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XVI. Transcript of a Chronicle in the Harleian Library of MSS. No. 6217, entitled, “An Historical Relation of certain passages about the end of King Edward the Third, and of his Death:” communicated in a Letter addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Aberdeen, K.T. President, by Thomas Amyot, Esq. F.R.S. Treasurer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
Extract
Conceiving that the pages of our Transactions cannot be better occupied than by the publication of such early and authentic manuscripts as may serve to throw light on obscure periods of our ancient History, I beg leave to lay before the Society a transcript which I have caused to be made from the Harleian Library of a Chronicle containing a very minute relation of some remarkable events in the two last years of Edward the Third, which, as our Vice President, Mr. Hallam, has observed in his History of the Middle Ages, have been slurred over by most of our general historians.
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References
page 207 note a See a note on the chapter, entitled, “Of the discorde raised in St. Paule hys Churche,” &c. Fox, in the margin of his Acts and Monuments (vol. i. p. 558, ed. 1611), refers to the MS. which he had the use of, in these words: “Ex Hist. Monachi D. Albani ex accommodato D. Matth. Archiepis. Cant.” Parker himself appears also to have availed himself of the MS. though he does not expressly cite it as his authority. De Ant. Brit, Eccles. p. 386. Stow's use of the translation will be shown in a note on the chapter, entitled, “The Duke indamageth the Bishopp of Winchester.”
page 207 note b Lowth, though he does not seem to have suspected that the St. Alban's History, quoted by Fox, was the original from which the Harleian MS. was translated, tells us that he caused a search to be made for that History in Parker's Library at Corpus Christi College, and he appears, from the result, to have believed that the MS. in that collection, bearing the title of J. Malverne, Continuatio Chronici Ranulphi, might have been Fox's authority, with a new name. Through the kindness, however, of the Rev. T. Shelford, I have ascertained that this MS. has nothing in common with that quoted by Fox, or with the Harleian translation, and that the only other MS. in the same library which seemed likely to be the one in question, and which is called Chronica S'cti Albani protomartyno, is merely Walsingham's History in another form. This is also nearly the case with the Continuation of Rishanger, (Cott. Faustina, B. ix.) which another friend had pointed out to me as being likely to answer the object of my search. In these MSS. as well as in the others which I have examined, the transactions of the period in question are related with fewer particulars, and much more briefly and drily, than in the following sheets. I ought, perhaps, to make an exception with respect to a fragment of ten pages, closely written in a hand of the sixteenth century, and appearing to be a translation of a portion of an earlier Chronicle. It commences at page 169 of a volume of miscellaneous and detached fragments of early history, formerly in Stow's hands, and now in the Harleian Library, No. 247. Some extracts from it will be given in the ensuing notes.
page 210 note c It should be observed, however, that Mr. Godwin, in his Life of Chaucer, has noticed it among the authorities in his margin, but without extracting or referring to any passages, so as to give reason to suppose that he had particularly consulted it.
page 212 note d It appears by the Rolls of Parliament that the Bishop of St. David's and Sir Henry Scroop, were appointed for the purposes named in the text, instead of the Bishop of Rochester and the Lord Beauchamp. The remaining ten are correctly stated above. Rot. Pad. 2. p. 322.
page 213 note e This vision is omitted by the translator.
page 214 note f Prosperous?
page 214 note g sc. Profit.
page 214 note h Here ends the introductory portion transcribed from the Had. MS. 247. At the end of it, the words “Of the Duke of Lancaster, his words and his conditions,” which are repeated at the commencement of the Harl. MS. 6217, appear in Stow's hand writing, evidently for the purpose of connecting the two MSS.
page 216 note a This passage, in which allusion is made to John of Gaunt's amour with Katherine Swynford, whom he afterwards married, may be noticed as furnishing a strong proof that the original Chronicle was written during that prince's lifetime.
page 216 note h William, Lord Latymer, who had distinguished himself in the wars of Britany against Charles de Blois, was Governor of Becherel, and also of the Castle of St. Saviour in that province. A particular account of him will be found in Dugdale's Baronage, vol. ii. p. 32. The proceedings in the Impeachment noticed in the text are recorded in the Rolls of Parliament, vol. ii. p. 324 et seq. He was nevertheless employed in important offices and negociations in the commencement of the following reign.
page 219 note m This anecdote of a proffered bribe to the Black Prince, and its rejection, is only to be found, I believe, in the present Chronicle, and in the fragment (Harl. MS. 247, p. 169,) mentioned in a note to the preceding Letter, where it is stated, that Lyons “by water sent unto the said prince a barill of gould, as if it had been a barill of sturgeon, to purchase his good favour, but when the present was tendered, the prince did utterly refuse it, answering in this manner, that which is in the barill is resty and no whit profitable, for it was neither well nor truly gotten, and therefore he would receive no such present, neither support the said Richard to favour him in his evill doynges.” The fact, however, that Lyons owed his escape from punishment to a dextrous and well-timed application of money, i s noticed shortly and quaintly by the Continuator of Murimuth (p. 134), who, speaking of Lyons and his fellow delinquent Adam Bury, says “Primus verò, mediante pecunià, ab hujusmodi clade valde sagaciter, immo prudenter evasit.” Walsingham has used nearly the same words, p. 186, edit. Parker, 1574.
page 220 note n The proceedings against John Lord Nevill are in the Rolls of Parliament, vol. ii, p. 328 and 329. Dugdale in his account of the acts of this Nobleman (Baronage, vol. i. p. 296), omits to notice his removal from office, as related above. Like Latymer, he held in the subsequent reign very important offices, both at home and abroad.
page 221 note o In this and other instances where a word is placed in brackets, it has been found written above the similar word in the original MS. as a correction (it is presumed) by the translator.
page 222 note p The King of Navarre here mentioned was Charles the Bad, whose death in 1387 is related by the French Historians to have been occasioned by the carelessness of his valet de chambre, in setting fire to a cloth garment steeped in brandy, in which the King had been wrapped by order of his Physicians, for the purpose of restoring warmth to his enervated frame. Art de verifier les dates, i. p. 757.
page 224 note q Sic in orig.
page 226 note r Notwithstanding the character which is given of Sir Richard Stury in the text, and the opinion which, in a subsequent chapter, appears to have been entertained of him by Prince Edward, he was afterwards employed by Richard the Second on various important occasions, and was even appointed one of the executors of the princess's will. According to Knighton (col. 2661), the promotores strenuissimi et propugnatores fortissimi of the Lollard faith reckoned him among their leaders, which may sufficiently account for the acrimonious language applied to him by the writer of the above Chronicle.
page 227 note g Hearne, in a long note on the anonymous history of Edward the Third, printed in the second volume of his edition of Hemingford, p. 444, has referred to a MS. chirurgical work, then in the possession of Dr. Mead, written by John Ardern in the year of the prince's death, of which it contained some notices. Of Ardern and his works an account will be found in Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica, p. 47.
page 229 note t The Bishop of Bangor, again noticed in a subsequent chapter, was John Swafham, who, according to Bishop Godwin, had been nominated to his see by Pope Gregory “propter crebra cum Widevhtis certamina.” De Prsesul. Angl. p. 623, edit. 1722.
page 230 note u Limoges.
page 231 note x Lionel.
page 232 note y For this proceeding against Adam de Bury, and his subsequent pardon, see the Rolls of Parliament, vol. ii. pp. 330 and 374;.
page 232 note z Gememuta in margin, i, e. Yarmouth, in Norfolk.
page 233 note a See the Rolls of Parliament, ii. p. 330. Th“absurde” charter, as it is here called, and against which the inhabitants of Lowestoft had petitioned, was granted in the 46th year of Edward III. for uniting Kirkeley Road with the Port of Yarmouth. Though revoked, as mentioned in the text, it was restored in the following reign, and became a fruitful source of contest till the time of Charles the Second. A very full and detailed history of these proceedings will be found in Gillingwater's History of Lowestoft, to which it mav be now added that a new harbour is about to be formed, by means of an artificial cut between Kirkeley Road and Lake Lothing, for the purpose of effecting a navigation for seaborne vessels from Lowestoft to Norwich.
page 233 note b “Hunneyie bysyds Excester, as somesupose,” in margin.
page 235 note c The low origin of Alice Perrers, asserted in the text, is disbelieved by Bishop Lowth, on account of her having been maid of honour to Queen Philippa. Barnes, relying on the king's unblemished reputation, is the chivalrous defender of Alice's chastity. Hist. Edw. III. p. 872. Carte boldly pronounces her to have been a “lady of sense and merit,” who, having been of the bedchamber to the late Queen, and a great favourite with her, was, “for that reason, and on account of her agreeable conversation, and many other good qualities, in no little favour with the king.” He adds, “there doth not appear the least reason to surmise that there was any amour between them, and she was actually married to an honourable person, William de Windsor, late Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; yet being often with the king she had opportunities of doing offices for many persons, which gave others occasion to repine, and complain of her influence.” Hist. Eng. ii. p. 534. Lowth, however, remarks, that Carte mistook the period of her marriage, which did not take place till after Edward's death. But in a petition to Parliament in the second year of Richard the Second, from Sir William Wyndesore and Alice, then his wife, to reverse the proceedings against her in the preceding year, it is asserted that she had been improperly called upon to answer as a feme sole, being then, and for a long time before, the wife of Wyndesore. Rot. Parl. iii. p. 41. And it may be worthy of remark, that Wyndesore's second commission to govern Ireland appears in the same page of Rymer's Fœdera with a grant from King Edward of certain jewels, goods, and chattels, formerly belonging to the late queen, to Alice Perrers, “nuper uni Domicellarum cameræ Consortis nostrae Philippæ.” Vol. vii. p. 28.
page 237 note d The archbishop who exercised this moderation was Simon Sudbury, afterwards assassinated by the rebels on Tower-hill, in 1381. His tolerant principles are a frequent subject of reproach in the monkish Chronicles of this period.
page 239 note e The names of these “continual councillors,” as they were called, though their services proved to be of short duration, are not recorded in the Rolls of Parliament; but Lowth, on the authority of the Harleian MS. No. 247, p. 143, states them to have been the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Winchester, the Earls of Arundel, March, and Stafford, and the Lords Percy, Brian, and Beauchamp. To this list, which appears to be imperfect in its numbers, it has been supposed that the Chancellor, Treasurer, and Keeper of the Privy Seal for the time being were added, in order to complete the number of twelve. Godwin's Life of Chaucer, vol. ii. p. 235. It should be observed, however, that this number was not definitely fixed by the Parliament, who required that ten or twelve should be appointed, according to the king's pleasure, out of whom six or jour should be continually resident. Rot. Parl. ii. p. 322. In the MS. fragment before noticed (Harl. 247, p. 169), it is said that, “the Duke of Lancaster was not well satysfied, but was sore grieved and vexed because himselfe was not chosen to be of the kinge's counsayle.”
page 240 note f The king's will, in which Latymer was appointed an executor, is dated the 7th October 1376, a few months after his impeachment and disgrace. Perhaps a stronger proof of the Duke of Lancaster's ascendancy cannot be adduced, that the confirmation which he appears to have obtained from the king of the manors of Gryngeley and Wheteley to Katherine Swynford, the duke's mistress, his second wife, Constance of Castile, being then living. This instrument, dated 4th March 1377, is in Rymer, vii. p. 140.
page 241 note g Concerning the “old age” of the king, so repeatedly noticed in the text, it should be observed that he had at this time scarcely completed his sixty-fourth year—a period of life which would not at the present day call forth such an epithet. It may be further remarked that, on reference to Dugdale's Baronage, it will appear that, in the middle ages, the deaths of a great proportion of the English nobility, even when occasioned by natural causes (for war and pestilence had their full share), occurred under the age 0f forty, and that their eldest sons, though commonly the off spring of very early marriages, very frequently became wards of the Crown, by reason of their minority.
page 243 note h Walsingham and the Continuator of Murimuth relate, that Sir Peter de la Mare was imprisoned in Nottingham castle, and they are followed in this statement by Holinshed, Speed, and most of our later historians. But Stow, upon the authority (as it would appear) of the present Chronicle, fixes the imprisonment at Newark. Mr. Godwin supposes that he was first conveyed to Newark, and afterwards to Nottingham. Life of Chaucer, vol. ii. p. 243.
page 244 note i William Skipwith. See Stow's Annales, p. 271, edit. 1631. He was Chief Baron of the Exchequer. I transcribe the following passage from Stow, in order to shew (as I have stated in the introductory Letter) how closely he followed the above translation. In his margin are the words, “The duke indomageth the Bishop of Winchester;” and in his text he says, “The duke now labored against Wil. Wicham, Bi. of Winchester, taking occasion by all waies and meanes he possibly could to indomage him. At the last, among thinges that hee objected against him, hee charged him to have been false unto the king, at what time he was lord chancellor, and although the bishop, in declaring of his innocence, was ready to bring forth for himselfe both sufficient reasons and witnesses, yet notwithstanding hee caused him to be condemned,” &c. Mr. Godwin supposes that Stow, in his minute relations of the transactions of this period, had the authority of some narrative which has not come down to us. But it will be quite evident, on an examination of his history, that he has closely pursued and implicitly relied on the above Chronicle, not amplifying but abridging its details.
page 245 note k This story, though often repeated, seems to be highly improbable. The fraud is wholly inconsistent with the queen's character, nor could she have had any motive for resorting to it, as Edward had two sons then living. But Lowth appears to decide too hastily, when he pronounces that no such story could have been uttered or invented at the period in question, on account of the Duke of Lancaster's silence with regard to it, in his complaint in Parliament of the reports which had been spread against him. The calumny, though rumour might have falsely ascribed it to Wykeham, might still have been (as this Chronicle asserts) reported as true, but not on authority perhaps that could have justified the duke in noticing it. It is related by Abp. Parker, probably in the words of the original Chronicle from which the text is a translation. De Antiq. Brit. Eccl. pp. 385 and 386, edit. 1729.
page 245 note l This was Edmond Mortimer Earl of March, the husband of Philippa, daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and the great-great-grandfather of Edward the Fourth.
page 246 note m Created Earl of Northumberland in the first year of Richard the Second, whom he afterwards conspired with Henry of Bolingbroke to depose; finally, however, taking arms against his patron's son, in favour of the grandson of the Earl of March, to whose office he had been appointed (as stated in the above Chronicle) by Henry's father.
page 246 note n Some words in the MS. are here illegible. This passage affords a strong additional confirmation of the opinion advanced in the introductory letter, that the writer of the original Chronicle was contemporary with the events which he records.
page 247 note o It was the Christmas of 1376. The price of wine in 1379, according to Bishop Fleetwood, was sixpence per gallon for white, and fourpence for red wine. Chron. Prec. p. 77.
page 248 note p The Bishop of London was William Courtney, son of the Earl of Devon, who in 1381 was translated to Canterbury, after the murder of Archbishop Sudbury. He was distintinguished for his zeal in the cause of Rome. Archbishop Parker says of him, “in Wicklyffianos vehementissimus erat.”
page 249 note q See Rymer, vol. vii. pp. 103 and 135. In the Royal Proclamation issued after the arrival of the Bull, there is a strong determination manifested to shelter and protect these fugitives against the severity of the papal denouncement.
page 249 note r A curious description of the Mumming of the citizens to please the young prince, on the Sunday before Candlemas in 1377, will be found in the MS. Fragment before quoted ( Harl. 247). It has been copied in Stow's London, and also in Strutt's Horda, vol. ii. p. 95. The speech of the Chancellor (Adam de Houghton, Bishop of St. David's) on the opening of this Parliament by Prince Richard, is recorded at length in the Rolls of Parliament, ii. p. 361, and is an amusing specimen of eloquence in the then prevailing taste.
page 250 note s In the MS. “The Earl of Huntingdon” appears to have been originally written, and afterwards altered to Hungerforde. It should be Sir Thomas Hungerford who was thus chosen Speaker. Rot. Parl. ii. p. 374. See an account of him in Dugdale's Baronage, vol. iii. p. 203.
page 251 note t Sic in orig.
page 251 note u These were the Bishops of Lincoln, Chichester, Hereford, and Salisbury, the Earls of Arundel, Warwick, Salisbury, and Stafford, and the Lords Percy, De Roos, Fitzwalter, and Basset. Rot. Parl. ii. p. 363.
page 256 note x The date here assigned to this remarkable transaction is doubted by Lowth, because the Pope's Bull, which he supposes to have been the cause of Wicliffe's citation to St. Paul's, bears as late a date as the 22d of May 1377. He therefore concludes, that the tumult could not have happened many days before the death of Edward the Third, which occurred on the 21st of June. Lewis, in his Life of Wicliffe (p. 50), supposes the meeting at St. Paul's not to have taken place till the February of the succeeding year, after the accession of Richard the Second, in which he is followed by Mr. Baber, in the memoirs prefixed to his edition of Wicliffe's New Testament, p. xvii. This, however, is completely at variance not only with the relation in the text, but also with that of Walsingham, the Continuator of Murimuth, and the other contemporary or early authorities. Mr. Godwin (Life of Chaucer, ii. p. 251) defends the earlier date, suggesting that the citation to St. Paul's was the immediate and personal act of the English prelacy, and that it was the citation of WicliiFe to Lambeth in the following year, which was the result of the Pope's interference, the English Bishops having found themselves too weak in the contest, and having, on that account, invited the interposition of the sovereign Pontiff. This appears to be the true solution, agreeing with the statement in the text, that it was upon the suggestion of the bishops, that Archbishop Sudbury had been unwillingly moved to issue the citation. It is true, indeed, that the mandate (preserved in Wilkin's Concilia, iii. p. 123) which the Archbishop and the Bishop of London, in consequence of the authority vested in them by the Pope's Bull, issued to the Chancellor of Oxford on the 5th of January following, required Wicliffe's presence at St. Paul's on the thirtieth juridical day from that date. But as we have no account from the contemporary writers that any second meeting in St. Paul's actually took place, it may be reasonably concluded that Lambeth was afterwards substituted, as a less likely scene for the renewal of popular commotion, though the result proved otherwise. The opinion here expressed maybe strengthened by remarking that not only Fox, but his able antagonist Harpsfeld, who, though a zealous papist, was furnished with materials for his Ecclesiastical History by Archbishop Parker (in whose mild custody he was a prisoner) understood the tumult at St. Paul's to have preceded and been the cause of the Pope's interference, and that the proceeding at Lambeth was the consequence of it. Hist. Wicleffiana, p. 683.
page 258 note y Fox, in quoting the Chronicle of St. Alban's, then belonging to Archbishop Parker, from which (as is stated in the introductory Letter) the Chronicle above printed is conceived to have been a translation, says, “to use the words of mine author, “Erubuit Dux quod non potuit prevalere litigio, i. e. that the Duke blushed because he could not over passe the Bishop in brawling and railing.” Acts & Mon. i. p. 558, edit, 1641. It clearly appears from this and other passages, that Fox had the use of the Latin original, translating it into language which suited his purpose, though not departing from the facts. Fuller, in his Church History, has dramatized this dialogue between the duke and the bishop, in his usual quaint style.
page 260 note z Of Walter Lord Fitzwalter a particular account will be found in Dugdale's Baronage, vol. i. p. 220. As hereditary Constable of Castle Baynard, and Banner Bearer of London, he enjoyed very important rights and privileges in the City, which are set forth in Stow's Survey of London, Strype's edition, vol. i. p, 60.
page 260 note a Guy de Bryan was, as Dugdale observes, a person of very great note in his time. He had been Standard Bearer to the King at Calais, and was afterwards employed in many important military and civil services. Baronage, vol. ii. p. 151.
page 261 note b This was at Ipres Inn, in St. Thomas Apostle, west of the church. William of Ipres, a Fleming, who came over to the aid of King Stephen against the Empress Maud in 1138, built this “great messuage” (as Stow calls it) near the Tower Royal, where the king “was then lodged, as in the heart of the city, for his more safety.” Stow's London by Strype, b.iii. p. 8. William was created Earl of Kent by Stephen, but in the subsequent reign was forced to leave England, and died a Monk at Laon, according to Dugd. Bar. i. p. 612. But Stow says he was recalled and restored to his possessions, which remained to his descendants. John of Ipres, named in the text, was a person of sufficient importance to be appointed one of King Edward's executors. See Nichols's Royal Wills, p. 63.
page 264 note c The Princess was Joan, the widow of the Black Prince, who in her youth had been celebrated for her beauty as the “Fair Maid of Kent.” She had been twice married or affianced before she became the wife of Edward, whom she survived nine years. Her death in 1385 is related by Walsingham (p. 343) to have been caused by her grief at the refusal of her son Richard the Second to pardon his half brother John Holand, who nevertheless after his mother's death was restored to favour, and created Duke of Exeter. Dr. Lingard says that the Princess obtained her son's full pardon. But according to Knyghton (col. 2676), it was by the intervention of the Duke of Lancaster and other lords, that the king's pardon was procured, as well as the indulgence of the Earl of Stafford, whose eldest son Sir John Holand had killed in their servants' quarrel. An ancient portrait of the Princess is copied in Strutt's Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, No. XXXV. In her will, printed in Nichols's Collection, she declares her firm adherence to the Catholic faith, though five of the most distinguished supporters of Wicliffe are in the list of her executors.
page 264 note d Sir Aubrey de Vere was uncle to Robert Earl of Oxford, afterwards Duke of Ireland, the favourite of Richard the Second.
page 264 note e Of Sir Simon Burley, and the proceedings against him in the following reign, when he was beheaded on Tower Hill, a particular account is given by Froissart, his personal friend. Some inaccuracies in Froissart are pointed out by Tyrrel (Hist. Eng. vol. iii. p. 902), and a singular mistake in the MS. Ambassades, “Relation de la Mort,” &c. where John Carnailly is substituted for Sir Simon Burley, has been noticed in the Archaeologia, vol. xx. p. 425, note.
page 264 note f Sir Lewis Clifford, an ancestor of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, became a leader among the Lollards, but afterwards recanted to Archbishop Arundel. Walsingham, p. 409. His very remarkable will, in which he enjoins his executors to bury him, “false and traytor to his Lord God,” with extraordinary indignities, is preserved in Dugdale's Baronage, i. p. 341. It may not be unworthy of remark, that his descendants have adhered to theirancient faith.
page 265 note g John Philpot was Mayor of London in 1378, and was knighted in Smithfield by Richard the Second in 1381, upon the overthrow of Wat Tyler. “A man,” says Stow, “of jolly wit, and very rich in substance.” Of the wealth and spirit of this citizen, some estimate will be formed, when we are told by Stow that, in 1378, “he hired with his own money 1000 soldiers, and defended the realm against the incursions of the enemy; so that in small time his hired men took John Mercer, a sea rover, with all his ships which he had before taken from Scarborough, and fifteen Spanish ships laden with great riches.” Survey of London, b. i. p. 261, edit. 1720. For undertaking this adventure without the sanction of the Council, his conduct was censured, but he made a stout and triumphant defence, and it appears in Rymer that he was afterwards employed in affairs of trust by Richard the Second, to whom he had furnished loans.
page 269 note h The grant was fourpence per head, from every lay person, male and female, above the age of fourteen years, real mendicants excepted. See Rot. Parl. iii. p. 364. The very curious and interesting Subsidy Roll, distinguishing the number of persons assessed to this tax in each county, and in most of the principal cities and towns, will be found in the Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 337., having been communicated to the Society by Mr. Topham.
page 270 note l Sir Robert Aston, or de Asheton, was at this time Chamberlain of the King's Household. Rymer, vii. p. 143. He had been Justiciary of Ireland, and was appointed by the King an executor of his will.
page 273 note k Of the misdeeds and execution of Sir John Menstreworth, a short account, containing but few of the particulars detailed in the text, will be found in Walsingham, p. 189, and a similar one in the Continuation of Murimuth, p. 138. Fabyan relates that he was convicted before the Mayor and other Justices of the King in the Guildhall, and executed at Tyburn.
page 274 note l Bishop Lowth, anxious to support the reputation of his hero, observes with respect to this statement, that it “has been advanced without any other foundation of proof, or colour of probability than the supposed influence of this lady with the king by some late writers, at a time when, as it could not possibly be verified, so neither could it easily be confuted.” But he appears to have forgotten that in his preface he had in effect admitted the antiquity, at least, of the story, by remarking that the work in which it was found appeared to have been written recentibus odiis. Whether the statement be true or false, it seems to have been propagated in Wykehan's lifetime, and though perhaps a calumny, it cannot now be easily refuted. Towards the conclusion of his work, the Bishop labours with better success to disprove Bohun's assertion that Alice Perrers was Wykeham's niece. The family name of Alice his niece was Chawmpeneys, and she was married to William Perot. On this question, however, as well as on that of the alleged bribe to Alice Perrers, doubts unfavourable to Wykeham appear to have been entertained by Archbishop Parker, who most probably derived his information from the original of the Chronicle before us. De Antiq. Brit. Eccl. p. 386, edit. 1729.
page 277 note m This story is quoted in Blomefield's Norfolk (vol. ii. p. 368, fol.) from Fox, who has apparently (as in the instance referred to in a former note) translated it in his own words from the St. Alban's History. He has by mistake (as Blomefield has observed) substituted Lennam for Lynn. The town of Lanham, or Lavenham, in Suffolk, never belonged to the bishop, and has no corporation. Lenna, as Blomefield remarks, is the old Latin word for Lynn. It is rightly translated in the MS. copied in the text, and it is correctly given in Archbishop Sudbury's interdict issued on the occasion, and printed in Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p. 118.
page 278 note n This “young and unbridled” bishop was Henry Spencer, called the warlike Bishop of Norwich, whom Archbishop Parker describes to have been militiae quam theologiae peritior. He had been a soldier in his youth, and a commander in the army of the Pope, who preferred him to the see of Norwich. In 1383, when youth could no longer be his apology (for he had then been thirteen years a bishop), he raised a large army in defence of the Papal authority, and led it into Flanders. On his return he was fined and disgraced, but was subsequently pardoned. In his Life by Capgrave, printed in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 359, his conduct is defended, and his character extolled for a strict regard to justice, and for liberality towards the poor.
page 279 note o Stow calls him “Sir Richard Anglisisin, a Poyton,” but his true name was Guichard D'Angle, a distinguished and accomplished knight, according to Froissart, who says that the young King, Richard the Second, was, at his grandfather's death, placed under the tuition” de ce gentil Chevalier, Messire Guichard D'Angle, par l'accord de tout le pais, pour l'instruire en nobles vertus.” He was created Earl of Huntingdon, and dying in London, was buried in Austin Friars church. Chaucer the poet (called by Froissart, Geoffroy Caucher) seems to have been also employed in the unsuccessful negociation mentioned in the text.
page 279 note p The spelling of Dovar in the text (which was by no means uncommon) may furnish an acceptable variation to those persons who are fond of adopting alterations in the names of towns, similar to that by which Dover has lately been transformed into Dovor.
page 279 note q To shew the unsettled state of the orthography of proper names at this period, I will just remark, that in documents preserved in Rymer's Foedera, I find the name of this distinguished commander given with not fewer than six variations.
page 280 note r So in the margin.
page 283 note s The beautiful and pathetic lines of Gray, describing the funeral couch of this “mighty Victor,” will occur to every reader. Barnes labours to shew the great improbability of this barbarous desertion of the king in his last moments, though, in homelier phrase than was afterwards used by the poet, he admits that “it is very usual, and ever will be, for the court to fall away from the setting sun, and to turn towards the East.” The story, however, as related by Walsingham, as well as in the Chronicle before us, cannot now be refuted, though we may reasonably hope that the strong party feeling of the writers may have exaggerated its painful details. It should be observed that the conduct of Alice Perrers on this occasion did not form one of the charges contained in the articles of impeachment brought against her in Parliament on the 22d of December following.
page 284 note t In the margin are the words “torticios circa matricem in p'cessione,” which the translator seems to have been unable to render intelligible English. Matricem was probably a mistake for martyrem.