[89] The close connection between Sigismund and England is illustrated by the fact that in the following reign, on one occasion, a magnificent table decoration was introduced, representing Henry VI. and Sigismund receiving at the hands of a kneeling priest ballads in derision of the Lollards.
[90] This Lord Salisbury was son of Sir John de Montacute, a zealous Lollard, the faithful adherent of Richard II., who was beheaded, 1400, at Cirencester. Henry IV. restored the Earldom to his son. Lord Salisbury’s daughter married Richard Neville, the Yorkist partisan, and father of the Kingmaker Warwick.
[91] This Beauchamp was the 5th Earl of Warwick, and it was his daughter who carried the title to Richard Neville the Kingmaker.
[92] This Prince was the second son of Louis II., Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence, and (as heir to his father, Louis I., who had been adopted by Joanna I. of Naples) titular King of Naples. All these titles Réné inherited, besides the duchy of Bar, from his uncle, and the duchy of Lorraine from his wife. He was, moreover, himself named heir by Joanna II. of Naples, but failed to obtain the crown. At the time of Margaret’s marriage, of all his territories Provence was the only one he retained.
[93] For a description of this disorder see a letter from “The chief persons in the county of Kildare to Richard Duke of York,” Ellis Letters, second series, vol. i. 117.
[94] The Staffords, the head of whom was the Duke of Buckingham, were descended from Anne Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III.
[95] Cromwell had been a great friend of Bedford and his financial reformer, but dislike to the conduct of the Suffolk party had driven him to join York.
[96] William of Worcester, however, puts it at 9,000.
[97] Stafford, the young Duke of Buckingham; the heir of Bourchier, Earl of Essex; Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel; Lord Strange of Knokyn; and Lord Herbert. Thomas Grey, her son by her first marriage, was engaged to the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Exeter, the King’s niece.
[98] “Every tavern was full of his meat, for who that had any acquaintance in that house, he should have had as much sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger.”—Stowe.