Calendars. 32. The king (age 30) to his archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, dukes, earls, barons, justices, sheriffs, reeves, ministers, and other his bailiffs and faithful men, greeting. Know that we, considering the strenuous probity and prudent mind, distinguished conduct and nobility of birth of our beloved and faithful kinsman John Beaufort (age 24), knight, son of our beloved uncle John duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster (age 56), and willing therefore deservedly to exalt the same John Beaufort with the prerogative of honour, we do appoint and create John Beaufort earl of Somerset in our present parliament, and invest him with the style and name and honour of the aforesaid earl by girding him with the sword, to have to him and his male heirs issuing from his body in perpetuity. And that the same earl and his aforesaid heirs, given such name and honour, may the better and more honourably support the burdens incumbent upon the same, of our special grace in our present parliament we have given and granted, and by this our charter confirmed, to the same earl and his aforesaid heirs twenty pounds to be received each year from the issues of the aforesaid county by the hand of the sheriff of that county for the time being, at the terms of Easter and Michaelmas [29 September] in equal portions, in perpetuity. Witnessed by these, the venerable father Thomas archbishop of Canterbury (age 44) primate of all England, John of Aquitaine and Lancaster, and Edmund of York (age 55), dukes; Robert of London, William of Winchester (age 77), John of Ely, Edmund of Exeter, our chancellor (age 53), bishops; Henry of Derby (age 29), Edward of Rutland (age 24), Thomas of Nottingham and marshal of England (age 28), earls; Reginald Grey (age 35), Ralph Neville (age 33), John Lovell, knights; Roger Walden dean of York, our treasurer, Thomas Percy (age 54), steward of our household, Guy Mone, keeper of our privy seal, and others. Given by our hand at Westminster on 10 February in the twentieth year of our reign [10 Feb 1397].

Chronicle of Gregory 1403-1419. 21 Jul 1403. And that yere, the yere of our Lorde Mcccc iiij, was the batylle of Shrouysbury, that was uppon Mary Mawdelyn Evyn, in the whyche bataylle Syr Harry Percy (age 39) was sayle¹, and Thomas Percy (age 60) was i-takynne and kept iij dayes aftyr, and thenne he was drawe, hanggyd, quarteryd, and be-heddyd; and the quarters was sende one unto London Brygge. And in the same bataylle was the Prynce (age 16) shotte thorowe the hedde with an arowe, and the Erle of Stafforde (age 25) was i-slayne in the kyngys cote armure undyr his baner, and many mo lordys and knyghtes lost there lyvys, and squyers and many a goode yemon. For hit was one of the wyrste bataylys that evyr came to Inglonde, and unkyndyst, for there was the fadyr a-yenst the sone and the sone ayenste the fadyr, and brother and cosyn a-yenste eche othyr.

Note 1. sayle. So in MS., but the reading ought certainly to have been slain.

Calendars. 23. Be it remembered that on the Wednesday after Candlemas [7 February 1397], immediately after the judgment rendered against Thomas Haxey, clerk, who was adjudged to death in parliament as a traitor, there came before the king in parliament with great humility the archbishop of Canterbury and all the other prelates, and made full protestation that their whole and full intent was, and always would be, that the royal estate and regality of the king should be be forever saved and kept from blemish; and they humbly prayed of the king that it might please him of his grace to have pity and mercy for the said Thomas, and of his high and royal benignity to remit and release the execution of the said Thomas's death and grant and give him his life.

And the king thereupon, at the prayer of the said prelates, of his royal pity and of his special grace, remitted and released the execution of the said Thomas's death and granted him his life. Whereupon the said prelates, thanking the king for his great kindness and mercy he had shown, prayed humbly of the king that it might please him of his most abundant grace, to the reverence of God and for the honour of holy church, to grant them the keeping of the body of the said Thomas, the said prelates protesting thereon that they did not make that request nor prayer, nor demand such great grace of the keeping of his said body, for any right or due which pertained or might pertain to them in the cause, but only of the special grace and will of the king himself. Whereupon the king, only of his special grace and for the honour of holy church, and not as any due or right of the said prelates in this matter, granted and released to them the keeping of the body of the said Thomas: and thereupon he ordered Sir Thomas Percy, steward of the king's household, to deliver the body of the said Thomas Haxey to the said archbishop, to keep safely, of the king's grace, as was said above.