Laurence Minot

"In this dale I droupe and dare For dern dedes that done me dere. Of Ingland had my hert grete care When Edward founded first to were. The Franche men war frek to fare Ogaines him with scheld and spere, Thai turned ogayn with sides sare, And al thaire pomp noght worth a pere."

"Ihesu, for thi woundes five, in Ingland help us to have pese."

"Skottes out of Berwik and of Abirdene, At the Bannok burn war ye to kene, Thare slogh ye many sakles, als it was sene And now has king Edward wroken it, I wene, It es wrokin, I wene, wele wurth the while; War yit with the Skottes, for thai er ful of gile."

"Whare er ye, Skottes of Saint Johnes toune? The boste of yowre baner es betin all doune; When ye bosting will bede, sir Edward es boune For to kindel yow care and crak yowre crowne: He has crakked yowre croune, wele worth the while; Schame bityde the Skottes, for thai er full of gile"

"Oure king and his men held the felde Stalwortly, with spere and schelde And thoght to win his right, With lordes and with knightes kene And other doghty men bydene, That war ful frek to fight."

"Men may rede in romance right Of a grete clerk that Merlin hight; Ful many bokes er of him wreten, Als thir clerkes wele may witten; And yit in many prive nokes May men find of Merlin bokes."

"Merlin said thus with his mowth, Out of the north into the sowth Suld cum a bare over the se That suld mak many man to fle; And in the se, he said ful right, Suld he schew ful mekill might; And in France he suld bigin To mak tham wrath that er tharein"

"Fro Philip the Valais was sir David sent All Ingland to win fro Twede unto Trent"

"The Scottes with thaire falshede thus went thai obout For to win Ingland whils Edward was out. For Cuthbert of Dorem haved thai no dout; Tharfore at Nevel cros law gan thai lout, Thare louted thai law and leved allane: Thus was David the Bruse into the toure tane."

"It is rare for poems such as these, however topical in their own time, to live on to engage the interests of later readers."

"His direct historical value is small; though he preserves now and then a curious detail which has escaped the contemporaneous English Chroniclers, he adds little to our store of facts about the wars of the third Edward. But he is the abstract of the spirit of his time, its undoubted bravery, its glitter, its savagery, its complete absence of pity for the conquered. The greatest merit of his poems lies in their warm and spontaneous expression of national feeling. His predecessors in the political poem had attacked abuses, exposed grievances, or written in the service of a faction. He is the first to speak in the name of the English nation just awakened to a consciousness of its unity and strength."

"The creative imagination and poetical fancy which distinguish Chaucer, who, considering the general barbarism of his age and country, may be regarded as a prodigy, admit, it must be acknowledged, of no competition; yet, if the truth may be uttered without offence to the established reputation of that preeminent genius, one may venture to assert that, in point of ease, harmony, and variety of versification, as well as general perspicuity of stile, Laurence Minot is, perhaps, equal, if not superior, to any English poet before the sixteenth, or even, with very few exceptions, before the seventeenth, century"