Vol. IV. Hemingburgh, who died A. 1317, tells us, that the king, hearing the abbot of Swinefhead had a fair fifter, a priorefs in the neighbourhood, fent for her; that the abbot was uneafy about it, and the hofpitaller of the monaftery faid to him, " Do but abfolve me, father, and pray "for me, and I will tid the earth of this monster;" that the abbot was fcrupulous, because he was the king; that the hofpitaller proceeded nevertheless, and, as he knew the king loved new pears, brought fome that were all poifoned, except three that he had marked, and offered them to him. Upon which the precious ftones (in the king's rings I fuppofe) began to fweat; and he faid to his hoft, "What is this you "have brought me? Poifon?" " Not poifon, faid he, but excellent "fruit." That the king, by way of precaution, bad him eat one, which he did, taking one he had marked; he bad him eat another, and he did fo; then a third; after which the king eat one himself, and died the fame night. The hofpitaller, however, was not put to death for it, but escaped by means of those who were not the king's friends: and fo the author concludes with faying, the king was foon after buried on St. Luke's day at Winchester. Walter Hemingburgh, who lived at Gifburn above an hundred miles off, was not a perfon likely to know much of the private tranfactions at Swinefhead, though he is fo particular on the fubject. This, Sir, you will acknowledge is a pure legendary flory, the fweating of the gems, the ftopping at the third pear, &c. But befides this, there are certain perplexing difficulties attendant on the story. Where was the nunnery? for I know of none near Swinefhead, that could be fent to on fo fhort a warning. How could the pears be fo foon poifoned? It must be by arfenic, a drug, which, as Dr. Mead will tell you, does not operate by a flux, of which malady, as we fhall fee hereafter, the king died, but by lancing and lacerating the coats of the flomach and bowels. But, what is worst, the author betrays the groffett ignorance about the king's death, committing the moft palpable mittakes. He fays, the king died the fame night at Swinehead, and that he was buried the 18th of October, and at Winchefter; all which particulars are abfolutely falfet. This Hemingburgh has a great character given him by Leland, and not upon a hafty or curfory view, for in the Collectanea he has given us an abftract of him, though very, undefervedly; for he has acquitted himfeli very ill in refpect of King John's death, in a fabulous and legendary manner, and without any regard to the truth of facts. The king, he fays again, lett five fons, afcribing to him the fons which his widow afterwards had by her fecond hufband Hugh Brun, earl of March. So

66

*The fory is tranfcribed by Knyghton, col. 2425.

† Mr. Lewis endeavours to taive the au hor's credit, as to the place of intern cut, by laying (in chalf of Caxton, who makes the fame mistake, putting Winchefter for Worcest r), which difference, perhaps, might be occafioned by the old fpelling the names of thefe two places, thus, Wyncerne and Wyncerte, the one being mistaken for the other;" bt this will or feite the turn, it being Wintoniae in the author, and not Wincefiriae. It would be a better apology to fay it is a mifprint in Hemingburgh, fince Henn. Kayghton who tranfcribes him has it Wigorniae for Wintoniae

1

of his three daughters, he makes one marry the Emperor Frederick, another, William earl Marshal, and a third, Simon Montfort, earl of Leicester, as if it were not the fame lady that married William and Simon, and thereby taking no notice of Joan who married Alexander, king of Scots."

Mr. Pegge proceeds next to give Caxton's narrative of this poisoning bufinefs; which appears equally abfurd and inconfiftent.

"Caxton fays, the king hearing it faid when he was at the abbey how cheap corn then was, anfwered, He would ere long make it fo dear, that a penny loaf fhould be fold for a filling. Hence Robert of Glou cefter, fpeaking of King John, fays,

And dude the londe wo enou, and more bi bet.

that, upon this, a monk + there present took fuch indignation, that he went and put the poifon of a toad into a cup of wine, and came and drank to the king, which made him pledge him the more readily. After the king had made his draught, and found himself ill, he afked for the Monk: and when it was told him he was dead, God have mercy upon me, faid the king; I doubted as much ||: and so he died in two days."

To thefe accounts the writer adds a third by John Fox, which agrees with that of Caxton as to the toad and the manner of poifoning the king, but differs as to the motive of it; which is faid to have been some discourse the king held at table refpecting Lewis the Dauphine, whofe caufe the Religious of the House were difpofed to fupport. And this, admitting the fact, Mr. Pegge juftly thinks the moft probable motive; concluding his obfervations with the following judicious remarks.

"In what a ftrange manner do thefe affertors of his being poisoned vary! ft, in affigning three different motives or inducements to the horrible attempt; 2dly, in the matter of the poifon. Something was faid about the infected pears above; and I here query, whether the juice of a toad fqueezed into a cup of ale or wine would amount to a poifon. Thefe chroniclers indeed fuppofe it, but the Naturalifts will

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"An half-penny loaf, which he would make work twelve halfpence. Flemingburgh. This comes to the fame thing; but Higden and Otterburn make the king fay, a half-penny loaf should be worth twelvepence. One edition of Polychronicon his twenty-pence. Caxton, a MS. Chronicle in Lewis, and mine, have twenty fhillings. The Eulogium has it, a lb. of bread as a lb. of filver. See Di. Barcham in Speed

He was converfur, a lay brother. Hemingburgh, Otterburn, Higden, and Knighton. His name according to fome was Simon. See Barcha.a and Fox.

so Fox: but Caxton, and the English MS. Chronicle, as alfo my MS. have Ale.

Annot. ad Rapin. See the Atory more at large in Lewis's Life of Caxton, p. 133. & seq. where the toad is faid to have been pricked in varous places to get out its venom.

rot

not eafily affent. Mr. Pennant fays, "It is well known, that quacks "have eaten Toads; and have befides fqueezed their juices (which "was the very cafe here) into a glafs, and drank them with impu"nity." The author of the Eulogium is the first that infinuates the ufe and application of the toad, exprefsly mentioning this ingredient, which is entirely omitted by Rad. de Coggefhale, an author living at the time of King John's death, though his teftimony is omitted above; and his words, in the chapter de morte Regis Johannis, as they have not yet been published, I fnail infert in the margin from the MS. in the College of Arms +.

"3dly, They are alfo inconfiftent as to the fate of the Monk; Higden, Otterburne, and Caxton testifying that he died, and Hemingburgh that he escaped and furvived. What are we to believe in this cafe? Higden again fays, the Monk farove himself, and was boufeled, before he gave John the poifon; which is fcarce poffible, as the king was at table, and the toad was to be found, and the drench prepared, before he rofe from his meal. All this was too much to be done in that short interval of time; and therefore others more probably say, the Monk was only abfolved by that abbot ||.

"It has been fuggefted, that no man would deftroy himself for the fake of revenge, as this Monk did §: but it is well known, that revenge is fweet, and has carried people great lengths; and that many again have voluntarily died for what they have thought the good of their country. I do not think therefore that this obfervation is fufficient to invalidate the story of the poifon; but the diffonance, inconfiftency, and endless contradictions of the writers on that fide of the queftion one amongst another, fhew strongly, that a ftable and uniform ground of truth is wanting with them, and that Matthew Paris's relation, fimple and natural as it is, is more to be depended upon.

Whereupon I remark, farther, that the ftory, as told by M. Paris and his partizans, carries, along with the teftimony of the writers, a great appearance of truth and probability. Vexation and uneasiness of mind will, doubtiefs, fometimes bring on a fever. And this, by improper management, eating of fruit, and drinking large draughts of new cyder, might very probably terminate in a flux or dy fentery, efpecially at a time of the year fo favourable to this diforder, and which very often proves fatal now, when the art of medicine is better under

* Brit. Zoology, III. p. 10. and A pendix, p. 321.

+ Ibidem [at Suinefhead] ut dicitur, ex numia voracitate, qua femper. infaciabilis erat, venter ejus ingurgitatus ufq; ad crapulam, ex vent is indigerie folutus eft in diffinteriam. Poftea vero, cum paululum feffaffat [1. ceffaffer] fluxus, flebotomatus eft apud villam in Lindefeia, quae dicifur Latford. Huc ergo cum venifient nuntii Incluforum. caftri Dovere, ut intimaffent caufam adventûs fui, morbus ex dolore concepto recrucuit. Praeterea maximus dolor eum angebat, quod capellam fuam .. ..amiMerat, &c. Egritudo autem ejus per dies pauces invalefcens, apud caftellum de Neuware inteftatus deceffit, &c.' This particular, however, that he died without a will, is not true. See note [] in p. 229.

See alfo Otterburne and Knyghton.

Lewis, p. 33. 134. Caxton, and my MS. chronicle; alfo Fox from the

Fructus Temporum

§ Notes on Rapin.

ftcod

ftood than it was at that time: and M. Paris, Rad. de Coggeshale, the chronicle of Peterborough, the Hift. Croyland. Continuatio, Knyghton, Otterburne, and Rous, all ufing the term Dyfenteria; though the patrons of the toad, William Caxton, the MS. Chronicle in Lewis, and mine, pretend, that the monk's and the king's bellies fwelled and 'burst, and their bowels fell out. In short, John's cafe was nearly fimilar to that of Cardinal Wolfey, who not only died of the fame malady, induced by the fame original caufe, grief and vexation, but, what makes it parallel, was alfo reported, though falfely, to have been taken off by poifon +.

"Setting afide teftimony on that fide of the question, which is what we have endeavoured to do in part, one can difcern nothing of poison in the nature of John's diförder. When the abbot of Croxton embowelled him, it is not faid that any figns of poifon appeared, or that the operator had an apprehenfion of any foul play; though Caxton and the English chronicles fay his belly was fwelled with the poifon. Neither does the king fay any thing more in his will, than that he was gravi infirmitate praeventus. On the contrary, the causes of the malady were adequate to the fymptoms without the intervention of poi fon. The king had been greatly harratled and fatigued, and probably very wet. He was under the utmost perplexity, not knowing whom to truft, nor where to be fafe; and this is what the annals of Dunftaple mean, by faying of this king, obiit in exilio §. He fickened, accordingly, in the abbey, and inflamed his diftemper by eating improper, and, in his prefent cafe, very hurtful, things; though it feems he was wont at other times to eat and drink of them freely without harm **. He ate and drank them moft intemperately, indulging his appetite to the full, as having nobody there to controul him; his phyfician, the abbat of Croxton, not being with him at the time, and never feeing him till he came to Newark, when his malady was grown defperate and past cure ++. It adds much strength to the above obfervations, that the author of the continuation of the History of Croyland, a great house in the vicinage of Swinefhead, who flourished as late as the reign of king Edward IV. and had no reafon to have any regard or esteem for the memory of king John, only fays that he died," ingravefcente "fuper eum diffenteriae morbo," at the caftle of Newark.

Ubi fupra modum diffenteria vexatus, Chron. Burg. Perhaps we fhould read unde fupra modum, &c. Joh. Roffus, p. 198. Knyghton, col. 24, 25. Hift. Croyl. Contin. p. 474. Rad. de Coggefhale, as before cited.

+ See Wolfey's cafe difcuffed in Gent. Mag. 1775. P. 25. Carte III. p. 118. Mr. Hearne is of opinion that Rofamond Clifford was not poifoned. Lel. Itin. II. in Append. and ad Gul. Neubrig. p. 739. & feq. ↑ At Newark, M. Paris, p. 288. but Knyghton fays at Croxton, col. 2425.

Teftamentum R. Joh. in Thomas's Survey of Worcester Cath. p. 19 of Append.

And fo M. Paris fays of the king, nihil terrae, imo nec feipfum possidens. p. 288; and fee M. Weftminfter, p. 276.

** M. Westminster, 1. c.

++ Idem, ibidem.

VOL. V.

"Matthew Paris's narrative, fupported by the correfpondent hiffo rians, receives, laftly, a material and most convincing confirmation from the conduct of the king's friends after his death. Upon John's decease, affairs took a most favourable turn; Lewis, the French Dauphine, was foon expelled the kingdom, and the whole power came into the hand of the king of England's party, infomuch that in 1217, the earl of Pembroke, tutor to the young king, and administrator of the kingdom, Gualo the Pope's legate, and Peter de Rupibus, the great bishop of Winchefter, with others of the young king's powerful friends, were all triumphant in Newark, the very place where John died, and no great distance from Swinefhead; and yet, though a most atrocious and traiterous act had been committed, as is pretended, against the perfon of their late fovereign, by the abbat and monks of Swinefhead, not the least enquiry, that one can find, was ever made about it; nay, the name of the abbat is not certainly known*: whereas one might expect to have heard of a total diffolution of the house, the erafement of the buildings, the feizure of the eftate, the degradation and expulfion of the abbat and monks. Not one of these things, how ever, happened, but the monaftery continued to exift and flourish till the time of the general fuppreffion. A ftrong prefumption, you must allow, that a crime of fo black a die had never been perpetrated at the place.

à

"It may be alledged indeed, that according to Dr. Barcham, Henry III. the king's fon, alluded, in a fpeech of his, to the violent death of his father. He was at Clarkenwell, where the prior faucily faid to him," that as foon as he ceafed to do juftice towards his prelates, he "fhould ceafe to be a king;" to which the king hastily replied, "O "quid fibi vult iftud, vos Anglici, vultifne me, ficut quondam patrem "66 теит, regno præcipitare, atque necare præcipitatum." If the word potionare, instead of necare, had been used, it would have been decifive; but at prefent the word is too lax for us to infer any thing of poison in the cafe. But by this the king only meant, that his father's troubles were the cause of his death, as in truth they were. But fuppofing he hinted at any finifter doings at Swineshead, it was only fpoken in a paffion, A. 1252, between thirty and forty years after the event; and Matthew Paris calls it a rash and uncircumspect anfwer, as well he might, his own account of John's death being, that he died of a fever, and nothing else.

"It may be fuggefted again, that John must have been poisoned, fince authors tell us, that certain monks, fome fay three, others five I, were actually employed at Swinefhead, in after-ages, to pray and fing for the foul of the monk that administered the poifon. So then there is no truth in that pretty ftory of Hemingburg, that the monk eat the three marked harmless pears, and efcaped with life, but the whole refts on the ale being envenomed by the toad. But the misfortune is, the appointment of the finging monks is not mentioned by any body okler

Perhaps it was Robert de Denton; for he was made abbar of Furnes from the abbey of Swineshead, A. 1217, Willis, Mitr. Abb. II. p. 106. + M. Paris, p. 854..

My MS. Engl. Chron. that in Lewis, and Caxton, fay five; Fox three.

than