near Mortimer's-cross. Jasper made a successful retreat; but his father, with true Welsh obstinacy, positively refused to quit the lost field: he was taken prisoner; and as he was the first victim on whom Edward had the opportunity of wreaking his vengeance for the death of York and Rutland, he ordered Owen Tudor's head to be smitten off in Hereford market-place, with two or three Lloyds and Howels, his kinsmen and comrades.1 Such was the end of the second husband of queen Katherine. When Henry VII. ascended the throne of England, he caused the Lady-chapel at Westminster-abbey, with the tomb of queen Katherine, to be demolished, for the purpose of building a new and stately chapel. In place of the epitaph destroyed the following hearse-verses were hung up, which were evidently written after Henry VII.'s accession." 2 "Here lies queen Katherine closed in grave, the French king's daughter fair, Thrice happy child, but granddame she, more than thrice happy sure!” Although Henry VII. had demolished the tomb of his grandmother, it is certain that he had not caused her remains to be exhumed, since he mentions her in his will as still interred in the chapel, and it is evident that he intended to restore her monument. "Specially as the body of our granddame, of right noble memory, queen Katherine, daughter of the king of France, is interred within our monastery of Westminster, and we propose shortly to translate thither the reliques of our uncle of blessed memory, Henry VI.: and whether we die within the realm or not, our body is to be buried in the said monastery,-that is to say, in the chapel where our said granddame lies buried." Jasper Tudor, her second son, left funds for masses to be sung in the monastery of Keynsham "for the soul of his father, and the soul of Katherine, late queen of England, his mother." When Henry VII. was buried the corpse of Katherine was disinterred; 1 Stowe's Annals. Pennant. 2 Stowe's London. 1793.] Remains of Katherine. 533 and as her ungracious descendant, Henry VIII., did not fulfil his father's intention of restoring her tomb, the bones of the unfortunate queen never found a final resting-place till the commencement of the present century. The queen's corpse was found to be in extraordinary preservation; it was therefore shown as a curiosity to persons visiting Westminster-abbey, for at least three centuries. Weever, in his Funeral Monuments, thus mentions its state in the time of Charles I. "Here lieth Katherine, queen of England, wife to Henry V., in a chest or coffin with a loose cover, to be seen and handled of any who much desire it; and who, by her own appointment, inflicted this penance on herself, in regard to her disobedience to her husband for being delivered of her son, Henry VI., at Windsor, which place he forbade." In the reign of Charles II. Pepys journalizes, with infinite satisfaction, that he had "this day kissed a queen ;" and that he might make this boast, he had kissed the mummy of Katherine the Fair, shown for the extra charge of twopence to the curious in such horrors. Nearly half a century later, the industrious Hearne, thus writes to his friend West: "Queen Katherine was buried in Westminster-abbey. I am told that part of her skeleton is now to be seen above ground, in a wooden chest in the abbey. I know not any effigies of her now preserved." The same disgusting traffic was carried on in 1793, for Hutton reprobates it in his Tour through the Sights of London. This exordium probably drew the attention of the dean of Westminster, for the remains of Katherine the Fair have reposed since then, sheltered from public view, in some Book of Westminster-abbey. 1 MS. letter, Hearne's Collection, fol. 56, Oct. 27, 1727.-Brit. Mus., Lansdowne, 778.. MARGARET OF ANJOU,' QUEEN OF HENRY VI, CHAPTER I. THE history of Margaret of Anjou, from the cradle to the tomb, is a tissue of the most striking vicissitudes, and replete with events of more powerful interest than are to be found in the imaginary career of any heroine of romance; for the creations of fiction, however forcibly they may appeal to our imagination, fade into insignificance before the simple majesty of truth. When we consider the stormy grandeur of character of this last and most luckless of our Provençal queens, her beauty, her learning, her energetic talents, and the important position she occupied for more than a quarter of a century in the annals of this country,-first, as the unconstitutional, but certainly supreme, director of the power of the crown, and, lastly, as the leader and rallying point of the friends of Lancaster, it is remarkable that no complete and authentic biography of her has ever been given to the world. Margaret was the youngest daughter of René of Anjou and Isabella of Lorraine. Her father was the second son of Louis II., king of Sicily and Jerusalem, duke of Calabria and Anjou, and count of Provence. English historians place the date of Margaret's birth in 1425; but this is a palpable error, for her mother, who was scarcely fifteen at that time, did not give birth to her eldest child, John of Calabria, till 1426. Then came prince Louis, followed by Nicolas and Yolante, twin-children, who were born October 2, 1428. After the decease of René and his sons, Yolante took the title of queen of Sicily, as the next heir. Thus we see that Margaret of Anjou was four years younger than has been generally supposed. According to the best authorities,1 Margaret was born March 23, 1429, at Pont-à-Mousson, her mother's dower-palace, one of the grandest castles in Lorraine. She was baptized under the great crucifix 1 Richard Wassaburg, a contemporary chronicler. M. de St. Marthe. Moreri. Limiers Villeneuve. 1431.] Early vicissitudes. 535 in the cathedral of Toul, by the bishop of that diocese. Her sponsors were her uncle, Louis III., king of Naples, and Marguerite duchess of Lorraine, her maternal grandmother. Margaret was yet in the arms of her father's faithful nurse, Theophanie,1 by whom she was reared, when the fierce contest for the succession to Lorraine commenced between her father and her mother's uncle, Anthony of Vaudemonte, on the death of Charles, duke of Lorraine. She was scarcely two years old when her royal sire was defeated and made prisoner by his adversary, at the battle of Bulgneville. The infant princess Margaret was her mother's companion during the agonizing hours of suspense in which she remained at Nanci, awaiting tidings of the issue of that disastrous fight. The event was too soon announced, by the arrival of the fugitives from the lost battle. "Alas!" exclaimed the duchess, clasping her little Margaret to her bosom, "where is René, my lord? He is taken-he is slain !"—" Madam," they replied, "be not thus abandoned to grief. The duke is in good health, though disabled and prisoner to the Burgundians." But the duchess was inconsolable. The council of Lorraine regarded her with the deepest sympathy, for she was left with four helpless children, two boys and two girls, the most beautiful ever seen. 66 With her infant Margaret in her arms, and leading her other little ones with her, the duchess Isabella presented herself as a weeping suppliant at the throne of her nominal suzerain, Charles VII., to implore his succour for the deliverance of her captive lord, or that he would, at least, use his mediation in behalf of the brother of his queen. Charles had no power at that time to assist any one: he was, indeed, listless and hopeless of ever regaining possession of his own rights. The interview between him and the duchess of Lorraine was destined to produce a singular effect on his future life and the fortunes of France. The disconsolate wife of René was attended by her favourite damsel, the beautiful and eloquent Agnes Sorelle, whom, when her own grief deprived her of utterance, she desired to plead for her with the king. Charles fell passionately in love with this fair advocate, who used her unbounded influence over his mind to rouse his slumbering energies for the deliverance of his subjugated realm. Meantime, while the grandmother of our little Margaret rallied the dispirited friends of René for the defence of Nanci, the duchess Isabella, the tenderest and most courageous of conjugal heroines, disappointed in the hopes she had built on 1 The kind-hearted René raised a beautiful monument to this humble friend, who died in the year 1458, just as queen Margaret's troubles commenced. The good king had the effigy of his nurse carved, holding in her arms two children, himself and Queen Marie, the consort of Charles VII. of France. He added an epitaph of his own writing: Vie du Roi René. 2 This prince dying without male issue, the duchy of Lorraine was claimed by his brother, Anthony of Vaudemonte, on pretence that it was a fief too noble too fall to the spindle side. René of Anjou asserted the right of his consort to the succession, which had been renounced previously by her two elder sisters.Mezerai. the king of France, sought an interview with her hostile kinsman to solicit the release of her captive lord, and a cessation from the horrors of civil strife. Moved by her pathetic eloquence, Antoine granted a truce of six months, dated August 1, 1431. Her supplicatious in behalf of René were fruitless; for he had been already given up to the duke of Burgundy, by whom he was consigned to a long imprisonment at Dijon at the top of a high tower, still in existence. The only condition on which the sire of Margaret could obtain even a temporary release from his thraldom, was at the price of bestowing his eldest daughter, Yolante, then in her ninth year, on the heir of his rival, the young Ferry, or Frederic, of Vaudemonie, with part of the disputed lands of Lorraine for her portion. The little Margaret was soon after betrothed to Pierre of Luxembourg, the son of count St. Pol, whose squire had cut René down at the battle of Bulgneville. René, being pledged to pay a heavy sum of money to the duke of Burgundy for his ransom, was obliged to give his two boys as his hostages, and to resign Yolante to her new mother-in-law; so that, of their four beautiful children, the infant Margaret was the only one who returned to Nanci with her parents. The death of the virtuous Margaret of Bavaria, the grandmother of this princess, at the close of the year 1434, increased the affliction of her family. But a heavier trial awaited Margaret and her parents. King René, being unable to fulfil the conditions of his release, was compelled to deliver himself up to his captors. His imprisonment was shared by his eldest son, Jean of Calabria: the younger, Louis, was restored to the arms of his sorrowing mother and sister. In 1436, on the death of René's eldest brother, Louis king of Naples, the succession of his realms devolved on the royal captive, and his faithful consort Isabella prepared to assert his rights. Among the illustrious females of the fifteenth century, the mother of Margaret of Anjou holds a distinguished place, alike for her commanding talents, her great personal endowments, her courage, and conjugal tenderness. It was from this parent that Margaret inherited those energies which the sternest shocks of adversity were unable to subdue. With such a mother as Isabella of Lorraine, the contemporary of Joan of Arc, born and nurtured amidst scenes of civil warfare and domestic calamity, it is scarcely wonderful if the characteristics of Anjou's heroine partook of the temper of the times in which she was unhappily thrown. While the queen of the Two Sicilies, as the consort of René of Anjou 1 Here, to dissipate the sorrow of his captivity, René employed himself in painting. The chapel of the castle of Dijon was enriched with beautiful miniatures, on painted glass, by the royal hand of the father of our Margaret of Anjou. It was this exertion of his talents that finally terminated his captivity; for Philip the Good was so much pleased with the sight of his own portrait, painted on glass by his interesting prisoner, that he sought an interview with him, clasped him in his arms, and, after expressing the greatest admiration for his talents, offered to mediate with Antoine de Vaudemonte for his liberation. 2 Chronicles of Lorraine. Mezerai. |