that are so free;
BUT NEITHER MARRIED MAN, NOR WIDOW'S SON,
NO WIDOW'S CURSE SHALL GO WITH ME!

They called up Cheshire and Lancashire,
And Derby hills that are so free;
But neither married man nor widow's son,
Yet they had a right good company.

He called unto him his merry men all,
And numbered them by three and three,
Until their number it did amount
To thirty thousand stout men and three.

Away then marched they into French land,
With drums and fifes so merrily;
Then out and spoke the King of France,
Lo! here comes proud King Henrie!

The first that fired, it was the French,
They killed our Englishmen so free;
But we killed ten thousand of the French,
And the rest of them they did run away.

Then marched they on to Paris gates,
With drums and fifes so merrily;
Oh! then bespoke the King of France,
The Lord have mercy on my men and me!

Oh! I will send him his tribute home,
Ten ton of gold that is due from me;
And the very best flower that is in all France
To the rose of England will I give free.

[Footnote 148: The second line of this song is
variously read. Probably the original words are
lost. The reading in the text is conjectural.]

"At the coronation of Henry V," observes Dr. Burney, "in 1413, (p. 200)
we hear of _no other instruments than harps_;[149] but one of that
prince's historians[150] tells us that their number in the hall was
prodigious. Henry, however, though a successful hero and a conqueror,
did not seem to take the advantage of his claim to praise; and either
was so modest or so tasteless as to discourage and even prohibit the
poets and musicians from celebrating his victories and singing his
valiant deeds. When he entered the city of London, after the battle of
Agincourt, the gates and streets were hung with tapestry, representing
the history of ancient heroes; and children were placed in temporary
turrets to sing verses. But Henry, disgusted at these vanities,
commanded, by a formal edict, that for the future no songs should be
recited by harpers, or others, in honour of the recent victory.
'_Cantus de suo triumpho fieri, seu per citharistas, vel alios
quoscunque, cantari, penitus prohibebat._'

[Footnote 149: Dr. Burney has here fallen into a
most extraordinary mistake. In the very page to