Welsh Journals

understand 'bastard feudalism' the better. Likewise, a broader perspective-drawing, for example, on the insights of French and German scholarship into the nature of lordship or exploring, if only by way of analogy, some of the suggestive Irish and Scottish evidence-would have helped Professor Bean to pose different and, ultimately, more challenging questions to his evidence. It has also, sadly, to be remarked that some of the technical aspects of the book are less than adequate. The standard of proof-reading is very poor, while the bibliographical references betray a very uneven acquaintance with some crucial recent work on 'feudalism' and 'bastard feudalism' alike. (We are all getting older, but it still comes as a surprise in a book published in 1989 to be told that an article of 1902 has 'now' [sic!] been superseded by a book which appeared in 1925!). Professor Bean's few comments on Wales and the Marches do not always inspire confidence. The Bluet-Martel indenture of 1297 to which he devotes considerable space was published long ago [sic!] by Edward Owen in his Catalogue of Manuscripts relating to Wales in the British Museum, part III (1908), pp. 641-42; it would be wise to check the original carefully against the summary of it given here. These comments are made more in a spirit of disappointment than of criticism. There is much that is invaluable in this book. Our knowledge of the formal aspects of 'bastard feudalism' and its documentation is now much more secure. Nor is it fair to criticize an author for not writing a book he did not set out to write. Yet there are glimpses-especially in ch. V and in the very suggestive 'Conclusions and Perspectives' (which readers should read first)-that he could write a book on the changing character of lordship in late medieval England. Perhaps one day he will. That will certainly be a book to look forward to. R. R. DAVIES Aberystwyth HENRY V AND THE SOUTHAMPTON PLOT OF 1415. By T. B. Pugh. Southampton Records Series XXX, Southampton, 1988. Pp. xiv, 205. £ 14.00. In a fascinating article included in Charles Ross's Festschrift, T. B. Pugh first presented his interpretation of the Southampton plot, consigning it to the 'damp squibs' of history. There he argued that there was no serious attempt to kill the king save that trumped up by the prosecutors to ensure a speedy conviction; indeed, it seems that there was no real plan to do anything much, and that the conspirators. motivated by pique at the king's high-handed and, for them, expensive behaviour, lacked ability, organization and unity of purpose. Not surprisingly, this book follows the same line, sometimes verbatim. The same tone underlies Pugh's expanded analysis of the lives and motives of Grey, Cambridge, Scrope and March. Pugh has scarcely a good word to say about any of them, nor indeed about other figures of the early