Rymer's Foedera with Syllabus: Epistle Dedicatory

Epistle Dedicatory

TO THE QUEEN.

Most Gracious Sovereign,

This is the Tenth Volume of Your Royal Bounty, in this kind, to the World.

It contains what passed most memorable within the compass of One and Twenty Years, from 1420 to 1441; a Period of great Variety in the Turn of Affairs, and of great Curiosity.

A Time wherein liv'd no Writer of Note to Describe or Transmit the Transactions to Posterity.

It begins when all the Talk and all the Business in Europe was the Great Peace concluded betwixt England and France.

The Emperor, and Princes of any Figure at that Time in Europe, send their Ambassadors to give their Laud and Approbation of this Peace, and to be comprehended in it.

The French King with his Lords Spiritual and Temporal, Citizens and Burgesses, Representing the Three Estates of France in Parliament, assembled at Paris in the Palace of Saint Paul, make this Peace a Publick Law, and Enact that every Subject Swear to Observe, and Maintain it, and take an Oath of Allegiance to King Henry, Regent and Heir of the Kingdom of France.

Pursuant thereunto we see King Henry, by vertue of his Regency, according to Emergencies, settling both Church and State.

Bishops, Abbots, Deans, and Priors, with the Subaltern Dignitaries, all strive who the foremost to take the Oaths.

And what a Dust make the Parsons, with all the Flock their Parishioners at their Heels, shewing their Zeal and Forwardness in this Point of Swearing?

No Abbey, Convent, or Religious House is Easy till King Henry does Confirm their Charters; Nor is any Corporation pleas'd till they see their Franchises under the Broad Seal of King Henry.

This, the Invincible, Your Most Noble Progenitor, King Henry the Fifth at Bois le Vincenns, on a Day well known in those Parts by the Name of Saint Fiacres, (not of a Disease call'd Saint Fiacres, ad Histories have reported) yielded to Death, leaving his Son King Henry the Sixth, not then Nine Months old, to succeed him.

Which Henry the Sixth, in the Eighth Year of his Reign, was Crown'd at St. Peter's Westminster, and soon after embark'd for France; where he, in Notre-Dame at Paris, with the like Ceremonies and Solempnity, was Crown'd King of France.

But why do I commemorate the Successes of former Ages? Your Reign, Most Redoubted Sovereign, Your Reign is all along a Reign of Wonders: And now the Eyes of Europe are all fix'd upon You, all big with Expectation what shining superlative Blessing Your God, who is the God of Wonders, reserves for You in this critical Juncture, in this the Ninth Year of Your glorious Reign; with Assurance that He will thereby compleat their Deliverance from the impending Yoak, and from the Oppression under which they labour; Which that He do, is the Prayer of

Your Sacred MAJESTY'S

Most Devoted Servant,

T. Rymer.