Chronicle of Adam of Usk

18th December 1381. In this same year there came into England one Pileus¹, cardinal priest of Saint Praxedes, to treat, on behalf of the emperor of Germany and king of Bohemia, with the council of England of and about a marriage between our king and the lady Ann (age 15), sister of the same emperor²; who afterwards became thereby our most gracious queen, howbeit she died without issue. At his coming, this cardinal, falsely feigning himself legate a latere and as having the power of the pope, then did exercise the papal offices. And among other things he made me notary, though to no purpose, in the house of the friars preachers of London, where he was then dwelling. Thus did he gather to himself countless money, and, the treaty of marriage being settled, he departed from England with his gains, to his own condemnation; idly trusting that the pope would approve these his acts. And, after his departure, the said lady Ann was bought for a great price by our lord the king (age 14), for she was much sought in marriage by the king of France³; and she was then sent over into England to be crowned queen.

Note 1. Pileo di Prata, bishop of Padua, and, in 1370, archbishop of Ravenna. He was one of the papal legates employed, at Bruges, in negotiating a peace between England and France, in 1375. At the papal schism, in 1378, he threw in his lot with Urban VI., by whom he was made cardinal, and was sent nuncio to Germany. In 1386, he seceded to Clement VII., who employed him in an unsuccessful attempt to break the power of Urban in Florence. But three years after, on the death of Urban, he deserted Clement for Boniface IX., who made him cardinal bishop of Tusculum. By these agile changes he got the nickname of ‘"Cardinalis trium Pileorum," the Cardinal of Three Hats. He was further appointed legate at Viterbo; but he exasperated the people to such a degree that they drove him out. He died in 1401.—Ciaconius, Vite Pont. Rom. ij. 637.

Note 2. Wenceslaus, or Wenzel, emperor of Germany, 1378.

Note 3. This is not stated by the other chroniclers. The idea was no doubt suggested by the intention of the king of France, Charles V., to waylay and capture her on the sea, out of hostility to England. He desisted on the remonstrance of Ann's uncle, the duke of Brabant (age 44). Ann landed in England on the 18th December, 1381, and was married on the 14th January, 1382. Knighton (ij. 150) says:— "dedit imperatori, ut dicebatur, pro maritagio decem mille libras, preter alias expensas in querendo eam et adducendo eam sumptibus suis propriis."

1382. According to the saying of Solomon: "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,"¹ in the time of the youth of the same Richard many misfortunes, both caused thereby and happening therefrom, ceased not to harass the kingdom of England, as has been before said and as will hereinafter more fully appear, even to the great disorder of the state and to the last undoing of king Richard (age 14) himself and of those who too fondly clung to him. Amongst all other misfortunes, nay, amongst the most wicked of all wicked things, even errors and heresies in the catholic faith, England, and above all London and Bristol², stood corrupted, being infected by the seeds which one master John Wycliffe (age 54) sowed, polluting as it were the faith with the tares of his baleful teaching. And the followers of this master John, like Mahomet, by preaching things pleasing to the powerful and the rich, namely, that the withholding of tithes and even of offerings and the reaving of temporal goods from the clergy were praiseworthy, and, to the young, that self-indulgence was a virtue, most wickedly did sow the seed of murder, snares, strife, variance, and discords, which last unto this day, and which, I fear, will last even to the undoing of the kingdom. Whence, in many parts of the land, and above all in London and in Bristol, they, like the Jews at Mount Horeb on account of the molten calf (Exodus xxxij.), turning against each other, righteously had to grieve for three-and-twenty thousand of their fellows who suffered a miserable³. The people of England, wrangling about the old faith and the new, are every day, as it were, on the very point of bringing down upon their own heads rebellion and ruin. And I fear that in the end it will happen as once it did, when many citizens of London true to the faith rose against the duke of Lancaster to slay him, because he favoured the said master John, so that, hurrying from his table into a boat hastily provided, he fled across Thames and hardly escaped with his life⁴. Such errors and heresies grew in the city of London to so great a height (seeing that from such cause spring strife and variance), that, when such as were accused thereof came to answer before their ordinaries, the people were wont to run together in thousands, some accusing, others defending, them, with clamour and strife, as if they were just rushing at each other's throats⁵. So great, too, grew their malice, that, at the time of the second parliament of king Henry the fifth, hereinafter written, these Lollards, flocking to London from all parts of the land, thought to have utterly destroyed the clergy there at that time assembled6. But my lord of Canterbury (age 40), forewarned of their evil design, found fitting remedies, as will hereinafter be told.

Note 1. Eccles. x. 16.

Note 2. Adam of Usk, as a native of Monmouthshire, would naturally take an interest in what went on in the neighbouring city of Bristol. John Purvey, Wycliffe's follower and part-translator of the Bible, preached there; and it is not improbable that Wycliffe himself also did so, as, in 1875, he was presented by Edward III to the prebend of Aust, in the collegiate church of Westbury-on-Trym.—Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol, ij. 164.

Note 3. The round number of 23,000 may be intended to represent the total of sufferers down to the time when the chronicle was finished, that is, towards the close of the reign of Henry V.

Note 4. In February, 1377, when Wycliffe appeared in St. Paul's to answer the charges brought against him. A quarrel arising between the duke of Lancaster (age 41), who was present as a supporter of Wycliffe, and William Courtenay, bishop of London, the duke made use of violent language, which roused the anger of the Londoners, who attacked the Savoy and would have done the duke mischief, had he not escaped by boat on the Thames.— Walsingham, Hist. i. 8325; Archeolog. xxij. 256; Chronicon Anglie, 13828-1388 (Rolls series), 119, 397. A.D. 1882. p. 4.

Note 5. Compare the passage in Walsingham: "Insuper nec illud esse silendum estimo, cum episcopi predicti cum isto schismatico in capella archiepiscopi apud Lambhith convenissent, non dico cives tantum Londonienses, sed viles ipsius civitatis, se impudenter ingerere presumpserunt in eandem capellam, et verba facere pro eodem, et istud negotium impedire."—Hist, Angl. i. 356, ij. 65.

Note 6. The MS. reads "Henrici quarti," but this is a clerical blunder, The gathering in St. Giles's-fields, under sir John Oldcastle, is referred to. But Adam is not accurate: the actual date of the rising was in January, while Henry the fifth's second parliament, which was held at Leicester, did not meet till April, 1414. See below, p. 300.

1386. The king (age 18), bearing it ill that by this appointment the due freedom of his majesty should be bridled by his own lieges, and urged by his servants who were angered that their evil gains were thereby prevented, ceased not to thwart those who were thus set in authority, till the end came in the destruction of the king himself, his abettors, and many of these same rulers, And from thence alas! what griefs and weary deeds followed, and specially concerning the death of those nobles, the duke of Gloucester (age 30) and the earl of Arundel, it will appear more fully hereafter. To proceed: those who thus urged on the king, in order to the sudden suppression of the twelve rulers, planned that a general council should be holden in the Tower of London, wherein they thought suddenly and at one blow, by means of an ambush of armed men, to destroy the twelve when summoned to, the council. But the Almighty disposed the twelve, being forewarned of that wicked design, to come in such strength that the king and his abettors, disordered by their warlike preparation, feared that the kingdom would rise in their favour. Wherefore a peace was made, though a hollow one. Hearing this, our lady the princess, the mother of the king, with heavy grief in her heart, and not sparing to toil on even by night, hastened from Wallingford to London, to allay the discord. And on her knees she prayed the king, her son, as he looked for her blessing, in no wise to bend to the wishes of flatterers, and specially of those who were now urging him on; otherwise he would bring down her curse upon him. But the king with reverence raised her up and promised that he would willingly be guided by the counsel of the twelve. To whom his mother replied: "At thy coronation, my son, I rejoiced that it had fallen to my lot to be the mother of an anointed king; but now I grieve, for I foresee the fall which threatens thee, the work of accursed flatterers." Then the king passed with his mother to Westminster Hall, and there, seated on his throne of state, by her mediation, made his peace with the twelve guardians; yet did he it falsely and with deceit.¹

Note 1. Adam has here mixed up several events in confusion. He tells us further on that we must not read this earlier part of his chronicle as consecutive history; and the hint is wanted nowhere more than in this his account of Richard's attempt to cast off the thraldom in which the Wonderful Parliament had placed him. The stories of plots laid by Richard for the destruction of his enemies are so many, and told in so many different ways in the chronieles, that some confusion in the mind of the writer may be pardoned. Knighton (ij. 216) first reports the rumour that the king, who had retired to Eltham on the meeting of the parliament, in 1386, designed to assassinate a deputation of forty of the members whom he had summoned to appear before him. Walsingham (ij. 150) records a plot to invite the duke of Gloucester and the parliamentary opponents of the earl of Suffolk to a banquet in the city, and there slay them. The Monk of Evesham (75) repeats this story, adding, ‘Michael statuit (ne dicam, hoc esse regis commentum)." The commons themselves, in their petition against the duke of Ireland's party, refer to some such design, saying that the traitors "‘firent que nostre seigneur le Roi commanda a Meire de Loundre de faire sudeinement lever un graunt poare de gentz de Loundre, d'occire et mettre au mort touz les ditz seigneurs et communs horpris ceux qui furrunt de lour coveine" (Rot. Parl. iij. 231, art. 15). Again, in 1387, after the council of Nottingham, when the revolted lords were invited by Richard to a conference at Westminster, they advanced with extreme caution on the report of an ambush in the Mews (Wals. ij. 165; Mon. Evesh. 91; Knighton, ij. 248). Unfortunately for the story of the intervention of the princess of Wales, that lady had already died in 1385. However, the fact remains that, not long before her death, she did undertake a fatiguing journey to reconcile Richard with his uncle, the duke of Lancaster; though the words which are placed in her mouth by our chronicler are not recorded elsewhere (Wals. ij. 126; Mon. Evesh. 60).

27th December 1387. The mayor of London, hearing of their coming, sent forth to them the keys of the city; and thereafter those same five lords did, on the feast of Saint John the Evangelist (27th December), blockade the Tower¹ of London till it yielded; then straightway they placed the king, who lay therein, under new governance, and delivered his fawning councillors into divers prisons until the next following parliament². On the morrow of the Purification of Our Lady (3rd February), they declared exiles those who had fled, and they banished into Ireland all the king's justices, for that they had knowledge of the imagining of the death of the lords, as above written, and also the king's confessor, the bishop of Chichester'. Others who had wrongfully fostered the king's unruliness, if not the causers thereof, namely, sir Simon Burley, chamberlain, sir Robert Tresilian, chief justice, Nicholas Brembre, mayor of London, sir John Berners and sir John Salisbury, knights, and Thomas Usk and John Blake, esquires, and very many others were beheaded³

Note 1. The confederate lords entered London on the 26th December, and immediately invested the Tower. Richard submitted, and summoned parliament to meet on the 3rd February, Lady (3rd February), they declared exiles those who had fled, and they banished into Ireland all the king's justices, for that they had knowledge of the imagining of the death of the lords, as above written, and also the king's confessor, the bishop of Chichester¹. Others who had wrongfully fostered the king's unruliness, if not the causers thereof, namely, sir Simon Burley (age 47), chamberlain, sir Robert Tresilian, chief justice, Nicholas Brembre, mayor of London, sir John Berners and sir John Salisbury, knights, and Thomas Usk and John Blake, esquires, and very many others were beheaded².

Note 2. The judges who had taken a part in the council of Nottingham were—sir Robert de Belknap, chief justice of the Common Pleas; sir Robert de Fulthorp, sir John Holt, and sir William Burgh, puisne judges of the same; sir John Cary, junior baron of the Exchequer; and with them, John Lokton, serjeant-at-law. Belknap and Holt were banished to Drogheda, Fulthorp and Burgh to Dublin, Cary and Lokton to Waterford. Thomas Rushook, bishop of Chichester and the king's confessor, was sent to Cork.—Rymer, Federa, 8th and 13th July, 1388.

Note 3. The execution of sir Simon Burley, the retainer of the Black Prince and Richard's tutor, which was carried out in spite of all the king's efforts to save him, made an impression on Richard's mind which goes far to account for the fierceness with which he attacked his enemies in the parliament of 1397. Berners and Salisbury (as well as sir John Beauchamp, who was also executed) were of the royal household. Thomas Usk had been appointed undersheriff of Middlesex, with the view of influencing the elections to parliament; and John Blake had been commissioned to draw the bill of indictment which Richard, had he not been forestalled, would have brought forward against the confederate lords, in 1387, after the council of Nottingham. Usk has recently risen into a more interesting position than that which he holds in history, having been identified as the author of "The Testament of Love," a work which has been wrongly attributed to Chaucer. (Dict. Nat. Biogr. lviij. 60; Skeat, Chaucerian and other Pieces, 1897.)

May 1388. In these days there happened at Oxford a grave misfortune. For, during two whole years was there great strife between the men of the south and the men of Wales on the one side and the northerners on the other. Whence arose broils, quarrels, and ofttimes loss of life. In the first year the northerners were driven clean away from the university. And they laid their expulsion chiefly to my charge. But in the second year, in an evil hour, coming back to Oxford, they gathered by night, and denying us passage from our quarters by force of arms, for two days they strove sorely against us, breaking and plundering some of the halls of our side, and slaying certain of our men. Howbeit, on the third day our party, bravely strengthened by the help of Merton Hall, forced our adversaries shamefully to fly from the public streets, which for the two days they had held as a camp, and to take refuge in their own quarters. In short, we could not be quieted before many of our number had been indicted for felonious riot; and amongst them I, who am now writing, was indicted, as the chief leader and abettor of the Welsh, and perhaps not unrighteously. And so indicted we were hardly acquitted, being tried by jury before the king's judge¹. From that day forth I feared the king, hitherto unknown to me in his power, and his laws, and I put hooks into my jaws².

Note 1. Anthony Wood, following the account given by Knighton, says:— "On the third of the Cal. of May (1388), arose a grievous discord among the scholars of Oxon, that is to say between the southern and Welsh on the one part, and the northern scholars on the other, and in very short time did it so much increase that the scholars for the most part (after several had been slain) departed to their respective counties." And again, under the year 1389, he tells us of a second outbreak of the rioting, in Lent, which was quelled by the intervention of the duke of Gloucester. "But," he continues, "you shall have from a certain inquisition taken by a jury that was appointed on purpose to take an account of the matter: —On Thursday in the fourth week of Lent, 12 Rich. II. (which is this year), Thomas Speeke, chaplain, and John Kirkby with a multitude of other malefactors, appointing captains among them, rose up against the peace of the king, and sought after all the Welshmen abiding and studying in Oxford, shooting arrows after them in divers streets and lanes as they went, crying out ‘ War, war, war, sle, sle, sle the Welsh doggys and her whelpys, and ho so loketh out of his howse, he shall in good southe be dead,' &c., and certain persons they slew and others they grievously wounded, and some of the Welshmen who bowed their knees to abjure the town, they the northern scholars led to the gates," and dismissed them with certain indignities not to be repeated to ears polite. The inquisition further gives the names of the different halls which were broken into, and of the Welsh scholars who were robbed of their books and other chattels, including in some instances their harps.— Hist. and Antigg. of the Univ. of Ouford (ed. Gutch, 1792-6) i., 518.

Note 2. Ezek, xxix, 4; xxxviij. 4.

Ever from the time of such levying of tribute, called tax, do I remember the kingdom to have suffered misfortunes either from internal slaughter or foreign treachery.* Was it not so when the earl of Pembroke, carrying with him the tax levied to subdue France, was plundered with his men near Rochelle, and carried captive into Spain? The same befell king Edward, who, after taxing the clergy and the people, strove to invade France with a mighty host; but the winds were against him, and, though for six months long he lay near the shore awaiting: their favour, he returned unprofitably with his army, as is told above in this volume¹. See what says the prophecy of Bridlington against the tax:

"While reigneth tax, large grace shall not abound; So work begun shall foolish fall to ground."²

Note 1. The passage in the "Polychronicon" here referred to, is as follows: "Eodem anno, rex Edwardus cum magno exercitu mare intravit, ad removendum obsidionem de Rochell; sed ventus contrarius non permisit eum longius a terra recedere. Quare aliquamdiu prope litus maris commorans ventum prosperum expectavit; sed nondum venit. Demum cum suis ad terram veniens, illico ventus ad partes oppositas se convertit." Walsingham (i. 315) has nearly the same words.

Note 2. The prophecy of John of Bridlington is a political review of the reign of Edward III, compiled in the form of an ancient text with a recent commentary. The author was supposed to have been John, prior of Bridlington, who died early in the reign of Richard II. In some MSS. the work is ascribed to John Ergome; but who he was does not appear. It is dedicated to Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and constable of England, 1361-1372, and was probably written about the year 1370. Its popularity is shown by the frequency of quotations from it by the writers of the fifteenth century, among whom Adam of Usk is not the most backward. As a specimen of the work: the passage quoted above, which more correctly is "Dum multat taxa non fiet gratia laxa. Sic opus inceptum laxum patietur ineptum" (dist. iij. cap. 2), has this commentary—" Dum multat taxa, id est, dum recipit taxam et exactiones de regno, gratia non fiet laxa sibi et larga, sed deficiet, et sic opus inceptum et laxum quod fuit de captione regis Francie, quando nos habuimus inceptionem et latam viam ad conquerendum regnum Francie, patietur ineptum, id est, deficiet seu destruetur."—T. Wright, Political Poems and Songs (Rolls series), i. 183.

18th September 1397. On the Tuesday (18th September), sir John Bushy¹ was by the commons presented to the king their speaker in parliament, he making first due declaration; and the king accepted him.

Then straightway spake he thus before the king: "In that, my lord the king, we are bound by your dread command to make known to your royal highness who they be who transgressed against your majesty and royalty, we say that Thomas, duke of Gloucester, and Richard, earl of Arundel, did, in the tenth year of your reign, traitorously force you, by means of him who is now archbishop of Canterbury², and who was then chancellor, thereby doing you grievous wrongs, to grant to them a commission to govern your kingdom and to order its estate, to the prejudice of your majesty and royalty."

Also, the same day, that same commission was made of none effect, with all and every the acts thereon depending or thereby caused.

Also, a general pardon, granted after the great parliament by their means, and a special pardon granted to the earl of Arundel were recalled³. It was also prayed by the

Note 1. Bushy had been first elected speaker of the commons in 1394.

Note 2. Thomas Fitzalan, also called Arundel, was the third son of Richard, ninth earl of Arundel. He had been made bishop of Ely, in 1374, when in his twenty-second year, was translated to York in 1388, and to Canterbury in 1396. He was banished by the present parliament of 1397, and received from the pope translation to the see of St. Andrew's in partibus infidelium, the same appointment which had been conferred upon Alexander Nevill, his predecessor at York. He was restored to Canterbury on Henry's accession, and lived to the year 1413.

Note 3. This special pardon had been granted to the earl of Arundel on the 30th of April, 13894, and was the more binding on Richard as it was granted at a time when he was his own master and entirely free from coercion.

[21 Sep 1397]. Also, on Friday, that is on the feast of Saint Matthew, the Earls of Rutland, Kent, Huntingdon, Nottingham, Somerset, and Salisbury, Lord Despenser, and Lord William Scrope, all dressed in matching robes of red silk with white silk and gold-embroidered letters, presented the appeal that they had previously made to the king at Nottingham. In it, they accused Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, Richard, Earl of Arundel, Thomas, Earl of Warwick, and Sir Thomas Mortimer of the aforementioned treasons and also of the armed insurrection treasonously carried out against the king at Haringey Park. After they had given security for the prosecution of their appeal, Richard, Earl of Arundel, was brought to trial, dressed in a red robe and scarlet hood. Immediately, the Duke of Lancaster said to Lord Neville, 'Take from him his belt and hood,' and so it was done. After the charges were presented to the Earl, he denied being a traitor with great resolve, and requested the benefit of the pardon that had been previously granted to him, declaring that he never wished to depart from the grace of his king. The Duke of Lancaster said to him, 'Traitor, that pardon has been revoked.' The Earl responded, 'You are lying! I have never been a traitor!' Then the Duke of Lancaster said, 'Why did you seek a pardon then?' The Earl replied, 'To silence the tongues of my enemies, of whom you are one; and certainly, as far as treason is concerned, you are in more need of a pardon than I am.' The king then said to him, 'Respond to your appeal.' The Earl answered, 'I see clearly that these people are accusing me of treason by presenting these appeals. Truly, they are all lying! I have never been a traitor! I continue to request the benefit of my pardon, which you granted me within the last six years, in your full age and of your own free will.'

Item, die Veneris, scilicet in festo Sancti Mathei contingente, de Rotlond, de Kent, de Huntington, de Notyngham, de Somerset, de Sarum, comites, dominus de Spenser et dominus Wyllelmus Scroppe, in una secta rubiarum togarum de cerico, rotulatarum et albo cerico, literis aureis immixtarum, appellacionem per eos regi prius aput Notingham edditam proposuerunt; in qua accusabant Thomam ducem Gloucestrie, Ricardum comitem Arundellie, Thomam comitem Warwyci, et Thomam Mortimer, militem, de premissis prodicionibus et eciam de insurrexione armata aput Haryncay Parke contra regem prodittorie facta. Prestitaque caucione de prosequendo appellacionem suam, Ricardus comes Arundellie scistebatur in judicio in rubra toga et capicio de scarleto. Et statim dux Lancastrie dixit domino de Nevyll: " Tollas sibi zonam et capicium"; et factum est ita. Expositisque eidem comiti articulis, forti animo negando se proditorem, peciit sue perdonacionis beneficium alias concessum, protestando quod nunquam a regis? sui gracia vellet recedere. Dux Lancastrie sibi dixit: "Proditor, illa perdonacio est revocata." Comes respondit: "Vere mentiris! Nunquam fui proditor!" Item dux Lancastrie dixit: "Quare tunc impetrasti perdonacionem?"' Comes respondit: "Ad obturandum linguas emulorum meorum, quorum tu es unus; et pro certo, quantum ad prodiciones, tu magis indiges perdonacione quam ego." Rex dixit sibi: ‘‘Respondeas appellacioni tue." Comes respondit: " Bene video quod ille persone accusant me de prodicione, ostendendo appellaciones. Vere mentiuntur omnes! Nunquam fui proditor! Ego semper peto beneficium perdonacionis mee, quam mihi infra vj. annos ultimo elapsos, in plena etate et libera voluntate vestris, ex proprio motu concessistis.

[21 Sep 1397]. Then the king said, 'I granted it, but not if it was against me.' Then the Duke of Lancaster said, 'Then the grant is invalid.' The Earl responded, 'As for that treason, I knew no more then than you did, since you were overseas.' Then Lord John Bushey said, 'That pardon has been revoked by the king, the lords, and us, the loyal commoners.' The Earl responded, 'Where are these loyal commoners? I know you and your company well enough here, how you have gathered, not to demonstrate loyalty, because the loyal commoners of the realm are not present here. But I know well what grieves them deeply; and I know full well that you have always been false.' Then Bushey and his companions shouted, 'Behold, my lord king, how this traitor seeks to stir up sedition between us and the commoners of the realm who remain at home.' The Earl replied, 'You are all lying! I am not a traitor!' Then the Earl of Derby rose and said to him, 'Did you not say to me at Huntingdon, where we were first gathered for the uprising, that it would be better to seize the king before all else?' The Earl replied, 'You, Earl of Derby, you lie to your own face! I have never thought anything of our lord the king except what was for his good and honor.' Then the king himself said to him, 'Did you not say to me, at the time of your parliament, in the bath after the White Hall, that my knight, Lord Simon of Beverley, was guilty of death for many reasons? And I replied to you that I knew of no reasons for his death; and then you and your companions treacherously killed him.' Then the Duke of Lancaster pronounced the sentence of death with these words: 'Richard, I, the Steward of England, judge you to be a traitor, and I condemn you to be drawn, hanged, beheaded, and quartered, and your lands, whether entailed or not, to be confiscated, by definitive sentence.'

Tunc dixit rex: "Ita concessi, non esset contra me." Tune dixit dux Lancastrie: " Tune non valet concessio." Comes respondit: "Vere de illa prodicione! plus nescivi tunc quam tu qui in partibus transmarinis fueras.' Tune dixit dominus Johannes Buschey: " Illa perdonacio revocata est per regem, dominos, et nos fideles plebeios." Comes respondit: " Ubi illi fideles plebei? Bene novi te et comitivam tuam ibi, qualiter congregati estis, non ad fidelitatem faciendam, quia plebei fideles regni non sunt hic. Sed scio quid ipsi multum dolent me; et bene scio quod tu semper fuisti falsus." Et tune Buschei et socii sui clamaverunt: " Ecce, domine rex, qualiter iste proditor nititur suscitare sedicionem inter nos et regni plebeios domi existentes." Comes respondit: "Vos omnes mentimini! Non sum proditor!" Tune surrexit comes de Derby et dixit sibi: " Nonne tu dixisti mihi apud Huntingtoniam, ubi primo ad insurgendum eramus congregati, quod melius esset ante omnia capere regem?" Comes respondit: "Tu, comes Derbeij, tu mentiris in caput tuum! Nunquam de domino nostro rege cogitavi, nisi quod sibi boni esset et honoris." Tunc dixit sibi rexmet: ‘‘ Nonne tu dixisti mihi, tempore parliementi tui, in balneo depost albam aulam, quod dominus Symon de Bevyrley, miles meus, propter plures causas erat mortis reus? Et ego respondi tibi quod nullas mortis causas in eo scivi; et tunc tu et socii tui ipsum proditorie interfecistis." Et tunc dux Lancastrie mortis sentenciam sub hiis verbis tulit in eundem: " Ricarde, ego senescallus Anglie te proditorem esse judico, et te trahendum, suspendendum, decollandum, et quatriperciendum, ac terras tuas taliatas et non taliatas confiscandas sentencialiter et diffinitive condempno.

21st September 1399. On Saint Matthew's day (21st September), just two years after the beheading of the earl of Arundel, I, the writer of this history, was in the Tower, wherein king Richard (age 32) was a prisoner, and I was present while he dined, and I marked his mood and bearing, having been taken thither for that very purpose by sir William Beauchamp (age 56)¹. And there and then the king discoursed sorrowfully in these words: "My God!, a wonderful land is this, and a fickle; which hath exiled, slain, destroyed, or ruined so many kings, rulers, and great men, and is ever tainted and toileth with strife and variance and envy²"; and then he recounted the histories and names of sufferers from the earliest habitation of the kingdom. Perceiving then the trouble of his mind, and how that none of his own men, nor such as were wont to serve him, but strangers who were but spies upon him, were appointed to his service, and musing on his ancient and wonted glory and on the fickle fortune of the world, I departed thence much moved at heart.

Note 1. Sir William Beauchamp, distinguished as a soldier and sea-captain, became lord Bergavenny in 1392. He died in 1410 [1411].

Note 2. Shakespeare, Richard II, act III. sc. ij.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been deposed; some slain in war;

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd;

All murder'd."

One day, in a council held by the said doctors, the point was raised by some, that by the right of descent from the person of Edmund, earl of Lancaster—they declaring that the same Edmund was the eldest son of king Henry the third, but that, on account of his mental weakness, his birthright had been set aside and his younger brother Edward preferred in his place—Richard's succession in the direct line was barred. As to this, see the history in the pedigree¹, known throughout England, that Edward was first-born son of king Henry, and that after him, and before Edmund, Margaret, who was afterwards queen of Scotland, was born to the same king. I have read the following in the chronicles of the friars preachers of London: "There, was born Edward, eldest son of king Henry, at Westminster; whom the legate Otho baptized" (book vii. ch. xxv., A.D, 1239). Again: "King Henry gave to his eldest son Edward Gascony, Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Surrey" (book vii. ch. xxxvij., A.D. 1253). Again: "On the fifteenth day of May, in the battle of Lewes, the barons took prisoners king Henry and his eldest son Edward" (book vij. ch. xxxvij., A.D. 1253). Again: "Edward, eldest son of king Henry, went with his wife to the Holy Land" (book vij. ch. xxxvij., A.D. 1271).—Polychronicon. Again: "King Henry kept Christmas at Winchester. The same year of our Lord, 1239, was born to king Henry and queen Eleanor their eldest son Edward, on the seventeenth day of June." Again: "The king summoned the queen and his eldest son Edward into France, to treat of a marriage between him and the daughter of the king of Spain, in the year of our Lord 1254, and the thirty-eighth of king Henry." Again: "The same year was sent into Spain, in great state, the king's eldest son Edward, to king Alfonso, for the said marriage." —Trivet. Again: "Queen Eleanor brought forth her son Edward at Westminster, in the year of our Lord 1239." "Queen Eleanor brought forth her daughter Margaret, in the year of our Lord 1241." "Queen Eleanor brought forth her son Edmund, in the year of our Lord 1245."'— Chronicle of Gloucester².

Note 1. In the MS. the word is written "P. de Grw," as though it were a chronicler's name. The word "pedigree" is meant; and the common genealogical history of the kings of England, of which so many copies written on long vellum rolls are still extant, is referred to. Hearne prints from one of his MSS., at the end of his edition of Robert of Gloucester, a "petegreu" of the kings of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VI. The Harleian MS. 326 has the title: "Here begynnyt the petegreu of þe kyng þat now ys." See Skeat, Notes on English Etymology, 209.

Note 2. This passage is interesting, as it throws some light on the story of the fabrication of a chronicle by John of Gaunt, with a view to make out a claim to the crown by direct descent, and of the investigation of the matter by the Privy Council. Hardyng is the author of the story, and tells it in these words: "For as muche as many men have been merred and yit stonde in grete erroure and controversy, holdyng oppynyon frowarde howe that Edmonde, erle of Lancastre Leicestre and Derby, wase the elder sonne of kynge Henry the thride, croukebacked, unable to have been kynge, for the whiche Edward his yonger brother was made kynge be his assente, as somme men have alleged, be an untrewe cronycle feyned in the tyme of kynge Richarde the seconde be John of Gaunte, duke of Lancaster, to make Henry his sonne kynge, when he sawe he myght not be chose for heyre apparaunt to kynge Richarde. For I, John Hardynge, the maker of this booke, herde the erle of Northumberlande that was slayne at Bramham More in the time of king Henry the Fourth saie, howe the same king Henry, upon Saynt Mathee daye, afore he wase made kinge, put forth that ilke cronycle, claymynge his title to the crown be the seid Edmonde, upon whiche all the cronycles of Westminstre and of all our notable monasteries were hade in the counsell at Westmynstre, and examyned amonge the lordes, and proved well be all theire chronycles that the kinge Edwarde wase the older brother, and the seide Edmonde the younger brother, and not croukebacked, nother maymed, but the semeliest person of Engelonde, except his brother Edwarde. Wherfore that chronycle which kynge Henry so put furth was adnulled and reproved" (ed. Ellis, 1812, p. 353). He goes on to say that John of Gaunt forged the chronicle in consequence of the parliament refusing to recognize him as heir to the throne after Richard, and that he published it by placing copies in different monasteries. See Arch. xx. 186.

29th September 1399. On Saint Michael's day (29th September) there were sent unto the king in the Tower, on behalf of the clergy, the archbishop of York and the bishop of Hereford; on behalf of the superior lords temporal, the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; for the lower prelates, the abbot of Westminster and the prior of Canterbury; for the barons, the lords Berkeley and Burnell; for the lower clergy, master Thomas Stow and John Borbach; and for the commons of the realm, sir Thomas Grey and sir Thomas Erpingham, knights, to receive the surrender of the crown from king Richard¹. And when this was done, on the morrow, the said lords, on behalf of the whole parliament and the clergy and the people of the realm, altogether renounced their oath of allegiance, loyalty, submission, service, and what obedience soever, and their fealty to him, setting him aside, and holding him henceforth not for king, but for a private person, sir Richard of Bordeaux, a simple knight; having taken away his ring in token of deposition and deprival, and bringing the same to the duke of Lancaster, and delivering it to him in full parliament on that day assembled. On the same day the archbishop of York delivered first a discourse on the text: "I have put my words in thy mouth²"; and then, having been made by king Richard his mouthpiece, he, using the first person, as though the king himself were speaking, read in full parliament the surrender of his royal rank and the release of all his lieges and subjects whomsoever from all submission, fealty, and homage, openly and publicly, as drawn up in writings. And this surrender, the consent of all and every in parliament being first called for, was openly and distinctly accepted. Which being done, my lord archbishop of Canterbury preached on the text: "A man shall reign over my people³," wherein he highly lauded the duke of Lancaster and his strength and his understanding and his virtues, exalting him, and deservedly, to be their king; and, among other things, he spake of the shortcomings of king Richard, and specially how he had most unjustly stifled in prison his uncle, the duke of Gloucester, treacherously, and without a hearing or leave to answer; and how he strove to overthrow the law of the land, to which he had sworn⁴.

Note 1. The Rolls of Parliament (iij. 416) also name sir William Thyrnynge and sir John Markham, justices, and William de Feriby and Denis Lopham, notaries.

Note 2. Is; lj. 16;

Note 3. 1 Sam. ix. 17.

Note 4. This sermon was not delivered by the archbishop till after he had enthroned Henry.—Rot. Parl. iij. 423.