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 queeen-dowager of England came with her mother-in-law, Violante of Milan, duchess of Orleans, both dressed in the deepest weeds of black. They arrived without the walls of Paris in a charrette covered with black cloth, drawn by six snow-white steeds, whose funeral trappings strongly contrasted with their colour. Isabella and her motherin-law sat weeping in the front of the carriage; a long file of mourning cars, 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. 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 deathbed 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 cultivated mind of this prince soon made the difference of the few years between his age and that of his bride forgotten. Isabella loved her husband entirely: he was that celebrated poet-duke of Orleans, whose beautiful lyrics are still reckoned among the classics of France. Just as Isabella seemed to have attained the height of human felicity, adored by the most accomplished prince in Europe, beloved by his family, and with no present alloy in her cup of happiness, death claimed her as his prey in the bloom of her life. She expired at the castle of Blois, in her twenty-second year, a few hours after the birth of her infant child, Sept. 13th, 1410. Her husband's grief amounted to frenzy; but after her infant was brought to him by her attendants, he shed tears, and became calmer while caressing it. The first verses of Orleans that attained celebrity were poured forth by his grief. He says, 1 Chronicles of St. Denis. 2 Ibid. 3 Isabella's infant was a little girl, who was reared, and afterwards married to the duke of Alençon. 1410.] Isabella's early death. "Alas, Death! who made thee so bold, To take from me my lovely princess? My good, my pleasure, my riches! Alas! I am lonely, bereft of my mate. Our loves are for ever severed." 453 The word lily alludes here to the armorial bearings of France; but a more finished lyric to the memory of Isabella thus commences in French : J'ai fait l'obsèques de Madame. This expression, madame, simply denotes the title of Isabella; she was Madame of France, both as eldest daughter to the king, and wife to the second prince of France. TRANSLATION. "To make my lady's obsequies And grief, illumined by tears, Irradiated her grave: And round about, in quaintest guise, Was carved,- -"Within this tomb there lies The fairest thing to mortal eyes.". Above her lieth spread a tomb For blessedness and truth in her Were livelily portray'd. When gracious God, with both his hands, Her wondrous beauty made, She was, to speak without disguise, The fairest thing to mortal eyes. No more, no more; my heart doth faint, When I the life recall Of her who lived so free from taint, Who in herself was so somplete, By God to deck his Paradise, And with his saints to reign; For well she doth become the skies, Whom, while on earth, each one did prize The fairest thing to mortal eyes." Thus passionately mourned in death by her husband, Isabella was happy in closing her eyes before the troublous era commenced, when Sorrow and disgrace overwhelmed her family and her country. The infamy of her mother had not reached its climax during the life of Isabella. Charles of Orleans, by the peculiar malice of fortune, was doomed to a long imprisonment by the very man who had so often been refused by his wife,—a circumstance not altogether forgotten by Henry V. The husband of Isabella, after fighting desperately at Agincourt, was left for dead on the lost field; but, dragged from beneath a heap of slain, he was restored to unwelcome life by the care of a valiant English squire, Richard Waller. Orleans refused to eat or drink after recovering from his swoon; but was persuaded out of his resolution of starving himself to death by the friendly remonstrance of Henry V. His wounds healed, and he was seen riding side by side with his conqueror and kinsman, conversing in the most friendly terms, a few days after the victory of Agincourt. But after thus reconciling his unfortunate captive to life, Henry refused all ransom for him, because he was the next heir to the throne of France after Charles the dauphin. Orleans was sent to England, and at first confined at Groombridge, in Kent; but afterwards consigned to a severe imprisonment in the Tower of London, where he composed some of his most beautiful poems. It was well that his fine mind possessed resources in itself, for his captivity lasted twenty-three years! Isabella was first interred at Blois, in the abbey of St. Saumer, where her body was found entire in 1624, curiously lapped in bands of linen, plated over with quicksilver. It was soon after transferred to the church of the Celestines, in Paris, the family burying-place of the line of Orleans, now desecrated and in ruins. The engraving in the illustrated edition of this work is from an illuminated MS. among the Harleian collection, representing her as the bride of Charles duke of Orleans.1 Her coronet is the circle of fleurs-de-lis of a French princess, and she merely wears the jacket-bodice of blue velvet figured with fleurs-de-lis, and trimmed with white miniver: not a single jewel adorns the person of queen Isabella, save the few in her coronal-circlet; her hair is worn dishevelled, as was then the custom of maiden brides when they approached the altar. 1 See the eight-volume edition of this work. JOANNA OF NAVARRE, QUEEN OF HENRY IV. CHAPTER I. JOANNA, or Jane of Navarre, the consort of Henry IV., is one of those queens of England whose records, as connected with the history of this country, are of a very obscure and mysterious character; yet the events of her life, when traced through foreign chronicles and unpublished sources of information, are replete with interest, forming an unprecedented chapter in the history of female royalty. She was the second daughter of Charles, king of Navarre, by the princess Jane of France, daughter of king John, the gallant and unfortunate opponent of Edward III. The evil deeds of Joanna's father had entailed upon him the unpopular cognomen of "Charles the Bad." This prince, being the son of the daughter and sole offspring of Louis X. of France, from whom he inherited the little kingdom of Navarre, the appanage of his great-grandmother, queen Jane, fancied, he had more right to the throne of France than Philip of Valois, to whom, in consequence of the inexorable Salic law, the regal succession had reverted. It is certain he had a nearer claim to the throne of his grandfather and uncle than Edward III., who only derived his descent from Isabella of France, the sister of these princes, and even if the Salic law had not existed, could have had no legal pretension to supersede the son of her brother's daughter. Charles le Mauvais, having neither the resources nor the energies of the mighty Edward of England, made no open struggle, but played a treacherous game between him and Philip of Valois, in the hope of establishing himself by his crooked policy on the disputed throne of his grandfather. His intrigues and crimes rendered the childhood of Joanna and her brethren a season of painful vicissitudes. Joanna was contracted in the year 1380 to John, the heir of Castile, He is accused, by contemporary historians, of practising the dark mysteries of the Occult sciences in the unhallowed privacy of his own palace; and it is certain that as a poisoner, Charles of Navarre acquired an infamous celebrity throughout Europe. at the same time her eldest brother Charles was married to the sister of that prince. Political reasons induced John, on the death of the king his father, to break his engagement with her, and wed a princess of Arragon. Meantime, Charles le Mauvais, having embroiled himself with the regents of France, sent Joanna and her brothers, for greater security, to the castle of Breteuil, in Normandy. In the year 1381 they were captured and carried to Paris, where they were detained as hostages for their father's future conduct. Finding his entreaties for their liberation fruitless, Charles, out of revenge, suborned a person to poison both the regents. The emissary was detected and put to death, but Charles, the greater criminal of the two, was out of the reach of justice.1 Joanna and her brothers might have been imperilled by the lawless conduct of their father, had they not been in the hands of generous foes,-the brothers of their deceased mother; but though detained for a considerable time as state-prisoners in Paris, they were affectionately and honourably treated by the court of France. Their liberation was finally obtained through the mediation of the king of Castile, whose sister, the bride of young Charles of Navarre, with unceasing tears and supplications wrought upon him to intercede for their release. In the year 1386, a marriage was negotiated between Joanna and John de Montfort, duke of Bretagne, surnamed "the Valiant." This prince, who was in the decline of life, had already been twice married. On the death of his last duchess, without surviving issue, the dukes of Berri and Burgundy, fearing the duke would contract another English alliance, proposed their niece, Joanna of Navarre, to him for a wife. The lady Jane of Navarre, Joanna's aunt, had married, seven years previously, the viscount de Rohan, a vassal and kinsman of the duke of Bretagne, and it was through the agency of this lady that the mar riage between her new sovereign and her youthful niece was brought about. The Duke of Bretagne having been induced, by the representations of the lady of Rohan and the nobles attached to the cause of France, to lend a favourable ear to the overtures for this alliance, demanded Joanna's hand of her father, and gave commission to Pierre de Lesnerac to man and appoint a vessel of war to convey the young princess to the shores of Bretagne. The contract of marriage between the duke of Bretagne and Joanna was signed at Pampeluna, August 25th, 1386. The king of Navarre engaged to give his daughter 120,000 livres of gold of the coins of the kings of France, and 6000 livres of the rents due to him on the lands 1 Mezerai. Moreri. 2 First to Mary Plantagenet, the daughter of his royal patron and protector, Edward III., with whose sons he had been educated and taught the science of war. Mary dying without children in the third year of her |