Various - "Legend Land, Vol. 1"

L. Schipper - "De Liereman"

John Finley - "The French in the Heart of America"

Various - "Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1

J >> J. Endell Tyler >> Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1




Sir Henry Ellis, to whom we are indebted for having first called
attention to the specific stipulations of this alleged treaty, with
his accustomed perspicuity and succinctness thus introduces the
subject to his reader:

"Sir Edmund Mortimer's letter is dated December 13 (1402), and the
Tripartite Indenture of Partition was not fully agreed upon till
toward the middle of the next year. The negociation for the (p. 150)
partition of the kingdom seems to have originated with Mortimer and
Glyndowr only. The battle of Shrewsbury was fought on July 21st, 1403.
The manuscript chronicle, already named, compiled by one of the
chaplains[150] to King Henry V, gives the particulars of the final
treaty, signed at the house of the Archdeacon of Bangor, more amply
than they can be found elsewhere. The expectation declared in this
treaty that the contracting parties would turn out to be those spoken
of by Merlin, who were to divide amongst them the Greater Britain, as
it is called, corroborates the story told by Hall. The whole passage
is here submitted to the reader's perusal: the words are evidently
those of the treaty." The reader is then furnished with a copy of the
Latin original: but, since no point of the general question as to its
genuineness appears to be affected by the words employed, the
following translation is substituted in its place.

[Footnote 150: That this chronicle was not compiled
by one of Henry V.'s chaplains, is shown in the
Appendix.]

TRIPARTITE INDENTURE OF DIVISION.

"This year, the Earl of Northumberland made a league and covenant
and friendship with Owyn Glyndwr and Edmund Mortimer, son of the
late Edmund Earl of March, in certain articles of the form and
tenor following:--In the first place, that these Lords, Owyn, the
Earl, and Edmund, shall henceforth be mutually joined, confederate,
united, and bound by the bond of a true league and true (p. 151)
friendship, and sure and good union. Again, that every of these
Lords shall will and pursue, and also procure, the honour and
welfare one of another; and shall, in good faith, hinder any losses
and distresses which shall come to his knowledge, by any one
whatsoever intended to be inflicted on either of them. Every one,
also, of them shall act and do with another all and every those
things which ought to be done by good, true, and faithful friends
to good, true, and faithful friends, laying aside all deceit and
fraud. Also, if ever any of the said Lords shall know and learn of
any loss or damage intended against another by any persons whatsoever,
he shall signify it to the others as speedily as possible, and assist
them in that particular, that each may take such measures as may
seem good against such malicious purposes; and they shall be anxious
to prevent such injuries in good faith; also, they shall assist
each other to the utmost of their power in the time of necessity.
Also, if by God's appointment it should appear to the said Lords
in process of time that they are the same persons of whom the
Prophet speaks, between whom the government of the Greater Britain
ought to be divided and parted, then they and every of them shall
labour to their utmost to bring this effectually to be accomplished.
Each of them, also, shall be content with that portion of the
kingdom aforesaid limited as below, without further exaction or
superiority; yea, each of them in such portion assigned to him
shall enjoy equal liberty. Also, between the same Lords it is
unanimously covenanted and agreed that the said Owyn and his heirs
shall have the whole of Cambria or Wales, by the borders, limits,
and boundaries underwritten divided from Leogoed which is commonly
called England; namely, from the Severn sea, as the river Severn
leads from the sea, going down to the north gate of the city of
Worcester; and from that gate straight to the ash-trees, commonly
called in the Cambrian or Welsh language Ouuene Margion, which
grow on the high way from Bridgenorth to Kynvar; thence by (p. 152)
the high way direct, which is usually called the old or ancient way
to the head or source of the river Trent; thence to the head or
source of the river Meuse; thence as that river leads to the sea,
going down within the borders, limits, and boundaries above written.
And the aforesaid Earl of Northumberland shall have for himself
and his heirs the counties below written, namely, Northumberland,
Westmoreland, Lancashire, York, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby,
Stafford, Leicester, Northampton, Warwick, and Norfolk. And the
Lord Edmund shall have all the rest of the whole of England
entirely to him and his heirs. Also, should any battle, riot, or
discord fall out between two of the said Lords, (may it never be!)
then the third of the said Lords, calling to himself good and
faithful counsel, shall duly rectify such discord, riot, and battle;
whose approval or sentence the discordant parties shall be held
bound to obey. They shall also be faithful to defend the kingdom
against all men; saving the oak on the part of the said Owyn given
to the most illustrious Prince Charles, by the grace of God King
of the French, in the league and covenant between them made. And
that the same be, all and singular, well and faithfully observed,
the said Lords, Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund, by the holy body of
the Lord which they now stedfastly look upon, and by the holy
Gospels of God by them now bodily touched, have sworn to observe
the premises all and singular to their utmost, inviolably; and
have caused their seals to be mutually affixed thereto."

The above learned Editor of this instrument (to whose labours in rescuing
from oblivion so many original documents relative to these times we
are repeatedly induced to acknowledge our obligations,) seems to have
fallen into some serious mistakes here. Either influenced by the
fascinating reminiscences of Shakspeare's representations, or (p. 153)
following Hall with too implicit a confidence, he has altogether
overlooked the date assigned in the manuscript itself to the execution
of this partition deed, and the persons between whom the agreement is
there said to have been made. So far from countenancing the assumption
that "the indenture was finally agreed upon towards the middle of the
year next after the date of Edmund Mortimer's letter announcing his
junction with Owyn (December 14th, 1402)," the manuscript expressly
states that the covenant was made on the 28th of February,[151] in the
fourth year of Henry IV; and that the contracting parties were Henry
Earl of Northumberland, Sir Edmund Mortimer, and Owyn Glyndowr. Hall,
on whom there exists strong reason for believing that Shakspeare
rested as his authority, asserts that the contracting parties were
Glyndowr, the LORD PERCY (by which title he throughout designates
Hotspur), and the EARL OF MARCH. Hall's expressions would lead us to
infer that the circumstance was not generally recognised or known (p. 154)
by the chroniclers before his time, but was recorded by one only of
those with whose writings he was acquainted. "A certain writer," he
says, "writeth that this Earl of March, the Lord Percy, and Owyn
Glyndowr were unwisely made believe by a Welsh prophesier that King
Henry was the Moldwarp cursed of God's own mouth, and that they were
the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf which should divide the realm
between them, by the deviation, not divination, of that mawmet Merlin."
Hall then proceeds to tell us that the tripartite indenture was sealed
by the deputies of the three parties in the Archdeacon's house; and
that, by the treaty, Wales was given to Owyn, all England from Severn
and Trent southward and eastward, was assigned to the Earl of March,
and the remnant to Lord Percy.

[Footnote 151: This date cannot have been earlier
than February 1404, nor later than 1405. If we
interpret the words of the MS. to mean the regnal
year of Henry IV, the date will be the first of
those two years; if it was the February subsequent
to the election of Pope Innocent, October 1404,
immediately after noticing which the MS. records
this treaty, it will be the latter. The copy of
this manuscript agrees in all points with the
Sloane, except that it refers it to the 18th
instead of the 28th of February.]

The strange confusion made either by Hall, or "the certain writer"
from whom he draws his story, of Owyn's prisoner and son-in-law, Edmund
Mortimer, with the Earl of March his nephew, then a minor in the King's
safe custody, throws doubtless great suspicion on his narrative;
nevertheless, such as it is, (allowing for that mistake,) his account
seems far more probable than the statement given in the Sloane
manuscript,--the only authority, it is presumed, now known to have
reported the alleged words of the treaty. It is much more likely, that
the project of dividing South Britain among the houses of Glyndowr,
Mortimer, and Percy, should have been entertained before the (p. 155)
battle of Shrewsbury, when the Earl of Worcester's malicious love of
mischief might have suggested it, and Hotspur's headstrong impetuosity
might have caught at the scheme, and their troops, not yet dispirited
by defeat, might have been sanguine of success, than after that struggle,
when the old Earl of Northumberland[152] was the only representative of
the house of Percy who could have signed it. The cause of Owyn, Mortimer,
and Northumberland had so sunk into its wane after Hotspur's death,
that they could then scarcely have contemplated as a thing feasible
the division of the fair realm of England and Wales among themselves.
Of the authority of the manuscript from which the indenture is
extracted, the Author (for reasons stated in the Appendix) is (p. 156)
compelled to form a very low estimate. And if such a deed ever was
signed, it is far less improbable that the manuscript (full, as it
confessedly is elsewhere, of errors) should have inserted it incorrectly
in point of chronological order, than that the contracting parties
should have postponed their contemplated arrangement to a period when
success must have appeared almost beyond hope. Independently, however,
of the suspicion cast on the document by the date assigned to it in
the manuscript, it seems to carry with it internal evidence against
itself. The contract was made by Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of
Northumberland, and Owyn, and among them the land was to be divided;
but, so far from the report of such an intended distribution being
corroborated by any other authority, there is much evidence to render
it incredible. Edmund Mortimer's own genuine letter, for example,
announcing his adhesion to Owyn, which preceded this agreement, makes
no allusion to the Percies, or even to himself, as portionists. "The
cause," he says, "which he espoused would guarantee to Owyn his rights
in Wales, and, in case Richard were dead, would place the Earl of
March on the throne." It is, indeed, scarcely conceivable that the
nobles, the gentry, and the people at large would have suffered their
land to be cut up into portions, destroying the integrity of the
kingdom, and exposing it with increased facilities to foreign (p. 157)
invasion, and interminable intestine warfare; whilst neither of the
three who were to share the spoil had any pretensions of title to the
crown. It is scarcely less inconceivable that three men, such as
Mortimer, Glyndowr, and Northumberland, could have seriously devised
so desperate a scheme.

[Footnote 152: Nevertheless, it should be
remembered that many ancient accounts mention the
Earl of Northumberland's visit to Glyndowr
subsequently to his return from the flight into
Scotland, and that the French auxiliaries invaded
England under Glyndowr's standard long after the
battle of Shrewsbury. It was on the last day of
February 1408, that Rokeby, Sheriff of Yorkshire,
compelled Northumberland and Lord Bardolf to engage
with him in the field of Bramham Moor, when the
Earl fell in battle, and Lord Bardolf died of his
wounds. The Earl's head, covered with the snows of
age, was exposed on London Bridge. The people
lamented his fate when they recalled to mind his
former magnificence and glory. Many (says
Walsingham) applied to him the lines of Lucan:

Sed nos nec sanguis, nec tantum vulnera nostri
Afficere senis, quantum gestata per urbem
Ora ducis, quae transfixo deformia pilo
Vidimus.]

On the whole, the Author is disposed to express his suspicion that the
entire story of the tripartite league is the creature only of
invention, originating in some inexplicable mistake, or fabricated for
the purpose of exciting feelings of contempt or hostility against the
rebels.

* * * * *

In examining the various accounts of the battle of Shrewsbury with a
view of putting together ascertained facts in right order, and
distinguishing between certainty,--strong probability,--mere
surmise,--improbabilities,--and utter mistakes, we shall find it far
more easy to point out the errors of others, than to adopt one general
view which shall not in its turn be open to objections. Still, in any
important course of events, it seems to be a dereliction of duty in an
author to shrink from offering the most probable outline of facts
which the careful comparison of different statements, and a patient
weighing of opposite authorities, suggest. Before, however, we enter
upon that task, it will be necessary to clear the way by examining
some other questions of doubt and difficulty.

To Mr. Hume's inaccuracies, arising from the want of patient (p. 158)
labour in searching for truth at the fountain-head, we have been led
to refer above. His readiness to rest satisfied with whatever first
offered itself, provided it suited his present purpose, without either
scrutinizing its internal evidence, or verifying it by reference to
earlier and better authority, is forced upon our notice in his account
of the battle of Shrewsbury. Just one half of the entire space which
he spares to record the whole affair, he devotes to a minute detail of
the manifesto which Hotspur is said to have sent to the King on the
night before the battle, in the name of his father, his uncle, and
himself. This document, at least in the terms quoted by Mr. Hume, is
proved as well by its own internal self-contradictions, as by historical
facts, to be a forgery of a much later date.

The first charge which the manifesto is made to bring against Henry
is, that, after his landing at Ravenspurg, he swore on the Gospel that
he only sought his own rightful inheritance, that he would never
disturb Richard in his possession of the throne, and that never would
he aim at being King. And yet another item charges him with having
sworn on the same day, and at the same place, and on the same Gospel,
an oath (the very terms of which imply that he was to be King) that he
never would exact tenths or fifteenths without consent of the three
estates, except in cases of extreme emergence. Again, "It complained
of his cruel policy (says Mr. Hume, without adding a single remark,)
in allowing the young Earl of March, whom he ought to regard as (p. 159)
his sovereign, to remain a captive in the hands of his enemies, and
in even refusing to all his friends permission to treat of his ransom;"
whilst it is beyond all question that the person whom this pretended
manifesto confounds with the Earl of March, "taken in pitched battle,"
was Sir Edmund Mortimer. The Earl of March was himself then a boy, and
was in close custody in Henry's castle of Windsor. The manifesto, as
Hume quotes it, is evidently full of historical blunders; its author
had followed those historians who had confounded Edmund Mortimer with
the Earl of March; and yet Mr. Hume adopts it on the authority of
Hall, and gives it so prominent a place in his work.

But even as the manifesto is found in its original form in Hardyng,
(though the blunders copied by Hume from Hall[153] do not appear there
in all their extravagance and absurdity,) something attaches to it
exceedingly suspicious as to its character and circumstances.
Independently of the internal evidence of the document itself, which
will repay a careful scrutiny, the very fact of Hardyng having
withheld even the most distant allusion to such a manifesto in the
copy of his work which he presented to Henry VI, the grandson of (p. 160)
the King whose character the manifesto was designed to blast, at a
time so much nearer the event, when the reality or the falsehood of
his statement might have been more easily ascertained, contrasts very
strikingly with the forced and unnatural manner in which, many years
after, he abruptly thrusts the manifesto in Latin prose into the midst
of his English poem. He then[154] desired to please Edward IV, to whom
any adverse reflection on Bolinbroke would be acceptable.

[Footnote 153: Hall says, "Because no chronicle
save one makes mention what was the cause and
occasion of this bloody battle, in the which on
both parts were more than forty thousand men
assembled, I word for word, according to my copy,
do here rehearse." He then gives the heads of the
manifesto, from which Hume has drawn his account.]

[Footnote 154: The fact is, that Hardyng's
character is assailable, especially on the point of
forging documents. "Several writers have considered
Hardyng a most dexterous and notable forger, who
manufactured the deed for which he sought
reward."[154-a] The first manuscript, the Lansdown,
containing no allusion to this said manifesto,
comes down to 1436. The Harleian copy, which
contains it, comes down to the flight of Henry VI.
for Scotland. In the Lansdown copy not one word is
said about the oath sworn on Bolinbroke's landing,
nor about the manifesto.]

[Footnote 154-a: See Sir H. Ellis's Introduction to
his edition of Hardyng.]

The document, however, itself savours strongly of forgery. In the
first place, it purports to be signed and sealed by Henry Percy, Earl
of Northumberland, (though the Earl at that time was in Northumberland,)
Henry Percy, his first-born son, and Thomas Earl of Worcester, styling
themselves Procurators and Protectors of the kingdom. Should this
apparent contradiction be thought to be reconciled with the truth by
what Hardyng mentions, that the document was made by good advice (p. 161)
of the Archbishop of York, and divers other holy men and lords; it
must be answered that it could not have been drawn up for the purpose
of being used whenever an opportunity might offer, for, in the name of
the three, it challenges the King, and declares that they will prove
the allegations "_on this day_," "_on this instant day_," twice repeated.
Evidently the writer of the document had his mind upon the fatal day of
Shrewsbury.

Again, one of their principal charges seems to have emanated from a
person totally ignorant of some facts which must have been known to
the Percies, and which are established by documents still in our
hands. The words of the clause to which we refer run thus: "We aver
and intend to prove, that whereas Edmund Mortimer, brother of the Earl
of March, was taken by Owyn Glyndowr in mortal battle, in the open
field, and has UP TO THIS TIME[155] _been cruelly kept in prison_ and
bands of iron, in your cause, you have publicly declared him to have
been guilefully taken, [ex dolo,--willingly, as Hall quotes it, to
yield himself prisoner to the said Owyn,] and you would not suffer him
to be ransomed, neither by his own means nor by us his relatives and
friends. We have, therefore, negociated with Owyn, as well for his
ransom from our own proper goods, as also for peace between you and
Owyn. Wherefore have you regarded us as traitors, and moreover (p. 162)
have craftily and secretly planned and imagined our death and utter
destruction."

[Footnote 155: Adhuc.]

This clause of the manifesto declares the King to have publicly
proclaimed that Edmund Mortimer, who was taken in pitched battle, had
fraudulently given himself up to Owyn. The King's own letter to the
council[156] is totally irreconcileable with his making such a
declaration. He announces to them the news which he had just received
of Mortimer's capture, as a calamity which had made him resolve to
proceed in person against the rebels. "Tidings have reached us from
Wales, that the rebels have taken our very dear and much beloved
Edmund Mortimer." Again, the clause avers that the King had suffered
the same person, Edmund Mortimer, to be kept cruelly in prison and
iron chains _up to that time_, and would not suffer him to be
ransomed. In contradiction to this charge, we are assured by the early
chroniclers[157] that Owyn treated Mortimer with all the humanity and
respect in his power; and that because he possessed not the means of
paying a ransom, he had, as early as St. Andrew's day, (30th of
November 1402, less than six months after his capture, and nearly
eight months before the alleged delivery of the manifesto,) been
married to the daughter of Owyn with great solemnity; and, "thus (p. 163)
turning wholly to the Welsh people, he pledged himself thereafter to
fight for them to the utmost of his power against the English."

[Footnote 156: Acts of Council, vol. i. p. 185.]

[Footnote 157: Monk of Evesham and Sloane,
1776.--In the passage relating to Mortimer's
marriage in Walsingham's history, the word "obiit"
is evidently an interpolation by mistake. It does
not occur in the corresponding passage in his
Ypodig. Neust.]

Another expression in this clause, incompatible with the truth, but
quite consistent with the mistakes which from very early times
prevailed as to the circumstances preceding the battle of Shrewsbury,
charges the King with having pronounced the three Percies to be
traitors, and with having secretly planned and imagined their ruin and
death; and this is said to have been signed and sealed by
Northumberland, then remaining in the north. Whereas the truth,
established beyond controversy, though little known, is, that, up to
the very day when the King announced to the council Hotspur's
rebellion,--barely four days before the battle,--he had entertained no
idea of their disloyalty. Even in his last preceding despatch he
informed the council that he was on his way "to afford aid and comfort
to his very dear and faithful cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and
his son Henry, and to join them in their expedition against the
Scots."[158]

[Footnote 158: Acts of Council, vol. i. p. 207.]

These considerations, among others, throw so many and such weighty
suspicions on the manifesto, that it can scarcely be regarded as
deserving of credit. Nor must the Author here disguise his conviction,
that the whole is a forgery, guiltily made for the purpose of
blackening the memory of Henry IV, and of casting odium on the (p. 164)
dynasty of the house of Lancaster.

Another important mistake into which tradition seems to have betrayed
some very pains-taking persons is that which charges Owyn Glyndowr
with a breach of faith, and a selfish conduct, on the occasion of the
battle of Shrewsbury, utterly unworthy of any man of the slightest
pretensions to integrity and honour. He is said by Leland to have
promised Percy to be present at that struggle: he is reported by
Pennant to have remained, as if spell-bound, with twelve thousand men
at Oswestry. The History of Shrewsbury tells us of the still existing
remains of an oak at Shelton, into the top-most branches of which he
climbed to see the turn of the battle, resolving to proceed or retire
as that should be; having come with his forces to that spot time
enough to join the conflict. The question involving Owyn Glyndowr's
good faith and valour, or zeal and activity, is one of much interest,
and deserves to be patiently investigated; whilst an attentive
examination of authentic documents, and a careful comparison of dates,
are essential to the establishment of the truth. The result of the
inquiry may be new, and yet not on that account the less to be relied
upon.

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