310 Broughton Gifford. 
us no permanent territorial acquisitions, yet they surrounded 
England with a halo of renown which is the best defence of na- 
tions; they elevated the heart and roused the understanding of 
every one left at home, in the country villages from which those 
renowned archers went forth. Talbot was happy in his death, 
in the occasion and in the time. It was worthy of one who 
had fought at Agincourt, the fitting termination of that contest 
which had been waged for more than a century, and which, 
though it had during its course witnessed many gallant deeds 
of arms, exhibited no more simple devotion and self sacrifice, 
than that of John Talbot and his two sons (Lord Lisle and 
Henry Talbot) at Chatillon 13th July, 1453. After this vain at- 
tempt to reconquer Guienne, the English took no principal part 
in continental campaigns for nearly two centuries and a half. 
Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vite tantum claritate, sed etiam opportu- 
nitate mortis; ut perhibent, qui interfuerunt novissimis sermonibus 
tuis, constans et libens fatwm excepisti.! He, like his predecessors, 
was a Lancastrian, but all his wars were foreign. ‘With muche 
fame, more glorie, and most victorie, he had, for his Prince and 
Countrie, by the space of 24 years and more, valyantly made warre 
and served the King in the partes beyonde the sea.”? He was 
spared the misery of being a witness and a partaker, on his native 
soil, of those domestic contests which more than decimated his 
order, and in which his son and successor laid down his life. He 
was ‘‘a very scourge and daily terror to the French,” but not to 
his own countrymen. He was removed nearly three years before 
the first battle of St. Albans. His widow had one third of the 
half manor as her dower. 
= 
1 “Come, Come, and lay him in his father’s arms, 
My spirit can no longer bear these harms. 
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have, 
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave.” 
Those novissimi sermones, which Shakespeare puts into Talbot’s mouth, are to 
be found in the Chroniclers, who, in their turn, copied them verbatim from 
cotemporary annalists. 
* Grafton. 
3 What was his age at his death? The popular historians, Hume, Lingard, 
and Mackintosh, make him 80. But the inquisition held on Ancaret Talbot 
