England's Heroicall Epistles, Part VII
See, I have not abandoned this project! I put it on hold for a couple of weeks so that I might finish my graaaaaading in something like timely fashion, and now that it's done, the remaining installments (there are five left) will be up on a weekly basis as before.
It is now Wars of the Roses time in Draytonland, and thus, since our first two epistle-exchanging couples are Lancastrians I am using about the only icon I've got that's even remotely Lancastrian. This is a fun exchange: Eleanor is quite formidable when she gets her rant on, and so there is much colorful bashing of a) Humphrey's ex-wife Jacomin (or Jacqueline depending on your sources). b) Queen Margaret. c) Cardinal Beaufort. Also she laments that her breasts are no longer perky. Seriously.
Humphrey mostly flashes back to Shakespeare's history plays. But that's fun, too.
To my worthy and dearly esteemed friend, Master James Huish.
Sir, your own natural inclination to virtue, and your love to the Muses, assure me of your kind acceptance of my dedication. It is seated by custom, from which we are now bold to assume authority, to bear he names of our friends upon the fronts of our books, as gentlemen use to set their arms over their gates. Some say this use began by the heroes and brave spirits of the old world, which were desirous to be thought to patronize learning, and men in requital honor the names of those brave princes. But I think some after put the names of great men in their books, for that men should say there was something good only because indeed their names stood there; but for mine own part, not to dissemble, I find no such virtue in any of their great titles to do so much for anything of mine, and so let them pass. Take knowledge by this I love you, and in good faith, worthy of all love I think you, which I pray you may supply the place of further compliment.
Yours ever,
M. Drayton.
Eleanor Cobham to Duke Humphrey.
The Argument.
Eleanor Cobham, daughter to the Lord Cobham of Sterborough, and wife to Humphrey Plantagenet Duke of Gloucester, the son of Henry the Fourth, King of England, surnamed Bolingbroke. This noble Duke, for his great wisdom and justice called the Good, was by King Henry the Fifth (brother to this Duke) at his death appointed Protector of the land, during the nonage of Henry the Sixth; this Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester, a proud and ambitious woman, knowing that if young Henry died without issue, the Duke her husband was the nearest of the blood, conspired with one Bolingbroke, otherwise called Onley, a great magician, Hume, a priest, and Jourdain, Witch of Eye, by sorcery to make away the King, and by conjuration to know who should succeed. Of this being justly convicted, she was adjudged to do penance three several times openly in London, and then to perpetual banishment in the Isle of Man, from whence she writeth this epistle.
Methinks not knowing who these lines should send,
Thou straight turn'st over to the latter end,
Where thou my name no sooner hast espied
But in disdain my letters casts aside;
Why, if thou wilt, I will myself deny,
Nay, I'll affirm and swear I am not I,
Or if in that thy shame thou dost perceive,
I'll leave that name, that name myself shall leave;
And yet methinks amazed thou shouldst not stand,
Nor seem so much appallèd at my hand,
For my misfortunes have inured thine eye,
Long before this, to sights of misery;
No, no, read on; 'tis I, the very same;
All thou canst read is but to read my shame.
Be not dismayed, nor let my name affright;
The worst it can is but t'offend thy sight;
It cannot wound, nor do thee deadly harm;
It is no dreadful spell, nor magic charm;
If she that sent it love Duke Humphrey so,
Is't possible her name should be his foe?
Yes, I am El'nor, I am very she
Who brought for dower a virgin's bed to thee,
Though envious Beaufort slandered me before
To be Duke Humphrey's wanton paramour.
And though indeed, I cannot it deny,
To magic once I did myself apply,
I won thee not, as there be many think,
With poisoning philtres and bewitching drink,
Nor on thy person did I ever prove
Those wicked potions, so procuring love;
I cannot boast to be rich Holland's heir,
Nor of the blood and greatness of Bavare,
Yet El'nor brought no foreign armies in
To fetch her back, as did thy Jacomin;
Nor clamorous husband followed me that fled,
Exclaiming Humphrey to defile his bed;
Nor wast thou forced the slander to suppress
To send me back as an adulteress;
Brabant nor Burgoigne claimèd me by force,
Nor sued to Rome to hasten my divorce;
Nor Belgia's pomp defaced with Belgia's fire,
The just reward of her unjust desire,
Nor Bedford's spouse, your noble sister Anne,
That princely-issued great Burgundian,
Should stand with me, to move a woman's strife,
To yield the place to the Protector's wife.
If Cobham's name my birth can dignify,
Or Sterborough renown my family,
Where's Greenwich now, thy El'nor's court of late,
Where she with Humphrey held a princely state?
That pleasant Kent, when I abroad should ride,
That to my pleasure laid forth all her pride,
The Thames, by water when I took the air,
Danced with my barge in launching from the stair;
The anchoring ships, that when I passed the road
Were wont to hang their checkered tops abroad;
How could it be, those that were wont to stand
To see my pomp, so goddess-like, to land,
Should after see me mailed up in a sheet,
Do shameful penance three times in the street?
Rung with a bell, a taper in my hand,
Barefoot to trudge before a beadle's wand,
That little babes, not having use of tongue,
Stood pointing at me as I came along.
Where's Humphrey's power, where was his great command?
Wast thou not Lord Protector of the land?
Or for thy justice, who can thee deny
The title of the Good Duke Humphrey?
Hast thou not at thy life, and in thy look,
The seal of Gaunt, the hand of Bolingbroke?
What blood extract from famous Edward's line
Can boast itself to be so pure as thine?
Who else next Henry should the realm prefer
If it allow of famous Lancaster?
But Reignier's daughter must from France be fet,
And with a vengeance on our throne be set;
Mans, Maine, and Anjou on that beggar cast
To bring her home to England in such haste,
And what for Henry thou hadst labored there,
To join the King with Armagnac's rich heir,
Must all be dashed, as no such thing had been;
Poole needs must have his darling made a Queen.
How should he with our princes else be placed,
To have his earlship with a dukedom graced,
And raise the offspring of his blood so high
As lords of us, and our posterity.
O that by sea when he to France was sent
The ship had sunk wherein the traitor went,
Or that the sands had swallowed her before
She e'er set foot upon the English shore.
But all is well, nay, we have store to give;
What need we more? We by her looks can live!
All that great Henry's conquests ever heaped,
That famous Bedford to his glory kept,
Be given back to Reignier all in post,
And by this means, rich Normandy be lost;
Those which have com'n as mistresses of ours
Have into England brought their goodly dowers,
Which to our coffers yearly tribute brings
The life of subjects, and the strength of kings,
The means whereby fair England ever might
Raise power in France, to back our ancient right;
But she brings ruin here to make abode,
And cancels all our lawful claim abroad,
And she must recapitulate my shame,
And give a thousand bywords to my name,
And call me beldam, gib, witch, nightmare, trot,
With all despite that may a woman spot;
O that I were a witch but for her sake,
I'faith, her Queenship little rest should take;
I'd scratch that face that may not feel the air,
And knit whole ropes of witch-knots in her hair;
O, I would hag her nightly in her bed,
And on her breast sit like a lump of lead,
And like a fairy pinch that dainty skin
Her wanton blood is now so cockered in,
Or take me some such known familiar shape
As she my vengeance never should escape;
Were I a garment, none should need the more
To sprinkle me with Nessus' poisoned gore;
It were enough if she once put me on
To tear the flesh and sinews from the bone;
Were I a flower that might her smell delight,
Though I were not the poisoning aconite,
I would send such a fume into her brow
Should make her mad, as mad as I am now.
They say the Druids once lived in this isle,
This fatal Man, the place of my exile,
Whose powerful charms such dreadful wonders wrought,
Which in the Gothish island tongue were taught;
O that their spells to me they had resigned
Wherewith they raised and calmed both sea and wind,
And made the moon pause in her pallid sphere
Whilst her grim dragons drew them through the air,
Their hellish power to kill the plowman's seed,
Or to forespeak the flocks as they did feed,
To nurse a damnèd spirit with human blood,
To carry them through earth, air, fire, and flood;
Had I this skill that time hath almost lost,
How, like a goblin, I would haunt her ghost!
O pardon, pardon my misgoverned tongue;
A woman's strength cannot endure my wrong.
Did not the heavens her coming in withstand,
As though affrighted when she came to land?
The earth did quake her coming to abide,
The goodly Thames did twice keep back her tide,
Paul's shook with tempests, and that mounting spire
With lightning sent from heaven was set on fire
Our stately buildings to the ground were blown,
Her pride by these prodigious signs were shown;
More fearful visions on the English earth
Than ever were at any death or birth.
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, if I should not speak,
My breast would split, my very heart would break.
I that was wont so many to command
Worse now than with a clap-dish in my hand,
A simple mantle covering me withal,
A very leper of Care's hospital,
That from my state, a presence held in awe,
Glad here to kennel in a pad of straw,
And, like an owl, by night to go abroad,
Rooted all day within an ivy-tod
Amongst the sea cliffs, in the dampy caves,
In charnel-houses, or among the graves;
Saw'st thou those eyes in whose sweet cheerful look
Duke Humphrey once such joy and pleasure took,
Sorrow hath so despoiled me of all grace,
Thou could'st not say "This was my El'nor's face";
Like a foul Gorgon, whose disheveled hair
With every blast flies glaring in the air,
Some standing up like horns upon my head,
Even like those women that in [coos?] are bred;
My lank breasts hang like bladders left unblown,
My skin with loathsome jaundice overgrown,
So pined away that if thou long'st to see
Ruin's true picture, only look on me.
Sometime in thinking of what I have had,
Even in a sudden ecstasy am mad;
Then like a bedlam forth thy El'nor runs,
Like one of Bacchus' raging frantic nuns,
Or like a Tartar, when in strange disguise,
Prepared unto a dismal sacrifice.
That prelate Beaufort, a foul ill befall him --
Prelate, said I? Nay, devil I should call him;
Ah, God forgive me if I think amiss;
His very name, methinks, my poison is;
Ah, that vile Judas, our professèd foe,
My curse pursue him wheresoe'er he go
That, to my judgment when I did appear,
Laid to my charge those things which never were,
I should partake with Bolingbroke's intents,
The hallowing of his magic instruments,
That I procurèd Southwell to assist,
Which was by order consecrate a priest;
That it was I should cover all they did
That, but for him, had to this day been hid.
Ah, that vile bastard, that himself dare vaunt
To be the son of thy brave grandsire Gaunt,
Whom he but fathered of mere charity
To rid his mother of that infamy,
Who, if report of elder times be true,
Unto this day his father never knew.
He that by murder's black and odious crime
To Henry's throne attempted once to climb,
Having procured by hope of golden gain
A fatal hand his sovereign to have slain,
Who to his chamber closely he conveyed,
And for his purpose fitly there had laid,
Upon whose sword that famous prince had died,
If by a dog he had not been descried.
But now the Queen, her minion, Poole, and he,
As it please them, so now must all things be;
England's no place for anyone beside;
All is too little to maintain their pride.
Henry, alas, thou but a king's name art,
For of thyself thou art the lesser part;
And I pray God I do not live the day
To see thy ruin, and thy realm's decay,
And yet as sure as Humphrey seems to stand,
He be preserved from that vile traitor's hand;
From Gloucester's seat I would thou wert estranged,
Or would to God that dukedom's name were changed,
For it portends no goodness unto us;
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, it is ominous.
Yet rather than thy hap so hard should be,
I would thou wert here banishèd with me;
Humphrey, adieu; farewell, true noble lord;
My wish is all thy El'nor can afford.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
I sought that dreadful Sorceress of Eye.
Eleanor Cobham was accused by some that sought to withstand, and misliked her marriage with Duke Humphrey, that she practiced to give him philters and such poisoning potions to make him love her, as she was slandered by Cardinal Beaufort to have lived as the duke's leman, against the which cardinal she exclaimeth in this epistle in the verse before. [ODNB seems to agree with Beaufort, though. This footnote has no referent in the 1600 text -- ed.]
Though envious Beaufort slandered me before.
Noting the extreme hate he ever bore her. [Back to text]
Nor El'nor brought thee foreign armies in,
To fetch her back, as did thy Jacomin.
This was the chief and only thing that ever touched the reputation of this good duke, that dotingly he married Jacomin, or as some call her Jacquet, daughter and heir to William Bavare Duke of Holland, married before, and lawful wife to John Duke of Brabant, then living, which after, as it is showed int his verse following --
Brabant nor Burgoigne claimèd me by force,
Nor sued to Rome to hasten my divorce.
-- caused great wars, by reason that the Duke of Burgoigne took part with Brabant against the duke of Gloucester, which, being arbitrated by the Pope, the lady was adjudged to be delivered back to her former husband. [Back to text]
Nor Bedford's spouse, your noble sister Anne,
That princely-issued brave Burgundian.
John Duke of Bedford, that scourge of France, and the glory of the Englishmen, married Anne, sister to the Duke of Burgundy, a virtuous and beautiful lady, by which marriage, as also by his victories attained in France, he brought great strength to the English nation. [Back to text]
Where's Greenwich now, thy El'nor's court of late?
That fair and goodly palace of Greenwich was first builded by that famous duke, whose rich and pleasant situation might remain an assured monument of his wisdom, if there were no other memory of the same. [Back to text]
They say the Druids once lived in this isle.
It would seem that there were two islands, both of them called Mona, though now distinguished the one by the name of Man, the other by the name of Anglesey, both which were full of many infernal ceremonies, as may appear by Agricola's voyage, made into the hithermost Man, described by his son-in-law Cornelius Tacitus. And as supersition the daughter of barbarism and ignorance, so amongst these northerly nations, like as in America, magic was most esteemed. Druids were the public ministers of their religion as thoroughly taught in all rites thereof; their doctrine concerned the immortality of the soul, the contempt of death, and all other points which may conduce to resolution, fortitude, and magnanimity; their abode was in groves and woods, whereupon they have their name; their power extended itself to master the souls of men deceased, and to confer with ghosts, and other spirits, about the success of things. Plutarch, in his profound and learned discourse of the defect of oracles, reporteth that the outmost British Isles were the prison of I wot not what demigods, but it shall not need to speak any farther of the Druid than that which Lucan doth:
Et vos barbaricus ritus, moremque[?] sinistrum,
Sacrorum, Druidae positis repetistis ab armus.
[Back to text]
Did not the heavens coming in withstand.
Noting the prodigious and fearful signs that were seen in England a little before her coming in, which Eleanor expresseth in this epistle as foreshowing the dangers which should ensue upon this unlucky marriage. [Back to text]
The hallowing of the magic instruments.
The instruments which Bolingbroke used in his conjurations, according to the devilish ceremonies and customs of these unlawful art, were dedicated at a mass in the lodge in Harnsey Park, by Southwell, priest of Westminster. [Back to text]
Having procured by hopes of golden gain.
This was one of the articles that Duke Humphrey urged against the Cardinal Beaufort, that conspired the death of Henry the Fifth, by conveying a villain into his chamber, which in the night should have murdered him; but what ground of truth he had for the same, I leave to dispute. [Back to text]
A Few Editorial Remarks
Ah, that vile bastard, that himself dare vaunt
To be the son of thy brave grandsire Gaunt,
Whom he but fathered of mere charity
To rid his mother of that infamy,
Who, if report of elder times be true,
Unto this day his father never knew.
I assume this refers to Beaufort's status as John of Gaunt's illegitimate son, by his mistress Katherine Swynford. When Gaunt married Swynford in 1396, their children were legitimated, and so I would guess that "fathered" here means something more akin to "acknowledged" -- I mention this because I went "WTF?" the first few times I read the line. (And in fact, I am right about this; see OED, fatherv, def. 2. Ph34r my context-fu!) The sense, in other words, is something like "Beaufort is clearly SOMEBODY'S bastard, but NOT GAUNT'S." [Back to text]
From Gloucester's seat I would thou wert estranged,
Or would to God that dukedom's name were changed,
For it portends no goodness unto us;
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, it is ominous.
Cf. Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI 2.6.106-7: "Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester, / For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous." A.S. Cairncross remarks: "Hall, 209, remarks on the bad luck attached to the title, with reference to Humphrey of Gloucester," but the fate of Thomas of Woodstock, murdered in 1397 on the orders of Richard II, also contributes to the title's doom-filled history (and might be the incident Eleanor is alluding to here). [Back to text]
Duke Humphrey to Eleanor Cobham.
Methinks thou shouldst not doubt I could forget
Her whom so many do remember yet;
No, no, our joys away like shadows slide,
But sorrows firm in memory abide;
Nay, I durst answer, thou dost nothing less
But moved with passion, urged by thy distress;
No, El'nor, no, thy woes, thy grief, thy wrong
Have in my breast been resident too long;
O, when report in every place had spread
My El'nor was to sanctuary fled
With cursèd Onley and the Witch of Eye,
As guilty of their vile conspiracy;
The dreadful spirits, when they did invocate,
For the succession and the realm's estate,
When Henry's image they in wax had wrought
By which he should unto his death be brought,
That as his picture did consume away,
His person so by sickness should decay;
Grief, that before could ne'er my thoughts control,
That instant took possession of my soul.
Ah, would to God I could forget thine ill;
As for mine own, let that inflict me still,
But that before hath taken too sure hold;
Forget it, said I? Would to God I could.
Of any woe if thou hast but one part,
I have the whole remaining in my heart;
I have no need of others' cares to borrow,
For all I have is nothing else but sorrow.
No, my sweet Nell, thou took'st not all away;
Though thou went'st hence, here still thy woes do stay;
Though from thy husband thou wert forced to go,
Those still remain; they will not leave me so;
No eye bewails my ill, moans thy distress;
Our grief the more, but yet our debt the less;
We owe no tears, no mourning days are kept
For those that yet for us have never wept;
We hold no obits, no sad exequies
Upon the death-days of unweeping eyes.
Alas, good Nell, what should thy patience move
T'upbraid thy kind lord with a foreign love?
Thou mightst have bid all former ills adieu,
Forgot the old; we have such store of new.
Did I omit thy love to entertain
With mutual grief to answer grief again,
Or thinkst thou I unkindly did forbear
To bandy woe for woe, and tear for tear?
Did I omit, or carelessly neglect
Those shows of love that ladies so respect?
In mournful black was I not seen to go,
By outward shows to tell my inward woe?
Nor dreary words were wasted in lament,
Nor cloudy brow bewrayed my discontent;
Is this the cause? If this be it, know then,
One grief concealed more grievous is than ten;
If in my breast those sorrows sometimes were,
And never uttered, still they must be there;
And if thou know'st they many were before,
By time increasing, they must needs be more;
England to me can challenge nothing lent;
Let her cast up what is received, what spent;
If I her own, can she from blame be free
If she but prove a stepdame unto me?
That if I should with that proud bastard strive
To plead my birthright and prerogative;
If birth allow, I should not need to fear it,
For then my true nobility should bear it;
If counsel aid, that France will tell, I know,
Whose towns lie waste before the English foe,
When thrice we gave the conquered French the foil
At Agincourt, at Cravant, and Vernoil.
If faith avail, these arms did Henry hold
To claim his crown, yet scarcely nine months old.
If country's care have leave to speak for me,
Grey hairs in youth my witness then may be;
If people's tongues give splendor to my fame,
They add a title to Duke Humphrey's name;
If toil at home, French treason, English hate
Shall tell my skill in managing the state,
If foreign travel my success may try
In Flanders, Almaine, Boheme, Burgundy,
That robe of Rome proud Beaufort now doth wear
In every place such sway should never bear.
The crosier staff in his imperious hand
To be the sceptre that controls the land,
That home to England dispensations draws
Which are of power to abrogate the laws,
That for those sums the wealthy Church should pay
Upon the needy commonty to lay;
His ghostly counsels only do advise
The means how Langley's progeny may rise,
Pathing young Henry's unadvisèd ways,
A Duke of York from Cambridge' house to raise
Which after may our title undermine,
Granted since Edward, in Gaunt's famous line,
Us of succession falsely to deprive,
Which they from Clarence feignèdly derive,
Knowing the will old Cambridge ever bore
To catch the wreath that famous Henry wore.
With Grey and Scroope, when first he laid the plot
From us and ours the garland to have got,
As from the March-born Mortimer to reign,
Whose title Glendour stoutly did maintain
When the proud Percies, haughty March, and he
Had shared the land by equal parts in three.
His priesthood now stern Mowbray doth restore
To stir the fire that kindled was before,
Against the Yorkists shall their claim advance,
To steel the point of Norfolk's sturdy lance
Upon the breast of Hereford's issue bent,
In just revenge of ancient banishment.
He doth advise to let our prisoner go,
And doth enlarge the faithless Scottish foe,
Giving our heirs in marriage, that their dowers
May bring invasion upon us and ours.
Ambitious Suffolk so the helm doth guide,
With Beaufort's damnèd policies supplied;
He and the Queen in council still confer
How to raise him, who hath advancèd her;
But, my dear heart, how vainly do I dream,
And fly from thee, whose sorrows are my theme!
My love to thee and England thus divided,
Which the most part, how hard to be decided;
Or thee, or that, to whither I am loath,
So near are you, so dear unto me both;
'Twixt that and thee, for equal love I find
England ungrateful, and my El'nor kind.
But though my country justly I reprove,
For country's sake, unkind unto my love;
Yet is thy Humphrey to his El'nor, now,
As when fresh beauty triumphed on thy brow,
As when thy graces I admired most,
Or of thy favors might the frankliest boast;
Those beauties were so infinite before
That in abundance I was only poor,
Of which, though time hath taken some again,
I ask no more but what doth yet remain;
Be patient, gentle heart, in thy distress;
Thou art a princess, not a whit the less.
Whilst in these breasts we bear about this life,
I am thy husband, and thou art my wife;
Cast not thine eye on such as mounted be,
But look on those cast down as low as we,
For some of them which proudly preach so high
Ere long shall come as low as thou or I.
They weep for joy, and let us laugh in woe;
We shall exchange when heaven will have it so.
We mourn, and they in after time may mourn;
Woe past may once laugh present woe to scorn;
And worse than hath been we can never taste;
Worse cannot come than is already past.
In all extremes, the only depth of ill
Is that which comforts the afflicted still;
Ah, would to God thou would'st thy griefs deny
And on my back let all the burden lie.
Or if thou canst resign, make mine thine own,
Both in one carriage to be undergone,
Till we again our former hopes recover,
And prosperous times blow these misfortunes over;
For in the thought of those forepassèd years,
Some new resemblance of old joy appears.
Mutual our care, so mutual be our love,
That our affliction never can remove;
So rest in peace, where peace hath hope to live,
Wishing thee more than I myself can give.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
At Agincourt, at Cravant, and Vernoil,
The three famous battles fought by the Englishmen in France: Agincourt by Henry the Fifth, against the whole power of France; Cravant fought by Montague, Earl of Salisbury, and the Duke of Burgoigne, against the Dolphin of France and William Stuart, Constable of Scotland; Vernoil, fought by John Duke of Bedford, against the Duke of Alençon, and with him most of the nobility of France, Duke Humphrey an especial counselor in all these expeditions. [Back to text]
In Flanders, Almaine, Boheme, Burgundy,
Here remembering the ancient amity which in his embassies he concluded between the King of England and Sigismond, Emperor of Almaine, drawing the Duke of Burgoigne into the same league, giving himself as an hostage for the Duke at Saint Omers, while the Duke came to Calais to confirm the league. With his many other employments to foreign kingdoms. [Back to text]
That crosier staff in his imperious hand.
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of Winchester, that proud and haughty prelate, received his cardinal's hat at Calais by the Pope's legate, which dignity Henry the Fifth his nephew forbade him to take upon him, knowing his haughty and malicious spirit unfit for that robe and calling. [Back to text]
The means how Langley's progeny may rise.
As willing to show the house of Cambridge to be descended of Edmund Langley Duke of York, a younger brother to John of Gaunt, his grandfather, as much as in him lay, to smother the title that the Yorkists made to the crown, from Lionel of Clarence, Gaunt's elder brother, by the daughter of Mortimer. [Drayton's note here is not very clear, although I suspect anyone who's reading it knows the intricacies of everyone's claims on the throne fairly well! Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness: the Yorkist claim to the throne comes not from the Duke of York, who was, as Drayton notes, younger than Gaunt, but from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, whose only child was a daughter, Philippa of Ulster. She married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and their son Roger was named heir presumptive by Richard II. Roger's daughter Anne married Richard of Cambridge, and it's through her that their son Richard, Duke of York, claimed the crown. The Lancastrians, naturally, were not keen on descent through the female line as a valid title to the crown -- in England, anyway. France is another story -- ed.] [Back to text]
His priesthood now, stern Mowbray doth restore.
Noting the ancient grudge between the house of Lancaster and Norfolk, ever since Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, was banished for the accusation of Henry, Duke of Hereford, after the King of England, father to Duke Humphrey, which accusation he came as a combatant, to have made good in the lists at Coventry. [Back to text]
And gives our heirs in marriage that their dowers,
James Stuart King of Scots, having been prisoner in England, was released, and took to wife the daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, niece to the Cardinal and the Duke of Exeter, and cousin-german removed to the King; this king broke the oath he had taken, and became after a great enemy to England. [But you can't blame him, as Henry IV had kept him as a sausage for nineteen years -- ed.] [Back to text]
NEXT TIME: MARGARET/SUFFOLK! Suffolk reminisces about being all war hero and stuff, and Margaret complains that Eleanor Cobham is a great big bitch. Even without pinching her and sitting on her at night and stuff like she wants to do.
It is now Wars of the Roses time in Draytonland, and thus, since our first two epistle-exchanging couples are Lancastrians I am using about the only icon I've got that's even remotely Lancastrian. This is a fun exchange: Eleanor is quite formidable when she gets her rant on, and so there is much colorful bashing of a) Humphrey's ex-wife Jacomin (or Jacqueline depending on your sources). b) Queen Margaret. c) Cardinal Beaufort. Also she laments that her breasts are no longer perky. Seriously.
Humphrey mostly flashes back to Shakespeare's history plays. But that's fun, too.
To my worthy and dearly esteemed friend, Master James Huish.
Sir, your own natural inclination to virtue, and your love to the Muses, assure me of your kind acceptance of my dedication. It is seated by custom, from which we are now bold to assume authority, to bear he names of our friends upon the fronts of our books, as gentlemen use to set their arms over their gates. Some say this use began by the heroes and brave spirits of the old world, which were desirous to be thought to patronize learning, and men in requital honor the names of those brave princes. But I think some after put the names of great men in their books, for that men should say there was something good only because indeed their names stood there; but for mine own part, not to dissemble, I find no such virtue in any of their great titles to do so much for anything of mine, and so let them pass. Take knowledge by this I love you, and in good faith, worthy of all love I think you, which I pray you may supply the place of further compliment.
Yours ever,
M. Drayton.
Eleanor Cobham to Duke Humphrey.
The Argument.
Eleanor Cobham, daughter to the Lord Cobham of Sterborough, and wife to Humphrey Plantagenet Duke of Gloucester, the son of Henry the Fourth, King of England, surnamed Bolingbroke. This noble Duke, for his great wisdom and justice called the Good, was by King Henry the Fifth (brother to this Duke) at his death appointed Protector of the land, during the nonage of Henry the Sixth; this Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester, a proud and ambitious woman, knowing that if young Henry died without issue, the Duke her husband was the nearest of the blood, conspired with one Bolingbroke, otherwise called Onley, a great magician, Hume, a priest, and Jourdain, Witch of Eye, by sorcery to make away the King, and by conjuration to know who should succeed. Of this being justly convicted, she was adjudged to do penance three several times openly in London, and then to perpetual banishment in the Isle of Man, from whence she writeth this epistle.
Methinks not knowing who these lines should send,
Thou straight turn'st over to the latter end,
Where thou my name no sooner hast espied
But in disdain my letters casts aside;
Why, if thou wilt, I will myself deny,
Nay, I'll affirm and swear I am not I,
Or if in that thy shame thou dost perceive,
I'll leave that name, that name myself shall leave;
And yet methinks amazed thou shouldst not stand,
Nor seem so much appallèd at my hand,
For my misfortunes have inured thine eye,
Long before this, to sights of misery;
No, no, read on; 'tis I, the very same;
All thou canst read is but to read my shame.
Be not dismayed, nor let my name affright;
The worst it can is but t'offend thy sight;
It cannot wound, nor do thee deadly harm;
It is no dreadful spell, nor magic charm;
If she that sent it love Duke Humphrey so,
Is't possible her name should be his foe?
Yes, I am El'nor, I am very she
Who brought for dower a virgin's bed to thee,
Though envious Beaufort slandered me before
To be Duke Humphrey's wanton paramour.
And though indeed, I cannot it deny,
To magic once I did myself apply,
I won thee not, as there be many think,
With poisoning philtres and bewitching drink,
Nor on thy person did I ever prove
Those wicked potions, so procuring love;
I cannot boast to be rich Holland's heir,
Nor of the blood and greatness of Bavare,
Yet El'nor brought no foreign armies in
To fetch her back, as did thy Jacomin;
Nor clamorous husband followed me that fled,
Exclaiming Humphrey to defile his bed;
Nor wast thou forced the slander to suppress
To send me back as an adulteress;
Brabant nor Burgoigne claimèd me by force,
Nor sued to Rome to hasten my divorce;
Nor Belgia's pomp defaced with Belgia's fire,
The just reward of her unjust desire,
Nor Bedford's spouse, your noble sister Anne,
That princely-issued great Burgundian,
Should stand with me, to move a woman's strife,
To yield the place to the Protector's wife.
If Cobham's name my birth can dignify,
Or Sterborough renown my family,
Where's Greenwich now, thy El'nor's court of late,
Where she with Humphrey held a princely state?
That pleasant Kent, when I abroad should ride,
That to my pleasure laid forth all her pride,
The Thames, by water when I took the air,
Danced with my barge in launching from the stair;
The anchoring ships, that when I passed the road
Were wont to hang their checkered tops abroad;
How could it be, those that were wont to stand
To see my pomp, so goddess-like, to land,
Should after see me mailed up in a sheet,
Do shameful penance three times in the street?
Rung with a bell, a taper in my hand,
Barefoot to trudge before a beadle's wand,
That little babes, not having use of tongue,
Stood pointing at me as I came along.
Where's Humphrey's power, where was his great command?
Wast thou not Lord Protector of the land?
Or for thy justice, who can thee deny
The title of the Good Duke Humphrey?
Hast thou not at thy life, and in thy look,
The seal of Gaunt, the hand of Bolingbroke?
What blood extract from famous Edward's line
Can boast itself to be so pure as thine?
Who else next Henry should the realm prefer
If it allow of famous Lancaster?
But Reignier's daughter must from France be fet,
And with a vengeance on our throne be set;
Mans, Maine, and Anjou on that beggar cast
To bring her home to England in such haste,
And what for Henry thou hadst labored there,
To join the King with Armagnac's rich heir,
Must all be dashed, as no such thing had been;
Poole needs must have his darling made a Queen.
How should he with our princes else be placed,
To have his earlship with a dukedom graced,
And raise the offspring of his blood so high
As lords of us, and our posterity.
O that by sea when he to France was sent
The ship had sunk wherein the traitor went,
Or that the sands had swallowed her before
She e'er set foot upon the English shore.
But all is well, nay, we have store to give;
What need we more? We by her looks can live!
All that great Henry's conquests ever heaped,
That famous Bedford to his glory kept,
Be given back to Reignier all in post,
And by this means, rich Normandy be lost;
Those which have com'n as mistresses of ours
Have into England brought their goodly dowers,
Which to our coffers yearly tribute brings
The life of subjects, and the strength of kings,
The means whereby fair England ever might
Raise power in France, to back our ancient right;
But she brings ruin here to make abode,
And cancels all our lawful claim abroad,
And she must recapitulate my shame,
And give a thousand bywords to my name,
And call me beldam, gib, witch, nightmare, trot,
With all despite that may a woman spot;
O that I were a witch but for her sake,
I'faith, her Queenship little rest should take;
I'd scratch that face that may not feel the air,
And knit whole ropes of witch-knots in her hair;
O, I would hag her nightly in her bed,
And on her breast sit like a lump of lead,
And like a fairy pinch that dainty skin
Her wanton blood is now so cockered in,
Or take me some such known familiar shape
As she my vengeance never should escape;
Were I a garment, none should need the more
To sprinkle me with Nessus' poisoned gore;
It were enough if she once put me on
To tear the flesh and sinews from the bone;
Were I a flower that might her smell delight,
Though I were not the poisoning aconite,
I would send such a fume into her brow
Should make her mad, as mad as I am now.
They say the Druids once lived in this isle,
This fatal Man, the place of my exile,
Whose powerful charms such dreadful wonders wrought,
Which in the Gothish island tongue were taught;
O that their spells to me they had resigned
Wherewith they raised and calmed both sea and wind,
And made the moon pause in her pallid sphere
Whilst her grim dragons drew them through the air,
Their hellish power to kill the plowman's seed,
Or to forespeak the flocks as they did feed,
To nurse a damnèd spirit with human blood,
To carry them through earth, air, fire, and flood;
Had I this skill that time hath almost lost,
How, like a goblin, I would haunt her ghost!
O pardon, pardon my misgoverned tongue;
A woman's strength cannot endure my wrong.
Did not the heavens her coming in withstand,
As though affrighted when she came to land?
The earth did quake her coming to abide,
The goodly Thames did twice keep back her tide,
Paul's shook with tempests, and that mounting spire
With lightning sent from heaven was set on fire
Our stately buildings to the ground were blown,
Her pride by these prodigious signs were shown;
More fearful visions on the English earth
Than ever were at any death or birth.
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, if I should not speak,
My breast would split, my very heart would break.
I that was wont so many to command
Worse now than with a clap-dish in my hand,
A simple mantle covering me withal,
A very leper of Care's hospital,
That from my state, a presence held in awe,
Glad here to kennel in a pad of straw,
And, like an owl, by night to go abroad,
Rooted all day within an ivy-tod
Amongst the sea cliffs, in the dampy caves,
In charnel-houses, or among the graves;
Saw'st thou those eyes in whose sweet cheerful look
Duke Humphrey once such joy and pleasure took,
Sorrow hath so despoiled me of all grace,
Thou could'st not say "This was my El'nor's face";
Like a foul Gorgon, whose disheveled hair
With every blast flies glaring in the air,
Some standing up like horns upon my head,
Even like those women that in [coos?] are bred;
My lank breasts hang like bladders left unblown,
My skin with loathsome jaundice overgrown,
So pined away that if thou long'st to see
Ruin's true picture, only look on me.
Sometime in thinking of what I have had,
Even in a sudden ecstasy am mad;
Then like a bedlam forth thy El'nor runs,
Like one of Bacchus' raging frantic nuns,
Or like a Tartar, when in strange disguise,
Prepared unto a dismal sacrifice.
That prelate Beaufort, a foul ill befall him --
Prelate, said I? Nay, devil I should call him;
Ah, God forgive me if I think amiss;
His very name, methinks, my poison is;
Ah, that vile Judas, our professèd foe,
My curse pursue him wheresoe'er he go
That, to my judgment when I did appear,
Laid to my charge those things which never were,
I should partake with Bolingbroke's intents,
The hallowing of his magic instruments,
That I procurèd Southwell to assist,
Which was by order consecrate a priest;
That it was I should cover all they did
That, but for him, had to this day been hid.
Ah, that vile bastard, that himself dare vaunt
To be the son of thy brave grandsire Gaunt,
Whom he but fathered of mere charity
To rid his mother of that infamy,
Who, if report of elder times be true,
Unto this day his father never knew.
He that by murder's black and odious crime
To Henry's throne attempted once to climb,
Having procured by hope of golden gain
A fatal hand his sovereign to have slain,
Who to his chamber closely he conveyed,
And for his purpose fitly there had laid,
Upon whose sword that famous prince had died,
If by a dog he had not been descried.
But now the Queen, her minion, Poole, and he,
As it please them, so now must all things be;
England's no place for anyone beside;
All is too little to maintain their pride.
Henry, alas, thou but a king's name art,
For of thyself thou art the lesser part;
And I pray God I do not live the day
To see thy ruin, and thy realm's decay,
And yet as sure as Humphrey seems to stand,
He be preserved from that vile traitor's hand;
From Gloucester's seat I would thou wert estranged,
Or would to God that dukedom's name were changed,
For it portends no goodness unto us;
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, it is ominous.
Yet rather than thy hap so hard should be,
I would thou wert here banishèd with me;
Humphrey, adieu; farewell, true noble lord;
My wish is all thy El'nor can afford.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
I sought that dreadful Sorceress of Eye.
Eleanor Cobham was accused by some that sought to withstand, and misliked her marriage with Duke Humphrey, that she practiced to give him philters and such poisoning potions to make him love her, as she was slandered by Cardinal Beaufort to have lived as the duke's leman, against the which cardinal she exclaimeth in this epistle in the verse before. [ODNB seems to agree with Beaufort, though. This footnote has no referent in the 1600 text -- ed.]
Though envious Beaufort slandered me before.
Noting the extreme hate he ever bore her. [Back to text]
Nor El'nor brought thee foreign armies in,
To fetch her back, as did thy Jacomin.
This was the chief and only thing that ever touched the reputation of this good duke, that dotingly he married Jacomin, or as some call her Jacquet, daughter and heir to William Bavare Duke of Holland, married before, and lawful wife to John Duke of Brabant, then living, which after, as it is showed int his verse following --
Brabant nor Burgoigne claimèd me by force,
Nor sued to Rome to hasten my divorce.
-- caused great wars, by reason that the Duke of Burgoigne took part with Brabant against the duke of Gloucester, which, being arbitrated by the Pope, the lady was adjudged to be delivered back to her former husband. [Back to text]
Nor Bedford's spouse, your noble sister Anne,
That princely-issued brave Burgundian.
John Duke of Bedford, that scourge of France, and the glory of the Englishmen, married Anne, sister to the Duke of Burgundy, a virtuous and beautiful lady, by which marriage, as also by his victories attained in France, he brought great strength to the English nation. [Back to text]
Where's Greenwich now, thy El'nor's court of late?
That fair and goodly palace of Greenwich was first builded by that famous duke, whose rich and pleasant situation might remain an assured monument of his wisdom, if there were no other memory of the same. [Back to text]
They say the Druids once lived in this isle.
It would seem that there were two islands, both of them called Mona, though now distinguished the one by the name of Man, the other by the name of Anglesey, both which were full of many infernal ceremonies, as may appear by Agricola's voyage, made into the hithermost Man, described by his son-in-law Cornelius Tacitus. And as supersition the daughter of barbarism and ignorance, so amongst these northerly nations, like as in America, magic was most esteemed. Druids were the public ministers of their religion as thoroughly taught in all rites thereof; their doctrine concerned the immortality of the soul, the contempt of death, and all other points which may conduce to resolution, fortitude, and magnanimity; their abode was in groves and woods, whereupon they have their name; their power extended itself to master the souls of men deceased, and to confer with ghosts, and other spirits, about the success of things. Plutarch, in his profound and learned discourse of the defect of oracles, reporteth that the outmost British Isles were the prison of I wot not what demigods, but it shall not need to speak any farther of the Druid than that which Lucan doth:
Et vos barbaricus ritus, moremque[?] sinistrum,
Sacrorum, Druidae positis repetistis ab armus.
[Back to text]
Did not the heavens coming in withstand.
Noting the prodigious and fearful signs that were seen in England a little before her coming in, which Eleanor expresseth in this epistle as foreshowing the dangers which should ensue upon this unlucky marriage. [Back to text]
The hallowing of the magic instruments.
The instruments which Bolingbroke used in his conjurations, according to the devilish ceremonies and customs of these unlawful art, were dedicated at a mass in the lodge in Harnsey Park, by Southwell, priest of Westminster. [Back to text]
Having procured by hopes of golden gain.
This was one of the articles that Duke Humphrey urged against the Cardinal Beaufort, that conspired the death of Henry the Fifth, by conveying a villain into his chamber, which in the night should have murdered him; but what ground of truth he had for the same, I leave to dispute. [Back to text]
A Few Editorial Remarks
Ah, that vile bastard, that himself dare vaunt
To be the son of thy brave grandsire Gaunt,
Whom he but fathered of mere charity
To rid his mother of that infamy,
Who, if report of elder times be true,
Unto this day his father never knew.
I assume this refers to Beaufort's status as John of Gaunt's illegitimate son, by his mistress Katherine Swynford. When Gaunt married Swynford in 1396, their children were legitimated, and so I would guess that "fathered" here means something more akin to "acknowledged" -- I mention this because I went "WTF?" the first few times I read the line. (And in fact, I am right about this; see OED, fatherv, def. 2. Ph34r my context-fu!) The sense, in other words, is something like "Beaufort is clearly SOMEBODY'S bastard, but NOT GAUNT'S." [Back to text]
From Gloucester's seat I would thou wert estranged,
Or would to God that dukedom's name were changed,
For it portends no goodness unto us;
Ah, Humphrey, Humphrey, it is ominous.
Cf. Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI 2.6.106-7: "Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester, / For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous." A.S. Cairncross remarks: "Hall, 209, remarks on the bad luck attached to the title, with reference to Humphrey of Gloucester," but the fate of Thomas of Woodstock, murdered in 1397 on the orders of Richard II, also contributes to the title's doom-filled history (and might be the incident Eleanor is alluding to here). [Back to text]
Duke Humphrey to Eleanor Cobham.
Methinks thou shouldst not doubt I could forget
Her whom so many do remember yet;
No, no, our joys away like shadows slide,
But sorrows firm in memory abide;
Nay, I durst answer, thou dost nothing less
But moved with passion, urged by thy distress;
No, El'nor, no, thy woes, thy grief, thy wrong
Have in my breast been resident too long;
O, when report in every place had spread
My El'nor was to sanctuary fled
With cursèd Onley and the Witch of Eye,
As guilty of their vile conspiracy;
The dreadful spirits, when they did invocate,
For the succession and the realm's estate,
When Henry's image they in wax had wrought
By which he should unto his death be brought,
That as his picture did consume away,
His person so by sickness should decay;
Grief, that before could ne'er my thoughts control,
That instant took possession of my soul.
Ah, would to God I could forget thine ill;
As for mine own, let that inflict me still,
But that before hath taken too sure hold;
Forget it, said I? Would to God I could.
Of any woe if thou hast but one part,
I have the whole remaining in my heart;
I have no need of others' cares to borrow,
For all I have is nothing else but sorrow.
No, my sweet Nell, thou took'st not all away;
Though thou went'st hence, here still thy woes do stay;
Though from thy husband thou wert forced to go,
Those still remain; they will not leave me so;
No eye bewails my ill, moans thy distress;
Our grief the more, but yet our debt the less;
We owe no tears, no mourning days are kept
For those that yet for us have never wept;
We hold no obits, no sad exequies
Upon the death-days of unweeping eyes.
Alas, good Nell, what should thy patience move
T'upbraid thy kind lord with a foreign love?
Thou mightst have bid all former ills adieu,
Forgot the old; we have such store of new.
Did I omit thy love to entertain
With mutual grief to answer grief again,
Or thinkst thou I unkindly did forbear
To bandy woe for woe, and tear for tear?
Did I omit, or carelessly neglect
Those shows of love that ladies so respect?
In mournful black was I not seen to go,
By outward shows to tell my inward woe?
Nor dreary words were wasted in lament,
Nor cloudy brow bewrayed my discontent;
Is this the cause? If this be it, know then,
One grief concealed more grievous is than ten;
If in my breast those sorrows sometimes were,
And never uttered, still they must be there;
And if thou know'st they many were before,
By time increasing, they must needs be more;
England to me can challenge nothing lent;
Let her cast up what is received, what spent;
If I her own, can she from blame be free
If she but prove a stepdame unto me?
That if I should with that proud bastard strive
To plead my birthright and prerogative;
If birth allow, I should not need to fear it,
For then my true nobility should bear it;
If counsel aid, that France will tell, I know,
Whose towns lie waste before the English foe,
When thrice we gave the conquered French the foil
At Agincourt, at Cravant, and Vernoil.
If faith avail, these arms did Henry hold
To claim his crown, yet scarcely nine months old.
If country's care have leave to speak for me,
Grey hairs in youth my witness then may be;
If people's tongues give splendor to my fame,
They add a title to Duke Humphrey's name;
If toil at home, French treason, English hate
Shall tell my skill in managing the state,
If foreign travel my success may try
In Flanders, Almaine, Boheme, Burgundy,
That robe of Rome proud Beaufort now doth wear
In every place such sway should never bear.
The crosier staff in his imperious hand
To be the sceptre that controls the land,
That home to England dispensations draws
Which are of power to abrogate the laws,
That for those sums the wealthy Church should pay
Upon the needy commonty to lay;
His ghostly counsels only do advise
The means how Langley's progeny may rise,
Pathing young Henry's unadvisèd ways,
A Duke of York from Cambridge' house to raise
Which after may our title undermine,
Granted since Edward, in Gaunt's famous line,
Us of succession falsely to deprive,
Which they from Clarence feignèdly derive,
Knowing the will old Cambridge ever bore
To catch the wreath that famous Henry wore.
With Grey and Scroope, when first he laid the plot
From us and ours the garland to have got,
As from the March-born Mortimer to reign,
Whose title Glendour stoutly did maintain
When the proud Percies, haughty March, and he
Had shared the land by equal parts in three.
His priesthood now stern Mowbray doth restore
To stir the fire that kindled was before,
Against the Yorkists shall their claim advance,
To steel the point of Norfolk's sturdy lance
Upon the breast of Hereford's issue bent,
In just revenge of ancient banishment.
He doth advise to let our prisoner go,
And doth enlarge the faithless Scottish foe,
Giving our heirs in marriage, that their dowers
May bring invasion upon us and ours.
Ambitious Suffolk so the helm doth guide,
With Beaufort's damnèd policies supplied;
He and the Queen in council still confer
How to raise him, who hath advancèd her;
But, my dear heart, how vainly do I dream,
And fly from thee, whose sorrows are my theme!
My love to thee and England thus divided,
Which the most part, how hard to be decided;
Or thee, or that, to whither I am loath,
So near are you, so dear unto me both;
'Twixt that and thee, for equal love I find
England ungrateful, and my El'nor kind.
But though my country justly I reprove,
For country's sake, unkind unto my love;
Yet is thy Humphrey to his El'nor, now,
As when fresh beauty triumphed on thy brow,
As when thy graces I admired most,
Or of thy favors might the frankliest boast;
Those beauties were so infinite before
That in abundance I was only poor,
Of which, though time hath taken some again,
I ask no more but what doth yet remain;
Be patient, gentle heart, in thy distress;
Thou art a princess, not a whit the less.
Whilst in these breasts we bear about this life,
I am thy husband, and thou art my wife;
Cast not thine eye on such as mounted be,
But look on those cast down as low as we,
For some of them which proudly preach so high
Ere long shall come as low as thou or I.
They weep for joy, and let us laugh in woe;
We shall exchange when heaven will have it so.
We mourn, and they in after time may mourn;
Woe past may once laugh present woe to scorn;
And worse than hath been we can never taste;
Worse cannot come than is already past.
In all extremes, the only depth of ill
Is that which comforts the afflicted still;
Ah, would to God thou would'st thy griefs deny
And on my back let all the burden lie.
Or if thou canst resign, make mine thine own,
Both in one carriage to be undergone,
Till we again our former hopes recover,
And prosperous times blow these misfortunes over;
For in the thought of those forepassèd years,
Some new resemblance of old joy appears.
Mutual our care, so mutual be our love,
That our affliction never can remove;
So rest in peace, where peace hath hope to live,
Wishing thee more than I myself can give.
Notes of the Chronicle History.
At Agincourt, at Cravant, and Vernoil,
The three famous battles fought by the Englishmen in France: Agincourt by Henry the Fifth, against the whole power of France; Cravant fought by Montague, Earl of Salisbury, and the Duke of Burgoigne, against the Dolphin of France and William Stuart, Constable of Scotland; Vernoil, fought by John Duke of Bedford, against the Duke of Alençon, and with him most of the nobility of France, Duke Humphrey an especial counselor in all these expeditions. [Back to text]
In Flanders, Almaine, Boheme, Burgundy,
Here remembering the ancient amity which in his embassies he concluded between the King of England and Sigismond, Emperor of Almaine, drawing the Duke of Burgoigne into the same league, giving himself as an hostage for the Duke at Saint Omers, while the Duke came to Calais to confirm the league. With his many other employments to foreign kingdoms. [Back to text]
That crosier staff in his imperious hand.
Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of Winchester, that proud and haughty prelate, received his cardinal's hat at Calais by the Pope's legate, which dignity Henry the Fifth his nephew forbade him to take upon him, knowing his haughty and malicious spirit unfit for that robe and calling. [Back to text]
The means how Langley's progeny may rise.
As willing to show the house of Cambridge to be descended of Edmund Langley Duke of York, a younger brother to John of Gaunt, his grandfather, as much as in him lay, to smother the title that the Yorkists made to the crown, from Lionel of Clarence, Gaunt's elder brother, by the daughter of Mortimer. [Drayton's note here is not very clear, although I suspect anyone who's reading it knows the intricacies of everyone's claims on the throne fairly well! Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness: the Yorkist claim to the throne comes not from the Duke of York, who was, as Drayton notes, younger than Gaunt, but from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, whose only child was a daughter, Philippa of Ulster. She married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and their son Roger was named heir presumptive by Richard II. Roger's daughter Anne married Richard of Cambridge, and it's through her that their son Richard, Duke of York, claimed the crown. The Lancastrians, naturally, were not keen on descent through the female line as a valid title to the crown -- in England, anyway. France is another story -- ed.] [Back to text]
His priesthood now, stern Mowbray doth restore.
Noting the ancient grudge between the house of Lancaster and Norfolk, ever since Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, was banished for the accusation of Henry, Duke of Hereford, after the King of England, father to Duke Humphrey, which accusation he came as a combatant, to have made good in the lists at Coventry. [Back to text]
And gives our heirs in marriage that their dowers,
James Stuart King of Scots, having been prisoner in England, was released, and took to wife the daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, niece to the Cardinal and the Duke of Exeter, and cousin-german removed to the King; this king broke the oath he had taken, and became after a great enemy to England. [But you can't blame him, as Henry IV had kept him as a sausage for nineteen years -- ed.] [Back to text]
NEXT TIME: MARGARET/SUFFOLK! Suffolk reminisces about being all war hero and stuff, and Margaret complains that Eleanor Cobham is a great big bitch. Even without pinching her and sitting on her at night and stuff like she wants to do.