THE CAGED LION


PREFACE


When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and
characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what
liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on
history. In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than
refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and
his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his
reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely
sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from
the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom.

James's expedition to Scotland is wholly imaginary, though there appears
to have been space for it during Henry's progress to the North to pay his
devotions at Beverley Minster. The hero of the story is likewise
invention, though, as Froissart ascribes to King Robert II. 'eleven sons
who loved arms,' Malcolm may well be supposed to be the son of one of
those unaccounted for in the pedigrees of Stewart. The same may be said
of Esclairmonde. There were plenty of Luxemburgs in the Low Countries,
but the individual is not to be identified. Readers of Tyler's 'Henry
V.,' of Agnes Strickland's 'Queens,' Tytler's 'Scotland,' and Barante's
'Histoire de Bourgogne' will be at no loss for the origin of all I have
ventured to say of the really historical personages. Mr. Fox Bourne's
'English Merchants' furnished the tradition respecting Whittington. I am
afraid the knighthood was really conferred on Henry's first return to
England, after the battle of Agincourt; but human--or at least