1 68 Chaucer and Henry, Earl of Derby 



j Covered in cloth of gold^ diapred weel, 

 / Cam ryding lyk the god of armes, Mars. 



rides on a snow-white ambling horse (CI. T. 332: E 388); and Dido, 

 when about to ride hunting with Eneas, sits on a thick palfrey, paper- 

 white, her red saddle being high-embossed with gold (L. G. W. 1198 ff.)- 

 When Richard II was reconciled with the city of London {Pol. Poems 

 and Songs, ed. Wright, i. 285), in August, 1392, he rode a snow-white 

 horse (niveo . . . equo), and was presented before the Southwark 

 bridge with 'a pair of fair white steeds, trapped with gold cloth, figured 

 with red and white, and hung full of silver bells' (Strickland, Queens of 

 England 2. 297). When his queen arrived, she received as a gift a small 

 white palfrey, exquisitely trained (ib.). When the Greek Emperor, 

 Manuel II, entered Paris on June 3, 1400, the King conducted him 

 through the city on a white horse, richly caparisoned (Wylie i. 160; 

 Juvenal des Ursins, s. a. 1400), white, according to Gibbon (chap. 66), 

 being 'considered as the symbol of sovereignty.' See also the white 

 horses portrayed in manuscripts of the period: Harl. 1319 (Jusserand, 

 English Wayfaring Life, frontispiece; vcf. pp. 100, 117); Harl. 4379, f. 

 99 (Armitage-Smith, opp. p. 14) ; in the former they are ridden by 

 noblemen, going forth to meet the future Henry IV, and in the latter 

 by knights and ladies. 



In 1387 Henry had paid $1000 for a gray courser (Wylie 4. 158). A 

 white horse, or one spotted with white, being called Lyard (Wylie 4. 143, 

 note 3), we may note that Henry owned in 1408-9 a Lyard Tidman, Lyard 

 Moglyn, Lyard Fauconberg, in 1396 a Lyard Gilder, and some time 

 between 1401 and 1406 a Lyard Bewley, Waltham, and Lumbard, On 

 the other hand, in 1408-9 Henry had a Bayard Wimborne and a Bayard 

 Bangor (Wylie, as above). In 1391 he paid $50 for a bay horse, and 

 $25 to a messenger who brought Lord Darcy's gift of a bay courser 

 (Wylie 4. 162). In May, 1390, he paid $375 for a white horse, and $250 

 for a bay, but also $250 for a sorrel (D. A., p. 5). 



While 'a fair price for a good horse would vary' from $110 to $300, 

 much higher prices were exceptionally paid: Edward III had one that 

 cost $9000, and Richard II one that cost $15,000 (Wylie 2. 237, note 5). 



For Henry's choice of a white horse on an occasion of much ceremony, 

 see note 3. 



^On Oct. 12, 1399, the day before his coronation, Henry rode from 

 the Tower to Westminster, dressed in a jacket, after the German fashion, 

 of cloth of gold, mounted on a white courser (Kervyn 14. 226). For 

 cloth of gold, see Wylie i. 310; 2. 287, note 8; 3. 77, note 10, 247, 391; 

 4. 213. For gold Cyprus cloth, see Wylie 2. 423, 436, 444; 4. 161, 163, 

 168, 173, 174 (over $2000 in 1397 for a jacket of velvet, with Cyprus 

 gold, embroidered with forget-me-nots)., 175, 197, 213 (tent, in 1409, 

 covered with gold Cyprus cloth), 215 (beds of), 221, 226, 239, 240; in 

 May, 1390, Henry had a gown of gold Cyprus made {D. A., p. xxxv). 

 The horse-bier which conveyed Henry's body to Canterbury in 1413 was 

 covered with cloth of gold (Wylie 4. 113). 



