“‘O happy retribution!
Short toil, eternal rest;
For mortals and for sinners
A mansion with the blest!’”
Neals’s Translation.
Appendix.
Some readers of this tale may desire to know on what historical foundation it rests, and in what points the fiction departs from truth.
The Order of Predicant Friars was instituted by Dominic in 1215, with the avowed object of maintaining Roman doctrine and supremacy, and of opposing and superseding the wandering preachers sent out by the Waldensian Church into all parts of Europe, and known chiefly as Boni-Homines, or Poor Men of Lyons. But the Waldensian Church was acute enough to take advantage of this movement; and no sooner had the Order been founded than an army of “Gospellers” (as even thus early they were called), issued forth under its shelter. It appears probable that at an early period of their preaching, a very large percentage of the Predicant Friars were Gospellers. It is, moreover, an historical fact, that during the struggle between Edward the Second and his wretched Queen, the Predicant Friars ranged themselves on the side of the King, who had always been their friend, and whose own confessor, Luke de Wodeford, was of their Order. (Rot. Ex., Pasc, 2 Ed. III.) That the Despensers also patronised them is rather an inference founded upon fact, yet on such facts as very decidedly point to this conclusion. It should not be forgotten, that all accounts of the reign and character of Edward the Second which have come down to us were written by monks, or by persons educated in the opinions of the monks; and the Church of Rome has never, at any period of her history, hesitated to accuse of the vilest crimes any who endeavoured to escape from her toils into the pure light of the Gospel of Christ.
That Hugh Le Despenser the Elder was an unprincipled and avaricious man, there can be little question. With him, if he embraced the principles of the Boni-Homines at all, it was evidently a mere matter of intellectual opinion. Much less evidence can be found against his son, whose chief crime seems to have been that he aroused the hatred of the “she-wolf of France.” Joan La Despenser (the ladies of the family are always distinguished as La Despenser in contemporary records) lived to a good age, for she was probably born about 1310, and she died in her nunnery of Shaftesbury, November 8, 1384 (I.P.M. 8 Ric. II., 14).
Richard Earl of Arundel, surnamed Copped-Hat, the elder of the two sons of Earl Edmund and Alesia, heiress of Surrey, was born about 1308, and died January 24, 1376. (Arundel MS. 51, fol. 18.) His father was beheaded with Hugh Le Despenser the Elder, October 8 or 27, 1326; his mother died before May 23, 1338. (Froissart’s Chronicles, Book I., chapter xi.; Rot. Pat. 12 Ed. III., Part 2.) His first marriage was before February 2, 1321 (Ib. 14 Ed. II., Pt. 2); and his baby Countess was probably not more than three years old at that time. Her divorce immediately preceded the second marriage, and it was apparently just before June 24, 1345. On that day, “Isabel La Despenser, and Alianora daughter of Henry Earl of Lancaster,” are returned among the tenants of Richard Earl of Arundel (Ib., 19 Ed. III., Pt. 1): the designation showing that on that day neither was Countess of Arundel, but that the marriage-settlements of Alianora were already executed. After this date all trace of Isabel disappears, until we meet with the name of “Dame Isabel, daughter of Sir Hugh Spencer,” among the persons buried in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. (Harl. MS. 544, fol. 78.) The Countess Alianora, at the time of her marriage, was the widow of John Lord Beaumont, and the mother of two infant children; she had only just returned from a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella. (Rot. Pat. 18 Ed. III., Pt 1.) She died January 11, 1372 and was buried at Lewes. (Reg. Lewes, fol. 108.) Her second family consisted of three sons and three daughters—Richard, John, Thomas, Joan, Alesia, and Alianora. The last-named died in childhood; all the rest survived their parents.—Richard, a well-meaning and brave, but passionate and narrow-minded man, was governed by his stronger-minded brother Thomas, and under his evil influence entered upon a treasonable conspiracy, for which he paid the penalty on Tower Hill in the spring of 1397.—John is chiefly remarkable for having married the heiress of Maltravers, and becoming eventually the root of the family.—Thomas became Bishop of Ely and Archbishop of Canterbury—the persecuting Archbishop Arundel who will perhaps be remembered by the readers of “Mistress Margery”—and after suffering for his treasonable practices a richly-deserved banishment, was at once recalled and restored by his friend and fellow-conspirator, Henry the Fourth. He died in 1413. That the House of Arundel had no “Gospel” sympathies is shown by more evidences than one; though the Archbishop himself had at one time pretended friendship towards the Lollards. It did not last long; he would scarcely have been a true Arundel had it done so.—Joan Fitzalan was a woman of intense energy and terrible passions. She did not live happily with her husband, Humphrey Earl of Hereford, as appears from a curious and unique entry on the Patent Rolls (33 Ed. III., Pt. 3), providing that Humphrey should not divorce Joan on any pretence of precontract. The Earl, however, died at the early age of thirty-one, and Joan, whose two daughters were married to Princes (Alianora to Thomas Duke of Gloucester, Mary to Henry the Fourth), became a very powerful and wealthy widow. One anecdote will show what her character was better than volumes of description. She presided in person at the execution of John Duke of Exeter (brother of her sister Alesia’s husband), he being loyal to his half-brother, King Richard, while Joan was a vehement partisan of her son-in-law, Henry the Fourth. When no one came forward, in answer to her appeal, as the Duke’s executioner, Joan exclaimed, “Cursed be you villains! are none of you bold enough to kill a man?” A squire volunteered to officiate, but when he had seen and heard the man whom he was to slay, he shrank from the terrible task. “Madam,” was his remonstrance to the Countess, “for all the gold in the world, I cannot kill such a Lord!” “Thou shalt do what thou hast promised,” said Joan, “or I will cut thy head off.” And, probably knowing that she was likely to “do what she had promised,” the squire preferred the fall of the Duke’s head to his own. (Lystoire de la Traison et Mort du Roy Richart, pp. 98-9.) This strong-minded woman died April 7, 1419, and was buried at Walden, having previously been admitted a sister of the Grey Friars in her brother’s Cathedral of Canterbury. (I.P.M. 7 H.V., 59:—Arundel MS. 51, fol. 18:— ib. 68, fol. 51, b.) Of Alesia, Countess of Kent, little personal is known. She left no mark on her time, though the members of her numerous family were very prominent characters. She died March 17, 1416 (I.P.M. 4 H.V., 51).
By all genealogists who have hitherto written on the Arundel family, two more daughters are ascribed to Earl Richard the Copped-Hat. These are Philippa Sergeaux, the heroine of the tale; and Mary L’Estrange. At the time when this story was written, I was misled to follow this supposition, though I had already seen that in that case, Isabel, and not Alianora, must have been the mother of Philippa. Some months after the story was first published, I began to suspect that this was also the case with regard to Mary L’Estrange. But I was not prepared for the discovery, made only last May, that Philippa Sergeaux was not the daughter of Earl Richard at all! In two charters recorded on a Close Roll for 20 Ric. II., she distinctly styles herself “daughter of Sir Edmund of Arundel, Knight,” This was a younger brother of Earl Richard; and his wife was Sybil Montacute, a daughter of the Lollard House of Salisbury. It is probable, though no certainty has yet been found, that Mary L’Estrange was also a daughter of Sir Edmund, since dates conclusively show that she cannot have been the daughter of Alianora of Lancaster. She died August 29, 1396, leaving an only child, Ankaretta Talbot. (I.P.M. 20 R. II., 48).
As early, therefore, as I have the opportunity of doing it, I make the amende honorable to my readers for having unwittingly misled them on this point. It is scarcely a discredit not to have known a fact which was known to none. The tale must therefore be regarded as pure fiction, so far as Philippa is concerned; for Isabel La Despenser apparently had no child. The facts remain the same as regards other persons, where their history is not affected by the discovery.