I20 Appendix A 



celebrated advocate of untimely crusades, shows, especially in 

 his epistle to Richard II, much familiarity with the mediaeval 

 accounts of the Trojan war, the twelve paladins, and the exploits 

 of Alexander the Great, and compares Richard and Charles VI 

 of France to Roland and Oliver, Charlemagne and Arthur. 



Coming closer to Lionel himself, we have his great ancestor, 

 Edward I, invoking the authority of legend against the 

 claims of Scotland, as urged by Pope Boniface VIII. After 

 relating the voyage of Brutus to Albion, where, after conquer- 

 ing and slaying the giants who possessed it, he renamed it Britain, 

 and built the city of Trinovant, now called London, the great 

 legislator continues-'' : 'Item Arturus, Rex Britonum, princeps 

 famosissimus, Scotiam sibi rebellem subjecit, et pene totam 

 gentem delevit: et postea quendam, nomine Anguselum, in 

 Regem Scotise prsefecit. Et cum postea idem Rex Arturus apud 

 civitatem Legionum festum faceret celeberimum [sic], inter- 

 fuerunt ibidem omnes Reges sibi subjecti, inter quos Anguselus, 

 Rex Scotise, servitum [sic] pro regno Scotise exhibens debitum, 

 gladium Regis Arturi detulit ante ipsum.' Nothing could more 

 clearly show how, in this century, the facts which history records 

 may, on occasion, grow out of, or receive justification from, the 

 legends which poetry invents. 



But even Lionel in person was, so to say, cradled in romance. 

 In a French poem, The Vows of the Heron, probably written 

 soon after 1340, Queen Philippa is represented as looking for- 

 ward to the birth of the future Lionel, and as making his very 

 existence contingent upon the fulfilment of her husband's vow 

 to pass through Hainaut by way of Cambrai to the neighbor- 

 hood of St. Ouentin, carrying fire throughout the country, and 

 making war upon King Philip if he dared the encounter.'" The 

 following synopsis of the relevant portion of the poem is given 

 by its editor^^ : 



"'Rymer, under May 7, 1301. 



^"Edward is represented as saying (cf. the remark of the Lionel of 

 romance, above p. 114) : 



Me cuide-il dont tolir me terre et mon pays? 



Edward swears by St. George and St. Denis, and refers to Hector, 

 Achilles, Paris, and Alexander. See op. cit. infra, p. 7. 

 ^^ Political Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, i. xii-xv. 



