and he afterwards, by deeds of arms, chiefly in the Scotch war, proved himself well worthy of the honour to which his gallantry and masculine beauty had so fortunately exalted him.

By her second marriage Joanna had two children, Mary and Thomas; the former entered the world in 1299, the latter in 1301. Joanna was a fond wife, but a thoughtless, neglectful parent. She lived on terms of great amity with her step-mother, Queen Margaret of France; and although in temper wild, fitful, and hot, she was sincere and open-hearted to her equals, generous and kind to her inferiors, and forgiving to her enemies. Her death took place rather suddenly, at Clare, in Gloucester, on the twenty-third of April, 1307. Her gorgeous funeral was attended by the King and all the leading nobles and prelates of the land. And to the Augustine Priory of Clare, where her remains were interred, her affectionate father made presents for the performance of masses and orisons for her soul.

her half-sister Eleanora, who, when little more than two years old, was sent to Ambersbury Convent. In 1236, Mary prevailed on Isabella, the wife of Edward the Second, to make a pilgrimage with her to the shrine of Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury. These Canterbury pilgrims, however, had no notion of travelling with bare feet, or in coarse apparel-pleasure, and pleasure only, was their object; they, accordingly, undertook the journey with chariots, litters, more than a hundred horses, waggons for the conveyance of domestic utensils, a good store of edibles, and liquors to cheer the heart, and a numerous train of attendants. Wherever they halted on the road, they made offerings of cloth of gold, wax, and other costly articles, with which they had provided themselves; but the most costly of their offerings was made at the shrine of the sainted Becket. The journey occupied about two months, and, to cheer them on the road, which in some parts was wild and desolate enough, they had in their train several merry minstrels, whose blithe songs and jocund performances greatly amused and delighted them.

church of the Convent of Ambersbury. This edifice, which, in the middle ages, was the home of more than one of the royal daughters of England, has, by the heavy hand of Time, been reduced to a mouldering ruin

The next in order of the surviving daughters of King Edward's first consort is the Princess Margaret. This Princess, after her marriage with the Duke of The Nun Princess, after outliving all Brabant, proceeded with her husband to her brothers and sisters, died about the his native land, where she resided prin-year 1233, and was entombed in the cipally at Brussels, and lived in comfort and affluence. In 1300, she gave birth to her only child, a son and heir. This event appears to have highly gratified the English court, as the bearer of the glad tidings received a present of one hundred marks from the King, fifty from the Queen, and forty from Prince Edward. After being a widow for about six years, Margaret died in 1318. remains were interred, with becoming solemnity, by the side of her husband, in the church of St. Gudule, in Brussels. Mary, the Nun Princess, led a gay life, making merry pilgrimages hither and thither throughout the land. After the death of her mother, she became strongly attached to her father's second consort, Margaret of France. Her general conduct, however, reflected but little credit on the holy sisterhood to which she belonged. One of her kindest acts was the undertaking the charge of

Her

"Where owlets repose,
The wallflower blows,
And the mantling ivy creeps,
O'er the crumbling walls;
Where the viper crawls,

And the toad in his dank cell sleeps."

Elizabeth, the last in order of the surviving daughters of Eleanora of Castile, after passing her infancy and girlhood for the most part in the company of her brother, Prince Edward, who, being the sole male heir to the English throne, was permitted to have a private establishment, and roam through the country wherever he pleased, was married to John, Count of Holland, in the Priory Church of Ipswich, in December, 1297.

nent, in the vain hope or obtaining her justly-due dower from her husband's successor, the Earl of Hainault, returned to England, where, by perseverance, she obtained from the reluctant Earl of Holland a portion of her dower revenues, and where, on the fourteenth of November, 1302, she espoused Humphrey De Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex. As in the case of the Earl of Gloucester, the gallant Earl of Hereford resigned all his lands and possessions into the hands of the King, who immediately afterwards re-settled them upon the Earl and Countess and their heirs, with a proviso that, in default of issue, many of the estates should revert to the crown.

After the marriage, nothing could prevail upon Elizabeth, then a girl of fifteen, to accompany her lord to Holland -a perverseness which so enraged the King, her father, that, in a fit of passion, he seized the golden coronet that encircled her brow, and flung it into the fire. However, a reconciliation was speedily effected, and Count John, urged by pressing state matters, embarked for Holland a few weeks after his marriage, leaving his young bride to follow afterwards, which she accordingly did, accompanied by her father, in the subsequent August. She resided principally at her palace of the Hague. Her husband being a weak-minded Prince, permitted his favourite, Wolphard De Borsonel, Lord of Vere, to rule the state with the iron rod of tyranny, which so exasperated the Hollanders, that, in 1299, they rose in insurrection, murdered the rapacious Borsonel, and, to prevent a similar occurrence, nominated à Regent in the Earl of Hainault, heir-vouritism pursued by that weak, impopresumptive to the Earldom of Holland. litic monarch, Edward the Second. ÉliThis act was sanctioned by Elizabeth, zabeth passed much of her time with who, emerging from her previous life of her stepmother, Margaret of France. privacy, exhibited in this hour of trial By her second marriage she had a nugreat energy and judgment. But Earl merous progeny, but several of her chilJohn, although a minor, in the seven-dren died in infancy. She lived on teenth year of his age, expressed so much annoyance at being deprived of the semblance as well as the reality of royalty, that the regent had scarcely assumed the reins of government when he relinquished them again in disgust, and, to add to the embarrassment of affairs, a few weeks afterwards Earl John died of a dysentery.

The tie being now severed that bound Elizabeth to Holland, she, after lingering a few months longer on the conti

The Earl of Hereford was an attached friend and constant companion of Edward the First, and, by superior skill and prowess in the Scotch war, obtained a well-earned fame. After the death of Edward the First, he became one of the strenuous opponents to the system of fa

terms of great affection with the Earl of Hereford, and, dying in child-bed in May, 1316, found a last resting-place at the foot of the altar of St. Mary's Chapel, in the Abbey of Walden, in Essex.

Prince Edward of Caernarvon, the only surviving son of Eleanora of Castile, succeeded his father, as Edward the Second. His unfortunate career will be hereafter detailed in the memoirs of his consort, Isabella of France.

MARGARET OF FRANCE,
Second Queen of Edward the First.

CHAPTER I.

Edward's widowhood-Disputed succession to the Scottish crown--The States acknow ledge Edward's superiority, and appoint him their arbitrator-Pleadings of the claimants-Decision in favour of Baliol-He accepts the crown as Edward's vassa -Edward endeavours to crush the Scotch by tyranny-Quarrel with France-Its cause-Edward cited to appear before Philip-He falls in love with Blanche la Belle-Is contracted to her-Endeavours to mediate a peace-Is swindled out of Gascony-Cheated out of his betrothed-In a marriage agreement, Margaret of France named in her stead-War ensues-Rebellion of the Welch suppressed-The Scotch defeated-Baliol deposed--The regalia of Scotland brought to EnglandEdward raises money to prosecute the war on the continent-His extortions resisted -Parliament obtains the right of raising the supplies-His doings in FlandersWar with Scotland-William Wallace-Edward overcomes the Scots-Returns to London in triumph-The Pope arranges a peace with France.

ROM the period when Eleanora of Castile was consigned to the tomb, nine years passed away ere Edward the First again entered the married state. According to the contemporary chroniclers, the protracted widowhood of the active, energetic Edward was a truly forlorn and wretched one. This, however, may be questioned. That for a period he felt severely the loss of his "dear Queen," is not to be doubted; but that he moped, mourned, and continued miserably melancholy from the hour of her death until he again entered the holy pale of matrimony, is neither probable nor consonant with the

entries that occur in the State rolls, the Wardrobe accounts, and other manuscript records of the era-documents of unquestionable authenticity, but which. until a comparatively recent period, have mouldered in the neglected dust of the archives of England. In truth, Edward sought and found solace from his sorrow in the council of state and the turmoil of battle. To his towering ambition and daring chivalric energies, the attempt to subjugate Scotland and a war with France, afforded busy occupation; and as it is well to weave through this volume an unbroken thread of history, we will commence these memoirs with a sketch of the leading events that occupied the attention of Edward the First during the period of his widowhood,

first glancing at his designs against Scot- | maintaining it to be divisible. But this

land.

claim was unanimously negatived by the parliaments; and on the nineteenth of November, 1292, the regency was dissolved, and Baliol took the oath of fealty to Edward, and received possession both of the throne and the fortresses of Scotland.

The line of the descendants of Alexander the Third, the Scotch king, being extinguished by the unexpected demise of the "Maid of Norway," in 1290, the right of succession was disputed by no less than thirteen claimants; and being Baliol's eagerness to wear the crown unable to decide to which of these the of his native land induced him to accept crown should be resigned, the States, it as a vassal; but he soon learned how to avoid the threatened miseries of a dearly he must pay for his indiscretion, civil war, appointed King Edward, then what petty indignities he must suffer at deemed the most upright and mighty of the hands of his liege lord. Before the potentates, as their arbitrator. Edward English King quitted Newcastle, a Scotchwillingly accepted the office; not, how-man complained to him of insults he had ever, as an appointment from the States received in the town of Berwick from of Scotland, but as a right pertaining to some Englishmen, when, although Edthe King of England, as Lord Paramount ward had promised that all cases of law of Scotland, a right which the Scotch, occurring in Scotland should be tried being then too weak to dispute, wisely in that country, he ordered the cause waived to a more fitting opportunity. to be tried in England by his own Edward, therefore, summoned the pre-judges. This produced a remonstrance lates, barons, and commonalty to meet him on the border of the two kingdoms, where, as a preliminary to the proceedings, they swore fealty to him. After this, it was unanimously agreed that he should be assisted in his important office by the advice of a council of eighty Scotch and twenty-four English. Before this council the several competitors arged their respective claims by written and oral evidence; but as it was to the interest of the majority to mystify the matter as much as possible, the lengthy pleadings were elaborated with sophisms, fabulous legends, and far-fetched similes. Thus, four months passed away without the council, divided as it was by party views and personal interests, coming to any definite decision. Edward, therefore, summoned a parliament of both nations, who received the report of the council, and after an elaborate inquiry, which had lasted eighteen months, and in which the claims of Robert Bruce and John Baliol, the two nearest descendants of Alexander, were thoroughly investigated, a decision was given in the name of the King, by the advice and with the consent of the united parliament of the two nations, in favour of John Baliol; a decision which so enraged Bruce, that he joined with Lord Hastings, another competitor, for a part of the kingdom,

in the Scotch council, to which Edward replied, "That the promise they accused him of breaking had been made when their throne was vacant; he had punctually observed it during the regency, but as there was now a King of Scotland, he should admit and hear all complaints concerning that kingdom where and when he pleased." This declaration he repeated four days days afterwards, in his own chamber, before Baliol and several lords of both nations, adding, with great warmth, "He would call the King of Scotland himself to appear in England whenever he thought proper to do so," a threat he lost no time in putting into execution; and by encouraging appeals to his authority from that of the Scotch King, whom he repeatedly summoned to London upon matters the most trivial, he at length aroused to anger the quiet temper of Baliol. In fact, he thought to crush the Scotch by tyranny, but in this he was mistaken; his injustice only rekindled their slumbering energies, and prompted them to rid themselves of so troublesome a master.

Whilst Edward was thus stretching to the utmost his feudal superiority over his newly-created vassal, the Scotch King, he himself, as Duke of Aquitaine, was doomed to suffer similar humiliation from his superior lord, Philip of France.