of England was married by the archbishop of Canterbury in the church of St. Nicholas, of Calais, to the Lady Isabella of France. Great was the feasting on the occasion, and the heralds and minstrels were so liberally paid that they were satisfied.

On the ensuing Thursday the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon came to Calais to visit the king and queen of England; they tarried that day, and on the following went back to St. Omer, where the king and queen of France waited for them. This same morning King Richard and Queen Isabella, having heard an early mass and drunk some wine, embarked on board the vessels that had been prepared for them, with a favourable wind.

In less than three hours they arrived at Dover. The queen dined at the castle, and lay the next night at Rochester. Passing through Dartfords, she arrived at the palace at Eltham, where the nobles and their ladies took leave of the king and queen, and went to their homes.

"On Nov. 13th, the young Queen Isabella, commonly called the Little, for she was not eight years old, was conveyed from Kennington, near to Lambeth palace, through Southwark, to the Tower of London, when such a multitude of persons went out to see her, that on London Bridge nine persons were crushed to death, of whom the prior of Tiptree was one, and a matron of Cornhill another." 1

The queen slept one night at the Tower, and the next day was conducted in high pomp to Westminster, where King Richard was waiting in his palace to receive her. This day the Londoners made very rich presents

1 Stow.

to the queen, which were most graciously accepted. While the court was at Westminster, a tournament was proclaimed at Smithfield between forty knights and as many squires, and notices were given of it to all heralds, that they might publish it beyond sea, and as far as Scotland.

The portion of Isabella was considerable, consisting of 800,000 francs in gold, to be paid in yearly instalments.

At the solemnisation of the marriage, Richard renounced all claims on the crown of France, to which, in fact, he had not a shadow of right, and a further stipulation was made, that no claim to the succession of France was to originate from this marriage. All these agreements infuriated the duke of Gloucester and his party in England to the last degree of rage.

Several authors declare that young Isabella was crowned at Westminster with great magnificence, and there actually exists in the Foedera a summons for her coronation on Epiphany Sunday, 1397.1

Windsor was the chief residence of the royal child, who was called queen-consort of England. Here her education proceeded under the superintendence of the second daughter of Ingelram de Courcy; and here the king, whose feminine beauty of features and complexion somewhat qualified the disparity of years between a man of thirty and a girl of ten, behaved to his young wife with such winning attention, that she retained a tender remembrance of him long after he was hurried to prison and the grave. His visits occasioned her a cessation from the routine of education, and his gay temper,

The London Chronicle, p. 80, expressly says, the young queen was crowned January 8th. No particulars are cited of this coronation by any author.

his musical accomplishments, his splendour of dress, and softness of manners to females, made her royal husband exceedingly beloved by the young heart of Isabella.

The remainder of the year 1396 was consumed in festivals and rejoicings, which added greatly to the embarrassment of King Richard's finances. Prodigious sums had been expended on the royal progress to France, and on the marriage and pompous entry of the little queen. These debts had now to be liquidated— no easy matter while the finances of the kingdom were governed by a junta of ten nobles and a deputation from the House of Commons, an order of government established since the banishment of the duke of Ireland. The leaders of this oligarchy were the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Arundel.

The struggle now commenced between the king and these juntas, which ended in the destruction of the duke of Gloucester, and his more honest colleague, the earl of Arundel. A short but fierce despotism was established by Richard, which ultimately led to his deposition.

From the earliest period of her sojourn in England, there was more probability that Isabella would share a prison than a throne. Froissart thus details one of the duke of Gloucester's plots, the object of which was the lifelong incarceration of the harmless little queen.

"He invited the earl of March1 to come and visit him at Pleshy; there he unbosomed to him all the secrets of his heart, telling him that certain influential persons had elected him as king of England, resolving that King

It will be remembered this prince was the heir presumptive to the throne, the grandson of Lionel of Clarence. A deep obscurity rests on the characters and conduct of the princes of the blood of the line of Mortimer in general history.

Richard and his queen were to be deposed and forth with confined in prison, where they were to be maintained with ample provision during their lives; and he besought his nephew to give due consideration to this project, which was supported by the earl of Arundel, the earl of Warwick, and many of the prelates and barons of England." The earl of March was thunderstruck at hearing this proposal from his uncle, but, young as he was, he concealed his emotion, and prudently replied, "That he never gave his thoughts to such matters, which were of a magnitude beyond his age and consideration." The duke of Gloucester then observing the manner of his nephew, entreated that he would keep his discourse very secret.

This Mortimer promised to do, and faithfully kept his word; but honourably resolving to flee from such strong temptation to his integrity and loyalty, he craved leave of King Richard to visit his Irish domains.1

Meantime the intention of the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Arundel to seize the king and his little queen, and doom them to a lifelong imprisonment, came to the knowledge of Richard II.

The count de St. Pol had been sent into England by the king of France, in order to see his daughter, and learn how she was going on.

The king consulted his uncles Lancaster and York on this danger." My good uncles," said he, "for the love of God, advise me how to act. I am daily informed that your brother, the duke of Gloucester, is determined to seize and confine me for life in one of my castles, and that the Londoners mean to join him in this iniquity. Their plan is withal to separate my queen from me, who 1 He was made viceroy of Ireland.

is but a child, and shut her up in some other place of confinement. Now, my dear uncles, such cruel acts as these must be prevented."

The dukes of Lancaster and York saw that their nephew was in great anguish of heart, and they knew that what he said was strictly true, but they replied to this effect:

"Have a little patience, my lord king. We know well that our brother Gloucester has the most passionate and wrong-headed temper of any man in England. He talks frequently of things he cannot execute, and neither he nor his abettors can break the peace that has been signed, nor succeed in imprisoning you in any castle; depend on it, we will never suffer it, nor that you should be separated from the queen. We, therefore, humbly beg, that you will please to be appeased, for, God willing, every thing shall end well."

By these words the two dukes calmed King Richard's mind; but to avoid being called on by either party in the troubles they foresaw would ensue, they left the king's household with their families, and retired to their own castles, the duke of Lancaster taking with him his duchess, who had for some time been the companion of the young queen of England.

This desertion was followed by Sir Thomas Percy's retirement from court, and surrender of his office of steward of the king's household, avowedly out of apprehension lest he should incur the fate of Sir Simon Burley.

The king's remaining servants very frequently represented to him the danger of remaining in their offices, in such words as these:

"Be assured, dear sir, that as long as the duke of