So Sir William Dugdale, on the authority of one of Rous's rolls. Leland had supposed him to have been "of the house of the Rouses of Ragley by Aulcester." Rous himself makes the following remarks upon the name, when speaking of the death of King William Rufus, his possible descent from whom, in a tone apparently more serious than jocose, he leaves as a matter of doubt: Iste rex obiit sine prole proprii corporis legitimo. De aliis mentionem non facio, quia de facto erat vir valde incontinens, et quamvis ejusdem cognominis fuero, Rous videlicet cognominatus, non tamen ab ipso linealiter descendere nec nego, sed sub dubitatione relinquo. Venerunt generosi illius nominis cum Conquestore in Angliam, et vix est in Anglia unus comitatus vel nullus quid in illo de generosis aut plebeis sunt illius cognominis incolæ et indigenæ, quidam de ipso, quidam de aliis illius nominis linealiter descendentes."

+ Wood assigns him to Balliol College, because he speaks of John Tip:oft, Earl of Worcester, as his fellow scholar; but the words "in universitate Oxoniensi tempore mei conscolarem seem of scarcely sufficient force to identify the college, and, though he notices many other colleges, he never mentions Balliol.

He does not himself say that he at once received such preferment, but merely that he removed thither from the university, and had resided there more than forty-one years when he wrote his book:

"Et ibi

cùm ab universitate recessi mansionem elegi, et continuavi per multos annos; quorum anno xliido. hunc libellum ad laudem Dei, beatæ Mariæ et omnium sanctorum, et complacentiam et proficuum regis regnique compilavi." Bryan Twyne, and after him Anthony à Wood, misread this as implying that the book was written in the 42 year of his age.

Because his Historia Regum was written shortly after the birth of Prince Arthur, in 1486, from which deduct fortyone years for the statement mentioned in

therefore, before the chapel and its appurtenent buildings were rebuilt in the latter part of the reign of Henry VI.

Of all the places which Leland visited in his "laboriose" journeys through England, none delighted him more than Guy's Cliff. "Vidi multa loca in quibus natura variâ lusit amœnitate: nullus tamen in primo conspectu magis unquam meis adblandiebatur oculis." But the occasion is one on which the full account of the place which he gives in his Itinerary may properly be quoted:

"There is a right goodly chappell of saint Mary Magdalene upon Avon river, ripa dextra, scant a mile above Warwick. The place of some is called Gibclife, of. some Guy cliffe; and ould fame remaineth with the people there, that Guido earle of Warwike in king Athelston's dayes had a great devotion to this place, and made an oratory there. Some adde unto it, that, after he had done great victories in outward partes, and had beene so long absent that he was thought to have been dead, he came and livid in this place like an heremite, unknowen to his wife Felice, untill at the article of his death he shewed what he was.

Men shewe a cave there in

a rocke hard on Avon ripe, where they say that he used to sleepe. Men alsoe yet shewe fayre springes in a fayre meadow thereby, where they say earle Guido was wont to drinke. This place had been to the time of Richard earl of Warwike onely a small chappell and a cottage wherein an heremite dwelt.

"Earle Richard, bearing a great devotion to the place, made there a goodly new chappell, dedicate to saint Mary Magdalene, and founded two chauntery priests there to serve God. He sett up there an image of earle Guido gyant-like, and enclosed the silver welles in the meadowe with pure white slicke stones like marble, and there sett up a praty house open like a cage covered, onely to keepe comers thither from the raine. He also made there a praty house of stone for the chauntery priests, by the chappell. The landes that he gave to it lye about the house. It is a house of pleasure, a place meet for the muses. There is sylence, a praty wood, antra in vivo saxo, the river rouling over the stones with a praty

the preceding note. Anthony à Wood says, the History was written in 1483, a date manifestly erroneous, being two years before the accession of Henry VII. to whom it is addressed.

noyse, nemusculum ibidem opacum, fontes liquidi et gemmei, prata florida, antra muscosa, rivi levis et par saxa decursus, necnon solitudo et quies musis amicissima."

Rous, however, was not a recluse confined to this solitary spot like some of the hermits his predecessors. Guy's Cliff was within an easy mile of Warwick, where he could enjoy the society not only of his early friends and relations, but also of the priests and clerks connected with the collegiate church. The neighbouring castles of Warwick and Leamington frequently

attracted the concourse of the court, or the great earls; and so far did Rous take an interest in political matters that he once ventured to draw a pctition on the state of the country, which he presented to the Parliament held at Coventry in the year 1459, though, as he confesses, it failed to attract attention.* From such matters, as may readily be supposed, he did not escape without making some enemies.† He was occasionally a visitor of the metropolis, where he mentions having perused the records at Guildhall, and that he saw the elephant which was brought to London in the reign of Edward the Fourth.§

On one occasion he even travelled so far as North Wales and the Isle of Anglesey, being sent thither for the purpose of consulting the Welsh chronicles.

Rous was honoured by intercourse with John Fox, bishop of Exeter, to whom he lent a book on the subjection of the crown of Scotland to that of England.¶

With regard to the writings of Rous, Leland affirms that he had seen and read the following:

On the antiquity of the town of Warwick.

On the Bishops of Worcester. On the antiquity of Guy's Cliff. On the Earls of Warwick. Against a false history of the antiquity of Cambridge.

An unfinished work on the antiquity of the English universities.*

And also a Chronicle, a complete volume, to which in honour of his town he gave the title "Verovicum."

Besides these, Rous himself tells us that he wrote a tractate on Giants, particularly of those that lived after the Flood.t

Some of these exist in a volume of

Dugdale's MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum (G. 2); but only two of them, and a third work, the Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, have attained the honour of being printed.

His most connected work is his "Historia Regum Angliæ," which was edited by Hearne in 1716, 8vo. and a second edition in 1745. The original manuscript is a small quarto volume of 136 vellum leaves, in the British Museum, MS. Cotton. Vespas. A. xII. Hearne made use of a transcript taken by Ralph Jennings, and now in the Bodleian Library, collating it with another transcript in the library of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, supposed to have been made for Archbishop Parker.

Rous was not without the highest ambition of an historical writer, that of influencing the policy of his own or future times. He gives the following account of the origin of this work :Master John Seymour, the master of the works of the college of Windsor, who had been his fellow-scholar at Oxford, requested him in the latter days of Edward IV. to compile an

"

opusculum" of the kings and princes founders of churches and cities, as a guide for the selection of the statues

*Historia Regum, p. 18.

+ Quoted by Leland in his Collectanea, iv. 110, 212, 224.

This volume is remarkably full of the autograph signatures of eminent men, written on its fly-leaves in front are those of Tho. Allen. THO. Cotton. Again, Thomas Cotton, and at the end, Henricus Ferrarius. Willms. Dugdale, A° 1638. A. Woode, 1667. Antonius Beauforde, and Anthonius Huldratus.

to be placed in the niches of St. George's Chapel. This the troubles of the times rendered useless; and many of his friends who remembered his former political writings, particularly in the bill which he offered to the Parliament at Coventry, urged him to pursue the subject of the grievances of the people, especially in the pillage and destruction of country towns. From these motives he threw his former materials into his new work, in the modest hope that "its frequent perusal by the nobles might incite their hearts to the glory of God and the great profit of the commonwealth."*

The book is addressed to King Henry the Seventh, the birth of whose son Prince Arthur it concludes with noticing.

Leland had a high opinion of the historical labours of John Rous. He admitted that he was not to be compared with Polydore Vergil for eloquence of style, but at the same time thought that he far exceeded him in research. It may be concluded, how ever, that this judgment proceeded as much from dislike of Polydore as from admiration of Rous. Those who wish to know the weaknesses of Rous's history, will find them pointed out in Walpole's Historic Doubts.

His History of the Earls of Warwick, in the form of a pictorial roll, is a work of high curiosity, not so much for its apocryphal and frequently erroneous contents, as for the singular series of drawings with which it is illustrated. One original copy of it is in the College of Arms. Rous appears to have kept it by him, and to have inserted additions from time to time. His own portrait, which is now published, occurs at the back of a representation of Edward the Confessor, with which, it is probable, the roll at one time commenced. A minute and careful description of this roll is desirable. According to present appearances its parts are somewhat disarranged, but that may have arisen from Rous's own contrivances when making insertions, in consequence of the pedigrees, &c. written on the back. Unfortunately it has been considerably injured by the application of galls. The drawing of Richard III. surrounded by his badges, was engraved

* P. 121.

for Dallaway's Heraldic Researches, as are ten other figures in two plates," one of which contains, Henry Duke of Warwick, Anne Countess of Warwick, Richard Earl of Warwick, Isabel Duchess of Clarence, and George Duke of Clarence, and the other, Edward Earl of Warwick, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, Queen Anne, Richard III. and Edward Prince of Wales. More recently, two other figures, namely, Saint Dobricius, and Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, have been engraved for Mr. Spicer's History of Warwick Castle, a portion of that splendid work, the Vitruvius Britannicus.

Another copy of this roll has been discovered among a nobleman's muniments, and Mr. Pickering is now preparing to publish it in fac-simile. We are informed that the drawings are more highly finished, or in better preservation, than those in the Roll at the College at Arms. The inscriptions are in English instead of Latin, and the following remarkable inscription under the figure of Richard III. shows it to have been made during the reign of that monarch.

"The moost myghty prynce, Rycharde, by the grace of God kynge of Ynglond and of Fraunce and lord of Irelond, by verrey matrimony wt owt dyscontynewans or any defylynge yn the lawe by eyre male lineally dyscendyng from kynge Harre the Second. All avarice set a-syde, rewled

hys subjettys in hys realme ful comendahylly, poneschynge offenders of hys lawes, specyally extorcioners and oppressers of hys comyns, and chereshynge them that were wertueus, by the whyche dyscrete guydynge he gat gret thank of God and love of all hys subjettys ryche and pore, and gret laud of the people of all othyr landys abowt hym."

Whereas in the Heralds' College roll King Richard is dismissed much more summarily, and with a very dif ferent epithet.

"Ricardus tercius Rex Anglie, Anne Regine, filie secunde Ricardi Nevil comitis Warwici et Anne comitisse uxoris sue, infelix maritus."

A third copy of this roll, made probably in the reign of Elizabeth, occurs

*We are not aware for what purpose, or when, these two plates were engraved. Though not modern, they are not men tioned in the last edition of Granger's Biographical History,