Note 80.1 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)
Reading edition
Rolls of Parl. v. 211-12.
80.2 The whole of this correspondence is attributed by Holinshed and Stow to the year 1452; but it appears to me clearly to belong to the year 1450, when the Duke had just returned from Ireland. See Chronicle of London, 136; though internal evidence alone will, I think, satisfy the careful student.
82.1 I have no doubt this is a misreading of the contracted form ‘yr’ which was intended for ‘their.’ To accuse York of the murder of the Bishop of Chichester, and apparently as a principal, not an accessory in that murder, when he was at the time in Ireland, would have been absurd. Besides, the tenor of the whole of this reply is to exculpate York of all charges.
82.2 Misprinted ‘Chester’ in Holinshed.
83.1 See No. 142.
83.2 Nicolas’s Proceedings of the Privy Council, iv. 212, v. 108.
84.1 Misprinted ‘your’ in Holinshed.
85.1 Nos. 142, 145, 148, and 149. The influence of a powerful nobleman on the elections was evidently quite a matter of course. What use York made of it, or attempted to make of it, cannot so easily be determined. Of the two candidates proposed by him for the county of Norfolk, only one was returned, the name of Sir Miles Stapleton being substituted for that of Sir William Chamberlain (see vol. ii. p. 185 note 1). It appears from two of the above cited letters that Stapleton was a favourite candidate with the Pastons and their friends, and that he was urged to wait on the Duke of York on his coming to Norwich.
85.2 See No. 119.
86.1 Nos. 151, 153, 154, 155, 156.
86.2 Stow’s Chronicle, p. 392.
87.1 See vol. ii. pp. 161-2.
87.2 Rymer, xi. 276.
87.3 Rolls of Parl. v. 210.
87.4 W. Worc.
88.1 MS. Cott. Vitell. A. xvi. Stow in his Chronicle dates this procession a day later.
88.2 W. Worc.
88.3 The Chronicle of London (p. 137) says that ‘all the Commons’ agreed to this proposition, and stood out for some time against the Lords on the subject.
88.4 Rolls of Parl. v. 210-14.
89.1 In earlier issues of this Introduction was added: ‘probably for no other reason than his high impartiality.’ Mr. Plummer, I find, who knows him better, has not the same opinion of Fortescue’s impartiality as a politician, but considers that he was in danger just because he was so strong a Lancastrian. See Introduction to The Governance of England, p. 50.
89.2 Nos. 167, 169-174.
90.1 Nos. 179 and 180.
91.1 Nos. 119, 185, 186, 192.
91.2 Nos. 189, 192.
91.3 No. 178.
92.1 No. 189.
93.1 No. 193.
93.2 Ibid.
93.3 Rolls of Parl. v. 217.
94.1 The modern see of Chester was separated from this diocese in the time of Henry VIII.
94.2 Rolls of Parl. v. 216.
94.3 No. 206. Daniel had been out of favour at one time during Suffolk’s ascendency. See No. 75, p. 86.
95.1 Basin, i. 247-48.
96.1 Reginald Butler or Boulers, whose appointment to the see, dated 23rd December 1450, was no doubt due to the Duke of York’s influence.
96.2 Stow’s Chronicle, p. 393.
98.1 Ellis’s Letters, First Series, i. 11-13.
98.2 English Chronicle (ed. Davies), 69.
98.3 Nicolas’s Privy Council Proceedings, vi. 116. According to Fabyan, the king and Somerset set out on the 16th of February. The summons to Lord Cobham, though dated Westminster, was issued on the 17th.
99.1 Cottonian Roll, ii. 23. See Appendix to this Introduction.
99.2 Rolls of Parl. v. 346. The statement in the Act of Attainder passed against the Duke of York seven years afterwards, that he was ‘of no power to withstand’ the king on this occasion, is liable to suspicion, but it is confirmed by the testimony of Whethamstede, 348.
99.3 ‘The Lords, both spiritual and temporal, took the matter in hand.’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (Camden Soc.), 69. So also Chronicle of London, 137.
100.1 Fabyan.
100.2 Fabyan. Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, 69, and the MS. Chronicle, Vitell. A. xvi.
102.1 These words are not in the copy in the Rolls of Parliament, but they occur in that given in Holinshed’s Chronicle.
102.2 Rolls of Parl. v. 346.
102.3 The character given of the Duke of Somerset by the contemporary historian Basin is on the whole favourable, and may be supposed to be impartial. He describes him as handsome in person, gentle and urbane in manner, and well inclined towards justice; but all these graces were marred by an insatiable avarice which would not let him rest content with the immense wealth he had inherited from Cardinal Beaufort; and by continually coveting the riches of others he brought ruin on himself. Basin, i. 193.
103.1 Printed in this Introduction for the first time from the original in the Cottonian MS., Vesp. C. xiv. f. 40. The first paragraph of this document is quoted by Stowe in his Chronicle, p. 397, and the charges are referred by him to the thirty-third year of the king’s reign, i.e. the latter part of A.D. 1454, which is certainly erroneous. The date which he intended, indeed, was the latter part of the year 1453, when the Duke of Somerset was arrested and sent to the Tower; but this date also is quite impossible.
106.1 MS. mutilated.
106.2 A line seems here to be cut off in the MS. at the bottom of the leaf.
107.1 Charles, afterwards Charles the Bold, son of Philip the Good, who was at this time Duke of Burgundy.
108.1 Letter 121.
109.1 Capgrave de Illust. Henricis, 135.
109.2 The Henry Grace Dieu of Henry VIII.’s time is, however, better known by its popular epithet of the Great Harry.
110.1 The Earl of Shrewsbury, as already mentioned, had been given up to the French in 1449 as a hostage for the delivery of certain towns in Normandy. It is said that he only recovered his liberty on taking oath never to bear arms again against the French, but that on visiting Rome in the year of Jubilee, 1450, he obtained an absolution from this engagement.—Æneæ Sylvii Opera, 441.