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let him lose, and he wolde streyght rune to the kynge, and fawne upon, and leape with his fore-feet upon the kynge's shoulders. And as the kynge and the Earle of Derby talked togyder in the courte, the grayhounde, who was wont to leape upon the kynge, left the kynge, and came to the Earle of Derby, Duke of Lancaster, and made to him the same friendly continuance and chere as he was wont to do to the kynge. The duke, who knew not the grayhounde, demanded of the kynge what the dog would do? Cosyn', quod the kynge, 'it is a great good token to you, and an evyll sygne to me.'—' Sir, how know you that?' quod the duke: I know it well,' quod the kynge, the grayhounde maketh you chere this day as Kynge of Englande, as ye shall be, and I shall be deposed: the grayhounde hath this knowlege naturalye, therefore, take him to you; he will follow you and forsake me.'-The duke understood well those words, and cherished the grayhounde, who wolde never after folowe Kynge Richard, but folowed the Duke of Lancaster.'

Soon, however, this hollow show of respect was thrown aside, and dropping the mask, with a high sharp voice the duke ordered forth the king's horses; and then 'two little nagges, not worth forty franks, were brought out; the king was set on the one, and the Earl of Salisbury on the other; and thus the duke brought the king from Flint to Chester, where he was delivered to the sons of the Duke of Gloucester and of the Earl of Arundel, whose fathers he had recently put to death. They conducted him straight to the prison, and in this dolorous castelle,' as it is termed by Hall, was deposed the weak and unfortunate monarch, Richard II.'

It would appear, as in the case so pathetically alluded to in King Lear, that even the ingratitude of the brute creation added a sting to the broken spirit of the crownless monarch. Such an incident could not escape the artist, studious of historical character in the old picturesque times; and Richard's favourite dog here appears as if struck with the change in his master's demeanour, and, sensible of his fallen fortunes, eager to fawn upon his rival.

After an interview like the foregoing, the speedy fate of

Richard, the invariable fortune of a captive and dethroned
prince, calls for no comment. In its most trying circumstances,
-such as the heartless parade of his victim through the country
in his progress to the capital,-how well does the exquisite descrip-
tion of our immortal dramatist exhibit the startling scene, and all
the traces of Bolingbroke's character! With what peculiar felicity
he holds to view the noble moral-a fearful lesson to princes!
"Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,―
With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,

While all tongues cried-God save thee, Bolingbroke!
You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imag'ry, had said at once-
Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus-I thank you, countrymen :
And this still doing, thus he pass'd along.

Duch. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the while
York. As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's

eyes

Did scowl on Richard: no man cried, God save him;
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:

But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,—
His face still combating with tears and smiles,

The badges of his grief and patience,-
That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
And barbarism itself have pitied him.'

In the accompanying plate, the artist has also represented Richard's page attempting, with strong natural delicacy, to repress the dog's efforts to fawn upon the proud usurper.

With regard to the foundation of Flint Castle, antiquarians are to this day undecided. Camden and others, followed by Lord Littelton, assert that it was commenced by Henry II. and completed by the first Edward; while Leland adduces the authority of older writers to attribute it altogether to the latter. After his rout and escape to Euloe, it is probable that Henry erected some fortress on the spot to resist any fresh attacks, and that the more enlarged castellated pile, in its strength and majesty, was the work of his great descendant, the most powerful of English sovereigns. In 1277, an order was issued for proclaiming a market and fair, to be held at Flint a measure soon after extended throughout Cheshire and the cantreds of Wales. From the tenor of a writ, preserved by Rymer, it would also appear that Edward I. resided in the castle, the same year, about the period of the Feast of the Assumption.

In 1280, the year in which it was garrisoned, another mandate was issued for the custody of the gate of Flint. Three years subsequent the town received its first charter, was made a free borough, and a mayor elected and sworn faithfully to maintain its liberties.'

The burgesses also received from Edward a grant of timber, cut out of the woods of Northop and the adjacent lands, in order to smelt their lead ore, and moreover a right of pasturage in the same woods.

Wearied with the oppressions of successive masters, the Welsh at length rose once more, led by Llewellyn and his brother David, and Flint, like Hawarden, was surprized and carried by storm. It was here too, in 1311, that the first English Prince of Wales-Edward of Caernarvon, the son of the Conqueror-received from exile his favourite, Piers Gaveston, who had landed from Ireland, and by his infatuated weakness suffered a fate still more terrible than that inflicted by his father on the last native princes of the country.

In 1355, Edward the Black Prince received orders, as Earl of

Chester, to take into safe custody the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan, which he possessed by charter, in common with that of Chester, and the cantred and lands of Englefield.

In the formidable insurrection of Owen Glendower, that able chieftain, in vain attempted to possess himself of the fortress, from which time a blank occurs in its history, till we reach the period of the Civil Wars. It was then garrisoned for the king by Sir Roger Mostyn, of whom Whitelock makes the following honourable mention: This Colonel Mostyn is my sister's son, a gentleman of good parts and metal; of a very ancient family, large possessions, and great interest in the country, so that in twelve hours he raised fifteen hundred for the king.' In the siege of 1643, he made a desperate defence against the Parliamentary general, Sir W. Brereton, and it was not till every method was exhausted, and every privation suffered, that he yielded, in order to preserve the garrison. The castle appears to have been subsequently recovered by the royalists, as the garrison of Beeston had by articles of convention marched out of that fortress, in 1645, with all the honours of war 'to join their countrymen in Flint Castle.' But it was again compelled to yield to General Mytton in 1646, and in the year following was dismantled, with many other fortresses, by order of the Parliament. Its gallant governor was ill-requited for his services by the Crown, for after having expended upwards of sixty thousand pounds, and suffering a long imprisonment in Conway Castle, he was reduced to leave his family seat, and live privately at an ordinary farm house.

At the Restoration the Castle of Flint was resumed by, and is still vested in, the Crown; and, according to the tenor of ancient royal grants, the constable appointed appears in the two-fold character of military and municipal head-being at once Governor of the fortress and Mayor of the borough.

Northop, three miles distant, is considered the mother church to the chapel of Flint, which contains three monuments in the shape of altar-tombs. On each is a recumbent effigy, and one is of con

siderable antiquity; but the inscriptions are nearly obliterated. The remainder of that decorated with a female figure has round it Llewc* ** anno Domini, 1482. According to tradition, her name was Lleuci Lloyd, a celebrated beauty of that period; perhaps the same so fatally beloved by a favourite bard, who, on returning after a long separation, met with the same shock as the Chevalier de Rance,* for each of them is said to have found his beloved in a coffin. The bard, after fainting at the sight, and again reviving, sat down and composed a beautiful elegy to the lady's memory. The count is said also to have swooned, but on being restored he retired from the world; and, as a sort of atonement for illicit love, founded the Monastery of La Trappe, so long celebrated for its austere discipline.

* Pennant's Tour, vol. i, 115.

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