1369.] Queen's death-bed. 407. were present and heard her last words: "I must now speak1 of the death of the most courteous, liberal, and noble lady that ever reigned in her time, -the lady Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. While her son, the duke of Lancaster, was encamped in the valley of Tourneham, ready to give battle to the duke of Burgundy, this death happened in England, to the infinite misfortune of king Edward, his children, and the whole kingdom. That excellent lady the queen, who had done so much good, aiding all knights, ladies, and damsels, when distressed, who had applied to her, was at this time dangerously sick at Windsor-castle, and every day her disorder increased. When the good queen perceived that her end approached, she called to the king, and extending her right hand from under the bed-clothes, put it into the right hand of king Edward, who was oppressed with sorrow, and thus spoke: 'We have, my husband, enjoyed our long union in happiness, peace, and prosperity. But I entreat, before I depart, and we are for ever separated in this world, that you will grant me three requests.' King Edward, with sighs and tears, replied, 'Lady, name them: whatever be your requests, they shall be granted. My lord,' she said, 'I beg you will fulfil whatever engagements I have entered into with merchants for their wares, as well on this, as on the other side of the sea: I beseech you to fulfil whatever gifts or legacies I have made, or left to churches wherein I have paid my devotions, and to all my servants, whether male or female: and when it shall please God to call you hence, you will choose no other sepulchre than mine, and that you will rest by my side in the cloisters of Westminsterabbey. The king, in tears, replied, 'Lady, all this shall be done.' Soon after, the good lady made the sign of the cross on her breast, and having recommended to the king her youngest son, Thomas, who was present, praying to God she gave up her spirit, which I firmly believe was caught by holy angels and carried to the glory of heaven, for she had never done. anything by thought or deed to endanger her soul. Thus died this admirable queen of England, in the year of grace 1369, the vigil of the Assumption of the Virgin, the 14th of August. Information of this heavy loss was carried to the English army at Tourneham, which greatly afflicted every one, more especially her son, John of Gaunt, duke of Lan caster." Philippa's words were not complied with to the letter; her grave is not by her husband's side, at Westminster-abbey, but at his feet. Her statue in alabaster is placed on the monument.2 Skelton's translation of her Latin epitaph, hung on a tablet close by her tomb, is as follows: 1 Froissart, vol. iv. p. 20. Froissart wrote an elegy in verse on the death of his patroness, Queen Philippa, which has not been pre served. Stowe gives names to the numerous images which surround the tomb on the authority of an old MS. At the feet are the King of Navarre, the king of Bohemia, the king of Scots, the king of Spain, and the king. of Sicily. At the head, William count of Hainault, Philippa's father; John, king of France, her uncle's son; Edward III., her husband; the emperor, her brother-in-law; and Edward, prince of Wales, her son. On her left side are Joanna, queen of Scots, her sister-in-law; John, earl of Cornwall, her "Faire Philippe, William Hainault's child, and younger daughter deare, Queen's college, and dame Pallas' school, that did her fame resound. Queen Philippe, lieth here. queen Truth obliges us to divest queen Philippa of one good deed, which was, in fact, out of her power to perform; she is generally considered to be the first foundress of the magnificent Queen's college, at Oxford. It was founded, indeed, by her chaplain,—that noble character, Robert de Eglesfield,1 who with modesty equal to his learning and merits, placed it under the protection of his royal mistress, and called it her foundation, and the "college of the queen." Eglesfield took for the motto of Queen's college a Latin sentence, which may be translated,—“ Queens shall be thy nurses;" and he recommended it to the protection and patronage of the consorts of England. In the course of history, rival queens will be found vying with each other in its support. Philippa herself, the consort of a monarch perpetually engaged in foreign war, and the mother of a large family, contributed but a yearly rent of twenty marks, to the sustenance of six scholar-chaplains, to be paid by her receiver. Queen Philippa's principal charitable donation was to the hospital of the nuns of St. Katherine by the Tower. She left donations to the canons of the new chapel of St. Stephen, which Edward III. had built as the domestic place of worship to Westminster-palace. Her portrait, on board, in lively colours, was found among some rubbish in a desecrated part of the beautiful cloisters of St. Stephen. It is far more personable than her monumental statue at Westminster-abbey, which was really taken when that deforming disease, the dropsy, had destroyed every remnant of Philippa's former beauty. The only shade of unpopularity ever cast on the conduct of Philippa was owing to the rapacity of her purveyors, after her children grew up. The royal family was numerous, and the revenues, impoverished by constant brother-in-law; Joanna, princess of Wales, her daughter-in-law, and the duchesses of Clarence and Lancaster. the princess Isabella, and the princes Lionel, John, Edmund, and Thomas. On the right side of the tomb may be seen her mother, her brother, and his wife; her nephew, Louis of Bavaria; her uncle, John of Hainault; her daughters, Mary and Mar Cumberland. 3 Crowle's Pennant's London, vol. viii. 1369.] Her endowment of Queen's College. 409 war, were very slender; and therefore every absolute due was enforced, from tenants of the crown, by the purveyors of the royal household. The damsels of the queen's bedchamber were pensioned by king Edward after her death, according to her request. He charges his exchequer "to pay during the terms of their separate lives, on account of their good and faithful services to Philippa, late queen of England,—first, to the beloved damsel, Alicia de Preston, ten marks yearly, at Pasche and Michaelmas; likewise to Matilda Fisher, to Elizabeth Pershore, to Johanna Kawley, ten marks yearly; to Johanna Cosin, to Philippa the Pycard, and to Agatha Liergin, a hundred shillings yearly; and to Matilda Radscroft and Agnes de Saxilby, five marks yearly." The name of Alice Perrers does not appear on this list of beloved damsels; but a little further on in the Foedera, occurs this disgraceful grant. "Know all that we give and concede to our beloved Alice Perrers, late damsel of the chamber to our dearest consort Philippa deceased, and to her heirs and executors, all the jewels, goods, and chattels that the said queen left in the hands of Euphemia, who was wife to Walter de Heselarton, knight; and the said Euphemia is to deliver them to the said Alicia, on receipt of this our order." It is to be feared that the king's attachment to this woman had begun during Philippa's lingering illness, for in 1368 she obtained the gift of a manor that had belonged to the king's aunt, and in the course of 1360 she was enriched by the grant of several manors. But we will not pursue this subject. During his youth and the brilliant maturity of his life, Philippa's royal partner was worthy of the intense and faithful love she bore him. He was not only a king, but a king among men, highly gifted in mind, person, and genius; "Edward III. was just six feet in stature, exactly shaped, and strongly made; his limbs beautifully turned, his face and nose somewhat long and high, but exceedingly comely; his eye sparkling like fire, his looks manly, and his air and movements most majestic. He was well versed in law, history, and the divinity of the times: he understood and spoke readily Latin, French, Spanish, and German.” Whilst the court was distracted with the factions which succeeded the death of the Black Prince, and John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was suspected of aiming at the crown, a most extraordinary story was circulated in England, relating to a confession pretended to have been made by queen Philippa, on her death-bed, to William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, That John of Gaunt was neither the son of Philippa nor Edward III., but a porter's son of Ghent; for the queen told him that she brought forth, not a son, but a daughter at Ghent; that she 1 Supposed to be Chaucer's wife. She was sister to Katherine Roet, the third wife of John of Gaunt. Her father was an attendant on Philippa, and employed in Guienne: he was from the borders of Picardy,-hence the overlaid and killed the little princess by accident, and dreading the wrath of king Edward for the death of his infant, she persuaded the porter's wife, a Flemish woman, to change her living son, who was born at the same time, for the dead princess. And so the queen nourished and brought up the man now called duke of Lancaster, which she bare not; and all these things did the queen on her death-bed declare, in confession to bishop Wykeham, and earnestly prayed him, 'that if ever it chanceth this son of the Flemish porter affecteth the kingdom, he will make his stock and lineage known to the world, lest a false heir should inherit the throne of England.'" The inventor of this story did not remember that, of all the sons of Philippa, John of Gaunt most resembled his royal sire in the high majestic lineaments and piercing eyes which spoke the descent of the Plantagenets from southern Europe. The portraits of Edward III., of the Black Prince, and of John of Gaunt, are all marked with as strong an air of individuality as if they had been painted by the accurate Holbein. The close observer of history will not fail to notice that with the life of queen Philippa the happiness, the good fortune, and even the respectability of Edward III., and his family departed; and scenes of strife, sorrow, and folly distracted the court where she had once promoted virtue, and presided with well-regulated munificence. 1 Archbishop Parker's Ecclesiastical History, and a Latin Chronicle of the reign of Edward III., printed in the Archæologia. John of Gaunt was a decided partisan of Wickliffe, and this story seems raised by the opposite party for the purpose of undermin ing his influence with the common people. ANNE OF BOHEMIA, SURNAMED THE GOOD, FIRST QUEEN OF RICHARD II. HE ancestors of the princess Anne of Bohemia emanated from the same ountry as the Flemish Philippa; she was the nearest relative to that eloved queen whose hand was attainable, and by means of her uncle, ike Wenceslaus of Brabant, she brought the same popular and proable commercial alliance to England. Anne of Bohemia was the dest daughter of the emperor Charles IV., by his fourth wife, Elizaeth of Pomerania: she was born about 1367, at Prague, in Bohemia The regency that governed England during king Richard the Second's ninority, demanded her hand for the young king just before her father ied, in the year 1380. the On the arrival of the English ambassador, Sir Simon Burley, at Prague, le imperial court took measures which seem not a little extraordinary present day. England was to Bohemia a sort of terra incognita; id, as a general knowledge of geography and statistics was certainly not nong the list of imperial accomplishments in the fourteenth century, e empress despatched duke Primislaus of Saxony on a voyage of iscovery, to ascertain, for the satisfaction of herself and the princess, hat sort of country England might be. Whatever were the particulars f the duke's discoveries, and his homeward despatches must have en of a curious nature, it appears he kept a scrutinizing eye in regard pecuniary interest. His report seems to have been on the whole tisfactory, since in the Foedera we find a letter from the imperial idow of Charles IV. to this effect; that "I, Elizabeth, Roman empress, ways Augusta, likewise queen of Bohemia, empower duke Primislaus treat with Richard, king of England, concerning the wedlock of that xcellent virgin the damsel Anne, born of us; and in our name to order nd dispose; and, as if our own soul were pledged, to swear to the fulfillent of every engagement." When the duke of Saxony returned to Germany, he carried presents |