supporting the royal diadem on her head. Her hair falls in rich curls on her bosom. In her right hand she holds a sceptre, and in her left an orb surmounted by a cross,-a very unusual attribute for a queen-consort, as it is a symbol of sovereignty, and could only have been allowed to queen Joanna as a very especial mark of her royal bridegroom's favour.

In this picture, a peeress in her coronet and robes of state, probably occupying the office of mistress of the robes, stands next the person of the queen, on her right hand, and just behind her are seen a group of noble maidens wearing wreaths of roses, like the train-bearers of her majesty queen Victoria; affording a curious but probably forgotten historical testimony, that such was the costume prescribed anciently by the sumptuary regulations for the courtly demoiselles who were appointed to the honour of bearing the train of a queen of England at her coronation. John lord de Latimer received forty marks for release of the almoner's dish placed before queen Joanna at her coronation-banquet, he having the hereditary right of almoner on such occasions." Among other courtly pageants after this ceremonial, a tournament was held, in which Beauchamp earl of Warwick, surnamed 'the Courteous,' maintained the lists in honour of the royal bride. "He kept joust on the queen's part against all other comers, and so notably and knightly behaved himself, as redounded to his noble fame and perpetual worship." 972 This quaint sentence is in explanation of another historical drawing, in which " queen Jane," as she is there styled, is represented sitting with the king in state at an open gallery, attended by her ladies, beholding with evident satisfaction the prowess of her champion. Instead of her royal robes, the queen is here represented in a gown fitting close to her shape, and has exchanged her crown for one of the lofty Syrian caps then the prevailing head-dress for ladies of rank in England, with its large, stiff, transparent veil, supported on a framework at least two feet in height. The queen's ladies in

1 Issue Rolls, 297.

2 Cottonian MS. Julius E 4, folio 202. This is usually called the Beauchamp MS.' and is one of the most precious relics in the British Museum.

waiting wear hoods and veils very gracefully draped, and by no means emulating the towering head-gear of their royal mistress. King Henry is by queen Joanna's side, wearing a furred gown and velvet cap of maintenance, looped up with a fleur-de-lis. His appearance is that of a gallant gentleman in middle life. The balcony in which the royal bride and bridegroom are seated is not unlike the royal stand at Ascot, only more exposed to public view; and the king and queen are both accommodated with the luxury of large square cushions for their elbows, with tassels at the corners. King Henry sits quite at ease, resting his arms on his cushion; but the queen leans forward, and extends her hands with a gesture of great animation, as she looks down on the contest. Warwick has just struck his opponent. His family badge, the bear and ragged staff, decorates his helmet. This historical sketch, besides its great beauty, is very valuable for its delineation of

costume.

She Her

Joanna of Navarre was the first widow since the Norman conquest who wore the crown-matrimonial of England. was, as we have seen, the mother of a large family. age, at the period of her second nuptials, must have been about three-and-thirty; and if past the morning freshness of her charms, her personal attractions were still very considerable. Her monumental effigy represents her as an elegantly formed woman. Her exemplary conduct as the wife of the most irascible prince in Christendom, and the excellence of her government as regent for her eldest son, had afforded unquestionable evidence of the prudence and wisdom of this princess, and she was in possession of a very fine dower; yet the marriage was never popular in England. It has been asserted, by many historians, that Henry IV. married the duchess-dowager of Bretagne chiefly with the view of directing the councils of the young duke her son. If such were his motives, they were completely frustrated by the maternal feelings of Joanna, who, consulting the welfare of her son and the wishes of his subjects rather than the interests of her second husband, placed her children, as we have seen, under the protection of the duke of Burgundy previously

to her departure from Bretagne; and even after her coronation as queen of England, we find, by her letters dated Westminster, March 9th, 1403, that she confirms her last act as duchess-regent of Bretagne by solemnly appointing "her wellbeloved uncle, the duke of Burgundy, the guardian of her sons, the duke of Bretagne, Arthur, and Jules; and enjoins the young princes to be obedient to him, and to attend diligently to his advice."

The bridal festivities of Henry IV. and his new queen were soon interrupted by the news of a descent of the French on the Isle of Wight; but the inhabitants compelled the invaders to retire to their ships with dishonour. Next, the Breton fleet, being wholly under the direction of the court of France, put to sea, and committed great depredations on the coast of Cornwall and the merchant shipping, causing much uneasiness to the king, and rendering the new queen distasteful to the nation. The memorable Percy rebellion occurred in the same year it has been said that it was fomented by the earl of Worcester, in consequence of a disagreement between him. and queen Joanna during her voyage from Bretagne. This might possibly have originated in some dispute with Joanna's natural brother, Charles of Navarre, who accompanied her to England in the capacity of chamberlain to herself. Be this as it may, it is almost certain that the battle of Shrewsbury might have been prevented, if Worcester, who was employed by the insurgent lords to negotiate a pacification with Henry, had fairly and honestly stated the concessions the king was willing to make; but he did not, and his own ruin, with that of his whole house, was the result.3 Part of the confiscated property of the Percys, especially the earl of Northumberland's mansion in Aldgate, was granted to queen Joanna by the king.

3 A determined set was made against the life of the newly-wedded king at the battle of Shrewsbury by a certain number of champions among the insurgents, who had vowed to have his blood. This confederacy being suspected by Henry's partisans, thirteen stout gentlemen arrayed themselves in a dress similar to that which he was accustomed to wear, and were slain in different parts of the field. Henry killed no less than sixteen of his assailants with his own hand in selfdefence that day, and, like his son the prince of Wales, performed prodigies of valour.

In the year 1404, Henry IV. granted to queen Joanna the new tower at the entrance of the great portals of his large hall against the palace of Westminster, adjacent to the king's treasury, for her to hold her councils, and for the negotiation of her affairs; also for her to give audiences for charters and writings therein: the queen to enjoy the same for the term of her natural life, having free ingress and egrcss for herself and officers to the said tower.1 In the month of February, 1404, Joanna enjoyed the happiness of welcoming her second son, Arthur of Bretagne, to England, king Henry having been prevailed upon by her solicitations to bestow upon him the earldom of Richmond. This was the appanage

of his elder brother; but as the performance of personal homage to the king of England was an indispensable condition to the investiture of a duke of Bretagne with this earldom, and Joanna's eldest son was entirely under the tutelage of the king of France, Henry's mortal foe, it would have been fruitless to demand liegeman's service of him; therefore the summons was, at Joanna's request, addressed to her second son, count Arthur.'

Joanna's happiness in this reunion was interrupted by the arrival of an envoy from her eldest son, the reigning duke, to demand the princesses Blanche and Marguerite, who resided with her in England. No offspring from her second marriage had been born, to divide with those beloved ones the powerful affection with which the heart of the royal mother clung to the pledges of her former union, and she could not be prevailed upon to resign them, even when reminded that they were the property of the state." Her son, the duke of Bretagne, was so completely under the control of the father of his duchess, Charles VI., that he was compelled to espouse his quarrel against king Henry; and the French party in his dominions would have confiscated Joanna's rich dower, had she not vested the payment of it in the hands of several powerful nobles, her fast friends: she had her own officers, through whom she received her revenues.' That Joanna was

1 Ryiner's Fœdera.

2 Le Moine de St. Denis. Dom Morice.
1 Ibid.

* Dom Morice, Chron. de Bretagne.

satisfied with the conduct of her eldest son may be gathered from the fact that she presented him, on the 18th of November, 1404, with the sum of seventy thousand livres, that were due to her from her brother the king of Navarre, and six thousand livres of her rents in Normandy. Her gifts must have been very acceptable to the young duke; for, though residing in the ducal palace, and nominally exercising the sovereign authority, his finances were so closely controlled by the court of France, that he had not the power of giving away more than one hundred sols without the approbation of his chancellor, and other officers appointed by the duke of Burgundy.'

At the commencement of the year 1405, king Henry, as he expressly states, " at the mediation and earnest solicitation of his beloved consort, queen Joanna, forgave and liberated, without ransom, all the prisoners taken in arms against him at Dartmouth by John Cornwal." This natural exercise of conjugal influence in behalf of her former subjects, the piratical Bretons, increased the unpopularity in which the queen had involved both herself and her royal husband by filling their palaces with a household made up of foreigners: a more fatal error can scarcely be committed by female royalty in a country so constitutionally jealous and full of national pride as England. The parliamentary records of the same year testify, "that great discontents were engendered in the minds of all classes of men on account of the influx of foreigners which the king's late marriage had introduced into the realm, the disorderly state of the royal household, and the evil influence exercised over public affairs by certain individuals supposed to be about the persons of the king and queen."

These grievances attracting the attention of parliament, the commons, with the consent of the lords, proceeded to reform the royal household; and, as a preliminary step to their regulations, they required that four persons should be removed out of the king's house; viz., the king's confessor, the abbot of Dore, with Derham and Crosbie, gentlemen of his chamber.

1 Chron. de Bretagne.

Rymer's Fœdera, vol. viii. These were Breton prisoners.