Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/239

 1920 DATE OF EMPEROR HENRY VIVS BIRTH 231 fragments could have been found, acknowledged and unacknow- ledged, in various chronicles, such as Hocsem's, of a slightly later date, but it was not until 1913 that Warnant's Historia Rerum et Episcoporum Leodiensium was edited by M. Sylvestre Balau. It is based principally on a fifteenth-century manuscript belonging to the abbey of Tongerloo, and is still very fragmentary. The conclusion that 1278 or 1279 is the correct date of Henry's birth is of importance since it helps to explain his apparent quixotism in 1308, when he decided to cross the Alps and to rescue Italy from faction. His chivalry and idealism, his intense, unreasoning love for his brother Waleran, his great disillusionment are all explicable and natural in a young man of thirty. It also explains what a blow his death was to Dante, when one realizes that Henry was only thirty-five when he died, that he had barely reached his prime, and that, as far as could be seen, many years still lay before him wherein to re-establish the empire in Italy, and to bring that peace to the earth for which Dante's soul craved. Georgina R. Cole-Baker. I A Preliminary Draft of the Truce of Bishopthorpe 1^2^ The annexed document was assigned to the year 1388 by Mr. Joseph Bain, who gave an abstract of it in his Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iv, no. 387. It then formed part of the bundle known as ' Tower Miscellaneous Rolls, no. 459 ', and has since been transferred, as have the other contents of the bundle, to the Miscellanea of the Chancery. The appearance of the document suggests that it was written in the reign of Edward II, and a comparison of its contents with those of the truce concluded at Bishopthorpe, 30 May 1323, leaves no doubt that it is a preliminary draft of that instrument. It is probable that it contains the terms suggested at Newcastle either by the bishop of St. Andrews and his colleagues or by the envoy of the king of France. The results of the comparison are interesting. 1. The English carried their point of refusing to style Robert Bruce king of Scotland. 2. The uti possidetis clause was replaced by an undertaking to evacuate occupied territory. 3. The proposed reference to the king of France of points in dispute arising out of the truce was dropped. 4. The provision for mercantile intercourse was abandoned. 5. The king of England did not undertake to obtain the suspen- sion of ecclesiastical processes against the Scots, but only not to oppose an application for it to Rome.