their

Reigns.

The Black Prince, with an army of twelve thousand men, en- Began gaged the French army near Poictiers, which consisted of above sixty thousand, whom he entirely defeated, and took John, the king of France, prisoner. In this battle he displayed all the military talents of a consummate general; and in his behaviour after it, all that moderation and humanity, especially towards the royal captive, of which none but great minds are capable; and which did him more honour than his victory. Ob. 8 June, 1376. Etat. 46.

JOAN, PRINCESS OF WALES, in Strutt's "Regal Antiquities," plate 35.

This plate represents Joan, countess of Kent, who became the wife of Edward the Black Prince, in the year 1361. She was the daughter of Edmund, earl of Kent, brother by the father's side to King Edward the Second, and had been twice married before; first, to the valiant Earl of Salisbury, from whom she was divorced; and afterward to the Lord Thomas Holland. She died 1386. See Strutt.

JOHN of GAUNT, king of Castile and Leon, duke of Lancaster; Vertue sc. h. sh. Painted on glass, in an ancient window belonging to the library of All Souls Coll. Oxon. The Bible on the left alludes to his promoting Wicliffe's doctrine.*

JOHANNES GANDAVENSIS; sold by Roger Daniel,

4to.

JOHN OF GAUNT, &c. in an ermined robe; small. JOHN OF GAUNT, in Harding's Shakspeare. R. Clamp.

There is a very ancient painting of him at Badminton, in Gloucestershire, the seat of the Duke of Beaufort.

John of Gaunt, or Ghent, so called from the place of his birth, was the third son of Edward the Third. He enjoyed only the empty title of king of Castile, from his marriage with Constance, second daughter of Peter the Cruel.+ Though he was not invested with the power, he had in reality the authority, of a regent

* I cannot imagine that the book, called here the Bible, had any allusion to the favour shewn to the Wicliffites: such circumstances could not find a place in church windows.-Lord Hailes.

↑ She was a natural daughter of that prince, by Mary de Padilla, his mistress.

Began of the kingdom, during the minority of Richard the Second. The their haughtiness of this prince rendered him very unpopular. Ob. 3.

Reigns.

Feb. 1399.

.

RICHARD II. at his devotion. He is represented as young, and kneeling by his three patron saints, John the Baptist, King Edmund, and Edward the Confessor. His robe is adorned with white harts and broom-cods, alluding to his mother's arms and his own name of Plantagenista. In the other part of the picture, which consists of two tables, is the Virgin Mary surrounded with angels, to whom the king addresses his devotions. On two brass plates affixed to the original picture, which is in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke, is engraved the following inscription:

"The invention of painting in oil, 1410.”

The picture was painted in 1377. It was in the royal collection, but was given by James the Second to Lord Castlemain. The print was engraved by Hollar, in 1639; h. sh.

RICHARDUS 11. Grisoni delin. Vertue sc. 1718, whole length, sh. Engraved from a drawing in the collection of Mr. Talman the architect, which was taken before the ancient picture, in the choir of St. Peter's, Westminster, was painted upon.

RICHARDUS II. from the same original as the foregoing; Vertue sc. h. sh. In the scroll is represented his resignation of his crown.

66

RICHARD II. engraved by R. White, for Brady's
History of England," fol.

RICHARD II. Grisoni delin. in Harding's Shakspeare.
W. N. Gardiner sc.

RICHARD II. from the original in the Jerusalem Chamber. J. T. Smith sc. 1791.

RICHARD II. in Hume's “England." C. Armstrong sc. Began

RICHARD II. in " Royal and Noble Authors," by Park. Bocquet sc.

RICHARD II. R. E. sc. Compton Holland.

There are several curious historical portraits of Richard II. &c. in Strutt's "Regal Antiquities."

their Reigns.

1377.

Richard the Second, a prince of a mean genius, was neither be- June 21, loved nor revered by his people. The contempt for his person naturally extended itself to his government, and subjected him to the tyranny of his nobility. His impatience of this subjection impelled him to several acts of violence, from which his nature seems to have been averse. His uncle, the duke of Gloucester, was assassinated by his orders; and he unjustly detained the estate of Henry duke of Lancaster, by whose procurement he was dethroned and murdered. The authors who lived nearest to his own time inform us that he was starved to death.

ANNE OF BOHEMIA, QUEEN TO RICHARD II. The coronation, in Strutt's "Regal Antiquities,” p. xviii. There is a fine monumental effigy of her, with Richard II. on his tomb, in Westminster Abbey.

Anne, daughter of the Emperor Charles IV. and sister of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, and the queen of King Richard the Second, died at Sheene, in Surrey, 1395.

HENRICUS IV. Vertue sc. h. sh. From the ancient portraits of him at Kensington,* and at Hampton Court in Herefordshire.

HENRY IV. in Hume's " England." Delatre sc.
HENRY IV. in Harding's Shakspeare. C. Knight sc.
HENRY IV. Compton Holland.

The set of kings at Kensington, whence Vertue, for want of better, took several heads, were all painted by one hand, and are certainly not original. There is another set still worse, in the same place. One of the sets, probably the better, came from Lord Cornwallis's gallery, at Culford, in Suffolk, and were begged of him by Queen Caroline. There is another set at Hardwick, and others elsewhere, equally unauthentic. I owe this note and other additions and corrections to Mr. Horace Walpole.

Began their

Several prints of him when Duke of Lancaster, are in Strutt's Reigns. "Regal Antiquities."

Sept.

29,

1399.

Henry, son of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, obtained the crown by usurpation, and held it by the sword; a tenure which gave him perpetual disquietude, and afterward opened such a scene of blood and cruelty as is hardly to be paralleled in any history; and it was not closed, till the two houses of York and Lancaster were united in the person of Henry the Seventh. The act for burning heretics was passed in this reign, and one of the Lollards was burnt.

HENRICUS V. Vertue sc. h. sh. From an ancient picture in the palace at Kensington. At the bottom is a representation of his marriage.

HENRY V. Elstracke sc. 4to.

HENRY V. Sold by Roger Daniel, in Lombard-street, 4to. The family of Henry the Fifth, from a curious ancient picture in the collection of James West, Esq. is in the "Anecdotes of Painting." It was engraved by Grignion.

HENRY V. on his Throne. On his right hand are two ecclesiastics. He who is on the fore-ground, has been conjectured to be the famous Cardinal Lewis de Luxembourg, chancellor of France, afterward bishop of Terouenne, and archbishop of Rouen, and perpetual administrator of the diocess of Ely. On the other side of the king is a courtier holding a mace of office. It has also been conjectured, that he may represent the Duke of Exeter, third son of John of Gaunt, who signalized his valour at the battle of Azincourt, and on other occasions. The person presenting a book to the King, is John Galopes, dean of the collegiate church of St. Louis, of Salsoye, in Normandy. He was translator of Cardinal Bonaventure's "Life of Christ," which he presented to Henry, in a manuscript finely illuminated. The print, which is an outline only, is etched with great exactness by the Rev. Mr. Michael Tyson, of Bene't College, in

their

Cambridge, from an illumination done in Henry's time, Began and belonging to the manuscript which is in the library Reigns. of that college. This has far greater merit than the generality of illuminated portraits, which are altogether ideal, and drawn with little skill or truth. I have extracted this description of the etching from an account of the illuminated manuscript, written by Mr. Tyson, and printed in a single sheet. The print and this sheet were intended for companions.*

HENRY V. in Hume's "England." Neagle sc.

HENRY V. in Harding's Shakspeare.

J. Parker sc. HENRY V. &c. R. E. sculpsit. Compton Holland.

The glory that Henry acquired by his victory in the plains of March 20, Azincourt, was equal to that which Edward the Third and his son 1413. gained in the fields of Cressy and Poictiers; as his situation, valour, conduct, and fortune, were much the same. He afterward entered into a treaty with the King of France, married Catharine de Valois his only daughter, and was declared regent and heir-apparent to that kingdom.

"This monarch was so averse to luxury, that he prohibited the use of featherbeds; and, to prevent the English courage from degenerating, designed to follow the method of Lycurgus; being determined, when he should ascend the throne of France, to plough up all the vineyards."-Anstis's "Regist. of the Garter," vol. ii. 320. The English were remarkably abstemious in this age, and long after; Peacham (Gentleman, p. 194.) says, that within these fifty or sixty years, it was a rare thing with us in England to see a drunken man,' our nation carrying the name of the most sober and temperate of any other in the world. But since we had to do in the quarrel of the Netherlands, about the time of Sir J. Norris first being there, the custom of drinking and pledging healths was brought over into England.

This account of the manuscript was lately reprinted in the second volume of the "Archæologia" of the Society of Antiquaries, where the print is to be seen completely etched. A print from the same original is in Strutt's "Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England;" a curious work, in which are portraits of our English monarchs, from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII. besides other portraits of persons of eminence.