Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/210

 cargo of French wine to be brought to England for him; he made an eloquent speech before the king and council at the palace of Westminster; and received a pension of £1000 a year; the first instalment of which was paid into his own hands in gold nobles. He had a passport again in 1393, a few months before his death. His pension was still paid in 1391, in the fifteenth year of the unlucky king: at that time Leo, it was said, had been driven from his dominions; the pension was to be continued until he regained them. Fortunately for the English exchequer, it was not required, for according to the epitaph of King Leo in the Church of the Celestines at Paris, the very noble and very excellent Prince Lyon of Lusignan, fifth Latin king of Armenia, rendered his soul to God Nov. 29, 1393. He left no legitimate issue, and his claims devolved on his cousin of Cyprus. The name of the kingdom of Armenia was thus familiar in English ears at this time. English sympathy had not flagged during these years. In 1383 another Lord de Roos, Thomas, son of the lord who died in 1352, had set out for the East, but died before he left England; his son John fulfilled the vow, and having reached Cyprus, died at Paphos in 1393. A large party of English visitors had appeared there in that year.

James I, the uncle and successor of Peter II, reigned from 1382 to 1398, and was on excellent terms with England. There is a letter addressed by him to Richard II, in July, 1393, in which he acknowledges the receipt of the epistle of commendation brought by Lord de Roos, and tells him that it was needless, because all the King of England's friends were welcome. He thanks him too for the message which he had received by his most noble cousin, Sir Henry Percy. We learn from this that Hotspur had made Cyprus a part of his great tour; and, as the same year is fixed for the pilgrimage of Henry of Bolingbroke, we may surmise that they came in company. Henry of Bolingbroke, having sailed in July from Lynn, went by way of Prussia, Poland, Hungary, and Venice to Jerusalem; on his return he visited Cyprus,