(_To the Editor._)
In a late number, you gave among the "County Collections," with which a
correspondent had furnished you, the old Cornish proverb--
"Hinckston Down well wrought,
Is worth London dearly bought."
Possibly your correspondent was not aware that the true reading of this
proverb is the following:--
"Hinckston Down well wrought,
Is worth a monarch's ransom dearly bought."
The lines are thus quoted by Mr. Barrington, in his elaborate work on
the middle ages, and refer to the prevailing belief, that Hinckston Down
is a mass of copper, and in value, therefore, an equivalent for the price
set on the head of a captive sovereign. Perhaps, as some elucidation of
so intricate a subject as that of the ransoming prisoners during the
middle ages, the following remarks may not be deemed altogether unworthy
of insertion in your pages.
Originally, the supposed right of condemning captives to death rendered
the reducing of them to perpetual slavery an act of mercy on the part
of the conqueror, which practice was not entirely exploded even in
the fourteenth century, when Louis Hutin in a letter to Edward II. his
vassal and ally, desired him to arrest his enemies, the Flemings, and
make them slaves and serfs. (_Mettre par deveres vous, si comme
forfain à vous Sers et Esclaves à tous jours._) _Rymer._ Booty,
however, being equally with vengeance the cause of war, men were not
unwilling to accept of advantages more convenient and useful than the
services of a prisoner; whose maintenance might be perhaps a burden to
them, and to whose death they were indifferent. For this reason even the
most sanguinary nations condescended at last to accept of ransom for
their captives; and during the period between the eleventh and fifteenth
centuries, fixed and general rules appear to have been established for
the regulating such transactions. The principal of these seem to have
been, the right of the captor to the persons of his prisoners, though in
some cases the king claimed the prerogative of either restoring them to
liberty, or of retaining them himself, at a price much inferior to what
their original possessor had expected. On a similar principle, Henry IV.
forbade the Percies to ransom their prisoners taken at Holmdown. In this
case the captives consisted of the chief Scottish nobility, and the king
in retaining them, had probably views of policy, which looked to objects
far beyond the mere advantage of their ransom. It is mentioned by a
French antiquary that the King of France had the privilege of purchasing
any prisoner from his conqueror, on the payment of 10,000 livres; and
as a confirmation of this, the money paid to Denis de Morbec for his
captive John, King of France, by Edward III. amounted to this exact
sum. The English monarch afterwards extorted the enormous ransom of
three millions of gold crowns, amounting, as it has been calculated,
to £1,500,000. of our present money, from his royal captive. The
French author censures Edward somewhat unjustly for his share in
this transaction; here as in the case of the Percies, state reasons
interfered with private advantages. John yielded up to his conquerors
not only the abovementioned sum, but whole towns and provinces became
the property of the English nation; to these De Morbec could have no
right. It was, however, notwithstanding the frequent mention in history
of ransoms, still in the power of the persons in possession of a
prisoner to refuse any advantage, however great, which his liberty might
offer them, if dictated by motives of policy, dependant principally on
his personal importance. Entius, King of Sardinia, son of Frederic II.
was esteemed of such consequence to his father's affairs, that the
Bolognese, to whom he became a prisoner in 1248, would accept of no
price for his manumission; and he died in captivity, after a confinement
of twenty-four years. Such was the conduct of Charles V. of France
towards the Captal de Buche, for whose liberty he refused all the offers
made to him by Edward III.
On this principle the Duke of Orleans and Comte d'Eu, were ordered by
the dying injunctions of Henry V. to be retained in prison until his
son should be capable of governing; nor was it until after a lapse of
seventeen years, that permission was given to these noblemen to purchase
their freedom.
If no state reason interfered, the conqueror made what profit he
could of his prisoners. Froissart, in speaking of Poictiers, adds,
that the English became very rich, in consequence of that battle,
as well by ransoms as by plunder, and M. St. Palaye, in his "Mem. sur
la Chevalrie," mentions that the ransom of prisoners was the principal
means by which the knights of olden time supported the magnificence for
which they were so remarkable. In the next century, the articles of war
drawn up by Henry V. previous to his invasion of France, contain the
condition, "that be it at the battle or other deeds of arms, where the
prisoners are taken, he that may first have his _Faye_ shall have
him for a prisoner, and need not abide by him;" by Faye, probably the
promise given by the vanquished to his captor to remain his prisoner, is
understood; as the expression _donner sa foi_, occurs in various
French historians. The value of a ransom is sometimes estimated at one
year's income of a man's estate, and this opinion is supported by the
custom of allowing a year's liberty to captives to procure the sum
agreed upon. By the feudal law, every tenant or vassal was bound to
assist his lord in captivity, by a contribution proportionate to the land
he held. As, however, the amount received for prisoners is very various,
personal importance had no doubt great weight in the determination of a
captive's value. Bertrand du Guescelin who had no property, valued his
own ransom at 100,000 livres; and Froissart, at the same period mentions
the ransom of a King of Majorca, of the house of Arragon, as being
exactly that sum.
(_To be continued._)
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