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CHAP. St. Denis, but her obsequies were not celebrated with the pomp usually observed in France at the interment of a crowned head. The Duke of Burgundy upon being made acquainted with her decease honoured her memory by a grand and solemn mass, which at his command was performed by the bishop, at the church of St. Waast, at Arras, at which he attended in person, dressed in deep mourning, and supported by the Count d'Estampes, the Count.de Vendome, the heir of the Duke of Cleves, and many other ecclesiastical and secular lords, also in funereal robes.*

• Monstrelet.

CHAPTER IV.

Ill Effects of Henry's Education-Errors of his Government—Injudicious Gifts to his Favourites-Anger of the Duke of BuckinghamCharacter of the Duke of Warwick-Henry's pecuniary Embarrassments-Description of the Jewels pledged to Cardinal BeaufortSuffolk and the Queen usurp all the Patronage—Henry's Love of the Chace-Neglect of the Tilt by the Warriors of his Time—Henry's Place amid the royal Authors—his Love of Literature-Gloucester's Patronage of Letters-his Collection of Books-Lydgate's Poetry— Versatility of his Talents—his Gallantry to the Fair Sex-his Travels -multiplicity of his Compositions-Other Poets of the Time--MSS. collected by the Duke of Bedford-Decay of Learning—Queen's College, Cambridge, founded by Margaret—and completed by Elizabeth Wydeville-The Ordeal of Battle-Appeals of Treason-Massacre of the Bishop of Salisbury—and of the Bishop of Gloucester -Riot upon St. Bartholomew's Day-Gallantry of the Lord Mayor -Brawl in Holborn-Hall's Account of an Affray between an English Merchant and an Italian-Female Deputation to ParliamentMurder perpetrated by Women in Whitechapel-Wrongs sustained by wealthy Heiresses-Laws of Chivalry-Religious PersecutionCrimes of the Priesthood-Errors of the Church-Humble Station of the Reformers-Execution of six Martyrs-Conduct of the Lollards at St. Albans-Imprisonment of Reginald PeacockeSupport afforded to the Church by the House of York-Embassy from the Pope-Portents preceding the Civil Wars.

THE abject state of tutelage in which Henry VI. was detained by an overbearing council, formed a subject of animadversion at the neighbouring courts. Upon the king's marriage with Margaret of Anjou,

IV.

IV.

the father of the bride advised his daughter to take her husband out of the hands of his too officious guardians: but though Margaret acted promptly and vigorously upon this suggestion, the time had elapsed in which the king might have profited by his release from the iron sway which had entered into his soul. Henry's spirit was broken, his ardour checked, and his intellects, not cultivated nor permitted to expand, were wasted upon trivial occupations and pursuits which were either absurd or injudicious; yet during his long and most inglorious reign, there were moments of strong excitement : when roused to exertion the brighter genius of his ancestors displayed itself, and shewed that beneath a sterile soil were implanted seeds of great promise, which only required the fostering hand of care to have put out branches and buds which would have ripened into flowers and fruit. Long accustomed to passive obedience, Henry at his marriage only quitted slavery under his ministers for a state of subjection as servile to a more dangerous guide-an imperious woman, whose spirit far outstripped her discretion, and who linked her husband to ruin with a more indissoluble chain than that which previously bound him, since he might have been rescued by the nation from the evil councillors who thronged his cabinet, but could have no chance of escape, except by death, from the rash adviser who was for ever at his side.

With his own virtuous inclinations, Henry's government would have been mild and fortunate, had his ministers possessed more wisdom and more honesty; but from the waste and mismanagement of

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the revenue, the oppressive weight of the taxes, and CHAP. the shameless rapacity of those appointed to levy these odious burthens, very direful consequences arose, and even Henry's most rational and beneficial employments became burthensome to the nation. The beautiful structure at Cambridge, King's College Chapel, a monument of the monarch's taste for the quietude of learned repose, his love of science, and his paternal regard for the best interests of posterity, was undertaken without the slightest calculation of the expense, at a period in which nothing, save a system founded upon the most rigid economy, could have placed the pecuniary affairs of the government in a flourishing condition.

Henry's personal attachments to those around him were very strong, but almost every indication of the goodness of his heart was linked with some weakness, more the offspring of misdirected feelings than of natural imbecility; his kindest and most affectionate gifts to his friends were often in his zeal to enhance their value productive of mortification or insult to others. Not content with raising his favourites to the peerage, he frequently gave them precedence above the ancient nobles of his court:* to his half brothers Jasper Earl of Pembroke, and Edmund Earl of Richmond, he granted the invidious right of sitting in parliament next to the dukes. Besides the successive dignities of marquis and of duke conferred upon Suffolk, he gave to him and his heirs male, the privilege of bearing a wand of gold surmounted by a dove, at the coronation of the king, and an ivory wand of similar form at the

Dugdale.

IV.

CHAP. coronation of the Queen of England, whenever it might take place, a distinction which was beheld by the representatives of older families with an envious eye.

The injudicious honour conferred upon Henry Earl of Warwick, the son of the king's late governor, the chivalric Richard Beauchamp, has been already mentioned as the source of jealousy and dispute upon the part of the Duke of Buckingham, who was entitled by his ducal rank and his descent from a line ennobled during many preceding generations, to the highest seat in parliament next to the princes of the blood. Henry had already placed his favourite at the head of the earls, without giving any consideration to their superior claims; and he farther distinguished him from his equals in the peerage, by permitting him to wear a coronet of gold upon his head, "as well in the royal presence as elsewhere." When advanced with similar privileges to the rank of a duke, Henry in the open indignation of Buckingham, perceived his error, and was obliged to qualify his rash grant by conditions which produced submission without satisfying either party. The king endeavoured to make the new duke amends for the partial disappointment of his ambition, by lavish gifts of lands and dignities; he bestowed upon him the grant of Jersey, Guernsey, and their dependencies, upon the payment of the yearly rent of a rose, to be presented at the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist, and consoled himself for the loss of the regal diadem of France, and all its valuable fiefs, by giving away a sovreignty to this highly favoured nobleman, who with his own hands he crowned King of the Isle of