Dublin mayoralty. Marleburgh compiled annals of England and Ireland in Latin (in seven books, extending from 1133 to 1421), under the title of ‘Cronica excerpta de medulla diversorum cronicorum, præcipue Ranulphi, monachi Cestrensis, scripta per Henricum de Marleburghe, vicarium de Balischadan, unacum quibusdam capitulis, de cronicis Hiberniæ: Incepta anno Domini 1406, regis Henrici quarti post conquestum septimo.’ The first part is mainly a transcript from previous English writers and Anglo-Irish annalists; the latter and more original portions of the annals, as printed, chiefly deal with affairs of the English settlers in Ireland. Excerpts in Latin from Marleburgh's compilation beginning in 1372 were published by Camden as ‘Descripta e chronicis manuscriptis Henrici de Marleburgh’ (1607). Archbishop Ussher referred to Henry's annals. Sir James Ware, in 1633, published ‘Henry Marleburgh's Chronicle of Ireland,’ fol., and it was reprinted at Dublin in 1809, 8vo. Marleburgh's death is recorded in the old obituary of the congregation of the priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, under date of 12 May, but without mention of the year. Manuscript copies of Marleburgh's annals are extant in the Bodleian (excerpts by Ware in MS. Rawlinson, B. 487), British Museum (MS. Cott. Vitellius, E. v. 197), and in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (No. 424 in Bernard's ‘Catalogus MSS. Angl. et Hib.’).
[Patent Rolls, Chancery, Ireland, Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V; De Scriptoribus Hiberniæ, 1639; Historical Library, by Nicholson, 1724; Writers of Ireland, 1746; Martyrology of Christ Church, Dublin, 1844; Ussher's Works, 1848.]
HENRY the Minstrel, or Blind Harry or Hary (fl. 1470–1492), Scottish poet, was author of a poem on William Wallace [q. v.], fortunately preserved in a complete manuscript (dated 1488) now in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. The copyist was John Ramsay of Lochmalonie, in the parish of Kilmany in Fifeshire. The biographical facts of Henry's life are only known from a brief notice in John Major's history (1521), and a few entries in the ‘Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer’ (1490–2). Major states that ‘Henry, a man blind from his birth, composed the whole book of William Wallace in the time of my infancy, and collected the popular traditions in a poem in the vulgar tongue, in which he was skilled.’ He adds, in the spirit of a critical historian: ‘I credit such writings only in part, but the poet by reciting these histories before the nobles received food and clothing, of which he was worthy.’ As John Major [q. v.] died in old age in 1549–1550, his infancy would fall within the period between 1470 and 1480, or possibly a little earlier. The statement of Buchanan, in the fragment of his own life, that Major was in extreme old age as early as 1524 is not consistent with the known facts of Major's life. The ‘Treasurer's Accounts’ first refer to Blind Harry on 26 April 1490, when he received 18s. by the king's command at Stirling. Similar payments were made on 1 Jan. and 14 Sept. 1491, ending with one on 2 Jan. 1492 at Linlithgow. This is the last mention of his name, and, as James IV usually continued till their deaths the annual payments to the minstrels who attended his court, it is probable the poet died before January 1493. He is mentioned by William Dunbar in the ‘Lament for the Makaris’ along with Sandy Traill, so that he must have been dead when that poem was written in 1507 or 1508. His own poem was probably composed in the reign of James III, as it was transcribed by Ramsay in the year when James was killed at Sauchie (11 July 1488). The poet speaks in his own person at its close, and may have dictated it to the transcriber. His vivid descriptions have been thought by some incompatible with total blindness, but Major's statement, the best evidence on the point, would be confirmed by his using another hand to write his poem. His surname is unknown, having been eclipsed by the familiar Harry, proving him, like Sandy Traill, Davy Lindsay, and other Scottish poets, to have been a popular favourite in his lifetime. He probably belonged to Lothian, for otherwise he would not have been known to Major in his infancy, which was passed in the neighbourhood of North Berwick. The dialect of his verses is that of Lothian, the best Scotch of that period, which had been adopted by the court and cultivated by earlier poets. There is little of personal allusion in the poem, which is entirely devoted to the description of Wallace, but a few inferences seem legitimate.
From the lines
For my laubour ne man hecht me reward,
Ne charge I had of king or other lord
(bk. xi. l. 1434), he appears to have composed the poem before he began to receive gratuities or pensions either from the nobles or the king.
The frequent references to his ‘Autor’ are explained by the lines:
Eftyr the Pruff gevyn fra the latin Buk,
Quhilk Maister Blayr in his tyme undertuk.
John Blair [q. v.] was a chaplain of Wallace; Sir Thomas Gray, parson of Liberton, and called by Harry ‘priest to Wallace,’ was also among his authorities. Both were contem-
