of England, was, on the side of the Pontiff, a consequence of his habitual partiality to England against France.

In fact, Robert did not cease to manage his business in such a manner, as to favour, in every thing, the affairs of the King of England, and thwart the views which could aggrandize the power of Philip.

* [Here ends the account of M. de la Porte du Thiel, who has, certainly, elucidated an important fact in English history, not before clearly understood. He might have added, that the crafty Pope, by duping both the kings, though in a barefaced manner, succeeded in subjugating them both to the ecclesiastical yoke. Philip, however, does not seem to have been aware, that the Pope, seeing the consequences of his successful excommunications of Otho and John, treated the French King in a manner which he had no power to prevent or resent.]

MURDER OF THE ROYAL CHILDREN IN THE TOWER.

(From Rastell's Chronicle.)

"BUT of the maner of the dethe of this

yonge

kynge and of his brother, there were dyvers opinyons. But the most comyn opinyon was that they were smoldery'd between two fether beddes, and that in the doynge the yonger

brother escaped from under the fether bedde, and crept under the beddestede; and there lay naked awhyle, tyll that they had smolderey'd the yonge kynge, so that he was surely dede. And afteryt, one of them toke his brother from under the beddestede, and helde his face doune to the grounde with his one hande, and with the other hande cut his throte hole a sonder with a dagger. It is a marvayle that any man coud have so harde a harte to do so cruell a dede; save only, that necessyte compelled them; for they were so charged by the duke the protectour, that if they shewed not to him the bodies of bothe those chyldren dede on the morrowe, after they were so commaunded, that they themselves should be put to dethe. Wherefore they that were commaunded to do it were compelled to fulfyll the protectours wyll. And after that the bodies of these two chylderne as the opynion ranne, were bothe closed in a gret hevy cheste, and by the means of one that was secrete with the protectour, theye were put in a shyppe goynge to Flanders; and when the shyppe was in the black depes, this man threw both those dede bodies, so closed in the cheste, over the hatches into the sea; and yet none of the maryners, nor none in the shyppe, save only the said man, wyst what thynge it was there so enclosed; which sayinge dyuers men conjectured to be trewe, because

Ꭰ

that the bones of the said chylderne could never be found buryed nether in the Tower nor in no other place.

"Another opinyon there is that they which had the charge to put them to dethe, caused one to cry so sodayngly treason, treason, wherewith the chylderne being afeard, desyred to know what was best for them to do. And then he bade. them hyde themselves in a grete cheste, that no man shulde fynde them, and if any body came into the chamber, they wolde say they were not there; and accordynge as they conselly'd them, they crepte bothe into the cheste, which anon after they locked. And then they buried that cheste under a steyce, which cheste was after caste into the blacke depes, as is before saydte."

LETTERS ILLUSTRATIVE of ENGLISH HISTORY.

(MS. Cotton. Mus. Brit. Cleop. F. fol. 116, orig.)

THESE letters, independently of their historical worth, are curious as philological specimens: we have here the English language, from the era of Henry IV. to our own times; and where the correspondence happens to be scanty, the design is happily improved by the introduction of contemporary memoirs, which are next in

point of authenticity and interest to private communications*.

In these letters, it is clearly demonstrated, that Thomas Cromwell, the minister of Henry VIII. was neither an honest man, nor the grateful friend of Wolsey; which is not only the development of an important matter, but another strong proof of the delusions to which we have been taught to submit, under the name of histories, which will be best seen in the sequel.

The letters of the reign of Henry the Fourth relate, entirely, to Owen Glendower's rebellion. They are fourteen in number, and, with one exception, new to history: several of these are from constables of castles, and shew, not only the mode of keeping the fortresses of that time, but the nature of the warfare that was waged against them. The Welsh hated Henry the Fourth for his ill usage of Richard the Second. They had furnished Richard with troops in his contest with the nobles; and remained unshaken in their fidelity to him as long as they believed him to be alive.

Of the letters of the reign of King Henry the Fifth, there are two, more curious than the rest; one concerns the state of Ireland in 1417; the other from John Alcetre, at Bayonne, in 1419, details the progress made in building a ship of very extended dimensions, for the king. Henry

* Vide Ellis's Letters.

the Fifth was the first of our monarchs who saw the advantage of maintaining ships for the purposes of war, distinct from the merchant vessels.

Letter VIII. from "The Mayor and Burgesses of Cairleon to those of Monmouth, upon the defeat of a part of Owen Glendower's army by the Lord of Carewe.”

It ac

This letter is curious on two accounts. quaints us with the defeat of a portion of Glyndowr's forces by the Baron of Carewe,-a fact unknown to our historians; and it details a conference between Owen Glyndowr and one Hopkins ap Thomas, (whom he held to be "Master of Brut*") as to what should be his fate hereafter. The following is the letter:

66

Gretyng to yow our gode frendes and worchipful burgeis of Monemouthe, we do yow to understonde of tydynges the weche we have

* Master of the Brut means skilled in the prophecies of Merlin, whose vaticinations form a part of the Brut of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Henry IV. and Glendower were both worked upon by ancient predictions; and each, it is probable, sought the type of the other in those numerous prophecies which our ancestors, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, were so fond of considering as in a state of progressive accomplishment. By the parties who met at the house of the Archdeacon of Bangor, Henry IV. was represented as the Moldewarpe accursed of God; while Glendowr, Sir Henry Percy, and Sir Edmund Mortimer, were represented as the dragon, the lion, and the wolf, which should divide the realm between them. "Such," says Hall, 66 was the deviation, and not divination, of that Mawmet Merlin." The sequel of Glendowr's history shews that Hopkin ap Thomas of Gower was not infallible as a seer.