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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Henblas Burial Chamber is in Anglesey, Prehistoric Anglesey Burial Chambers.
Henblas Burial Chamber [Map]. A pair of large quartz rich boulders, measuring about 4.1 metres and 3 metres in height with circumferences of 15.3 metres and 16.8 metres respectively, with a large slab lying between them.
Archaeological Journal Volume 28 1871 Pages 97-108. 12. Henblas [Map], Llangristiolus par. (w). On the N.W. side of Malldraeth Marsh, and not far from the Mona Inn. Described in 1846 by the late Rev. H. Longueville Jones, in his Memoir on the Cromlechs Extant in Anglesey, Arch. Journ., vol. iii. p. 40, and there affirmed to be "one of the most stupendous cromlechs, if it be a cromlech, in this or any other island." It was approached, as there stated, by an avenue of stones from the S.E., which, as Mr. Jones was informed in 1846, by the man who did it, were buried by him j ust as they stood, in order to disencumber the surface. See also his list of Cromlechs in Mona, Arch. Cambr., third series, vol. i. p. 25. It has been more fully noticed by the Rev. Hugh Prichard, in a memoir in Arch. Cambr., third series, vol. xii. p. 466, with a plan and a view of the remains. See Angh. Llwyd, Hist. Anglesey, p. 281.