Henry the Sixth Part 1

Henry the Sixth.

by John Blacman.

PREFACE

The tract on the Personality of King Henry VI (as I may perhaps be allowed to call it), which is here reprinted, has. .h.i.therto been almost inaccessible to ordinary students. It is not known to exist at all in ma.n.u.script. We depend ultimately for our knowledge of it upon a printed edition issued by Robert Coplande of London, of which the date is said to be 1510. Of this there may be two copies in existence. This text was reprinted by Thomas Hearne in 1732, in his edition of the Chronicles of Thomas Otterbourne and John Whethamstede, of which 150 copies were issued.

I have here reprinted Hearne's text, and have collated it with Coplande's. This I was enabled to do through the great kindness of the authorities of St Cuthbert's College at Ushaw, who most generously lent me a copy of the tract preserved in their Library. This copy I will endeavour to describe.

It is in a modern binding lettered: _Hylton's Lives of British Saints.

Blackman's Life of Henry VI_. The pressmark is

XVIII C 4 7

The size is 185 130 mm. There are 32 lines to a full page.

_Collation_: A6 B4.

_Signatures_: A I (2 not signed): A III (4-6 not signed).

B I (2 not signed): B III (4 not signed). Ab I _a_ has the t.i.tle at top:

--Collectarium Mansuetudinum et bono- rum morum regis Henrici. VI. ex col- lecti[=o]e magistri Joannis blak man bacchalaurei theo logie / et post Car tusie monachi Londini.

Below this is a woodcut measuring 99 76, and representing a bearded king in hat with crown about it, clad in ermine tippet, and dalmatic over long robe. He holds a closed book in his _R._ hand, a sceptre in his _L._: on the _L._ wrist is a maniple. His head is turned towards _R._ On _R._ a tree, plants across the foreground: a mound on _L._ with two trees seen over it.

I feel confident that the woodcut is not intended for a portrait of Henry VI, and that it really represents some Old Testament personage: but I have not attempted to trace it in other books.

It has a border in three pieces. Those on _R._ and _L._ are 115 mm. in height and contain small figures of prophets standing on tall shafts: that at bottom was designed to be placed vertically, and contains a half-length figure of a prophet springing out of foliage, and with foliage above.

On A I _b_ the woodcut is repeated without the border.

Then follows the text as given by me. After it, on B IV _a_, is Robert Coplande's device, measuring 80 95; a wreath of roses and leaves, comprised within two concentric circles: within it the printer's mark.

Outside in the upper _L._ corner a rose slipped and leaved: in the upper _R._ corner, a pomegranate.

Below, a scroll inscribed: Robert (_rose_) Coplande.

On B IV _b_ the woodcut of the king, without border.

Below it, in a neat hand:

R. Johnson. prec. 1d.

1523.

For the rest, the volume contains:

Capgrave's _New Legende_, beginning imperfectly in the Table

De S. Esterwino abbate. fo. x.x.xviii.

This is preceded by two inserted leaves of paper: on the first are the missing items of the Table, supplied in a rough hand of cent. XVI. On the second, in a hand of cent. XVIII, is:

Printed at London by Richard Pynson Printer to the Kings n.o.ble Grace the 20th day of February 1516. Vid. Page 133.

Newcastle upon Tyne.

This book was found in the Town Clerk's Office about the latter end (of) the year 1765.

(?) A P G.

At the end of the Table (before A I) is written in a hand of cent. XVI:

The abbridgement of henry the syxthes lyfe ys fastned to the ende of this booke.

At top of A I (cent. XVI) is: T. T. Collected by Caxton.

On A VIII _b_, B II _a_ is the name (cent. XVI):

Alexander Ridley of ye brom hills.

He has written a good many marginal notes in the book.

_Collation_: Table 2 ff. A8 B4 C8 D4 E8 F4 G8 H4 I8 K4 L8 (i-iii signed) M4 N8 (as L) O4 (i-iii signed) P8 (as L) Q4 R8 (as L) S4 (i-iii signed: ii, iii both numbered i) T8 (+ 1: 4 leaves CIX-CXII on the 11000 Virgins inserted after CVII* instead of after CVIII) U6 (6 blank unnumbered) X8 (Life of S. Byrgette) Y6.

Followed by tract of Walter Hylton: 'to a deuoute man in temperall estate howe he shulde rule hym' etc. A8 B8 (leaves not numbered).

On CXIX _b_ is Pynson's device: no date.

On Cx.x.xIII _a_ (Life of S. Byrgette) the date M.CCCCCXVI. XX Feb. On the verso Pynson's device with break in lower border.

At the end of Hylton's tract B VIII _a_ the date MCCCCCXVI last daye of Feb.

On the verso Pynson's device with break in lower border.

Hearne's preface to _Otterbourne_ (I, p. xliv) contains some interesting matter bearing on the tract, which I summarize here.

No one, he says, except John Blakman has yet written a special life of Henry VI, and Blakman's is not an _opus absolutum_ but a "fragmentum duntaxat operis longe majoris alicubi forte nunc etiam latentis."

Vita haecce qualiscunque in lucem prodiit Londini A.D. M.D.X. a Roberto Coplandio ... excusus. Eiusdem exemplaria adeo rara sunt ut vix reperias in bibliothecis etiam instructissimis. Penes se autem habet amicus excultissimus Jacobus Westus, qui pro necessitudine illa quae inter nos intercedit, non tantum mutuo dedit, sed et licentiam concessit exscribendi. Id quod feci.