ANNE OF BOHEMIA,

SURNAMED THE GOOD,

FIRST QUEEN OF RICHARD II.

THE ancestors of the princess Anne of Bohemia originated from the same country as the Flemish Philippa; she was the nearest relative to that beloved queen whose hand was attainable; and by means of her uncle, duke Winceslaus of Brabant, she brought the same popular and profitable commercial alliance to England.

Anne of Bohemia was the eldest daughter of the Emperor Charles IV. by his fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania; she was born about 1367, at Prague, in Bohemia. The regency who governed England during king Richard II.'s minority, demanded her hand for their young king, just before her father died, in the year 1380.

Richard II. was the sole surviving offspring of the gallant Black Prince and Joanna of Kent. Born in the luxurious south, the first accents of Richard of Bordeaux were formed in the poetical language of Provence, and his infant tastes linked to music and song-tastes which assimilated ill with the manners of his own court and people. His mother and half-brothers, after the death of his princely father, had brought up the future king of England with the most ruinous personal indulgence, and unconstitutional ideas of his own infallibility. He had inherited more of his mother's levity, than his father's strength of character; yet the domestic affections of Richard were of the most vivid and