Just as Humphrey was a great student so was he a great personality in the life of England, the Mæcenas of the new learning, and the friend of all scholars. A considerable portion of his books were presents from various people, and he seems to have been always approachable by any one who could take an interest in any branch of knowledge. Those who gave books to him were drawn from various classes of the community. Men who would earn his patronage presented their work to him as did Capgrave;[1386] his friend Wheathampsted cemented their friendship in the same way.[1387] Frenchmen as well as Englishmen knew of his tastes, and approached him with literary gifts, whether it were the learned Bishop of Bayeux,[1388] or an insignificant Canon of Rouen.[1389] The Duke of Bedford chose a choice treasure from the library of Charles VI. as a gift for his brother,[1390] and the Earl of Warwick, the ‘Father of Courtesy’ and the tutor of the young King Henry VI., offered a French translation of the Decameron as a mark of friendship and esteem for the man under whom he had served.[1391] Men of less mark followed the lead of the princes of the land. Sir Robert Roos, a public servant of some eminence, gave yet another French work to the then Protector of England,[1392] and Sir John Stanley, possibly the Sir John Stanley who was king of the Isle of Man, hastened to add his tribute of homage in the shape of a French Bible.[1393]

It is hard to say whether these gifts were in all cases indications of literary esteem, or merely means towards securing the favour of a powerful prince. At least they show that Humphrey’s interest in all kinds of literature and learning was not assumed as a pose, but was a veritable passion, ministered to by all who desired his friendship. To no other man of his time were such gifts in such profusion given, gifts, moreover, which came not only from the needy scholars who desired his support, but from prince, noble, priest, and humble gentleman alike. There is, too, a remarkable absence of party politics in the literary friendships which these gifts manifest. Bedford not once nor twice was compelled to condemn his brother’s action. Warwick was a member of the Council of Regency which withstood the Protector’s ambitious claims. Sir Robert Roos, though he accompanied Beckington on his embassy to the Court of Armagnac, was prominent in carrying out the peace policy which Humphrey opposed, and in 1445 was intrusted with bringing Henry VI.’s Queen over to England. Sir John Stanley may possibly be the man to whom the Duchess of Gloucester was intrusted when she was confined in Leeds Castle, and when we look further afield we find that Piero del Monte, the friend of Duke Humphrey, did not hesitate to give the papal blessing to the union of Margaret and Henry VI. when they were married by proxy at Tours.

Humphrey therefore was more than a mere patron of scholars, and more than a mere literary dilettante. He was known to be more devoted to literature of all kinds than to anything else, and the subtle monks of St. Albans knew well how to win his favour by enlarging his library. His powers of criticism and appreciation are, however, hidden from us. Beyond the nature of the books he collected and a few words of formal appreciation of the works of Plato, we have nothing to guide our judgment, for though a patron and a student, he was not himself an author, in spite of statements to the contrary.[1394] There still exists a copy of certain astrological tables entitled Tabulæ Humfridi ducis Gloucestriæ in judiciis artis geomansie, but this was merely a compilation made at his command.[1395] He was content to encourage learning, and to qualify himself for this rôle by study. Thus the Duke of Gloucester devoted a large amount of his superfluous energy to the really great work of encouraging learning in England; yet at first sight it may seem that he laboured in vain. England did not at once adopt the new doctrines that were paving the way to modern methods of study, and it has been thought that Humphrey simply worked in the spirit of the mediæval scholar, and did not in any way appreciate the importance of his actions. England had lagged behind other nations in accepting the doctrines of the Renaissance scholars. Men imbued with the scholastic spirit had journeyed to Italy before the days of Duke Humphrey, but they had not understood the message which the Italians taught them. Richard of Bury had been the friend of Petrarch, but had entirely failed to understand his point of view, and when the future Duke of Gloucester was but five years old, a certain Augustinian monk, known in Italy as Thomas of England, was lecturing in Florence, but was said by Leonardo Bruni to have loved Humanism only so far as an Englishman could understand it.[1396] The Italian scholar therefore had been contemptuous of his English contemporary, but a new era dawns when Humphrey begins to take an interest in Italian scholarship. The Italians who wrote to him showed clearly in their letters that they understood their patron’s interest to be intelligent and quite different to the mediæval conceptions of his predecessors, and in some cases we can see the genuine appreciation of the scholar peeping through the adulation of the retainer. His love for Plato, and his clear understanding of the contrast between his philosophy and that of Aristotle, show how entirely he had thrown off the intellectual fetters of the Middle Ages, and in his selection of books we clearly see that he understood that the progress of the future must be based on an understanding of the past. In Humphrey, too, we see traces of that critical faculty which characterised the new movement. He did not look on the classics as an allegorical commentary on the Scriptures, and as a basis for Christian Theology; he studied them from the literary and philosophical point of view, and refused to accept the system laid down by the mediæval schoolmen. He was the first great Englishman to introduce these new ideas into England, though there were other scholars of the period who understood the new doctrines, if they did not preach them; men like Andrew Holles, who after long study in Italy retired to a country benefice, and did nothing towards spreading the new ideas he had acquired.[1397]

Herein lies the importance of Duke Humphrey’s career. He not only understood the meaning of the new doctrines, but he paved the way towards their fuller appreciation by the nation as a whole. As a layman and a man of affairs he was able to take a more comprehensive view of the significance of the new learning than the churchmen who hitherto had held the monopoly of English knowledge, and he laid the foundations on which others were to build. In the first place he taught men that it was to Italy that they should look for direction in their studies. He himself had not visited that country as so many of his contemporaries had done, but he had brought himself into nearer touch with its intellectual life than any other Englishman. The man who was the patron of Leonardo Bruni, the constant correspondent of Pier Candido Decembrio, the friend of Piero del Monte, and the literary acquaintance of Alfonso of Aragon, the man who more than once was picked out by Æneas Sylvius for literary appreciation, was far more in sympathy with Italian aspirations than such a one as Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, who showed no signs of having been influenced in any way by his sojourn at the University of Padua.

Yet the interest of Humphrey’s Italian sympathies lies not so much in his connection with Italy as in the fact that he never set foot in the country. He did not take himself and his energies to be expended in a selfish pursuit of learning in Italy, like his contemporary Holles, but he helped to bring the intellectual aspirations of the Italians over to England. He not only taught men to study Italian wars, but also led them to bring the results of that study home to their own doors. And he was not without disciples. It is customary to believe that the humanistic aspirations of the ‘Good Duke’ received no echo in the England of his day, but we cannot but think that his example helped to inspire the exertions of that devoted band of scholars which included the princely ecclesiastic, William Grey, poor students such as John Free, Fleming, and Gunthorpe, and the notorious but scholarly John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. Indeed there is much to suggest this, and perhaps the most curious of all our evidence centres in the name of Guarino da Verona, the great schoolmaster of Ferrara, who was intrusted with the education of Lionello and Borso d’Este. Every one of this band of English students studied under the direction of this famous scholar. Grey attended his instructions while living in princely state at Ferrara; Free journeyed from his home in Bristol to get the benefit of his teaching; Tiptoft turned aside during his wanderings in Italy to visit him in his adopted home; all at one time or another joined that ever-increasing band of English scholars who flocked to the Ferrarese school in such numbers as to be specially mentioned by Lodovico Carbone in his funeral oration over the dead scholar.[1398] Humphrey’s influence is to be traced here, for it was he who had first pointed to Guarino as the fountain of true learning. When commissioning Zano of Bayeux to buy him books in Italy, he had laid special stress on his desire to possess anything that had been written by this teacher.[1399] By selecting Guarino as the mentor of his intellectual aspirations, he had pointed out the road for future scholars to tread.

All these scholars followed in the steps of the Duke of Gloucester, and had all grown up before he passed from the scene of his activities. They, however, failed to carry out his theories to the full. Though they submitted themselves to the desire for the new learning, they did but little to bring it home to the great mass of Englishmen. They studied, but they did not teach. They had all learnt the earliest lesson of the new ideas under the shadow of the University of Oxford; all were Oxonians, and thus were direct products of Duke Humphrey’s patronage of that home of learning, and they so far followed in his footsteps as to give or bequeath the books they collected either to the University itself, or to some College within it. It was in this way that Gloucester had most conspicuously prepared the high-road to learning. By his gifts of books he had given Oxford students the opportunity of further researches into the human mind, he had thrown open the doors which had hitherto barred the way to Englishmen who desired a knowledge of what the past had thought of life and its component elements. For the first time in England men were able to know something of what the ancients had written. In the book-chests of Oxford lay the seeds of the English Renaissance. The immense importance of access to these books may easily be misunderstood at the present day; it is hard to realise completely the limitations which surrounded the mediæval scholar, but once this is achieved, the presence of these works, which reflected, if they did not very accurately represent, the ideas of classical writers, will be fully appreciated.

By his patronage of Oxford and his gifts of books Humphrey had inspired his immediate successors to carry on his work, and to bring together the materials for future generations to use. His work was crowned when Greek came to be taught in England. He himself had known no Greek, Grey and his friends had known but not imparted it; it remained for William Selling of All Souls at Canterbury, and Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn, and Thomas Latimer at Oxford, to bring this language and the literature which it voiced to the knowledge of educated Englishmen. Linacre, perhaps even more than his fellows, was cast in the mould that Humphrey would have approved. Like Humphrey, he was a man of immensely wide interests, not the dry-as-dust scholar, but the man of the world; like Humphrey, he was a special student of medicine, a science which owed its development in Italy to the discovery of the works of Hippocrates. At the same time he, more than any one else, completed the edifice of which Humphrey had built the foundations. Again we can trace the direct influence of the Duke. This last band of scholars who finally established the new learning in England were, like their predecessors, all Oxonians. The University which Gloucester had started on the way of good things was the parent of the new school of thought, it carried on the work of its great patron. It is to the lasting fame of this indifferent politician that through him the humanities came to be taught in England, that through him Oxford was induced to lead the van in introducing the new culture. We are apt to forget the debt we owe to the work of these early intellectual reformers, and to minimise the influence of the ideas they introduced on every aspect of our lives. Yet reflection will give its due meed of praise to their laborious efforts, and if it goes far enough back, will, like the Bidding Prayer read from the pulpit of the University Church, place Duke Humphrey’s name first on the list of benefactors.

It is a relief to turn from the stormy political career of Duke Humphrey to that sphere of his activity where undiluted praise can be given; to forget that public life which was marred by instability and prejudice, and to admire that industry which won him a great reputation both with his contemporaries and with posterity. Yet we must not forget that many of the qualities which led him to court disaster in public life were due to his leanings towards a life of study. The circumstances of his life and the tendencies of his age were against him. A student by nature and a politician by birth, he had too much ambition and too little restraint to choose the better path, and confine his energies to spreading the gospel of the new learning. The man of letters is seldom wise in adopting a life of political activity, and the case of Humphrey was in some ways repeated later in the life of Bacon. Even if we place the Duke of Gloucester amongst the worst types of political criminals—and we have no adequate reason for so doing—we must accord him a position of honour amongst those to whom posterity should be grateful. By those who have laboured under the shadow of his personality in the Library which preserves his name the memory of the ‘Good Duke’ must be cherished as an inspiration. They indeed must catch something of the spirit which enabled Hearne to speak of him as ‘that religious, good and learned prince whose handwriting I us’d, whenever I saw it in the Bodleian Library ... to show a particular sort of respect to, as some little Remains of a truly great Man, one that was both a Scholar himself, and the chiefest Promoter of Learning and Scholars at that time.’[1400]

The first page of the Renaissance in England consists of the life of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and all who value the inspiration to be drawn from the new era in human thought which dates from that great movement, must respect the memory of this great Lancastrian Prince.

APPENDIX A
BOOKS ONCE BELONGING TO GLOUCESTER STILL EXTANT

A more doubtful authenticity attaches to a third manuscript in the Bodleian Library, which contains Bruni’s translations of Aristotle’s Politics (Bodley MS., 2143 [Auct. F. 27]). Therein is contained a dedication to Humphrey and the letter from the translator quoted in the text (see p. 352). At the end there is an erased and unrestorable inscription placed exactly in the position that Humphrey almost invariably used for his autograph. Unfortunately the two first folios of the text proper are missing, though the prefatory letter is intact, but in no case did the University scribes count the folios from anywhere but the beginning of the book itself, all prefatory matter being disregarded. The possibility of proving that this is the actual volume presented to Oxford is thus removed, and when we remember that the terms of the letter preceding the translation show that the original copy had reached its destination before this letter was written, we must doubt that this was the volume received from Italy. Possibly, and almost probably, this manuscript in the Bodleian was a copy of the original translation, made by one of Gloucester’s secretaries, with the letter written by Bruni introduced by way of preface. Two other manuscripts in the Bodleian Library are copies of work given by Humphrey to Oxford, one the ‘De Regimine Principum’ of Egidius (Hatton MS., 15), the other the moral treatise dedicated by Piero del Monte to the Duke (Bodley MS., 3618 [E. Museo, 119]). Neither of these belonged to Gloucester, nor do they correspond to their fellows in the indenture. By a strange error another manuscript in the same Library, containing the last six books of the historical anecdotes of Valerius Maximus and notes thereon (Bodley MS., F. infra, i. 1), has been numbered among Gloucester’s books (Macray, Annals of the Bodleian). The mistake probably arose from the fact that the Duke’s arms appear on the first folio, but an inscription plainly refutes the theory, and shows that the book was given ‘ad usum scolarium studencium Oxonie’ by Abbot Wheathampsted. It was given therefore for the use of the ‘scholars’ of the University, and the presence of the arms is explicable, if we remember that Humphrey was Wheathampsted’s friend and patron, and that another copy of this book was probably given by the Abbot to Gloucester. It is even possible that the copying of the book was undertaken at Gloucester’s suggestion, and that his arms were placed there in token of this.

Outside the University Library three Oxford Colleges can boast the possession of a manuscript which belonged to Humphrey. In the Library of Corpus Christi there is preserved a large folio volume (Corpus Christi MS., ccxliii.), containing numerous treatises of a philosophic nature in Latin, all in the handwriting of ‘Fredericus Naghel de Trajecto,’ and dated 1423 ‘in alma Universitate Oxoniensi.’ Amongst the most interesting items are Latin translations of the Phædo and Meno of Plato, the last of which concludes the volume, and is followed by Gloucester’s autograph, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don (some words are here erased) treschier en Dieu labbe de seint Albon.’ A note in a later hand tells us that in 1557 the manuscript belonged to a certain John Dee, who had bought it by weight. Though it cannot be stated definitely, as the earlier folios are missing, yet there seems little doubt that this volume did not ever belong to the University Library. At Oriel there is a manuscript to which we have already had reason to refer, the ‘Commentary on the Book of Genesis’ by John Capgrave (Oriel MS., xxxii.), which according to a concluding note was written between October 1437 and September 1438. The initial letter of the dedication contains a miniature in which a very simple-minded-looking monk is presenting his book to a still more simple-minded patron, evidently meant to represent Capgrave and Gloucester, though it gives no suggestion of portraiture. At the end of the Commentary the Duke has appended his autograph, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don frere Jehan Capgrave quy le me fist presenter a mon manoir de Pensherst le jour de lan lan [M] ccccxxxviii.’ This book formed part of the last donation of Gloucester to the University (Epist. Acad., 233).

In the Magdalen College Library another of Gloucester’s books is to be found. This is the copy of Ptolemy’s ‘Cosmographia’ (Magdalen MS., 37), which was given to Oxford in 1443, though the scribe who drew up the indenture of books transcribed the first words of the second folio as ‘vel toto’ (Epist. Acad., 236), while in the manuscript they are ‘vel tota,’ obviously merely a clerical error. At the end of this work an erased inscription, when treated with chemicals, reveals Humphrey’s autograph, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre.’ Bound up with the ‘Cosmographia’ in a sixteenth-century binding are three translations from the Greek by Antonio Pasini. The first of these is Plutarch’s ‘Life of Marius, which is dedicated to Gloucester, but the other two, though in the same hand, have no mention of the Duke. This volume, which in the present manuscript occupies the first sixty folios, has an erased inscription at the end, but all efforts to restore it fail to reveal any more than ‘Cest livre’ at the beginning, and a date at the end. No mention is made of this work amongst the books of Humphrey’s gifts, and therefore it probably never belonged to the Oxford Library; on the other hand, it may be one of the volumes that belonged to the Duke, for the inscription is placed at the end in the not very usual place that he nearly always used, and the first two words, in so far as they can be read, seem to be in his handwriting. Added to this, I believe this copy to be unique, so it is possibly a book acquired by Humphrey late in life, and never copied by his secretaries. It may be one of the volumes so vainly sought for by the University after the death of the donor.

In the British Museum there are nine volumes that once belonged to Gloucester. Among the Harleian manuscripts there is a treatise on heretics by William of Occam (Harleian MS., 33), which was one of the books conveyed to Oxford in 1443 (Epist. Acad., 233). Unlike all the other books known to have belonged to Humphrey, it bears no inscription, and depends for its verification solely on the correspondence of the first words of the second folio. The volume has been bound up with what seems to be part of a fourteenth-century collection of extracts from the Fathers, two folios of which appear at the beginning and two at the end. On the second of these folios is pasted a square slip of paper bearing Gloucester’s arms, roughly executed, and the inscription ‘Ex dono illustrissimi principis et domini. Domini Humfredi filii fratris regum et patrui. Ducis Gloucestrie comitis Pembrochie et magni camerarii Anglie.’ The wording of this label suggests that it was a kind of book-plate placed on the volumes of the Duke’s gifts to distinguish them from the other books in the Oxford Library, and the present appearance almost conclusively proves this. It is very dirty, and has evidently been exposed on the outside of a book, and the corners are worn away, as though it had been lifted from some other place. In all probability its original position was on a panel of the binding, and when this was renewed, it was removed to its present position on the spare leaves, which must have been inserted at the time of re-binding. That no other volume known to have been in the Oxford Library bears this label is no argument against the theory that all the books of Duke Humphrey’s gifts were thus marked, for the plunderer does not expend his pains in preserving the indications that his booty was once the property of another. The absence of these book-plates is only the result of the policy which has erased so many of the autograph inscriptions in Gloucester’s books, and thus increased the difficulty of tracing these volumes tenfold.

A still more interesting manuscript in the Harleian collection contains the first five books of Candido’s translation of Plato’s Republic (Harleian MS., 1705), and is evidently the same copy which was sent over from Italy by the translator, for the inscription in Gloucester’s handwriting on the verso of the last folio runs, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don P. Candidus secretaire du duc de Milan.’ The volume is beautifully written on fine vellum with many illuminated letters, but many of the leaves are now missing, and some of the illuminations have been cut out. Prefixed to the actual translation are the earlier letters exchanged between the Duke and his translator. The book has never belonged to the Oxford Library, doubtless because it contains only the first half of the Republic, and so Candido’s request that it should not be shown abroad in view of the corrections he had made in the translation was respected (Eng. Hist. Review, xix. 516). The translation of the Republic given to Oxford we must believe was the complete work, and this did not reach the Duke till some time after the copy of the first five books. These two Harleian volumes must be the books which Hearne refers to, when he says in 1714 that the Earl of Oxford possessed two manuscripts once the property of Gloucester (Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Hist. Society, 1885-1898, iv. 421).

A book from the Oxford Library is preserved amongst the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum, and consists of the collected ordinances and decrees of the Council of Constance (Cotton MS., Nero, E. v.). The last two folios are devoted to a short description of the origin of the Scotch nation, and the rights of the Kings of England over those of the sister kingdom. At the end of the last sentence Gloucester has written, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre lequel jachetay des executeurs maistre Thomas Polton feu eveque de Wurcestre.’

Several more of Humphrey’s books are still extant in the old Royal Collection of manuscripts, now in the British Museum. A beautifully illuminated fourteenth-century volume entitled Chroniques des Roys de France jusques a la mort de St. Loys l’an 1270 (Royal MS., 15, G. vi.) bears the inscription, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don des Executeurs le Seigneur de Faunhere,’ but it was not included in the gifts to Oxford. In the same collection there is a volume containing several translations of the works of St. Athanasius (Royal MS., 5, F, ii.). The original format of this manuscript is a matter of uncertainty. The first treatise begins abruptly without title or address, save in small letters above the text, ‘lege feliciter serenissime Princeps’; at the beginning of the second book of the treatise the title runs ‘Athanasii viri sanctissimi de humanitate verbi contra gentes liber secundus incipit ex graeco in latinum conversus per antonium Beccariam veronensem ad serenissimum ac illustrissimum principem ducem Gloucestrie dominum suum singularissimum.’ A fly-leaf, which may have been originally the termination of a volume, divides the first from the second treatise, which begins on folio 70. This ends on folio 91, and on the verso stands the Duke’s autograph, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre lequel jay fait translater de grec en lattyn par Antoyne de Beccara Veroneys mon serviteur.’ This may be the end of one volume, and the treatise which begins on the next page may be the opening of another one. It begins with a dedicatory epistle to Gloucester, which by its phraseology seems to be the opening of a new book (see p. 377, note 1247), and whereas the earlier part of the present volume is illustrated, this second portion has only the blank spaces left for such adornment. There are on this page none of the signs of wear which might suggest that it had been the first sheet of an independent volume, but it is possible that it was never much used, and only acquired late in life by Gloucester. A later owner may have bound up the two volumes together, and handed them down to us in their present shape. It seems thus most probable that in Duke Humphrey’s day this manuscript consisted of two volumes, else he would not twice have appended his autograph, nor probably have varied it in the same book, for an inscription at the end of the last treatise reads ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucester lequel je fis translater de grec en latin par un de mes secretaires Antoyne de Beccara ne de Verone.’ The first volume corresponds in its second folio to an entry in the Oxford Register (Epist. Acad., 767. The second folio in the register is marked ‘racti quae,’ whilst in the manuscript it is ‘rati quae,’ probably only a clerical error. The University scribe also misnamed the volume as ‘Athanasius, de Trinitate’), and so was part of the gifts to that University; the second probably never passed out of its owner’s hands till his death. At one time this manuscript, in its present shape, was in the possession of a certain Mr. Fowler of Hampton, near Cirencester (James MS., 30, p. 84).

A very interesting copy of the ‘Historia Anglie’ of Matthew Paris (Royal MS., 14, C. vii.) likewise belonged to Duke Humphrey, though it was not presented to Oxford. The ‘History’ is in the author’s own hand, but is continued down to 1273 by some other chronicler. When finished by Paris it was presented by him to the Abbey of St. Albans whence it may have been given to Gloucester by Wheathampsted. At the end there is an inscription, which when restored by a chemical reagent was read by Sir Frederick Madden as ‘Cest livre A moy Homffrey duc de Gloucestre’ (Introduction to Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum (Rolls Series, 1866-1869), pp. xxxviii-xl). The erasure has been so carefully effected that under all circumstances the words are hard to decipher, but a close inspection seems to reveal that the inscription is that of Humphrey, and that it follows the spelling which he invariably used: ‘Cest (not ceste) livre est A moy Homfrey(not Homffrey) duc de Gloucestre.’

Also in the Royal Collection there is a French version of the ‘Somnium Viridarii,’ originally written about 1376 (Royal MS., 19, C. iv.). ‘Le Songe du Vergier,’ as the French title runs, is in the form of a discussion, a method so popular at that period, between a knight and clerk on the question of the relative spheres of the spiritual and temporal powers. This manuscript, which was once the property of King Charles V. of France, is beautifully illuminated throughout, and is illustrated at the beginning of each of the two books of which it is composed. At the end an erased but just decipherable inscription reads, ‘Cest livre est a moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre (see Paleographical Society’s Facsimiles, Second Series, Plate 169, and also Paulin Paris, Manuscrits Français (Paris 1840), iii. 299-328). Neither this nor a still more beautifully adorned volume containing certain selected Psalms (Royal MS., 2, B. i.) was given to Oxford. This last is ornamented throughout with initial letters and pendants in gold and colours, those in the calendar at the beginning being particularly finely executed. On the first page of the text Gloucester’s arms appear in two different places, and the next page is headed by a minature, which we may perhaps take to represent the Duke kneeling at a Prie-Dieu, and being presented to the Saviour by one who may be St. Alban, or more probably David. Humphrey is here represented as quite a young man, which would agree with the date of the volume, which may be fixed about 1415. (See Facsimiles of MS. and Inscriptions, published by the Palæographical Society, Second Series, Plate 201.) Besides the Psalms and calendar above mentioned a few Latin prayers are added, and the whole is preceded by a dedication to God’s service. At the end stands the inscription, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre des seaulmes les quels jay esleus du saultier,’ of which the first part is only legible when restored by chemicals. Those who secured the books of the dead Duke were remarkably anxious to remove the traces of his ownership, even when they were not part of his gifts to Oxford. This book is an interesting personal relic of Gloucester, and apart from this it is also a very favourable specimen of the art of the period.

Amongst the Egerton manuscripts in the British Museum there is an English version of the Holy Scriptures, usually called Wycliff’s Bible, in two volumes, with the books up to the Proverbs omitted (Egerton MSS., 617 and 618). At the end is a calendar of the Gospels and Epistles for the year according to the Sarum use. The manuscripts bear no inscription, but we may surmise that it belonged to Humphrey by the presence of his coat of arms in the centre of the second folio above the text. This is not a conclusive proof of possession, as we have seen in the case of the book given by Wheathampsted to Oxford, but in the absence of any hostile evidence it may be accepted.

Yet one other book which may be put down among the possessions of Duke Humphrey survives in the British Museum, a vellum folio containing a medical treatise by the most famous of all the Arabian writers on surgery, Aboo-l-Kassim, who flourished in the latter part of the eleventh century. The title runs ‘Albucasis sive Albukassem Khalof Ebn Abbas Al-Zaharias Antidotarium per Lodaycum Tetrafarmacum e lingua Arabica translatum’ (Sloane MS., 248). At the end of the text an inscription has been erased and its restoration is impossible, though the first three words, ‘Cest livre est,’ can just be made out, and after this there seem to be traces of the big ‘A’ with the particular flourish the Duke always used when writing his name in his books. On the top of the first leaf is written ’Loyale et belle a Gloucester,’ and again on a blank leaf at the end in the same hand occurs ‘Loyale et belle de Gloucestre. Loyalement voster la Duchesse.’ These last two sentences are repeated on the next blank leaf. The meaning of these inscriptions is not evident, though we know that the Duke adopted the motto, ‘Loyale et belle.’ In default of better evidence they seem to suggest that the book, once the property of Gloucester, was given by him to his wife.

Outside Oxford and the British Museum there are in England four manuscripts which are thought to have once formed part of the Duke’s library. In the possession of Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, of 19 Portman Square, London, there is a Psalter with an erased inscription at the end of the text, which, when treated with a chemical reagent, reveals the words, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey fiz frere et uncle de roys duc de Gloucestre comte de pembroc grant chambellan dangleterre, etc.’ (Henry Yates Thompson MS., 58. Cf. the descriptive Catalogue of the Thompson Collection (Second Series, Cambridge, 1902), pp. 75-81). This book was originally copied for the family of St. Omer of Mulbarton in Norfolk, and the illuminations, which make it one of the most beautiful examples of English art in two periods, are distinctly of the East Anglian school. The latter part of the volume was left unfinished, though part of the illuminating work must have been executed early in the fifteenth century. The absence of the Gloucester coat of arms in any part of the book shows that it must have been in its present state of completion when it came into the Duke’s hands.

Another brightly decorated manuscript was till lately preserved in the library of Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth-Woodhouse in the shape of an English verse translation of Palladius, De Re Rustica (Wentworth-Woodhouse MS., Z. i. 32). It is brilliantly illuminated, the poem being written in scarlet, crimson, blue, and green, with a few words in gold, and the effect is naturally more startling than beautiful. The book is bound richly but roughly in Russian leather, and inserted in the cover is an enamel of a woman of good but heavy features. Round this enamel runs the legend, ‘Jacqueline, Dutchess of Bavaria, Countess of Holland, Zealand, and Hainault, wife to Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, 1427.’ We gather from a modern fly-leaf that this manuscript was in a ‘rotten wood binding’ in 1767, and the enamel was ‘judged proper to make a part of the new binding.’ According to the canons of Labarte this portrait cannot be earlier than the sixteenth century. (Inquiry at Wentworth-Woodhouse has resulted in a declaration that no such volume is now known to exist there. In the Bodleian Library, however, there is a photographic facsimile of it made in 1888. Bodley MS., Arch. F. d. 1.) The proem to this translation contains a good deal about Gloucester’s books at Oxford, and his relationship to the Italian Humanists in England. This, together with the portrait, have been declared undoubted evidence that it was the copy presented to Humphrey, and the presence of his arms in the initial letter of the poem strengthens, though it does not entirely confirm, this suggestion (see article in the Athenæum for November 17, 1888, p. 664). On the other hand, the fact that the introduction and text are written in different hands, would lead us to think that this was not the copy presented by the author to his patron.

The Cambridge University Library possesses a volume at the end of which occurs the inscription, ‘Cest livre est A moy Honfrey duc de Gloucestre du don mess Robert Roos chevalier mon cousin’ (Cambridge University Library, MS. Ee. 2, 17. It is described by P. Mayer in Romania, xv. 264, 265). It contains the last two sheets of a French translation of the De Regimine Principum of Ægidius Romanus, and the Rei Militaris Instituta of Flavius Renatus Vegetius, also translated into French by Jean de Vignai. Also at Cambridge, in the Library of King’s College, there is a manuscript which is thought to have once belonged to Duke Humphrey. This is a translation of some of the speeches of St. Athanasius by Antonio Beccaria, and is written in an Italian hand of the fifteenth century (King’s College MS., 27). Prefixed is a dedication to the Duke, one leaf of which is missing, but it bears no inscription, nor are there signs of there ever having been one. This volume is the only surviving relic of the original library of the college, and it has been suggested that, since it is dedicated to Humphrey, it was part of his library, and given by Henry VI., with others of his uncle’s books, to the college of his foundation, as some part of the spoils shared among the King’s favourites after the tragedy of Bury. The old library catalogue, which dates from 1453, helps to confirm this theory, for in it occur translations of Plato and Plutarch, and several of the Latin classics, which give a tone to the collection unlikely to be borrowed from any one but the late Duke of Gloucester (see Catalogue of MSS. of King’s College, by Montague Rhodes James (Cambridge, 1905,) pp. 46, 47, 70, 71). The theory is ingenious and worth considering; at any rate it suggests a possible destination for those books which the University of Oxford sought so long and so vainly to obtain.

Some of Gloucester’s books in course of time have found their way across the Channel, and six volumes, once part of his library, are now extant in France. In the Bibliothèque Nationale there are two Latin books which bear his autograph. The first is a collection of ancient panegyrics (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. latin, 7805), on the first fly-leaf of which is written in the scribe’s hand, ‘Est illustrissimi domini ducis Gloucestrensis,’ which shows that the volume was written for Gloucester himself. These panegyrics are addressed by ancient writers to various emperors, the most interesting being one composed by the Younger Pliny for the benefit of Trajan. The whole manuscript is written in a neat Italian hand of the fifteenth century, and bears an illuminated letter at the beginning of each panegyric. On the verso of the last folio Humphrey has written ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre,’ and by him it was given to Oxford in 1443 (Epist. Acad., 235). The other Latin work is a collection of the letters of Cicero, which was given to the Duke by his friend Zano, Bishop of Bayeux (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. latin, 8537). It is written in a clear, clerkly hand of the fifteenth century, and adorned with occasional illuminated letters. The copyist was evidently no Greek scholar, for there are frequent gaps left for words of that language, which are supplied in a scrawling hand, with the Latin equivalents above. Several letters to Atticus are included, and the earlier ones are either addressed to or received from Brutus. At the end of the last folio is written, in large uncertain capital letters, ‘Rudolfus Johannis de Misotis de Feraria SS. MCCCCXV.’ Below this again the Duke has written, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don Reverend piere en Dieu Zanon eveque de Bayeux.’ The volume was probably purchased by Zano in Italy and presented to his friend when he returned to England to visit him, later passing by the gift of 1439 into the possession of the University of Oxford (Epist. Acad., 183).

In the same library we find three French manuscripts which Gloucester once possessed, and which, owing to the language in which they are written, do not naturally form part of his gifts to Oxford, consisting as these did exclusively of Latin works. An elaborately illuminated manuscript bearing the title ‘Le Bible hystoriaux’ (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. français, 2) bears on the last folio written in a large hand, not that of the scribe, the inscription, ‘Le dixiesme jour de Septembre lan mil quatrecens vingt sept fut cest livre donne a tres hault & tres puissant prince Humfrey duc de Gloucestre Conte de Haynau Holland, etc., & protecteur & deffenseur d’engleterre par Sire Jehan Stanley Chevalier ledit prince estant en l’abbaye notre dame A Chestre.’ In this French version of the Scriptures the books are arranged in an arbitrary order, and in the New Testament everything after the Epistle to the Hebrews is omitted. The pages are all adorned with elaborate floral decorations, and they also bear numerous small illustrations of varying artistic value, some reaching a respectable standard, others being grotesque even for the age in which they were produced. The volume was originally written for William, Bishop of Sens, and in 1451 was bought in London by Philip de Loan, who was in the service of Philip, Duke of Burgundy. Thus one at least of Gloucester’s books passed to the Court of his great enemy.

The second of the French books once belonging to Humphrey, and now in this library, is a translation of the Decameron of Boccaccio (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. français, 12,421). It is but poorly written, though a small portion of it is in a slightly better hand than the rest. A few coloured letters relieve the monotony of bad writing, and some fairly frequent illustrations help to give colour to the manuscript. Some of the last are typical fifteenth-century work, possibly slightly less grotesque than those in the last-mentioned volume. Others, however, are beautifully executed in water-colours, and appear to be of a much later date. The presumption is that the original illustrator did not fill up all the spaces at his disposal, and that a later artist, who betrays more technical ability than even the fifteenth-century painter, Jean Fouquet, completed the work. At the end of the last folio there is to be found a faded yet quite legible inscription, which shows traces of an attempt at erasure. It reads, ‘Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don mon tres chier cousin le conte de Warwic.’ Less ornate is the third French manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which we can trace back to Duke Humphrey’s library (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. français, 12,583). This is a poorly written copy of the early French romance, Le Roman de Renard. At the head of the first words stands a picture of inferior execution, and beyond this no adornment is attempted. The text ends abruptly on the 48th folio, and shows traces of mutilation. The fly-leaf at the beginning is pasted down, and on it is cut ‘Homfrey’ in fairly large characters. This seems to be a later addition, as an experimental ‘H’ has been cut higher up on the page, and its tail cuts the ‘de’ in the following inscription, ‘Cest livre est a Humfrey duc de Gloucestre.’ The writing of this is not in the hand of Duke Humphrey, though there seems no reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement.

The list of Gloucester’s books now extant in Paris is brought to a conclusion with a large folio volume of 433 folios containing Livy’s Roman History translated into French by Pierre Bersuyre, or Bercheure, or Berchoire, and dedicated to King John of France (Bibliothèque de Ste. Geneviève, MS. français, 777). The manuscript is beautifully illuminated, and at the head of the title-page there stands a painting divided into nine medallions showing various episodes in the history of Rome. There are two other large title-pages in the volume, and others have been cut out. This manuscript must have formed part of Charles V.’s library, for the colours of the illuminations are blue, red, and white, such as are found in all his books. Thence it probably passed into the possession of Charles VI., for a volume closely resembling it is to be found in the catalogue of this king’s library drawn up by order of Bedford (Catalogue des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Sainte Geneviève, par Ch. Kohler (Paris, 1893), vol. i. p. 370, quoting a MS. in the same library). The English regent sent it to his brother, who in his turn possibly sent it to Alfonso of Aragon. Below a rubbed space at the end of the last sentence, which is supposed to have held the ex libris of Charles VI., stand these words, ‘Cest livre fut envoye des parties de France et donne par mons le regent le royaume duc de Bedford a mons le duc de Gloucestre son beau frere l’an mil quatre cens vingt sept.’

Thus of the great library, at the size of which we can only guess, only some twenty-seven works in twenty-nine volumes, at the most generous computation, survive. Others there may be which have escaped the notice of librarians, cataloguers, and the researches of the present writer, or may lie buried in the dust of unexplored libraries. Yet even were this list of survivals to be doubled or trebled the loss would be enormous.

APPENDIX B
THE TOMB OF HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER

On the south wall of St. Alban’s shrine, close to Humphrey’s tomb, an epitaph was once written, but it is now lost owing to restoration. It was the work of Dr. John Westerman, Vicar of Bushey early in the seventeenth century, and was placed under Gloucester’s arms, which were surmounted by a coronet.

PIAE MEMORIAE V. OPT.
SACRUM
SEROTINUM