CAPGRAPE'S BOOK OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HENRIES. * Ecor,v in 1857, Sir

John Romilly, Master of the Rolls, submitted to the Treasury a proposition for the publication, under competent editors, of documents illustrative of English history, from the time of the invasion of the Romans to the reign of Henry VIII. His proposal met with acceptance, and has been already in part carried out. The volume before us is one of several which have appeared in pursuance of it. Heads of departments seem to be becoming more and more alive to their responsibility as trustees of the manuscript treasures which are deposited in our public offices. The liberal regulations by which Lord Malmesbury and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton have thrown open the archives of the Foreign and Colonial Offices to the historical student is, perhaps, the most recent illustration of this tendency. The service thus rendered to literature, scholars of all nations will be able to appreciate. And if it is important to the wise conduct of a state that its past history should be thoroughly known, the matter is one which will not be indifferent to the politician and the patriot. To many of our readers the name of John Capgrave we dare say, will be strange, though one of his works "The Chronicle of England," has already been brought out with the advantages of the same accomplished editorship as that which introduces "The Book of the Illustrious Henries" to the public. Of his life little is known, and that little is gathered from his own works. His history, if our information about it were of the fullest kind, would probably present few materials for biography. Like that of most monkish recluses of the better order it would probably be comprised in a list of the books he read and the books he wrote. He was born at Lynn on the 21st of April 1393, lived at Lynn, in the convent of Augustin Friars there, the greater part of his life, and died at Lynn, on the 12th of August, 1464, being then seventy years of age. He seems to have studied both at Oxford and at Cambridge, to have visited Rome, and to have become, in 1445, Provincial of his order. A part of the information conveyed above in homely prose he has given us in verse quoted by Mr. Ifingeston, which., as we shall have no other opportunity of re- ferring to his poetry, we insert as a sample of it, here :

"If ye wil vete what that I am,

Myn cuntre is Northfolk, of the tonne of Lynne : Clete of the world, to my profite, I cam, Onto the brotherhode wiche I am bane.

God gave me grace nevere for to blynne To followe the steppes of my faderes before Which to the reale of Austin were swore."

His life, extending from the reign of Richard II. into that of Edward IV., was contemporary with the rise, the ascendancy and the decline of the house of Lancaster. He saw, if we may so speak, the blossoming and fading of the Red Rose. "The Book

.• The Book of the iliostrions Henries. By John Capgrave. Translated from LIford. l'butiltihsleterbvyero: Charles Binge9tm' ILA., of Exeter College

of the Illustrious Henries" was indeed written in honour of the ill-fated prince who was the last of that line, and who is included in its subject. The *cheerful auguries of a prosperous and happy reign which the author holds out are proof that the work was written before the breaking out of the civil wars between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians. The fact that no event of later date than the year 1446 is mentioned, enables us to fix the pro- bable time of its composition still more exactly. The object of the book is stated in the dedication to Henry VI. The sequel of the passage is a curious piece of fanciful philology.

"In order to increase thy desire to follow in the steps of the best of men, I have published this little book, in which I have gathered together from the works of the ancients the praises of those who have chanced to bear thy name, so that thou, who art crowned with this name, niayest also imitate the virtue of the name."

The name Henricus is traced to " the Hebrew language, which is the mother of all languages."

" For ' Hen,' as say the interpreters, means, Behold the fountain,' or

Behold the eye ' ; Ri ' or as used interchangeably in certain co- dices, is ' My shepherd,', or 'My pasture ' ; and Gus,' an Ethiopian,' or Dark.'

" From these therefore, when they are brought together, is made such a meaning as this, that he who is crowned with this name, possesses a foun- tain which the hart, panting and renewing its youth, swiftly running, longs for. And cleansing also the eye of the mind from beam and mote, he will patiently await until it may be proclaimed to him as it was of old by the Lord to his Disciples:—' Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see.'

My shepherd' or my pasture' is joined to this name in sufficiently suit- able relationship, because our king is the leader of the whole flock, not only by reason of surpassing authority, but also by the exercise of good works, and the people, devoutly regarding this, devours it as food. Further, the /Ethiopic darkness is referred alone to this, that I believe our king to be pure from the worst defilements, and therefore innocent and exempt, and not stained with the smoky hue of any dark colour."

"The Illustrious Henries" comprise the Emperors of Germany and the English kings of that name, and a batch of miscellaneous Henries, for the greater part not royal, but more or less dis- tinguished. The monkish historian may have felt some admi- ration and sympathy for a king, whose misfortune it was that he was born to a throne instead of to a cloister ; but on the ac- cession of Edward IV. his affection is transferred with surprising facility to the house of York. The "Chronicle of England" is dedicated to Edward IV., as the work under notice to Henry VI. In the latter we read- " Henry the Fourth, who was called Henry of Bolingbroke, because he was born there, succeeded Richard the Second on the throne, not so much by right of descent as by election of the people. flow glorious he was in his generation, and how kind to the church . . . . the records of his deeds . . . . testify." (P. 102.) "And so the said Henry gained the crown, by the providence, as we believe, of God, who is mighty to put down the mighty from their seat, and to exalt the humble. When, therefore, he had been raised to the throne of this kingdom, the said King Henry observed the ways of justice, honoured with all his power the servants of God, and, drinking from the fountains of the Scriptures, went not thirsting away." All that is said in this book is in vindication or eulo,gium of " this most excellent king." But in the later work he thus writes- " Ferthermore yet fynde I a grete conveniens in youre tytil, that ye be cleped Edward the Fourt. He that entered be intrusion was Berry the Fourte. He that entered by Goddis provision is Edward the Fourt. The similitude of the reparaeioune is fed lich the werk of the transgression, as the Chcrch singith in a Preface,—' Because Adam trespased etyng, the frute of a tre, therfor was Crist nayled on a tre.' We trew loveres of this lend desire this of oure Lord God, that al the erroure which was browte in be Herry the Fourte may be redressed be Edward the Fourte."—(Chrooiele nif England, Ed. Hingeston, p. 4.)

Writing of and to Henry VI., Capgrave finds consolation in the following numerical considerations-

" My desirable lord the King, therefore, was born in the month of De-

cember, on the sixth day of the month Of old custom that month keeps its name December, that is decimus imber,' having its virtue from the decad ; and thus it suggests to us that our most religious King was for this reason born in this month, that it might impress the ten command- ments on his mind "He was born on the sixth day of the month, that we may understand that this is the Sixth Henry ; through whom, as many think, God will work some great thing in accordance with His more secret prophecies. Or else because it is a toilsome journey to keep the commandments, and this journey is contained in the number six, because in six days all things were made. '

Capgrave's confidence in the number six survived the misfor- tunes of Henry VI. In the dedication of The Chronicle to Ed- ward IV. he says- " Now, will I make you privy what maner opinion I have of youre per- sone in my privy meditacione.s. I have a tract in God that youre entre into your heritage schal, and must, be fortunat for many causes. First, for ye entered in the sexti y ere of Crist after that a xecee were complet. This noumbir of sex is amongis writeres mach comendid for that same perfeccion that longith to sex," &c. (Chronicle, p. 2.)

Kings may be valuable friends or formidable enemies to religious orders, in the way of making or resuming grants and privileges ; and Capgrave was not without the ready instinct of his class in

recognizing this and in doing homage to the powers that be, the rulers de facto. But these extracts exhibit our author on his

weakest side, intellectual and moral. His book has not indeed much historic value, except when he speaks of " Henries " with whom he was contemporary. And even then his purpose gives a pervadingly hortatory and homiletic character to his remarks, But in ability and in the moral and religious tone of his works, he is far above the ordinary monkish standard. He speaks freely, now and then, of the Popes, as good Roman Catholics occasionally do. His report, however, of the errors and fate of Oldcastle, "that satellite of the devil," is such as to relieve him of all suspi- cion of heresy ; while the account he gives of the up-rising of the commonalty of 1381 is just that of the well-to-do adherent of

the respectable classes. He apparently thinks with old Froissart, that the discontent of the people was due to their being "too comfortable." He has no kind of insight into the social and poli- tical circumstances which had rendered villenage intolerable, and would soon render it impossible; and sees in the insurgents and their " dukes,"—Wat Tyler, Jack Litster, and the rest—only "proud knaves and malapert," who must be put down. The prae- floe urged by the clergy on dying penitents of emancipating their serfs, the law which made a "villain" free after resulinF a year and a day in a walled town, the escape of many from their bond- age to distant parts of the country, had gradually given rise to a large class of free labourers; and free labour and even a modified servitude cannot long exist together. In spite of their own errors and attempts at reactionary legislation on the part of their lords, the commonalty, in their apparent defeat, had gained a real vic- tory. Capgrave, however, though he may not have seen what time only has taught us to see, appears to have had his eyes open to some truths to which we are fond of closing ours. The following passage might in substance have been written to day. We heartily echo the aspiration with which it concludes. "It is the opinion of many that, if the sea were kept by our navy, many good results would follow,—it would give a safe conduct to merchants, se- cure access to fishers, the quiet of peace to the inhabitants of the kingdom. . . . . The men of old used to call the sea the wall of England,' and what think. you that our enemies, now that they are upon the wall, will do to the inhabitants who are unprepared to receive them ? For as much as this mat- ter has already for the space of many years been neglected, on that account it has happened that already our ships are scanty, our sailors few in num- ber, anil those unskilled in seamanship, from want of practice. May the Lord take away this our reproach, and raise up the spirit of bravery in our na- tion! May He strip off the false and fained friendships of nations, lest on a sudden, when we dread them not, they come upon us !"

Mr. Hingeston has rendered the "book of the Henries" into simple, vigorous, and, we have no doubt, (though we have not seen the Latin text,) faithful English. His notes are short, scholar- like, and to the purpose. The volume is, emphatically, well- edited.