became acquainted with them of the castell, as Minstrels doe easily win acquaintance any where:* but see the king he could not, neither understand that it was he. One day he sat directly before a window of the castell where King Richard was kept prisoner, and began to sing a song in French, which King Richard and Blondel had some time composed together. When King Richard heard the song, he knew it was Blondel that sung it: and when Blondel paused at halfe of the song, the king 'began the other half and completed it.' Thus Blondel won knowledge of the king his maister, and returning home into England, made the barons of the countrie acquainted where the king was." This happened about the year 1193.

The following old Provençal lines are given as the very original song; which I shall accompany with an imitation offered by Dr. Burney, ii. 237.

BLONDEL.

Domna vostra beutas
Elas bellas faissos
Els bels oils amoros
Els gens cors ben taillats
Don sieu empresenats
De vostra amo qui mi lia.

Si bel trop affansia
Ja de vos non portrai
Que major honorai
Sol en votra deman
Que sautra des beisan
Tot can de vos volria

Your beauty, lady fair,
None views without delight;
But still so cold an air
No passion can excite:

Yet this I patient see

While all are shun'd like me.

abroad and secreted by her French relations in Normandy. To discover the place of her concealment, a knight of the Talbot family spent two years in exploring that province, at first under the disguise of a pilgrim; till having found where she was confined, in order to gain admittance he assumed the dress and character of a harper, and being a jocose person exceedingly skilled in the gests of the ancients;"* so they called the romances and stories which were the delight of that age; he was gladly received into the family. Whence he took an opportunity to carry off the young lady, whom he presented to the king; and he bestowed her on his natural brother William Longespee (son of fair Rosamond), who became in her right Earl of Salisbury. (V 3)

66

66

RICHARD.

And smiles on all around
Unwilling to decide:

I'd rather hatred bear

Than love with others share.

The access which Blondel so readily obtained in the privileged character of a minstrel, is not the only instance upon record of the same nature. (V 2) In this very reign of King Richard I. the young heiress of D'Evereux, Earl of Salisbury, had been carried

"Comme Menestrels s'accointent legerement." Favine. Fauchet expresses it in the same manner.

† I give this passage corrected; as the English translator of Favine's book appeared here to have mistaken the original: Scil. "Et quant Blondel eut dit la moitie de la Chanson, le roy Richard se prist a dire l'autre moitie et l'acheva." Favine, p. 1106. Fauchet has also expressed it in nearly the same words. Recueil, p. 93.

In a little romance or novel, entitled, "La Tour Tenebreuses, et les Jours Lumineux, Contes Angloises, accompagnez d'historiettes, et tirez d'une ancienne chronique composee par Richard, surnomme Coeur de Lion, Roy d'Angleterre," &c. Paris 1705, 12mo.-In the Preface to this romance the Editor has given another song of Blondel de Nesle, as also a copy of the song written by King Richard, and published by Mr. Walpole, mentioned above, yet the two last are not in Provençal like the sonnet printed here; but in the old French, called Language Roman.

they should not then be apprehended for theft or any other misdemeanour, except the crime were committed during the fair. This special protection occasioning a multitude of loose people to resort to that fair, was afterwards of signal benefit to one of his successors. For Ranulph, the last Earl of Chester, marching into Wales with a slender attendance, was constrained to retire to his castle of Rothelan, (or Rhuydland) to which the Welsh forthwith laid siege. In this distress he sent for help to the Lord de Lacy, constable of Chester: Who, making use of the Minstrells of all sorts, then met at Chester fair: by the allurement of their musick, got together a vast number of such loose people as, by reason of the before specified priviledge, were then in that city; whom he forthwith sent under the

The words of the original, viz., "Citharisator homo jocosus in Gestis antiquorum valde peritus," I conceive to give the precise idea of the ancient Minstrel. See note (V 2). That Gesta was appropriated to romantic stories, see note (I) Part IV (1).

† See Dugdale, Bar. i. 42, 101, who places it after 13 John, A. D. 1212. See also Plot's Staffordsh. Camden's Britann. (Cheshire.)

conduct of Dutton (his steward), a gallant youth, who was also his son-in-law. The Welsh, alarmed at the approach of this rabble, supposing them to be a regular body of armed and disciplined veterans, instantly raised the siege and retired."

For this good service, Ranulph is said to have granted to De Lacy, by charter, the patronage and authority over the Minstrels and the loose and inferior people: who, retaining to himself that of the lower artificers, conferred on Dutton the jurisdiction of the Minstrels and Harlots; and under the descendants of this family the Minstrels enjoyed certain privileges, and protection for many ages. For even so late as the reign of Elizabeth, when this profession had fallen into such discredit that it was considered in law as a nuisance, the Minstrels under the jurisdiction of the family of Dutton, are expressly excepted out of all acts of parliament made for their suppression; and have continued to be so excepted ever since.(W)

The ceremonies attending the exercise of this jurisdiction are thus described by Dugdale, as handed down to his time, viz.: That at midsummer fair there, all the Minstrels of that country resorting to Chester do attend the heir of Dutton, from his lodging to St. John's Church (he being then accompanied by many gentlemen of the countrey), one of the Minstrels' walking before him in a surcoat of his arms depicted on taffata ; the rest of his fellows proceeding (two and two) and playing on their several sorts of musical instruments. And after divine service ndede, give the like attendance on him back to his lodging; where a court being kept by his [Mr. Dutton's] steward, and all the Minstrels formally called, certain orders and laws are usually made for the better government of that society, with penalties on those who transgress."

In the same reign of King John we have a remarkable instance of a Minstrel, who to his other talents superadded the character of soothsayer, and by his skill in drugs and medicated potions was able to rescue a knight from imprisonment. This occurs in Leland's Narrative of the Gestes of Guarine (or Warren) and his sons, which he "excerptid owte

* See the ancient record in Blount's Law Dictionary (Art.

Minstrel).

Bar. i. p. 101.

Whitington Castle in Shropshire, which together with the coheiress of the original proprietor had been won in a solemn turna ment by the ancestor of the Guarines,† had in the reign of King John been seized by the Prince of Wales, and was afterwards pos sessed by Morice, a retainer of that prince, to whom the king, out of hatred to the true heir Fulco Guarine (with whom he had for merly had a quarrel at chess),‡ not only confirmed the possession, but also made him governor of the marches, of which Fulco himself had the custody in the time of King Richard. The Guarines demanded justice of the king, but obtaining no gracious answer, renounced their allegiance and fled into Bretagne. Returning into England after various conflicts, "Fulco resortid to one John of Raumpayne, a Sothsayer and Jocular and Minstrelle, and made hymn his spy to Morice at Whitington." The privileges of this character we have already seen, and John so well availed himself of them, that in consequence of the intelligence which he doubtless procured, "Fulco and his brethrene laide waite for Morice, as he went toward Salesbyri, and Fulco ther woundid hym: and Bracy," a knight who was their friend and assistant, "cut of Morice['s] hedde." This Sir Bracy being in a subsequent rencounter sore wounded, was taken and brought to King John: from whose vengeance he was however rescued by this notable Minstrel ; for "John Rampayne founde the meanes to cast them, that kepte Bracy, into a deadely slepe; and so he and Bracy cam to Fulco to Whitington," which on the death of Morice had been restored to him by the Prince of Wales. As no further mention occurs of the Minstrel, I might here conclude this narrative; but I shall just add that Fulco was

* Leland's Collectanea, vol. i. pages 261, 266, 267. This old feudal custom of marrying an heiress to the

knight who should vanquish all his opponents in solemn contest, &c., appears to be burlesqued in the Turnament of Totenham, as is well observed by the learned author of

Remarks, &c., in Gent. Mag. for July, 1794, p. 613.

John, sun to King Henry, and Fulco felle at variance at Chester (r. Chesse]; and John brake Fulco ['s] hed with the chest borde; and then Fulco gave him such a blow, that he had almost killid hym." (Lel. Coll. i. p. 264.) A curious picture of courtly manners in that age! Notwithstanding this fray, we read in the next paragraph, that " King Henry dubbid Fulco and 3 of his bretherne Knightes at Win chester." Ibid.

obliged to flee into France, where, assuming the name of Sir Amice, he distinguished himself in justs and tournaments; and, after various romantic adventures by sea and land; having in the true style of chivalry rescued "certayne ladies owt of prison;" he finally obtained the king's pardon, and the quiet possession of Whitington Castle.

In the reign of King Henry III., we have mention of Master Ricard the King's Harper, to whom in his thirty-sixth year (1252) that monarch gave not only forty shillings and a pipe of wine, but also a pipe of wine to Beatrice, his wife. The title of Magister, or Master, given to this Minstrel deserves notice, and shows his respectable situation.

V. The Harper, or Minstrel, was so necessary an attendant on a royal personage, that Prince Edward (afterwards King Edward I.), | in his crusade to the Holy Land, in 1271, was not without his Harper: who must have been officially very near his person; as we are told by a. contemporary historian,† that, in the attempt to assassinate that heroic prince, when he had wrested the poisoned knife out of the Sarazen's hand, and killed him with his own weapon; the attendants, who had stood apart while he was whispering to their master, hearing the struggle, ran to his assistance, and one of them, to wit his Harper, seizing a tripod or trestle, struck the assassin on the head and beat out his brains. And though the prince blamed him for striking the man after he was dead, yet his near access shows the respectable situation of this officer; and his affectionate zeal should have induced Edward to entreat his brethren the Welsh Bards afterwards with more lenity. Whatever was the extent of this great

Burney's Hist. ii. p. 355.-Rot. Pip. An. 36 II. III.

monarch's severity towards the professors of music and of song in Wales; whether the executing by martial law such of them as fell into his hands was only during the heat of conflict, or was continued afterwards with more systematic rigour ;* yet in his own court the Minstrels appear to have been highly favoured: for when, in 1306, he conferred the order of knighthood on his son and many others of the young nobility, a multitude of Minstrels were introduced to invite and induce the new knights to make some military vow. (X) And

Under the succeeding reign of King Edward II., such extensive privileges were claimed by these men, and by dissolute persons assuming their character, that it became a matter of public grievance, and was obliged to be reformed by an express regulation in A. D. 1315.(Y) Notwithstanding which, an incident is recorded in the ensuing year, which shows that Minstrels still retained the liberty of entering at will into the royal represence, and had something peculiarly splen did in their dress. It is thus related by Stow.(Z)

In the year 1316, Edward the Second did solemnize his feast of Pentecost at Westminster, in the great hall; where sitting royally at the table with his peers about him, there entered a woman adorned like a Minstrel, sitting on a great horse trapped, as Minstrels then used; who rode round about the table, shewing pastime; and at length came up to the king's table, and laid before him a letter, and forthwith turning her horse saluted every one and departed."--The subject of this letter was a remonstrance to the king on the favours heaped by him on his minions, to the neglect of his knights and faithful ser

vants.

Citharista Regis, xl. sol. per. br. Reg. Et in uno dolio smpto & dato Beatrici uxori ejusdem Ricardi.”

+ Walter Hemmingford (vixit temp. Edw. I.), in Chronic.

"Accurrentes ad hæc Ministri ejus, qui a longe steterunt, invenerunt eum [scil. Nuntium] in terra mortuum, et apprehendit unus eorum tripodem, scilicet Cithareda suus, & percussit eum in capite, et effundit cerebrum ejus. Incre pavitque eum Edwardus quod hominem mortuum percussisset." Ibid. These Ministri must have been upon a very confidential footing, as it appears above in the same chapter, that they had been made acquainted with the contents of the letters which the assassin had delivered to the prince from his master.

ment. This is offered on a supposition that she was not a real minstrel; for there should seem to have been women of this profession (A a), as well as of the other sex; and no

* See Gray's Ode; and the Hist. of the Gwedir Family in "Miscellanies by the Hon. Daines Barrington," 1781, 4to., p. 386; who in the Laws, &c., of this monarch could find no instances of severity against the Welsh. See his observa tions on the Statutes, 4to. 4th edit. p. 358.

accomplishment is so constantly attributed to females, by our ancient bards, as their singing to, and playing on, the harp. (A a 2)

In the fourth year of King Richard II., John of Gaunt erected at Tutbury in Staffordshire, a court of Minstrels, similar to that annually kept at Chester, and which, like a court-leet or court baron, had a legal jurisdiction, with full power to receive suit and service from the men of this profession within five neighbouring counties, to enact laws, and determine their controversies; and to apprehend and arrest such of them as should refuse to appear at the said court annually held on the 16th of August. For this they had a charter, by which they were empowered to appoint a King of the Minstrels with four officers to preside over them. (B b) These were every year elected with great ceremony; the whole form of which, as observed in 1680, is described by Dr. Plot:* in whose time, however, they appear to have lost their singing talents, and to have confined all their skill to "wind and string music."t

The Minstrels seem to have been in many respects upon the same footing as the heralds: and the King of the Minstrels, like the king at arms, was both here and on the Continent an usual officer in the courts of princes. Thus we have in the reign of King Edward I. mention of a King Robert and others. And in 16 Edward II. is a grant to William de Morlee, "the King's Minstrel, styled Roy de North," of houses which had belonged to another king, John le Boteler. (B b 2) Rymer hath also printed a license granted by King Richard II. in 1387, to John Caumz, the King of his Minstrels, to pass the seas, recommending him to the protection and kind treatment of all his subjects and allies.?

In the subsequent reign of King Henry IV. we meet with no particulars relating to the Minstrels in England, but we find in the Statute Book a severe law passed against

*Hist. of Staffordshire, ch. 10, 69-76, p. 433 et seqq., of which see Extracts in Sir J. Hawkins's Hist. of Music, vol. ii. p. 64; and Dr. Burney's Hist. vol. ii. p. 360 et seqq.

N. B. The barbarous diversion of bull-running was no part of the original institution, &c., as is fully proved by the Rev. Dr. Pegge, in Archæologia, vol. ii. no. xiii. p. 86.

See the charge given by the Steward, at the time of the election, In Plot's Hist. ubi supra; and in Hawkins, p. 67. Burney, p. 363-4.

So among the Heralds Norrey was anciently styled Roy d'Armes de North. (Anstis, ii. 300.) And the Kings at Armes in general were originally called Reges Heraldorum (Ibid. p. 302), as these were Reges Minstrallorum. Rymer's Foedera, tom. vii. p. 555.

their brethren the Welsh Bards; whom our ancestors could not distinguish from their own Rimours Ministralx; for by these names they describe them. (B b 3) This act plainly shows, that far from being extirpated by the rigorous policy of King Edward I., this order of men were still able to alarm the English government, which attributed to them "many diseases and mischiefs in Wales," and prohibited their meetings and contributions. When his heroic son King Henry V. was preparing his great voyage for France, in 1415, an express order was given for his Minstrels, fifteen in number, to attend him ;* and eighteen are afterwards mentioned, to each of whom he allowed xii. d. a day, when that sum must have been of more than ten times the value it is at present.† Yet when he entered London in triumph after the battle of Agincourt, he, from a principle of humility, slighted the pageants and verses which were prepared to hail his return; and, as we are told by Holingshed, would not suffer "any dities to be made and song by Minstrels, of his glorious victorie; for that he would whollie have the praise and thankes altogether given to God."(B b 4) But this did not proceed from any disregard for the professors of music or of song; for at the feast of Pentecost, which he celebrated in 1416, having the Emperor and the Duke of Holland for his guests, he ordered rich gowns for sixteen of his Minstrels, of which the particulars are preserved by Rymer.? And having before his death orally granted an annuity of one hundred shillings to each of his Minstrels, the grant was confirmed in the first year of his son King Henry VI., A. D. 1423, and payment ordered out of the Exchequer.||

See his Chronicle, sub anno 1415, p. 1170. He also gives this other instance of the king's great modesty, “that he would not suffer his helmet to be carried with him, and

shewed to the people, that they might behold the dintes and cuttes whiche appeared in the same, of such blowes and stripes as hee received the daye of the battell." Ibid. Vid. T. de Elmham, c. 29, p. 72.

The prohibition against vain and secular songs would probably not include that inserted in Series the Second Book I. No. V., which would be considered as a hymn. The original notes engraven on a plate at the end of the vol. may be seen reduced and set to score in Mr. Stafford Smith's "Collection of English Songs for three and four Voices," and in Dr. Burney's Hist. of Music, ii. p. 384. Tom. ix. 336.

Rymer, tom. x. 287. They are mentioned by name, being ten in number: one of them was named Thomas Chatterton.

The unfortunate reign of King Henry VI. affords no occurrences respecting our subject; but in his 34th year, A. D. 1456, we have in Rymer* a commission for impressing boys or youths, to supply vacancies by death among the King's Minstrels: in which it is expressly directed that they shall be elegant in their limbs, as well as instructed in the Minstrel art, wherever they can be found, for the solace of his majesty.

In the following reign, King Edward IV. (in his 9th year, 1469), upon a complaint that certain rude husbandmen and artificers of various trades had assumed the title and livery of the King's Minstrels, and under that colour and pretence had collected money in diverse parts of the kingdom, and committed other disorders, the king grants to Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others his own Minstrels whom he names, a charter, by which he creates, or rather restores, a fraternity or perpetual gild (such as, he understands, the brothers and sisters of the fraternity of Minstrels had in times past), to be go- | verned by a Marshall appointed for life, and by two Wardens to be chosen annually; who are empowered to admit brothers and sisters into the said gild, and are authorized to examine the pretensions of all such as affected to exercise the Minstrel profession; and to regulate, govern, and punish them throughout the realm (those of Chester excepted). This seems to have some resemblance to the Earl Marshal's court among the heralds, and is another proof of the great affinity and resemblance which the Minstrels bore to the members of the College of Arms.

It is remarkable that Walter Haliday, whose name occurs as marshal in the foregoing charter, had been retained in the service of the two preceding monarchs, King Henry V. and VI. Nor is this the first time he is mentioned as Marshal of the King's Minstrels, for in the third year of this reign 1464, he had a grant from King Edward of 10 marks per annum during life, directed to him with that title.

But besides their Marshal, we have also in this reign mention of a Sergeant of the Minstrels, who upon a particular occasion was able to do his royal master a singular service, wherein his confidential situation and ready access to the king at all hours is very apparent: for "as he [King Edward IV.] was in the north contray in the monneth of Septembre, as he lay in his bedde, one namid Alexander Carlile, that was Sariaunt of the Mynstrellis, cam to him in grete hast, and badde hym aryse for he hadde enemyes cummyng for to take him, the which were within vi. or vii. mylis, of the which tydinges the king gretely marveylid," &c.* This happened in the same year, 1469, wherein the king granted or confirmed the charter for the fraternity or gild above mentioned; yet this Alexander Carlile is not one of the eight Minstrels to whom that charter is directed.†

The same charter was renewed by King Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman, his then marshal, and to seven others his Minstrels and on the death of Gilman, he granted in 1529, this office of Marshal of his Minstrels to Iugh Wodehouse,? whom I take to have borne the office of his serjeant over them.

VI. In all the establishments of royal and noble households, we find an ample provision made for the Minstrels; and their situation to have been both honourable and lucrative. In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the household book of the Earl of Northumberland, A. D. 1512.(Cc) And the rewards they received so frequently recur in ancient writers that it is unnecessary to crowd the page with them here. (C e 2)

The name of Minstrel seems however to

* Here unfortunately ends a curious fragment (an. 9 R. IV.), ad calcem Sprotti Chron. Ed. Hearne. Oxon. 1719, 8vo. Vid. T. Warton's Hist. ii. p. 134. Note (c).

† Rymer, xi. 642.

Ibid. xiii. 705.

Rymer, tom. xiv. 2, 93.

So I am inclined to understand the term Serviens noster Hugo Wodehous, in the original grant. (See Rymer ubi supra.) It is needless to observe that Serviens expressed a serjeant as well as a servant. If this interpretation of Serviens be allowed, it will account for his placing Wodehouse at the head of his gild, although he had not been one of the eight minstrels who had had the general direc tion. The Serjeant of his Minstrels, we may presume, was next in dignity to the Marshal, although he had no share in the government of the gild.