Philip Dormer Stanhope, who loves poor £ Lumley more than all the world besides. As they chap. XT.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OP HANOVEB. 471 advance, the Princess is retiring from the card-table, and Mr. Stanhope begins to mimic her voice. The maids of honour titter, and Caroline turns sharply round, whereat Mr. Stanhope bows lower than he would ever bowto aught else human or divine. Acknowledging the homage, the Princess proceeds to the larger room, and the impu- dent Mr. Stanhope gravely follows her, imitating her walk; and Lord Lumley accompanies him, turning as he turns, but neither speaking, nor smiling, nor heeding the farce enacted at his side, but thinking of Roman heroes who flung off the load of life they could not bear, and of bold unfortunates nearer home who by swift death escaped from human ills. Meanwhile, at one of the card-tables in the inner room there is a party still playing, although the Princess has retired from that wearying relaxation. The Prince ap- proaches his wife, and by words not heard, directs her notice to one of the players, a supreme beauty, whose provoking loveliness had caused a pulsation or so the more in the Prince's heart. He would perhaps have felt increase of admiration were she accustomed to go less frequently to St. James's and come more often to Leicester House. In spite of London Gazettes, this is a Venus Victrix who goes whither she pleases, and visits either Court at her capricious will. She is the Duke of King- ston's daughter, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and is so charmingly attired that the Prince raises his voice to- express his admiration of the taste therein displayed. The Princess looks for a moment at the glittering beauty, and then scornfully remarking that " Lady Mary always dresses well," leans on "Cowper's" shoulder, and is led by that lady to a couch. The Prince looks momentarily ) THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book t. much troubled as when Mary Bellenden, after pro- ing never to marry without his knowledge, and aware t he was disposed to impede her marrying with any , went and privately married happy Colonel Campbell. >sequently he would pursue the offending lady about Court, and whisper ruder speeches in her ear than it e seemly for Prince or gentleman to utter. ?he Prince might have admired his own wife when she : attired in a dress made from the piece of Irish silk ch she condescended to receive from Swift. The h clergyman thought more of his gift than it was •th, and built more hopes thereon than the fact or result justified. The Princess, however, was so ciously condescending, and the Prince so favourably ined towards the " Irish Parson," as to exact a re- •k from Lord Peterborough that set the whole court jhing. " Swift," said he, " has now only to chalk pumps and learn to dance on the tight-rope to be a bishop \" f the Princess did not laugh at the remark, she was rious over the book he subsequently wrote. Arbuth- relates that he saw her reading this work, and that oming to one particular passage she laughed heartily. laugh was at the expense of the Prince of Wales, had been wavering between "Whigs and Tories, the h-heels and the Low-heels of the romance ; and when heir-apparent of Lilliput was described as wearing heel high and the other low, she recognised the aim le satire, and laughed at the shaft so exquisitely tiered. Scott, in his Life of Swift, tells us of another lent, namely, that at the description given above, Prince of Wales himself, who at that time divided chap. XT.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OF HANOVER. 473 his favour between the two leading political parties of England, laughed very heartily at the comparison. He laughed less heartily, but the Princess even more so, after he had sought consolation for the indifference of Mary Bellenden in the attachment of his wife's woman of the bed-chamber, the Honourable Mrs. Howard. This lady, who had all that a lady could desire, except beauty and virtue, was summoned by her very worthless husband to return to him when he*affeeted to believe that her reputation was in peril at Court. He had sum- moned in vain ; but at last he addressed a letter to his light-o'-love wife, under cover to the Princess of Wales, and that august lady never had a merrier moment than when she had what Walpole calls " the malicious pleasure" of delivering this epistle to her rival. During the period of the residence of the "young court " at Leicester House, three children were added to ' the princely family. In 1721, that William whom the mother, at once, loved better than his elder brother Frederick, which latter she would fain have disinherited for the sake of her younger son, who became famous and infamous under the title of Duke of Cumberland. Two years later was born Mary, the wife subsequently of the brutal Prince of Hesse Cassel; and in 1724, Louisa, who died Queen, and an unhappy Queen, of Denmark. The births of these children less interrupted the gay court-routine, than the determined attempt of the King, their grandfather, to keep them entirely under his own care and control. He sought to effect this by interpre- tation of law, but Lord Chancellor Cowper interpreted that law in favour of the father, and the grandfather 474 THE HOUSE OP HANOVEG. [book t. deprived him of the seals. Chief Justice Parker and nine other judges pronounced in favour of the King; but there were two others — Eyre, the Chancellor of the Princess, and sturdy little Price, the Welsh baron, who, by foiling William III. and Lord Portland, had saved the Principality, as he said, from being subjected to a Dutch Prince of Wales — these two so strenuously opposed the violation of the law, that the King was compelled to forego his pretensions ; but he rewarded Parker for his unrighteous zeal by raising him to the Chancellorship, from whence the Prince of Wales and the Leicester House politicians subsequently toppled him down, with heavy attendant penalties and disgrace, under an accu- sation, well substantiated, of corrupt practices. Some who were scandalized by the antagonism between father and son, and some, perhaps, who saw future profit to themselves by a reconciliation, effected this latter consummation, nominally, at least, if not really. The Princess of Wales had occasionally appeared alone at Court, where she not only presumed to speak to the King, but pertinaciously compelled him to render her an answer, more or less civil. The King would not havemuch more to endure by tolerating the presence of his son. Mutual friends induced that son to address a dutiful letter to his sire, one result of which was the private re- ception of the Prince of Wales at St. James's, at which there was much stiff civility, but very little cordiality. The external symbol, the sign to the public, that father and son were on friendly terms, was the attendance of a mounted escort to reconduct in honour the Prince and Princess to their home. The Muses celebrated this im- portant event, but only in a drowsy and slipshod style, 1AE. XT.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS OE HANOVER. 475 3 a sample of which here are five lines out of the best atch of rhymes produced on the occasion : — " A Caroline at St. James's seen, Great is her virtue who is beauty's queen ; A Prince whose wisdom in retirement shown, I dare presage the future times shall own, Will make him glorious on the British throne." The opportunity to achieve glory soon presented ;self to the Prince, after a few more years of court- fe at Leicester House, and country-life at Richmond lodge, where Swift sponged a breakfast once a-week, ad decried the bread as stale; and where the maids bused their vocation, drank syllabubs, roamed about b moonlight, and enjoyed themselves to the utmost; leanwhile, the reconciliation of the King and his heir aused a vast amount of claret to be drunk by loyal and ippling squires, whose loud hurrahs might have reached [.ichmond itself. It was in that sunny retreat that, on the 14th of une, 1727, the Prince and Princess were residing, r hen they were aroused from sleep by no less a mes- jnger than Sir Robert Walpole. The Minister came 3 announce to them the sudden death of George I. at ►snaburgh. The Prince listened to the startling intel- gence, between asleep and awake, " with his breeches l his hand."* The Princess was in a fainting con- ition, for her first thought had been for her daughter Linelia, who was in delicate health. But the news was. f a quality to thoroughly awake the one, and re-assure ae other. They were King and Queen of England. * " Coxe's Life of Walpole," vol. ii. p. 519. 476 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEE. [book t. CHAPTER XVI. FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. BoKN 1707. Died 1751. " They were King and Queen of England/' and the now heir-apparent was a young man in his twentieth year, who since he was seven years of age had never seen any of his family except his father, and him only at brief visits, when the latter was sojourning in Han- over. Frederick Louis was born on the 20th of January, 1707. He had in him the "stuff" to make, if not a great man, yet one of some mark, but his education was defective, and was not cared for like that of his brother "William, whose mother asked in vain the philosopher Halley to condescend to be his tutor. The gentleman who performed that office to Frederick did his best with his pupil, who when a mere boy was a sprightly, intel- ligent lad, self-possessed, courteous, and remarkable for the beauty at least, — that of his hair. He was little more than a boy when he gave up his many leisure hours to gambling and drinking, and became so coarse and violent in his manners, that the tutor complained thereof to his pupil's mother. The Princess said that the manners alluded to were doubtless those of a youthful page, but the honest tutor replied that they were rather those of a scoundrelly groom. The " young hopeful" was left to follow his own inclinations, hap. xvi.] FKEDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVEE. 477 md he speedily imitated his father and grandfathers n one thing, the public maintenance of worthless romen. It was not for his virtues that his grandfather is laid to have created him Duke of Gloucester ; but the >atent for that title does not seem ever to have passed heseals. "On the 15th of July, 1726, George I. created dm Baron of Snowdon, in the county of Caernarvon, Viscount of Launceston, in Cornwall, Earl of Eltham, n Kent, Marquis of the Isle of Ely, and Duke of Edin- jurgh, which -patent .did pass the seals, and was actually sent to him; for I know, from the generosity which afterwards appeared in all his actions, he made the messenger who had the good luck to be sent with it a rery handsome present. Perhaps the reason for not )assing the first patent was because it was deemed an unfortunate title; for Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, ancle to Richard II., was carried prisoner to Calais, and there murdered ; Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to Henry VI., was clapt up in prison, and there privately murdered ; Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., was slain in Bosworth Field ; Henry, Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of Charles I., died in the 20th year of his age, and just after his return from exile, so that he can hardly be said to have ever enjoyed any happiness in this life; and William, Duke of Gloucester, only son of Queen Anne, died in the 12th year of his age, after the death of his aunt> Queen Mary, and before his mother's accession to the crown.*" * "A succinct and impartial history of all the regencies, protector- ships, minorities, and princes of England, or Great Britain and Wales, that have been since the Conquest. With a profuse dedica- tion to a great Duke. London. 1751." 478 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book 7. They who take an interest in royal titles in the peerage, may be glad to know how the error arose as to the eldest son of George Augustus, Prince of Wales, having been created Duke of Gloucester. I cite the following from a communication made by Mr. John Gough Nichols to Sylvanus Urban, in November, 1851. " On the 2nd Nov., 1717, was born at St. James's Palace, the second son of George Augustus, Prince of Wales, who was baptized by the names of George William. I possess a curious quarto print representing a woman seated, with her breast uncovered, and a child in swaddling clothes in her lap, which bears the follow- ing inscription : — " NUrss to William George, Du/ce of Glocester. Bom NovemF. the 3 d 1717 Second Son to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. Sold by T. Bakewell in Comhill. " This, then, appears to have been the prince who was designated Duke of Gloucester at the period in question; and probably the public announcement of such designa- tion was made on the 10th Jan. 1717-18. He died on the 2nd of March following." Mr. J.G. Nichols concludes by remarking, that "when Prince William Henry, brother to King George the Third, was created a peer in 1 764, he was made Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. Was this a consequence of the former supposed association of the titles in the person of Prince Frederick Lewis ? If so, it proved the permanence, and in some degree established the triumph, of what I have now given some reason to con- clude was originally the popular misapprehension of attributing to the Prince's eldest son Frederick the chap, xvr.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 479 title which had been really assigned to his son George William." It was not out of any affection on the part of his parents that Frederick was summoned to England, but rather to appease the impatience of the people, jealous at the heir-apparent remaining in the continental portion of his inheritance. It was all the inheritance that the King and Queen would have permitted him to enjoy, could they have followed their own inclinations. George I., but for Lord Macclesfield, would have plundered Ms son of the electoral crown ; and George II. and his consort were equally disposed to deprive their eldest son of the Crown of England. To this country, however, they were compelled at last to invite him ; and in his 22nd year he came hither, in no very amiable frame of mind, for he was oppressed by debt in Hanover, and his sire refused all help towards liquidating his obligations. Frederick was received with scanty courtesy, except by a political party who knew how to make a weak, vain, and angry man useful. Beyond his father's court he was at first generally popular, — and not without reason, since he was affable and condescending, but woe to them who presumed thereon, and attempted to be familiar with him ! He was also a great advocate of liberty, and supporter of toleration, but he allowed of no conscience in his own faction, implicit obedience being required by him. He was courteous too — when he was not displeased ; communicative or reserved, only as it suited his own purposes ; and a man of ex- cellent sentiments, only, like the younger Mr. Surface,he had too many of them on his lips, without corresponding 480 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. action. He was so meek of spirit as to appear in public followed by not more than a couple of servants ; but this was subsequent to his never-ending feud with his father, when to ape humility was to place himself, as he thought, in favourable contrast with the stately royalty of his sire. Never, probably, will light fall on the one great origin of that bitter feud which made of Frederick an outcast from his family, hated by his father, execrated by his mother, held in withering contempt by his brother, and in abhorrence by the most gentle of his sisters. But this feud had many feeders, and "money" was the name of one of them. The Prince was at once too ill- provided for, and too exacting in his demands ; but the King was thought by some to have been sufficiently generous when he offered to allow his son 50,000£. per annum, free of all external control. The dissension referring to his allowance continued for years, but he was finally defeated when Pulteney in the Commons, and Cartaret in the Lords, moved for double the income named above, and the motion, all but triumphant in the Lower House, was all but kicked out of the upper one. When he was ostentatious in dissipation and in his disobedience to his natural and legal superiors, marriage was thought of as a means to bring about an ameliora- tion. Years before, there had been a project to unite him with a Princess of Prussia, but a State intrigue ; impeded that match to which Frederick was so inclined, that he displayed in connexion therewith the chivalry of a knight and lover. He privately offered to the mother of the young lady to contract the union un- chap, xvi.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 481 known to, or in spite of, his father. So runs one legend ; and by a second we are told that when the Prince of Wales (a title the patent of which was granted to him soon after he reached London) was in sore per- plexity for want of money, the old Duchess of Marl- borough proposed to him to take her charming grand- daughter, Lady Diana Spencer, with 100,000^. The Prince agreed, and this clandestine marriage would one day have astounded the gossips, had not Sir Robert Walpole impeded the eager swain, and saved the Prince from folly, Lady Diana from misery, and the old Duchess from a costly triumph. It was evidently time to bind this wayward young man by some permanent bond. He was at this very period living in open disreputable fashion with Miss Vane, whose story Smollett has incorporated into his. "Peregrine Pickle." When the Prince consented, with contemptuous indifference, to accept for his wife the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha, he was con- strained to set aside Miss Vane, behaving at the same time with unprincely shabbiness to that unhappy lady, and taking in her stead the Lady Archibald Hamilton, a plain woman with ten children, and a brigade of kinsfolk for whom poor England was made to provide. The bride was seventeen, the Prince twenty-nine years of age when this marriage, which had been pre- ceded by no passages of pleasant wooing, was celebrated in the Royal Chapel at St. James's, on the 27th of April, 1736. For the courtship that had lacked, Frederick made up in. some sort by his gallantry in the reception of his young bride on her landing at Greenwich, and on some subsequent occasions. She, Y 482 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book t. too, was but indifferently educated, but she was so young, so subdued, so well-possessed of good taste, tact, and admirable common sense, that she found a lover in every man and woman who had opportunity to look on and judge of her. For the details of this marriage, and, indeed, for a fuller account of the life of the Prince himself than my fast-vanishing space will allow me to give in this book of sketches, I ven- ture to refer my readers to the fifth chapter of the first volume of my " Queens of England of the House of Hanover." They will there see how the betrothed pair dined and boated together ; how the bride was received with as much cordiality as stately cere- mony by the sovereigns; and how, in one afternoon and evening, she dined with the royal family, was " led to the altar" amid billows of sound from bells, and organ, and flourishing trumpets, and thundering of cannon, and roar of human voices ; how the august party thence returned and supped, and how the weary grandeur and gaiety of the day concluded in a crowded state apartment, in which the oppressed bride sat in costly night-gear, on a gorgeous bed, and the bride- groom, in a silver-tissue gown and a lace night-cap, bustled among the visitors, acknowledged their com- pliments, or responded to their jokes. Frederick, for a while loved to show his young bride to the people, of whose language she was altogether ignorant, and never became mistress. She was a child in character, pretty as a child, and even as self-willed as pretty children generally. Her most cherished amusement at first was the nursing of a great dol she had brought with her from Germany, but Frede chap, xvi.] FREDERICK LOUIS OP HANOVEK. 4-83 rick speedily found for her other employment in making her take part in his system of annoying the Queen — a system which included annoyance of his mother even in the royal pew in the palace chapel. This was particularly the case when the King was ahsent in Hanover ; on one of which occasions he had ordered that the Prince and Princess should reside in no other place than that in which the Queen-regent resided. That the King should order, was sufficient for the Prince that he should disobey, and the small vexations of one sovereign, and the insane wrath of the other, were met by an aggravating demeanour of mock respect on the part of the provoking offender. Then ensued the at once great scandal and puerile folly — what would have been a farce but for its attendant ferocity, and what might have been a tragedy but for the overruling of Providence. The Prince of Wales had kept all domestic incidents in which his parents took interest, as far as in him lay, entirely strange to them. The fact that the Princess of Wales was likely' to become a mother was only learned by them a month before a birth which was of political importance as well as of family interest. The whole of the royal family were then residing at Hampton Court, and the King desired that under that roof the expected heir should be born. This desire having beenjexpressed, the Prince soon determined that it should not be gratified. The Queen, too, had, with some broad and coarse expression, signified her inten- tion to be present at the birth, and Frederick accor- dingly resolved that it should take place when she was at a distance. The several royal personages were in t 2 484 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book r. Hampton Court Palace on the night of the 31st of July, 1737,whenthePrinceofWales,aware of the indisposition of his wife, resolved to carry her off to London. This resolution was made and 'accomplished in spite of the sufferings and entreaties of the poor Princess ; she was borne to her carriage in the arms of Desnoyers (a French fiddler patronised by the Prince) and an attendant. Two or three other persons accompanied the Prince and Princess ; among them Lady Archibald Hamilton, the favourite; and in the middle of the night the expedition made its way to St. James's from Hampton Court Palace, where their Majesties had gone to rest, only to be aroused to consciousness and fury by the intelligence of the flight. The Queen, suitably accompanied, set off in hot pursuit, but she arrived at the palace in London, only after the birth of the little " Lady Augusta," whom our grandfathers may re- member in London, the widowed mother of Caroline of Brunswick. Lady Augusta had come into the world under circumstances of peril and disgrace. No prepa- ration had been made for such an event at St. James's, and the chief attendant on the wife was the mistress of her husband ! When the Queen arrived, the Prince received her with surly respect, and disgusted her with details of the journey and its consequences — which must have been gross indeed, if her Majesty found them unpleasant to her hearing. Out of this step arose the next stern measure exe- cuted by the King. As soon as the Princess was able to be removed, she, her husband, child, and household, were ejected from St. James's Palace, with every cir- cumstance of disgrace that could be heaped upon them. chap, xti.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 485 Neither alleged sorrow nor verbose apology could touch the King and Queen — they flung, as it were, the of- fenders into the street ; and even the Duke of Norfolk refused to let to them his house in St. James's Square, without the sanction of the Sovereign. For the horrible and uunatural state of antagonism in which the son had long lived with his parents and nearest relations there has never yet been satisfactory cause assigned. The loathing of his mother for her firstborn son, the ferocity of hatred of the father, the aversion of the brother and sisters, must have been excited by some stronger offence than any of which Frederick is known to have been guilty. There is no foul and vituperative term in our language which the whole family did not spit at him. The commonest terms applied to him by his mother were " liar," " ass," ff beast," " blackguard," with intensifying adjectives preceding them. She openly declared that her son was capable of murdering her, and she repeatedly expressed a wish that he were in his grave ! The King's roll of strong epithets was equally scathing ; that of the Duke of Cumberland was of not much milder quality, and one at least of his sisters branded him as a " nauseous beast !" One individual cognisant of the actual cause of this unnatural state of things would not commit it to paper. " Sir Robert Walpole," says Lord Hardwicke in his Memoirs, " informed me of certain passages be- tween the King and himself, and between the Queen and the Prince, of too high and secret a nature even to be trusted to this narrative." Another individual (Lord Hervey), equally cognisant, no doubt, of the truth, recorded that in his celebrated Memoirs, but the 4S6 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. passage was erased by his son, the Earl of Bristol. The pages containing it were torn out of the manuscript, which was long kept from publication, " to prevent/' says Walpole, " disgraceful truths appearing with regard to the late Prince of Wales." What these could have been it were not profitable to conjecture; all that we know for certain is, that one man acquainted with them would not entrust them to paper, and that the son of another man who had made record of them would not allow them to go down to posterity. At Norfolk House, at Leicester House, and at Carl- ton House, at Kew, and at the palace reared by Villiers on the majestic terrace at Cliefden, Frederick meanwhile lived altogether a happy life, and quite as respectable as any illustrated by his father. The system of politics which had been essayed in Leicester House in the time of the preceding Prince of Wales by Pulteney, Wyndham, and Carteret, was successfully established by Bolingbroke, and illustrated in the papers devoted to the faction. The object was to break up the Whig ministry and influences which had prevailed, more or less, since the Revolution. Frederick, however, was personally, as well as politically, interested in the op- position he set up against his father. Among his own friends, Frederick might be seen close to them, " whis- pering through every curl," as Walpole graphically describes him. Walpole's brother, Mr., afterwards Sir Edward, was a favourite, but not a partisan, at Leicester House. He constantly performed with the Prince at his private concerts. When the latter was organizing his opposition, he pressed Sir Edward to absent himself from the House of Commons on a question of the army. chap, xti.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 487 Edward Walpole refused, and on being pressed for his motives, answered, " You will never forgive me, Sir, if I give you my reasons." " By G— d, I will," said the Prince, who was walking about the room with his arm round Edward Walpole's shoulder. The latter rejoined, jestingly, " By G — d, Sir, you will not. Yet I will tell you. I will not stay away, because your father and mine are for the question." The Prince flung from him in anger, and the Princess Royal, who was at the harpsichord, exclaimed, " Bravo, Mr. Walpole." The offending gentleman attended at the next amateur con- cert at Leicester House, where there were also some hired performers ; and the Prince addressed him as if he too were a fiddler by profession. Edward Walpole flew in a rage to the bell, ordered his violincello to be removed, and his servants to be called. He would be affronted, he said, by no man. He refused to come back, declared he would never return, and went out in a burst of rage, defying Prince, peers, and commoners who endeavoured to arrest or to soothe him. In course of time the Prince apologized, and Edward Walpole re- sumed his visits, but only to be importuned to join the Prince's opposition; and he wrote to the Prince of Wales, asking him, how he would like him to behave when he came to be King ? in that manner he would behave, he said, while George II. was living. The Prince graciously exclaimed, " He is an honest man, and I will keep his letter;" and could he have kept similar men about him he might have been a better man himself. A large and a contented family grew up around him and his exemplary wife, of which the eldest son, George: 488 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. William Frederick, afterwards George III., was born in Norfolk House, St. James's Square, on the 24th of May (or, according to the new style, the 4th of June), 1738. In these various residences might have heen seen a varied company : the Earl of Chesterfield, as great a mimic as when he was plain Mr. Stanhope; Lady Huntingdon, who left that sort of world, and would ■' gladly have enticed from it the Earl, who would not follow ; then there were gossiping Bathurst, Queens- berry, the friend of Gay, and factious Pulteney, with Gobham, and Pitt, the Granvilles, Lyttelton, and (hanger-on most obnoxious to Princes and their friends generally) a man who kept a diary — good-natured, weak-minded, gossiping Bubb Doddington. With these, and among others, were rude and half- crazed Baltimore, the two Hedges, of whom Charles wrote smart epigrams ; touchy Lord Caernarvon, proud and surly Townshend, amusing North, stuttering Johnny Lumley, and the Earl of Middlesex, whose lady, full of learning and ugliness, was the Prince's lady rather than her lord's. The " maids" in attendance on the Princess of Wales must have lacked the charming freedom and fascination which distinguished those of the Princess immediately preceding, or they would not have been so poorly ap- preciated by the Prince of Wales's " head coachman." This official had such experience of these young ladies that, on dying, he left several hundred pounds sterling to his son on condition that he never married a maid of honour ! At Leicester House was got up that declamatory and argumentative tragedy Cato, enacted by the Prince's chap. XVI.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 489 children before a select audience. Young George William Frederick played the part of Portius, and Quin, it will be remembered, " taught the boy to speak." At Cliefden, too, the drama was encouraged within doors, as well as manly games without. For the little theatre there Thompson wrote his Alfred, and Thompson was one of a class of men to whom the Prince exhibited considerable generosity, granting him 100£. per annum, to make up in some degree for the loss he had sustained when Chancellor Hardwicke de- prived him of the secretaryship for briefs, which had been conferred on him by Chancellor Talbot. Sometimes the Prince might be seen at cricket on the lawn, once receiving a blow from a ball which ulti- mately led to his death. At others, he would stroll on summer eves along the banks of the Thames, not un- attended. On one of these occasions Shenstone was sojourning at the Sun, at Maidenhead, and his servant happened to be loitering by the river side. There he beheld a spectacle which sent him back ecstatic to his master. " Lord, Sir," he exclaimed, " I have seen the Prince of Wales, accompanied by his nobles !" The simple fellow took two authors — two Scotch authors — for peers of the realm ! The two in question were lazy, lounging, loose- dressed Thompson, the other the equally- elegant but less gloriously- gifted Mallet ! As a country gentleman, the Prince of Wales dis- tributed prizes at rowing-matches, and chatted with labourers at cottage-doors ; sometimes passed the threshold and partook of a cottager's dinner, and twice he went to Bartholomew fair by torchlight ; he paid to see mountebanks, feed fortune-tellers, and now and y 3 490 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book t then witnessed the baiting of a hull at Hockley-in-the- Hole. As a fine sort of gentleman, he wrote verses, indifferently to his wife and his mistress ; and however meanly he may have treated the latter, he never failed in courtesy or civility to his consort. Although setting a vicious example to his children, he loved them as, truly as if he had possessed a true father's heart, and therewith a wise father's head ; but this was not the case, and that obnoxious fellow who kept a " Diary" noted down in it, of his princely friend, — that his head and his heart were of such a quality that nothing could ever be possibly made of them or of the owner of them. He lost much money — now at the gaming table, now at the hands of extravagant ladies, and he lost much time in laughing gaily in verse at these, or in satirizing alike the triumphs and reverses of his brother of Cumberland. The Prince had asked for a command, then for a regiment ; both had been refused. He was not improperly jealous that his brother had been allowed to fight side by side with his father at Dettingenj and Frederick was sorely stricken by the wound which illustriously bruised William. When the heroes returned, the Prince of Wales was so far reconciled with his sire as to be able to repair to court to receive them. They acknowledged all such greetings from others by a word of thanks, but the welcome of the Prince of Wales was unnoticed even by a look of gratification. Accordingly, when the royal recruit at Dettingen was made commander-in- chief, and lost the battle of Fontenoy, his brother rejoiced in the defeat ; and when William gained what he could not well lose, the day at Culloden, chap, xvi.] FREDERICK LOUIS OF HANOVER. 491 Frederick flung no rose to make up a garland for the " butcher." The corridor at Windsor Castle commemorates some other tastes of this wayward Prince, in a picture painted by an artist named Philips, and representing the princely founder, and some of his associates, of the " Harry the Fifth Club," or " the Gang :" around their leader, the Prince of Wales, are assembled Lord Inchiquin, Lord Middleton, Sir Hugh Smithson, General Dilkes, Mr. Howe, and Mr. B. Boyle. Of these especial favourites of the Prince, Lord Inchiquin was perhaps the chief, to make whom his secretary Frederick ejected Lord Lyttelton. In the " Gentle- man's Magazine" for September, 1854, Mr. John Gough Nichols describes a badge which had belonged to a Mr. Chamberlaine who was blinded in some wild frolic with the celebrated Marquis of Granby; and this badge, Mr. Nichols is inclined to believe, was that of the " Gang " under the Prince of Wales. It is thus described : — " The badge is oval in shape, and its size is about that of a large hen's egg. Each side is painted in colours enamelled on copper. One side is allusive to the exploits of the highway, the other to those of the tavern. On the former is represented at top a right hand open, with the forefinger bent down to perform some mystic symbol. Below is a distant view of a town, which has two spires, and some obelis- cal tower like that of a glass-house ; in the foreground is a pair of stocks, and to the right a gibbet, with the iron framework used for hanging the body of a criminal in chains. Above and below are inscribed the words — ' Jack Gang Warily.' On the other side 492 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book: T. are three hands united, their wrists in ruffles: and around them this legend, ' Charity, Mirth, and Friend- ship United.'" The mirth was probahly of the loudest at the Gang meetings, but I suspect that the charity and friend- ship were of an inferior quality. The Prince at least was addicted to borrowing money, which he never in- tended to repay. He boasted of having "nicked" Doddington, his very familiar friend, out of several thousands, and he borrowed larger sums of Sir Thomas Bootle, his chancellor, which were never returned. This latter was one at least of the debts which the Princess should have acquitted when she became a widow, at which period she possessed not only a large dower, and a third of the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall, worth four thousand a year more, but she had reduced her household, and " lived in a privacy that exceeded economy." Walpole, who thus describes her in his "Memoirs of the Eeign of George III." adds that " her passion for money was so great that she obtained an additional annuity of 10,000^. a year from her son," which " was given under pretence of paying the late Prince's, her husband's, debts. Whether she did dis- charge any of them I neither know nor deny. Some, I have heard, remained unpaid, not only at her death, but in the year 1788." The sums which the Prince of Wales borrowed from Sir Thomas Bootle were never repaid at all. When the Prince's son came to the throne, he (George III.) remembered this flagrant case, and promised to make a peer of Richard Bootle Wilbraham, who had married Sir Thomas's niece Mary Bootle. The son's promise was no more per- chap, xvl] FREDERICK LOUIS OP HANOVER. 493 formed than the father's debt was paid ; but, after the accession of the next Prince of Wales to the throne (George IV.), the obligation was at length tardily can- celled, and in 1828, the great nephew of Frederick's old chancellor, Edward Bootle Wilbraham, was created Baron Skelmersdale, of the County Palatine of Lan- caster. I have alluded to the hatred of the Queen for Frederick — that feeling was repaid by the Prince, by hatred less open, but by an ostentatious disobedience and annoyance. Through his friends, he introduced her name into the debates which arose out of the mention of his affairs, in a manner which, aiming to destroy all respect for her in the popular mind, moved her to extreme wrath. In minor sorts of annoyance he was instructed by the example of Caroline herself, who in her time, as Princess of Wales, had lost no oppor- tunity to accomplish any act that could give umbrage to her father-in-law. Such was her patronage of Friend the physician, who had defended the Jacobite Bishop Atterbury, when the latter was accused before Parlia- ment of the crime of treason. Mother and son bade high for the popular voice, and, to gain it, condescended to many actions to which they would not otherwise have stooped. They strove as hardly to excite the general ill-will against each other. She charged Frederick with being ready and willing to sell his right of succession to the crown to the Pretender, for a few hundred thousand pounds. Bishop Sherlock once ventured to ridicule him as a blunderer, and the Queen snubbed the prelate for not flinging a heavier stone at the head of the son whom 494 THE HOUSE OP HANOVEE. [book v. she affected to hold unparalleled for crime and mean- ness. This terrific antagonism was carried on till death visited the mother. Even in the death-struggle, the expressed anxiety of the son unnaturally aroused her. She would neither pardon nor see him, nor send him her blessing. If she were weak enough, she intimated, to grant him an interview, he would hypocritically " blubber like a calf," and when he had left he would laugh at her, she said, for her weakness. In this she was not in error. When her death was near at hand, the spirits of the Prince of Wales rose high. " We shall have good news soon," he was heard to say at Carlton House, his then town-residence, " she can't hold out much longer !" She died in 1737, after seeing and blessing all her children who were in England, — except the Prince of Wales. The mother's curse, for the steady refusal of a mother's blessing amounts to malediction, was quite sufficient to satisfy more than the merely superstitious that he would never wear the crown, or he would, with it, inherit calamity. Hitherto, in each family that had succeeded to the throne, there had been one Prince of Wales who had never ascended it, but from this greatness not one had been debarred by the force of a mother's anathema. Edward of Worcester had ex- ceeded his father in glory; his namesakes of West- minster, of the Sanctuary, and of Middleham, wore the mantle of " King Death," leaving mothers to weep for them and to bless their memories ; around Arthur o Winchester circled the general love as well as that of the nearest and dearest at home; and thousands of hearts were wrung when Henry of Stirling was borne chap, xvl] FREDERICK LOUIS OP HANOVER. 495 to Westminster; not to be crowned, but entombed. It was different when, in course of time, in the year, namely, 1751, George II. lay ill, and Frederick Prince of Wales, with irreverend eagerness, was arranging the course to be taken now that he was about to be king. At that very time Death demanded the tribute of the sacrifice of the heir ere he should possess his inherit- ance. So it is satisfactory that the customary tribute has been paid in the person of a Prince who loved not his mother, nor whom his mother loved. Death smote him just as he was at the height of unfilial joy, and busiest in unnatural, silly, but ambitious projects. Prom the time of his mother's death, he had been a thorn in the side of the father ; a thorn now to be removed. A cold caught in a March east-wind, foolishly neglected, led to pleurisy, and this, still neglected, led to death, at the very moment when his hand was outstretched to catch the sceptre from the grasp of a father who survived him several years. We learn this much from that friend to be dreaded who " kept a diary." In the immediate circle of his home there were survivors who wept sincerely for a lost husband and father. If his mother's curse impeded his attainment to the greatness to which he aspired, it did not follow him to the sanctuary of his hearth. A few personal friends, too, mourned over a lost master and their lost places ; and amid the public voices that were set ringing by his death, the pulpit showered satires on his corpse, or strewed platitudes, like Newton's, on his bier ; while men, like his own brother, sarcastically hoped the country would survive his loss, and poetry pursued him with epigrams, to the grave. 496 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book t. CHAPTER XVII. GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK, OF NORFOLK HOUSE. Boen 1738. Died (King) 1820. This third Prince of Wales of the House of Hanover was the eldest son of a family consisting of five sons and four daughters. Of the latter, the "Lady Augusta" was born a year before the Prince; and Caroline, the youngest, was born four months after the decease of her father. There is little to be said that is not already known of the early life of this Prince, who was born on the 4th June (New style), 1738, in Norfolk House, St. James's Square, during the period when Carlton House was being prepared for the residence of his parents. Prematurely born, his life was in such peril that on the day of his birth he was baptized, with no more ceremony than is attached to the ordinary private administration of the sacrament. Three weeks later, a more public solemnization followed, but still at Norfolk House, where the healthy wife of a gardener was for a time the most important personage, next to the delicate baby in the cradle. The sensible foster- mother took her young charge to bed with her, a sort of vulgar and novel familiarity which was vehemently objected to. "Nay, then," said the good woman, "you may nurse the boy yourselves." They wisely allowed her to have her way. chap, xvn.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 497 At this birth, the Laureate got upon stilts, and pre- sented his best thanks to Nature that she had first amused herself with sketching a plan of a girl (an Augusta), and thereby had enabled herself to now dare and " complete the wondrous man/' George ! The more prosaic corporation of London went up to the King himself, and informed him of what he probably • very shrewdly suspected — that the happy event was one of the effects of the alliance of the child's parents. The Bath municipality went further still in [social science, and congratulated the father on his own birth, to which, as they justly, but superfluously, observed, they owed the sight of the royal presence in which they stood ! On his first birthday the youthful aristocracy, from whom his mother subsequently guarded him with great jealousy, seemed to claim him for their own. A deputation of five dozen of them, under twelve years of age, and attired as Lilliputian soldiers, entered Norfolk House, drums beating and colours flying, elected the little Prince for their colonel, kissed his hand, and then marched back again. After a nursery career, the young Prince, at six years of age, was consigned to the care of men, and Dr. Ayscough (afterwards Bishop of Bristol) was appointed tutor to the Princes George and Edward. Ayscough con- gratulated himself on the taste of the former, who voluntarily learnt hymns by heart, out of the collection of the dissenting minister, Dr. Doddridge. The pre- ceptor himself, Ayscough, was fonder of fun than of teaching, and when giving a lesson would amuse his pupils, and their royal father too, by mimicking the 498 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. style and manner of Dr. George, then head-master at Eton. For this preceptor Walpole at least had no regard, nor for some others ; he writes in 1749, " When Prince George went to receive the riband (of the order of the Garter), the Prince (his father) carried him to the closet-door, where the Duke of Dorset received and carried him. Ayseough or Nugent, or some of the geniuses, had taught him ' a speech/ The child began it, the Prince cried ' No ! no !' When the boy had a little recovered his fright, he began again, but the same tremendous scene was repeated, and the ovation still- born." On another occasion Walpole writes : — " Mr. Pelham said I know nothing of Dr. Ayseough. Oh yes, I recollect I was told by a very worthy man, two years ago, that he was a great rogue." He certainly had a very poor idea of his duty. At eleven years of age, the Princess Dowager complained that her son read English, as she was told, incorrectly. Ayseough said it mattered little ; the Prince made such nice Latin verses ! Goupy gave him lessons in water-colour painting, and Redman instructed him in the use of the small sword. Quin, as I have before stated, " taught the boy to speak," and superintended the getting up of Cato, in January, 1749, when Prince George played Portius, and a boy, who was afterwards prime minister, enacted Syphax, namely the son of Lord North — the last named nobleman being the Prince's governor. Further, for the Prince's use, Dr. Freeman wrote the " History of the English Tongue ;" while, for his soul's profit, "plain Parson Hales," his mother's clerk of the closet, accepted the task of instructing him in the rudiments of religion. chap, xra.] GEOKGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 49$ A month after the death of his father, Prince George was created Prince of Wales. " He occasionally left his widowed mother, to reside for short periods with the King. At this time the Earl of Harcourt was his governor, and Hayter (Bishop of Norwich) his tutor. The sub-governor was Mr. Stone; the sub-preceptor, Mr. Scott. Lord Harcourt and Dr. Hayter were accused of attempting to induce the Prince to break with the old friends of his father, and even to render himself more independent of his mother. Intrigues ensued, during which Stone was charged with instilling Jacobitism into his pupil, and Scott was named as unfit for the post he occupied ; but these gentlemen came out of the ordeal triumphantly, and the governor and preceptor retiring, were succeeded by the Earl of Waldegrave and Dr. Thomas, at that time Bishop of Peterborough. Lord Harcourt was a less efficient governor than Lord North. He was an instrument of the Pelhams, whose object was to rule the household of the Princess Dowager of Wales ; and, as Walpole remarks, was " fit to cipher where Stone was to figure." Dr. Hayter was without neither sense nor good-nature, but he was only an indifferent tutor to the Prince. His mother accused the Bishop of never teaching her son anything ; and the prelate retorted by affirming that he was never permitted to teach him anything. Lord Waldegrave accepted the governorship with reluctance, but he was well fitted for the responsible post, which the Duke of Newcastle foolishly thought might be occupied by a cipher, but which really required a man of Waldegrave*s good sense and honourable principles. Of Dr. Thomas, 500 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book t. Walpole says, "I know nothing of him ; he had lain by many years, after having read prayers to the present ; King (George II.), which his Majesty remembered, and two years ago popped him into a bishopric." " I don't know what they teach them " (the Prince of Wales and his favourite brother, Edward, Duke of- York), "but I'm afraid not much," said the Dowager Princess to Bubb Dodington. The boys and pre- ceptors were idle at Kew and Cliefden, perhaps they would be more diligent in town. Bubb not unwisely thought that the Princes might be learning something without poring over books — knowledge of the world, the science of government, and the conduct of public business. The mother's testimony to the character of the Prince was, that he was very honest, but reserved and childish — even after he was " in his teens" — shy, good-natured, cheerful, yet tinged with gravity ; slow, yet not without application. In learning, she thought him backward — and she was right in this, but only hy chance, for she was incapable of judging ; and she was correct in asserting what might be said of a great portion of his life, that those most intimate with him knew him as little as if they had never seen him. The mother herself did not thoroughly comprehend him — but a good mother's instincts were aroused for him, and she kept her son from all companionship with the vicious and ill-educated aristocracy of her time, whom she properly held in healthy horror. The aunt of the Prince of Wales (Amelia) furnishes evidence, derived from the mother. She told Walpole that having one day, when the Prince was a boy, done some- chap, xvn.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 501 thing to please him, the Princess Dowager said to her — " Madam, you are very good to my children ; but, madam, if yon was to lay down your life for George, George would not he obliged to you."* Lord Chesterfield, who was then training his only son, not to abandon vice, but to be a gentleman in the practice of it, pronounced the Prince to be " a most hopeful boy, gentle, and good-natured, with good sound sense." His royal grandfather, on the other hand, declared he " was good for nothing except to read the Bible to his mother" — a good, and homely, and not unprincely virtue. The Prince of Wales was, un- doubtedly, of a less vivacious spirit than his brother and companion, Edward of York, and certainly had, through life, a more correct sense of propriety. I derive from a note of Mrs. Piozzi's, written in a copy of " Wraxall's Memoirs," which she was annotating, one evidenceof the correctness of the Prince's conduct, and which evidence reached Mrs. Piozzi through a cousin, attached to the household of Prince Frederick. "The Princess was sitting one day of her early widowhood, pensive and melancholy, her two oldest sons were playing about the room. ' Brother/ said the second boy (Edward, Duke of York), ' when you and I are men grown, you shall be married, and I will keep a mistress/ — 'Be quiet, Eddy,' replied the Prince of Wales, 'we shall have anger presently for your nonsense. There must be no mistresses at all.' — 'What you say?' cries old (?) Augusta, ' you more need learn your pronouns, as the preceptor bid you do. Can you tell what is a pronoun ?' ' Yes, very well/ replied Prince Edward, ' a pronoun is * " Last Journals of Horace Walpole." Vol. I. p. Ill, 503 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book t. to a noun, what a mistress is to a wife, a substitute and a representative.' " Whatever parts the Prince's tutors may have had, one of their pupils, at least, was not without a lively knowledge of the world. The Dowager Princess had reason to he afraid of the manners of the age — here was one of her caged birds with the audacity of a page, and an insight into social arrangements that would have made him popular with a whole club' of Mohawks. Fuller tells us what young Edward VI. had to say of his tutors, namely, that " Randolph the German spake honestly ; Sir John Cheke talked merrily ; Dr. Coxe solidly ; and Sir Anthony Cooke weighingly." We are also enabled, through Sir George Rose's diary, to know the impression left on the mind of George III. by the tutors and governors appointed over him in his prince- hood. "His Majesty told me," says Sir George, "that most serious inconvenience had arisen from disagree- ments and intrigues among those who were entrusted with the care of his education ; mentioning Dr. Thomas, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, and Mr. George Scott, afterwards a Commissioner of Excise, as men of unex-. ceptionable characters, — preceptor and sub-preceptor. But he considered Dr. Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, as an intriguing, unworthy man, more fitted to be a Jesuit than an English bishop ; and as influenced in his con- duct by the disappointment he had met with in failing to get the archbishopric of Canterbury." His Majesty added, that " his lordship was the author of the gross and wicked calumny on George Scott, accusing him, a man of the purest mind and most innocent conduct, of having attempted to poison his wife. Lord Waldegrave chap. Xvii.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 503 was pronounced to be a f depraved, worthless man/ and the other well-intentioned, but wholly unfit for the situation in which he was ' placed." In this former opinion the King seems to have had an incorrect re- membrance of the governors of the Prince. It is very clear that the mother of the Prince, how- ever scantily she may have been endowed with learn- ing, possessed good sense, and was moved by healthy impulses. In her son's boyhood she remembered the honest letter which Edward Walpole had sent to her husband, when the latter was urging him to oppose the King in Parliament ; Walpole had also presented the Prince with a valuable Cremonean violincello, which after his death was carefully locked up by order of the Princess. She pointed to it one day when the youthful Prince of Wales stood by, and said, " George, that instrument was given to your father by a man, from whom I will show you a letter. When you are king, get him about you if you can, you cannot have an honester man."* If she could only have followed the counsel which she gave, she would have better enabled her son to profit by her advice, and would have saved much trouble to her son's preceptors. It must be said for the preceptors that they found an ill-taught pupil, who when he came into public life only saw evil example rife about him. An anonymous poet has described the court in which the Prince of Wales figured in his seventeenth year, and at which Lady Yarmouth, the mistress of his grandfather, only civilly gave precedence to the Prince's mother. The " Grand Presence " below is, of course, King George II. * " Last Journals of Horace Walpole." 504 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book t. See the Grand Presence in the circle move ; Whilst all around is Joy, and Peace, and Love; But see which way does the Grand Presence walk ! Say next with whom the King is pleas' d to talk. Ha ! with what goddess-like demeanour seen, And lowliness, majestic like a Queen ! To meet whose smiles the god-like hero walks ; And first with Yarmouth pleasantly he talks ; Who yields, with grace superior, all her charms, The Dowager Princess coming to his arms. With the whole majesty of Heav'n she moves, Pensive in thought. She smiles, she joys, she loves, She loves — but not as erst, when Frederick, Her joy, her life, her all, impress'd her lip, Sooth'd her with blandishments, would fawn and play Around her neck, or on her bosom lay. That neck, that bosom, jewels still adorn, But, ah ! his hand, the living jew'l, is gone. The King sustains her loss, and well he can : Heav'n leaves the guardian, when it takes a man. At this court, where the train of vice swept before the throne more proudly than that of virtue, the young Prince of Wales is thus described standing near his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, and is also thus coun- selled by the modest and nameless versifier : — Close standing by his side, a princely boy Invites my eye, and fills my heart with joy : Climbing so fast to manhood, lo ! a tree, A blooming tree, sprung from a twig, I see. The modest youth adorn'd with many a grace, But the most fair, the blush upon his face ; Grow on in ev'ry virtue, grow and shine, But make the patriot virtue wholly thine. Your father, grandsire, uncle, study well ; The Court, the town, the country, wisely spell; Learn how, before you are, to be a king : Beware of party. Union is the thing. However defective the education of the Prince may have been in some respects, he possessed one accom- chap, xvii.] GEOEGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 505 plishment in which he was never equalled by any of his own children, namely, that of expressing himself in his letters, in pure and correct English free alike from pre- tence or affectation. "With the Princess Dowager and her friend and counsellor, scandal adds, her particular admirer, the Earl of Bute, the Prince of Wales is supposed to have lived in as great seclusion as the heir of a sultan. For some time this was indeed the case, but emancipation seems to have come sufficiently early. When the Prince was eighteen years of age, the King granted him 40,000^. a-year, and offered him an apartment in Kensington and St. James's Palaces. The annuity was gratefully accepted, but the Prince declined the apartment, says Bubb Dodington, " on account of the mortification it would be to his mother ; though," says Bubb, in one of those additions which render diarists so dangerous to their familiar friends or patrons, " it is well known that he does not live with her either in town or country." Thus the man whom Prince Frederick raised to great- ness, was the first who put on record that his patron's son had not an invariable regard for truth ! At all events there is nothing to surprise us in the fact that the Prince, with all the respect he entertained for his mother, avoided residence with her; for there, too, was the inevitable Lord Bute ; who, long before he held any ostensible office near the Prince, was wont to oppress him by didactic conversations on the " Commentaries " of Blackstone, which that learned judge sent to the Earl in manuscript. When Bute was absent, Bubb Dodington was in the company of the Dowager Princess, the intercourse between the latter 506 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book y. two being as familiar, he says, as that of brother and sister. On these occasions Bubb had confidential dia- logues with the Princess, from whom he learned various family matters which, of course, he has registered in his diary. Thence, too, we learn how the Prince was under undue subjection to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, and how his brother Edward charged him with lack of spirit in submitting to it. Altogether there seems to have existed an opinion that the intellect of the Prince of Wales was not of a brilliant order. It was, however, sufficiently useful for many very good purposes, and a Prince of eighteen who took pleasure and reaped profit from perusing Leland's " View of Deistical Writers," must at that age have been endowed with a common- sense intellect adapted for the accomplishment of some important objects. Of his presence at his mother's literary evenings we also hear, but those were very dull affairs, consisting in the reading of the dreary classical tragedies then in vogue, compared with which any theological " view" must have been refreshingly lively. In naval affairs he took as much interest as Henry of Stirling, had a strong affection for the service, and could he have been at the head of it had spirit and Latin enough, I sincerely believe, to have replied to any hostile threat against the English fleet, in the words once forwarded by an English minister to M. Guizot, when the latter was sufficiently angry and unwise to hint a similar menace : — Maturate fugam, regi hseo dicite vestro, — Non illi imperium pelagi ssevumque tridentem, Sed mihi sorte datum. At this time, Saville House, Leicester Square, was the chap, xvii.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 507 residence of the young Prince, around whom gathered, as always will be inclined to gather round an heir with imminent expectations, the "Opposition," or party that happened to be out of place. From them he learned one side of political history. Lord Bute thought it would be as well for him were he to see the world, and accordingly he escorted the Prince to — the Isle of Bute. This was the longest course of travel ever under- taken by the Prince, and the only foreign land he ever visited was that little island off the land of the Gael ! These matters, however, bore with them symptoms of manhood, another sign of which is offered to us in the fact that on the 4th of February, 1760, he so far appeared prominent in Parliament that he was named on the commission for giving the royal assent to several bills. And there were other manifestions of dawning manhood in the Prince whom some took, at best, for a Cymon. If report may be relied on, he had already been subdued by more than one Iphigenia, but there is doubtless something of the romance of history mixed up with the narrative. This is especially the case with the story of Hannah Lightfoot, the young Quakeress of St. James's Market, whose charms were said to have had such potency in them that the Prince privately married his beautiful idol, at Curzon Street Chapel, May Fair, in the year 1759. Where the Prince and the Fairy kept household is not on record, but the romance goes circumstantially into details, the chief of which relate to the alleged offspring of this supposed marriage, to the awakening of the Prince from his dream, and to the subsequent marriage of the well- endowed fairy with a conveniently-found swain, named z 2 508 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book Axford, who tabernacled with the Prince's repudiate love, in Harper Street, Red Lion Square. About the real history, however, of Hannah Light foot, there still rests an impenetrable mystery. At th time of her disappearance from the house "at th corner of Market Street, St. James's Market," she wa the guest of her uncle there, named Wheeler. Th tradition still existing in her family is, that she left th house in St. James's to marry a " Mr. Axford," a per feet stranger to all but herself, at Keith's Chapel, in Ma] Fair ; and that in spite of every inquiry, she was neve: seen nor heard of afterwards by her relatives. Yet it i: known that she sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds for hei portrait ; and it is not unreasonably supposed that this must have been by order of her royal lover. This fini work exists at Knolle Park, Kent; and is there describee as the portrait of " Mrs. Axford." May not Axforc have been the true Beverley, after all ? One woulc certainly like to know what became of this shy, bul successful young Quakeress. The secret must be witl some one, however, for it is affirmed that the wife of one of the Prytherchs of Abergole is her granddaughter* There is more truth, and more of the true romantic spirit which may agree with truth, in the story of the second Iphigenia of the princely Cymon. As the lattei used to ride between Kew and Leicester Square, his notice was attracted one sweet June-tide, by the appearance of a young girl making hay, in one of the fields which then bordered Kensington. Never had such a mortal haymaker, shedding fragrance over the fragrant heap she made, been seen on earth before. The young Prince * " Notes and Queries," vol. i. 1856. p. 322. chap, xtii.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 509 was enchanted, and there was good reason, for Walpole affirms that the young lady was beautiful beyond con- ception, and that her loveliness and expression were above the reach of artists to emulate. This peerless fair one was Lady Sarah Lennox, whose mother, the Duchess of Richmond was more beautiful than even Lady Sarah, or her other two daughters, one of whom became the mother of Charles Fox, the other, of the unfortunate Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The lady who had touched the Prince's heart so nearly, was about seven years his junior, but the legend will have it that he made her an offer of marriage, which she accepted. It must have been a short-lived, however brilliant a romance, for when Lady Sarah appeared at her royal lover's wedding, when she was only in her 18th year, it was not as bride, but as bridesmaid ! She found speedy consolation, too, in marrying Sir T. C. Bunbury, and subsequently the Hon. George Napier. The eldest child of this marriage was the gallant soldier, Sir Charles Napier, whose " very existence " is described by his brother, Sir William, as being an " offence to royal pride." Thus the Napiers seemed to have held that the Lady and not the Prince was to blame. An antagonism, almost comical, was established on the Napier side. "When the two respective eldest sons of the two marriages once met at court, the son of Lady Sarah's old lover (George Augustus, Prince of Wales) "took the liberty" of calling Lady Sarah's son, "Charles !" A graceful condescension which the latter young man, then nineteen, notified to his mother with an ungenerous, " Marry, come up, my dirty cousin." It has been often said by those who wished to 510 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. damage the character of Charles Fox, that he employed very active influence, in the love passages which passed between Lady Sarah Lennox and the Prince of Wales, about the year 1760 ; and that this influence turned to induce the Prince to marry that fair cousin of young Charles. "When, however, it is remembered that in the year above named Charles Fox was only eleven years of age, it is not likely, even if he were in the secret of the existence of the love, that he was in the confidence of the lovers ;— -or that he could have exercised any in- fluence at all in an affair of such delicacy, — and yet his subsequent opposition to the King's government is sometimes said to have owed its origin to the non- fulfilment of this marriage ! In 1760, George II. died, and sudden as was the death of that King, some previous arrangement seems to have been made, in order that, whenever it might take place, the Prince of Wales should be the first to be informed of that very important event, — both to out- going King, and in-coming Prince. The former died at Kensington. The Prince was then at Kew, and he thus gives his own account of the conveyance of a message, about which there seems to have been much unnecessary mystery. Sir George Rose thus reports it in his diary : — " His Majesty referred to a conversation he had held with me respecting Lord Bute; saying he would now tell me what he had then omitted to do That on the day of the late King's demise, he was going from Kew to his house in London, to give some directions about an organ he had there being fitted in a room he had prepared for it. When near Kew bridge, he met chap, xrii.] GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK. 511 a person lie did not know, who rode up to him and said he had something to say to him, and took out of his pocket a piece of very coarse white-brown paper, with the name of Schrieder wrote upon it, and nothing more, which the man said was given to him merely to obtain credence with his Royal Highness ; and then went on to say that the King was taken suddenly ill, and that appearances were very alarming. He ordered him to say nothing to any one, but to ride on quietly. The determination his Majesty instantly took was to return to Kew, to colour which, he observed to his attendants that his horse went lame ; and although his groom assured him to the contrary, he went back directly, and immediately repaired to the Princess of Wales, whose unremitting and careful attention he spoke feelingly of, to communicate to her what had occurred ; in doing which he enjoined her in the warmest manner to say nothing on the subject to Lord Bute, lest he should entertain some notion of endeavouring to be placed in a political situation ; of which, however, the 'Princess Dowager assured him there was no danger. The King, not satisfied with that assurance, repeated the injunction, and obtained from her Royal Highness a positive promise of a compliance with it, adding, that if she should be mistaken, it would entirely alter her opinion of his Lordship. That after leaving his mother, and before reaching his own house, he met a messenger with a letter from the Princess Amelia, directed " To his Majesty," which led to his being certain of the event that had happened. Her Royal Highness, in it, requested him to come directly to Kensington ; the im- propriety of which he was so sensible of, that, after 512 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book again waiting on his mother, he went straight to h own house in London." — That was to Carlton Hous< his mother's residence, where he met his ministers, an revised his first speech to the nation, putting in those famous words — "Born and educated in th country, I glory in the name of Briton," — words whicl brightly gilded, headed the printed address, which w* framed, glazed, and suspended in many a house at thi period, and which is still to be found, something tl worse for wear, the gilding tarnished, and the printin soiled, hanging against the walls of some remol cottage, — a tradition and a " hatchment " of tl buried past. chap, xviii.] GEOEGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 513 CHAPTER XVIII. GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK OF ST. JAMES'S. Boen 1762. Died (King) 1830. Chronologically, the life of the eldest son of George •III., may be thus registered. He was born at St. James's, on the 12th of August, 1762, and was only a few days old when he was created Prince of Wales. In 1770, he passed from the nursery to the guardian- ship of men ; the Earl of Holdernesse, and the re- verend Dr. Markham, and Cyril Jackson, being his governor, preceptor, and sub-preceptor. In 1772, he is reported to have manifested his earl opposition to his father, by shouting within his hearing the obnoxious cry of "Wilkes and 45 for ever I" Two years later he and his brother, the Duke of York, received some instructions in farming, on which they practically entered, with the success of amateurs ; and in 1776, the Prince passed from the superintending care of the trio of gentlemen named above, —to that of Lord Bruce, Bishop Hurd, and the Rev. Mr. Arnold. The noble lord, however, speedily made way for the Duke of Montague, as governor. In his eighteenth year he demonstrated the utility of the restrictive system under which he was kept by parents and tutors, by alluring Perdita Robinson from the stage, and by making his first and deep plunge into z 3 514 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEK. [book indiscretion and extravagance, by entering into a bra to pay her 20,0001. when he came of age. When that time came, the Prince and the lady we: no longer friends, and the bond was redeemed for z annuity of 500£. per annum, which was not paid mar years. This was not for want of means, seeing th when he reached his majority, the people, by their repr sentatives, granted him 100,000^. to form a househol and half that sum, annually, to support it. He toe his seat among the Peers, commenced his political care as a Tory, but soon fell into dissipation, extreme ai costly follies and fopperies, and the hands of the "Whig who seized on him as a pupil, for the good of the country, the welfare of the heir-apparent, and i especial purpose, good or bad, in which they were then selves interested ! So at least they said, — but with i natural inclination for Whigs and gentlemen, I c not give more than provisional acceptance to su< assertions. They must, at all events, have speedily becor ashamed of their pupil, for he acted neither as tn Whig, nor honest gentleman. As for his Whiggism, believe it was very much like Charles the Seconc Protestanism, which was a cloak serving to hide genuine Eoman Catholic. So did the Prince of Wales Whiggery cover a Tory, at heart ; when he could safe profess the latter creed, he took to it, and kept through life, as honestly as it was in his power to ke to anything. Between the two, he very much resembled hims between Mrs. Crouch the actress and Mrs. Pitzherbe He married the latter fascinating widow, at the risk chap, xvm.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 515 bringing about a war of succession, and he instructed his own familiar friend, Charles Fox, to deny the marriage in the face of the House of Commons. He had sworn to be faithful to his wife, but while lavish- ing a world of wealth upon her in the form of a splendid establishment, the expenses of which he promised to pay, he was on such friendly terms with the actress that he did not think 1400?. per annum too much to pay, or engage to pay, for the enjoyment of them. At this time, young, handsome, and courteous, with means and appliances about him to become an accom- plished, a patriotic, and an exemplary Prince, he was bankrupt in estate and character. Prodigal as the people had been to him, through the House of Com- mons, he abused their liberality, recklessly exceeded his income, anticipated that of years to come, and amid the ruin which he had gaily brought upon himself, standing impudently penitent, asking his father and asking the people to rescue him — who would not rescue himself. " Impudently penitent," because he played out a short farce of reduction and economy, which the patient public took for fixed and shining morality ; and, moved by the example of his softened sire, who con- sented to allow his son an additional 10,000?. a year out of the Civil List, they flung into his lap the splendid donation of 160,000?., wherewith to satisfy his creditors, and an additional 20,000?. for himself, under the name of repairs for Carlton House. At the age of six-and-twenty, he came for the first time within reach almost of the sceptre, as Regent. In 1788, constitutional disease, public calamity, private 516 THE HOUSE OP HANOVEE. [book anxieties, and a life of constant irritation, either fro] intractable ministers who would ride over him, and n( be ridden over by him, or from his son, whose ingratituc was worse than the serpent's tooth, as the sage calls i the King, with the weight of only half a century on h shoulders, but with the intolerable burden I have ind cated on his mind, made first, but not yet total, shi] wreck of his reason, and then it was proposed thi George Augustus Frederick should be Regent. When this crisis of his life was reached, the Whig ordinarily anxious to preserve, or make reserve of, tl rights of the people, and place healthy bonds on those i possession of power, asserted that the King being mental dead, the next heir naturally succeeded to all but the tit of his predecessor's greatness, without restriction, ar as a matter of course. The Tories, on the other ham usually jealous of too much interfering with the potei tiality of those whom they acknowledge for sovereig or vice-sovereign, argued in favour of submission of. tl matter to public opinion, and of a regency under sue restraints as to be under the control of the people's r presentatives. The bill with the restrictions in que tion was going through the House, when, on the 12i of February, 1789, the whole matter was overturned 1 the unexpected recovery of the King. Therewith, the Prince, under the cold shade of h father's inveterate displeasure, turned away from politic took to philandering, to horse-racing, and then abando: ing that, to attending prize-fights ; and then, in bett taste, leaving them with a denunciation against them, the exhibition of much fickleness and other follies, and the wooing of many ladies, who received the homa; chap, xviii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 517 with more or less alacrity, while Mrs. Fitzherbert kept a state rarely broken in upon by her inconstant husband in her compact little palace in Park Lane. In 1795 was carried into fatal completion that un- happy project of marriage with his lively cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. It was not that he loved, even on report, the lady he had never seen. He was hopelessly embarrassed again by debt, and the marriage was proposed as the grateful service to be performed in return for the payment of his debts. And hither came, accordingly, that then lovely and never very clean lady, her young heart occupied with the memory of a lover, to accept as her husband a man who was already married, but who did not scruple to marry again, stand- ing at the altar and perjuring himself under the strong tonics of brandy, hatred of his bride, and, let us hope, some disgust at himself. That ill-matched pair were wedded on the 8th April, 1795. Parliament again behaved munificently on the occasion, and the married couple had every means of happiness within their power save one ; ' wanting which, felicity is unattainable. They had no esteem each for the other; hence came separation within a year, • shortly after the birth of the Princess Charlotte of Wales ; and thence ensued scandals, and misery, and guiltiness, such as threatened to make the popular heart sick of the name of royalty, uneasy under the present condition of things, and nearly hopeless as re- garded the future. There was a moment when the Prince had an oppor- tunity to recover the goodwill and respect of the people; and, to do him justice, he did not neglect to avail, or 5 IS THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v rather, to try to avail himself of it. When we were threatened by invasion, in the early part of this century, he sought eagerly, and no doubt sincerely, to be per- mitted to have a foremost place among the martial defenders of the country. His creditable effort was treated with cruel scorn, and, while his incapable brother, the Duke of York, was entrusted with a supreme command, the Prince of "Wales was contemp- tuously thrust back into ornamental uselessness, and with such insulting circumstances, as to lead the vigilant public to believe that he was personally the coward which his vindictive father most unjustifiably declared him to be. To pursue the chronological outline of this life, there remains to be recorded that, in 180Jj, when he claimed sole power oyer the education of his daughter, the King preserved the rights of the mother of the princess. In 1805, the coalition of Grenville and Fox had the sup- port of the Prince. Then followed the indiscretions oi his wife, the calumnies which sprung from them, and her triumphant issue, marked by her re-appearance at Court ; where, in 1807, the ill-starred couple met for the last time, exchanging a few cold, civil words. The final derangement of the " old King " led to Perceval's Kegency Bill, with the limitations of Pitt's previous measure— to continue only for a year. This arrange- ment enabled the Prince to start unshackled from the year 1812. His new career opened with war abroac and awful suffering at home, where the expenditurt greatly exceeded the income. But the refusal of th< Prince to receive, at such a period, an increase o revenue, gained him some popularity, and his desertioi chap, xtiii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 519 of his Whig friends hardly affected this temporary re- gard on the part of the people. The year 1814 was a real year of jubilee. The war was brought to a glorious close ; emperors and kings came over here as guests ; and, though the nation was on the verge of bankruptcy, the Prince's wife had re- tired to the Continent, and to her husband there came a consequent joy free from all alloy. Waterloo hardly raised it higher. Algiers, in 1816, gave a fresh lustre to his regency ; but at this time his popularity was altogether extinguished; of which circumstance he had an unpleasant assurance on being fired at in 1817, as he was passing in his carriage, accompanied by Lord James Murray, the father of the present Duke of Athol. In that same year, died his daughter. The suc- ceeding year was marked by the death of his mother, Queen Charlotte ; an event which seems to have cost him as much sorrow as that great calamity which the nation suffered in the death of the Princess Charlotte — "Fair Rose of England," as some poets, and a vast number of the sincere and common people called her. The Manchester Massacre, in 1819, and the Cato Street Conspiracy, in 1820, indicate suffi- ciently the feeling of the authorities and the party by which they were resisted. It was in the latter year, amid gloom, discontent, and exasperation, that George Augustus Frederick became King. " It is the fashion," says Mr. Thackeray, in " The Newcomes," "to run down George IV." The kindli- ness of feeling evinced in this phrase was made, even by the eminent man who uttered it, to yield to the lively sense of justice subsequently manifested in the Lectures 520 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. on the Georges. It is a " fashion to run down " this Prince ; but he himself afforded the opportunity, and any man seizing it, or finding himself unable to avoid it, may experience comfort — a strange sort of comfort indeed — in reflecting that no man has ever spoken of the Prince in such withering terms as have been applied to him by his own father. And yet his own father exaggerated his faults, or, if that were impossible, was partly accountable for them ; refusing subsequently to make allowance for errors which were in some degree the result of inefficient, however well-intentioned, training. It is to be remembered, too, that this Prince espe- cially had one great disadvantage wherewith to contend, when his way of life was being judged of, and was very properly condemned. Happy, ordinary, men live, ac- cording to their good or bad principles, within a re- stricted circle, and are answerable for their actions only towards God. But here was a Prince — every hour of whose life was watched, every action noted, every word and deed witnessed, registered, and variously repre- sented. He was not like a Japanese prince, who has a social spy eternally at his elbow — he had a million, the entire public ; and, except by the few miscalled friends who lured him — nothing loth, but lured him, never- theless, into acts which have stamped a disgraceful fame upon his name — there was maintained against him a continual fire of sarcasm and reproof. The most blameless man that ever lived, before his fellow men could not stand the ordeal which this Prince of Wales was compelled to undergo. In every circum- stance of hia life he was " found out ;" for him there CHAr. xvm.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 521 was no privacy ; the universal eye was for ever upon him, the universal tongue assumed the " fashion " of wagging against him. At every breakfast -table there was a report of the night-doings of the Prince ; at every supper-table there was a review of his day's history. Men not only dragged him forth to hourly judgment, stripped him, exposed him, deserted him, and pro- nounced him rotten, but in letters and diaries they have transmitted him, naked, all his blemishes apparent, aatomized and condemned, down to everlasting pos- terity. In his earlier days, misled and misrepresented, he became reckless, and therewith plunged into an abyss from which, though he arose, it was only to remain polluted for ever. His lack of filial duty, his heedless gambling, his low pursuits, the meannesses to which these compelled him, his faithlessness to woman, his betrayal of friends, and his beastly addiction to drink- ing, — all these have inflicted pain on the good and true men who, recording them, could not but condemn them ; and have afforded a dear delight to men a thousand times worse than the Prince they affected to scorn ; who reviled him for the sins in which they in- dulged, but in the practice of which they were not fol- lowed — day and night, unceasingly, by eyes eager to discover, tongues ready to report, and pens pointed for records to render them infamous for ever. I am unwilling, therefore, to follow the " fashion" of " running-down " this Prince of Wales ; and, failing altogether in the space necessary to make fair record of his history, with its lights as well as shades — and it certainly had both — I will confine myself to noticing some salient points in his character ; leaving him, then, 522 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v. to what every human being greatly needs— charity of construction when condemning him absolutely, or when comparing him by the better standards which now regulate the lives of princes and their fellow-men. George Augustus Frederick has been severely cen- sured for the extravagance of his tastes. This taste and attending extravagance were gently instilled into him in his infancy. At five years old he was made to hold the most gorgeous juvenile drawing-room that England at least had ever seen. The little god was there supreme ; and better means could not have been found to render him drunk with vanity. The " common people" made practical remark on this splendid mistake, by driving a hearse into the court-yard at St. James's, and saluting the glittering drama and its sparkling actors, by shouts of execration. Consigned, with his brother, to successive tutors, the King gave free license to these, to flog his boys if they deserved it. The Prince and his brother Frederick have been alike stigmatized as early addicted to rebellion, be- cause they once manfully united and flogged their tutor. Accepting this as a fact, I have always considered it creditable to their spirit and their sense of the fitness of things. A blow is the most offensive outrage thai can be inflicted on a gentleman ; and here were two royal lads who knew that well, who were menaced witl such outrage in the most degrading way in which i1 could be levelled at them. Would that they had always been as rightly prompted, and ever as careful of pre- serving their self-dignity, and of avenging it whei insulted. It is a common thing for improvident people of al chap, xvnr.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 523 classes, to remark with some self-complacency, that if they are ruining themselves, they, at all events, are only their own enemies; no one else, they think, is injured by their improvidence. This is a fatal mistake ; and it is fatally illustrated by a circumstance connected with the extravagance of the Prince of "Wales, and, in this case, of his two next brothers. "When the Duke of Orleans was on a visit to this country, an unpleasant report got abroad, to the effect that the Prince of "Wales had stooped to borrow money of the Duke, for which the former had given bonds, his brothers uniting with him in accepting certain liabilities. There was some delicate questioning in Parliament, and some delicately-evasive answering on this point. At length, Fox himself repaired to his royal pupil, and asked him directly if he had ever entered into such bonds to a foreign prince. The pupil of Fox swore that he was guiltless of such act ; whereupon Fox con- victed him of lying by taking one of the bonds, bear- ing the signature of the Prince, from his pocket ! This was bad enough, but still worse results arose out of this act of degrading folly. The other bonds were ne- gotiated in France. They were there taken up, and cir- culated at a heavy discount. They had been thus run- ning on for three years, when a Fermier General refused to receive them at par. The holders of them were then republicans, and these immediately denounced this particular Fermier and the brother financiers of his class, as aristocrats of the most villanous quality. Thirty-one of that once money-making tribe were im- mediately thrown into prison ; among them was La- voisier, the celebrated chemist ; and in May, 1794, the 524 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. whole thirty-one suffered death under the guillotine.* Thus, some jollity in Pall Mall, a little deep gambling, hard drinking, and friendly borrowing and lending of money, led to this terrible catastrophe on the Place de la Eevolution. When the bonds were signed, the Princes probably thought they were only injuring themselves. They were signing the death-warrants of above thirty fellow-creatures. The above incident shows also at what light value the Prince regarded truth, This was, unfortunately with him, more a rule than the exception; and the pledging of his word was, in his eyes, no sacred thing. At the very time above noticed, of the visit of the Duke of Orleans, that unhappy individual was accompanied by his illegitimate brother the Abbe St. Phar. They were once assembled with the Prince of Wales and other personages of quality, when the Abbe, to exhibit some specimens of his power over fish, had to stoop low down to some water. This he did not do till he had exacted a promise from the Prince of Wales not to take advantage of his position, in order to play any tricks upon him. The Prince pledged his word not to molest the Abbe ; but at the first opportunity he toppled St. Phar head over heels, into the stream. The enraged priest, on scrambling forth, attempted to chastise his cruel assailant, and the Prince only escaped by taking to his heels. He might have consoled himself by reflecting that Cceur de Lion had once run away from a peasant in Sicily, and therefore he might, without disgrace, escape * Memoirs and Correspondence of the Marquis of Cornwallis. Note, by C. Ross, Esq., in loc. chap, xtiii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 525 as he best could, from the wrath of a semi-Bourbon priest. Not that he was not occasionally menaced by less noble persons, whom he was wont to insult. Thus, Mr. Sumner, a member of parliament, was always spoken of by him with some unpleasant phrase, which so annoyed the legislator, that he exhibited a thick stick to "Jack Payne," the Prince's confidant, and bade him tell " his master" that he would knock him down for his insolence, whenever he had an oppor- tunity. Such little respect did men then pay him ! The forfeiture of that pleasant tribute from gentle- man to Prince was a consequence of his own conduct. How could Pox ever have a rag of deference left for his pupil after the latter had married Mrs. Pitzherbert, and had coolly denied the fact to Pox, and bade him deny it, on authority, in the face of the House of Commons ? With regard to this supreme defect in the character of the Prince, Lord Holland was himself once sorely per- plexed. Sheridan had informed him that (at a certain crisis) he had written for the Prince one of those letters which were intended to pass for the Prince's own. In an immediate interview which took place, the Prince told Lord Holland that he himself had entirely com- posed the letter in question, and appealed to Sheridan if such was not the fact. The latter only politely and silently bowed. " I could not, for the soul of me, tell which was the liar !" is the exclamation of Lord Holland. He knew them both so thoroughly ! The worst of the Prince's vices came, I think, of his drinking ; and in this vice he instructed his next brother, York. In Lord Cornwallis's Memoirs, there is a letter from General Grant to my Lord, written in 1788. In 526 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [book v this the General states that at the Irish Club the young Prince and the young Duke reciprocally obliged each other— York learning from the Prince to drink copiously, and the Prince learning from the Duke to gamble recklessly. Walpole, too, records a dinner, at which " Prince and Duke ' drank royally/ " Major- General Granville writes to Lord Cornwallis : " We (meaning the Duke of York) are totally guided by the Prince of Wales, and thoroughly initiated into all the extravagance and debaucheries of this most virtuous metropolis;" and Lord Bulkeley, in a letter to the Marquess of Buckingham, informs his correspondent that the Princes attend Beef-steak Clubs, Freemasons' gatherings, and other popular assemblages, simply to make proselytes. At Brookes's, the Duke of York is described as attending every night. " The ' hawks/ " says the Major, " pluck his feathers unmercifully, and have reduced him to the vowels I. O. TJ." The Prince, too, is pourtrayed as " taking kindly to play/' The Prince's fraternal instructor set no good example of paying his losses. Keatinge, an Irish member, once actually reminded the Duke that he owed him money lost at cards, asking at the same time that the debt of honour might be acquitted. The Duke did send nim a cheque, and Keatinge wrote back in reply — • " Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by the sun of York." At which familiarity York laughed heartily. For half as much, the Prince would have dismissed the dearest friend he had. But therein lay two of the most marked characteristics of the two brothers — York never aban- doned a friend, the Prince of Wales broke friendships with the greatest alacrity. chap, xviii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 527 Neither of these Princes understood the real value and purpose of money. The Duke once gave the "Health of Mr. Coutts, who has been my banker for thirty years." That gentleman replied to the honour by say- ing, " I beg your royal highness' s pardon, it is your royal highness who has done me the honour to keep my. money for thirty years." The only profit, indeed, that we derive from the vices of these illustrious personages, is to be found in the smart sayings to which they gave rise. Thus, Lord Lewisham, son of the Earl of Dartmouth, once gave a dinner to the Prince, at which there was some very hard drinking. In this condition the tipsy guests took to talking of matrimony. The Prince said " he envied the Dukes of Devon and Rutland who, though high and mighty princes too, had been at liberty to wed two charming women whom they liked ; but, for his part, he supposed he should be forced to marry some ugly German b ■" I forget the other letters of the word ; and then turning to the Irish Master of the Rolls (Rigby), asked what he would advise him to do ? " Faith, sir," said the Master, " I am not yet drunk enough to give advice to a Prince of "Wales about marrying." "I think," says Walpole, who tells the story, " this is one of the best answers I ever heard ;" and he well adds the query, " How many fools will think themselves sober enough to advise his altesse on whatever he consults them ?" The habit of drinking was followed or attended by the unprincely habit of ill-speaking. The Prince swore like the young Duchess of Burgundy, and she, it will be remembered, swore like a whole squadron of dragoons. " Those d — d fellows !" was the polite 528 THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. [eook. phrase by which he designated the House of Lore and the faithful Commons. "When a deputation i these great personages was once assembling at Carlto House, and waiting to see the Prince., he asked Michaf Angelo Taylor, " Are these fellows come ?" " Yes, si] some of them/' answered Taylor. " Some of them V growled his Highness, "& — n them all!" On thi last occasion, there was some political irritation con nected with the expletive, but the Prince employed i on small provocation. When shoe-buckles were ii fashion, he ridiculed Lord Essex for returning fron Paris with shoe-ties. Lord Essex remarked, that ii six months the Prince would be himself wearing ties ii his shoes instead of buckles. It was a small matter but the Prince was pleased to be so energetic as to say " I'll be d— d if Pm ever so effeminate." Smal rudenesses were also practised by "the first gentleman' of his day, as readily as he uttered strong expletives In 1787, after the motion was withdrawn for the pay- ment of his debts, when Pitt had promised to set the Prince at ease, but was resolved that he should not be able to give much trouble, the minister sent a message to him by Lord Southampton, in order to make some explanation on the subject; "but," says Lord Corn- wallis, " a warm answer was given, that he did noi receive verbal messages, and that if the minister hac any business with him, he should come himself!" One especial mark of unmanliness about him was ir the readiness with which he was moved to tears Moore, Avho was so fascinated by him at first, informs us that when Lord Moira took leave of him, on the noble lord's departure from England, the Prince fairlj chap. XYin.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 529 " blubbered " at the thought of being deserted in his need by his old friend — who, by the way, made the matter more risible by a solemn assurance that he would certainly come back and sink with his master under the ruins of the throne ! It was not mere senti- ment, healthy or sickly, that inspired the solemn shower. The Prince cried at everything. When Brummel once found fault with the cut of his coat, the august wearer of it, himself an amateur tailor, sat down and wept bitterly ! And yet no man had in him a stronger sense of the humorous ! His power of mimicry, or, as the elder Charles Mathews would have said, of imitation, was very great. He could not only take-off Lord Thurlow to the life, but invent capital stories wherewith to heighten the imitation, and could even look as wise as that chancellor — which was said to be a much more difficult thing to accomplish than it was to be as wise. This habit of mimicry clung by him to the last, as the readers of " Eaikes's Journals" will re- member. That journalist states that the Duke of Wellington told him how, on being summoned to Brighton to form an administration, he found the King half dressed, and rather dirty, in bed, and how he amused the Duke by describing the visits of resigna- tion he had just had from the out-going ministers, whose voices, manners, and salient characteristics, the sovereign imitated with a ludicrous fidelity, that caused actor and spectator to indulge in explosive hilarity. The Prince enjoyed this power in" others quite as A A 530 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book much as lie did the practice of it himself. There \i a time when, as Lord Cornwallis remarked, with so: scornful disregard of Lindley Murray, " there was r a more violent Foxite than him in the kingdom." T] was written in 1784, when, as at many other perioi Fox's servant, Basilico, used to attend with his masl when the latter was staying with the Prnce. On o of these occasions, the latter was especially delight by a hit of acting on the part of Basilico, which \i admirably imitated by the Prince before the compa to whom he related the circumstance. This consist in the lacquey's saying to him : " I have had de honoi sare, of being at Windsor. I have seen your fader. ] hole as well as ever." And these words were whisper confidentially, with a rueful face, which the Prin repeated with as bad taste as the lacquey had render them with impudence. Want of taste in many other things painfully d tinguished him. He at one time seriously propos to dress all naval officers in red breeches and wai coats ! To the remonstrance made against this barl rism, he replied with the old expletive tacked to sweeping criticism: "D — n 'em," said the Prin " dress 'em as you will, they'll never look like gent men !" Such was the taste of the man who woi spend hours watching Brummel at his toilet; vi created rolled neckcloths, first built the high coat-coll introduced deportment, and (as Mr. Thackeray gra fully remarks) invented Brighton. As a lover, the first gentleman of his day does i appear to advantage. Artists of the next century n perhaps be able to lend a picturesque and poetical asp chap, xmi.] GEOEGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 531 to the moonlight landing of young Perdita Robinson in Kew Gardens ; but it will only be when the subse- quent meanness of the youthful adorer is forgotten. The pretty piece of mischief was led to the Prince by his younger brother, York ; and when that tremendous institution " society/' occupied itself with this matter, the most gossiping member of it was lenient. "I make the greatest allowances," says Horace Walpole, " for inexperience and novel passions." Perdita, in her Memoirs, speaks of meeting at the Pantheon with the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Grace Elliott. She little thought that this latter lady was an especial favourite with the Prince, who seems to have transferred her with his bonds to the protection of the Duke of Orleans. Anything less romantic and more business-like can hardly be imagined. Grace Elliott passed into such complete oblivion, till her autobiography was recently published, that, on the appearance of that singular work, its authenticity was for a moment doubted. If the blood of this Prince of "Wales be ever worth tracing up to himself, this curious volume alone will throw light on that genealogical pastime. The daughter of the Prince and Grace Dalrymple Elliott married into a ducal family of England. As far as beauty is concerned, she even excelled her almost matchless mother, with whose picture, at Haughton, by Gainsborough, the Prince became enamoured before he had seen the then peerless original. Where a spark of sentiment was connected with these transient attachments, they may be looked on with some of the leniency liberally awarded to the first of them by Horace Walpole. There were other cases A A 2 532 THE HOUSE OF HANOVEK. [book v. where the friendship expressed reflected discredit on the taste of the Prince. There were several in which the homage paid brought less discredit on Mm, than public scorn and reprobation on the husbands of the ladies who profited by the infamy of their wives. Then to his wives — Mrs. Fitzherbert and Caro- line of Brunswick — he was but the sorriest of hus- bands. With the former, there was, at least, some wooing, though it had an insupportably ridiculous aspect. He was then divided between her and the bottle, but the beautiful widow prevailed over all rivals — like Joan of Kent herself. To the first homage offered she was coy, really had no honest relish for it ; but the man who was in the habit of bleeding himself, that he might wear an interesting look in the eyes of the Cynthia of the minute, was not to be easily foiled. He threatened to have recourse to all sorts of improper extremities, and Moore records his tendency towards suicide, when lying a-bed, sick of love, he fired a pistol through the head of the bed itself. He went further than this on the present occasion. He did actually fetch blood by stabbing, or pricking himself in the side. While the blood was flowing, he despatched a couple of lords and two plain esquires, to entreat the lady to come andlook upon him with feelings of compassion. If woman was ever to display the quality of tenderness, it must be now, when a dying Prince — a Prince dying for her — petitioned for a look of favour. Accordingly, to save his life, she visited the quasi-moribundlover, and engaged to espouse him. Lord Stourton asked her, subsequently, if she were satisfied of the Prince's peril and sincerity. How should she not be, since she had been permitted to chap, xviii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 533 " see the scar frequently," and, as she conclusively- added, "there was some brandy- and-water near his bed side when she was called to him on the day he wounded himself \" A year intervened before the strange marriage of these opposite parties was solemnized; the ardent Prince accelerating it by a monster love-letter of seven - and-twenty pages, — the chief ingredient in. which must have been the assurance that the writer's sire, George III., would not oppose the secret union ! How the Prince himself, subsequently, denied its existence, and how faithless he was, even when feigning loyalty, are matters too well known to authorize me to dwell upon, even if I had space, and corresponding inclination. But if the incidents of this wooing were ridiculous, and the marriage was romantic, yet the whole story is relieved from contempt by the sentiment which pervades it. The lady, especially, is above all reproach, save for consenting to save the Prince's life by marrying him. In the eye of the law alone the marriage was invalid ; and, therefore, when at a future period, a proposal was made to the Prince to marry Caroline of Brunswick, he readily, or indifferently, assented ; — simply, because the condition was the payment of his debts. He had never beheld that luckless lady ; liked her less than he had hoped to do when his " favourite" Lady Jersey escorted her to the palace; and he stumbled towards her, at the altar, brimful of brandy and disgust. For the consequences of this ill-advised match, the married couple themselves should be the last to be cen- sured. Far indeed are they from being worthy to be called blameless; but for the devilish hatred which 534 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book T. they maintained one towards the other, for the malice with which the one persecuted, and the recklessness with which one dishonoured the other, they are most responsible who made that execrable marriage in- evitable. Least blameable of all, perhaps, was the unhappy woman, for ever flung into a position in which she was too impetuous to meet its requirements with dignity. The child of that marriage, the Princess Charlotte of Wales, had only the capricious affections of her father to make tolerable a childhood and youth, which by nature she could have thoroughly enjoyed. It is a singular fact, as we learn from Mr. Langdale's Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert, that the Princess had recourse to that lady, to protect her from the severity of her own father ! I am happy to be enabled to add that that father was not altogether heartless, that tender sentiment did not altogether perish within his breast, and that, after years of a discreditable life, he showed that, through them, he had preserved (to and for himself) an avowal of his attachment to his first wife. He possessed a portrait of her, which he valued greatly ; it was with him on his death-bed, when he perused with strong emotion, the request of Mrs. Pitzherbert, to be permitted to attend on him in that extremity; and suspended round his neck by a silver chain, it went with him to the grave. This is a redeeming trait ; the Prince to whom it applies would have required no apologist, had he not from early life been condemned to be an idle man. "Universally, in whatever grade of life, the idle man is chap, xviii.] GEOEGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 535 the devil's man. Idleness was imposed npon him. He was condemned to it. It was not of his seeking. In- dulgence in it led to all his errors. In his nonage he was fond of sitting in the House of Commons, to listen to the debates, and thence learn, both theoretically and practically, the history, the nature, and the workings of the Constitution. He would sit there for five hours together. Some jealous members took umbrage at the presence of this knowledge-seeking lad ; and his political studies were abolished for ever. In his father's cabinet he met with equal obstruction; and then, turning from the science of governing the world to that of ruining himself, he fell into bad hands, to men who dragged him into pollution, to friends who plucked him at play, and to farriers (type of other tradesmen), who presented him with bills for shoeing horses, to the amount of 40,000Z. Thence, perhaps, it came, that in his difficulties, he manifested himself more as a political intriguer than a statesman. Lord Cornwallis has shown how he was addicted to the furthering of political jobs, and applying' for appointments for proteges whose advancement had been previously sold. Of his own rights he had an incorrect idea, and could not even express that in more than tolerable English. In 1789, May 30th, the Prince writes to Lord Cornwallis, from Carlton House : " How things have chang'd, and what a chequered scene of Life I have been oblig'd to go thro* for the last six months ! Ere this, I suppose you will have heard of the King's Indisposition, and how the Minister attempted to destroy my Bights, bent to deprive every other individual of our family of the common 536 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. liberties and rights of Englishmen. Supported I have been by some real and true friends, at the head of whom, your Friend, my Brother stood foremost, w h has gained immortal Honor. . . . Everything has fallen into very different hands. The King is conva- lescent, that is to say, he certainly is better, everything is thrown into the hands of the Queen, every Friend y* supported me and the common cause of Succession in the Family if they had any place have been dismissed. . . . . they have had the Insolence to threaten the Duke of York with taking his Kegiment of Foot Guards, and when they at last did not dare do that, they have brought officers into his Regiment, and committed towards him every species of Indignity, to force him to resign, w h he has had prudence and cool- ness sufficient as well as firmness enough to resist, not only those great Officers, but numberless of a lower class whose sole dependence in life and sustenance depend upon their Places, have been disgracefully dis- missed from their offices for their disinterested support of me and our Family However, the very precarious nature of the King's health renders some People a little upon their guard who are not driven to a state of dispair, such as not only pervades the Minister himself, but his Adherents in general." At a later period, in 1790, Lord Sydney writes to Cornwallis — " The Prince of Wales is taking all possible pains to form a strong party against the Government. He affects a great regard for the King. The Queen is held out as the object of the most inveterate as well as the most ungenerous and undeserved abuse. His Royal Highness governs his two brothers (the Dukes of York chap, xviii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 537 and Clarence). Another (Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent) has lately returned post from Geneva, but is going to Gibraltar." At a period of another political difficulty, his insta- bility is rather vindictively described by Moore, who in 1812 writes : — " There is no knowing what the Prince means to do ; one can as little anticipate his measures as those of Buonaparte ; but for a very different reason;" I am sure the powder in his Royal Highness's hair is much more settled than anything in his head, or indeed heart, and would stand a puff of Mr. Percival's much more stoutly." He had spirit, however, when too hard pressed. It was the threat of Grey and Grenville to ride rough-shod through Carlton House, which led to his sending for Liverpool, and the establishing of an extended career of often assailed but long unshaken Toryism. The worst feature in the character of George Augustus was that of his want, not merely of duty, but of decency, as a son. The heavy affliction which fell upon the old King never affected him, except in a dis- position to deny the recurring prospects of his father's recovery. On these occasions he spoke with unpardon- able coarseness. He exhibited strange indelicacy when assuming control, accompanied by much confusion, during his father's attacks; and he reported the worst features of the case, rudely and without caution, to the Queen. When festivals were held to celebrate the temporary improvement in the King's health, he, and not he alone, did his best to mar them. When the decaying monarch was mourning over the death of the best loved of his daughters, Amelia, and was composing 538 THE HOUSE OP HANOVER. [book v. programmes for the Concerts of Ancient Music, made up of all subjects from the old masters referring to blindness, and concluding with Jephthah's Lament for his Daughter, the Prince of Wales was making of Carlton House the locality of the most gorgeous and disorderly fete that ever celebrated the attainment of power. He spoke in the public streets, says Lord Malmesbury, more like an opposition member of Par- liament than the heir-apparent ; and on one occasion, when the King passed in procession through the streets, there were agents of the Prince stationed to shout — not for the father, but the son. No amount of provocation could justify conduct such as this. On the other hand, we have little conception of the vindictiveness of the King towards his erring son. That vindictiveness culminated, when the Sovereign once intimated to Sir George Rose (who has recorded the alleged fact in his diary) that there was one coward in his family, but he would not mention his name, be- cause he was to succeed him ! The King's mind was at that time unsettled, or he would never have uttered a speech so absurd in its manner of expression, and so entirely unsupported by proof. "Whenever the Prince had been desirous to display his courage in the field, he had always been contemptuously set aside. The Prince is open to so much reproach, that this calumny can only be met with all the more energetic protest. There may have been among the Brunswick princes some who had not head to dispose the bloody chances of a field ; but there never was one who lacked stomach for a fight; or who, being in it, wanted heart to meet its perils witl the dignity of valour. CHA*. itiii.] GEORGE AUGUSTUS FREDERICK. 53t> There remains very much more to be said with re- gard to the character of this Prince, — character which had its fair as well as its sombre aspects ; and this I may one day show when I have more space than is here left me, at my disposal. I will terminate by recording a proof of his early good impulses, as told by Lady Donegal to Moore, showing how the Prince came down, disguised to Lord Donegal's house, with one thousand pounds in his pocket, which he gave to Lord Spencer Hamilton, then threatened with arrest. To Lord Edward Bouverie, when in difficulties, he made the same gift. These impulses had left him after he had been in contact with the worst side of the world, and when his old associates in jollity sorely needed succour. With this record of the early healthy impulses of the Prince of Wales, I take my leave of readers whose patience I may have already too severely tested, and whose indulgence I solicit with respect, and with con- fidence born of experience. I will only express a hope that it may be long before an author has to add another to the roll of Princes given in this volume ; and, that when that time comes, he may have to record the career of one, braver than the bravest in my list ; happier than the happiest; the promise of whose youth was kept in his manhood; whose friendships were those which the severest might approve; whose faults — for princes are human — were venial in themselves, and lost altogether in his virtues ; and whose whole career afforded another proof of the assertion, that great and good men are especially the work of noble mothers. THE END. NEW PUBLICATIONS. GUIZOTS LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. Crown octavo, 63. A New Edition. "No one has drawn Cromwell's character with the same truth as M. Guizot. His acquaintance with our annals, language, customs, and politics, is altogether ex- traordinary." — QVABTBBLY REVIEW. Seventh Edition, small octavo, with Woodcuts, 4s. SERMONS IN STON ES; ®t, SStripfattt rmrfiraui> bg tolo-jjg. By Dr. M'AUSLAND. "One of the most useful books published within our recollection." Belfast News Lbtteb. IN TWELVE SHILLING MONTHLY PARTS. Now ready, Part I., octavo, One Shilling, DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND SECTS, gram % Earliest %%t& ai C^ristknitg. By the Bev. J. B. MABSDEN, Author of " The Early and Later Puritans.' " The best book on the subject in our literature." — Athb&zbvu. " A book of great interest and utility." — Daily Nbws. IN EIGHTEEN MONTHLY FIVE SHILLING PARTS. Now ready, Part I. (complete in Eighteen), octavo, with Three exquisite Portraits, 5s. A NEW EDITION OF THE ENTIEE COEEESPONDENCE ox HORACE WALPOLE. NOW PIRST CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. Edited by PETER CUNNINGHAM. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. NEW PUBLICATIONS. This day, cloth boards, Half-a-Crown ; cloth, Three Shillings. STEP BY STEP. rom Mama Mathdsius, the Author of "Elizabeth," by Mrs. BUSHI NEW EDITION OF «' INGOLDSBY," IN TWO VOLUMES. Now ready, in 2 Volumes, with all the Illustrations by Crdikshahe Leech, &c, 15s. THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS; •x, gpxfy mo gtynfels. Post Octavo, 7s. 6d., Eleventh Thousand, THE GREAT TRIBULATION; ©r, Sjjitigs tommy on % ^arfji. By the Kev. Dr. CUMMING. ' The most eloquent and masterly of all Dr. Camming' s works." — Peess. Now ready, Cheap Edition, in crown octavo, with an Illustration, Ss QUITS!!! By the Author of " The Initials." "A most interesting novel." — Truss. The Sixth Thousand of " The Initials" is now ready, price 2s. Crown Octavo, with an Illustration, Half-a-Crown. TRUTH ANSWERS BEST; #r, |ts« nub fixBlettc By the Author of ' ' Moravian Life in the Black Forest." .LONDON : KIOHAED BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. I.ONDON : SATHi AST) MWAEDS, PBIHTBBS, CHAHBOS STBEET, COVEHT GAHDEN, StllillBill --. ■ .;,' :