of England, the arms of France, the arms of Scotland, and the arms of Scrope, azure a bend or, the which arms have been in the said windows since the building of their church in the reign of King Henry II.'

Following these we have the depositions of the whole host of northern chivalry. The nobles and knights of Yorkshire especially, in which county the Scropes had long resided, come forward in numbers to support their cause. The heads of the families of Hastings, Stapleton, Roos of Ingmanthorp, Grymston, Neville of Hornby, Bosvile of Chete, Constable, Mauleverer, Melton, Savill, Chauncy, Hotham, Reresby, Rokeby, Boynton, Plumpton, Warde, Eure, Pygot, Conyers, Midylton, Merkyngfeld, Fitzhenry, Mallory, Roos of Kendal, Aton, Roucliffe, Loudham, Marmion, Clifton, Spenser, Strelley, and Pierrepoint, with many others, are examined in turn, and depose to the antiquity of the line of Scrope, and their long hereditary use of the contested coat in all the battle-fields, sieges, expeditions, and chivalrous exploits of note of the past century and upwards-'at tournaments and feasts, as well as in the ornamenting of halls, windows, beds, furniture, and plate in the presence of kings and princes, and before the dukes, earls, barons, and other lords of England,' without challenge on the part of Sir Robert Grosvenor or his ancestors. Many of these knights relate that they had heard from their fathers that Sir William Le Scrope, grandfather of the plaintiff, was, in the reign of Edward I., the most noble tourneyour of his time that could be found in any country, and always tourneyed in those arms, and had been, before he was knighted, (which was at Falkirk, under King Edward's banner,) a famous bohourdeor, and a good esquire and servant in arms.' His second son, Sir Geoffry, (the eldest, Henry, was Chief Justice to Edward II.,) had been likewise a renowned tourneyour,' and 'performed right nobly at the tournaments of Northampton and Tournay, and at Dunstable, Cambridge, and Newmarket, before King Edward II., with other knights under his banner, which was azure a bend or, having a white label for a difference.' It appears from the interesting deposition of John Rither, Esquire, who relates his services at Crecy and Najara, and various expeditions in France, Brittany, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, interspersed with many curious particulars, that after the peace made by Edward III. with France, this gallant squire, with many others, went into Prussia, and there, at the siege of Wellon, in Lithuania, Sir Geoffry Scrope died, and was buried in the cathedral of Konigsberg, where the said arms were painted in a glass window, which the deponent himself caused to be set up, taking the blazon from the arms the deceased had on him when he fell.'

Of

Of the deponents who come forward from other parts of the kingdom, the most remarkable are John Thirlwalle, Esquire (of a very ancient house in Northumberland), who relates what he heard on the subject in dispute from his father, who died at the age of 145! and was, when he died, (as well he may have been,) the oldest esquire in the north, and had been dead forty-four years;Sir Richard Waldegrave,* who was, against his will, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1381, on the occasion of the repeal, by Richard II., of the charters of enfranchisement of the villains, which he had granted for the sake of appeasing their revolt, and revoked as soon as he could venture to do so,-the revocation (to their shame be it spoken) being assented to with one voice by all the prelates, lords, knights, citizens, and burgesses in parliament assembled;-Sir Ralph Ferrers, the subject of a remarkable conspiracy detailed in the Rolls of Parliament (1380), intended to convict him, by forged documents, of a traitorous correspondence with the French ;-Sir Richard Adderbury;-Sir James Berners, one of the unfortunate favourites of Richard II., against whom the animosity of the Lords Appellants,' headed by the Duke of Gloucester, was so powerfully directed, and who was executed, with Burley, Beauchamp, and Salisbury, in 1388;-Sir Thomas Tryvet, another victim to the same party feuds, and whose deeds at arms are recorded in great detail by Froissart ;—Sir Lewis Clifford, likewise commemorated by the flowing pen of the same chronicler, as one of the ambassadors sent to Paris to negociate a peace with France in 1390, and one of the English combatants in the grand fait d'armes' which took place in that year in the Marches of Calais, when three French knights, chamberlains of the king, challenged and kept the field for thirty days against all comers 'who wished to be delivered from their vows by five courses with a sharp or blunt lance, according to their pleasure, or with both lances, if more agreeable;' t-Sir Richard Le Zouche, who shared all the laurels of the campaigns of Edward III. and the Black Prince ;-Sir John Bourchier, another of Froissart's favourite English knights;-Lord Roos of Hunlake; Lord Lovel of Titmersh; Lord Burnell, Keeper of the Privy Seal to Henry IV.; Sir Gerard Braybroke; Lord Darcy of Meinill; Sir Matthew Redman, to whose chivalrous encounter with Sir James Lindsay after the battle of Otterbourne, Froissart

* One of the characteristic traits of the times occurs in the engagement in which this knight was bound to the king, (in the year in which he gave his evidence,) in one thousand marks, to maintain Elizabeth, one of the cousins and heirs of Sir Philip Bryan, for one year,-to keep her " ab omni virili corrupcione mundam et immaculatam ;" to furnish her with food and raiment ; and at the expiration of that time to deliver her to John Lovell, to whom his majesty had given her in marriage.' Froissart, Johnes, vol. x. p. 35. has

has devoted a chapter; * Lord Clifford, one of the most illustrious individuals of that illustrious house ;-Lord Neville; the unfortunate Sir Simon Burley; Lord Grey de Ruthyn; Lord Adam de Everingham; Lord Andrew de Luttrell; the Duke of Warwick; and the Earl of Arundel,—all of whom we must pass without more particular notice to arrive at three still more illustrious deponents,— the Earl of Northumberland,-his son, Sir Henry Percy, gallant Hotspur' himself—and last, not least in fame if in rank, Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire.

The Earl of Northumberland, whose brother, the Earl of Worcester, we have seen previously examined, deposed that at the battle of Durham (in 1346) there were three banners in the vanguard of the army,-the banner of Lord Percy, that of Lord Neville, and that of Sir Henry Scrope, viz., azure a bend or with a white label; at which battle Sir Richard Scrope bore the said arms entire, as head of the family; and that he had heard from his father, the Lord Percy, and all the old knights, and squires, and gentry of the north, that these arms were the right arms of the Scropes from times beyond memory.'

Sir Henry Percy, of the age of twenty, first armed at the taking of Berwick,' depones to a similar statement, so far as his youth will allow him, and appeals to the authority of John Rither, a veteran squire, previously examined, who had told both him and his father, that during fifty years' constant service he had never seen the said arms borne by any but the Scropes. There is nothing characteristic of Hotspur's fiery temper in his answers to the interrogatories of Scrope's Proctors, which had roused the impatience of more than one of the preceding deponents. In

*Redman was then Captain of Berwick, and after fighting valiantly on that unfortunate day, and seeing that the defeat of the English was conclusive, he mounted his horse and fled, but was closely pursued for three leagues by Sir James Lindsay, a Scottish knight. On the Scot's calling on him to turn, saying there was no other person with him, and that he was Sir James Lindsay, Redman stopped and prepared to defend himself. They fought for some time, and during a temporary cessation of the combat, Lindsay asked who he was, and being told his name, exclaimed, "Then I will conquer you, or you shall me," when the contest recommenced, both being on horseback, the one armed only with his sword, the other with his axe: but Redman accidentally dropping his sword, he was compelled to yield, exclaiming, "Lindsay, you will prove a good companion."-" By St. George, you say truly," replied the generous Scot; "and to begin, though you are my prisoner, what do you wish me to do?"-"I desire you to permit me to return to Newcastle," said Redman, “and by Michaelmas-day I will be at Dunbar or Edinburgh, or at any other part in Scotland you choose.". -“I am content,” rejoined Lindsay; "be at Edinburgh by the day you have named." They then separated, but the Scot missing his road in the dark, and during a thick fog, fell into the hands of the Bishop of Durham, who was on his way to Newcastle from the field of Otterbourne, where he arrived too late to afford Hotspur any assistance. The prelate, having made Lindsay prisoner, conveyed him to Newcastle, where he found Redman. By my faith," said the latter, "I little expected to have found my master, Sir James Lindsay, here already."-FROISSART.

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Chaucer's

Chaucer's deposition, on the contrary, we think there are traces of the liveliness and picturesque fancy of the poet. Being asked, among other questions, if he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, to the use of the arms in dispute by the Scropes, he does not content himself with saying No!' but adds the following anecdote:

'He was once in Friday-street, London, and walking through the street he observed a new sign hanging out with these arms thereon, and inquired "What inn that was that had hung out those arms of Scrope?" and one answered him, saying, "They are not hung out, Sir, for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for those arms, but they are painted and put there by a knight of the county of Chester, called Sir Robert Grosvenor;" and that was the first time that he ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor, or his ancestors, or of any one bearing the name.'

Chaucer, when examined, describes himself as 'forty years of age, armed twenty-seven years.' He speaks of having been made prisoner at the siege of Retters, in France, in 1359. He was employed by Edward III. on several commissions of trust, and was knight of the shire for Kent at the time of this examination.

The list of deponents, on the part of Sir Robert Grosvenor, by no means offers so splendid an array of chivalry as that we have now gone through in the supporters of his rival's cause. One great name indeed presents itself, that of Owen Glendower' He of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and swore the devil his true liege man upon the cross of a Welch hook.'

'Owen, Lord of Glendower, of the age of twenty-two,' deponed that it was the common opinion of the counties of Flint and Chester that the arms in question belonged to Sir Robert Grosvenor, and had been used by his ancestors from the conquest. He is followed by Sir John Massey of Podington; Sir Lawrence Dutton, Sir Hugh de Browe, and great numbers of the gentry of Cheshire, Lancashire, and North Wales, whose names will be recognised as belonging to the most ancient families of that quarter of the kingdom, viz.-De Eton, Brereton, Davenport, Leicester, Dutton, Hulse, Toft, Holford, Vernon, Dounes, Stanlegh, Mainwaring, Legh, Malpas, Crewe, Cholmeley, Massy, Atherton, Langton, De Bold, Moston, Merton, Flemyng, Egerton, Dacre, Burdet, Lathum, Trafford, Hesketh, Bradschaw, Hilton, Hyde, Beeston, Coton, Danyell, &c. Their depositions agree in almost every particular, and amount in the whole to this, -that Sir Robert Grosvenor served in the disputed arms on the last expedition of King Richard into Scotland, (when they were challenged by the plaintiff,) and likewise about seventeen years

before

before in a campaign of the Prince of Wales in Poitou, Guienne, and Aquitaine ;-that it was generally reputed in the counties bordering on North Wales that his ancestors had borne the arms 'azure a bend or' from the time of Sir Gilbert de Grosvenor, a follower of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, who was nephew to the Conqueror;-and that the said arms were to be seen in windows, and on tombstones in several churches of Cheshire.

The Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal speaks still more positively to the pedigree and arms of Grosvenor; saying expressly that he has it from chronicles and ancient writings in his monastery, that Sir Robert Grosvenor descended in direct line from Gilbert le Grosvenor, who, in the train of his uncle, Hugh Lupus, came over with the Conqueror, armed in the said arms, which he used to the time of his death.'

Several of the depositions in favour of Sir Robert Grosvenor are missing through the injuries suffered by the roll. The names of these deponents are, however, elsewhere preserved. The judgment of the Constable was given (as we stated before) in favour of the appellant Scrope; but inasmuch as the defendant had shown good presumptive evidence in support of his claim, he was admitted to bear the same coat within a bordure argent.' Against this sentence Grosvenor, as we have said, appealed; and the definitive sentence was at length pronounced by the King in person in Westminster Hall on the 7th May, in the thirteenth year of his reign, 'adjudging the arms to Lord Scrope, and forbidding Grosvenor or his heirs to bear them for the future with or without differences ;' with respect to the arms 'azure a bend or within a bordure argent,' which had been conceded to Grosvenor by the Constable, considering that such a bordure is not a sufficient difference between two strangers in the same kingdom, but only between cousin and cousin related by blood,' &c. the ordinance by the Constable of the said arms to Grosvenor is annulled.'

Grosvenor was subsequently allowed to bear the arms said to have been carried by his ancestor's patron, and, by the Abbot of Vale Royal's statement, relative-Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester -namely, azure a garbe or,'-the coat still borne by his descendant and representative the Marquis of Westminster.

6

If

we recollect, however, there is a profuse display of the forbidden arms, azure a bend or,' among the rich emblazonings of the Great Hall of Eaton. We have not heard that they have yet been challenged by any descendant of Lord Scrope; and in default of this, if the noble marquis will defy the notorious judgment of King Richard II., yet unreversed,-why we must leave him to the reproaches of his conscience,-or rather to Sir H. Nicholas,

to