Bruges and afterwards at St. Mighel in Barrois. The ‘De Laudibus,’ written towards the end of her exile, suggests that he devoted himself to the education of the prince; while he seems to have spared no effort to procure assistance from Louis XI and others in order to bring about a restoration. After the Earl of Warwick's defection from Edward IV, Fortescue was particularly active. He took great pains in forwarding the marriage between Prince Edward and Warwick's daughter, and would seem to have been in frequent communication with the French king (his papers to Louis XI are not preserved: Lord Clermont prints a memorandum of them, dated 1470, which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale: p. 34 of Life). By Warwick's aid the Lancastrian restoration was accomplished in the autumn of 1470; but it was not until April 1471 that the queen, Prince Edward, and Fortescue landed in England, and then only to find that on the day of their landing King Henry had been defeated at Barnet. Fortescue joined the Lancastrian army, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkesbury, at which Prince Edward was killed. Frankly acknowledging that nothing remained for which to struggle, he recognised King Edward, received his pardon (1471), and was admitted to the council (Works, p. 533). It was evidently made a condition of his restoration to his estates that he should formally retract and refute his own arguments in favour of the Lancastrian, which he did in his ‘Declaracion upon certayn wrytinges sent oute of Scotteland.’ Thereupon he petitioned for a reversal of his attainder, alleging among other things that he had so clearly disproved all the arguments that had been made against King Edward's right and title ‘that nowe there remayneth no colour or matere of argument to the hurt or infamye of the same right or title, by reason of any such writyng;’ and his prayer was granted by parliament (1473: Clermont, Life, pp. 41–3). He himself feared that his change of front would lay him open to the charge of doubleness. But whether it was a purely conscientious change of opinion or not (see Coke's vindication, pref. to 10th Rep.), it must be remembered that Fortescue had given the best proof of his honesty by the extraordinary sacrifices which he had made for the lost cause. On the reversal of his attainder, he went to live at Ebrington, where he died, and in the parish church of which he was buried. The date of his death is unknown, the last mention of him being in 1476 (Kal. Exch. iii. 8). ‘According to local tradition,’ says Lord Clermont, ‘which the present occupant of the manorhouse repeated to me, he lived to be ninety years old’ (Life, p. 44). He left one son, Martin, who died in 1471, and two daughters. The present Earl Fortescue is descended from Martin's elder son, Lord Clermont from the younger.
Fortescue's fame has rested almost entirely on the dialogue ‘De Laudibus.’ Coke, speaking with the exaggeration which he used in referring to Fortescue's contemporary, Littleton, described it as worthy, ‘si vel gravitatem vel excellentiam spectemus,’ of being written in letters of gold (Pref. to 8th Rep.), and Sir W. Jones, following him, called it ‘aureolum hunc dialogum’ (Amos, p. x). In the history of law it is still a work of importance. The editor of his less known treatise, ‘On the Governance of England,’ however, has good reason for his opinion that the historical interest of the latter is far higher. It is less loaded with barren speculations, and it shows a real insight into the failure of the Lancastrian experiment of government; while it is invaluable as the earliest of English constitutional treatises (on Fortescue's constitutional theories, see Stubbs, iii. 240). Except for the minute student his other writings have no interest.
The following are Fortescue's works: 1. Tracts on the title to the crown. For Henry VI, (1) ‘De Titulo Edwardi Comitis Marchiæ’ (in Clermont, with translation by Stubbs, pp. 63*–90*); (2) ‘Of the Title of the House of York’ (a fragment, Clermont, pp. 499–502; Plummer prints what was probably the beginning of the tract ‘Governance,’ p. 355); (3) ‘Defensio juris Domus Lancastriæ’ (Clermont, with translation, pp. 505–16); (4) a short argument on the illegitimacy of Philippa, daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence (Clermont, pp. 517–18; more fully in Plummer, p. 353). For Edward IV, ‘The Declaracion made by John Fortescu, knyght, upon certayn wrytinges sent oute of Scotteland agenst the Kinges Title to the Roialme of England’ (Clermont, pp. 523–41; in the form of a dialogue between Fortescue and ‘a lernid man in the lawe of this lande,’ written 1471–1473). 2. ‘De Natura Legis Naturæ, et de ejus censura in successione regnorum suprema.’ The treatise written in support of the claim of the house of Lancaster consists of an argument on this abstract case: ‘A king, acknowledging no superior in things temporal, has a daughter and a brother. The daughter bears a son; the king dies without sons. The question is, whether the kingdom of the king so deceased descends to the daughter, the daughter's son, or the brother of the king.’ The first part is devoted to a
