Edward Plantagenet

“ Edward was standing in his tent, surrounded by his nobles, brothers, and his wife's kinsmen, as the young Plantagenet prince was brought before him. Perhaps England hardly possessed a finer man than its present king, who was taller by the head than almost any of those who stood round him, his dress of mail adding to the dignity of his mien, and his handsome but deeply-lined features, now set in stern displeasure, showing at once the indications of an unusual beauty and a proud and relentless nature. ”

“ I turned as the shout rose; and as the prince, with a train of young nobles, and squires, and pages, rode up to the lord mayor, I gazed for the first time, and earnestly, on the young hero, who, ere long, was to prove himself the flower of all the chivalry of his age. At that time Edward was not more than fifteen; but he was tall for his years, fair to look upon, and distinguished by the manly beauty and the intellectual air of the great Plantagenet race. Trained to feats of strength in the tilt-yard and in the forest, his frame was strong and vigorous, and his face glowed with health ”

“ Edward Plantagenet, fourth duke of York, eldest son of the last, prosecuted his father’s pretensions, and defeated the earl of Pembroke, half brother to Henry VI., at Mortimer’s Cross, in Herefordshire. Shortly afterwards, queen Margaret advanced upon London, and gained a victory over the Yorkists under the earl of Warwick, at the second battle of St. Alban’s, and, at the same time, regained possession of the person of her weak husband. ”

“ Sire Edward put aside the lute. "Thus ends the Song of Service," he said, "which was made not by the King of England but by Edward Plantagenet—hot-blooded and desirous man!—in honor of the one woman who within more years than I care to think of has attempted to serve but Edward Plantagenet."
"I do not comprehend," she said. And, indeed, she dared not.
But now he held both tiny hands in his. "At best, your poet is an egotist. I must die presently. Meantime I crave largesse, madame! ay, a great largesse, so that in his unending sleep your poet may rehearse our present love." ”

“ George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., who married Richard’s daughter and co-heiress, Isabel, became by a separate creation earl of Salisbury in 1472, but by his attainder in 1478 this title was forfeited, and immediately afterwards was granted to Edward Plantagenet, eldest son of Richard duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., on whose death in 1484 it became extinct. ”

“ Edward was Earl of March and Ulster, and Lord of Wigmore and Clare, and afterwards King Edward IV.; and, although not usually called Duke of York by historians, there does not seem to be any reason why he was not so called, between the time of his father’s death, and his accession to the throne of England. Edward was the eldest son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and Cecily his wife, and was born at Rouen, in Normandy, on the 29th of April, 1441. ”

“ In her jewelled left hand she holds a sprig of honeysuckle, or it may have been the intention of the artist to represent the broom flower, the French genet (Planta Genesta) , the badge and origin of the name Plantagenet. This portrait represents Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, the daughter of the murdered Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV.; her mother was a daughter of the great Earl of Warwick, the King-maker. ”

“ Scattering across those fields to the west and northward bodies of the Plantagenet’s [Pg 101] men galloped, riding down the fugitives, killing, or capturing for ransom, the wounded. And Edward, his work now done, rode back to the old position, rested, sent messengers out to recall the pursuers (some of whom had pressed stragglers for four miles) , and watched his men gathering and returning.
He saw advancing towards him a clamorous crowd, all in a hubbub around some centre of great interest for them, and slowly making eastward to where the banner of the Black Prince was now fixed. ”

“ On 12 May 1519 he and his wife had livery of the lands of Edward Grey, viscount Lisle, his wife's brother John and his daughter, the Countess of Devon, having both died without issue. This grant was confirmed on 28 Feb. 1522. Plantagenet accompanied Henry VIII to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and to the meeting with Charles V. In a household list of 1521 he is named as one of the carvers who shall serve the king in his privy chamber. ”

“ Bertha, which lieth quietly among the Surrey holmes, am much given to this art of writing, new to women. Sith in my time I have written of dogs, hawks and forestry and tricked out the same with broad and good emblazons of colour, to the glory of God and England.
Now, on fair new parchments scented with the herbs which grow in the convent garden I will write of Jehanne Plantagenet, who was the daughter of our late Lord, Edward, King of England and France.
This King had eight sons and four daughters–Isabeau, Duchess of Bedford; Mary, Duchess of Bretagne ”

“ Richard, by the way, is said to have had another natural son who lived into the reign of Edward VI. and died in a small house on the Eastwell estate near Wye in Kent. Richard Plantagenet's death is duly recorded in the parish register, distinguished by the mark of a V, which distinguishes other entries of those of noble birth, and a plain tomb in the chancel is supposed to be his place of interment. Until an old man he preserved his incognito, when Sir Thomas Moyle discovered that a mason at work upon his house was none other than a king's son. ”

“ The duchess, feigning a desire to convict him of imposture before the whole of her attendants, put several questions to him which she knew he could readily answer, affected astonishment at his replies, and, at last, no longer able to control her feelings, "threw herself on his neck, and embraced him as her nephew, the true image of Edward, the sole heir of the Plantagenets, and the legitimate successor to the English throne." ”

“ The White Horse had stolen away whatever other relics of gentility Mr. Plantagenet possessed, and had reduced him in his latter days to the miserable ruin of what was once a man, and even a man of letters.
It was a sad history, and, alas! a very common one. Thirty years before, when Edmund Plan tagenet, not yet a believer in his own real or pretended royal descent, went up to London from Yorkshire to seek his fortune in literature, he was one of the handsomest and most popular young men in his own society. His name alone succeeded in attracting attention; we are not all of us Plantagenets. ”

“ The accession of a Prince so universally beloved to the throne of his ancestors amid the deeply-felt joy of a great and free people is an inspiring spectacle. Perhaps, however, it is not fully realised how much King Edward, in the years of his public life as Prince of Wales, shared in the duties of the British Crown. ”

“ After the homage of the Heir Apparent each Peer of the realm should have followed the traditionary form in the order of his rank and touched the Crown and kissed the King's cheek. This was modified, however, so as to enable each grade of the nobility to perform the function through its representative of oldest patent—the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Winchester, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Viscount Hereford and the Baron de Ros. After this had been done the trumpets once more sounded their acclaims and the audience joined in shouting "God save King Edward." ”

“ For the Great Plantagenet Delusion which Edmund Plantagenet had started, and only half or a quarter believed in himself, became to his children from youth upward, and especially to Maud and Dick, a sort of family religion. It was a theory on which they based almost everything that was best and truest within them; a moral power for good, urging them always on to do credit to the great House from which they firmly and unquestioningly believed themselves to be sprung. ”

“ Picked troops, chiefly Household Cavalry and Colonial and Indian soldiers of the King, to the number of 30,000, guarded the route, with a picturesque line of white, black, brown and yellow men of many countries and varied uniforms. When the King and Queen appeared in their gorgeous state coach from out the gates of Buckingham Palace they were greeted with tremendous cheers from the multitude, and these cheers continued all along the way to the Abbey. In the Royal procession were the Prince and Princess of Wales with thirty-one other members of the Royal family. ”

“ Edmund Plantagenet was too clever a man of the world to adopt such futile and obvious tactics; he knew a plan worth two of that; he posed as a genuine descendant of the old Kings of England, more by tacit assumption than by open assertion. Silence played his game far better than speech. ”

“ It may be added that the surviving children of King Edward and Queen Alexandra at the time of the King's death were his successor—George Frederick Ernest Albert, Prince of Wales; Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, who was born in 1867 and married in 1889; Princess Victoria, who was born in 1868 and was unmarried; Princess Maud, Queen of Norway, who was born in 1869 and married in 1896 to Charles, then Crown Prince of Denmark. King Edward's only surviving brother was H. R. H., the Duke of Connaught, who was born in 1850. ”

“ King Edward’s fourth child, the Princess Victoria, was born on 6th July, and after a quiet summer spent at Sandringham the King and Queen, attended by a small suite, left Marlborough House in November for a long Continental tour, which extended over some months and enabled them to renew [101] old ties and make new friendships. They spent a few days in Paris, and paid a visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French at Compiègne, where, during a stag hunt organised in honour of King Edward, an accident happened which might easily have cost him his life. ”

“ Richard Plantagenet was nearly ten years older than King Henry. He first saw the light in 1412; [Pg 28] and, when a mere child, became, by the execution of his father, the Earl of Cambridge, at Southampton, and the fall of his uncle, the Duke of York, at Agincourt, heir of Edmund of Langley. His father's misfortune placed Richard, for a time, under attainder; but after the accession of Henry the dignities of the house of York were restored; and in 1424, on the death of Edmund, last of the Earls of March, the young Plantagenet succeeded to the feudal power of the house of Mortimer. ”

“ Only fourteen years old when he was crowned king, young Edward had already impressed all those who came in contact with him. Men saw in him a worthy successor of Edward I., whose great qualities stood out in shining contrast after the second Edward's disastrous reign. He was strong, he was brave; he, like his grandfather, passionately loved justice and passionately loved England. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than his boyhood or his early education. ”

“ Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Opposition Leader, seconded the motion, dealt with the late Queen's personal character, referred to Queen Alexandra as having long reigned in the hearts of the people, and paid high tribute to King Edward: "For the greater part of his life it has fallen to him not only to discharge a large part of the ceremonial public duty which would naturally be performed by the head of the State ”

“ All this time Queen Victoria was living in the strictest retirement, and the great shadow of the Prince Consort’s death had thrown scarcely less gloom over the life of his eldest son. King Edward mourned deeply for his father, and it is significant that he never lost an opportunity of testifying in his public speeches to the high purpose and noble aims which had distinguished Prince Albert’s life. ”

“ It was under these circumstances that the Plantagenets became leaders in society, and added their valuable real estate in France to the English dominions. In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe, and by wedding his son Geoffrey to the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, soon scooped in that valuable property also.
He broke up the custom of issuing pickpocket and felony licenses to his nobles, seized the royal stone-piles and other nests for common sneak thieves, and resolved to give the people a chance to pay taxes and die natural deaths. ”

“ King Edward the Seventh, in a sixty years' tenure of the difficult position of Heir to the British Throne, built into the history of his country and Empire a record of which he and his people had every reason to be proud. He had for many years the responsibilities of a Royal position without the actual power; the public functions of a great ruler without the resources usually available; the knowledge, experience and statecraft of a wise Sovereign without Regal environment. ”

“ Edmund Plantagenet, the forest-bred son of Richard the Third, the late companion of the illustrious Lincoln and gallant Lovel, lay long insensible on the field of battle, surrounded by the dead—he awoke from his swoon to the consciousness that they lay strewed around him dead, whom he had worshipped as heroes, loved as friends. Life became a thankless boon ”

“ The autumn of 1899 was signalised by the visit which was paid to this country by the German Emperor and Empress, who were accompanied by two of their sons, Prince Augustus William and Prince Oscar. Their Imperial Majesties were royally entertained at Windsor by Queen Victoria, to whom they had come to pay their respects, a great State banquet being the chief among the festivities. King Edward naturally took a prominent part in the reception of the German Emperor, who particularly enjoyed some capital shooting on his uncle’s estate at Sandringham. ”