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high constable and marshal, to enterprise or attempt to approach, or touch any part of the lists upon pain of death, except such as were appointed to order or marshal the field. The proclamation ended, another herald cried: 'Behold here Henry of Lancaster Duke of Hereford appellant, which is entered into the lists royal to do his devoir against Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk defendant, upon pain to be found false and recreant.'

"The Duke of Norfolk hovered on horseback at the entrance of the lists, his horse being barded with crimson velvet, embroidered richly with lions of silver and mulberry trees; and when he had made his oath before the constable and marshal that his quarrel was just and true, he entered the field manfully, saying aloud: 'God aid him that hath the right,' and then he departed from his horse, and sate him down in his chair, which was of crimson velvet, curtained about with white and red damask. The lord marshal viewed their spears, to see that they were of equal length, and delivered the one spear himself to the Duke of Hereford, and sent the other unto the Duke of Norfolk by a knight. Then the herald proclaimed that the traverses and chairs of the champions should be removed, commanding them on the king's behalf to mount on horseback, and address themselves to the battle and combat.

and closed his beaver, and cast his spear into
the rest, and when the trumpet sounded, set
forward courageously towards his enemy, six or
seven paces.
fully set forward, when the king cast down his
warder, and the heralds cried, 'Ho, ho!' Then
the king caused their spears to be taken from
them, and commanded them to repair again to
their chairs, where they remained two long
hours, while the king and his council deliber-
ately consulted what order was best to be had
in so weighty a cause."

The Duke of Norfolk was not

The sentence of Richard upon Bolingbroke and Norfolk was, in effect, the same as Shakspere has described it; but the remission of a portion of the term of Bolingbroke's banishment did not take place at the lists of Coventry. Froissart says that when Bolingbroke's day of departure approached, he came to Eltham, to the king, who thus addressed him ::-"As God help me, it right greatly displeaseth me the words that hath been between you and the earl marshal; but the sentence that I have given is for the best, and for to appease thereby the people, who greatly murmured on this matter; wherefore, cousin, yet to ease you somewhat of your pain, I release my judgment from ten year to six year. Cousin, take this aworth, and ordain you thereafter." The earl answered and said; "Sir, I thank your grace, and when it

"The Duke of Hereford was quickly horsed, shall please you, ye shall do me more grace.”

ACT II.

14 SCENE I." His livery." MALONE gives the following explanation of this passage:-"On the death of every person who held by knight's service, the escheator of the court in which he died summoned a jury, who inquired what estate he died seised of, and of what age his next heir was. If he was under age, he became a ward of the king's; but if he was found to be of full age, he then had a right to sue out a writ of ouster le main,-that is, his livery, that the king's hand might be taken off, and the land delivered to him." Bolingbroke had appointed attorneys to execute this office for him, if his father should die during the period of his banishment.

15 SCENE I." That late broke from the Duke of Exeter."

Thomas, the son of the Earl of Arundel, was in the custody of the Duke of Exeter, and escaped from his house-broke from him. The description could not apply to "Reignold, Lord Cobham ;"-and, therefore, Malone has introduced a line, which he supposes, or something like it, to have been accidentally omitted:

"The son of Richard, Earl of Arundel,
That late broke from the Duke of Exeter."

16 SCENE II." Like perspectives." These perspectives were produced by cutting a board, so that it should present a number of

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John of Gaunt, who, in the first line of this broke, who was born in 1366, must have been a play, is called,

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster," was the fourth son of Edward III., by his Queen Philippa. He was called of Gant or Ghent, from the place of his birth :--was born in 1340, and died in 1399. The circumstance of the king naming him as Old John of Gaunt, has many examples in the age of Shakspere. Spenser calls the Earl of Leicester an old man, though he was then not fifty; Lord Huntington represents Coligny as very old, though he died at fifty-three. There can be little doubt, we apprehend, that the average duration of human life has been much increased during the last two centuries; and, at that period, marriages were much earlier, so that it was not uncommon for a man to be at the head of a family before he was twenty. When John of Gaunt was fiftyeight (in the year of Bolingbroke's appeal against Mowbray), Henry of Monmouth, his grandson, was eleven years old; so that Boling

father at twenty-one. Froissart thus speaks of the death of John of Gaunt:-"So it fell, that, about the feast of Christmas, Duke John of Lancaster, who lived in great displeasure, what because the King had banished his son out of the realm for so little a cause, and also because of the evil governing of the realm by his nephew, King Richard; (for he saw well, if he long persevered, and were suffered to continue, the realm was likely to be utterly lost)—with these imaginations and other, the duke fell sick, whereon he died; whose death was greatly sorrowed of all his friends and lovers."

Shakspere found no authority in the 'Chronicles' for the fine death-scene of John of Gaunt: but the principal circumstance for which he reproaches the king-that England "is now leas'd out"-is distinctly supported. Fabian says, "In this 22nd year of King Richard, the common fame ran, that the king had letten to farm the realm unto Sir William Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, and then treasurer of England, to

Sir John Bushey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir | changed upon us from good to evil, ever since Henry Green, Knights." The subsequent reproach of the confederated lords, that

"Daily new exactions are devis'd;

As blanks, benevolences,"

is also fully supported. The "blanks" were most ingenious instruments of pillage, principally devised for the oppression of substantial and wealthy citizens. For these blanks they of London "were fain to seal, to their great charge, as in the end appeared. And the like charters were sent abroad into all shires within the realm, whereby great grudge and murmuring arose amongst the people; for when they were so sealed, the king's officers wrote in the same what liked them, as well for charging the parties with payment of money, as otherwise."

We

the death of good King Edward the Third, in whose days justice was well kept and ministered: in his days there was no man so hardy in England to take a hen or a chicken, or a sheep, without he had paid truly for it; and now-adays, all that we have is taken from us, and yet we dare not speak; these things cannot long endure, but that England is likely to be lost without recovery: we have a king now that will do nothing; he entendeth but to idleness, and to accomplish his pleasure, and by that he sheweth he careth not how every thing goeth, so he may have his will. It were time to provide for remedy, or else our enemies will rejoice and mock us." There is a remarkable corroboration of the state of cruel oppression in which the common people lived, furnished by a copy of the stipulations made by the Duke of Surrey, in 1398, on taking upon him the government of Ireland :-"Item, That he, the lieutenant, may have, at sundry times, out of every parish, or every two parishes, in England, a man and his wife, at the cost of the king, in the land of Ireland, to inhabit the same land where it is wasted upon the marshes." (Cotton MS.) This compulsory colonization must have been most odious to the people, who knew that the "wild men" of Ireland, amongst whom they were to be placed, kept the government in constant

terror.

The general condition of the country, while the commons were "pill'd," and the nobles "fin'd," by Richard and his creatures, was, according to Froissart, most lamentable. copy the passage, as it is highly characteristic of the manners of the times. The period thus described is that immediately before the departure of Richard for Ireland :-"The state generally of all men in England began to murmur and to rise one against another, and ministering of justice was clean stopped up in all courts of England; whereof the valiant men and prelates, who loved rest and peace, and were glad to pay their duties, were greatly abashed: for there rose in the realm companies in divers routs, keeping the fields and highways, so that merchants durst not ride abroad to exercise their merchandise for doubt of robbing: and no man knew to whom to complain to do them right, reason, and justice, which things were right prejudicial and displeasant to the good people of England, for it was contrary to their accustomable usage; for all people, labourers and merchants in England, were wont to live in rest and peace, and to occupy their merchandise peaceably, and the labourers to labour their lands quietly; and then it was contrary, for when merchants rode from town to town with their merchandise, and had either gold or silver in their purses, it was taken from them; and from other men and labourers out of their houses these companions would take wheat, oats, beefs, muttons, porks, and the poor men durst speak no word. These evil deeds daily multiplied so, that great complaints and lamentations were made thereof throughout the realm, and the good people said, the time is is also detailed in the 'Chronicles.'

The seizure of Bolingbroke's patrimony by Richard, after the death of Gaunt, is thus described by Holinshed; and Shakspere has most accurately followed the description as to its facts:-"The death of this duke gave occasion of encreasing more hatred in the people of this realm toward the king, for he seized into his hands all the goods that belonged to him, and also received all the rents and revenues of his lands, which ought to have descended unto the Duke of Hereford, by lawful inheritance, in revoking his letters patent, which he had granted to him before, by virtue whereof he might make his attornies general to sue livery for him, of any manner of inheritances or possessions that might from thenceforth fall unto him, and that his homage might be respited with making reasonable fine: whereby it was evident that the king meant his utter undoing." The private malice of Richard against his banished cousin"The prevention of poor Bolingbroke, About his marriage"

Fired with revenge by these aggressions, and encouraged by letters from the leading men of England-nobility, prelates, magistrates, and rulers, as Holinshed describes them-promising him all their aid, power, and assistance, in "expulsing" King Richard-Bolingbroke took the step which involved this land in blood for nearly a century. He quitted Paris, and sailed from Port Blanc, in Lower Brittany, with very few men-at-arms, according to some accounts-with three thousand, according to others. This event took place about a fortnight after Richard had sailed for Ireland. His last remaining uncle, the Duke of York, had been left in the government of the kingdom. He was, however, unfitted for a post of so much difficulty and danger; and Shakspere has well described his perplexities, upon hearing of the landing of Bolingbroke :

"if I know

How, or which way to order these affairs,
Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
Never believe me."

He had been little accustomed to affairs of state. Hardyng, in his 'Chronicle,' thus describes him at an early period of his life :

"Edmonde hyght of Langley of good chere,

Glad and mery and of his own ay lyved Without wrong as chronicles have breved. When all the lordes to councell and parlyament Went, he wolde to hunt, and also to hawekyng. All gentyll disporte as to a lorde appent, He used aye, and to the pore supportyng." Froissart describes him as living at his own castle with his people, interfering not with what was passing in the country, but taking all things as they happened. According to Holinshed, the army that he raised to oppose Bolingbroke, "boldly protested that they would not fight against the Duke of Lancaster, whom they knew to be evil dealt with." It seems to be agreed, on all hands, that Froissart, who makes Bolingbroke land at Plymouth, and march direct to London, was incorrectly informed. Holinshed, upon the authority of "our English writers," says, "the Duke of Lancaster, after that he had coasted alongst the shore a certain time, and had got some intelligence how the people's minds were affected towards him, landed, about the beginning of July, in Yorkshire, at a place sometimes called Ravenspur, betwixt Hull and Bridlington, and with him not past threescore persons, as some write: but he was so joyfully received of the lords, knights, and gentlemen of those parts, that he found

means (by their help) forthwith to assemble a great number of people, that were willing to take his part." The subsequent events, previous to the return of Richard, are most correctly delineated by our poet. Bolingbroke was joined by Northumberland and Harry Percy, by Ross and Willoughby. "He sware unto those lords that he would demand no more but the lands that were to him descended by inheritance from his father, and in right of his wife." From Doncaster, with a mighty army, Bolingbroke marched through the counties of Derby or Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, and Worcester;"through the countries coming by Evesham unto Berkley." The Duke of York had marched towards Wales to meet the king, upon his expected arrival from Ireland. Holinshed says, he "was received into the Castle of Berkley, and there remained till the coming thither of the Duke of Lancaster, whom when he perceived that he was not able to resist, on the Sunday after the feast of St. James, which, as that year came about fell upon a Friday, he came forth into the church that stood without the castle, and there communed with the Duke of Lancaster . . . . . On the morrow after, the foresaid dukes with their power went towards Bristow, where (at their coming) they shewed themselves before the town and castle, being

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