fearful action, the great Earl dwelt with more than a monarch's pomp, having his own officer-at-arms called Warwick herald, with hundreds of friends and dependants bearing about his badge of the ragged staff; for whose boundless hospitality there was daily provision made as for the wants of an army; whose manors and castles and houses were to be numbered in almost every county; and who not only had pre-eminence over every Earl in the land, but, as Great Captain of the Sea, received to his own use the King's tonnage and poundage. When William Shakspere looked upon this castle in his youth, a peaceful Earl dwelt within it, the brother of the proud Leicester-the son of the ambitious Northumberland who had suffered death in the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, but whose heir had been restored in blood by Mary. Warwick Castle, in the reign of Elizabeth, was peaceful as the river which glided by it, the most beautiful of fortress palaces. No prisoners lingered in its donjon keep; the beacon blazed not upon its battlements, the warder looked not anxiously out to see if all was quiet on the road from Kenilworth; the drawbridge was let down for the curious stranger, and he might refresh himself in the buttery without suspicion. Here, then, might the young poet gather from the old servants of the house some of the traditions of a century previous, when the followers of the great Earl were ever in fortress or in camp, and for a while there seemed to be no king in England, but the name of Warwick was greater than that of king. Here, in the quiet woods and launds of this castle, or stretched

on the bank of his own Avon beneath its high walls, might he have imagined, without the authority of any chronicler, that scene in the Temple Gardens which was to connect the story of the wars in France with the coming events in England. In this scene the Earl of Warwick first plucks the "white rose with Plantagenet ;" and it is Warwick who prophesies what is to come :

"This brawl to-day

Grown to this faction, in the Temple garden,

Shall send, between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night."*

In the connected plays which form the Three Parts of Henry VI., the Earl of Warwick, with some violation of chronological accuracy, is constantly brought forward in a prominent situation. When the "brave peers of England" unite in denouncing the marriage of Henry with Margaret of Anjou, the Earl of Salisbury says to his bold heir:

"Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age,

Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,
Hath won the greatest favour of the Commons."+

In a subsequent scene, Beaufort calls him " ambitious Warwick." A scene or two onward, and Warwick, after privately acknowledging the title of Richard Duke of York, exclaims

It is he, the "blunt-witted lord," that defies Suffolk, and sets the men of Bury It is he who stands by the bed of the

upon him to demand his banishment. dying Beaufort, judging that

"So bad a death argues a monstrous life."

All this is skilfully managed by the dramatist, to keep Warwick constantly before the eyes of his audience, before he is embarked in the great contest for the crown. The poet has given Warwick an early importance, which the chroniclers of the age do not assign to him. He is dramatically correct in so doing; but, at the same time, his judgment might in some degree have been governed by the strength of local associations. Once embarked in the great quarrel, Warwick is the presiding genius of the scene :

"Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,

The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,

This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,

As on a mountain-top the cedar shows

That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm."*

After three or

The sword is first unsheathed in that battle-field of St. Albans. four years of forced quiet it is again drawn. The "she-wolf of France" plunges her fangs into the blood of York at Wakefield, after Warwick has won the great battle of Northampton. The crown is achieved by the son of York at the field` of Towton, where

"Warwick rages like a chafed bull."

...

The poet necessarily hurries over events which occupy a large space in the narratives of the historian. The rash marriage of Edward provokes the resentment of Warwick, and his power is now devoted to set up the fallen house of Lancaster. Shakspere is then again in his native localities. After the battle of Banbury, according to the chronicler, "the northern men resorted toward Warwick, where the Earl had gathered a great multitude of people. The King likewise, sore thirsting to recover his loss late sustained, and desirous to be revenged of the death and murders of his lords and friends, marched toward Warwick with a great army. . . . All the King's doings were by espials declared to the Earl of Warwick, which, like a wise and politic captain, intending not to lose so great an advantage to him given, but trusting to bring all his purposes to a final end and determination, by only obtaining this enterprise, in the dead of the night, with an elect company of men of war, as secretly as was possible set on the King's field, killing them that kept the watch, and erc the King was ware (for he thought of nothing less than of that chance that happened), at a place called Wolney (Wolvey), four mile from Warwick, he was taken prisoner, and brought to the Castle of Warwick." The statement that Wolvey is four miles from Warwick is one of many examples of the inaccuracy of the old annalists in matters of distance. It is upon the borders of Leicester

shire, Coventry lying equidistant between Wolvey and Warwick. Shakspere has dramatized the scene of Edward's capture. Edward escapes from Middleham Castle, and, after a short banishment, lands again with a few followers in England, to place himself again upon the throne, by a movement which has only one parallel in history.* Shakspere describes his countrymen, in the speech which the great Earl delivers for the encouragement of Henry :

"In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,
Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;

Those will I muster up."

Henry is again seized by the Yorkists.

Warwick, "the great-grown traitor,"

is at the head of his native forces. The local knowledge of the poet is now rapidly put forth in the scene upon the walls of Coventry :

The chronicler tells the great event of the encounter of the two leaders at Coventry, which the poet has so spiritedly dramatized :-"In the mean season King Edward came to Warwick, where he found all the people departed, and from thence with all diligence advanced his power toward Coventry, and in a plain by the city he pitched his field. And the next day after that he came thither his men were set forward and marshalled in array, and he valiantly bade the Earl battle: which, mistrusting that he should be deceived by the Duke of Clarence, as he was indeed, kept himself close within the walls. And yet he had perfect word that the Duke of Clarence came forward toward him with a great army. King Edward, being also thereof informed, raised his camp, and made toward the Duke. And lest that there might be thought some fraud to be cloaked hetween them, the King set his battles in an order, as though he would fight without any longer delay; the Duke did likewise." ‡ Then "a

• The landing of Bonaparte from Elba, and Edward at Ravenspurg, are remarkably similar in their rapidity and their boldness, though very different in their final consequences.

Henry VI., Part III., Act v., Scene I.

+ Hall.

fraternal amity was concluded and proclaimed," which was the ruin of War wick, and of the House of Lancaster. Ten years before these events, in the Parliament held in this same city of Coventry-a city which had received great benefits from Henry VI.-York, and Salisbury, and Warwick had been attainted. And now Warwick held the city for him who had in that same city denounced him as a traitor. With store of ordnance, and warlike equipments, had the great Captain lain in this city for a few weeks; and he was honoured as one greater than either of the rival Kings-one who could bestow a crown and who could take a crown away; and he sate in state in the old halls of Coventry, and prayers went up for his cause in its many churches, and the proud city's municipal officers were as his servants. He marched out of the city with his forces, after Palm Sunday; and on Easter-day the quarrel between him and the perjured Clarence and the luxurious Edward was settled for ever upon Barnet Field :

"Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle;
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept;