our national annals, and remarkable both for the sort of information it gives us, and for the political views entertained by its author. Gloucester At the moment when this poem was published, the personal dissensions were showing themselves at the English court, which afterwards took a more definite form, and inundated the kingdom with blood. The quarrel between the duke of Gloucester and cardinal Beaufort had compelled the duke of Bedford to quit his government in France at a very critical moment, in order to return to England to pacify their feuds. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the fourth son of Humphrey Henry IV., and now, since the death of the duke of duke of Bedford, heir-apparent to the crown, was a great favourite of the people, and was called popularly the good duke Humphrey.” He had been appointed, under the regency of the duke of Bedford, protector of England during the king's minority. He had greatly embarrassed our foreign relations by an impolitic marriage with Jacqueline, countess of Holland, who was already married to the duke of Brabant, but, when the countess's second marriage was declared void by the pope, duke Humphrey married a lady who had already lived with him as his mistress, Eleanor, daughter of Reginald lord Cobham, to whom he appears to have been much attached. The timely relief of Calais in 1436, and the subsequent invasion of the territory of the duke of Burgundy, had increased the tr good duke's" popularity, to the great disappointment of the party opposed to him, who looked forward eagerly to an opportunity of revenging themselves. Their vengeance was first wreaked upon his duchess, Eleanor, his marriage with whom had been a cause of considerable scandal. Duke Humphrey was a patron of literature, and especially of science; he was the founder of what was afterwards the Bodleian Library; and he maintained an intimate intercourse to bewitch with learned men. Among those whom he thus patronised was a clerk or ecclesiastic named Roger Bolingbroke, a man very learned in astronomy, or, as it was then called, astrology, and other sciences, who was permanently established in the duke's household as his chaplain. The ill-feeling between Gloucester and cardinal Beaufort had never really ceased, and it broke out with violence in 1440, in a quarrel relating to the delivery of the duke of Orleans from his long imprisonment, in which Humphrey was obliged to yield. Pretended Soon after this an accusation was brought against conspiracy his duchess of having employed witchcraft to compass the king. the young king's death, and she and Roger Bolingbroke were placed under arrest. Three other persons were thrown into prison at the same time, as accomplices in the conspiracy, a priest and canon of Westminster, another priest, named John Hum, and a person named Margery Jourdain, better known as the witch of Eye. The duchess was examined before a council of the English prelates, in St. Stephen's chapel in Westminster, on the charge of having had an image in wax made by these necromancers, as they were all judged to be, by which the king's death was to be effected. Dame Eleanor was an ambitious woman, and she, perhaps, superstitiously consulted some of these supposed magicians, to know how long the king would live, and whether she were destined to become queen of England; but the evidence against her seems to have been of a very unsubstantial character. Yet both she and her reputed accomplices were found guilty; and, while most of them were publicly executed, the duchess of Gloucester was condemned to a humiliating penance, and to imprisonment for life in the Isle of Man. The duchess Eleanor does not appear to have shared the popularity of her husband, yet her misfortunes can hardly have failed to excite some degree of public sympathy. The only monument of it with OF THE which we are acquainted is the ballad printed in the LAMENT present volume, which, though preserved in a manu- DUCHESS script perhaps written nearly half a century later, has oF GLOUall the appearance of a contemporary composition. CESTER. The duchess is introduced lamenting over her fall, and ascribing it to her pride and vain-glory. She regrets her high estate, and the reverence she had once commanded, tells how she was carried before the council at Westminster, where the king himself was present to hear her case; and, though according to the law she had incurred sentence of death, and " some men sought to "have it executed," he took pity on her, and prevented it. She was then examined before the two cardinals (Beaufort and Kempe), five bishops, and others of the spirituality, who, on her confession, enjoined her penance, in accordance with which she went barefoot through the principal streets of London. She takes her leave sorrowfully of London, of Greenwich (where the duke had a noble palace), and of other fair places " on Thames' side;" and of all her worldly wealthher robes of damask and cloths of gold, and other rich dresses, her minstrels and music, and "all joy " and lustiness.” The duke of Gloucester is said to have borne this injury with patience, but his enemies were not pacified, and there were other persecutions in store for him. peace. There had been frequent rumours of negotiations Negotiafor peace, and some vain attempts had been made to tions for treat, for all became wearied by these long and costly wars, but the peace party was not altogether the popular one. The people, however they complained of the burdens of the war, felt too much the humiliation of the recent reverses to give up the hope of recovering the brilliant conquests of Henry V.; while the men who now directed the measures of the court, conscious of inability, and perhaps of neglect, dreaded the continuation of disasters, the effect of which was VOL. II. ON THE OF PEACE. ON THE 1444. to make them every day personally more unpopular. Two poems by Lydgate, here printed, seem to have PROSPECT been intended to promote the feeling in favour of peace thus desired by the ministers. The first consists chiefly of a general eulogy of peace, and concludes in wishing for a speedy peace between England and France. The second is equally indefinite in its language, though it contains more general allusions to the condition of the country; it appears to have been written at the time of the truce with France in 1444, and it contains something like an intimation of distrust at the treaty then in agitation. The year following saw the conclusion of this treaty, and the marriage of the young king with Margaret of Anjou, whose favouritism and spirit of political intrigue hastened the crisis which the disputes and jealousies of the feudal aristocracy of England were already preparing. One of its first results was the death of the duke of Gloucester, while attending the parliament at Bury St. Edmund's, in 1446, under circumstances which justify a strong suspicion that he was murdered, and the popular party did not hesitate in laying the crime to the charge of the queen and her favourite Suffolk, Gloucester's old rival and opponent, cardinal Beaufort, followed him to the grave in 1447. The great chiefs who had continued to labour with some success in keeping together the remains of the English power in France were now nearly all dead or unemployed, and disasters followed one another in rapid succession in that country, and increased the exasperation of the popular party at home. Normandy was invaded, and Rouen, Caen, and the other places held by English garrisons in that duchy, fell into the hands of the French. Amid the agitation caused in England by these events, songs and poetry, as a means of promoting the general discontent and spreading the spirit of resistance to the government which was then beginning to manifest itself, were used more largely, and assumed a bolder character. A few of these have been accidentally preserved, and afford extremely interesting illustrations of the history of the turbulent reign of Henry VI., though they are full of minute allusions which it would require very extensive research, and would, perhaps, now be hardly possible, to explain. There is, among the charters in the Cottonian Library in the British Museum, a roll of vellum, marked ii. 23, which has belonged to a partizan of the popular cause at the time of the proceedings against the duke of Suffolk and Cade's rebellion, that is, in the years 1450 and 1451. This individual, whoever he was, has copied into his roll a great variety of political matter, such as a copy of the articles against the duke of Suffolk, the written demands of the commons of Kent assembled under Jack Cade, lists of persons involved in some of the events of the time, the duke of York's declaration to the king, one or two rather long metrical prophecies, and interspersed with the others a few political songs, which are printed in the present volume. The earliest ON THE of these, which may be as old as the year 1449, POPULAR is a sort of lament over the state of our foreign affairs. TENT AT The writer tells with regret how the old warriors who THE DISAShad established our continental power were dead, and FRANCE. how the work they had raised was falling to pieces; how the king was led by courtiers who cared not for the interests of their country; and how the duke of York, who was now becoming the popular hero, had been obliged to retire into Ireland to consult his own safety. In these political troubles it was customary to speak of the leaders by their signs or badges, which were as well known as their names or titles, and which had the advantage of being more comprehensive, as they were worn by their followers, who were thus recognized at a glance. The song of DISCON TERS IN |