‘I have mentioned Pierre de Monstrelet, his son; and it is probable that he is the person who was made a knight of St John of Jerusalem in the month of July, in 1444, although the acts of the chapter of Cambray do not confirm this opinion, nor specify the Christian name of the new knight by that of Pierre. It is only declared in the register, that the canons, as an especial favour, on the 6th of July, permitted Enguerrand de Monstrelet, esquire, to have his son invested with the order of St John of Jerusalem, on Sunday the 19th of the same month, in the choir of their church.
‘The respect and consideration which he had now acquired, gained him the dignity of governor of Cambray, for which he took the usual oath on the 9th of November; and on the 12th of March, in the following year, he was nominated bailiff of Wallaincourt. He retained both of these places until his death, which happened about the middle of July, in the year 1453. This date cannot be disputed: it was discovered in the 17th century by John le Carpentier, who has inserted it in his history of the Cambresis. But in consequence of little attention being paid to this work, or because the common opinion has been blindly followed, that Monstrelet had continued his history to the death of the duke of Burgundy in 1467, this date was not considered as true until the publication of an extract from the register of the Cordeliers in Cambray, where he was buried.[3] Although this extract fully establishes the year and month when Monstrelet died, I shall insert here what relates to it from the ‘Memoriaux’ of John le Robert, before mentioned, because they contain some circumstances that are not to be found in the register of the Cordeliers. When several years of his history are to be retrenched from an historian of such credit, authorities for so doing cannot be too much multiplied. This is the text of the abbot of St Aubert, and I have put in italics the words that are not in the register:
“The 20th day of July, in the year 1453, that honourable and noble man Enguerrand de Monstrelet, esquire, governor of Cambray, and bailiff of Wallaincourt, departed this life, and was buried at the Cordeliers of Cambray, according to his desire. He was carried thither on a bier covered with a mat, clothed in the frock of a cordelier friar, his face uncovered: six flambeaux and three chirons, each weighing three quarters of a pound, were around the bier, whereon was _a sheet thrown over_ the cordelier frock. _Il fut nez de bas_, and was a very honourable and _peaceable_ man. He chronicled the wars which took place in his time in France, Artois, Picardy, England, Flanders, and those of the Gantois against their lord duke Philip. He died fifteen or sixteen days before peace was concluded, which took place toward the end of July, in the year 1453.”