English custom at this high festival; it being the office of the primate of England, always to place them on the heads of the king and queen on such occasions, when he was abiding in the vicinity of royalty.

King John, regardless of the tempest that muttered around him, stablished himself at Rouen, and gave way to a career of indolent voluptuousness, little in accordance with the restless activity of his warlike nobility. In that era, when five in the morning was the established breakfast-time, and half-past ten in the forenoon the orthodox dinnerhour, for all ranks and conditions of men, the court were scandalized at finding that king John never left his pillow before mid-day, at which time his barons saw him, with contempt, issuing from the chamber of the fair Isabella. This mode of life made him far more unpopular, in the thirteenth century, than the perpetration of a few more murders and abductions, like those with which his memory stands already charged. His young queen shared some of this blame, as the enchantress who kept him chained in her bowers of luxury. The royal pair paid, however, some attention to the fine arts, for the magnificent mosaic pavement of the palace of Rouen, was laid down while the queen kept her court there.

The passion of John for his queen, though it was sufficiently strong to embroil him in war, was not exclusive enough to secure conjugal fidelity; the king tormented her with jealousy, while on his part he was far from setting her a good example, for he often invaded the honor of the female nobility. The name of the lover of Isabella has never been ascertained, nor is it clear that she was ever guilty of any dereliction from rectitude. But John revenged the wrong that, perhaps, only existed in his malignant imagination, in a manner peculiar to himself. He made his mercenaries assassinate the person whom he suspected of supplanting him in his queen's affections, with two others supposed to be accomplices, and secretly hung the bodies over the bed of Isabella. Her surprise and terror when she discovered them may be imagined, though it is not described by the monastic writers who darkly allude to this dreadful scene.

After this awful tragedy, the queen was consigned to captivity, being conveyed to Gloucester abbey, under the ward of one of her hus band's mercenary leaders.

The queen had brought John a lovely family, but the birth of his children failed to secure her against harsh treatment: she was at this time the mother of two sons and a daughter. Isabella inherited the province of the Angoumois in the year 1213, at which time it is probable that a reconciliation took place between the queen and her husband, since her mother, the countess of Angoulême, came to England, and put herself under the protection of John. Soon after he went to Angoulême, with Isabella.

To facilitate the restoration of the Poictevin provinces, again seized by Philip Augustus, John found it necessary to form an alliance with his former rival, count Hugh de Lusignan. That nobleman perversely chose to remain a bachelor, in order to remind all the world of the perfidy of that faithless beauty who had broken her betrothment for a crown. The only stipulation which could induce him to assist king John was, that he would give him the eldest daughter of Isabella, as a wife, in the place of the mother. In compliance with this singular request, the infant princess Joanna was betrothed to him immediately, and forthwith delivered to him, that she might be educated and brought up in one of his castles, as her mother had been before her. After this alliance, count Hugh effectually cleared the Poictevin borders of the French invaders; and king John, flushed with his temporary success, returned with his queen, to plague England with new acts of tyranny.

John consigned to the care of Isabella, at this time, his heir, prince Henry, with whom she retired to Gloucester, where the rest of the royal children were abiding. The queen had, in the year 1214, become the mother of a second daughter, and in the succeeding year she gave birth to the princess Isabella.

Scarcely had the queen retreated to the strong city of Gloucester, when that invasion by prince Louis of France took place, which is so well known in general history. The barons, driven to desperation by John's late outrages, offered the heir of France the crown, if he would aid them against their tormentor.

Hunted into an obscure corner of his kingdom, in the autumn of 1216, king John confided his person and regalia to the men of Lynn in Norfolk. But as his affairs summoned him northward, he crossed the

Wash to Swinshead Abbey, in Lincolnshire. The tide coming in unex pectedly, swept away part of his army and his baggage. His splendid regalia was swallowed in the devouring waters, and John himself scarcely escaped with life. The king arrived at Swinshead Abbey unwell and dispirited, and, withal, in a malignant ill temper.

In all probability the king was seized with one of those severe typhus fevers, often endemic, in the fenny countries, at the close of the year. The symptoms of alternate cold and heat, detailed by the chroniclers, approximate closely with that disease.

Whether by the visitation of God, or through the agency of man, the fact is evident, that king John was stricken with a fatal illness at Swinshead; but, sick as he was, he ordered himself to be put in a litter, and carried forward on his northern progress. At Newark, he could proceed no further, but gave himself up to the fierce attacks of the malady. He sent for the abbot and monks of Croxton, and made full confession of all his sins; (no slight undertaking;) he then forgave his enemies, and enjoined those about him to charge his son, Henry, to do the same; and, after taking the eucharist, and making all his officers swear fealty to his eldest son, he expired.

The queen and the royal children were at Gloucester, when the news of the king's death arrived. Isabella and the earl of Pembroke immediately caused prince Henry to be proclaimed in the streets of that city.

Only nine days after the death of John, the queen caused her young son to be crowned, in the cathedral of Gloucester. Although so recently a widow, the extreme exigencies of the times forced Isabella to assist at her child's coronation. The regal diadem belonging to his father being lost in Lincoln Washes, and the crown of Edward the Confessor being far distant in London, the little king was crowned with a gold throat collar belonging to his mother. A very small part of England recognized the claims of Isabella's son; even Gloucester was divided, the citi zens who adhered to the young king being known by the cross of Aquitaine, cut in white cloth on their breasts.

Before her year of widowhood had expired, Isabella retired to her native city, Angoulême, July, 1217. The princess Joanna resided in the vicinity of her mother's domains, being at Valence, the capital of the count de la Marche. Nothing could be more singular than the situation

of queen Isabella, as mother to the promised bride of count Hugh, and that bride but seven years old. The valiant Lusignan himself was absent from his territories, venting his superfluous combativeness, and soothing his crosses in love, by a crusade which he undertook in 1216. The demise of his father obliged him to revisit Poitou in 1220, where he was frequently in company with the queen of England, who was at the same time his false love, and the mother of his little wife. Isabella, at the age of thirty-four, still retained that marvellous beauty which had caused her to be considered the Helen of the middle ages. It is therefore no great wonder that she quickly regained her old place in the constant heart of the valiant Marcher. Accordingly, we find this notation in Matthew of Westminster, that in the year 1220, or "about that time, Isabella, queendowager of England, having before crossed the seas, took to her husband her former spouse, the count of Marche, in France, without leave of her son, the king, or his council."

The king of France was liege lord of count de la Marche; but the countess-queen was infuriated whenever she saw her husband arrayed against the territories of her son, and her sole study was, how French Poitou could be rendered independent of the king of France.

Several years of disastrous warfare ensued. The husband of Isabella nearly lost his whole patrimony, while the district of the Angoumois was overrun by the French.

In this dilemma, the countess-queen and her lord determined to send their heir, the young Hugh de Lusignan, to see how king Louis seemed disposed towards them. That amiable monarch received the son of his enemies with such benevolence, that the count de la Marche, taking his wife and the rest of the children with him, to the camp of St. Louis, threw themselves at his feet, and were very kindly received, on no worse conditions, than doing homage to prince Alphonso, for three castles.

It might have been supposed that the restless spirit of Isabella was tamed by these disasters; but soon after, 1244, the life of king Louis was twice attempted: the last time the assassins were convicted, and before their execution confessed that they had been suborned, by queen Isabella, to poison the good king of France. Isabella gave color to the accusation by flying for sanctuary to the abbey of Fontevraud, "where

the was hid in the secret chamber, and lived at her ease," says Matthew Paris; "though the Poictevins and French, considering her as the origin of the disastrous war with France, called her by no other name than Jezebel, instead of her rightful appellation of Isabel." Matthew says, the whole brunt of this disgraceful business fell upon her unfortunate husband and son. They were seized, and about to be tried on this accusation of poisoning, when count de la Marche made appeal to battle, and offered to prove in combat with his accuser Alphonso, brother to St. Louis, that his wife was belied. Alphonso, who appears to have had no great stomach to the fray, declined it, on the plea that count Hugh was so "treason-spotted," it would be pollution to fight with him. Then Isabella's young son Hugh dutifully offered to fight, in the place of his sire, and Alphonso actually appointed the day and place to meet him; nevertheless, he again withdrew, excusing himself on the plea of the infamy of the family. "This sad news," says old Matthew, "for evil tidings hasten fast, soon reached the ears of Isabella, in the secret chamber of Fontevraud."

The affront offered to her brave young son seems to have broken the heart of Isabella. She never came out of the secret chamber again, but, assuming the veil, died of a decay brought on by grief, in the year 1246.

As a penance for her sins, she desired to be buried humbly, in the common cemetery at Fontevraud. Some years afterwards her son, Henry III., visiting the tombs of his ancestors at Fontevraud, was shocked at being shown the lowly grave of his mother: he raised for her a stately tomb, with a fine enamelled statue, in the choir at Fontevraud, near Henry II. and Eleanora of Aquitaine, her mother-in-law.