through London to Westminster, and on the morrow was so brought into parliament."

Katherine left Westminster with her infant, and retired to Waltham-palace, November 26th, and from thence to Hertford-castle, where she kept her Christmas with her friend James I. of Scotland,' whom she soon after had the pleasure of seeing united, at St. Mary's, Southwark, to the lady he passionately loved, and whose happiness she had kindly promoted. Katherine's dower was not settled by act of parliament until the second year of her infant's reign. She appears to have been put in possession of all the ancient dowerpalaces belonging to the queens of England, with the exception of Havering-Bower and Langley, where resided the queendowager, widow to Henry IV. "In the third year of the reign of Henry VI. was granted to his dearest mother Katherine, all that inn, or hospitium, in the city of London, where his dear cousin the earl of March, lately deceased, used to reside; and that she may have possession of it during the minority of his dear cousin, Richard duke of York, on condition that she keeps in good repair all the buildings and gardens, and is at all charges concerning them." There is reason to suppose that this was Baynard's-Castle. This year, Katherine2 and her mother, Isabeau of Bavaria, were entreated, on the part of England and France, to act as mediators between Humphrey duke of Gloucester and Philip duke of Burgundy, who had challenged each other to mortal combat. Duke Humphrey insisted on retaining, as his wife, Jaqueline the heiress of Holland, who had formerly thrown herself on Katherine's protection. Katherine, being the friend of all the parties, succeeded in preventing the duel.

Two days before the opening of parliament in 1425, Katherine entered the city in a chair of state, with her child sitting on her knee. When they arrived at the west door of St. Paul's cathedral, the duke-protector lifted the infant king from his chair and set him on his feet, and then, with the

Chron. of London, 112 and 165.

2 Monstrelet.

'The king's moder and his aieule are entreated by the English parliament to effect a peace between the dukes of Gloucester and Burgundy.-Parliamentary History, vol. ii. p. 197.

duke of Exeter, led him between them up the stairs going into the choir; from whence the royal infant was carried to the high altar, where he kneeled for a time, a traverse having been prepared for him. It is expressly said, "that he looked sadly [seriously] about him." And then he was borne into the churchyard, and there set upon a fair courser, to the infinite delight of the people, and so conveyed, through Cheapside to St. George's-bar, to his own manor of Kennington. At Kennington-palace Katherine and her royal son reposed till the 30th of April, when they set out on a grand procession through the city to Westminster-palace. The little king was held on a great white horse, and the people flocked in multitudes to see him, declaring he had the features of his father, and loading him with blessings. Being come to the palace, Katherine seated herself on the throne in the whitehall, where the house of lords was held, with the infant sovereign on her lap.'

Our warlike barons were not a little embarrassed by the mutations of this world, which had snatched from them a leader of singular energies, both as monarch and warrior, and placing a little babe at their head, made them directors of a nursery. The chivalric earl of Warwick had the guardianship of the king's person at a very early age,―a fact illustrated by a beautiful contemporary drawing in the pictorial history of the earl. He is represented holding the king, a most lovely infant of fourteen months old, in his arms, while he is showing him to the peers in parliament. One of the lords is presenting the infant monarch with the orb. The royal babe is curiously surveying it, and, with an arch look gently placing one dimpled hand upon the symbol of sovereignty, seems doubtful whether it is to be treated with reverence, or chucked, like a common ball, into the midst of the august assembly. Another representation of the earl of Warwick gives us an idea of the costume of royal infants in the middle ages; for the limners of that age drew what they saw before them, and invented nothing. Warwick is delineated in the Rous roll, 'Parliamentary History, 191. Holinshed.

2 See the preceding biography. Beauchamp Pictorial Chronicle.

3 See the original in the Heralds' College.

holding his royal charge on his arm. The babe is about eighteen months old; he is attired in a little crimson velvet gown, and has on his head a velvet cap, turned up with a miniature crown; moreover, he holds a toy sceptre in his baby hand, which he looks much inclined to whisk about the head of the stout earl who is so amiably performing the office of a nursery-maid. It is to be presumed that the earl carried the little king on all state occasions, while his governess, dame Alice Boteler, and his nurse, Joan Astley, had possession of him in his hours of retirement. In a very naïvely worded document, the privy council, writing as if the king were giving his directions to his governess himself, requests dame Alice "from time to time reasonably to chastise us, as the case may require, without being held accountable or molested for the same at any future time. The well-beloved dame Alice (being a very wise and expert person) is to teach us courtesy and nurture, [good manners,] and many things convenient for our royal person to learn.”1

After these arrangements were effected, Katherine the Fair retires behind a cloud so mysterious, that for thirteen years of her life we have no public document which tells of her actions; and the biographer is forced to wander in search of particulars into the pleasant but uncertain regions of tradition and private anecdote. Deep obscurity hangs over the birth and origin of Katherine's second husband, Owen Tudor. Some historians declare that the father of Owen was a brewer at Beaumaris. Nevertheless, he drew his line from a prince of North Wales, called Theodore; which, pronounced according to the Saxon tongue, was corrupted into Tudor, and even to the meaner sound of Tidder. There is an ancient house in the county of Anglesey, called Glengauny, still pointed out

'Many of the infant nobility were educated at the palace with their little sovereign, for provision is made by the privy council for their reception and the entertainment of their tutors. The king was taken out of feminine domination in his seventh year, and consigned wholly to the management of his governor, the earl of Warwick, who is "to teach us nurture, [good manners,] literature, and languages, and to chastise us from time to time according to his discretion." However, Henry, mild as he was, rebelled against the chastisement, and the privy council were forced to interfere.-Privy Council, vol. iii. 297.

2 Rapin.

as the residence of Owen Tudor,' and the Welsh say that he possessed there property to the amount of three thousand pounds per annum. But this wealthy heritage is by no means consistent with the assertion of his accurate countryman, Pennant, who has proved that Meredith, the father of Owen, was the fourth son of a younger son of the line of Tudor, and that he filled no higher office than that of scutifer, or shield-bearer, to a bishop of Bangor. When in this office, Meredith, either by design or accident, killed a man; and being outlawed, fled with his wife to the fastnesses of Snowdon, where Owen Glendower upheld the banner of defiance against the house of Lancaster. If young Owen were not born in this stronghold of freedom, he was probably baptized there, for a tradition declares that he was godson to the great chief Glendower. He was thus brought up from his cradle as a hardy, predatory soldier. The next fact regarding Owen is, that he certainly belonged to the brave Welsh band with whom Henry V. most prudently entered into amicable terms, on the death of the warlike Glendower. These hardy warriors, it is well known, under the command of Davy, the One-eyed," did good service at Agincourt. Tradition says that young Owen Tudor aided his countrymen in repelling the fiery charge of Alençon, and that Henry V. made him, for his bravery, one of the squires of his body; hence his title of armiger.* There is great reason to suppose that the brave and handsome Owen fought only as a common soldier in the Welsh band; but when once he had received the preferment of squire of the body to Henry V., he certainly continued the same office about the person of the infant king, and hence his acquaintance with the queen-mother; in this station he is next found keeping guard on the royal child and his mother at Windsor-castle.

6

Very soon after the death of Henry V. it appears that the

1 Boswell's Antiquities.

2 Davy Gam, brother-in-law to Glendower.

Several of the

3 Stowe's Annals. These squires of the body guarded the person of the sovereign; they were probably the origin of the gentlemen-at-arms. Welsh band of Gam were thus promoted.

* Owen is entitled armiger, or squire, in the Fœdera, but never knight.

handsome Welsh soldier attracted the attention of the queendowager of England; he did not certainly possess forty pounds per annum at this time; if he had, he must have taken up his knighthood. While Owen was on guard at Windsor on some festival, he was required to dance' before the queen, who sat on a low seat with all her ladies about her, which low seat certainly indicates that her son, the infant sovereign Henry VI., was present at the festival, and was enthroned in state. Owen began to dance, but making too elaborate a pirouette, he was not able to recover his balance, and fell into the queen's lap. Katherine's manner of excusing this awkwardness gave her ladies the first suspicion that she was not entirely insensible to the attractions of the brave Welshman. As her passion increased, and she indulged herself in greater intimacy with the object of it, those of her ladies, who could take the liberty, remonstrated with the queen, and represented "how much she lowered herself by paying any attention to a person who, though possessing some personal accomplishments and advantages, had no princely, nor even gentle alliances, but belonged to a barbarous clan of savages, reckoned inferior to the lowest English yeomen." Upon which the queen declared, "that being a Frenchwoman, she had not been aware that there was any difference of race in the British island." Afterwards, communicating these strictures to her lover, he held forth very eloquently concerning his high-born kin and princely descent, and the queen requested him to introduce some of his princely relatives at her court of Windsor-castle. "Whereupon," says sir John Wynne, "he brought into her presence John ap Meredith and Howel ap Llewyllyn, his near cousins, men of the goodliest stature and personage, but wholly destitute of bringing up and nurture [education]; for when the queen had spoken to them in divers languages, and they were not able to answer her, she said, they were the goodliest dumb creatures she ever saw;' a proof that Katherine knew several languages, but had no skill in Welsh."

The precise time when Katherine's love led her to espouse the Welsh soldier, it is impossible to ascertain; the name of the priest History of the Gwydyr Family.

Stowe's Annals.