And diéd on the rood:

1 Tho (First English "tha "), then.

As smartly as he might. The Steward said, "By Mary dear, This saw I never this time of year

290

Syne I was man wrought! Thou shalt come no nearer the King But if 15 thou grant me mine asking, By Him that me bought: The third part of the King's gift That will I havé, by my thrift, Or further go'st thou not!"

340

300

But, except, unless.-The r in third adds a syllable, "the thir-rid

part." So also in lines 474, 476. See Note 4, page 26.

5 Whether was often pronounced as a monosyllable, by elision of th. So in Shakespeare, "Julius Cæsar," Act v., sc. 4-" But see whether Brutus be alive or no."

e Tite, quickly. Icelandic "tithr" and "títt."

7 Leth, limb. First English "lith."

* Greth, privilege of protection to you. First English "grith," the king's peace, or protection given to officials; privilege of security within a certain place.

Sir Clegés bethought him then,

66

'My part is least betwixt these men,

And I shall have nothing;

For my labour shall I not get

But it be a mealé's meat,"

Thus he thought sighing.

9 Whether is here again contracted into a monosyllable.

10 The r here adds a syllable. See Note 4, page 26.

11 Won, way. First English "wune," practice, custom. 12 Weed, dress. First English "wæd," a garment, clothing. The word remains in "widow's weeds." 13 Rede, advise. First English "ræ'dan," to counsel, made its past tense "réd," and participle "ræ'den." "Ræ'dan," to read, interpret, decree, rule, made its past "ræ'dde," and its participle "ræ'ded." 14 Gan often served, as here, only to give more emphasis to the verb that followed; and the inceptive sense was seldom so strongly marked as to bear translation by the word " began." In First English " gin," meaning open, spacious, vast, from the root of the word "yawn," was used in composition as simply intensive: "fæst," firm; “ginfæst," very firm. Although "ginan," to yawn, become spacious, past “gán,” is not related to the verb "onginnan," to begin, past "I am not sure whether the use of one root as intensive may not, in some degree, have affected the use of the other.

15 But if, unless.

ongan,

a dissyllable, by rolling the r.

♦ Behight (First English “behét"), promised.

5 Three counts as two syllables (ther-ee) in the metre by the rolling of r.

Granted: ed after t was scarcely sounded, often it was not written. So Shakespeare in "Cymbeline," "I fast and prayed for their intelligence."

7 The words in square brackets are substituted for "so not might." Square brackets indicate some alteration in following lines of this stanza.

9 Here the r in country makes it a word of three syllables. Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night," Act i., sc. 2:

"Mine own escape unfoldeth to mine hope

The like of him. Know'st thou this count-r-y?”

So

10 Liever (First English "leófre"), dearer. The v in words like over, ever (o'er, e'er), having, evil, liever, devil (de'il), was often dropped in pronunciation, making of any such word, as here, a monosyllable. 11 Stour, battle. Old French "estour;" Icelandic "styr."

13 So mot I thee, so may I thrive. See Note 10, page 28. It was a common form of asseveration. In the "Vision of Piers Plowman," when Avarice, preached to by Repentance, told of Misdeed, he added an oath, so might he thrive, that he would give up that sin. "Ac I swere now, so the ie, that synne wil I lete."

The victories of Edward III. over the Scots and French, from July, 1333, when he won the battle of Halidon Hill, to January, 1352, the date of the capture of Guines Castle (a period including the battle of Crecy, on the 26th of August, 1346), had a poet in Laurence Minot, who strung together his lyrics in the form next to be illustrated. In the pieces given from Minot, where an obsolete word can, without loss of metre, alliteration, or rhyme, be modernised in reading the text, that is done, and the original word is given in a foot-note; otherwise the obsolete word is in the text and the interpretation in the foot-note. In each case the reader has the words of the original. Let us take the poems following that upon Crecy, which form a little more than a third part of the whole series.

The events celebrated are:

(1) The siege of Calais, begun on the 3rd of September, 1346. King Edward camped about the place to reduce it by famine without assault of artillery. The town held out for more than eleven months, during which King Philip VI. of France-Philip of Valois failed in his endeavours to relieve it. Calais surrendered unconditionally on the 4th of August, 1347. The well-known story of Queen Philippa's saving of the lives of the six burgesses of Calais who brought the keys of the town we owe to Froissart alone. After the surrender of Calais the town was peopled with English, and belonged to England for the next 210 years.

(2) The battle of Neville's Cross, near Durham, fought on the 12th of October, 1346, about a month after King Edward had begun his investment of Calais. The Scots, as they usually did when the

King of England was making war in France, had crossed the border; but they were defeated at Neville's Cross by Earl Percy. David Bruce, their king, was taken prisoner. King David of Scotland remained prisoner in England until 1357, and was so, therefore, when Laurence Minot wrote his war poems.

(3) A victory over the Spaniards who, in the summer of 1350, occupied our seas with forty-four great ships of war, took a revenge for former injuries by spoiling and sinking ten English ships on their way from Gascony, and then went triumphing into Sluys. King Edward gathered a navy of fifty ships and pinnaces to catch the Spanish fleet on its return, and met it at Winchilsea, where, says John Stow, "the great Spanish vessels surmounting our ships and foists,' like as castles to cottages, sharply assailed our men; the stones and quarrels flying from the tops sore and cruelly wounded our men, who are no less busy to fight aloof with lance and sword, and with the fore ward manfully defend themselves; at length our archers pierced their arbalisters with a further reach than they could strike again, and thereby compelled them to forsake their place, and caused others fighting from the hatches to shade themselves with tables of the ships, and compelled them that threw stones from the tops so to hide them that they durst not show their heads but tumble down; then our men entering the Spanish vessels with swords and halberds, kill those they meet, within a while making void the vessels, and furnish them with Englishmen, until they, being beset with darkness of the night, could not discern the twenty-seven yet remaining untaken. Our men cast anchor, studying of the hoped battle, supposing nothing finished while anything remained undone, dressing the wounded, throwing the miserable Spaniards into the sea, refreshing themselves with victuals and sleep, yet committing the vigilant watch to the armed band. night overpassed, the Englishmen prepared (but in vain) to a new battle; but when the sun began to appear they, viewing the seas, could perceive no sign of resistance; for twenty-seven ships, flying away by night, left seventeen, spoiled in the evening, to the king's pleasure, but against their will. The king returned into England with victory and triumph; the king preferred there eighty noble imps' to the order of knighthood, greatly bewailing the loss of one, to wit, Sir Richard Goldsborough, knight."

The

(4) The taking of Guines Castle, six miles from Calais, by John of Doncaster. John of Doncaster was an English archer among the prisoners of Guines who had no friends to ransom him, and was employed to work at restoration of the castle walls. He became acquainted with a way across the castle ditch by a submerged wall, two feet broad with a break of two feet in the middle, that was used by fishers. John of Doncaster measured the height of the

1 A foist was a barge or pinnace, from Dutch fuste.-A quarrel was the square dart shot from a crossbow.

2 From First English "impan," to engraft, "imp" means a graft or shoot, thence offspring. So Spenser, in the Introduction to Book i. of the "Faerie Queene," addresses the "most dreaded imp of highest Jove, fair Venus' son." The "imps" in the text were therefore sons of noble houses, raised from the grade of squire to that of knight.

ramparts with a thread, escaped over the ditch to Calais, and there conspired with thirty men, greedy of prey, to get leathern scaling-ladders of the requisite height, advance on the castle under cover of night and in black armour, catch its custodians asleep, and win their prize. This they did one night in January, 1352, in time of truce between England and France, and the town of Guines did not know till next day that its castle had been taken. When the Earl of Guines demanded in whose name it had been attacked and seized in a time of truce, the reply was that it had been taken in the name of John of Doncaster; that although its captors were Englishmen, they were not English subjects, but outlaws, and that they meant to sell their prize. The earl bid high for his castle, but John of Doncaster replied that he preferred to sell it to the King of England; and if the King of England would not buy it, he would sell it to King John of France (who, at the age of thirtytwo, had succeeded his father Philip in 1350), or to any who would make a better bid. King Edward

Whilome where ye wicht1 in weed
To robbing rathly for to ren;"
Mend you soon of your misdeed,
Your care is comen, will ye it ken.
Kenn'd it is how ye were keen

All Englishmen with dole to dere,3
Their goods took ye albidene,+

No man born would ye forbere; Ye spared not with sword nor spear To stick them and their goods to steal; With weapon and with deed of were 5 Thus have ye wonnen worldés weal.

Wealful men were ye iwis,6

But far on fold shall ye not fare, A Boar shall now abate your bliss

And work you bale on bankës bare. He shall you hunt as hound does hare, That in no hole shall ye you hide; For all your speech will he not spare, But biggés 10 him right by your side.

Beside you here the Boar begins

To big his bower in wintertide, And all betime takes he his inns

With seemly serjeants him beside. The word of him walkés full wide, Jesu save him from mischance!

In battle dare he well abide

10

20

30

Sir Philip and Sir John of France.

ARMOUR OF EDWARD III.

As copied in Grose's "Military Antiquities," from the Collection in the Tower of London.

bought the castle of its captors; and with a poem upon this adventure Minot ends. If he had lived to see the close of the truce between England and France, he would surely have added some rhymes on the battle of Poitiers, in September, 1356, when "Sir John of France" was taken prisoner.

WAR POEMS OF LAURENCE MINOT.

(1) How Edward, as the Romance says, Held his Siege before Calais.

Calais men, now may ye care

And mourning mun ye have to meed: Mirth on mould get ye no mair

Sir Edward shall ken you your creed.

1 Wicht is still the Scottish form of the old Swedish "wig," strong, powerful, allied to the "vig" in Latin "vigor."

2 The Calais men had been bold when equipped for a quick run, a raid in search of plunder. First English "hræeth," swift, quick.

3 With dole to dere, to hurt by fraud or malice. First English "derian," to injure; French "dol; " Latin " dolus," deceit.

Albidene, altogether. "Bidene" or "bedene" is an adverb of uncertain origin, frequently used with all" before it.

5 Were, war.

6 Iwis, certainly. First English gewis."

7 Fold (First English "folde "), the surface of the earth.

8 A Boar. Minot applies to Edward III. a prophecy ascribed to Merlin, of a Boar that should make Spain tremble, and set his head in France, while his tail rested in England, where he was born.

9 Ye you. Observe here the right use of ye (ge) as nominative; you (eow) as accusative. It is always so in our version of the Bible. For example (Jeremiah xvi. 12, 13): "Ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart... therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew you favour."

10 Bigges, builds. Icelandic "byggja." King Edward "made carpenters to make houses and lodgings of great timber, and set the houses like streets, and covered them with reed and broom; so that it was like a little town; and there was everything to sell, and a market-place to be kept every Tuesday and Saturday." (Froissart.) 11 Make great dray, dray and deray (Old French "desroy "), disorder. 12 By them, of them.

13 Slike, "swa lic" so like, thence "slike." German "solch," English "such."

Scottish "swilk,"

14 The cardinales. King Philip having brought an army to raise the siege of Calais, found the only ways of approach too well defended