This is a translation of the 'Memoires of Jacques du Clercq', published in 1823 in two volumes, edited by Frederic, Baron de Reissenberg. In his introduction Reissenberg writes: 'Jacques du Clercq tells us that he was born in 1424, and that he was a licentiate in law and a counsellor to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in the castellany of Douai, Lille, and Orchies. It appears that he established his residence at Arras. In 1446, he married the daughter of Baldwin de la Lacherie, a gentleman who lived in Lille. We read in the fifth book of his Memoirs that his father, also named Jacques du Clercq, had married a lady of the Le Camelin family, from Compiègne. His ancestors, always attached to the counts of Flanders, had constantly served them, whether in their councils or in their armies.' The Memoires cover a period of nineteen years beginning in in 1448, ending in in 1467. It appears that the author had intended to extend the Memoirs beyond that date; no doubt illness or death prevented him from carrying out this plan. As Reissenberg writes the 'merit of this work lies in the simplicity of its narrative, in its tone of good faith, and in a certain air of frankness which naturally wins the reader’s confidence.' Du Clercq ranges from events of national and international importance, including events of the Wars of the Roses in England, to simple, everyday local events such as marriages, robberies, murders, trials and deaths, including that of his own father in Book 5; one of his last entries.
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On 24th September 1826 George Price Boyce was born to [his father] George Boyce.
1853. George Price Boyce [aged 26]. "St Brelade's Bay, Jersey".
On 20th September 1853 [his father] George Boyce died.
1854. George Price Boyce [aged 27]. "Anstey's Cove [Map]".
1857. George Price Boyce [aged 30]. "Edward the Confessor's Chapel, Westminster Abbey [Map], with Tombs of Henry V. and Edward I".
1857. George Price Boyce [aged 30]. "A Girl by a Beech Tree in a Landscape".
On 9th December 1857 [his brother-in-law] Henry Tanworth Wells [aged 28] and [his sister] Joanna Mary Boyce [aged 26] were married.
On 15th July 1861 [his sister] Joanna Mary Boyce [aged 29] died from childbirth shortly after the birth of her third child.
1862. George Price Boyce [aged 35]. "At Binsey, near Oxford".
1864-5. George Price Boyce [aged 37]. "Landscape at Wotton, Surrey: Autumn". The house in the painting is Wotton House, Surrey, the seat of the Evelyn family. The seventeenth-century diarist, John Evelyn, was born there, so it has a special literary interest. It was given a more imposing appearance later, but the situation remains the same.
1866-7. George Price Boyce [aged 39]. "A Surrey Common In November".
1868. George Price Boyce [aged 41]. "The Oxford Arms [Map], Warwick Lane, City of London".
1868. George Price Boyce [aged 41]. "Pensosa d'altrui". Model Mary Leslie. Inscribed on the verso on a label 'no 6', the title and 'George P. Boyce 10 Upper Cheyne Row Chelsea' and on another label in the same hand 'Light from the left hand!'. See The Athenaeum 8th May 1869.
Mary Leslie: The Diary of George Price Boyce 1869. 9th January 1869. Mary Leslie came to sit to me. Before 6th March 1871 Mary Leslie died of consumption.
Henrici Quinti, Angliæ Regis, Gesta, is a first-hand account of the Agincourt Campaign, and subsequent events to his death in 1422. The author of the first part was a Chaplain in King Henry's retinue who was present from King Henry's departure at Southampton in 1415, at the siege of Harfleur, the battle of Agincourt, and the celebrations on King Henry's return to London. The second part, by another writer, relates the events that took place including the negotiations at Troye, Henry's marriage and his death in 1422.
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The Athenaeum 1869 May 08. [8th May 1869] We may next turn to the works of Mr. Boyce [aged 42]. First of these is, On the Skirts of Smithfield, looking West, Midsummer, 1867 (117), a strange, but very original subject, being a picture of the rubbishheaps of the place while under transformation, and the backs of miserable houses of red brick of the deepest hues, and shabby, tumble-down hoardings of wood blanched in the sun; a temporary wreck of the old in course of changing for the new. Huge lying posters in red, green, white and yellow, each coarser and falser than its neighbour, overlook the dust-heaps of two centuries. Calmly in the glare of smoky summer sunlight rises the dingy stone church tower of Wren's building, — a pathetic picture for those who can read, and for artists who can enjoy, its exquisite tones and admirable atmospheric grading; a puzzle for those who judge by the common tests of opinion. For the comfort of several of the latter who strongly resented the introduction of two gambolling cats in a similar picture by this painter — as if London cats were not frequent in the wastes of the City — we add, that there are no cats to puzzle them here.
1871. George Price Boyce [aged 44]. "The Teme from Ludlow".The view is taken from Ludlow Bridge looking up the river. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society's exhibition, 1872-73, No. 386
1873-4. George Price Boyce [aged 46]. "A Wooded Valley in Surrey".
1874. George Price Boyce [aged 47]. "The fortified manor house at Stokesay, Shropshire [Map]".
On 9th February 1897 George Price Boyce [aged 70] died.
The Diary of George Price Boyce. 1941. The Diary of George Price Boyce was lost in the Second World War. Fortunately a year before its destruction by bombing in Bath the diary were consigned to Randall Davies to print in the Old Water-Colour Society's Club Nineteenth Annual Volume, 1941. Although the original is lost, some content survives. The Diary was reprinted Old Water-Colour Society's Club Nineteenth Annual Volume, 1941. Copyright of Introduction and Notes Virginia Surtess, 1980.