Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/244

 ©rfginal documents PRESERVED IN THE NATIONAL LIBRARY AT PARIS. COMMUNICATED BY MRS. EVERETT GREEN. The following documents are chiefly extracted from a valuable collection, comprised in a large folio volume, bound in vellum, and bearing the general title, " Docuiuens relatifs a I'Angleterre," by which a large number of volumes in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris are designated. The volume in question does not appear to have been noticed in any historical publication : it contains a numerous collection of original letters, principally addressed to the kings of France, in the times of Henry V., Henry VI., and Edward IV., including many letters from Henry VI., Queen Margaret, Edward IV., Richard, Duke of York, the Duke of Somerset, Richard, Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, and the " rare Jack Falstafl','' of Shakesperian celebrity. It may be observed, that the autograpli of this last-named worthy precisely corresponds with that engraved for the Paston Correspondence. The first letter in the following selection, now laid before the readers of the Journal, is one addressed by Margaret of Anjou to Charles VII., king of France, not many months after her marriage with Henry VI. It was written in acknowledgment of letters by her received from the French sovereign, and is of considerable interest in connexion with the position of affairs between the two kingdoms at that critical period, the commencement of the disappointments and misfortunes of that ill-fated princess, whose alliance, in lieu of the advantages anticipated, was soon attended by dis- asters, loss of territory, and popular discontent. Not only was England deprived of Anjou and Maine, to the cession of Avhich Margaret here alludes, but the immediate result was the entire loss of Normandy, whilst disaffection at home quickly broke out in open insurrection. It is remarkable that not a single autograph of Queen Margaret appears to have been described as existing in any English collection. In France, not less than ten or twelve have come under the notice of Mrs. Green, some of them in the interesting volume before mentioned, and others in the Archives at the Hotel Soubise. The facsimile, which we are enabled by Mrs. Green's kindness to give, will not be unacceptable to our readers. The autograph of Margai-et, engraved for Miss Strickland's Life of that Queen (vol. iii., p. 304), was copied by the late Mr. Beltz, Lancaster herald, from a document in the Heraldic Collection at the Bibliotheque, entitled " Recueil de tiltres scellez," the same volume which contains the Letters of Attorney from the Duke of York here given. Her signature there occurs on a sealed receipt of the pension paid to her by the French king in 1481. The handwriting does not differ from that now produced, more materially than might be expected, considering that the latter is the autograph of a girl of sixteen, whilst that given by Miss Strickland is the writing of a woman of fifty-two, presuming that the date of 1429, stated as that of Margaret's birth, is correct. The next in chronological order is a document by which Richard, Duke of York, who had succeeded the Duke of Bedford in 1435, in the regency of France, jointly with the Duke of Somerset, and four years later (18 Hen. VI.)