The History of the Worthies of England, Part 2 · County 46 · Section 6
Princes.
HENRY, youngest son to William Duke of Normandy, but eldest to King William the Conquerour, (by whom he was begotten after he was Crowned King,) on which politick …, he claim'd and gain'd the Crown, from Duke Robert his eldest brother, was Anno Dom. 1070. born at Selbey in this County. If any ask, what made his Mother travail so far North from London? know it was to enjoy Her Husbands company; who, to prevent insurrections, and settle peace, resided many months in these parts; besides, his peculiar affection to Selby, where after he founded a MitredAbby.
This Henry was bred (say some) in Paris, say*Tho▪ Rudburn Leland, Fabian, Ba…e, and Pitz. pag. 203. others in Cambridge, and I may safely say in both, wherein he so profited, that he attained the Surname of Beauclerke. His learning may be presumed a great advantage to his long and prosperous raign for thirty five years and upwards, wherein he remitted the Norman rigour, and restored to His subjects a great part of the English Laws and Liberties.
Indeed his princely vertues, being profitable to all, did with their lustre so dazle the eyes of his subjects, that they did not see his personall vices, as chiefly prejudicial to himself. For, he was very wanton, as appeareth by his numerous natural issue, no fewer then*Speeds Chro. pag. 453. fourteen, all by him publickly owned; the males highly advanced, the females richly married, which is justly reported to his praise, it being lust to beget, but love to bestow them. His sobriery otherwise was admirable, whose temperance was of proof against any meat objected to his appetite, Lampreys alone excepted, on a surfeit whereof he died, Anno Domini 1135. He had onelyonly two children, William dying before, and Maud surviving him; both born in Normandy, and therefore omitted in our Catalogue.
THOMAS Fifth son of King Edward the first, and the first that he had by Margaret his second Wife, was born at (and surnamed from) Brotherton, a small Village in this County, June 1. Anno Dom. 1300. He was created Earl of Norfolke, and Earl Marshall of England. He left no male-issue, but from his females, the Mowbrays Dukes of Norfolke, and from them the Earls of Arundel and Lords Berkeley are descended.
RICHARD PLANTAGENET Duke of York, commonly is called Richard of Conisborrow, from the*Near to Rotheram. Castle in this Shire of his nativity. The Reader will not grudge him a place amongst our Princes, if considering him fixed in his Generation betwixt an Antiperistasis of Royal extraction, being,
Son, to a Son of a King.
Father, to the Father of a King.
Edmund of Langley, Duke of York.
Richard Duke of York.
Fifth son to K. Edward 3.
Father to King Edward 4.
Besides he had married Anne, Daughter and sole Heir to Edward Mortimer, the true Inheritrix of the Crown. But tampering too soon and too openly, to derive the Crown in his Wives right to himself, by practising the death of the present King, he was taken and beheaded for treason, in the raign of K. Henry the fifth.
EDWARD sole son to King Richard the third, and Anne his Queen, was*Speeds Cronpag. 738. born in the Castle of Midleham, near Richmond in this County; and was by his father created Prince of Wales. A Prince, who himself was a child of as much hopes, as his Father a man of hatred. But he consumed away of a suddain, dying within a month of his Mother; King Richard little lamenting the loss of either, and presently projecting to repair himself by a new Marriage.
The untimely death of this Prince, (in respect of the terme to which by Naturall possibility he might have attained) in his innocent age, is generally beheld as a punishment on him, for the faults of his Father. The Tongue foreswears, the Ears are cut off; the Hand steals, the Feet are stocked, and that justly, because both consisting of the same body. And because Proles est pars parentis it is agreeable with divine justice to inflict on Children temporal judgements for defaults of their Parents.
Yet this judgment was a mercy to this Prince, that he might not behold the miserable end of his Father. Let me adde, and a mercy also to all England. For had he survived to a mans estate, he might possibly have proved a wall of partition, to hinder the happy union of the two houses of York and Lancaster.