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 blame for the English defeat at Patay in June 1429. After Patay Talbot was four years a prisoner. On his release he became one of the foremost of the English captains. In 1434 he recovered the county of Clermont, next year took part in the siege of St Denys, and in 1436 by reducing and harrying the revolted Pays de Caux saved Normandy. He was rewarded with the offices of captain of Rouen and marshal of France. During five years as a dashing fighter he was the mainstay of the English cause. His chief exploits were the defeat of the Burgundians before Crotoy in 1437 and the recovery of Harfleur in 1440. In 1442 during a visit to England he was created earl of Shrewsbury. In November he was back in France besieging Dieppe; but “fared so foul with his men that they would no longer abide with him” and was forced to break the siege (Chronicles of London, p. 150). In March 1445 he was once more sent to Ireland, where he used his old methods, so that the Irish said “there came not from the time of Herod any one so wicked in evil deeds.” In 1449 he served for a short time in Normandy. When in 1452 the Gascons appealed for English help, Shrewsbury was the natural leader of the expedition. He landed in Aquitaine on the 17th of October. Bordeaux and the surrounding district returned quickly to their old allegiance, and in the following summer Shrewsbury captured Fronsac. In July the French besieged Castillon. Shrewsbury hurried to its relief, and with foolhardy valour attacked the enemy in their entrenched camp without waiting for his artillery. The English and Gascon footmen charged in vain in face of the French cannon, until Shrewsbury and the flower of his troops had fallen. This happened in July 1453 and was the end of the English rule in Gascony. Shrewsbury’s fighting qualities made him something of a popular hero, and in the doggerel of the day he was “Talbot our good dog,” whose valour was brought to nought by the treason of Suffolk. But in truth though a brave soldier he was no general. He was twice married, his second wife being Margaret, eldest daughter of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. He was alleged to be eighty years old at his death; probably he was about sixty-five.

 SHREWSBURY, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market town and the county town of Shropshire, England. Pop. (1901), 28,395. It is situated on both banks of the river Severn, but mainly on a peninsula formed by the river on the left bank. It is served by the London & North-Western and Great Western railways, being 163 m. N.W. from London. The companies use a joint station, and jointly work the line S. to Hereford. There is water communication eastward by the Shrewsbury canal, and by the Severn below the town. Eastward from the peninsula the English bridge crosses the river, westward the Welsh bridge; southward the Kingsland and Greyfriars bridges. The joint railway station is on the peninsula, and is reached from the south by a massive iron bridge. The streets, many retaining ancient names curiously corrupted, are hilly and irregular, but strikingly picturesque from their number of antique timber houses, among which may be mentioned that in Butcher Row, formerly the town residence of the abbot of Lilleshall; the council-house overlooking the Severn, erected in 1620 for the presidents of the council of the Welsh marches; and the two adjacent mansions of Robert Ireland and Richard Owen, citizens c. 1590. Of the town ramparts built in the reign of Henry III. the principal remains are a portion to the south-west, used as a public walk, on which stands a square embattled tower. The castle built by Roger de Montgomery was dismantled in the reign of James II., and is modernized as a residence, but there remain the archway of the interior gateway, the walls of the inner court and two large round towers of the time of Edward I. The rich abbey of St Peter and St Paul was also founded by Roger, on the site of an earlier church. Of the abbey church (Holy Cross) the nave of massive Norman work remains, especially impressive owing to the warm red stone of which it is built; there are further two Early English arches and the western tower. Of the monastic buildings little is left, save a remarkable roofed pulpit of ornate Decorated work. Among other churches St Mary’s, founded in the 10th century, is a fine cruciform structure with a lofty tower and spire, displaying examples of various styles of architecture from early Norman to Perpendicular, the base of the tower, the nave and the doorways being Norman, the transept Early English and the aisles 15th century, while the interior is specially worthy of notice for its elaborate details, its early stained glass, including a Jesse window, and its ancient monuments. Some 50 ft. of the spire fell in 1894, severely injuring the church and necessitating extensive restoration. St Julian’s was originally built before the Conquest, but rebuilt in 1748, except the tower, the older portion of which is Norman and the upper part of the 15th century. St Alkmond’s also dated from the 10th century, but was rebuilt towards the close of the 18th century, with the exception of the tower and spire. It has a beautiful half-timbered rectory. St Giles’s, originally the church of the leper hospital, dating from the time of Henry I., was altered at various periods. The hollow base of the old churchyard cross bears the name of the Pest Basin, because the citizens cast alms into it in the 16th century during the visitation of the plague, which, according to tradition, first appeared here. The old church of St Chad, supposed to have occupied the site of a palace of the princes of Powis, was destroyed by the fall of the tower in 1788, and of the ancient building the bishop’s chancel alone remains. The new church of St Chad was built on another site in 1792. Shrewsbury is not fortunate in its ecclesiastical architecture of the late 18th century. There are slight remains of a Franciscan house (Grey Friars) founded in 1291, of an Augustinian friary (1255) and of a Dominican house (1222). The old buildings completed in 1630 for the grammar school of Edward VI., founded in 1551, are now occupied by the county museum and free library, the school having been removed in 1882 to new buildings in the suburb of Kingsland S. of the river. It takes rank among the first public schools in England. The ground it occupies in Kingsland was formerly the scene of the Shrewsbury show, a pageant and festival held during the festival of Trinity. Among the principal secular buildings of the town are the fine market house in the Elizabethan style (completed according to an inscription over the northern arch in 1595), the shire hall and guildhall (rebuilt in 1837, and again, after a fire, in 1883), the general market and corn exchange (1869), and the drapers’ hall, a timbered structure dating from the 16th century. The principal benevolent institutions are the county infirmary (1747), Millington’s hospital (1734) and the eye, ear and throat hospital (1881). A monument to Lord Clive, who was member for the borough 1761–1764, was erected in the market-place in 1860, and a Doric memorial pillar to General Lord Hill in 1816 at the top of the Abbey Foregate. The town race-course occupies a portion of the “Soldiers’ Piece,” where Charles I. addressed his army in 1642. To the south-west of the town is a park of 23 acres, known as the Quarry, with beautiful avenues of lime-trees, descending to the river. Glass-staining, the spinning of flax and linen yarn, iron-founding, brewing, malting, the preparation of brawn and the manufacture of the well-known Shrewsbury cakes are now the principal industries. Shrewsbury is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Lichfield, and the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 3525 acres.

Shrewsbury (Pengwerne, Scrobsbyryg, Salopesberie), then known as Pengwerne or Pengwyrn, was the capital of the kings of Powis during the 5th and 6th centuries, but was taken in 779 by Offa king of Mercia, who changed its name to Shrewsbury (Scrobsbyryg). Owing to its position on the Welsh borders it became one of the chief cities of the Saxon kings, and a mint was established here in the reign of King Æthelstan. After the Conquest the town was included in the earldom of Shrewsbury, and the Domesday Survey shows that the Saxon burgesses