while he remained unburied, 1007. was paid by his treasurer, John de Tunford, for the expenses of the royal widow.1

The chroniclers of England record no fault or folly of queen Marguerite: nothing exists to contradict the assertion of Piers, that she was "good withouten lack," and a worthy successor to Eleanora of Castile. Like Adelicia of Louvaine, the queen of Henry I., Marguerite kept a chronicler to record the actions of her great lord. He was named "John o'London, (not a very distinctive appellation); but as we have given a personal sketch of Edward in his youth, we add a portrait of him in advanced life, drawn under the superintendence of his royal widow :—' "His head spherical (this is the second instance in which we quote from the chroniclers of the middle ages the form of the head); his eyes round, gentle and dove-like when pleased, but fierce as a lion's and sparkling with fire when he was disturbed; his hair crisp or curling, his nose promi nent and raised in the middle; his chest broad, his arms agile, his limbs long, his feet arched, his body firm and fleshy, but not fat. He was so strong and active, that he could leap into his saddle by merely putting his hand on it. Passionately fond of hunting, he was engaged with his dogs and falcons when not in war. He was seldom ill, and neither lost his teeth, nor was his sight dimmed with age. He was temperate; never wore his crown after the coronation, thinking it a burden; he went about in the plain garments of a citizen, excepting on days of festival." "What could I do more in royal robes, father, than in this plain gabardine?" said Edward once to a bishop, who remonstrated with him on his attire as unkingly.3

was

How so elegantly proportioned a man as Edward I. came to be sur named Longshanks, has been a question to all writers since the opening of the stone sarcophagus in Westminster-abbey, when the body of this great warrior and legislator was found of just and fine proportions, with out any undue length of legs: his stature was six feet two inches, from skull to heel. It appears that the insulting epithet, "Longshanks," a sobriquet given by an incensed enemy, and was derived from a sati rical song sung by the Scots when Edward laid siege to Berwick, being his first step in his ambitious invasion of Scotland. Edward is said to have been so incensed at this song, that when he had stormed Berwick he put every living soul to the sword, to the number of four thousand per Before Berwick he displayed the fine horsemanship for which be was noted, as Piers sings,

sons.

"What did king Edward? Peer he had none like;

Upon his steed Bayard, first he won the dyke."

Besides this steed "Bayard," another, called " Grey Lyard," is celebrated in the barons' wars as one on which he ever "charged forward;" likewise

1 Issue Rolls.

2 Camden's Remains.

fended it orpedly [manfully], and they set on fire king Edward's ships, and sang a scorn,"What meaneth king Edward, with his long-shanks, To win Berwick and all our unthanks."

3 ❝ They that were within the toune, de

1309.]

Lamentation for Edward I.

323

his horse "Ferraunt," "black as a raven, on whose back, though armed in proof, sire Edward could leap over any chain, however high."1 No chevalier of his day was so renowned for noble horsemanship as this most accomplished monarch. Yet it is certain that all which finally remained to him from his ambitious wars in Scotland, was the insulting sobriquet of Longshanks.

The original MS. of the queen's chronicler, John o'London, is a great curiosity. It is written in Latin on vellum, very finely and legibly penned, and ornamented with initial letters, illuminated with gold and colours: the centres of the most of these are unfinished, but the manuscript itself is a fragment. The description of Edward's person is accompanied by an odd representation of his face, in the midst of an initial letter. The features bear the same cast as the portraits of the king: there is the small haughty mouth, the severe penetrating eyes, and the long straight nose. The king is meant to be shown in glory, but the head is surrounded with three tiers of most suspicious-looking flames: however, such as it is, it doubtless satisfied the royal widow, to whom the work was dedicated. "The noble and generous matron, Margareta, by the grace of God queen of England, invites all men to hear these pages.' The plan of the oration is to describe the doleful bewailings of all sorts and conditions of persons for the loss of the great Edward. Of course the lamentation of the royal widow holds a distinguished place in the commemoratio. It commences thus: "The lamentable commemoration of Margareta, the queen. Hear, ye isles, and attend my people, for is any sorrow like unto my sorrow? Though my head wears a crown, joy is distant from me, and I listen no more to the sound of my cithera2 and organs. I mourn incessantly, and am weary of my existence. Let all mankind hear the voice of my tribulation, for my desolation on our earth is complete." The queen's chronicler proceeds to paraphrase the lament for Saul and Jonathan; at length he remembers the royal Marguerite by adding, "At the foot of Edward's monument, with my little sons, I weep and call upon him. When Edward died all men died to me." These lamentations for a husband more than seventy, from a widow twenty-six, seem a little exaggerated; yet the after-life of the royal Marguerite proved their sincerity. Her native historians mention her with bitterness, because they say that her aged spouse prevailed on her to write in her familiar letters false intelligence to her brother, the king of France, with whom he was at war. Marguerite's deceitful information caused Philip le Bel to lose some towns in Flanders,1 to the great indignation of the French. Possibly the queen was herself intentionally misinformed by her husband.

Although queen Marguerite appeared in public earlier than was usual for the etiquette of royal widowhood in the fourteenth century, 1 Piers Langtoft. Meaning the chains used, in defensive warfare, to guard gates and

drawbridges.

2 Harp.

it was in obedience to the dying commands of her royal lord. Soon after her husband's death she went to Boulogne with her stepson, Edward II., and assisted at his marriage with her niece Isabella. At the birth of Edward III., queen Marguerite was present: her name is recorded as one of the witnesses of that event. This was according to the ancient customs of England, her sons being next in succession to Edward II. While she lived, her niece, queen Isabella, led a virtuous and respectable life. Marguerite did not survive to see the infamy of this near relative, or the domestic wretchedness of her step-son, with whom she had always lived on terms of affection and amity. Marguerite is the first queen of England who bore her arms with those of her husband in one scutcheon; her seal is affixed to the pardon of John de Dalyeng, which pardon she had procured of Edward II., in the ninth year of his reign.2

Queen Marguerite's principal residence was Marlborough-castle, on the borders of the forest of Savernake; it was there she died, at the early age of thirty-six, on the 14th of February, 1317. King Edward the Second's household-book has the following entry relative to this event: "Sent by the king's order, to be laid upon the body of the lady Marguerite, late queen of England, by the hands of John de Hausted at Marlborough, the 8th of March, two pieces of Lucca cloth." Also at the place of its final destination, the Grey Friars,' various other pieces of Lucca cloth were to be laid on her body, at the expense of the king. She was interred at the Grey Friars' church, the magnificent structure she had principally founded:3 her body was buried before the high altar, wrapped in the conventual robe of the Franciscans. The splendid monument raised to the memory of this beneficent woman was destroyed through the avarice of sir Martin Bowes, lord mayor, in the reign of beth: when the Grey Friars' church was made parochial, he, to the indignation of the antiquary, Stowe, sold queen Marguerite's tomb and nine others of royal personages, together with a number of grave-stones, for 50%. Her monumental effigy was lost owing to this avaricious de

struction.

queen

Eliza

The features of Marguerite are delineated with minute distinctness in the statuette which represents her on the tomb of her great-nephew, John of Eltham. The cast of countenance which may be observed in most of the descendants of St. Louis (Louis IX.) is particularly marked in his grand-daughter Marguerite; it does not form a beautiful face, although uniting energy and good expression. The nose is large, long, and straight, but instead of keeping the Grecian facial line, it

1 Montfaucon.

2 The seal is of red wax, with the lions of England on the right side, and her own fleurde-lis on the left. They are emblazoned on a shield, and not on a lozenge.-See Sandford, p. 120.

Stowe. She began the choir in 1306, and finished it in her widowhood. She left by will 100 marks to this church-that of Christ. Church, near Newgate. Part of Margue rite's original building is the cloister of the

school.

1337.]

Queen's will.

325

slants forward and hangs over a short upper lip. The style of face is familiar in the portraits of Francis I. and Louis XI., where it is exaggerated to ugliness. It is seen in the statue of Louis IX., in the crypt of St. Denis: the holy king of France is no beauty, but has the most sensible and good-natured expression possible. His granddaughter, the second queen of our great Edward I., is here represented as a royal widow, but not as a professed religieuse; she wears the gorget wimple, and the French widow's veil over it, surmounted by a rich open crown of fleur-de-lis, placed on a circlet of gems; she has her royal mantle on her shoulders, and a loose robe beneath, belted round with a splendid band studded with jewels. Such was her appearance at the marriage of Edward II. with her niece Isabella, and on state festivals at their courts.

Marguerite left her two sons joint-executors to her will. Edward II. empowered his dearest brothers, "Thomas, earl of Norfolk, earl-marshal, and Edmund of Woodstock, co-executors by the testament of our mother of good memory, Marguerite, late queen of England, to execute the said testament; and to have all goods and chattels that belonged to the said queen, and all her corn on her manors, whether housed or growing green in the earth, from the 14th day of February last, when she died, 1318. They are to receive all debts due to the queen-dowager, and pay what she owes, according to her will." The troubles of the reign of Edward II. prevented the debts of the widow of his father from being paid, as we find the following petition concerning them. In 1337, reign of Edward III., there is a petition to parliament from Thomas, earl of Norfolk, marshal of England, and executor of the testament of queen Marguerite, his mother, praying, "that the king will please to grant, of his good grace, that the debts of the deceased queen may be forthwith paid by his exchequer, according to the order of king Edward II., whom God assoil.” Queen Marguerite is the ancestress of all our English nobility bearing the great name of Howard: the honours of her son, Thomas Plantagenet, earl-marshal, were carried into this family by his descendant, lady Margaret Mowbray, marrying Sir Robert Howard. The Howards, through this queen, unite the blood of St. Louis with that of the mightiest of the Plantagenet monarchs. The heiress of her second son, Edmund, married first Sir Thomas Holland, and then Edward the Black Prince: through her, this queen was ancestress of the nobility who bore the name of Holland, which family became extinct in the wars of the roses.

ISABELLA OF FRANCE,

SURNAMED THE FAIR,

QUEEN OF EDWARD II.

[130

CHAPTER I.

SINCE the days of the fair and false Elfrida, of Saxon celebrity, no que of England has left so dark a stain on the annals of female royalty a the consort of Edward II., Isabella of France. She was the elevent queen of England from the Norman conquest; and with the exception Judith, the consort of Ethelwulph, a princess of higher rank than ha ever espoused a king of England. She was the offspring of a marriag between two sovereigns,-Philip le Bel, king of France, and Jane, quee of Navarre. Three of her brothers, Louis le Hutin, Philip le Long, an Charles le Bel, successively wore the royal diadem of France.

Isabella was only four years old when her fatal wedlock with Edward of Caernarvon was determined, the preliminaries for that alliance forming a clause in the treaty negotiated between her father and Edward I. for the marriage of that monarch to her aunt, Marguerite of France. It was agreed, at the same time, that the king her father was to give Isabella a marriage-portion of eighteen thousand pounds, and that she was to succeed to the dower which Edward I. settled on his bride as queen of England. The pope's dispensation for matrimony to be contracted between Edward, prince of Wales, and Isabella of France was published in the year 1303. The ceremonial of their betrothment was then solemnized in Paris, according to the usual forms. The earls of Lincoln and Savoy, as the procurators of the royal suitor, asked the lady Isabella in marriage for the prince of Wales, of her august parents, Philip, king of France, and Jane, queen of Navarre, whose consent having been given, père Gill, archbishop of Narbonne, repeated to the little princess the words in which the prince of Wales desired to plight her his troth; whereupon she placed her hand in that of the archbishop, in token of her assent, on condition that all the articles of the treaty were duly performed. Isabella, who was born in 1295, was then in her ninth year.

1 Rymer's Fœdera, vol. ii. p. 923.

2 Ibid.