THE BLACK PRINCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1914, Page 4

THE BLACK PRINCE

DISCOVERY OF HIS DIARY COURT LIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH / CENTURY, '(rnou our own correspondent.) j LONDON,' 15th May. An illuminating sidelight on the doings of the princes and nobles of 600 yeans ago 1b thrown by a book which has just been rediscovered in London. The relic once belonged to the Black Prince, the victor of Crecy and Poitiers, and there is a romantic story attaching to the find. Just as everyone now is searching for antiques, in the clays when Samuel Pepys went his way there was a great " boom " in ancient manuscripts, and one of those old-time collectors came upon a great bargain. Ho found a roughly-bound parchment-leaved book which a cursory examination 1 showed to be a register of the Black Prince. Taking it home in triumph, ho placed it in a position of honour among his hundred odd similar prizes — and there its history for the moment ends abruptly. The collector died, the' "boom" followed the course of all booms, and no one thought anything more about that untidy heap of ill-bound manuscripts. Tho books for many years occupied a corner of a solicitor's library in Bloomsbury, and recently the time arrived for the owner to move. These books then camo in for notice. The collector, now long forgotten, had not omitted to label his possessions, and a neat square of white paper pasted to the back of one of them boro in faded letters the inscription, " Black Prince's Diary." Tho lawyer sent for an expert, wno at once realised the importance of the book. He in, turn took it to a high official at tho Record Office, who, too, was in raptures over the discovery. DOCUMENT OF EXTREME INTEREST. The Diary of the Black Prince is bound in age-blackened calf, ornamented with blind tooling. The 280 pages of parchment measure 16in by lOin. In reality it is a letter-book, containing copies of communications sent out by the Prince, and similar to three in the Record Office. At the top of each page the month is written in a small neat hand in ink that has become brown with the passing of centuries. There is a wide margin round the text, and in this a short abstract appears. Latin and French are tho languages employed, and each word is contracted " in a manner that makes translation exceedingly difficult. The document has not yet been thoroughly examined, but a t'-anslp' jn will probably shortly be available for publication. It has three distinct aspects. First, it throws light on Poicliers and the _ expedition into Oascony. Second, it is strong in topographical interest, and includes documents relating to all the Prince's property in England outside the Duchy of Cornwall and tho Earldom of Chester. ' Last, it teems with what may be termed social interest. A GENEROUS PRINCE. One of tho most interesting of tho entries records :— "Twenty-four Garters made for the Lord Prince, bought and given by him the same day to the Knights of the Society of the Garter." Tho date of this entry is 1348, and it is thought to bo the earliest reference known to tho Garter as r an,,., e^&blishgd 1%- order. t .This^ entry is in Latin. " "~"~ "" • J "To my lady tho Queen/ his mother, the Black Prince gives "a large nouch (brpoch) of three ballast rubies and emeralds," to " the King his father my lord the Prince" gives a cup of gold " weighing (valuing) four marks ; "to the Lady Joan his sister " on her going abroad, 'a tun of Gascon wino and a "trotter horse." The Lady Isabel, another sister, on another occasion receives " a brooch of gold with one large ruby above and two below and two emeralds above and one large one in the base (in fundo) and two diamonds at the side and six pearls in three troches (hanging drops) with two diamonds in the middle. To Sir Nevil Loring (the hero of Sir A. Conan Doyle's " White Company ") the Prince gave " a bacinet and viser." Jakelot, the Prince's piper, got on one occasion " a ketilhat " (kettle hat) and on another "a bagpipe and a cornemuse." There was foresight in the gift to the Royal barber — a " dish for shaving." Another entry runs : "To our wellbeloved clerk Henri de Blakebourne, Treasurer df our Household, greetings. Whereas we have given and granted to our beloved Jano of Oxford, once our nurse, a tun of wine, wo order this to be done. Deliver of our wines of a tun of good wino (£o her). Given in tho hostel of tho Bishop of Ely, 28th June, 1357." The Prince also bought pearls in large numbers. A MUCH-CAPTURED KNIGHT. A very striking passage in the book is tho account of a, sort of court of honour held by tho" Prince after the battle of Poictiers. Before him a " confession " was made by Charles Count of Dampmartin, his conduct then " having been challenged by certain persons." The " confession " runs thus: — "I confess and' admit in loyalty that I was taken and surrendered myself a prisoner on the battlefield to one whose name I did not then know, but who was of tho household of the Lord Prince of Wales and whose name (I know now) was John Trailly. The said esquire demanded from me that I should surrender myself, and I did thus and pledged my faith in stich a way that he spared me, and he replied that I should be spared and need doubt nothing,- and he bade me open my bayonet (helm) and ho took my bayofiet and my gauntlets, and then he again demanded my faith to be his lawful prisoner and I gave him my faith, and thereon he mounted tne on his own horso and placed me in the' charge of his vadlet (groom), and soon after the vadlot left me alone, and afterwards there came l a Gascon and demanded of me my i'siith, and 1 replied to him that I was a prisoner, .and nevertheless I pledged him my faith and he took from mo ay escutcheon of my coatarmonr and I asked him if another came what ho wished mo to do then, and he replied, ' Save thyself if thou canst.' Then another came, who was of (the troop of) Mr. John de Blankmonster, and he demanded my faith, and I replied to him that I had given my faith to two others, and I gave him also my faith and ho stayed with me and 'guarded mo and took me before the Earl of Salisbury, and I pledged my faith to the said Earl, the said Lord Prince ' being present." This much-captured knight was adjudged by the Black Prince to his esquire John Trailly. "TROY TOWN" SKIPPER. Fowcy, the "Troy Town" of "Q.s" novels, seems hardly changed from our own days, as we rend how the Prince " hired a vessel called the Gootlo Beate, of Fowyj of which John Tregefc is master, to' carry our wines, purveyed to our use in the County of Cornwall, from there to th« City of London." A proclamation "given at our manor of Biflete (Byfleet) on the 29th day of July (1361) " ha:« a vmy different interest. "Whereas," it 'rims, "our woll-beloved lord and father tho King has assigned us to receive by the hands of Thomas of Bnuityngham, liig receiver of Calais, 40,000 moutons (a French gold coin stamped with a lamb) of good weight of

the coin of France, part of the sum of 200)000 moutons in which tho noble Duke of Burgundy, our well-beloved cousin, and other lords and burgesses of his country are bound by their' letters to our said dearly beloved lord and father for the ransom of their country. "Know that wo have received from the t,aicl Thomas in divers monies tho value of 39,000 moutons of the coin of France, the payment of which wo admit, and quit and discharge the said Thomas by these letters patent sealed with our privy seal."