Henry successively mounted the throne of England. Of the daughters, Caroline became Abbess of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Caen, Constance married the Duke of Bretagne, Margaret died young, Alice was united to the Earl of Blois, and Eleanor to the King of Navarre.

The remains of Queen Matilda were interred in the abbey of the Holy Trinity at Caen, which she had herself erected. A magnificent monument was raised to her memory, and an epitaph in Latin verse, emblazoned in gold letters, set forth her high descent, marriage, and noble qualities. Her estates and property, which were inconsiderable, became the property of her son Henry.

Old historians all agree in the character of this queen; that she was amiable, accomplished, refined in manners, and remarkable for her learning; which last seems proved by her patronage of learned establishments. She was the founder of many charitable institutions, where the hungry were fed, the naked clothed, and where the weary pilgrim was sheltered. Hers was not alone a charity of words, but of deeds.

MATILDA OF SCOTLAND,

QUEEN OF HENRY THE FIRST.

AT the beginning of the reign of William, England's first Norman ruler, a royal Saxon mother, with her three fatherless children, took ship secretly and fled from the Conqueror's court. She was Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry the Second of Germany, and widow of Edward Atheling. The royal lineage of her children made them obnoxious to the stern Norman usurper, who bore no good-will to any descendants of the Saxon Alfred, to whose memory and posterity the conquered nation still fondly clung. Therefore, the royal Agatha thought it best not to trust to William's specious promises, but to take refuge with her own kindred in Hungary, carrying with her her son Edgar Atheling, and her two daughters, Margaret and Christina.

But scarcely had the vessel entered on her course when a storm arose, and instead of crossing the narrow straits to the continent, she drifted northward for many weary days, until at last, being driven to the coast of Scotland, she cast anchor in the Firth of Forth. The King of Scotland was then young Malcolm Canmore-Shakspeare's Malcolm-son of that "gentle Duncan" so treacherously murdered by Macbeth. He had just recovered his throne, and seen the fearful end of the regicide usurper and tyrant, who had made

"Good men's lives

To perish with the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken;"

and was striving, with the generous and kingly heart with which history shows him gifted, to restore peace to his ravaged land. The young king heard of the royal Saxon pilgrims who had been driven on his coasts, and touched, doubtless, by the memory of kindness shown to himself when he had fled an exile from his throne and country to England, visited Agatha, and showed every attention and respect to her who had been once a queen, and to her children. Margaret, the