Chapter Nine

THE CHRONICLE OF DIEULACRES ABBEY [1]

Probably the most important document known to have come from Dieulacres is a tripartite Chronicle, much of which was compiled from various sources by an anonymous monk at the beginning of the fifteenth century: Grays Inn MS no. 9. How it came to be in a London Law Library is something of a mystery, but it is possible that it was passed on to Gray’s Inn by John Bostock of Tattenhall. Cheshire, who was admitted there in 1632. John’s father, Richard, certainly had it in his possession at an earlier date. and it was seen by the Cheshire antiquary Randle Holme, who copied parts of it. Holme’s manuscript (B. M. Harley 1989) states that his transcript was “gathered out of an Ancient Manuscript sometime in the custody of Mr. Bostock of Tatenell”. Another possibility is that the Chronicle came to Gray’s Inn via the Egerton family. Thomas Egerton was Solicitor General from 1581 to 1594, and Lord Chancellor from 1596 to 1617, so the Inns of Court; were not unknown to him. He owned Dodleston Manor, which had formerly belonged to Dieulaeres, and his half-brother, Ralph, is known to have had at least one other of the Gray’s Inn MSS in his possession around 1600.

The Chronicle is not in its original binding, and the fact that several folios are missing from the beginning and the end suggests a certain amount of rough handling between the Dissolution and the arrival of the manuscript at Gray’s Inn. In its present form, it begins on f.31r with a kind of index.. Folios 32-86 contain a copy of a well-known poem, Speculum Humanae Salvationis, written in an early fifteenth-century hand identical with that of ff. 133-147 of the Chronicle. The poem is written on slightly larger parchment than the rest of the manuscript, and it is clear that it was once a separate volume. When it was bound together with the Chronicle the numeration of the succeeding folios was altered accordingly.

The historical material begins on f. 88 and runs to f. 147r. The remaining four folios carry the original numeration, i.e. 65-68, and they contain a short theological tract, with curious diagrams, describing a "Tower of Wisdom" (Turris Sapientiae). The author refers to himself as "Magister Johannes Metensis”, or John of Metz, a Carthusian monk of Mont Dieu in the Ardennes, who wrote a number of mystical and theological Works in the mid-fourteenth century [2] lt is, of course, only a copy, and unlike the Speculum, it was never a separate volume.

Folio 88 bears the rubricated heading, “Here begins a history of the English people compiled by Henry, archdeacon to Alexander bishop of Lincoln in the year 1155 from the incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. The section which follows is in a fourteenth-century hand, one would expect from the heading, largely of extracts from the Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon. After a general description of the British Isles, there follow notes on the Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar to Theodosius II, and a history of England from the Anglo-Saxon invasions down to 1148.Folios 119 and 120 contain a summary of events from the reign of Alfred to the death of Henry II, ending with a geneaology of the Dukes of Normandy. On ff. 123-128 there is a description of the laws and customs of England under Edward the Confessor and William I. Three-quarters of f. 128r and the whole of 128v have been left blank, presumably for further entries to be made at a later stage.

On f. 129r the band changes to a degenerate book-hand, and on f. 132v it changes to the early fifteenth-century hand in which the Speculum is written. The section from f. 129r to 136r consists of a general description of England, its laws, customs and geography, taken from Bede, Higden and Giraldus Cambrensis. Part of col. 2 on f. 130r and the whole of 130v are blank, and the text continues on f. 131r with an exact repetition of 130r. The scribe realised his mistake and inserted excision marks in the appropriate places. This section ends on f. 136r, explicit pars prima  - “end of part one:“ ! It would seem that parts two and three (ff. 136r-147r) were compiled by the scribe of the Speculum and the last few folios of part one. for the handwriting is consistent throughout. He was not himself the author, but was transcribing the work of others in a not unsuccessful attempt to combine local and national history. For ff. 136r-141r he used an earlier domestic Chronicle of Dieulacres and a continuation of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden. The section begins with a list of the kings of England from Brutus to Henry IV, with the dates of their coronation and a note of their burial-place. The last entry records the accession of Henry IV, and a blank space is left for the date of his death. This suggests that the Chronicle must have been completed before 1413. The list of kings is followed, on ff. 137v-141r, by a history of the Earls of Chester beginning with a list of the “Earls of Chester with the Founder of Dieulacres”, which reveals the original author’s primary interest. In his account of Ranulph II, Ranulph I, and Hugh Keveliok, the Chronicler relies very heavily on Higden, with the exception of one or two insertions from what one assumes was an earlier Dieulacres Chronicle, including an invaluable statement on f. 138v which settles the date of the foundation of Poulton Abbey. [3] From f. 139 to 141 he borrows much less from Higden and uses the earlier monastic chronicle which, is no longer extant in the original. The motives behind the translation of the convent from Poulton to Dieuiacres are uniquely described, and the continuator has preserved legends of Ranuiph de Blundeville, Countess Clemencia, and their connections with Dieulacres, which are not recorded elsewhere.

Useful as part 2 of the Chronicle is for the early history of Dieulacres, the third part is of national interest for the light it sheds on the circumstances of Richard II’s deposition in 1399, and for its reflection at change in the abbey’s politics at that time. This section of the chronicle was copied, in about 1410, from the works of two previous continuators who followed each other very closely in time at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth during the rule of abbot Whitmore. The first (“Continuator A"), was a strong partisan of Richard II., while his successor (“Continuator B”) was an adherent of Henry lV. Continuator A completed his work covering the years up to 1400 some time after July 1403, for he makes a passing reference to the deaths of Henry Percy and Thomas Earl of Worcester. Continuator B’s narrative covers the first four years of Henry IV’s reign, and he implies that he finished his work before the death of Edmund Mortimer, i.e. late 1408 or early 1409. [4] Between them, the two continuators produced a very lively account of the events of 1377-1403, revealing intimate and apparently first-hand knowledge.

For the events of 1337-1377, Continuator "A" used a meagre continuation of the Polychronicon, and this section is of no great interest, but on f. 142v there comes a remarkable change in style as the continuator begins his account of Richard II’s reign. With the exception of one or two quotations from the works of John of Bridlington, he ceases to borrow from other sources, and he himself becomes the author. His partisanship is revealed in the first paragraph, which records the coronation of “the noble and most excellent' of all the world`s kings, Richard II". There then follows a history of Richard’s reign, coloured throughout by the author’s belief in the impeccable character of the king and the wickedness of his opponents, phrases like “the innocent king”, “the just king”, and “noble king Richard" occurring quite frequently. The geographical position of Dieulacres was. of course, ideal for the gathering of information about the struggle between Richard and Henry Bolingbroke. It was only a mile or so from the main Derby-Chester road, and although Staffordshire was mainly pro-Lancastrian, Dieulaeres had large estates very close to Chester, and the county of Chester was intensely loyal to Richard Il. lt should also he remembered that the abbot of Dieulacres owned a house in London, and so the abbey was in a position to receive accurate information of events in the capital. [5]

In his account of the movements and conduct of Richard II during the critical days in Wales and London in August and September 1399, Continuator includes intimate details like the names of the seven commanders of Richard’s “valiant Cheshire men-at-arms" the famous bodyguard who accompanied the king wherever he went, and who wore the White Hart insignia. The Chronicler gives their names as John Leigh of Booth Bank (Rostherne, Cheshire), Ralph Davenport, Thomas Cholmeley, Adam Bostock, John Downe, Thomas Beston and Thomas Holford. How were they known to the monk of Dieulacres. ? Just one of these names may be significant: that of Ralph Davenport. The Davenports came from Astbury, on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border, about ten miles from Dieulacres. By 1538 there were Davenports living on the Dieulacres estates at Tittesworth (near Leek) and William Davenport was Bailiff of all the abbeys Staffordshire lordships and manors with the exception of Leek itself. It may be that the Davenports had a long-standing relationship with Dieulacres, perhaps as far back as c.1400, but one would wish to have documentary proof of this. What we do know for certain is that out of the six surviving “White Hart” commanders, there was only one who did not join the Hotspur rebellion of 1403 and lose his life or estates as a consequence, and that man was Ralph Davenport [6] We know also that between 1380 and 1394 Richard II had three corrodians installed at Dieulacres: Matthew Swettenham, a Yeoman of the King’s Chamber and of Cheshire origin, a royal sergeant named Richard Woodward, :md Eohrr Rose whose rank and occupation are unrecorded Any one oí these have been a primary source of informaîion for the Dieuìaeres although of the three, Matthewßwettenham seems the most ìikely. He wm, one of several yeornen of the Chamber to Whom Richard Il made gifts land and offices out of the Mortimer inheritance, and so was likely to he especially loyal to the king@ There may also be some significance in the fast that he was moved from Dieulacres to Coventry very soon after the revolution cf 1399. [9]

The fact that Continuator “A” was a strong partisan of Richard II does not affect the accuracy of what he wrote, particularly in the of Richard’s imprisonment and abdication The “0ffìcial" version is contained in the Parliament Roll and the Chronicles of Adam of Usk und St. Albans abbey. According to îhese sources, Richard was treated well by Henry Bolingbroke, to whom he resigned his crown willingly and cheerfully. The contemporary French writers, Jean Creton and the anonymous author of the Chronique de la Traison et Mort de Richard Deux, challenge this: far from resigning the throne with good grace, Richard was made a prisoner, ill-treated and forced to abdicate, after Bolingbroke had promised under oath that Richard should keep his throne. [10] Until 1930 the French accounts were generally regarded as untrustworthy, unsupported as they were by evidence from an independent English source. The Dieulacres Chronicle supplies that evidence, thus making it clear that the "official" versions of Richard’s abdication were deliberate falsifications designed by the supporters of Henry IV to gloss over the ugly facts that a reigning king had been ill-treated and, in spite of assurances given by his usurper, made to abdicate. The Dieulacres account corroborates those of the French writers in all essential details: at Conway Richard received Bolingbroke’s envoys who swore on the Consecrated Host that Richard should remain king, yet later, at Flint and in the Tower of London he was treated like a slave, and forcibly deposed. Even at the end there was a gesture of defiance. Denied his request to appear before Parliament, Richard surrendered his royal dignity not to Henry Bolingbroke, but to God, and placed his crown upon the ground. It was left to Bolingbroke to complete his acts of treachery by picking it up. [11]

Continuator "A" completes his narrative with references to the ill­treatment and consequent death of the “noble”, “injured” and “perjured” king Richard in Pontefract castle, and the rewards and punishments handed out by the new king. Partisan to the end, the ehronioier comments on Henry’s restoration of Thomas Arundel as Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘and so Herod and Pilate became friends”. 

Continuator “B” begins his historical narrative with the words, "ln the same year (ie. 1399), Henry, the king’s eldest son, was made Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester”. However, the scribe who combined the works of “A” and “B” into their present form included between the two, a paragraph which must originally have been a footnote or marginal gloss by someone who had read “A”`s partisan remarks and wanted to set the record straight. Some of it is written in the first person, setting it even more out of place than does its position in the text where it interrupts the flow ofthe historical narrative which precedes and follows it:

"In very many places, this commentator condemns praiseworthy things and praises matters deserving of condemnation: this is a great fault in written records, and especially when someone is writing outrageous things about notable people, using hearsay rather than true knowledge, just as they have been written (here) less truthfully and in great abundance; and this I know for certain because I was present in many places; I saw for myself, and therefore I know the truth". [12]

In the same paragraph he points out the moral and spiritual dangers of making false judgments: to negate the truth is to negate God, and whoever dates the works of just and faithful men incurs divine judgment. Originally there was more in similar vein, but the copyist has, as elsewhere in the later folios of the Chronicle, truncated it with the words et cet. Who was the original author of this diatribe ? Professor Galbraith and Clarke assumed that it was the work of the second continuator whose narrative of the events of c.1400-3 begins immediately afterwards. lf this is the case, then one wonders what a Cistereian monk was doing in the service of Henry Bolingbroke, or at any rate as the much-travelled eye-witness he claims to have been. It is, of course, possible that a clerk in Bolingbroke’s entourage entered Dieulacres either as a monk or as a corrodian in the early fifteenth century, saw the pro-Ricardian narrative, and wrote a refutation of it for the benefit of “A”’s successor, if, indeed, he was not himself the author of all that follows. Too late to alter what had already been written, it was nevertheless necessary to make the Dieulacres Chronicle conform to some extent with “official” history, and an attack on the previous chronicler`s partisanship was perhaps the best way to do this. The copyist, who shortly afterwards transcribed the works of both chroniclers, simply included the refutation at the appropriate point in the text. Though not a royal foundation, Dieulacres was sometimes treated by the Crown as if it was, and it may have been thought wise for the abbey to temper its politics with the prevailing wind. !

The work of the second continuator shows that the abbey did, in fact, temper its view of Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke. When Richard is mentioned, it is without the adulatory adjectives which occur so often in the previous author’s work. Though far less obvious than his predecessor’s admiration of Richard II, Continuator “B”’s support for Henry IV shows through his narrative, as for example, when he thanks God for victory at the battle of Shewsbury and compares him with King David: "So Saul killed a thousand., and David ten thousand" a nice, though probably unintentional, scriptural riposte to his predecessors remark on the restoration of Archbishop Arundel. He is concerned principally with the rebellions of Owain Glyndwr and Henry Percy, and, as one might expect, there are details of Cheshire affairs, Percy being at that time Justiciar of Chester. ln the summer of 1403 there were rumours that Richard Il was still alive and that he and Percy were to rendezvous with a great army at Sandiway, about four miles from Vale Royal Abbey. Needless to say, Richard did not appear, but the fact that a large number of people assembled to meet him shows that there was a strong residue of pro-Ricardian and anti­Lancastrian feeling abroad in Cheshire four years after the revolution of 1399. There was still some loyalty to Richard at Dieulacres too, for in the margin of “B"’s original narrative at this point, someone scribbled the words, renovabuntur castra veneris, i.e. "the hunting-camps will be restored”. This quotation from one of the metrical prophecies of Merlin [13] also appears in the upper margin of f. 142v of the Chronicle, and it is obvious that whoever put it there was trying to say, "but he’ll be backì” a piece of wishful thinking on the part of someone at Dieulacres who found the régime of Henry Bolingbroke difficult to live with, and evidence of continuing political controversy at the abbey. The reference to hunting would not have been without significance, calling to mind the loyal "White Hart” archers of the former king who were involved in disturbances in Cheshire in 1400 and in the Hotspur rebellion. As with the earlier refutation of Continuator A’s alleged mendacity, this comment was inserted into the body of the text by the final scribe, and as it now stands its tone is wholly contrary to what precedes and follows it.

The remainder of “B”`s narrative is concerned with the preparations for the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the battle itself. He makes it clear that the initiative for joining battle came from Henry’s side, but not until he had offered every possible concession to the rebels. To avoid wholesale bloodshed Henry was even prepared to meet Percy in single combat. The chronicler’s vivid description of the battle, and his unique record of the king`s furious response to Hotspur’s envoys, lead one to the conclusion that if he did not know Henry personally, he had ready access to someone who did. He also knew the name of the king’s confessor„ Dr. Robert Mascall -- another detail which no other chronicler has recorded. All of this reinforces the notion that Continuator “B” was also responsible for the diatribe against his predecesor, for it contains the statement, “I was present in many places; I saw for myself, and therefore I know the truth.”

After relating the grisly details of the exhumation and dismemberment of Hotspur’s body and the hanging and quartering of other rebels, Continuator “B” concludes his narrative: “And the king showed favour and peace to all, more out of fear than love et cet., as some have said.”

It has already been noted the “B”’s narrative is from time to time truncated with et cet. These abbreviations are, presumably, the Work of the third scribe, “C”, who copied the continuations of and into their present form at some time between 1409 and 1413. As they occur oniy in the last few folios, the abbreviations suggest a certain urgency on the part of the scribe to complete his work, and an assumption that later readers could, if they so wished, have access to the original documents. it would seem that “C” had in front of him ff.88-132 (or 1-45 according to the original foliation) of the present manuscript, with the narrative ending abruptly at the foot of col. 1 on f. 132v with a reference to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s legends of King Arthur. The remainder of the document as it now stands is entirely in “C”’s hand, and it was he who arranged it into three parts, i.e. his predecessorïs historical miscellany which he continued and brought to a close on f. 136r, the history of the Earls of Chester and Dieulacres Abbey which ends on f. 141r, and the history of England from 1337 to 1403 which runs to f. 147r. “C”’s compilation from 132v to the end would, in fact, stand as a three­part chronicle in its own right, although it is evident that he did not think of it as a finshed product. Between the end of the historical narrative and the theological tract Turris Sapientiae there are several blank pages, and this, together with various spaces left in the body of the text, suggests that “C”intended further material to be added and inserted at a later date.

Whether or not any further historical writing was done at Dieulacres after c. 1410 is not known, for the Grays Inn MS is all that has survived. The Dieulacres Chronicle does, however, provide clues as to other items which would have been in the monastic library or at any rate available to the continuators of the Chronicle. Henry of Huntingdon’s Chronicle was the main source for ff. 88-129r:  indeed the Dieulacres Chronicle as it now stands may well have begun life as little more than an adaptation of Huntingdon for the abbey’s own reference until a later scribe, with more original sources at his disposal, decided to turn it into something far more exciting. Bede’s Historia Ecclesìastica, Higden’s Polychronícon, and the Opera of Gerald of Wales were well­ known to the authors of ff. 129r-126v while the later writers’ use of Merlin and Bridlington have already been mentioned. Finally we have the copy of Speculum Humanae Salvationis, bound, as it now is, with the Chronicle itself, and in “C”’s hand; and Turris Sapientiae filling the final folios. From this we may judge that the monks of Dieulacres, like those of most other monasteries, fulfilled that part of their Rule which enjoined reading and study; borrowing and copying theological and historical works, adding material of their own, and sobuilding up their collections of books.[14]

We know that in the seventeenth century at least two antiquaries saw the Dieulacres Chronicle and transcribed parts of it. Randle Holme, who copied out the extracts in BM Harley MS 1989, was interested only in the later sections, i.e. the continuations of “A” and “B”, and he copied none of the preceding folios which might have given later readers of his MS a clue as to the source of the original. In 1638, William Vernon of Shakerley, Cheshire, sent a series of extracts from ff. 138-140 of the Chronicle to Roger Dodsworth (BM Bodley Dodsworth MS 41, ff. 94-96). Dodsworth passed them on to Dugdale who subsequently included them in his notes on Dieulacres in Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. 5, pp. 627-8. There is no doubt that Vernon saw the Dieulacres Chronicle at first hand, for the foliation he quotes at the beginning of each extract is identical with that of the Gray’s Inn MS, and Vernon made some marginal notes on f. 140r of the Chronicle itself. Vernon was obviously interested in the domestic history of Dieulacres, but neither he, nor Dodsworth nor Dugdale realised what the original document was. Theacknowledgement to Henry of Huntingdon on f. 88r of the Chronicle led Vernon to believe that because some of the succeeding folios consisted of extracts from Huntingdon, the whole manuscript could be assigned to him, and he prefaced his extracts from ff. 138-140 with the same acknowledgement. What happened afterwards is quite clear: Dugdale, who never saw the original document, likewise ascribed it to “archdeacon Henry” even though the extracts which followed under Vern0n’s misleading heading are concerned with events which took place long after Huntingdon’s death. [15]

The Dieulacres Chronicle did not come to light again until 1846 when Benjamin Williams used the Randle Holme extract as an appendix to his edition of the Chronique de la Traison et Mort de Ríehard Deux. Here, it seemed, was an independent confirmation of the French accounts of Richard II’s deposition, but where did it come from ? The issue might have been settled in 1869 when A. J. Horwood catalogued the Gray’s Inn MSS. Horwood noticed the clash of opinion on f. 145v of MS no., 9. but was seemingly unaware that here was the original source of the seventeenth-century transcript which had appeared in print some twenty years before. It was not until the late 1920s that ff. 376v-383v of BM Harley MS 1989 were positively identified with ff. 141-147 of the Gray’s Inn MS, thereby providing the vital information that Benjamin Williams had lacked, namely that the original MS was indeed an independent English Chronicle of the early fifteenth century. The evidence for Dieulacres Abbey as the source of the Gray’s Inn MS comes entirely from but it is convincing enough. References to the foundation of Citeaux, the election of St. Bernard as abbot of Clairvaux, and summaries of certain decrees of the General Chapter clearly indicate a Cistercian origin; and although the account of the Norman Earls of Chester is of wider interest, the author is concerned with them principally as founders and benefactors of Poulton and Dieulacres. The details of the foundation and subsequent transference of the convent, the grant of the Lancashire estates, and the various legends connected with the abbey would have been of little interest to anyone outside Dieulacres, and the importance the author attached to them is evident from the marginal notes inserted against each reference to the abbey. Finally, in his account of the foundation of Poulton, the chronicler quotes verbatim from the foundation charter; it is doubtful whether anyone other than a monk of Dieulacres would have been able to do this.



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