Notes and Queries, Number 167, January 8, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

In the Museum of Antiquities of Rouen is preserved an original document, thus designated, Lettre d'Edouard, Prince de Galles (1471). It is kept under a glass case, and shown as an undoubted autograph of the Black Prince, according to the testimony of the gentleman who has very obligingly placed a transcript of this interesting relic at my disposal. It is as follows:
Chers et bons amis, nous avons entendu, que ung nostre homme lige subject, natif de nostre pays de Galles, est occupé et détenu es prisons de la ville de Diepe, pour la mort d'un homme d'icelle ville, dont pour le dict cas autres ont esté exécutez. Et pour ce que nostre dict subject estoit clerc, a esté et est encores en suspens, parce qu'il a esté requis par les officiers de nostre très cher et aimé cousin l'archevesque de Rouen, afin qu'il leur fut rendu, ainsi que de droict; pourquoy nous vous prions, que icelui nostre homme et subject vous veuillez bailler et delivrer aux gens et officiers de mon dict cousin, sans en ce faire difficulté. Et nous vous en saurons un très grant gré, et nous ferez ung essingulier plaisir. Car monseigneur le roy de France nous a autorisez faire grace en semblable cas que celui de mon dict subject, duquel desirons fort la delivrance. Escript à Rouen, le onziesme jour de Janvier. (Signed) Eduard. (Countersigned) Martin.
The error of assigning this signature to Edward the Black Prince is sufficiently obvious, and somewhat surprising, since we here have an undoubted, and, I believe, unique autograph of Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales, only son of Henry VI. by Margaret of Anjou. He was born at Westminster, October 13th, 1453, and was therefore, in January, 1471 (no doubt the true date of the document), in the eighteenth year of his age. He had sought refuge from the Yorkists, in France, with his mother, ever since the year 1462, and in the preceding July or August, 1470, had been affianced to Anne Neville, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Warwick. At the period when this