heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

214 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
The author of Heraldic Anomalies gives another reason. He says
Edward III., being engaged in a war with France for the obtaining of that
Crown, in order to draw into England great multitudes of foreigners with
whom he might negotiate for aid and support, appointed a tournament to
be holden at Windsor, in imitation of King Arthur's round table, at which
all his illustrious guests
were to be entertained.
But King Philip of France, suspecting his design, caused a like
tournament to be proclaimed in his own dominions, which, meeting with
and induced him
success, proved a counter-mine to Edward's original
plan,
to turn his thoughts from it to the institution of a new order of knighthood.
To signify the purity of his intentions, and to bring shame on those
who should put any malignant interpretation on his proceedings, he chose
for his motto, " Honi soit qui mal y pense " which is not ill-treated in the
dramatic poem on the institution, to be found in Dodsley's collection, thus
" Ashamed be he who with malignant eye
So reads my purpose."
The Earl never married, and was succeeded by his nephew, Humphrey,
who married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, but died young, at the
age of thirty-two, leaving only two daughters, Eleanor and Mary, sole
heiresses of his estates, valued at 5,000 nobles a year. Eleanor was married
to Prince Thomas of Woodstock, son of Edward III., Earl of Buckingham,
and, in her right, Earl of Essex, and subsequently Duke of Gloucester.
If Mary died childless, the whole of the estates would devolve upon his
posterity, and he was quite alive enough to his interests to keep her
unmarried.
He, therefore, having obtained permission from his elder brother,
John of Gaunt, her guardian, to have her under his control, placed around
her the nuns of the order of St. Clare, and took all possible pains to give
her mind a religious bias. But he went on a warlike expedition to France,
and during his absence John of Gaunt conceived the idea that the young
lady would make an excellent wife for his son, Henry Earl of Derby.
But how to accomplish this, for Mary had been left under the care
of her sister, the Countess of Buckingham, the person of all others least
likely to promote the success of the scheme, at Fleshy Castle.
Fleshy Castle was another, and perhaps the principal, among the
many seats of the Earls of Essex and Hereford, and for this reason, I
suppose, had become the residence of the elder sister. It, or rather the
ruin of it, is situated in Essex, near Romford. It had been a fortress in
the time of the Romans, and its
stupendous keep, wide ditch, and magnificent
bridge of a single arch, still remain. Its site is high and its prospect
agreeable, from which it is said to have derived its name " Castellum
"de Placeto." The father of the late Earl had added 150 acres to the park,