HAINAU-or, as we usually spell it, Hainault-had the honour of giving birth to one of the best queens consort which England ever possessed. She was the daughter of William the Third, surnamed the Good, Count of Hainau and Holland. Her mother was Jane of Valois, daughter of Charles of France, Count de Valois, and sister of that Philip of Valois to whom Edward subsequently proved so injurious an antagonist. During, therefore, all the long warfare which occurred between France and England, prior to the year 1350, Philippa could never see a husband triumph but at the expense of an uncle. After that period, the monarch who succeeded to the throne was, in one degree, less closely allied to her; yet in the captive, John the Good, she possessed a cousin-german. In those days, however, when the most abominable violations of the claims of the closest consanguinity were wilfully practised with a frequency which rendered mankind habituated to the contemplation of them, Philippa probably did not find her conscience much burdened by her husband's infraction of her own ties of lineage.

Edward's iniquitous mother, Isabella of France, was, for her own selfish and wicked purposes, the origin of his marriage with Philippa. When this vile woman, or she-wolf, as she was called, quitted England in order to organize on the continent a conspiracy for the subversion of her weak and unfortunate husband from his throne, she cared little at what price

or at whose cost and sacrifice, she obtained countenance and coadjutors. For this purpose, one of her first expedients was to affiance her son Edward, then a boy whose age was less than fifteen years, to the daughter of any powerful nobleman who would abet her bad cause. The ally she required she found in William the Good-an epithet seemingly not at all justified by the confederacy in which he so promptly engaged; but he appears to have been really a just prince, and to have been deceived by the misrepresentations of Isabella, who was as specious as she was vicious. Thus inauspiciously originated the nuptials of Edward and Philippa, but eventually they proved to be a prize in the lottery of life; and thus, by a strange dispensation of fortune, the vices of the mother were the instruments for providing the son with a virtuous, rational, active, and affectionate wife.

But though the betrothal took place before Edward was fifteen years old, their marriage did not occur until January 1328. At this period he was still under the domination of his mother and the infamous Mortimer, who appropriated to themselves all the power and the revenues of the state. With little pomp, therefore, his union must have been celebrated, had not his bride, who was the daughter of one of the richest princes of that time, arrived in England with a splendid retinue, and all the other accessories of opulence. Thanks, therefore, to this assistance, and to the attendance of many of the nobility, the ceremony of marriage was performed with a decent parade. Thus, from the very beginning of his life until the end, one of the most prominent features in the career of this redoubted conqueror was his poverty. In vain he appears to have strained acts, and to have violated acts; to have systematized plunder under the title of purveyance; to have infringed all the rights of property, and all the few privileges which the subjects then possessed; to have taxed, traded, begged, borrowed, stolen, and even pawned his own

person to his creditors-still, the mighty Edward and his hungry court seem always to have been half clothed and half fed. Probably this continued indigence was not at all agreeable to the sufferers; but it is impossible to dwell upon it, at this distance of time, without a feeling approaching to the ludicrous.

For nearly two years after his marriage, Edward still remained under the sinister influence of Isabella and Mortimer. But in the autumn of 1330 he undertook one of those enterprises which excite in its favour the interest and sympathy of every reader. Being as he was, not yet eighteen, he resolved to rid himself of the pernicious control of his vicious mother and her usurping and detestable paramour; when he, the sovereign, to obtain this end, was compelled to work as secretly and darkly as if he had been some fell conspirator seeking to destroy the rightful occupant of the throne. With so much prudence did he mature his plans, and with so much spirit execute them, that the blow fell on the base Mortimer like a thunderbolt; and without even the power to attempt resistance, he was made prisoner in Nottingham Castle. But then the lawless disposition of Edward evinced itself; for, prompted equally by impatience and his despotic tendency, he contrived to do that which might have appeared to have been impracticable—that is, he actually succeeded in making Mortimer, the murderer, the traitor, the perpetrator of every crime most meriting capital punishment, be doomed to death informally and unjustly. No witnesses were called for his inculpation or defence; in fact, no trial was allowed him; but his judges receiving, as sufficient evidence against him, the unbounded notoriety of his misdeeds, sentenced him to be hanged. This singular mode of condemnation, so much more likely to be productive of an expeditious than an infallible justice, is most strikingly characteristic of those rude times. But even in them it was considered as somewhat too wanton and arbitrary, and twenty years afterwards a parliament revoked, in favour

of his son, the sentence by which Mortimer, the assassin, was illegally gibbeted.

From this period the career of Edward dates its flight, and a free scope was afforded to him for the exercise of his talents and energies. The first effort of this gallant and gifted youth was to rid his kingdom of the numerous robbers and marauders who had multiplied to an insufferable extent during the political troubles and judicial impotence of the last reign. Those historians whom the public most delight to read, and whose fine talents merit that they should be most read, are usually so prone to dwell only on vast and dignified generalities, that the perusal of their works seldom substantially impresses any but a very attentive mind. The great majority who examine their pages, either for instruction or for amusement, generally arise from their splendid and exalted occupation with conceptions as uncertain and dim as if they had been long gazing on some gorgeous and too dazzling phantasmagoria. This is the reason why the horrible events and circumstances of the middle and chivalrous ages so little affect the modern reader, and so rarely excite in him becoming sentiments of detestation and disgust. All that is reported to him is on too grand a scale for individual sympathy; the most atrocious incidents are beautifully grouped and shadowed for skilful purposes of literary unity and effect; and assassinations, massacres, torture, rapine, license, and depravity, as various as unbounded, all figure in a guise picturesque and dignified, but certainly not substantial and impressive.

To enforce and establish truth, history need not be inelegant; to make the reader reflect and feel, the writer is not compelled to be coarse and tasteless. Large catastrophes may be largely narrated; the events of a battle in which fifty thousand men are slain do not require to be detailed with an emphasis and minuteness which would sicken and appal all but the heart of a headsman or a hangman. The true cha