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notwithstanding that certain contradictions and expressions of conflicting opinion (especially with respect to the characters of Richard and John of Gaunt) shew that it is still a compilation from diverse and sometimes discordant sources.

CHAP.

V.

Chroniclers

In relation to the concluding portion of Richard's French reign, we have also a Cronique1 and a metrical composi- on Richard tion, Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre,2-both by French II. writers. Of these, the former is the production of one. who was an eye-witness of many of the events which he describes, and who sympathised with the ill-fated monarch. His account is of the more value from the fact that the chroniclers of the fifteenth century invariably espouse the side of the House of Lancaster. The writer

of the poem also pleads the cause of Richard, and his production is likewise deserving of attention.

The Chronicle of ADAM OF USK throws some additional light on the years A.D. 1377-1404. Adam was a Monmouthshire man and a priest, who, after having been educated at Oxford, entered the service of Henry IV. and subsequently ingratiated himself with pope Boniface IX. His chief contribution to the history of the period consists of some interesting facts relating to the deposition and last days of Richard II. and the early part of the reign of Henry IV. His account of the march of Henry's army to Chester and of the events 1 Cronique de la traison et mort de Richart deux Roy Dengleterre. Edited by B. Williams. E. H. S. 1846.

2 Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre, Richard, traictant particulierement la rebellion de ses subjectz et prinse de sa personne, composee par un gentilhomme françois qui fut a la suite dudict Roy, avecq permission du Roy de France, 1399. Edited and translated by Rev. John Webb. Archaeolog, Britann. XX. I-423.

Edited with a Transla-
Published under the

3 Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.D. 1377-1404. tion and Notes by Edward Maunde Thompson. direction of the Royal Society of Literature. London: John Murray,

Adam of

Usk.

СНАР.
V.

John Cap-
grave.
b. 1393.

d. 1404.

that followed is also of some value. We learn from these pages that Henry, in his hatred of the Welsh, had designed, if possible, altogether to suppress the Welsh language.

JOHN CAPGRAVE, a native of Lynn in Norfolk, was a member of the house of Augustinian friars in that city and afterwards provincial of his order. He was a voluminous writer, and composed among other works (1) A Chronicle of England,' and (2) The Book of the Noble Henries. Of these the former, extending from the Creation to A.D. 1417, is written in English and is valuable as a specimen of the Norfolkshire dialect of the period. It also supplies some facts, not found elsewhere, respecting the history of the writer's own times. His Noble Henries (designed in honour of the reigning monarch) includes Henries of the Empire and other illustrious characters of the same name, besides the first six Henries of England. His notices of the latter extend from the accession of Henry I. to the year 1446; his facts, as regards the first four Henries, are derived mainly from Henry of Huntingdon, Higden, and Walsingham. In adverting to the circumstances under which the Lancastrian dynasty succeeded to the crown, he professes to maintain the strictest impartiality, but as a contemporary record the work is disfigured by the tone of degrading sycophancy employed by the writer with respect to the Henry on the throne. His latest editor claims for him, however, the merits of 'honesty and sincerity of purpose.'

The Chronicle of England. By John Capgrave. Edited by Rev. F. C. Hingeston. R. S. 1858.

* Johannis Capgrave Liber ae Illustribus Henricis. Edited by Rev. F. C. Hingeston. R. S. 1858. Of this work Mr. Hingeston has also published a translation.

Hingeston, Pref. p. xvii.

V.

Otter

THOMAS OTTERBOURNE, a Franciscan monk who СНАР. lived in the reigns of Henry IV. and V., wrote a contemporary chronicle entitled Chronica Regum Angliae. Thomas This concludes abruptly with the assassination of the bourne. duke of Burgundy in the year 1419. Otterbourne and Walsingham either drew from common sources or copied the one from the other; but there are also facts recorded in the Chronica which we do not meet with elsewhere, and which rest on good authority.

3

ham, the

'Chaplain' and Titus

Livius.

For the reign of Henry V. we have, besides Capgrave, Lives of Henry V. three other biographies: (1) The Life by THOMAS by ElmELMHAM, prior of Lenton, near Nottingham, which he also rendered, with numerous additional facts, into English verse; (2) that known as the 'Chaplain's account,' written in 1418 by a chaplain in the army under Henry's command; (3) the Life by one TITUS LIVIUS, an Italian, who was patronised by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and was one of the privy council of Henry VI., to whom the work is dedicated. Of these the first is much the more full and important, but is written in an inflated grandiloquent style which frequently obscures the author's meaning. The Life by Livius, on the other hand, is comparatively simple in its language, and, in the opinion of one critic, is mainly a compilation from Elmham. Hearne, however, points out that each writer presents us with many facts which are not to be found

1 Duo Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Veteres: viz. Thomas Otterbourne et Johannes Whethamstede, ab Origine Gentis Britannicae usque ad Edwardum IV. Edited by Thomas Hearne. 1732.

Thomae de Elmham Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti Anglorum Regis. Edited by Thomas Hearne. 1727. The metrical version has been printed by Mr. Cole in the Memorials of Henry V. R. S.

3 Henrici Quinti, Angliae Regis, Gesta, auctore Capellano in Exercitu Regio, cum Chronico Neustriae, Gallice, ab ann. 1414-22. Edited by B. Williams. E. H. S. 1846.

Titi Livii Foro-Juliensis Vita Henrici Quinti Regis Angliae. Edited by Thomas Hearne.

1716.

U

СНАР.
V.

de Normandie.

Siege of
Rouen.

in the other. The 'Chaplain's account,' first printed by Mr. Williams, goes no further than the year 1418, the continuation from that time to the close of Henry's reign, being taken from Sloane MS. 1776, which is little more than an abridgment of Elmham. The author was probably a Frenchman, and his accounts of the siege of Harfleur and the battle of Agincourt are especially full and animated. The volume containing this Life gives us also a Chronique de Normandie frequently cited by Fabyan. The dates of this latter composition,' says the editor,' are often incorrect, but it supplies us with much valuable information which we do not obtain from our English chroniclers, especially an account of Henry's residence at Paris, and the proceedings between the rival parties in that city' (Pref. p. xi.).

Further information respecting Henry's campaign in Normandy will be found in the work of M. Puiseux, Le Siége de Rouen (Caen, 1867), and also in the Siege of Rouen by John Page, which narrates in verse the incidents of that tragical experience, as recalled by an eyewitness.1

As contrasted with the materials for the history of Henry the Fifth's foreign wars and that waged in the early part of the reign of his successor, our information respecting the domestic life of the nation is sadly inadequate. Walsingham, as already noted, leaves us with the year 1422, and for the first ten years of the reign of Henry VI., Fabyan's Chronicle, together with the data supplied by the Rolls of Parliament and Rymer's Foedera, constituted, until recently, nearly the only printed sources. Under these circumstances, the Annales of

The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century. Edited by James Gairdner. C. S. 1877.

2 See Letters and Papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry VI. Edited by J. Stevenson. 2 vols.

R. S. 1864.

2

CHAP
V.

Amundes

Whetham

the monastery of St. Alban's, for the years 1421 to 1440, attributed to JOHN AMUNDESHAM,' a member of the community and afterwards president of a Benedictine John College at Oxford, and another Chronicle by an un- ham. known member of the same foundation, acquire an exceptional value. Though alike concerned mainly with events relating to the abbey of St. Alban's and its members, both these productions constitute a singular and often amusing illustration of the learning, discipline, and customs of English monasticism at this period. The Annales, more especially, deserve to be read for the interesting sketch they contain of the career of WHET- John HAMSTEDE, who was twice abbat of the society, and stede. whose memory Amundesham avows himself anxious to guard from detraction. Both Amundesham and Whethamstede would seem to have been favourable specimens of their order; the former was an accomplished scholar; the latter, a scholar, and also a traveller, and well versed in the ways of the world. Of the latter period of his abbacy, Whethamstede himself composed a Register3 which relates to events of the years 1452 to 1461. It is consequently concerned with the time of the great struggle between the Red and the White Rose, and from the towers of the monastery its inmates may have viewed the battle of 1455, which took place in the immediate vicinity. From this date to its close, the Register, unlike the two other chronicles above described,

1

1 Johannis Amundesham, Monachi Monasterii S. Albani, ut videtur, Annales. 2 vols., forming volumes viii. and ix. of the Chronica Monasterü S. Albani. Edited by Mr. Riley, see supra.

2 This Chronicle,—Chronicon Rerum gestarum in Monasterio S. Albani (A.D. 1422-1431) a quodam Auctore ignoto compilatum,-is described and included by Mr. Riley in the above volumes of John Amundesham.

3 Registrum Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede, Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Albani, iterum susceptae. In vol. x. of the same Chronica, edited by Mr. Riley. On the use of the term Register,' see Bacon, Advancement of Learning, bk. 11. ii. 2.

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