Henry the Sixth A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes

Excerpt

PREFACE

The tract on the Personality of King Henry VI (as I may perhaps be allowed to call it), which is here reprinted, has hitherto been almost inaccessible to ordinary students. It is not known to exist at all in manuscript. 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

xviiic47

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

Collation: A B.

Signatures: A i (2 not signed): A iii (4-6 not signed).

B i (2 not signed): B iii (4 not signed). A i a has the title at top:

Collectarium Mansuetudinum et bono-
rum morum regis Henrici. VI. ex col-
lectiōe 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.i.
1523.

 

For the rest, the volume contains:

Capgrave's New Legende, beginning imperfectly in the Table

De S. Esterwino abbate. fo. xxxviii.

 

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....