heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

TREHOUS. 129
" clime over the walls of the castell, he fell into the river of Saine and
" so was drowned. Others write that through very grief and languour he
" pined awaie and died of naturalle sicknesse. But some affirme that
" King John secretlie caused him to be murthered and made awaye, so
" as it is not throughlie agreed upon in what sorte he finished his daies :
" but verelie King John was had in great suspicion whether worthily or
" not, the Lord knoweth."
Shakespeare represents that the subject created a great sensation.
Hubert, mentioning to King John (act 4, scene 2) that "five moons
" were seen to night/' adds :
" Old men, and beldames in the street,
Do prophesy upon
it
dangerously :
Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths,
And when they talk of him they shake their heads
And whisper one another in the ear :
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist ;
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news,
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent ;
Another lean, unwash'd artificer
Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death."
It has even been suggested that so evil was the reputation which
Peter de Trehous had acquired, in consequence of his share in the transaction,
amongst the good people of Yorkshire, that they changed the name
of the place from Moultgrace to Moultgrave. This, however, as well as
Shakespeare's description, I regard as purely apocryphal. In Canon Raine's
Lives of the Archbishops of York it is stated that King John came to York
in March, 1205, about the date when the murder took place. He seems to
have had a quarrel with his illegitimate brother, Geoffrey, son of Fair
Rosamond, then Archbishop of York, to whom he was not reconciled until
"the spring of 1207." "We are unacquainted," says Canon Raine, "with
" the causes of the quarrel which was thus terminated." Could it . have
been on the late tragic event ? Canon Raine says of Geoffrey that,
"though passionate and regardless of consequences, he was capable of
" generous and patriotic actions, and his filial affection is not to be
" forgotten." It is quite possible that such a character would not hesitate
to speak plainly, and perhaps strongly, to a guilty sinner, even though
he were his near relation, and King of England. But neither here nor