O me forgeve, And let me lyve To y be shreve, A day or thre Ye kan not lyve : How hitt doth cleve Myne hert thus greve, It is remarkable that lord Orford makes no mention of the two manuscripts in our Museum, which contain so many metrical efforts by the duke of Orleans, and should only have heard of those preserved in the royal library at Paris.] 6 One of these" complayntis or baladis," as the MS. designates them, is addressed to Cupid, and thus records its season of composition: "the date yow to remembre As on the thrittenthe day of Novembre, Bi the trewe Charlis Duk of Orlyaunce, That sumtyme was oon of your pore servaunce." NOBLE AUTHORS OF ENGLAND. HENRY, FIRST DUKE OF [ILLUSTRIOUS for family honours and distinctions, hereditary and acquired, the son of Henry Plantagenet, earl of Leicester, Derby, and Lincoln2, appears to have written a pious treatise, entitled, "Livre de seintes Medicines:" extant in the library of C. C. C. Cam. num. ccxviii.3 This Henry, says Mr. Nichols, surnamed Grismond from the place of his birth, being Grismond castle in Monmouthshire, was the only son of Henry earl of Lancaster, the second son of king Henry III. He was created earl of Derby in his father's life, xi Edw. III., earl of Lincoln, xxiii Edw. III., and duke of Lancaster, xxv Edw. III., and married Isabel, daughter of Henry lord Beaumont, by whom he had issue two daughters, of whom Blanche, the younger, 2 Bolton's Extinct Peerage, p. 167. being married to John of Gaunt, brought him the estate and title of Lancaster. He signalized himself as a soldier and statesman, says Granger, and acquitted himself with reputation in several treaties and embassies. 5 This duke has been generally considered as the founder of Corpus Christi or Benet College, Cambridge: but Mr. Wilson informs us, that college owed its origin, in the year 1350, to a union between two guilds or religious societies in the town of Cambridge, called Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary; which, in order to obtain a license from king Edward the third, to convert their houses into a college, claimed and obtained the protection and munificent liberality of Henry, first duke of Lancaster. This duke, he adds, accompanied Edward the third, to whom he was a kind of guardian, in all his expeditions; and acquitted himself with the highest reputation. His retinue was more splendid than that of any nobleman of his period, never having less than eight hundred men at arms, and two thousand archers. His daily expenditure is calculated at one hundred pounds, an immense sum at that time; and he spent seventeen thousand pounds sterling in the French wars, beside his pay. He was advanced by the king's special charter, and by the general consent of all the prelates and peers then sitting in parliament, to the dukedom of Lancaster, for his prudent conduct Biog. Hist. vol. i. p 35. • Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ, p. 37. |