CHAPTER I. "His mien is lofty, his demeanor great; JOHN OF GAUNT, DUKE OF LANCASTER. KING EDWARD THE THIRD had five sons and four daughters. Edward, his oldest son, famous under the chivalric title of the Black Prince, died of consumption just before his father left the crown open to a successor. The prince had rivalled the King his father, both in military renown and in the affection of the people. A peculiar charm lies around the Black Prince's history-a charm heightened by the manifold excellence of his character. He was not more conspicuous for his valor and coolness in battle, than for the benevolence of his heart and the sweetness of his temper. He was generous. He was quick to feel for misfortune. He was moderate and just. He shunned temptation, and was upright in his morals. Few names descend to us in the history of that dark era, around which group so many virtues, whose lustre is tarnished by faults so few and trifling. In him were exemplified the more exalted qualities of chivalry, while in his great soul the grosser elements found no place. War failed to harden his heart to the impulses of a noble nature; neither did it make him arrogant and impatient of opposition. The blandishments of a regal court did not enervate him, or weaken the prompt and persevering tone of his mind. In a semi-barbarous age he was considerate, humane, and temperate. He was a Plantagenet, and yet looked lovingly upon the people whom he thought himself destined to rule. Of the second son of King Edward, Lionel Duke of Clarence, but few memorials worthy of record remain. He was twice married, but died in early manhood. His first wife was the daughter of Lord Ulster ; his second, the daughter of the Duke of Milan. It was during the honeymoon of his second marriage, which was being spent in Italy, that the young prince died. By his first wife, Elizabeth de Burgh of Ulster, he had a daughter, whose son, afterward Earl of Marche, became the heir to the throne expectant on the death of Richard. Clarence gave promise of those characteristics which made his brother Edward and his father illustrious. The third son was JOHN OF GAUNT, DUKE OF LANCASTER, of whom it is our purpose to speak at length, as the head of the afterward royal house of Lancaster. Edmund, known both as Earl of Cambridge and as Duke of York, was Edward's fourth son. He was a prince of mild disposition, possessing a dislike of care, and traits rather negative than either good or vicious. He was ill suited to the turbulent times in which he lived, and he was rather fitted for the condition of a private gentleman, than for the contests of faction and the intrigue of courts and camps. He neither manifested the capacity of the Black Prince, nor the ambition of his brothers John and Thomas. His part in the history of the times was almost a passive one, in which he was made the tool of the restless schemes which occupied the more energetic princes of his family. The youngest brother, however, made his mark in the events which crowded the romantic drama of his generation. Thomas, Earl of Buckingham and Duke of Gloucester, was, of Edward's family, the most restless, ambitious, and unscrupulous. He was not even chivalric, a quality which often gilded the characters of cruel and heartless tyrants in a semi-barbarous age. He possessed a lion-like courage, which often carried him to rashness; he was cunning, and vigilant to perceive and seize his opportunity; fertile in the resources of invention; cruel, hypocritical, treacherous. His ambition and his boldness made him a constant conspirator against the peace of the realm. No tie of blood or service was safe from his assault. His power of dissimulation was marvellous. He was a relentless despot over his own faction; he had no friendship for any man, no memory for a faithful service, no compassion for misery however general, no pride of house or nation. He was a royal villain, whose villany was of the most base and grovelling character. He was a prince of the blood with no patriotic impulses, and no sympathy for the unhappy distractions of his country; but made her misfortunes his own stepping stones to the usurpation of the crown. The four daughters of Edward the Third were married Isabella to the Earl of Bedford, Joan to Alfonso King of Castile, Mary to Montfort Duke of Brittany, and Margaret to Hastings Earl of Pembroke. The conspicuous virtue of some historical charac ters is their freedom from the vices and barbarisms of the age in which they lived. The conspicuous virtue of others is their exemplification of the best class of prevailing ideas and habits of the age in which they lived. Edward the Black Prince would have been conspicuous in any age and in any nation. John of Gaunt, his brother, lived in the only time in which his character could have had a perfect development—at the precise period in the progress of civilization when qualities such as he possessed could have rendered great and important service to the world. He was fitted to the age of chivalry, the epoch of the heroic. He was moulded to be a hero of romance; and that not only of military romance, but also of civil and religious romance. As a private man he would have made himself distinguished; as a prince of the blood royal he became illustrious. Don Quixote is a satire, because the hero adopted the thoughts and habits of a heroic age in a prosaic age. In himself he resuscitated a dead chivalry. strove to reconcile an alluring romance to the stupid facts of a generation which had forgotten war, which only thought how to live by food and fire. John of Gaunt would have been equally ludicrous and equally attractive in any other era than his own. He was among the most conspicuous of those enthusiastic knights who filled the interval, between the fall of Jerusalem and the exaltation of the Red Rose, with deeds which kept in mind the expeditions of Raymond of Toulouse, and which gave promise of Agincourt and St. Albans. He was Quixote in the right place, with a royal coronet upon his head. He had the power, the will, and the opportunity to be a hero. Thackeray's Thomas Newcome is John of Gaunt He toned down to the nineteenth century, civilized by the national progress, transferred from royalty to the gentry, enlightened by a finer thought-yet the soul of like personal courage and honor. Except that John of Gaunt would always have been a reformer. Col. Newcome disliked modern velocity; John of Gaunt would have revelled in it, and would have rushed to its van. If he could not lead an army against the East, if he could not plant the Christian flag on the heights of the Sacred City, he would strike for the life of Poland, he would hurl the Pope from the throne of St. Peter, he would answer the weeping heart of Hungary, he would leap to blot out the wrongs of the enslaved millions everywhere. If he could not have led a military crusade, he would have pioneered an intellectual and moral crusade. If he could not have fought for a fact, he would have staked his life for an idea. And yet John of Gaunt, in his own time, was a reasonable man. He did not outrun his age. Such a character as we have described was fit for the turmoil of that century. Action, not logic, brought success. In John of Gaunt the spirit was willing, and the flesh was strong, to act; to act in unison with his age, and to be conspicuous above his age. He neither exhibited the power nor the variety of virtues which his brother the Black Prince possessed; neither did he have his capacity for conducting war and for sure and rapid movement; neither did he use victory in moderation and accept defeat with equanimity, as did Edward. In short, he was not, as Edward was, a very great man. He possessed in an eminent degree the qualities which impel to trial, but in a-less degree those which conduct to success; he was deficient in the qualities |