after a good deal of improbable and unprofitable talk, an action is fought, in which the English are victorious, and Rouen is recovered. Bedford dies, in his chair, at the moment of victory. Of all this I find no trace in the Chronicle, except that this brave duke died in September, 1435, and was buried at Rouen.* The Duke of Burgundy is made to cheer him in his dying moments: but the defection of that prince had, in truth, occurred upon inducements connected with the English part of our history to which I have referred, before the Duke of Bedford's death. There is, therefore, a compound anachronism in the following scene, in which Joan is made to persuade Burgundy to separate himself from the English cause; and she asks, by way of exciting Burgundy to leave the English

"Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?

And was he not in England prisoner ?
But, when he heard he was thine enemy,
They set him free, without his ransom paid,
In spite of Burgundy and all his friends."

Now the release of the Duke of Orleans was an important occurrence in this reign, but it was not effected until some years after the defection of the

* Hol., 184.

† Hol., 183; Monstr., iii. 92,

Duke of Burgundy. And this is clearly stated in Holinshed.

So long as the Duke of Burgundy continued faithful to the King of England, it was not thought necessary to suffer the Duke of Orleans to be ransomed, lest, upon his deliverance, he would seek means to be revenged upon the Duke of Burgundy, for the old grudge and displeasure between their two families; and, therefore, such ransom was demanded from him as he was never able to pay. But, after the Duke of Burgundy had broken his promise, and was turned to the French part, the council of the King of England devised how to deliver the Duke of Orleans, that thereby they might displeasure the Duke of Burgundy."

The liberation of the Duke of Orleans was a symptom of the decreasing influence of the Duke of Gloucester, whose protest against it is recorded.* Modern historians have considered this as a trial of strength between Gloucester and the Cardinal,† and, it may fairly be inferred, that Beaufort was one of those who overruled the duke; but I know of no more particular authority. Monstrelet says, that Burgundy and Orleans, on this occasion, acted in concert. The apprehension of this was one of

Gloucester's objections,

* Rymer, x.; and see Paston Letters, i. 5.

† Lingard, v. 115.

‡ Vol. iii. 305. He says that Burgundy was surety for his ransom; but Rapin, from Rymer, denies this. v. 347.

And, in the imaginary action before Rouen, Sir John Fastolfe, of whose dastardly conduct we had heard so long ago as the funeral of Henry the Fifth, disgraces himself by flight. first mention nor in this is the given.

Neither in the date correctly

We have now the young King Henry at Paris. Talbot is presented; Henry calls to mind the commendations of him which he had heard from Henry the Fifth; and, for his valiant deeds, creates him Earl of Shrewsbury.

The fourth act commences with the coronation of Henry, at Paris, as King of France. Fastolfe enters with a letter from the Duke of Burgundy. Talbot reproaches him with his cowardly flight, which is now correctly assigned to the battle of Patay, and tears the garter from his knee. Henry banishes him, in the choice terms of this play,

Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight ;*" and charges the new earl to march against Burgundy, whose letter announces his reconciliation with Charles the Seventh.

Henry the Sixth really went into France in 1431, and was crowned on the 17th of December in that year, long before the death of Bedford, or the de

*Sir H. Nicolas does not believe that Sir John's garter was taken from him.

fection of Burgundy, who was present and assisting at the ceremony. But Talbot did not obtain his well-earned promotion in the peerage till the year 1442,* nor was he present at this coronation, which occurred while he remained a prisoner. The play is also wrong in the enumeration of English lords present. Gloucester staid in England, administering the government. Exeter had died in 1426. York, Suffolk, Warwick, and Cardinal Beaufort are named in the Chronicle. Somerset is not mentioned there, but the then† duke of that title may, possibly, have been present.

The scene is now transferred to Talbot's camp before Bordeaux; passing over a period of more than twenty years, during which the English lost nearly the whole of their possessions in France; and, carrying the narrative nearly to the point at which the fifth act of the second part of the play commences. Talbot's expedition to Bordeaux occurred in the year 1453; and he went in consequence of an invitation from the citizens, and an intimation that Guienne and Gascony might be re

* John Talbot, Lord Talbot, sixth baron (or twelfth, reckoning the barons by tenure) of that ancient family. The present earl of Shrewsbury is his lineal descendant and male heir.

son.

↑ John Beaufort, third Earl of Somerset, second of John, eldest natural son of John of Gaunt. Collins. i. 222.

covered. He was admitted without resistance: the stout defiance of the "General," who appeared on the walls of Bordeaux, being an imagination of the poet. He is, however, correct in bringing Charles the Seventh with a strong force, by which he was defeated near Chatillon, and slain, together with his son, John Talbot.* Talbot endeavours to persuade his son to fly, and the young hero insists upon sharing the danger, is suggested by Holinshed,

The scene in which old

'It is said that, after he perceived there was no remedy but present loss of the battle, he counselled his son, the Lord Lisle, to save himself by flight, since the same could not redound to any great reproach in him, this being the first journey in which he had been present. Many words he used to persuade him to have saved his life; but, nature so wrought in the son, that neither desire of life nor fear of death, could either cause him to shrink or convey himself out of the danger, and so there manfully ended his life with his said father."+

The incident is dramatic, but the author of this play has not dramatised it well; a part of the

* Sc. 2, 5, 6, 7. Hol., 235; Monstr., 553; Hall, 229. This son was his eldest son by his second wife Margaret, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and, by her mother, co-heiress of Lisle. He was created Viscount Lisle. † Hol., 236.