Part 3

At the same time, there was another side to Fastolf’s character, which is revealed in that mine of curious information on the social life and manners of the time, the well-known _Paston Letters_. Through his intimacy with John Paston,[66] who was ultimately his executor and principal heir, many of his private letters and papers are there preserved, and they certainly do not exhibit him in a favourable light.[67] Hot-tempered, arbitrary and rapacious, harsh and mean to his dependents, an exacting creditor and a rancorous litigant, he was the reverse of Chaucer’s type of the “verray perfight, gentil knight.” Wealthy as he was and childless, he was still bent on making gain, partly no doubt to pay for the building of his great castle at Caister in Norfolk, the ruins of which may still be seen. No one perhaps knew him better or had suffered more from his hard dealing than his stepson. Some years later than the present work Stephen Scrope drew up a formal statement of his wrongs,[68] in which he not only complained that in the disposal of his wardship Fastolf had bought and sold him “as a beast,” but even charged him with being the cause of illnesses which had marked him for life[69] and with having at a later period used him so scurvily that he was compelled to sell his manor of Hever in Kent and take service with the Duke of Gloucester. Apparently this sign of independence did not meet Fastolf’s views, for he soon managed to get him into his own retinue, and, as the other admits, at this time he showed him “good fatherhood,” employing him at Honfleur and elsewhere, probably in a civil capacity,[70] until he returned home in pique at some slight. Fastolf’s dealings with regard to Scrope’s inheritance are somewhat obscure, but by some arrangement he contrived to secure Castle Combe for life.[71] As Lady Fastolf died in 1446, her son by her first marriage, to whom it should have then come by right, was thus kept out of it for thirteen years longer, only enjoying it from his stepfather’s death in 1459 until his own in 1472. But in spite of differences the two were apparently not altogether on bad terms; otherwise neither this translation nor that of the “Dis des Philosophes” would have been made, and still less would Scrope have spoken of Fastolf as he here does. His language indeed is something more than respectful and laudatory. While he fully endorses Wavrin’s description of Sir John as “moult sage et vaillant chevallier,”[72] there is a tone of humility which makes it difficult to realize that the writer was upwards of forty years of age and at least Fastolf’s equal by birth. The nature of their relations may be gathered from a singular letter to the latter about 1455 from Sir Richard Bingham, Justice of the King’s Bench, whose daughter Stephen Scrope had recently married.[73] In imploring help for him the writer says[74]:

“... My saide son is and hath be, and will be to hys lifes ende, your true lad and servaunt, and glad and well willed to do that myght be to your pleaser, wirschip and profit, and als loth to offend yow as any person in erth, gentill and well disposid to every person. Wherfore I besech your gode grace that ye will vouchesafe remember the premissez, my saide sons age, his wirschipfull birth, and grete misere for verrey povert, for he hath had no liflode to life opon sithen my lady his moder deed, safe x. marc of liflode that ye vouched safe to gife hym this last yer, and therffore to be his good maister and fader. And thof he be not worthy to be your son, make hym your almesman, that he may now in his age life of your almesse, and be your bedeman, and pray for the prosperite of your noble person....”

The result of this appeal, and of more to the same effect, is not recorded, but that Fastolf could be gracious enough in words is evident from the only letter from him to Scrope which is included in the _Paston Letters_,[75] written on 30th October, 1457. It is addressed, “Worschepeful and my right wel beloved sone,” and, after thanking him for his “good avertismentys and right well avysed lettres,” begs him to recommend to his father-in-law, Justice Bingham, a suit in which the writer was interested, and the tone throughout is unexceptionable. There is, however, another letter in the _History of Castle Combe_ (p. 270), written from Calais, and, according to the editor, about 1420, which is not so amiable. After Scrope’s second marriage he and his stepfather no doubt lived apart, but at the time when the “Epistle of Othea” was translated they were probably under the same roof, and as late as 1454, when Caister Castle was completed and Fastolf was about to take up his residence there, it is expressly stated that Scrope would live with him.[76]

While there is little doubt that he was incapacitated by weak health from military service and that he was deficient also in force of character, it cannot be said that, so far as we can judge from his two translations from the French, he possessed much literary ability. There is nothing original in either of them except the short preface to the “Epistle of Othea” here printed, and, interesting as this is in other respects, its style is so involved that in places it is hardly intelligible. Nor is the writer more fortunate in his account of the French work which he translated; for by some strange misunderstanding he deprives its authoress of the credit of it and makes out (p. 3) that it was compiled by doctors of the University of Paris merely at the instance and prayer of the “fulle wyse gentylwoman of Frawnce called Dame Cristine.” It is curious that a very similar statement is made as to her works generally in a marginal note in the “Boke of Noblesse,”[77] with reference to a passage taken from her “Livre des faits d’armes,” which, however, is wrongly spoken of as the “Arbre des batailles.” It is there said that Christine was a lady of high birth and character, who dwelt in a house of religious ladies at Passy (Poissy?) near Paris, that she maintained with exhibitions several clerks studying in the University of Paris and caused them to compile divers virtuous books, such as the “Arbre des batailles,” and that the doctors in consequence attributed the books to Christine herself. As this note is in the hand of the well-known William Worcester or Botoner, who was servant and secretary to Fastolf, the two statements no doubt had a common origin, coming perhaps from Sir John himself.

From the prominent way in which Scrope mentions the Duke of Berry it is reasonable to conclude that the French MS. which supplied him with the original text contained a dedicatory address by the authoress to that famous royal bibliophil, who, as we know, was one of her special patrons. In the inventory of his library, among the MSS. acquired soon after 1401, there is in fact the entry,[78] “Item le livre de l’espitre que Othéa la deesse envoia à Ethor (_sc._ Hector), compilé par damoiselle Christine de Pizan, escript en françois de lettre de court, très bien historié .... le quel livre la dicte Cristine a donné à mon dit seigneur”; and the probability is that on Fastolf’s return to England he brought with him either this identical MS. or a transcript of it, together with a copy of De Tignonville’s “Dis des philosophes.” Existing copies of the “Épître d’Othéa” are not uncommon. In the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris there are twelve,[79] and Koch (p. 59) mentions six others at Brussels, while the British Museum possesses four. One of these is included in the fine collection of Christine’s poems and other works in Harley MS. 4,431. It is the MS. “H,” readings from which are given here in the notes, and the collotype frontispiece, which depicts the goddess Othea personally handing her letter to Hector, is reproduced from the second of its numerous miniatures, one of which precedes each of the hundred “textes.” The collection, which is of the highest importance, including pieces found nowhere else,[80] was made by Christine herself, apparently about 1410–1415, for the French queen, Isabella of Bavaria, the MS. beginning with an introductory poem of ninety-six lines addressed to her.[81] Probably it came into the possession of John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France, in 1425[82] among other MSS. from the royal library of the Louvre; for the signature “Jaquete” of his second wife, Jacquetta of Luxemburg, is written on the fly-leaf, together with that of Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers, her son by her second marriage, in 1437, with Sir Richard Wydeville, who was created Earl Rivers in 1466. As we have already seen, Anthony, Earl Rivers, translated the “Dis des philosophes,” and he also made an English version, printed by Caxton in 1478, of Christine’s “Proverbes moraux,” the text of which he no doubt obtained from this MS. After he perished on the scaffold in 1488, the volume passed by some means to Louis de Bruges, Sieur de Gruythuyse, created Earl of Winchester in 1472, whose motto and name, “Plus est en vous. Gruthuse,” appear on the same page. In 1676 it belonged to Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and no doubt it found its way into the Harley collection by the marriage of his grand-daughter Lady Henrietta Cavendish-Holles in 1713 to Edward Harley, Lord Harley, second Earl of Oxford in 1724. That it was known to Fastolf, when Master of the Household to the Regent Bedford, is likely enough; but the copy of the “Épître d’Othéa” included in it can hardly have been the one used by Scrope, as it is dedicated, not to the Duke of Berry, but to his nephew Louis, Duke of Orleans. After some lines of apostrophe to the “Fleur de lis” and to “Seigneurie,” which begin,

“Tres haulte flour, par le monde louee, A tous plaisant et de dieu auouee,”

it proceeds,

“Et a vous tres noble prince excellant, Dorliens duc loys, de grant renom, Filz de Charles Roy quint de cellui nom, Qui fors le roy ne congnoiscez greigneur, Mon tres loue et redoubte seigneur, Dumble vouloir moy, poure creature, Femme ignorant, de petite estature, Fille iadis philosophe et docteur, Qui conseiller et humble seruiteur Vostre pere fu, que dieu face grace, Et iadis vint de Boulongne la grace, Dont il fu ne, par le sien mandement, Maistre Thomas de pizan, autrement De Boulonge, fu dit et surnomme, Qui sollempnel clerc estoit renomme.”

* * * * *

This is the dedication which appears, not only in some other MSS. but in the edition printed by Philippe Pigouchet at Paris, probably in 1490, under the title _Les cent histoires de troye_.[83] Of the other three manuscript copies in the British Museum, Royal MS. 14 E. ii. (f. 294) and 17 E. iv. (f. 272) have no dedication at all, while that in Harley MS. 219 (f. 106) appeals to a third patron:

“Prince excellent de haute renommee, De qui grand vois par le mond est semee, Tres noble en fais, sage, duit et apris De touz les biens qui en bon sont compris, Roy noble et haut chiualer conquerour, Digne destre par vaillaunce Emperour, A vous puissant, tres redoute seignour, Qui dessur vous ne cognoise greignour, Soit tres humble recommendacioun Deuant mise de vray entencioun De par moy que en sagesse non digne Femme ignorant suy nommee Cristine, Fille iadis philosophe et docteur, Qui conseiller fu, humble seruiteur Au Roy Charles quint, qui dieu face grace.”

* * * * *

The king who is thus addressed can be no other than the unfortunate Charles VI., although any hopes that he once excited had by this time been dispelled by his strange intermittent fits of insanity, which dated from 1392. Very similar terms were employed in the dedication to him by name of the “Chemin de long estude” in 1402:

“A vous, bon roy de France redoubtable, Le VI^e Charles du nom notable, Que Dieux maintienge en joie et en sante, Mon petit dit soit premier presente, Tout ne soit il digne qu’en telz mains aille, Mais bon vouloir comme bon fait me vaille.”

In this instance, however, Christine associated with him his uncles Berry and Burgundy and his brother Orleans, who during his incapacity divided the real power between them:

“Et puis a vous, haulz ducs magnifiez, Dicelle fleur fais et ediffiez, Dont l’esplendeur s’espant par toute terre, Par quel honneur fait los a France a querre.”

In her presentation copies she was not wont to measure her language, and probably Scrope’s extravagant eulogy of the Duke of Berry was based upon what he found in his MS., although, instead of translating the dedication as it stood, he chose to embody it in his preface. On the other hand, Christine of course was in no way responsible for the statement that the duke lived for a hundred years (p. 3). How it originated is a mystery, for there is no doubt whatever that he died on 15th June, 1416, at the age of seventy-six.[84] Jean Bouchet indeed in his _Annales d’Aquitaine_,[85] although he records the date of his death correctly, states that he was ninety or thereabouts, but he gives no authority, and it is enough to say that Berry’s father King John II. was born in 1319, and his eldest brother Charles V. in 1337. It will be seen that Scrope represents him as a perfect paragon of chivalrous qualities, unrivalled in his time both in war and in council, as well as for deeds of piety. In more sober history, however, he by no means appears to such advantage. His cultured and sumptuous tastes, his splendid buildings and his library and other rich collections, have shed a certain lustre on his name; but, as he showed especially in his government of Languedoc, he was cruel, rapacious, and unprincipled, and in critical times his life was that of a selfish and prodigal voluptuary. For war he had neither talent nor zest; his real element appears to have been diplomacy, and, apart from his patronage of art and letters and his benefactions to the church, his chief claim to credit rests on his repeated attempts to mediate between the Burgundian and Orleanist factions. Scrope’s estimate of him is in striking contrast with that of modern historians, such as Raynal[86] and Martin, the latter of whom in recording his death writes, “Ce prince laissa une mémoire souillée entre toutes dans cette êpoque de souillures. Il joignait à bien d’autres vices le vice que la France pardonne le moins à ses chefs, le péché irremissible, la lâcheté.”[87]

To pass from the preface to the “Epistle of Othea” itself, there is no reason to suppose that the translator had received the training of a scholar; on the contrary, the probability is that, owing to a sickly youth and other drawbacks, his education had been more or less neglected. It is not even certain that he had been regularly taught French. From a curious passage interpolated by Trevisa in his translation of Higden’s “Polychronicon,” which was finished in 1387, it seems that the fashion was then already dying out among the class to which by birth he belonged,[88] and possibly therefore he learnt all he knew of the language while he was with his stepfather in France. Be that as it may, his rendering of Christine de Pisan’s French may claim on the whole to be fairly well done. The verse of his “textes” is too much of the doggrel type and his meaning is sometimes obscure, but as a rule he follows the original closely, while the orthography of the MS., though atrociously bad, is no worse than what we are accustomed to in the _Paston Letters_ and elsewhere at the same period. Occasionally, as is only natural, he goes astray, though it is of course possible that the fault lay with the MS. from which he translated. In most cases the source of his errors is obvious. Thus he translates “ton bon cuer” (p. 5) by “all good hertys,” having evidently mistaken “ton” for “tou[t]”; and again “en quant fraisle vaissel est sa vie contenue” (p. 28) by “in how frele (_sc._ frail) a vessel his lyff is all naked” (toute nue)! Similarly “conscience pour soy” (p. 16) appears as “conscience for feyth” (foy); “ala querre les autres dieux” (p. 62) as “thanne went he forth [to seek] the tothir ii^o” (deux); “mais a nostre propos [la fable] veult dire” (_ibid._) as “Mars to owre purpose seith”; and “gard toy de lagait (l’agait) de tes ennemis” (p. 73) as “kepe the (_sc._ thee) from the peple (la gent) of thyn ennemyes.” It is not so easy to understand the process by which the simple sentence “Vanite fist lange devenir deable” (p. 15) was transformed into “Vanite made avoyde degre to becum a fende,” whatever that may mean; or why in the story of Acis and Galatea (p. 65) “un iouuencel qui Acis estoit nommez” became “and he was dede” (_sc._ dead), though possibly in this case there was some confusion between “acis” and “occis.” But the strangest mistranslation is in the words “Averyse and covetise be ii^o sausmakers the which sesseth neuer to seye, ‘Bryng, Bryng’” (p. 105), where the French text has “sont ii. sancsues,” sanguisugæ, or leeches. The reference of course is to Proverbs xxx. 15, “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, ‘Give, give’”; and, as stated in the note, “horseleeches” is in fact the rendering given in another translation of Christine’s work. Scrope’s “sausmakers” can hardly be anything but “sauce-makers,”[89] but it is not impossible that he coined the mongrel word “sanc-suckers,” which the scribe miscopied.

The second English translation of the “Épître d’Othéa” referred to above can be so little known that a brief account of it will not be superfluous. It exists only in the form of a small printed octavo in black-letter with the title _Here foloweth the C. Hystoryes of Troye_, and there is no doubt that it was taken from Pigouchet’s French edition of 1490,[90] or one of the reprints; in fact it copies the second title in French, merely omitting the imprint “à Paris.” Many of its rough woodcuts, one of which accompanies each “texte,” also come from the same source, being generally reversed, but others are independent and their subjects often have no connexion whatever with the text. In place of the dedication to the Duke of Orleans the translator gives a prologue of his own in ten seven-line stanzas, the first two of which are as follows:

“Boke, of thy rudenesse by consyderacion Plunged in the walowes of abasshement, For thy translatoure make excusacion To all to whom thou shalt thy selfe present, Besechynge them vpon the sentement In the composed to set theyr regarde And not on the speche cancred and frowarde.

“Shewe them that thy translatour hath the wryten, Not to obtain thankes or remuneracions, But to the entent to do the to be wryten As well in Englande as in other nacyons. And where mysordre in thy translation is, Vnto the perceyuer with humble obeysaunce Excuse thy reducer, blamyng his ygnoraunce.”

All the information which he gives about himself in this prologue is that, when he made his translation, he was “flowring in youth,” but after the “Finis” he has added, “Thus endeth the .C. Hystories of Troye, translated out of Frenche in to Englysshe by me. R.W.” This again is followed by the colophon, “Imprynted by me Robert Wyer, dwellyng in S. Martyns parysshe at Charyng Crosse at the sygne of S. John̄ Euangelist besyde the Duke of Suffolkes place”; and it is therefore highly probable that R. W. and Robert Wyer were identical, though the latter is not otherwise known except as a printer. A list of nearly a hundred books issued by him has been made up,[91] ranging in date from 1530 to 1556, and all those which, as in this instance, have the Duke of Suffolk’s name in the imprint must have been published after 1536, when the property referred to, which previously belonged to the Bishop of Norwich, passed into his possession. The date of the book therefore is about 1540–1550, though the translation may have been made some years before. For the sake of comparison with the earlier version of Stephen Scrope, one of the texts with its commentary is here given:

THE .XXVIII. TEXTE.

Loue and prayse Cadmus so excellente, And his dyscyples holde thou in chyerte. He gaygned the fountayne of the Serpente With ryght great payne afore that it wolde be.

THE .XXVIII. GLOSE.

Cadmus was a moche noble man and founded Thebes, whiche cytie was greatly renomed. He set there a study & he hym selfe was moche profoundly lettered and of great science. And therfore sayth the fable that he daunted the serpent at the fountayne, that is to vnderstande the science and sages that alwayes springeth; the Serpent is noted for the payne and trauayle which it behoueth the student to daunte afore that he maye purchase scyence. And the fable sayth that he hym self became a serpent, which is to vnderstande he was a corrector and mayster of other. So wol Othea say that the good knight ought to loue and honour the clerkes lettered, which ben grounded in science. To this purpose sayeth Arystotle to Alexandre, “Honour thou scyence and fortyfie it by good maysters.”

THE .XXVIII. ALLEGORIE.

Cadmus whiche daunted the Serpent at the fountayne, whiche the good knyght ought to loue, we may vnderstande the blyssed humanite of Jesu christ, which dompted the serpent and gaigned the fountayne, that is to say the lyfe of this world, from the which he passed afore with great payne and with great trauayle. Wherof he had perfyte victory whan he rose agayne the thyrd day, as sayth S. Thomas, “Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.”