"Says he, I'll rise; says she, I scorn
To be so timely parted."
Porter, in his comedy of the Two angry women of Abingdon, 1599, 4to, seems to have had Warwick's speech in view when he wrote these lines:
"Oft have I heard a timely married girl
That newly left to call her mother mam, &c."
Scene 2. Page 105.
War. But see, his face is black and full of blood.
The accounts given by the English historians of the Duke of Gloucester's death are very discordant and unsatisfactory. They relate that he was smothered between feather-beds; that he was found dead in his bed; that a red hot spit was thrust through him; and that he died of grief. There is another account of this event, which, as it seems to have been quite unnoticed in our histories, and may deserve as much attention as either of the foregoing, shall here be given.
George Chastellain, a celebrated soldier, poet, and historian, was by birth a Flemming, and is said to have been in the service of Philip duke of Burgundy. He travelled into various countries, and wrote an account of what he had seen, under the title of The wonderful occurrences of his time. Speaking of his visit to England, he says,
"Passant par Angleterre
Ie veis en grant tourment
Les seigneurs de la terre
S'entretuer forment
Avec un tel deluge
Qui cueurs esbahissoit
Que a peine y eut refuge
Ou mort n'apparoissoit.
Ung nouveau roy creerent
Par despiteux vouloir
Le viel en debouterent
Et son legitime hoir
Qui fuytif alla prendre
Descosse le garand,
De tous siécles le mendre
Et le plus tollerant."
This alludes to the flight of Henry the Sixth into Scotland. In another place he speaks as an eye witness of the death of duke Humphrey, and relates that he was strangled in a cask of wine, adding also the reason,
"Par fortune senestre
Veiz a l'oeil vifvement
Le grant duc de Clocestre
Meurdrir piteusement
En vin plein une cuve
Failloit que estranglé fust,
Cuydant par celle estuve,
Que la mort ny parut."