heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

128 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
will, and therefore, when King John shortly after declined to recognise
Cardinal Langton, whom he had appointed Archbishop of Canterbury,
without any previous writ from the King, he at once laid the country under
an interdict.
Fabyan gives a very short notice of Prince Arthur in his Chronicles,
but he is the only one who supplies any foundation for Shakespeare's
representations of Prince Arthur having been sent to England. He says,
after simply mentioning the capture of Arthur and others at Mirabel, " in
" which season also King John returned with his prisoners into England."
John Hardyng, the rhyming chronicler, who was born in 1378, and
was a page in the family of Sir Henry Percy, eldest son of the Earl of
Northumberland, and who lived to be at least 87 years of age, says :
" The Kyng Philip confered with Arthure
To rebell sore agayne his erne Kyng John,
And graunte hym men and power, stronge and sure,
To gette Guyan, Poyton, and Anjeou anon :
Wherefore Kyng John to Normandy gan gone,
And there he tooke Arthure, Duke of Britayne,
In Castell Mirable dyed, in mykell payne.
" Dame Isabel!, the sister also of Arthure,
In the Castelle of Bristowe was then holde,
And dyed there in pryson then full sure,
As King John, her uncle, so it wolde :
A lady of great beautee, she was hold
Beshet in pryson in paynes strong,
So ended her life, for sorrow lives not long.
" Thus slew he both Arthure and Isabel!,
The children of his brother, Duke Geffry,
To joye the croune of Englande, as men tell ;
Wherefore most parte of all his landes that daye
Beyond the sea forsook him then for ay,
Returning to the Kyng of France in hye,
To hold of hym and his perpetually."
Holinshed, who dedicates his Chronicles to "The Right Honourable
"and singular good Lord Sir William Cecil, Baron of Burleigh, Knight
" of the most noble Order of the Garter, Lord High Treasurer of England,
" Maister of the Courts of Wards and Liveries, and one of the Queenes
" Majesties Privie Councell," i.e., Queen Elizabeth, after quoting from
Matthew Paris the greater part of the passages which I have already
transcribed, thus concludes " : But now touching the maner in verie deed
"of the end of this Arthur, writers make sundrie reports. Nevertheless,
" certaine it is that in the year next insuing he was removed from Falais
" unto the Castell or Tower of Rouen, out of the which there was not any
" that would confesse that ever he saw him go alive. Some have written
" that as he assaied to have escaped out of prison, and prooving to