The Earl of Derby's Return to London in /jpj 171 



An egle^ tame, as eny lilie whyt. ' ^^ 



^ Though the eagle is sometimes to be found in pieces of goldsmith's 

 work and embroidery done for Henry (Wylie 3. 103; 4. 162, 170, 195), 

 and though he had an eagle on a seal which he sometimes used (4. 191), 

 there seems to be no proof that he ever possessed a living specimen. 

 Besides, since white eagles are not known, notwithstanding T. and C. 

 2. gf26 (in a dream), and since Chaucer uses 'eagle' as a generic term 

 {Pari. F. 332 ff., 450; cf. 330, 373, 393, etc.), covering the goshawk, 

 the falcon, the sparrow-hawk, and the merlin, it is almost certainly the 

 falcon that is here meant. 



The gentil faucon, that with his feet distreyneth 

 The kinges hond. 



Henry brought home a number of falcons from each of his longer 

 journeyings (D. A., pp. xxxiv, Ixv, and indexes s. vv. Falcons and 

 Hawks, pp. 340, 343). Some he received as presents from the Grand 

 Master and the Marshal of the Teutonic Order, and from two other 

 Prussians, the servants who bore them being rewarded with $50 each 

 on two occasions, and with $100 on another {D. A. 107. 11; 108. 30; 

 III. 10). These latter must have been especially fine, not merely to 

 call for such sums as rewards to the bearers, but also because the Order 

 had a special school for falcons at Marienburg (Pederzani-Weber, Die 

 Marienburg, p. 63), from which they sent choice specimens to their 

 patrons in various countries, and among others to Richard H (Pauli, 

 Pictures of Old England, p. 132). Margaret, Queen of Denmark, 

 had sent tame gerfalcons to the Grand Master in 1389 (Voigt 5. 531), 

 and similar presents came to him from other princes (Voigt 5. 552). 

 On the other hand, in 1407 falcons were given by him to the King of 

 France, the Dukes of Gueldres, Holland, Saxony, etc. (Voigt 6. 404). 

 Those given to Henry might well include a white gerfalcon. 



Of this there are two nearly allied species, the Iceland falcon (Falco 

 islandus) and the Greenland falcon (F. candicans), the second being 

 whiter than the first. These falcons have inconspicuous dark markings 

 on the head and back, but are so nearly white as often to escape detec- 

 tion when sitting on the snow, with their pure white breasts turned 

 toward the intruder (Knowlton and Ridgway, Birds of the World, p. 312; 

 Newton, Diet, of Birds, p. 237 ; Camb. Nat. Hist. 9. 180. In the A-version 

 of Guy of Warwick, ca. 1330-1340 (1. 823), a gerfalcon is called 

 milk-white). 



The poet's reason for representing the gerfalcon as an eagle may 

 become clearer in the light of the fact that Henry, 'whom all the londe 

 loved in lengthe and brede' (Richard the Redeles, ed. Skeat, Prol. 9), 

 is figured in the last-named poem as an eagle (cf. Wylie i. 19; Pol. 

 Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, i. 364, 365, 368; Ganvowe, Cuckoo and 

 Nightingale 276), also called falcon (eagle, 2. 9, 145, 176, 190; 3- 69, 

 74, 91; falcon, 2. 157, 160, 166; 3. 87, 107). The canopy over Henry's 

 tomb in Canterbury Cathedral is adorned with crowned eagles (Stothard, 



