(_From the Edinburgh Review, just published._)
[These stores are of invaluable interest, particularly with reference
to the earlier and most obscure portions of our history.]
An immense collection of royal letters and state papers, miscellaneous
rolls relating to the revenue, expenditure, debts and accounts of the
Crown, New Year's gifts, the royal household, mint, foreign bills of
exchange, military and naval affairs, instruments relating to
treaties, truces, and infractions of peace, chiefly between England
and France; mercantile matters, foreign possessions of the Crown,
proceedings in the Admiralty, military and other courts of the great
officers of the Crown, pardons, protections, petitions, subsidy rolls,
Scotch homage rolls, pardon rolls, privy seals, signet bills, writs of
various descriptions from Edward I. to Edward IV., exist there,
without calendar or index; and in such masses as to defy the patience
of any inquirer, however ardent. It need not be said that in such a
variety of documents their value must vary considerably, or that many
of them are of little use; but each of them is at least worthy of
being examined; and there are few of them which, if properly
scrutinized by apt labourers, would not at least contribute to the
elucidation or ratification of some branch of history. Some of them
would render still more important services; and, by pointing out the
daily habits and most familiar occurrences of the lives of our kings
and other eminent personages who figure in our history, lead us to a
much more accurate estimate of their genius than any that has hitherto
been formed. With this view, the close rolls are amongst the most
minute and interesting of those documents which remain unexplored. The
character of King John has had but scanty justice done to it; and
perhaps those who have formed their notions of that monarch from the
ordinary accounts of him, will be surprised to find him writing to the
Abbot of Reading to acknowledge the receipt of "six volumes of books,
containing the whole of the Old Testament, Master Hugh de St. Victor's
treatise on the Sacraments, the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the
Epistles of St. Augustine on the City of God, and on the 3rd part of
the Psalter, Valerian de Moribus, Origen's treatise on the Old
Testament, and Candidus Arianus to Marius;"--and that on another
occasion shortly afterwards he acknowledges the receipt of "his copy
of Pliny," which had been in the custody of the same Abbot. Still less
does it consist with the commonly adopted notions of his selfish
tyranny, that he should address Bryan de Insula in terms like the
following: "Know that we are quite willing that our chief barons,
concerning whom you wrote to us, may hunt while passing through your
bailiwick, provided that you know who they are and what they take; for
we do not keep our forests, nor our beasts, for our own use only, but
for the use also of our faithful subjects. See, however, that they are
well guarded on account of robbers, for the beasts are more frightened
by robbers than by the aforesaid barons." Of the reign of Henry III.
the particulars are still more minute. Notwithstanding its connexion
with superstitions which exist no longer, we may sympathize with the
pious charity that suggested that monarch's order "for feeding as many
poor persons as can enter the greater and lesser hall at Westminster
on Friday next after the octaves of St. Matthew, being the anniversary
of Eleanor, the King's sister, formerly Queen of Scotland, for the
good of the said Eleanor's soul." His taste for the fine arts, and his
encouragement of its professors, are frequently to be traced in the
entries upon these rolls. In one of them he gives directions for
having the great chamber at Westminster painted with a good green
colour after the fashion of a curtain; and in the great gable of the
same chamber near the door this device to be painted,--"Ke ne dune ke
ne tine, ne prent ke desire;" and another runs thus,--"The King, in
presence of Master William the painter, a monk of Westminster, lately
at Winchester, contrived and gave orders for a certain picture to be
made at Westminster in the wardrobe where he was accustomed to wash
his face, representing the King who was rescued by his dogs from the
seditions which were plotted against that King by his subjects,
respecting which same picture the King addressed other letters to you
Edward of Westminster. And the King commands Philip Lavel his
treasurer, and the aforesaid Edward of Westminster, to cause the same
Master William to have his costs and charges for painting the
aforesaid picture without delay; and when he shall know the cost, he
will give them a writ of liberate therefor." For the illustration of
the elder historians, and as a means of ascertaining how far
narrations of events which appear doubtful or improbable, are correct,
these and other buried documents possess great value. That blackest
charge against the memory of King John, by which he is implicated in
the murder of his nephew Prince Arthur, has been brought forward in
forms so various, that common charity has induced many men to withhold
their credence from an accusation which rests on vague and uncertain
traditions. It is said, however, that Arthur's death, by whatever
means it was brought about, took place at Rouen; it has been
ascertained very lately for the first time, by inspection of the
attestations of records, that John was at that place on that day; a
circumstance not in itself enough to lead men to a very violent
suspicion of his guilt, if the manner of the Prince's death had not
been sudden and mysterious; but which, bringing the charge at least
somewhat nearer, may probably lead to further discoveries. Of less
importance, but yet not without interest,--if it be interesting to
know accurately the early manners of a people, and to trace their
progress from periods when those lights of science which are now
beaming in full radiance over the land, had just begun to glimmer
above the horizon,--is the following instance. Matthew Paris relates,
that in 1255, an elephant was sent by the King of France to Henry
III., and that it being the first animal of that species that had been
seen in England, the people flocked in great numbers to behold it.
Upon the close rolls is entered a writ tested at Westminster the 3rd
of February, 39, H. III. (1255,) directing the sheriff of Kent to "go
in person to Dover, together with John Gouch, the King's servant, to
arrange in what manner the King's elephant, which was at Whitsand,[12]
may best and most conveniently be brought over to these parts, and to
find for the same John a ship and other things necessary to convey it;
and if, by the advice of the mariners and others, it could be brought
to London by water," directing it to be so brought. That the stranger
arrived safely, is evident from a similar writ, dated the 23rd of the
same month, commanding the Sheriffs of London to "cause to be built at
the Tower of London, a house forty feet in length and twenty in
breadth, for the King's elephant." Economy however, it seems, was not
neglected by the monarch in his _menus plaisirs_; for the Sheriffs are
expressly charged to see that the house be so strongly constructed
that, whenever there should be need, it might be adapted to and used
for other purposes; and the costs are to be ascertained "by the view
and testimony of honest men."
[12] The shortest and most convenient passage from France to
England appears to have been from Whitsand to Dover. The
tenure of certain lands in Coperland near Dover, was the
service of holding the King's Head between Dover and
Whitsand whenever he crossed there.
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