Transcripts of English parliamentary trials

Manuscript volume containing transcripts, [1600], from the Parliament Rolls of the trials of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk in 1450, and of John de Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham, in 1397, the latter translated from the original French.

The English Parliament was the main legislative body of the country. William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, military commander and statesman, dominated the government of Henry VI of England. During the Hundred Years War, he was made commander in chief of the English army in France from 1428 to 1431. He secured a two-year truce in 1444, but after the reopening of hostilities in March 1449 the French recaptured almost all of Normandy. Parliament laid the blame for the disaster on Suffolk, who was banished from the realm for five years. Suffolk left England on May 1, 1450, but was intercepted in the English Channel by some of his enemies and beheaded.
John de Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham, was impeached in 1397 for acting as a commissioner at the trial of King Richard II's favourites in 1388. He was condemned to be hung, drawn and quartered, but this sentence was commuted to perpetual banishment to Jersey. When Richard was deposed in 1399 Cobham was recalled by King Henry IV, and died in 1408.

Single item.

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Part of the Goldsmith's Library of Economic Literature, initially collected by Herbert Somerton Foxwell and presented by the Goldsmith's Company to the University of London in 1903.

Collection level description.

Manuscript folio. Bound in half morocco.

Compiled by Sarah Smith as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

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Printed in Rotuli Parliamentorum , (1783) III, 381-2, and V, 176-83.