The style and literary ability of John Blacman must be rated very low. In translating him one is forced to neglect his use of particles and tenses in order to produce a tolerable sense. He uses the pluperfect apparently as an equivalent of the preterite, and begins sentences with _unde_ where _unde_ has no meaning at all. There is no shape or proportion in the composition of his tract as it stands. At the end of the section on _Pietas et patientia_ he comes to a dignified close, but immediately continues with a chapter on _Revelationes_ which, one would think, ought not to have been an afterthought. This chapter ends in mid-air; there is no kind of finality about it. It must be either unfinished by the author or mutilated (as Hearne conjectured). If mutilated, political considerations may have been responsible, for the subject of the last paragraph is the question of Henry's right to the crown (and not any revelation vouchsafed to him); and I see signs that the tract was written before the accession of Henry VII, in the vagueness of such allusions to the reigning sovereign as are to be found in it. The clause 'propter regnum, ut tunc sperabatur, ab aliis pacifice possidendum' is the most overt of these, and no one can say that it is too explicit. The next sentence speaks of the long series of miracles done where Henry's body is buried. This may mean that the body is still at Chertsey, though in after years miracles occurred at Windsor. It will be remembered that Richard III transferred it hastily from Chertsey to Windsor because the reports of the miracles were testifying to a growth of interest in the good king which was not healthy for the dynasty of York.
So also in the prologue, Blacman will not dwell upon the descent, the coronation, and so on, of Henry, because these things are known to everyone and because of his subsequent fall. The latter is the more cogent reason.
To what has been said of Hearne's connexion with the book, it may be added that in the new edition of his _Collections_ (Oxf. Hist. Soc. vol. X. p. 442) he tells us under date July 31, 1731, that "Mr West lately met with a small Pamphlet in 4to bound up with the Arminian Nunnery, at Little Gidding, and intituled 'Collectarium mansuetudinum (etc.).' 'Tis printed in the old black Letter by Cowpland, with the figure of a king in his Robes,... I do not remember to have ever seen this Book. Archbishop Usher had seen John Blacman's MSS Collections wch probably contained a great many other things relating to the Carthusians and their Benefactors ... (Henry VI) was a pious, tho' very weak Prince. The Carthusians had most deservedly a great opinion of him,... and did what they could for his honour."