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master, for he was bathed in tears during the time he thus conducted the young widow of Richard to her native shores. "My queen to France, from whence, set forth in pomp,

She came adorned hither like sweet May,

Sent back like Hallowmas, or shortest day."-Shakspeare. Leulinghen, a town between Boulogne and Calais, a sort of frontier ground of the English territory, was the spot appointed for the restoration of Isabella to her uncle of Burgundy. "It was on the 26th of July, 1402, when sir Thomas Percy, with streaming tears, took the young queen by the arm, and delivered her with good grace into the hands of Waleran count St. Pol, surnamed 'the Righteous," and received certain letters of quittance for her from the French. In these the English commissioners declared that the young queen was just as she had been received, and Percy offered to fight, à l'outrance, any one who should assert the contrary." To do the French justice, they could not have welcomed back their young princess-royal with more enthusiasm and loyalty if she had been dowered with all the wealth of England, instead of returning destitute, and plundered of all but her beauty and honour.

The virtues and sweet temper of the youthful queen had won the affections of her English ladies, for our manuscript pursues,—“ Know, before the parties separated, they all wept most piteously, and when they came to quit the chapel of Our Lady at Leulinghen, queen Isabel, whose young heart is full of tenderness and kindliness, brought all her English ladies, who were making sore lamentations, unto the French tents, where she made them dine with her. And after dinner, queen Isabel took all the jewels she had remaining, and divided them among the lords and ladies of England who had accompanied her, who all, nevertheless, wept mightily with sorrow at parting with their young queen. Yet still she sweetly bade them 'be of good cheer,' though weeping herself; nevertheless, at the moment of parting, all renewed their lamentations. The damsel of Montpensier, sister to the count de la Marche, the damsel of Luxembourg, sister to the count de St. Pol, and 1 He was brother-in-law to king Richard.

2 This is from the MS. of the Ambassades. Hall's Chronicle says, Percy took a regular receipt for the queen that she had been safely delivered, worded somewhat like a receipt for a bale of merchandise.

many other noble ladies, were sent by the queen of France to wait upon her daughter. Then the count St. Pol led her to the dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon, who with a large company of armed men were waiting, intending, if any demur had taken place regarding the restoration of their niece, to have charged the English party over hill and over valley, and taken her back by force to her fair sire' the king of France."1

She was received by her countrymen with every honour, and thence escorted to Boulogne and to Abbeville, where the duke of Burgundy, to celebrate her return, made a grand banquet. She then proceeded through France to Paris, "where her coming caused many a tear and many a smile." Most kindly was she received by the king and queen of France; but though it was pretended by king Henry that she was restored with every honour, yet there was not any revenue or dower assigned her from England as queendowager." Her uncle, the duke of Orleans, surpassed all her friends in his attention to her, and the paternal affection he manifested for her. His presents, the year of her return, on New-year's day were very costly; among them was a gold image of St. Katherine, garnished with three sapphires and thirty-seven pearls. The duke likewise, being anxious to obtain the maiden queen as a bride for his promising heir, resolved to championize her wrongs. He sent a challenge, soon after her arrival in France, to Henry IV., defying him as the plunderer of the young queen and the murderer of her husband, and offering to fight him in the lists on this quarrel. Henry coldly replied, "He knew of no precedent which offered the example of a crowned king entering the lists to fight a duel with a subject, however high the rank of that subject might be. And as for the murder of his dear lord and cousin king Richard, (whom God absolve!) God knows how and by whom that death was done; but if you mean to say his death 1 Monstrelet, and MS. of the Ambassades. 2 Monstrelet.

3 MS. at the Bibliothèque Royale, Paris. Here is an evident admission that Richard died by violence,--but Henry asserts without his orders; thus corroborating the account of the murder as connected with sir Piers Exton. Had Richard been starved, Henry would have declared his blood was not shed.

was caused by our order or consent, we answer that you lie, and will lie foully oft as you say so." Monstrelet gives either a continuation of this correspondence, or varied and fuller copies of the letters.

LOUIS, DUKE OF ORLEANS, TO HENRY.1

"How could you suffer my much redoubted lady, the queen of England, to return so desolate to this country, after the death of her lord, despoiled by your rigour and cruelty of her dower, which you detain from her, and likewise of the portion which she carried hence on the day of her marriage? The man who seeks to gain honour, is always the defender of the rights of widows and damsels of virtuous life such as my niece was known to lead; and as I am so nearly related to her, that, acquitting myself toward God and toward her as a relation, I reply that I am ready to meet you in single combat, or with any greater number you may please; and that, through the aid of God, the Blessed Virgin, and my lord St. Michael, you will find me doing my duty in such wise as the case may require...

"I return you thanks, in the name of my party, for the greater care you take of their healths, than you have done of that of your sovereign liege lord, (Richard II.)

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That you may be assured this letter has been written by me, I have put to it the seal of my arms, and signed it with my own hand, on the morrow of the feast of Our Lady, March 26."

This letter stung Henry IV. to the bitterest retorts. His answer is, however, a series of falsehoods, as his own privycouncil journals can prove :—

"In regard to your charge against us for our rigour to your niece, and for having cruelly suffered her to depart from this country in despair for the loss of her lord, (Richard II.) in despair for the loss of her dower, which you say we detain after despoiling her of the money she brought hither, God knows, from whom nothing can be concealed, that so far from acting towards her harshly, we have ever shown her kindness and friendship. We wish to God that you may never have acted with greater rigour, unkindness, or cruelty to any lady or damsel than we have done to her, and we believe it would be well for you.

"As to the despair you say she is in for the loss of our very dear lord and cousin, (Richard II.) we must answer as we have before done. And in regard to her dower, of the seizure of which you complain, we are satisfied that if you had well examined the articles of her marriage, you could not have made this charge against us. In regard to her money, it is notorious that on her leaving this kingdom we had made her such restitution of jewels and money, much more than she brought hither, that we hold ourselves acquitted; and we have, besides, an acquittance under the seal of her father, our lord and brother, drawn up in his council and in your presence, proving we never despoiled her.

"With regard to your companions, we have no fault to find with them, for we are not acquainted with them; but as to yourself, we do not repute very highly of you. But when you return thanks to those of your family for having felt more pity than we have done for our king and sovereign liege lord, (Richard II.) we reply that, by the honour of God, of Our Lady, and of my lord St. George, when you say so you lie, falsely and wickedly, for we hold his blood to be dearer

1 Abstract from the letter.-Monstrelet, illuminated ed. vol. i. p. 20.

to us than the blood of those of your side; and if you say his blood was not dear to us in his lifetime, we tell you that you lie, and do so every time you assert it.

"I wish to God that you had never done, or procured to be done, any thing more against the person of your lord and brother than we have done against our late lord, (Richard II.); and in that case we believe you would find your conscience more clear."1

The pertinacity of Henry IV. to gain the "sweet young queen" as a bride for his gallant son was not overcome even by this furious correspondence with her uncle. In the year 1406, according to Monstrelet, he made a most extraordinary proposal, declaring that if the hand of Isabella (now in her eighteenth year) were bestowed on the prince of Wales, he would abdicate the English crown in favour of the young prince. The royal council of France sat in debate on this offer for a long time; but the king's brother, Louis duke of Orleans, contended that he had the promise of the hand of Isabella for his son Charles of Angoulême. He represented the frauds of the king of England, and called to their memory the "steady aversion" of his niece to ally herself with the assassin of the husband she still loved. An unfavourable answer was therefore given to the English ambassadors, who departed malcontent. The betrothment of Isabella to her youthful cousin took place at Compiegne, where her mother, queen Isabeau, met the duke of Orleans and his son. Mag

nificent fêtes took place at the ceremony, consisting of "banquets, dancings, jousts, and other jollities." But the bride wept bitterly while her hand was pledged to a bridegroom so much younger than herself; the court charitably declared that her tears flowed on account of her losing the title of queen of England, but the heart of the fair young widow had been too severely schooled in adversity to mourn over a mere empty name. Her thoughts were on king Richard.

The husband of Isabella became duke of Orleans in 1407,

1 Monstrelet, vol. i. p. 22.

* No English historian can believe this assertion, yet Giffard, in his History of France, does not dispute it.

Monstrelet, and the Chronicles of St. Denis. Monstrelet declares that Charles duke of Orleans had been the godfather of Isabella, and therefore a dispensation was required on that account, as well as because they were first-cousins; but the dates of the birth of Isabella and Orleans show that this was an impossibility. It is possible that Isabella had been godmother to Orleans. A very slight verbal error of the transcribers of Monstrelet might cause the mistake in French.

when his father was atrociously murdered in the Rue Barbette, by his kinsman the duke of Burgundy. Isabella took a decided part in demanding justice to be executed on the powerful assassin of her uncle and father-in-law. "The young queen-dowager of England came with her mother-inlaw, Violante of Milan, duchess of Orleans, both dressed in the deepest weeds of black. They arrived without the walls of Paris in a charrette or wagon, covered with black cloth, drawn by six snow-white steeds, whose funeral trappings strongly contrasted with their colour. Isabella and her mother-in-law sat weeping in the front of the wagon; a long file of mourning wagons, filled with the domestics of the princesses, followed. They were met at the gates by most of the princes of the blood." This lugubrious train passed, at a foot's pace, through the streets of that capital, stained by the slaughter of Orleans. The gloomy appearance of the procession, the downcast looks of the attendants, the flowing tears of the princesses, for a short time excited the indignation of the Parisians against the popular murderer, John of Burgundy. Isabella alighted at the gates of the hôtel de St. Pol, where, throwing herself at the feet of her half-crazed father, she demanded, in concert with the duchess Violante, justice on the assassin of her uncle. The unfortunate king of France was thrown into fresh agonies of delirium by the violent excitement produced by the sight of his suppliant daughter and sister-in-law.

A year afterwards the same mournful procession traversed Paris again; Isabella again joined Violante in crying for justice, not to the unconscious king who was raving in delirium, but to her brother, the dauphin Louis, whose feeble hands held the reins of empire his father had dropped. Soon after Isabella attended the death-bed of the duchess Violante, who died positively of a broken heart for the loss of Orleans. The following year Isabella was married to her cousin the previous ceremony had been only betrothment. The elegant and precocious mind of this prince soon made the difference of the few years between his age and that of his bride forgotten. 1 Chronicles of St. Denis.

2 Ibid.

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