Note 60 — Front matter (continued 4)

The following extract from Dr. Henry's Hist. of England, vol. v. pp. 536, 537, 4to. edit. will place the event of this tournament in a different light.

'The most magnificent of these tournaments was that performed by the bastard of Burgundy and Anthony lord Scales, brother to the queen of England, in Smithfield, A.D. 1467. The king and queen of England spared no expense to do honour to so near a relation,—and Philip duke of Burgundy, the most magnificent prince of that age, was no less profuse in equipping his favourite son. Several months were spent in adjusting the preliminaries of this famous combat, and in performing all the pompous ceremonies prescribed by the laws of chivalry.

'Edward IV. granted a safe conduct, October 29, A.D. 1466, to the bastard of Burgundy earl of La Roche, with a thousand persons in his company, to come into England to perform certain feats of arms with his dearly beloved brother Anthony Widville, lord Scales and Newsels; but so many punctilios were to be settled, by the intervention of heralds, that the tournament did not take place until June 11, A.D. 1467.

'Strong lists having been erected in Smithfield, 120 yards and 10 feet long, 80 yards and 10 feet broad, with fair and costly galleries all around for the accommodation of the king and queen, attended by the lords and ladies of the court, and a prodigious number of lords, knights, and ladies, of England, France, Scotland, and other countries, in their richest dresses.

'The two champions entered the lists, and were conducted to their pavilions. There they underwent the usual searches, and answered the usual questions, and then advanced into the middle of the lists. The first day they ran together with sharp spears, and departed with equal honour. The next day, they tourneyed on horseback. The lord Scales' horse had on his chaffron a long sharp pike of steel,—and as the two champions coped together, the said horse thrust his pike into the nostrils of the bastard's horse, so that, for very pain, he mounted so high that he fell on the one side with his master; and the lord Scales rode about him, with his sword drawn in his hand, till the king commanded the marshal to help up the bastard, who openly said, 'I cannot hold me by the clouds; for though my horse fail me, I will not fail my encounter, companion:' but the king would not suffer them to do any more that day. The next morrow, the two noblemen came into the field on foot, with two pole-axes, and fought valiantly; but, at the last, the point of the pole-axe of the lord Scales happened to enter into the sight of the bastard's helm, and, by fine force, might have plucked him on his knees; but the king suddenly cast down his warder, and then the marshal severed them. The bastard, not content with this chance, required the king, of justice, that he might perform his enterprise. The lord Scales refused not. But the king calling to him the constable and the marshal, with the officer of arms, after consultation had, it was declared, for a sentence definitive, by the duke of Clarence, then constable of England,' (John Tiptoft earl of Worcester was the constable, and not the duke of Clarence: see Rymer) 'and the duke of Norfolk marshal, that if he would go forward with his attempted challenge, he must, by the law of arms, be delivered to his adversary in the same state, and like condition, as he stood when he was taken from him.

'The bastard, hearing this judgment, doubted the sequel of the matter, and so relinquished his challenge.'

See Stowe, &c.