Stowe MS 67

"CRONICA. bona et compendiosa de Regibus Anglie . . . . a tempore Noe usque ad tempus Henrici quarti . . . et de sanctis interim in Anglia eorum temporibus existentium." Begins "Noe fuerunt tres filii"; and ends in the 2nd year of Henry IV. [1401] with the expostulatory letter of Philip Repingdon, or Repington, Abbot of Leicester, to the king, on the state of the kingdom, beginning "Illustrissime princeps et serenissime domine dignetur vestra eclsitudo," etc., and ending "vestro si placeat celsitudinis indignus servulus Philippus predicator vester assiduus." Repingdon was formerly a supporter of Wiclif, then Confessor to Henry [before the date of this letter], Chancellor of Oxford University in 1400, Abbot of St. Mary de Pré, Leicester [1393- 1404], Bishop of Lincoln [1405-1414], Cardinal [1408], and died 1434. An anecdote illustrating his relations with Henry IV. is inserted in the Leicester Abbey Register, Cott. MS. Vitell. F. xvii., f. 42b (cf. Tanner, Bibl. Britannico-Hibernica, p. 622). The letter is printed in the Correspondence of Bekyngton, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 151, and is also found, without the writer's name, in the Chronicle of Adam of Usk, ed. E. M. Thompson, p. 63. After the letter is added a table of kings, with the length of their reigns, from William I. down to Henry VI., whose regnal years, "xxxxviii. annis et ultra," are added by a later hand; and the volume concludes with two hexameter verses containing the same names. A shorter form of this chronicle, in which little is given except the bare chronology, exists in Cotton MSS. Nero D. vi. (ff. 7b-15b), Tib. E. viii. (ff. 220-225), and other MSS. in the British Museum. All these end with the accession of Richard II. in 1377 (corresponding with f. 64 of this MS.). Mr. Churchill Babington (Higden's Polychronicon, Rolls Series, vol. i. p. xii. note) mentions a copy at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ending in 1367, and one at Winchester College, ending in 1377. The title to the Cottonian copy Tib. E. viii. states that the chronicle was "conscripta a Ranulpho Higdeno Cestrensi monacho, qui vixit anno gratiae CIO . III . LVIII." If this ascription is correct, the present longer version may be also in part the work of Higden, but more probably it is by a later writer expanding the shorter chronicle with the assistance of the Polychronicon. There are several references to the latter in the course of the work (e.g. f. 15b, "cetera gesta aluredi regis vide in cronica cistrensi, li^o 6^o, 1^o 2^o et iii^o capitulis"), which may suit either hypothesis. In any case the later portion of the work cannot be by Higden, who probably died in 1363, and certainly not later than 1377. Vellum; ff. 71. 25 to 28 lines to the page. xvth cent. Belonged to John Benson (f. 71b) and William Vagger of Sussex (f. 1b), at the end of l5th cent.; "liber Joannis Twyni ex dono Joannis Twyni (Wood, Ath. Oxon., vol. i., col. 463) patris sui, 1578"; bought by J. Lowes in 1771 at an auction of the books of P[hilip] C[arteret] Webb (ob. 1770). Small Quarto.

England General Chronicles and History: Chronica de Regibus Angliæ, from Noah to 1401: 15th cent.