xii INTRODUCTION 



son of his cousin Henry IV., " Kyng of Jngelond 

 and of Fraunce," that he is the Master of Game 

 at the latter's court. 



Let it at once be said that the greater part of 

 the book before us is not the original work of 

 Edward of York, but a careful and almost literal 

 translation from what is indisputably the most 

 famous hunting book of all times, i.e. Count 

 Gaston de Foix's Livre de Chasse^ or, as author and 

 book are often called, Gaston Phœbus^ so named 

 because the author, who was a kinsman of the 

 Plantagenets, and who reigned over two princi- 

 palities in southern France and northern Spain, 

 was renowned for his manly beauty and golden 

 hair. It is he of whom Froissart has to tell us so 

 much that is quaint and interesting in his inimit- 

 able chronicle. La Chasse^ as Gaston de Foix tells 

 us in his preface, was commenced on May i, 1387, 

 and as he came to his end on a bear hunt not 

 much more than four years later, it is very likely 

 that his youthful Plantagenet kinsman, our author, 

 often met him during his prolonged residence in 

 Aquitaine, of which, later on, he became the 

 Governor. 



Fortunately for us, the enforced leisure which 

 the Duke of York enjoyed while imprisoned in 

 Pevensey Castle for his traitorous connection with 

 the plots of his sister to assassinate the King and 

 to carry off their two young kinsmen, the Morti- 



