Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/87

 BEDFORD 71 OF England, which office was afterwards (i i Hen. IV) confirmed to him for life. Joint Ambassador to Scotland, 141 1. In the Pari, held at Leicester, 16 May (1414) - Hen. V, he was cr. Earl of Kendal and DUKE OF BEDFORD /or ///"f, which dignities, on surrender,^ were regranted to him and the heirs male of his body on 8 July 1433. O" 24 Nov. I4i4('') he was cr. Earl of Richmond, "with a reversion of the Castle, Earldom, Honour and Lordship of Richmond after the death of the said Ralph [Nevill], Earl of Westmorland [who d. 1425], to hold to him the said Duke and the heirs male of his body." On 12 Aug. 141 5, when Henry V made his expedition to France, and again on 25 July 1417 and 10 June 142 1, he was appointed Guardian, and on 5 Dec. 1422, Protector of the Kingdom of England. The feudal Viscountcy of Beaumont in Maine, forfeited (141 5) by the Duke of Alenijon, was granted to him by Henry V. On 15 Aug. 1415, he defeated the French fleet off Harfleur. Lord High Admiral 142 1 till his death. In Sep. 1422 (after the death of Henry V), he was made Regent of France, " using in his style these several titles. Regent of the Realm of France, Duke of Bedford, Anjou and Aletifon, Earl of Mayenne, Richmond and Kendal, and Constable of Eng- land. "(°) On 17 Aug. 1424 he commanded the English and Burgundians at the battle of Verneuil,('') gaining a bloody victory, wherein of the enemy (*) For a list of English Peerages surrendered see vol. iii. Appendix A. C") The patent of 1414 was afterwards enrolled in Pari. In the 3rd Gen. Report of the Lords' Committees on the Dignity of a Peer, p. 1 03, it is said that by this patent "the Duke of Bedford was cr. Earl of Richmond immediately, though he had the territorial property only in reversion" on which, it is remarked, in Courthope, p. 397, that "The Patent granted to the Duke of Bedford ordained that he should have the name, honour, and style of Earl of Richmond, with the arms annexed to the said Earldom; and, as the territorial possessions of the said Earldom were then in the hands of the Earl of Westmoreland, this circumstance strongly justifies the conclusion arrived at in the said Report, and which the indefatigable Vincent had formerly adopted, that in the case of the Earl of JVestmoreland, the grant of the Earl- dom did not give to him the title of Earl of Richmond." Sir N. H. Nicolas, however, in his note on this subject, says "It is evident from the same report that the patent to Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, is considered to have cr. him Earl of Richmond, a fact denied by the indefatigable Vincent;" suggesting (erroneously) as an alternative that the dignity, as well as the territory, was meant to be only a reversionary grant to the Duke. — See Nicolas, p. 537. ('^) Sandford's Genealogical History, ^c, 1707, p. 312, i3'c. By some authorities he is also called Earl of Carlisle, but does not appear to have either received or used that title. (d) "But the most vengeaunce fFell upon the Scottes, fFor they went to schippe wessh of hem the same day mo than xvij c of cote darmes by accountyng of heraudis. . . . Wherefore it may be seid of them the worde.of old tyme: That in the croke of the mone came thei thiderwarde. And in the wilde wanyng went thei homewarde." {Chron. of London, edit. Kingsford, p. 129). Bedford, in a letter written two days after the battle, gives the French loss as 7,262 men. (Ramsay, Lancaster and York, vol. i, p. 350). (('.V inform. G. W. Watson). V.G.