SPORTING LITERATURE. 7 



was a murderous savage*; and yet his book is 

 without question the greatest sporting book in 

 the world. And it is a direct ancestor of 

 English fishing literature; for it was rendered 

 into English by Edward, that Duke of York who 

 fell at Agincourt, and that rendering, the 

 Master of Game, formed the model (as I think 

 I can show) on which Dame Juliana's Treatise 

 was founded. 



This Edward Duke of York was Master of 

 Game to Henry IV. of England, his first cousin. 

 His book, the Master of Game, was dedicated 

 to Henry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, after- 

 wards Henry V. It were out of place in a book 

 on fishing to follow the stormy career of Edward 

 Duke of York. Arch-plotter and arch-fighter, 

 as he is called by his modern editors, t "he is 

 known to the world as the gallant Duke of York 

 in Shakespeare's King Henry V., and as the 

 traitor Duke of Aumerle in his King 

 Richard II. , and it is difficult to say which 

 character fits him the better. He probably 

 began the book in 1405, when he was lying a 

 prisoner in Pevensey Castle for an act of 

 villainy more atrocious than usual against his 

 royal cousin, and of treachery more outrageous 

 than ordinary against his fellow-conspirators, 



*See A Gascon Tragedy (in Excursions in Libraria 1895), 

 by G. H. Powell, for an unflattering portrait of Gaston de 

 Foix. 



iThe Master of Oame. Edited by Wm. A. and F. Baillie- 

 Grohman (1904). This sumptuous work contains a good 

 account of Gaston de Foix and Edward Duke of York and 

 their books. 



