Chronicle and Romance, - [ready to read books .TXT] 📗

to have prevailed in their purposes. But who are those that have attempted this suit, other than such as either hate learning, piety, and wisdom, or else have spent all their own, and know not otherwise than by encroaching upon other men how to maintain themselves? When such a motion was made by some unto King Henry the Eighth, he could answer them in this manner: "Ah, sirra! I perceive the Abbey lands have fleshed you, and set your teeth on edge, to ask also those colleges. And, whereas we had a regard only to pull down sin by defacing the monasteries, you have a desire also to overthrow all goodness, by subversion of colleges. I tell you, sirs, that I judge no land in England better bestowed than that which is given to our universities; for by their maintenance our realm shall be well governed when we be dead and rotten. As you love your welfares therefore, follow no more this vein, but content yourselves with that you have already, or else seek honest means whereby to increase your livelihoods; for I love not learning so ill that I will impair the revenues of any one house by a penny, whereby it may be upholden." In King Edward's days likewise the same suit was once again attempted (as I have heard), but in vain; for, saith the Duke of Somerset, among other speeches tending to that end—who also made answer thereunto in the king's presence by his assignation: "If learning decay, which of wild men maketh civil; of blockish and rash persons, wise and goodly counsellors; of obstinate rebels, obedient subjects; and of evil men, good and godly Christians; what shall we look for else but barbarism and tumult? For when the lands of colleges be gone, it shall be hard to say whose staff shall stand next the door; for then I doubt not but the state of bishops, rich farmers, merchants, and the nobility, shall be assailed, by such as live to spend all, and think that whatsoever another man hath is more meet for them and to be at their commandment than for the proper owner that has sweat and laboured for it." In Queen Mary's days the weather was too warm for any such course to be taken in hand; but in the time of our gracious Queen Elizabeth I hear that it was after a sort in talk the third time, but without success, as moved also out of season; and so I hope it shall continue for ever. For what comfort should it be for any good man to see his country brought into the estate of the old Goths and Vandals, who made laws against learning, and would not suffer any skilful man to come into their council-house: by means whereof those people became savage tyrants and merciless hell-hounds, till they restored learning again and thereby fell to civility.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]
He was in fact sixteen; born 15th June 1330.

[2]
Probably 'Mohun'.

[3]
The usual confusion between 'comté' and 'comte.' It means, 'of the county of Hainault there was sir Wulfart of Ghistelles,' etc.

[4]
Saint-Vaast-de la Hogue.

[5]
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte.

[6]
Froissart is mistaken in supposing that a division of the land army went to these towns. Barfleur and Cherbourg were visited only by the fleet. According to Michael of Northburgh, who accompanied the expedition, Edward disembarked 12th July and remained at Saint Vaast till the 18th, and meanwhile the fleet went to Barfleur and Cherbourg. The army arrived at Caen on the 26th.

[7]
Or rather, 'thus they found reasonably sufficient provisions.'

[8]
That is, they fled as soon as they heard their coming spoken of.

[9]
That is, he did not turn aside to go to it. Froissart says, 'He did not turn aside to the city of Coutances, but went on toward the great town of Saint-Lo in Cotentin, which at that time was very rich and of great merchandise and three times as great as the city of Coutances.' Michael of Northburgh says that Barfleur was about equal in importance to Sandwich and Carentan to Leicester, Saint-Lo greater than Lincoln, and Caen greater than any city in England except London.

[10]
This was 26th July. Edward arrived at Poissy on 12th August. Philip of Valois left Paris on the 14th, the English crossed the Seine at Poissy on the 16th, and the Somme at Blanche-taque on the 24th.

[11]
'Set themselves for safety in a gate at the entry of the bridge.'

[12]
Froissart says that they sent their booty in barges and boats 'on the river as far as Austrehem, a two leagues from thence, where their great navy lay.' He makes no mention of Saint-Sauveur here. The river in question is the Orne, at the mouth of which Austrehem is situated.

[13]
Bourg-la-Reine.

[14]
A better reading is 'twelve.'

[15]
Commonly called Saint-Lucien, but Saint Maximianus (Messien) is also associated with the place.

[16]
A mistranslation. The original is '(Il avoit) deffendu sus le hart que nuls ne fourfesist rien à le ville d'arsin ne d'autre cose,' 'he had commanded all on pain of hanging to do no hurt to the town by burning or otherwise.' The translator has taken 'arsin' for a proper name.

[17]
Pont-à-Remy, corrupted here into 'bridge of Athyne.'

[18]
That is, a house of the knights of Saint John.

[19]
She was in fact his daughter.

[20]
'Un petit palefroi.'

[21]
Villani, a very good authority on the subject, says 6000, brought from the ships at Harfleur.

[22]
A mistranslation of 'une esclistre,' 'a flash of lightning.'

[23]
These 'leaps' of the Genoese are invented by the translator, and have passed from him into several respectable English text-books, sometimes in company with the eclipse above mentioned. Froissart says 'Il commencièrent à juper moult epouvantablement'; that is, 'to utter cries.' Another text makes mention of the English cannons at this point: 'The English remained still and let off some cannons that they had, to frighten the Genoese.'

[24]
The translator's word 'relieve' (relyuue) represents 'relever,' for 'se relever.'

[25]
'Sus le nuit,' 'towards nightfall.'

[26]
The text has suffered by omissions. What Froissart says is that if the battle had begun in the morning, it might have gone better for the French, and then he instances the exploits of those who broke through the archers. The battle did not begin till four o'clock in the afternoon.

[27]
'Que il laissent à l'enfant gaegnier ses esperons.'

[28]
i.e. 'they repoined': Fr. 'se reprisent.'

[29]
'C'est la fortune de France': but the better MSS. have 'c'est li infortunés rois de France.'

[30]
Another text makes the loss of persons below the rank of knight 15,000 or 16,000, including the men of the towns. Both estimates must be greatly exaggerated. Michael of Northburgh says that 1542 were killed in the battle and about 2000 on the next day. The great princes killed were the king of Bohemia, the duke of Lorraine, the earls of Alençon, Flanders, Blois, Auxerre, Harcourt, Saint-Pol, Aumale, the grand prior of France and the archbishop of Rouen.

[31]
'En Touraine.'

[32]
Or rather, 'that the French king had gone in front of them (les avoit advancez) and that he could in no way depart without being fought with.'

[33]
That is, Jaques de Bourbon, earl of la Marche and Ponthieu.

[34]
'Verrons': but a better reading is 'ferons,' 'that will we do gladly.'

[35]
The translation of this passage is unsatisfactory. It should be: 'Howbeit they have ordered it wisely, and have taken post along the road, which is fortified strongly with hedges and thickets, and they have beset this hedge on one side (or according to another text, on one side and on the other) with their archers, so that one cannot enter nor ride along their road except by them, and that way must he go who purposes to fight with them. In this hedge there is but one entry and one issue, where by likelihood four men of arms, as on the road, might ride a-front. At the end of this hedge among vines and thorn-bushes, where no man can go nor ride, are their men of arms all afoot, and they have set in front of them their archers in manner of a harrow, whom it would not be easy to discomfit.

[36]
Arnaud de Cervolles, one of the most celebrated adventurers of the 14th century, called the archpriest because though a layman he possessed the ecclesiastical fief of Vélines.

[37]
Talleyrand de Périgord.

[38]
The meaning is, 'Ye have here all the flower of your realm against a handful of people, for so the Englishmen are as compared with your company.'

[39]
Amposta, a fortress in Catalonia.

[40]
The first setter-on and the best combatant.

[41]
That is, two hamedes gules on a field ermine.

[42]
They tied him on to a cart with their harness.

[43]
'Ne posient aler avant.'

[44]
'Which was great and thick in front (pardevant), but anon it became open and thin behind.'

[45]
The original adds, 'qui estoit de France au sentoir (sautoir) de gueulles.'

[46]
Le conte d'Aulnoy,' but it should be 'visconte.'

[47]
'Howbeit they that stayed acquitted them as well as they might, so that they were all slain or taken. Few escaped of those that set themselves with the king': or according to the fuller text: 'Few escaped of those that alighted down on the sand by the side of the king their lord.'

[48]
The translator has chosen to rearrange the above list of killed, wounded or taken, which the French text gives in order as they fought, saying that in one part there fell the duke of Bourbon, sir Guichard of Beaujeu and sir John on Landas, and there were severely wounded or taken the arch-priest, sir Thibaud of Vodenay and sir Baudouin, d'Annequin; in another there were slain the duke of Athens and the bishop of Chalons, and taken the earl of Vaudemont and Joinville and the earl of Vendome: a little above this there were slain sir William de Nesle, sir Eustace de Ribemont and others, and taken sir Louis de Melval, the lord of Pierrebuffière and the lord of Seregnach.

[49]
This 'and' should be 'by,' but the French text is responsible for the mistake.

[50]
'S'efforçoit de dire.'

[51]
'Lentement.'

[52]
'Environ heure de prime.'

[53]
'Rappel,' i.e. power of recalling the gift. The word 'repeal' is a correction of 'rebel.'

[54]
'Who was to give the king of France a supper of his own provisions; for the French had brought great abundance with them, and provisions had failed among the English,' etc.

[55]
The true text is, 'Mais ils n'avoient pas cette taille,' 'but they were not of that nature.' The translator found the corruption 'bataille' for 'taille.'

[56]
Froissart says 'le seigle, le retrait et la paille,' 'the rye, the bran and the straw.' The translator's French text had 'le seigle, le retraict de la paille.'

[57]
'Bien les trois pars.' i.e. 'three-fourths.'

[58]
'Les pastoureaulx.' The reference no doubt is to the Pastoureaux of 1320, who were destroyed at Aigues-Mortes when attempting to obtain a passage to the Holy Land.

[59]
'That they were for the king and the noble commons (or commonwealth) of England.'

[60]
Froissart calls him John: his name was really William.

[61]
[61] That is, the grand prior of the Hospital.

[62]
'Les quatre pars d'eux,' 'four-fifths of them.'

[63]
This is called afterwards 'l'Ospital de Saint Jehan du Temple,' and therefore would probably be the Temple, to which the Hospitallers had suceeded. They had, however, another house at Clerkenwell, which also had been once the property of the Templars.

[64]
The Queen's Wardrobe was in the 'Royal' (called by Froissart or his copyist 'la Réole'), a palace near Blackfriars.

[65]
Or rather, 'he found a place on the left hand to pass without London.'

[66]
The full text has, 'for