L’ENVOYE.
O noble Meir, be it into[252] youre plesaunce,
And unto[253] alle that duellithe in this Citee,
On my rudenes and on myn ignoraunce,
Of grace and mercy for to have pite,
My symple makyng for to take at gre;
Considere this that in the[254] moost lowly wyse,
My wille were good for to do[255] servyse.
Here endith the makyng of the Comynge of the Kyng out of Fraunce to Londone, Be the monk of Bery.—Deo gracias.[256]
[P. 139]. Ao 36 Hen. VI. “In this yere was a grete watch in London, and al the gates kepte every nyght, and ij aldermen watchyng: and withynne a while after the kyng and lordes were accorded, and went a procession in Paulis.”
The temporary reconciliation between the adherents of the King and of the Duke of York, so briefly alluded to in the text, and which is best illustrated by the following extract from a contemporary letter, served, like every other event of his times, for the exercise of Lydgate’s pen; but his description of it in the following ballad is infinitely more valuable from its historical accuracy, than its poetical merit. Of this article there are two copies extant; one in the Cottonian MS. Nero A. vi. and the other in the Cottonian MS. Vespasianus B. xvi.: the latter copy has been printed, though very erroneously, and with the orthography modernized, by Mr. Sharon Turner; but the former has not been before noticed. As they differ in some places from each other, and are very short, it has been thought advisable that both transcripts should be inserted.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM JOHN BOKKING TO SIR JOHN FASTOLF: DATED ON THE WEDNESDAY AFTER MID LENT SUNDAY, i.e. 15 MARCH, 1457.
[Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 154.]