truth, he begins by faying, that he had written his hiftory at the felicitations of Robert de Namur, a near relation of queen Philippa, and a vafial of the crown of England, which he fenred as a partifan againft France. In another part he informs us, that he was of the houfehold of Edward III. the moft cruel enemy of the French ; and that his queen, to whom he was fecretary, had not only, by her liberality, enabled him to travel into various -parts, in order to enrich his Mftory, but that (he had generoufly paid him for his labours in it. In (hort, the firft twenty-fix chapters of his chronicle folely concern the hiftory of England, which has been the reafon why it has been called the ,€ Chronicle of England* in feveral manufcripts. Thence it has been concluded, that Froiflart, from his intimate attachment to the court of England, muft be a violent partifan of that nation, and the enemy of its enemies. Nothing more was wanted to make accounts, the moft innocent as given by any other hiftorian, appear poifonous from his pen : but in order to judge if this fufpicion have any foundation, I will run over the period of which he has tranfmitted to us the hiftory, and examine, fucceffively the different fituations he occupied when he wrote the various parts of it. Froiflart cannot be fufpeéted of partiality during the firft yeart of the reign of Edward III. This prince never'forgot that his uncle, king Charles le Bel, had given him an afylura in his kingdom; when, with his mother, Ifabcla of France, he had efcaped from the perfecutions of the Spencers, who governed the mind of his father, Edward II. • The court of France had not any mifunderftanding with that of England during the reign of Charles. I pafs over for a moment the forty years which follow from 1329, when the fucceffion to the crown of France being opened by the death of Charles le Bel, the bonds which had united the kings of France and England became themfelves the fource of divifions, and of the moft murderous wars ; and I come to the times which fucceeded thé death of queen Philippe in 13(59, a period when Froiflart, no longer refiding ia England, had attached himfelf to Winceflaus, duke of Brabant. This prince, brother to the emperor Charles IV. was, in faét, uncle to Anne of Bohemia, who was afterwards queen of England, by her marriage with Richard IL; hut he was alfo in the fame degree of rektionihip to Charles V,