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CHAP.
V.

Docket-Book, or Register to the Crown, edited by Mr. Nichols. The evidence which these supply is occasionally important; among other points, it effectually dis- Docketproves the supposition of Sharon Turner, that a parlia- Edward. ment was held during this time, and that the duke of Gloucester derived from it his authority as Protector.'

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Book of

Chronicle.

The Chronicle of ROBERT FABYAN, sheriff of London Fabyan's in 1493, extends from the fabulous period of British history, when Brute first entered Albion,' to the year 1485. Fabyan was a man of considerable attainments for his time, and in the earlier portion of his work, he makes some endeavour to reconcile the discordant statements of different historians. As a contemporary authority, his narrative is confined, for the most part, to events in London, but he is at the same time strongly Lancastrian in his sympathies.2

porary

Lollard

The testimony of fourteenth and fifteenth century Contemwriters, such as Knighton, Capgrave, Netter, Walsing- Writers on ham, and others, with respect to WYCLIF is uniformly Wyclif and unfavourable. It is from his own works and the more ism. appreciative criticism of modern writers that he is to be judged. His principal English writings have been edited by Mr. Arnold, and are admirable specimens of the New English' of the fourteenth century. The Fasciculi Zizaniorum ('Little Bundles of Tares') ascribed

1 Grants, &c., from the Crown during the Reign of Edward the Fifth, from the original Docket-Book MS. Harl. 433. And two Speeches for opening Parliament, by John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, Lord Chancellor. With an Historical Introduction. By John Gough Nichols. C. S. 1854.

2 The New Chronicles of England and France, in two Parts; by Robert Fabyan. Named by himself the Concordance of Histories. Edited by Henry Ellis.

1811.

• Wyclif's Select English Works. By T. Arnold. 3 vols. Clarendon Press. 1871. [This collection has recently been supplemented by another publication, The English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted. Edited by F. D. Matthew. E. E. T. Soc. 1880.]

СНАР.

V.

Political

Poems and
Songs.

Polydore Vergil.

b. 1470. d. 1555.

Merits of

his Historia

Anglica.

to THOMAS NETTER of Walden,' provincial of the Carmelite order in England, and confessor to Henry V., is the only contemporary account of the rise of Lollardism. It is, however, the production of a writer hostile to the movement, and chiefly valuable as an illustration of the theological controversies of the age.

Contemporary satire and popular sentiment are illustrated by another collection of Political Poems and Songs, edited by Mr. T. Wright.2

(B.) Non-contemporary Writers.-The Historia Anglica of POLYDORE VERGIL is the production of a learned Italian, the friend of Erasmus, and notable as the last collector of 'Peter's Pence' in this country. He resided in England nearly half a century (A.D. 1503-50), and his work, undertaken at the request of king Henry VIII., appeared at Basel in 1534. It is divided into twentysix books, of which three relate to the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. These were translated into English in the sixteenth century, and the English version was published in 1846, by the Camden Society, with a preface by Sir Henry Ellis. In point of literary merit, the Historia Anglica exhibits a great advance, both in conception and style, upon preceding histories. It was,' says Sir Henry Ellis, 'the first of our histories in which the writer ventured to compare the facts and weigh the statements of his predecessors; and it was the first in which summaries of personal

Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico. Edited by Rev. W. W. Shirley. R. S. 1858.

2 Political Poems and Songs relating to English History, composed during the Period from the Accession of Edward III. to the Reign of Henry VIII 2 vols. R.S. 1859-61. (For contents, down to reign of Richard III., see Hardy, D. C. i. 867).

by the Camden Society (1844), eight books of Polydore's History

Another volume, also published con ains an English version of the first (which relate to the period prior to the Norman Conquest), by the same editor.

character are introduced in the terse and energetic form adopted in the Roman classics.' With respect to the books included in the above translation, the same critic observes, that 'it is important to know that Polydore wrote this portion of his work whilst many of the persons alluded to in the events of the reigns of Edward IV. and Richard III. were alive, and who communicated with him' (Pref. pp. xxviii. and xxxii).

СНАР.

Hall.

V.

The work of EDWARD HALL, entitled The Union Edward of the Two Noble Families of Lancaster and Yorke, first b. 1499. printed in 1542, commences with the deposition of d. 15+7. Richard II., and terminates with the reign of Henry VIII. For the present period it is mainly a compilation, made, however, with much care, from every available source, including French and German authorities. The style, though highly Latinised, is vigorous and clear. To the student of Shakespeare, Hall's narrative is of special interest, as the source from whence the great dramatist derived the materials for his historical plays.

A Life of Henry V., by one ROBERT REDMAN,' written about 1540, is interesting as a source of tradition with respect to Henry's foreign policy, and also for the corroboration it affords of some of Shakespeare's representations of events; it has, however, no claim to rank as an authority. The writer appears to have belonged to the party of the Reformers.

Redman's Life of

Henry V.

Pauli,

(c.) Modern Writers.In relation to the careers and Lives by characters of the Black Prince and Richard III., Dr. Gairdner, PAULI has given a careful and interesting study of each Longman, Wallon, in his Aufsätze zur Englischen Geschichte (1869); but of Freeman, the latter, the most complete and trustworthy account Hallam. Brougham, is that supplied in the Life by MR. JAMES GAIRDNER,2

Memorials of Henry the Fifth. Edited by C. A. Cole. R. S.

2 History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third.

To which is

СНАР.

V.

in which the conclusions of the writer tend mainly to a vindication of the traditional accounts, and especially of the representations contained in Hall. For the history of Edward III., LONGMAN'S History of the Life and Times of that monarch may be consulted with advantage.' M. WALLON has written the best account of Richard II.2 MR. FREEMAN'S comparative estimate of the French wars of Edward III. and Henry V., in his Essays (First Series), offers the best criticism of our continental policy at this period; while LORD BROUGHAM'S History of England under the House of Lancaster is a vigorous sketch of our political history at large. The last two chapters of HALLAM'S Middle Ages are eminently suggestive for the whole subject of medieval legislation and institutions, and his treatment of the subject of Chivalry still remains one of the best and most dispassionate estimates of that phase of civilisaWalcott's tion. MR. MACKENZIE E. C. WALCOTT's William of Wykeham. Wykeham and his Colleges (1852) is an interesting and careful sketch of the great reformer of education in the fourteenth century. MR. ANSTEY'S Preface to the Munimenta Academica illustrates the conditions of academic life and learning throughout the period, while these features may be further studied in DEAN HOOK'S sketch of Thomas Bradwardine in his Lives of the Archbishops. The biographies in the same series-John Stratford (archbp. 1333-48), Simon Islip (1349-66), Simon Sudbury (1375-81), William Courtney (1381-96),

Anstey.

Hook's Archbishops.

added the story of Perkin Warbeck from original Documents. By James Gairdner. 1878.

man.

The History of the Life and Times of Edward III. By W. Long2 vols.

2 Richard II. Episode de la rivalité de la France et d'Angleterre. 2 vols. 1864.

New edit. 1861.

▲ Munimenta Academica; or, Documents illustrative of Academical Life and Studies at Oxford.

2 vols. R. S. 1868.

CHAP.
V.

Thomas Arundel (1396-1414), Henry Chicheley (141443), and Thomas Bourchier (1454-86),-are, for the most, animated sketches, which supply useful illustration of the relations of the English Church to the State, a subject that is more systematically treated in the 19th chapter of PROFESSOR STUBBS' Constitutional History. MR. SHIRLEY'S Preface to the Fas- Shirley. ciculi Zizaniorum renders a like service in connexion with Wyclif and Lollardism, and the Papacy,-a piece of valuable criticism which should be studied in conjunction with MR. GAIRDNER'S article entitled Bible Thought in Gairdner. the Fifteenth Century. Another article by the same writer on Jack Cade's Rebellion brings out the real significance of that movement, as the first move in the struggle between the Houses of York and Lancaster.' A good general outline of the decline of the Papacy and the causes that led to the Reformation will be found in the tenth chapter of GEFFCKEN'S Church and State, Geficken. translated by Fairfax Taylor.

2

For the career of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, who played an important part in relation to English politics in the fifteenth century, the student should consult the Life by MR. KIRK,3 a work of considerable research, and enlivened by much brilliant and vigorous description.

Kirk's
Life of

Charles the
Bold.

In connexion with the condition of the English peasantry at this period, and more especially with the popular revolt of 1381, the first two volumes of professor THOROLD ROGERS' History of Agriculture and Prices Rogers's in England supply the best statistical information.

2 Ibid. Oct. 1870.

1 Fortnightly Review, vol. ii. History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. By John Foster Kirk. 3 vols.

1863.

Of this valuable work only the first two volumes are published, commencing with the year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) and concluding with the year 1400. It is the author's design to carry it on to the year 1793.

Two more volumes are now in the press.

History of
Prices,

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