realme with banner displayed. The Prince beyng bold of stomack, and of a good courage, answered, saying, 'To recover my father's kingdome and enheritage, from his father and grandfather to him, and from him, after him, to me lineally descended.' At these wordes King Edward sayde nothing, but with his hand thrust him from him, or as some say stroke him with his gauntlet, whom incontinent they yt stoode aboute, which were George, Duke of Clarence, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Thomas, Marques Dorset, and William, Lord Hastyngs, sodainly stroke and cruelly murthered him. The bitternesse of which murder some of the doers after in their latter dayes tasted and assayed by the very rod of justice and punishment of God"-each of them, the king excepted, having met with a tragical and untimely death. "His bodye was homelye interred with the other simple corses in the churche of the Monastarye of Blacke Monkes, in Tewkesbury."

This interview between the king and the prince, is powerfully drawn by Shakspeare,-in scene fifth of the third Part of " King Henry the Sixth"-who takes the

old chronicles of his day as his authority for the death of Prince Edward, who received the daggers of the king, Gloucester, and Clarence, in quick succession:

K. Edw. Take that, the likeness of this railer here. (Stabs him.)

Glo. Sprawl'st thou ? take that to end thy agony.

Clar. And there's for twitting me with perjury. (Each stabs him in turn.)

It is supposed that, when the queen was found and introduced into the presence of the conqueror, she was not aware of the extent of her misery. She believed that her son at least had escaped the carnage of the field, and believing this, all her agony was assuaged. But when the dreadful truth flashed upon her, and she beheld in the looks of those around her a ferocious exultation which could not be mistaken,

"She look'd upon their weapons red,

She guess'd what blood their points had shed-
'Where is my child? Mine only one!
Oh God-oh God! Is this my son ?
Monsters! a mother's curse lie strong
And heavy on ye! May the tongue-
The ceaseless tongue-which well I ween
Lives in the murderer's murky breast-
With goading whispers, fell and keen,
Make havoc of your rest!

For ever in your midnight dream,
May the wan smile, which yet delays
On yon cold lips, appal your gaze-

OF TEWKESBURY.]

THE QUEEN-LEGEND-THE CLOISTERS.

207

And may a madden'd mother's scream
Ring in your ears till ye awake,

And every limb with horror's palsy shake!'—
An impulse like the grasp of death

Now hardly held her gasping breath.—
Dire was the conflict. Mute she stood,
Striving-and fain to utter more,
Her writhing features struggled sore
With black convulsion till the blood
Burst from her lips, a ghastly flood.
Then nature gave the combat o'er,

And the heart-stricken queen fell senseless on the floor!"

Queen Margaret, adds the chronicle, "lyke a prisoner, was brought to London, where shee remayned till King Reyner, her father, rannsomed her with money, which summe, as the French writers affirme, he borrowed of King Lewis XI.; and because he was not of power nor abilitye to repaye so great a dutye, he sold to the French Kinge and hys heyres the Kingdomes of Napels and both the Sicilies, with the countie of Prouynce, which is the very tytle that King Charles the Seaventh made when he conquered the realme of Naples. After that raunsome payde, shee was conveyed into Fraunce with small honor, which with so great triumph and honorable enterteynement was with pompe above all pride receyved into thys realme xxvii. yeres before. And where in the begynning of her tyme she lyved lyke a queene; in the middle shee ruled like an empresse; towards the ende she was vexed with trouble, never quyet nor in peace. And in her very extreme age she passed her dayes in Fraunce, more like death then lyfe, languishing and mourning in continuall sorow, not so much for herselfe and her husbande, whose ages were almost consumed and worne, but for the losse of Prince Edwarde, her sonne, whome shee and her husbande thought to have bothe overlyver of their progeny, and also of their kingdome, to whome in thys lyfe nothing could be more displeasant or grievous."

Of the ancient lords of the manor of Tewkesbury we have given a brief account in tracing the descent of that honor; but in a future portion of the work the "doings and sufferings" of the De Clares and the Le Despensers, with various biographical anecdotes, will be introduced. In the meantime, we take leave of this venerable Abbey-every feature of which is eloquent of the past-with a legend which, as connected with its founder, Robert Fitz Hamon, has often been told, and listened to, in these very Cloisters, and with that implicit belief which nothing but the revival of miracles and monachism can restore! These apartments are now laid open to the blast; and over the grave of the beadsman "the stones of the sanctuary" are piled in mouldering heaps. Through the fretted shrines and casements the March

winds are now whistling a cold and shrill matin. The labourer has paused from his toil to discuss the merits of the new parliament, the Gloucester Railway, and the Corn Laws! Shade of Fitz Hamon, beholdest thou this!

Legend." On the day preceding his death in the New Forest, King Rufus had a dream, and behold he felt as if grievously wounded by a javelin, and that forthwith there gushed a stream of blood which reached even to the sky, cast its shadows over the sun, and diminished the very light of day. Starting from his sleep, the king invoked the name of the Blessed Virgin, and calling for lights, ordered his chamberlains to stay by him, and so passed the remainder of the night wide awake, being sorely troubled with the vision.

"But in the morning very early, a monk from beyond seas, who was then in attendance upon the king for certain affairs of the church, beckoning to Robert Fitz-Hamon, a man of great weight and influence about the king, said unto him that his rest had been troubled with a frightful dream, which he thus related:- As I lay on my pallet in sound sleep, methought I saw the king enter a certain church with a proud step and haughty demeanour, as is his wont, and shewing his contempt for those who were there gathered

OF TEWKESBURY.]

THE MONK'S DREAM-WALTER TYRRELL.

209

around him. Anon, seizing the crucifix with his teeth, he gnawed off its arms (brachia illius corrosit) and left it hardly a limb to stand upon. Now, when the crucifix had quietly borne with this horrible treatment for some time, at length, provoked beyond sufferance, and drawing back its right foot into a kicking attitude, it spurned the king's person with such terrific strength that he fell prostrate on the pavement; and there, issuing from his mouth as he lay insensible, I beheld a flame widely diffused around me, and a cloud of smoke, like chaos, rising towards the sky."

When the monk had thus related the terrific vision, Fitz-Hamon rehearsed it to the king, who bursting into a loud incredulous fit of laughter, exclaimed "A monk, a monk! who for his own lucre hath dreamt a monkish dream. Give the friar a hundred shillings, that he may see that he has dreamt to some purpose." But these signs and wonders were not yet over. The king himself had another dream within a few hours of his death. There appeared unto him a Child of surpassing beauty standing at a certain altar, whereupon the king, unable to overcome a strong propensity which he felt to taste the infant's flesh, went up to it, and took a mouthful of the flesh, which was so remarkably sweet that he would have greedily devoured the whole body. But the Child putting on a stern and forbidding aspect, said to him in a threatening tone, "Forbear! thou hast already had too much!" Hereupon the king suddenly wakening, consulted a certain bishop as to the interpretation of this strange vision. The bishop suspecting that some fearful retribution was at hand, said to him, "Forbear, O king, to persecute the Church as hitherto! for in this dream behold the warning voice and paternal admonition of God, and go not forth to hunt this day, as thou hast purposed."

But the king despising this ghostly counsel, went forth into the forest to commence his sport; when lo, as a mighty stag passed before him, he called out to the attendant, Walter Tyrrell, who stood near, "Draw, devil, draw!" Tyrrell instantly drew and let fly his arrow, but instead of hitting the stag, it glanced against a tree and struck the king in the heart. Thus was there a fearful confirmation of all the omens which had haunted the king's pavilion the preceding night.

But without the following particulars, gravely related by the same author -Matthew of Saint Albans-the picture would be incomplete.

All the king's followers having fled in alarm at this terrible accident, the dead body was removed from the spot where it lay by a char-burner, but so unaccountably heavy was the load, that the car broke down under it, and it was again left unattended in the depths of the forest. Here, however, a certain count having lost his companions in the chase, beheld to his utter amazement a huge, black, bristly stag carrying off the king's body;

VOL. 1.

EE

whereupon he halted and adjured the stag by the Holy Trinity to declare what this fearful sight meant. "I am carrying your king," said the stag, "even the tyrant William Rufus, the enemy of the church, to the bar of judgment!" For the sake of those who are curious in such matters we add the original Latin *, by which it appears the "stag was no other than the 'foul Fiend!'"

Lancaster.-MS. Hist. of the Abbey.-Dallaway.-
Analogies of Cathedral Churches.-History of Glou-
cester.-Margaret of Anjou-Drayton.-Domesday
Survey. - Matth. Par. - Ord. Vital.-Fabyan.-
Speed. Sepulch. Antiquit. Hist. Civil War.-
Hist. Church.-&c. &c. &c.

N. B. All the views here introduced were taken on the spot within the last six weeks.