When wee had thus confest so foule a treason,
That wee deserued, wee suffered by the lawe:
See, Baldwine, see, and note (as it is reason)
How wicked deedes to woefull endes doe drawe:
All force doth faile, no craft is worth a strawe
To attayne thinges lost, and therefore let them goe,
For might ruleth[596] right, and will though truth[597] say no.[598]
[Whan stout Richarde had stoutely sayd his minde: “Belike,” sayd[599] one, “this Richard was but a litle man, or els litle fauoured of the[600] writers, for our cronicles speake very litle of him. But seeing wee be come nowe to king Henrie’s voyage into Fraunce, we cannot lacke valiaunt men to speake of, for among so many as were led and sent by the king out of this realme thyther, it cannot be chosen but some, and that a great somme were slayne among them: wherefore to speake of them all, I thinke not needefull. And therefore to let passe Edwarde duke of Yorke, and the earle of Suffolke, slayne both at the battayl of Agïncourt, as were also many other, let vs end the time of Henry the fift, and come to his sonne Henry the sixt: whose nonage brought Fraunce and Normandy out of bondage, and was cause that so[601] few of our noble men died aged: of whome to let passe the nombre, I will take vpon mee the person of Thomas Montague, earle of Salisbury, whose name was not so good at home (and yet hee was called the good earle) as it was dreadful abroade: who exclayming vpon the mutability of fortune may iustly say[602] in maner as followeth.”]
How Thomas Montague Earle[603] of Salisbury in the middest of his glory, was chaunceably slayne at Orleaunce[604] with a piece of ordinaunce, the 3. of Nouember, Anno 1428.[605]
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