The Boke of Noblesse Part 18

1. The treaty of truce for seven years between Edward king of France and England and lord of Ireland and his allies on the one part, and the most ill.u.s.trious prince Louis of France (not styled king) and his allies, on the other. (In Latin.) Dated in a field near Amiens on the 29th August 1475.

The conservators of the truce on the part of the king of England were the dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the chancellor of England, the keeper of the privy seal, the warden of the cinque ports, and the captain or deputy of Calais for the time being; on the part of the prince of France his brother Charles comte of Beaujeu and John b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Bourbon admiral of France.

2. Obligation of Louis king of the French to pay to Edward king of England yearly, in London, during the life of either party, the sum of 50,000 crowns. (In Latin.) Dated at Amiens on the 29th of August.

3. A treaty of alliance between king Edward and Louis of France (in Latin) stipulating, 1. that if either of them were driven from his kingdom, he should be received in the states of the other, and a.s.sisted to recover it.

2. to name commissioners of coinage, which should circulate in their dominions respectively. 3. that prince Charles, son of Louis, should marry Elizabeth daughter of the king of England, or, in case of her decease, her sister Mary. Dated in the field near Amiens, on the 29th of August.

4. Another part of the treaty, bearing the same date, appointing for the arbiters of all differences, on the part of the king of England his uncle the cardinal Thomas archbishop of Canterbury and his brother George duke of Clarence, and on the part of Louis of France, Charles archbishop of Lyons and John comte de Dunois.

In April 1478 the three years were prolonged by another like term to the 29th August 1481; the letters patent relative to which are printed ibid. p.

536.

On the 13th Feb. 1478-9 the truce was renewed for the lives of both princes, and for one hundred years after the decease of either, king Louis obliging himself and his successors to continue the payment of the 50,000 crowns during that term: the doc.u.ments relating to this negotiation are printed ibid. pp. 560--570.

[65] Molinet, in his account of the conference, states that it lasted for an hour and a half, and that a princ.i.p.al topic of discussion was the conduct of the constable, Louis showing a letter, in which the constable had engaged to hara.s.s the English army as soon as it was landed.

[66] This Gascon gentleman is a person of some interest, from his name being mentioned by Caxton. He was resident at the English court, as a servant of Anthony lord Scales (the queen's brother) as early as the year 1466, when in a letter, dated at London, on the 16th of June, he challenged sir Jehan de Cha.s.sa, a knight in the retinue of the duke of Burgundy, to do battle with him in honour of a n.o.ble lady of high estimation, immediately after the performance of the intended combat in London between the lord Scales and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Burgundy. His letter of challenge, in which he terms the king of England his sovereign lord, is printed in the Excerpta Historica, 1831, p. 216; and that of sir Jehan de Cha.s.sa accepting it at p.

219, addressed, _A treshonnoure escueire Louys de Brutallis_. His own signature is _Loys de Brutalljs_. The encounter is thus noticed in the Annals of William of Wyrcestre: "Et iij^o die congressi sunt pedestres in campo, in praesencia regis, Lodowicus Bretailles c.u.m Burgundiae; deditque Rex honorem ambobus, attamen Bretailles habuit se melius in campo:" and thus by Olivier de la Marche: "On the morrow Messire Jehan de Ca.s.sa and a Gascon squire named Louis de Brettailles, servant of Mons. d'Escalles, did arms on foot: and they accomplished these arms without hurting one another much.

And on the morrow they did arms on horseback; wherein Messire Jean de Cha.s.sa had great honour, and was held for a good runner at the lance."

Lowys de Bretaylles, as his name is printed by Caxton, was still attendant upon the same n.o.bleman, then earl Rivers, in 1473, when he went to the pilgrimage of St. James in Galicia; and upon that occasion, soon after sailing from Southampton, he lent to the earl the Book of _Les Dictes Moraux des Philosophes_, written in French by Johan de Tronville, which the earl translated, and caused it to be printed by Caxton, as _The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers_, in 1477.

[67] Fabyan's Chronicle.

[68] The former importance and power of the constable are thus described by Commines: "Some persons may perhaps hereafter ask, Whether the king alone was not able to have ruined him? I answer, No; for his territories lay just between those of the king and the duke of Burgundy: he had St. Quintin always, and another strong town in Vermandois: he had Ham and Bohain, and other considerable places not far from St. Quintin, which he might always garrison with what troops (and of what country) he pleased. He had four hundred of the king's men at arms, well paid; was commissary himself, and made his own musters,--by which means he feathered his nest very well, for he never had his complement. He had likewise a salary of forty-five thousand francs, and exacted a crown upon every pipe of wine that pa.s.sed into Hainault or Flanders through any of his dominions; and, besides all this, he had great lordships and possessions of his own, a great interest in France, and a greater in Burgundy, on account of his kinsmen."

[69] None had actually been made with Burgundy by the treaty of the 29th of August. Commines certainly wrote under a misapprehension in that respect, as well as upon the number of years of the truce with England.

[70] Besides the lady Margaret there were two sons: Maximilian, afterwards the emperor Maximilian, and Philip. There was a contract of marriage in 1479 between the latter and the lady Anne of England, one of the daughters of Edward the Fourth. (Rymer, xii. 110.)

[71] Margaret herself was eventually rejected by Charles VIII. who was nearly nine years her senior. When he had the opportunity of marrying the heiress of Bretagne, and thereby annexing that duchy to France, Margaret was sent back to her father in 1493, and afterwards married in 1497 to John infante of Castile, and in 1501 to Philibert duke of Savoy. She subsequently nearly yielded to the suit of Charles Brandon lord Lisle, (afterwards the husband of Mary queen dowager of France,) who was made duke of Suffolk by his royal master in order to be more worthy of her acceptance; but at last she died childless in 1530, after a widowhood of six and twenty years, and a long and prosperous reign as regent of the Netherlands.

[72] Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 172.

[73] "Whiche book was translated and thystoryes openly declared by the ordinaunce and desyre of the n.o.ble auncyent knyght Syr Johan Fastolf, of the countee of Norfolk banerette, lyvyng' the age of four score yere, excercisyng' the warrys in the Royame of Fraunce and other countrees for the diffence and universal welfare of bothe royames of Englond' and'

Fraunce, by fourty yeres enduryng', the fayte of armes haunting, and in admynystryng Justice and polytique governaunce under thre kynges, that is to wete, Henry the fourth, Henry the fyfthe, Henry the syxthe, And was governour of the duchye of Angeou and the countee of Mayne, Capytayn of many townys, castellys, and fortressys in the said Royame of Fraunce, havyng' the charge and saufgarde of them dyverse yeres, ocupyeng' and rewlynge thre honderd' speres and' the bowes acustomed thenne, And yeldyng'

good' acompt of the foresaid townes, castellys, and fortresses to the seyd'

kynges and to theyr lyeutenauntes, Prynces of n.o.ble recomendacion, as Johan regent of Fraunce Duc of Bedforde, Thomas duc of Excestre, Thomas duc of Clarence, and other lyeutenauntes." This may be considered as a grateful tribute from William of Worcestre, when himself advanced in years (he died in or about 1484), to the memory of his ancient master, sir John Fastolfe, who had died in 1460. The biography of William of Worcestre was written by the Rev. James Dallaway in the Retrospective Review, vol. xvi. p. 451; and reprinted in 4to. 1823, in his volume ent.i.tled "William Wyrcestre redivivus: Notices of Ancient Church Architecture, particularly in Bristol," &c.; but the latest and most agreeable sketch of Worcestre's life is that given by Mr. G. Poulett Scrope in his History of Castle Combe, 1852, 4to.

[74] He has recorded that in 1473 he presented a copy of his translation to bishop Waynflete,--"but received no reward!" His version was not made from the original, but from the French of Laurentius de Primo Facto, or du Premier-Faict: an industrious French translator, who flourished from 1380 to 1420.

[75] Bale, in his list of the works of Worcestre, whom he notices under his _alias_ of Botoner, mentions _Acta Domini Joannis Fastolf_, lib. I, (commencing) "Anno Christi 1421, et anno regni--"

Oldys (in the Biographia Britannica, 1750, p. 1907) attributes to Worcestre "a particular treatise, gratefully preserving the life and deeds of his master, under the t.i.tle of _Acta Domini Johannis Fastolff_, which we hear is still in being, and has been promised the publick;" but in the second edition of Oldys's life of Fastolfe (Biographia Britannica, 1793, v. 706), we find merely this note subst.i.tuted: "This is mentioned in the Paston Letters, iv. p. 78." The letter there printed is one addressed by John Davy to his master John Paston esquire after sir John Fastolfe's death. It relates to inquiries made of one "Bussard" for evidences relative to Fastolfe's estate; and it thus concludes: "he seyth the last tyme that he wrot on to William Wusseter it was beffor myssomyr, and thanne he wrote a Cronekyl of Jerewsalem and the Jornes that my mayster dede whyl he was in Fraunce, that G.o.d on his sowle have mercy, and he seyth that this drew more than xx whazerys (quires) off paper, and this wrytyng delyvered onto Wursseter, and non other, ne knowyth not off non other be is feyth." It appears, I think, very clearly that this pa.s.sage was misunderstood by Oldys, or his informant, and that the historian of the "journeys" and valiant acts of sir John Fastolfe was not Worcestre, but the person called Bussard. It is not impossible that the person whom John Davy meant by that name was Peter Ba.s.set, who is noticed in the next page.

Mr. Benjamin Williams, in the Preface to "Henrici Quinti Gesta," (printed for the English Historical Society, 1850,) says of Worcestre that "he wrote the _Acts of Sir John Fastolfe_, contained in the volume from which this chronicle is extracted," _i.e._ the Arundel MS. XLVIII. in the College of Arms; but that statement appears to have been carelessly made, without ascertaining that the volume contained any such "Acts." "Also (Mr. Williams adds) the _Acts of John Duke of Bedford_ (MS. Lambeth);" but those "Acts"

again are not an historical or biographical memoir, but a collection of state papers and doc.u.ments relating to the English occupation of France, which will be found described in Archdeacon Todd's Catalogue of the Lambeth Ma.n.u.scripts as No. 506. Its contents are nearly identical with those of a volume in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, MSS. No. 41, as will be found on comparison with Sir Henry Ellis's Catalogue of that collection, p. 17. The latter is the volume which Oldys, in his life of sir John Fastolfe, in the Biographia Britannica 1750, has described at p. 1907 as a "quarto book some time in the custody of the late Brian Fairfax esquire, one of the Commissioners of the Customs," and of which Oldys attributes the collection to the son of William of Worcestre, because a dedicatory letter from that person to king Edward the Fourth is prefixed to the volume.

Another very valuable a.s.semblage of papers of the like character, and which may also be regarded as part of the papers of sir John Fastolfe, is preserved in the College of Arms, MS. Arundel XLVIII., and is fully described by Mr. W. H. Black in his Catalogue of that collection, 8vo.

1829. This is the volume from which Hearne derived the Annals of William of Worcestre, and Mr. Benjamin Williams one of his chronicles of the reign of Henry the Fifth.

It is probable that the Lambeth MS. was formerly in the Royal Library, for abstracts of some of its more important doc.u.ments, in the autograph of King Edward the Sixth, are preserved in the MS. Cotton. Nero C. x. These have been printed in the Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, pp. 555-560.

[76] From the authority of Tanner and Oldys, we gather that there was formerly a volume in the library of the College of Arms, bearing the following t.i.tle: "Liber de Actis Armorum et Conquestus Regni Franciae, ducatus Normanniae, ducatus Alenconiae, ducatus Andegaviae et Cenomanniae, &c.

Compilatus fuit ad n.o.bilem virum Johannem Fastolff, baronem de Cyllye guillem vel Cylly quotem, &c. 1459, per Pet. Ba.s.set armig." (Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannica, 1748, p. 79; Oldys, Biographia Britannica, 1750, iii. 1903, again, p. 1906; and 2nd edit. 1793, v. 701.) Both Tanner and Oldys describe this book as being in the Heralds' Office at London, but it is not now to be found there; and is certainly not a part of the Arundel MS. XLVIII. the contents of which curious and valuable volume are minutely described in the Catalogue of the collection by Mr. W. H. Black, F.S.A.

[77] Bale (Scriptores Brytanniae, vii. 80, Folio, 1557, p. 568,) describes Peter Ba.s.set as an esquire of n.o.ble family, and an attendant upon Henry the Fifth in his bedchamber throughout that monarch's career. Bale states that this faithful esquire wrote the memoirs of his royal master, very fully, from his cradle to his grave, in the English language; and we find that the work was known to the chronicler Hall, who quotes Ba.s.set in regard to the disease of which the king died. It is remarkable, however, that this work, like that formerly in the College of Arms, mentioned in the preceding note (if it were not the same), has now disappeared; and the name of Ba.s.set has been unknown to Mr. Benjamin Williams and Mr. Charles Augustus Cole, the editors of recent collections on the reign of Henry the Fifth for the English Historical Society and the series of the present Master of the Rolls, (1850 and 1858,) as also to Sir N. Harris Nicolas, the historian of the Battle of Agincourt, and the Rev. J. Endell Tyler, the biographer of King Henry of Monmouth (2 vols. 8vo. 1838).

[78] Its real author is supposed to have been aegidius Roma.n.u.s, or De Columna, who was bishop of Berri, and died in 1316. See Les Ma.n.u.scrits Francois de la Bibliotheque du Roi, par M. Paulin Paris, 1836, i. 224. It was printed at Rome in 1482, and at Venice in 1598: see Cave, Historia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 340. Thomas Occleve, the contemporary of Chaucer, wrote a poem _De Regimine Principum_, founded, to a certain extent, upon the work of aegidius, but applied to the events of his own time, and specially directed to the instruction of the prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V. The Roxburghe Club has recently committed the editorship of this work to Mr. Thomas Wright, F.S.A.

[79] Preface to The Buke of the Order of Knyghthede (Abbotsford Club, 1847,) p. xxiii.

[80] Ames's Typographical Antiquities, by Dibdin, iii. 198. Moule (Bibliotheca Heraldica, 1822, p. 12,) conjectures that this may have been the same with "A Treatise of n.o.bility," by John Clerke, mentioned by Wood, in his Athenae Oxonienses, as being also a translation from the French; this was printed in 12mo, 1543. (Ath. Oxon. edit. Bliss, i. 205.) In that case the name of _Larke_ is an error of Ames.

[81] Wyer also printed "The Boke of Knowledge," a work on prognostics in physic, and on astronomy (Dibdin's Ames, iii. 199, 200), and "The Book of Wysdome, spekyng of vyces and vertues, 1532." (ibid. p. 175.)

[82] Typographical Antiquities, first edition, iii. 1527.

[83] Mr. B. B. Woodward, F.S.A. the author of a History of Hampshire now in progress, kindly undertook for me to search the records of the city of Winchester in order to discover, if possible, any information in elucidation of this doc.u.ment; but he found them in so great confusion, that at present it is impossible to pursue such an inquiry with any hope of success.

[84] _Here is written above the line, in a later hand_, yn yo^r most n.o.ble persone and

[85] _In MS._ whiche whan

[86] _MS._ of

[87] _These words are inserted by a second hand._

[88] _Inserted above the line by a second hand._

[89] _sc._ weight

[90] _MS._ infinitee

[91] _MS._ to

[92] _MS._ if it

[93] _MS._ defoule

[94] _MS._ be that

[95] _MS._ they

[96] _MS._ it is

[97] _The words_ thowsands and _are inserted above the line._

[98] _Added by second hand._