nearly all the illustrious statesmen and heroes of the age, from John of Gaunt to Geoffrey Chaucer. A third volume is promised, to continue the biographical notices, giving also a history of the House of Grosvenor, with illustrations of the historical events related by the deponents and of the controversy itself. We hope Sir Harris will not baulk us of this promised addition to the good gift he has already bestowed on the lovers of armes and chyvalry;' but will shortly put the finishing hand to a work which, much as we already owe to his genealogical labours, will, we think, prove a more valuable contribution than any he has yet made to our antiquarian and historical literature. The labours of his task can only be appreciated by those who have prosecuted similar researches themselves. Every one of the original memoirs he has compiled must have required the consultation of a vast number of documents, difficult of access, and still more difficult to interpret, analyze, and reconcile with one another; while those persons upon whom he has been enabled to say least have in all probability given him the most trouble of any. If we have a fault to find in the execution of this laborious task, it is that of a work so valuable to every historian and antiquary, to say nothing of the descendants of the personages whose memoirs are given in it, a very limited number of impressions only should have been taken. We think Sir Harris has underrated the interest which must attach to his subject. It is not a mere piece of family history, or the dry record of proceedings in a court of law, but one rich beyond example in historical, biographical, and topographical facts. The brightest page in the Annals of British Chivalry is the reign of Edward III.; and a volume which produces for the first time from original documents, hitherto concealed in the dust of ages, a recital, taken from their own lips, of the services of all the warriors of that day, the heroes of Crecy, Agincourt, and Poictiers, cannot be uninteresting to any. We do not doubt, at least, that our readers will thank us for laying before them some specimens of this remarkable work, which from the smallness of the impression can have been seen by but few.

The parties in this celebrated cause were, on the one side, Sir Richard Scrope, created Baron Scrope of Bolton, by Richard II., whom he had served twice in the office of Chancellor of England, after having been treasurer to his grandfather, Edward III.; and on the other part, Sir Robert Grosvenor, of Cheshire, the ancestor of the present Marquis of Westminster. Scrope, though by his singular talents and integrity he had attained to the highest civil offices in the realm, was scarcely less distinguished in a military capacity for in those days, when even bishops and archbishops not unfrequently put on unspiritual armour, it was anything but dero

gatory

gatory to a lord keeper to carry arms. On the contrary, the sovereign was, in all his expeditions, as a matter of course, accompanied by his chancellor, who by no means kept in the rear; but, as we find it recorded of Sir Richard Scrope by his companions in arms, bore himself gallantly in the fight, and gained grand honour' on every occasion. In truth, it appears by these depositions, that from the battle of Crecy, at which he was present, in 1346, to the time when this cause was tried in 1386, a period of forty yearsthe most brilliant of all our ancient annals-there was scarcely a single battle of note where the English forces were engaged, by sea or land, in which Lord Scrope did not distinguish himself. After the successful usurpation of Henry IV., this nobleman, whose eldest son, the Earl of Wiltshire, had forfeited his life at Bristol, for too faithful an adherence to the fallen fortunes of his royal master, while another son, Richard, archbishop of York, shortly after fell a victim to the same cause,-still commanded the respect of his sovereign and fellow nobles. Few incidents can be imagined of a more affecting description than the scene in parliament when the attainder of the Earl of Wiltshire was confirmed. Rising from his seat, his eyes streaming with tears, the venerable peer implored that the proceedings might not affect the inheritance of himself or his other children; and after admitting the justice of the sentence, and deploring the conduct of his son, the unhappy father was consoled by his sovereign, who deigned to assure him that neither his interests nor those of his children should suffer for it, for that he had always considered, and still deemed him, a loyal knight.' Lord Scrope did not survive this event more than three years, terminating in 1403, at the age of seventy-five, a life full of honours, acquired by a union of valour and wisdom remarkable even in that age, and unstained by a single blemish. The anecdote related by Walsingham, of his endeavours to check the prodigal grants of Richard to his greedy favourites, while he held the great seal, is too well known to be repeated here.

On occasion of the expedition into Scotland, in 1885, when Richard II., took the field in person, Sir Robert Grosvenor appeared armed in the arms azure, a bend or,' which through all the battles of the preceding century had been uniformly borne by Lord Scrope and the different members of that family. Grosvenor's right to bear them was immediately challenged, and, in August, 1385, a general proclamation was made through the host in Scotland, that all who were interested in the dispute should appear at Newcastle on Tyne, on the 20th of that month. Lord Scrope attended accordingly. The suit, however, was not then decided, but was further adjourned from time to time, and place to place; commissioners

commissioners being appointed by the Constable' (the Duke of Gloucester) to take the depositions of all persons who could give evidence to the facts in various parts of the kingdom;—and was not finally closed till the year 1390, when, the appeal of Grosvenor from the adverse decision of the Constable having been heard before the king in person, in his great Chambre of Parliament within his Palace Royal at Westminster, in the presence of his uncles, the Dukes of Gwyen and Gloucester, the Bishope of London, and others,' it was determined that the arms should whollye remaine to Sir Rychard Scrope and his heires, and Mr. Grosvenor to have no part thereof, because he was a stranger unto the same.' The costs of the latter part of the suit, amounting to 466l. 138. 4d., (equal to at least six times as much in the present day,) and reduced to 500 marks by the king, were placed on Grosvenor, who requested Sir Richard Scrope to forgive payment. This, upon Grosvenor's allowing it to be entered on the record that his pleadings against Scrope were not well nor trewe,' Scrope assented to, which was done accordingly, and the som forgiven, and they made frynds afore the kynge in the P'lyament Howse.'*

And

During the progress of the suit each of the claimants produced his friends and companions-at-arms as deponents, to prove the long habitual use of the arms by himself and his ancestors. it is in these depositions that the peculiar interest of this curious document resides. In them all the most renowned heroes of that chivalrous age-the leaders of the victorious hosts of Edward III. and the Black Prince, the conquerors at Halidon Hill, Berwick, Crecy, Poictiers, Najara, Agincourt, and other glorious fieldsare brought upon the stage almost as vividly as Shakspeare himself has produced many of them; and still more authentically, since here they speak in their own phrase, not as it was set down for them' by the imaginative dramatist, but as it was taken down from their own lips by the Gurneys of the day. We have them fighting their battles o'er again, and recounting, each in his own way, the list of gallant enterprises and immortal victories in which he had participated.

We shall take the liberty to call into court some of these illustrious deponents, and give our readers a sample of their evidence. The first depositions were taken on the 16th June, 9th Rich. II., 1386, at Plymouth, by Lord Fitzwalter, Sir John Marmion, and Sir John Kentwode, commissioners appointed by the Constable; and the first witness called is no other than

Old John of Gaunt-time-honour'd Lancaster,' King of Castile and Leon, as he styled himself, in right of his

* Abstract of the Proceedings in the Harleian MSS.

VOL. LVI. NO. CXI.

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consort, Constance, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Pedro the Cruel. At the time his examination was taken he was on the point of departure for Spain, with the object of recovering that kingdom, accompanied by his wife and daughters, and a formidable army, composed of the flower of English chivalry-Plymouth being the port from whence the expedition sailed. Its ill success is known; a large proportion of the nobles, knights, and troops having been carried off by fevers in Spain, without any opportunity of distinguishing themselves in action-which the de facto King of Castile, Henry of Transtamara, a natural brother of Pedro the Cruel, carefully avoided, that crafty prince ultimately compromised the quarrel by marrying his son, the Prince of Asturias, with the Duke of Lancaster's daughter, and settling the crown on their issue. We give the deposition of John of Gaunt entire, as a specimen of the usual course of examination :

JOHN, by the grace of God, KING OF CASTILE AND Leon, Duke of LANCASTER, being prayed, and, according to the law of arms, required to testify the truth between Sir Richard de Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor, in a controversy between them concerning the arms "azure a bend or," do verily testify, that at the time when we were armed in battles and other "journeys" in divers countries, we have seen and known that the said Sir Richard hath borne his arms 66 azure a bend or," and that many of his name and lineage have borne the same arms, with differences, as branches of the same name and arms, on banner, pennon, and coat-armour; and that we have heard from many noble and valiant men since deceased, that the said arms were of right the arms of his ancestors and himself at the time of the Conquest and since. And, moreover, we say and testify, that at the last expedition in France of our most dread lord and father, (on whom God have mercy,) a controversy arose concerning the said arms between Sir Richard le Scrope aforesaid, and one called Carminow of Cornwall, which Carminow challenged those arms of the said Sir Richard, the which dispute was referred to six knights, now, as I think, dead, who upon true evidence found the said Carminow to be descended of a lineage armed "azure a bend or" since the time of King Arthur; and they found that the said Sir Richard was descended of a right line of ancestry armed with the said arms, "6 azure a bend or," since the time of William the Conqueror; and so it was adjudged that both might bear the same arms entire. But we have not seen or heard that the said Sir Robert Grosvenor, or any of his name, bore the said arms before the last expedition in Scotland with our lord the king.' The next deponent was Henry Plantagenet, Gaunt's eldest son by Blanch of Lancaster, then Earl of Derby, afterwards

'Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby;"

and, very shortly, by the dethronement of the wayward and unlucky Richard,

Richard, KING HENRY IV, OF ENGLAND. When called on for his testimony he was only twenty-one years of age, and alludes in his evidence to his youth,

Dressing himself in much humility.' He was then at Plymouth with his father; and, according to Froissart, wasun beau chevalier.' He being prayed, &c.,

said,

'We are young and have been only a short time armed, but we have, in our time, seen the said Sir Richard publicly armed in the arms azure a bend or," and also others of his name and lineage, with differences; and, with respect to Sir Robert Grosvenor, we have never seen or known him to bear the said arms until the last expedition in Scotland with our lord the king.'

We have next the depositions of Lord Poynings (mentioned by Froissart as having died of fever in Castile in the ensuing year) and Sir Thomas Percy, K.G., afterwards Earl of Worcester, who, with his brother, the first Earl of Northumberland, and his nephew, Harry Percy, (whose depositions were taken also on a later occasion,)' my uncle, and my cousin, and myself,'-and Scrope, Archbishop of York, headed the confederacy in 1403 against Henry IV. Being defeated at that royal field of Shrewsbury,' where Hotspur lost his life, ill-spirited Worcester' was attainted of high treason and beheaded.

These, with many other noble and knightly deponents who followed-Sir Walter Ursewyke, Sir John Hastings, Sir Ralph Ipre, Sir Richard Beverley, Sir John St. Clere, Sir John Deincourt, Sir William Vavasour, Sir William Mauleverer, Sir James Cotes, &c.-severally testified to having seen Sir Richard Scrope and other knights of the family of Scrope armed with azure a bend or' in divers battles and expeditions, as well in England as in Normandy, France, Scotland, and Spain, the said arms being displayed on coat-armour and on banners and pennons publicly borne, and always placed outside of their quarters, and in full view of every one; and likewise that they had often heard 'grauntz lords, and knights, and squires, say that the said arms appertained to the ancestry of Sir Richard from beyond the memory of man,' &c. The two next witnesses were Sir John Holland and Sir Thomas Morieux, whom the readers of Froissart will have no difficulty in recognizing as two of the most distinguished men of the age. Sir John Holland was son of Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, by Joanne Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent,' who, having in her widowhood captivated the heart of the Black Prince, became Princess of Wales and mother of Richard II. A remarkable passage in the life of Sir John Holland is related by Froissart. It happened the year before these depositions were

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taken,