ded. And for my curtesie I was put to þe Soudenys house, & was made vssher of halle; & þen died þe Souden & his heire, And I wedded his wiff. & so I was souden. & þen died my wiff; and I wedded þe Emperourys doughtter, & was Emperour bi here, & bycome Souden of Surry. but I sende gretyng to Henry kynge of England, þe frenshe womman sone. & so be þat he wol wed my doughter, I wel becom cristen, & alle my meyne, And wol gef hym iij Milions of gold, And delyuere hym þe holy cros, with al þe Reliques in my kepyng; And I shal make hym Emperour of xxxvij kynges cristen, þat is, Anglond, Fraunce, Irland, Scotland, Denmark, norwey, portu|gale, Cicile, Sipres, Spayn, Swhen, Sastel, Orsorial, beme, hungry, Magon, Naples, Cschresy; And to stonde with hym agaynst alle Cristen kynges. Writen in þe yere of youre gret god, my cosyn. MCCCCxvj yere. [[Mr. James Gairdner, of the Record Office, tells me that 'Henry kynge of England, þe frensh womman son,' can only mean Henry VI., born in 1421, son of Cathe|rine, daughter of Charles VI. of France. Henry's marriage with Margaret of Anjon, suggested by the Earl of Suffolk in 1444, took place in 1445. Mr. Gairdner therefore thinks the date of 1416 (the third of Henry V.) a mistake of the copier of the MS. In this Mr. G. E. Cokayne agrees, and would fix the date at 1436, believing that "þe frensh womman son" would not have been used after her death, in 1438. But the difficulty is to settle what the Proclamation is intended to satirize. The possession of Jerusalem, Joppa, the Holy Rood, etc., the being Souden of Surre or Syria, and the like, point to the Sultan. The Porter of Paradise, the Cousin of Christ, the opposition to Lollardy, might have been thought to hint at the Pope, if the marriages (unless allegorical ones are alluded to) did not prevent that. Professor Brewer suggests Anti|christ, that is, the representative of the Antichristian powers. The allusion to Lollardy may point to Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham's rising, for which he was executed Dec. 25, 1417. "Curiously enough, Henry III. was also King of England for some time during the lifetime of his mother, a French woman;
but of course the text could not apply to so early a date, besides that the taking away from the date is a greater sin than adding thereunto. I am inclined to think the whole thing a satire by the party of Cardinal Beaufort on the poverty of, and want of any real power in, René, Duke of Anjou, titular King of Jerusalem, Sicily, Naples, Aragon, Valence, etc., etc., who had succeeded his brother Louis in all these and many other high-sounding titles in 1434, and was probably at that time displaying them to the utmost advantage in hopes of getting something more solid by so doing— which came to pass in 1444 and 1445 by the betrothal and subsequent marriage of his daughter Margaret with King Henry. Jerusalem, etc., were considered by René as belonging to him. Remember, too, this was before the conquest of the Eastern Empire in 1453. [Constantinople was taken May 29, 1453, by Mahomet II., and Constantine XIII. (Palæologus) slain, with whom ended the Eastern Empire.—Haydn's Dict. of Dates.] Of course René's marriages do not apply. He married twice, but his first wife did not die till 1453. I have not time to go into the subject fully. Other points ought to be looked into—viz., Henry VI. was in his 23rd year, wished by the Duke of Gloucester to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac. Who was he? Could he be meant? I do not think so, because at that time Catherine was dead, and probably Henry would not be spoken of as the son of the Frenchwoman, it being usual for English kings to marry French princesses, and every king (excepting Edward III.) having done so from John downwards, though some had English wives as well. In 1425 John Palæologus II. was Emperor of the East, till 1448. What sort of man was he? He had probably many titles and (titular) kingdoms, and little else. I have not time to pursue him, liking René better."—G. E. C.]]
