10

THE CHARTERS, STATUTES, ARMS.

Beckley. I have quoted this letter at length in a note, and there is another letter directing the Chancellor to give similar power of the King's press to John Smyth, warden of masons, and Robert Whately, warden of carpenters, at Eton, who are to have "power to take in what place so ever hit be, al manere of werkmen, laborers, and cariage, such as eyther of them shal seme necessarie or behoveful in their crafts to the edificacion of oure collage of our lady of Eton."

In the same year (1441) Henry granted another charter to the College. A third was granted in 1444, and others in 1447, and 1449, and 1459. All of these were solemnly confirmed in various Parliaments; and thus the sanction of the assembled Legislature of the Realm was formally given to the foundation and endowment of Eton. The statutes were principally drawn up in 1444, and received some additions in 1445, 1446, and 1454.

The arms of Eton College are well known. They were granted by the Royal Founder in 1449, by a deed still extant, and to which I draw attention, not merely on account of the heraldic reasons which it gives why particular emblems were assigned to Eton, but for the proofs which it contains of Henry's benevolent and enlightened spirit.

The recital in the commencement of this grant states Henry's hope that his College of Eton may, by God's blessing, remain a perpetual ornament of Divine praise: it states his desire, not merely to equal, but to surpass his predecessors in munificence, and his wish that this work of his hands should be adorned with every possible splendour and dignity. It then expresses the truly royal sentiment, that "If men are ennobled on account of ancient hereditary wealth, much more is he to be preferred and to be styled truly noble, who is rich in the treasures of the sciences and wisdom, and is also found diligent in his duty towards God."

and another directed to John Beckley, mason, yeving him power by the same to take cariages and al other things necesary for the same werke. Wherein ye shall do unto us good pleasir. Yeven under oure signet, at oure manoir of Shene, the vi day of Juyn.

"To the Reverend Fader in God oure Right trusty and welbeloved the Bishop of Bathe, oure Chancelleur of Englande."

6 See Bentley's Excerpta Historica.

7 Nam, si inveteratæ et per genus ductæ divitiæ nobiles faciunt, multo præstantioræ est et verè dicendus nobilis, qui in scientiarum thesauris et prudentiæ locuples, necnon in divinis obsequiis, diligens invenitur.

THE PROVOST, ETC., RECEIVE POSSESSION.

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The deed next states the King's intention to impart nobility to his College, and then comes the grant of arms. "We assign, therefore, as arms and ensigns of arms-On a field Sable, three Fleur-de-lis, Argent. Our design being that our newly founded College, enduring for ages to come (whose perpetuity we mean to be signified by the stability of the Sable colour) is to produce the brightest flowers in every kind of Science, redolent to the honour and most divine worship of Almighty God and the undefiled Virgin and glorious Mother, to whom, as on other occasions, so in founding this College most especially, we offer with an ardent mind a hearty and most earnest devotion. To which arms that we may also impart something of Royal nobility, which may declare the work to be truly royal and renowed, we have resolved that portions of the arms which by royal right belong to us in the kingdoms of England and France, be placed in the chief of the shield, Party per pale Azure, with a flower of France, and Gules with a Lion passant, Or."

In his two first charters, Henry had named as Provost of Eton, Henry Sever, who had been chaplain and almoner to King Henry the Fifth, and was afterwards Dean of Westminster and warden of Merton College, Oxford. There is a tradition that John Stanbury, a divine, high in the king's favour for his learning and abilities, was the first Provost; but though it is probable that Henry may have consulted him respecting his designed College, there is no proof of his ever having been actually nominated to office in it, and Sever must be regarded as the first titular Provost of Eton.'

Sever himself never took actual possession of his office; for before the buildings were sufficiently advanced for the members of the College to occupy them, Henry had resolved on making William of Waynflete, Provost. The character and career of this eminent man will be considered in the memoir of his life. For the present it may merely be stated that in 1442, King Henry induced Waynflete to leave the head-mastership of Winchester, to assume the same station at Eton College; and in 1443 King Henry elevated him to the Provostship. Together with Waynflete, five fellows of Winchester, and thirty-five of the scholars

I have chiefly taken the translation of this passage from Mr. Bentley, p. 45.
See" Alumni Etonenses," and the authorities there cited.

of that College, migrated to Eton, and became the primitive body of Etonians.

It was on the feast of St. Thomas (the 21st December) 1443, that Waynflete and his companions received possession of Eton College from the Royal Commissioners. Some temporary buildings must have been erected for their accommodation; as the works of the chapel were carried on for many years afterwards, and were certainly incomplete in 1463. The other parts of the same College were still more imperfect; the accounts in the Archives show that they were unfinished as late as the commencement of Henry the Eighth's reign.

Though our royal Founder never witnessed the completion of the fair fabric which he had designed, he saw his school of Eton in actual existence, and beheld the fruits of his bounty ripening, before the full outbreak of the calamities which overwhelmed him in the latter part of his life. But it was only during a few years that King Henry the Sixth was permitted to devote himself, in undisturbed possession of his crown, to his subjects' good. The defeats of our armies in France, and our ignominious expulsion from that country, exasperated the English nation against its rulers and Henry's marriage (1444) with Margaret of Anjou, a near relation of the French King, increased the popular discontent. Such, however, was the respect inspired by Henry's personal character, that no one ever ventured to accuse him as being the cause of any of the measures, either of foreign or domestic policy, which were clamoured against by the people. His Queen and his courtiers were hated and assailed, but the good King himself was always spoken of with compassion and esteem. But when disaster and disorder increased; and when the glory, which Henry the Fifth's victories had thrown upon the House of Lancaster, was utterly eclipsed in the defeats sustained by his son's generals, men began to murmur among themselves that, according to lineal inheritance, the English crown belonged to another family; and that the head of that family was the Duke of York, a brave soldier, and a true Englishman, and, as such, hating, and hated by Queen Margaret and her knot of favourites, who misguided England's counsels, and brought dishonour upon England's arms.

“ Βαρεῖα δ ̓ ἀτῶν φάτις ξὺν κότῳ

Δημοκράντου δ ̓ ἀρᾶς τίνει χρέος.”

And while it was thus gathering against the Lancastrians,

Henry was, in 1453, visited by the severest affliction that can befal humanity. This was a malady, that for some time affected both mind and body: and, till the year 1455, the King remained in a state absolutely incapable of exercising any of the duties of his station, and the Duke of York acted as Protector of the kingdom.

During this interval, Henry's ill-fated son, Edward Plantagenet, was born (13th October, 1453). The first gleam of restored intellect which Henry showed was fifteen months afterwards, and was caused by the sight of his little child. In the simple words of the old chronicler-"On the Monday afternoon the Queen came to him, and brought my lord prince with her, and then he asked what the prince's name was, and the Queen told him Edward; and then he held up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew till that time, nor wist not what was said to him, nor wist not where he had been, whilst he had been sick, till now."

It was probably the birth of this heir to the House of Lancaster, that caused the Duke of York to assert his hereditary claim to the English crown. While Henry was childless, the Duke was his next of kin, and stood next in succession to the throne, even if the validity of Henry's title was admitted. But Prince Edward's birth seemed to doom Richard of York and his house for ever to the obscurity of a private station; unless an effort should be made to win back by force the crown of which Richard the Second had been forcibly deprived. Moreover the rancour of Queen Margaret and her partisans against the Duke grew continually fiercer, as he grew suspected. He seems to have had, to a great extent, the excuse,-too common in all revolutionary times, -that his only choice lay between inflicting and suffering violence. Worse men, if not bolder men, than himself, were at his side and urged him forward, and finally, after various scenes of intrigue and tumult, the civil war of the Roses began in 1455; a war in which more Englishmen sometimes perished in a single battle, than had fallen by the sword during the whole French wars of the preceding fifty years.

The details of this part of English history are hopelessly confused; nor is there anything in them that should induce us to delay in trying to thread their sanguinary maze. But throughout the vicissitudes of the contest Henry's virtues shine unblemished;

nor did the most vehement partisan of the House of York ever connect his name with any of the charges of cruelty and bad faith, which the rival factions so generally, and so justly, preferred against each other. His integrity and humanity were more than once honourably conspicuous; and, though averse to all bloodshed and violence, he showed also that his gentleness was untainted with cowardice, nor could any threat of peril to himself ever make him abandon a friend. When the Yorkists first attacked the town of St. Alban's, in which Henry was shut up with a few of his principal adherents, the Yorkists sent a herald into the town, offering to treat Henry with all loyalty and respect, provided the Duke of Somerset and some others of his associates were delivered up to them. Henry firmly refused, declaring that "sooner than abandon any of the lords that were faithful to him, he was ready that day in their quarrel to live and die." In the assault on the town, which followed, Henry was wounded and taken prisoner, and three of the most zealous chiefs of his, or rather of the Queen's party, the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland, and the Lord Clifford, were slain.

The Duke of York did not even yet publicly claim the crown. The rising against Henry was glossed over under the pretext of having been undertaken in order to rescue the King from evil ministers. But the Duke assumed the real management of affairs, and a relapse of Henry into helpless illness seemed to promise a speedy opportunity of converting the title of Protector into that of King, and forcibly setting aside Prince Edward from the succession. But the fierce spirit of Queen Margaret strove incessantly to re-organise and inspirit the adherents of the Red Rose of Lancaster. Henry recovered his health, and, in 1456, once more assumed his kingly post; and a temporary reconciliation, in which Henry alone was sincere, was effected with the Duke. Henry, who, as the historian' truly says, had long acted as the only impartial man in his dominions, "laboured to mitigate the resentments of the two parties: and at last had reason to hope that his endeavours would be crowned with complete success. By common agreement they repaired with their retainers to London (January 26th, 1458): the loyalists were lodged without, the Yorkists within, the walls and the mayor at the head of five thousand armed citizens undertook to preserve the peace. The Duke assembled

1 Lingard.