Oldys (in the Biographia Britannica, 1750, p. 1907) attributes to Worcestre "a particular treatise, gratefully preserving the life and deeds of his master, under the title of Acta Domini Johannis Fastolff, which we hear is still in being, and has been promised the publick;" but in the second edition of Oldys's life of Fastolfe (Biographia Britannica, 1793, v. 706), we find merely this note substituted: "This is mentioned in the Paston Letters, iv. p. 78." The letter there printed is one addressed by John Davy to his master John Paston esquire after sir John Fastolfe's death. It relates to inquiries made of one "Bussard" for evidences relative to Fastolfe's estate; and it thus concludes: "he seyth the last tyme that he wrot on to William Wusseter it was beffor myssomyr, and thanne he wrote a Cronekyl of Jerewsalem and the Jornes that my mayster dede whyl he was in Fraunce, that God on his sowle have mercy, and he seyth that this drew more than xx whazerys (quires) off paper, and this wrytyng delyvered onto Wursseter, and non other, ne knowyth not off non other be is feyth." It appears, I think, very clearly that this passage was misunderstood by Oldys, or his informant, and that the historian of the "journeys" and valiant acts of sir John Fastolfe was not Worcestre, but the person called Bussard. It is not impossible that the person whom John Davy meant by that name was Peter Basset, who is noticed in the next page.
Mr. Benjamin Williams, in the Preface to "Henrici Quinti Gesta," (printed for the English Historical Society, 1850,) says of Worcestre that "he wrote the Acts of Sir John Fastolfe, contained in the volume from which this chronicle is extracted," i.e. the Arundel MS. XLVIII. in the College of Arms; but that statement appears to have been carelessly made, without ascertaining that the volume contained any such "Acts." "Also (Mr. Williams adds) the Acts of John Duke of Bedford (MS. Lambeth);" but those "Acts" again are not an historical or biographical memoir, but a collection of state papers and documents relating to the English occupation of France, which will be found described in Archdeacon Todd's Catalogue of the Lambeth Manuscripts as No. 506. Its contents are nearly identical with those of a volume in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, MSS. No. 41, as will be found on comparison with Sir Henry Ellis's Catalogue of that collection, p. 17. The latter is the volume which Oldys, in his life of sir John Fastolfe, in the Biographia Britannica 1750, has described at p. 1907 as a "quarto book some time in the custody of the late Brian Fairfax esquire, one of the Commissioners of the Customs," and of which Oldys attributes the collection to the son of William of Worcestre, because a dedicatory letter from that person to king Edward the Fourth is prefixed to the volume.
Another very valuable assemblage of papers of the like character, and which may also be regarded as part of the papers of sir John Fastolfe, is preserved in the College of Arms, MS. Arundel XLVIII., and is fully described by Mr. W. H. Black in his Catalogue of that collection, 8vo. 1829. This is the volume from which Hearne derived the Annals of William of Worcestre, and Mr. Benjamin Williams one of his chronicles of the reign of Henry the Fifth.
It is probable that the Lambeth MS. was formerly in the Royal Library, for abstracts of some of its more important documents, in the autograph of King Edward the Sixth, are preserved in the MS. Cotton. Nero C. x. These have been printed in the Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, pp. 555-560.
[76] From the authority of Tanner and Oldys, we gather that there was formerly a volume in the library of the College of Arms, bearing the following title: "Liber de Actis Armorum et Conquestus Regni Franciæ, ducatus Normanniæ, ducatus Alenconiæ, ducatus Andegaviæ et Cenomanniæ, &c. Compilatus fuit ad nobilem virum Johannem Fastolff, baronem de Cyllye guillem vel Cylly quotem, &c. 1459, per Pet. Basset armig." (Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannica, 1748, p. 79; Oldys, Biographia Britannica, 1750, iii. 1903, again, p. 1906; and 2nd edit. 1793, v. 701.) Both Tanner and Oldys describe this book as being in the Heralds' Office at London, but it is not now to be found there; and is certainly not a part of the Arundel MS. XLVIII. the contents of which curious and valuable volume are minutely described in the Catalogue of the collection by Mr. W. H. Black, F.S.A.
[77] Bale (Scriptores Brytanniæ, vii. 80, Folio, 1557, p. 568,) describes Peter Basset as an esquire of noble family, and an attendant upon Henry the Fifth in his bedchamber throughout that monarch's career. Bale states that this faithful esquire wrote the memoirs of his royal master, very fully, from his cradle to his grave, in the English language; and we find that the work was known to the chronicler Hall, who quotes Basset in regard to the disease of which the king died. It is remarkable, however, that this work, like that formerly in the College of Arms, mentioned in the preceding note (if it were not the same), has now disappeared; and the name of Basset has been unknown to Mr. Benjamin Williams and Mr. Charles Augustus Cole, the editors of recent collections on the reign of Henry the Fifth for the English Historical Society and the series of the present Master of the Rolls, (1850 and 1858,) as also to Sir N. Harris Nicolas, the historian of the Battle of Agincourt, and the Rev. J. Endell Tyler, the biographer of King Henry of Monmouth (2 vols. 8vo. 1838).
[78] Its real author is supposed to have been Ægidius Romanus, or De Columna, who was bishop of Berri, and died in 1316. See Les Manuscrits Francois de la Bibliothèque du Roi, par M. Paulin Paris, 1836, i. 224. It was printed at Rome in 1482, and at Venice in 1598: see Cave, Historia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 340. Thomas Occleve, the contemporary of Chaucer, wrote a poem De Regimine Principum, founded, to a certain extent, upon the work of Ægidius, but applied to the events of his own time, and specially directed to the instruction of the prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V. The Roxburghe Club has recently committed the editorship of this work to Mr. Thomas Wright, F.S.A.
[79] Preface to The Buke of the Order of Knyghthede (Abbotsford Club, 1847,) p. xxiii.
[80] Ames's Typographical Antiquities, by Dibdin, iii. 198. Moule (Bibliotheca Heraldica, 1822, p. 12,) conjectures that this may have been the same with "A Treatise of Nobility," by John Clerke, mentioned by Wood, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, as being also a translation from the French; this was printed in 12mo, 1543. (Ath. Oxon. edit. Bliss, i. 205.) In that case the name of Larke is an error of Ames.
[81] Wyer also printed "The Boke of Knowledge," a work on prognostics in physic, and on astronomy (Dibdin's Ames, iii. 199, 200), and "The Book of Wysdome, spekyng of vyces and vertues, 1532." (ibid. p. 175.)