RICHARD THE SECOND

[SEEMS to claim insertion among the kingly authors for having "made ballads and songs, rondeaus and poems." This information is derived from a most curious and splendidly illuminated manuscript, in Bibl. Harl. 1319, of which great use was made by Mr. Strutt in his Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities. The manuscript is thus described, "Histoire du Roy d'Angleterre Richard: traictant particulierement la Rebellion de ses Subjectz et Prinse de sa Personne, &c.. Composée par un Gentilhomme François de marque, qui fut à la Suite du dict Roy, avec permission du Roy de France," 1399. It contains the history of the latter part of the reign of Richard the second, and closes with the delivering up of Isabel, the young queen of England, to the commissioners of her father, Charles the sixth of France. In sect. vi. fol.17., after describing, with high eulogium, the amiable qualities and polite accomplishments of this unfortunate monarch 4, the writer proceeds to inform us,

Another slight intimation that our second Richard was a versifier, occurs in archbishop Usher's letters, where sir Robert Cotton requests his grace to procure for him a poem by Richard the second, which that prelate had pointed out.

› Reg. and Eccl. Antiq. vol. i. p. 63.

4 A short poem in Harl. MS. 2251., ascribed to Lydgate, has the following descriptive representation of Richard the second:

"Et si faisoit balades & chançons,

Rondeaulx & laiz,

Tres bien & bel: si n'estoit il que homs lais."

It will be matter of regret to the poetic antiquary, that none of these lays have descended to us.

In the "Ladies' Dictionary," compiled by N. H. 1694, we meet with intelligence which, if chronology permitted us to credit, would be highly interesting.

66

Henry the fifth," it is said, "whilst prince of Wales, admiring the courage and conduct of a famous virago, named Elphletda, (sister to Edward, a Saxon king, and wife to Etheldred, duke of Mercia,) is reported to have made certain Latin verses in commendation of her." Lord Orford seems disposed to think that these verses might have been a collegiate exercise."]

Se how Richard, of Albyoun the kyng,

Whiche in his tyme riche and glorious was,

Sacred with abyte, with corowne, and with ryng; *
Yet felle his fortune so, and eke his cas,
That ivil counsaile rewlyd hym so, elas !
For mystretyng lordis of his monarchie,

He fayne was to resigne, and in prisoun dye.

Ferrers has a poem in the Mirror for Magistrates, which recounts "How king Richard the second was for his evill governance deposed, in the yeare 1399, and murdered in prison the yeare following." The authors who lived nearest to his own time, says Granger, inform us that he was starved to death. Fabian, Walsingham, and Hector Boethius, it may be observed, give a different termination to his existence.

5 See Works, vol. i. p. 255.