¶ Thus farre touching the tragicall state of this land vnder the rent regiment of king Henrie, who (besides the bare title of roialtie and naked name of king) had little appertaining to the port of a prince. For whereas the dignitie of princedome standeth in souereigntie; there were of his nobles that imbecilled his prerogatiue by sundrie practises, speciallie by maine force; as séeking either to suppresse, or to exile, or to obscure, or to make him awaie: otherwise what should be the meaning of all those foughten fields from time to time, most miserablie falling out both to prince, péere, and people? As at saint Albons, at Bloreheath, at Northampton, at Banberie, at Barnet, & at Wakefield; to the effusion of much bloud, and pulling on of manie a plage, which otherwise might haue béene auoided. All which battels, togither with those that were tried betwéene Edward the fourth, after his inthronization; and Henrie the sixt after his extermination (as at Exham, Doncaster, and Teukesburie) are remembred by Anglorum prælia in good order of pithie poetrie, as followeth: Nobilitata inter plures hæc sunt loca cæde, Albani fanum, Blorum, borealis & Ampton, Banbrecum campis, Barnettum collibus hærens, [25]Experrectorum pagus, fanúmq; secundò Albani, propior Scoticis confinibus Exam, Contiguóq; istis habitantes rure coloni, Moerentes hodie, quoties proscindit arator Arua propinqua locis dentale reuellere terra Semisepulta virûm sulcis Cerealibus ossa: Moesta execrantur planctu ciuile duellum, Quo periere hominum plus centum millia cæsa, Nobile Todcastrum clades accepta coegit Millibus enectis ter denis nomen habere. Vltima postremæ locus est Teuxburia pugnæ, Oppidulis his accedens certissima testis, Bello intestino fluuios fluxisse cruoris [25] _Wakefield._ But now before we procéed anie further, sith the reigne of king Henrie maie séeme here to take end, we will specifie some such learned men as liued in his time. Iohn Leland, surnamed the elder (in respect of the other Iohn Leland, that painefull antiquarie of our time) wrote diuerse treatises, for the instruction of grammarians; Iohn Hainton, a Carmelit or white frier (as they called them) of Lincolne; Robert Colman, a Franciscane frier of Norwich, and chancellor of the vniuersitie of Oxenford; William White a priest of Kent, professing the doctrine of Wickliffe, and forsaking the order of the Romane church, married a wife, but continued his office of preaching, till at length, in the yeare 1428, he was apprehended, and by William bishop of Norwich, and the doctors of the friers mendicants, charged with thirtie articles, which he mainteined, contrarie to the doctrine of the Romane church, and in September the same yeare suffered death by fire. [Sidenote: Peter Basset wrote king Henrie the fift his life.]