royal spouse, by the death of the Queen of Scotland, her daughter, to whom she was fondly attached. This amiable lady left an only child, who afterwards became Queen of Norway. Nor were these afflictions the only ones which Queen Eleanor had endured since the departure of Prince Edward; for she was severely tried by the deaths of three of his children previous to that of King Henry, so soon followed by that of the Queen of Scotland. When, nearly two years after Edward's accession to the crown, he returned from his eastern expedition, his coronation took place; and this event, which should have been an occasion of rejoicing to his mother, became one of deep sorrow, owing to the sudden death of her only surviving daughter, Beatrice, Duchess of Bretagne, who, with the duke her husband, came to England to participate in the splendid festivities attending this ceremony.

After this affliction, the queen-mother resided seldom in London, but lived in much privacy at Waltham and Lutger's Hall, until she retired to Ambresbury, where, four years after, she took the veil, chastened by many trials and sorrows, having seen seven of the nine children she had borne to King Henry depart this life in the prime of their days. The princes and princesses to whom she had given birth were remarkable for beauty, intelligence, and devotion to her; so that it cannot be wondered at that the high spirit and unbending haughtiness, which no other trials could subdue, yielded to the regret of the fond mother.

The retired queen had the consolation of retaining her rich dowry, as Queen Dowager of England, and Edward the First continued an affectionate and respectful son. He visited the queen-mother before and subsequently to her pronouncing the monastic vows; and it was no slight proof of his obedience to her wishes, that he yielded to her desire that the Princess Mary, his fifth daughter, should take the veil, against the consent of her mother, whose grief on the occasion must have greatly pained him, devoted as he was to his beloved queen, Eleanor of Castile. King Edward is said to have often referred to the opinion, and profited by the counsel of his mother, up to the close of her life.

That the seclusion of a conventual life, and the duties imposed by her vows, had produced a salutary change in the sentiments of the once haughty Eleanor, is proved by the wisdom and moderation of the advice given by her on her dying bed to the king, not to extort or receive a confession of his accomplices from a criminal then under conviction for treason, under circumstances that greatly aggravated

his crime, and whose confession it was more than suspected would compromise the safety of many individuals of consequence about the

court.

Eleanor expired at Ambresbury, nineteen years after the death of her husband, while the king, her son, was in Scotland; on whose return her remains, which had been embalmed, were interred with all due honour and solemnity in the church of her convent. She had lived to see the subjection of Wales to England, and her grandson, Edward of Caernarvon, contracted in marriage with her great-greatgranddaughter Margaret, heiress of Scotland and Norway; thus adding the prospect of the addition of those countries to the already great territories of England, Ireland, Wales, Aquitaine, and Poitou. After all her troubles, her sun thus went down in a peaceful grandeur.

ELEANOR OF CASTILE,

QUEEN OF EDWARD THE FIRST.

AMONG the monuments to departed kings and queens which surround the ruined, but still magnificent, mausoleum of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, there are two altar-tombs in particular, which recal a host of romantic associations, at which the stranger dwells the longest, and which are the last to fade from his memory. The first, which is of considerable size, is of grey unpolished marble-massive, unornamented, and simple almost to rudeness; looking like, what in reality it is, the sarcophagus of a warrior-king. But how can we find language to describe the surpassing beauty of the other! On a cenotaph of Petworth marble, and under a rich Gothic canopy, reclines a female figure of copper-gilt, habited in the graceful costume of the thirteenth century. "There it lies, not a feature of the face injurednot a finger broken off-perfect in its essentials as on the day it left the studio; whilst, all around, marks of injury and dilapidation meet you on every side: it is as though its own serene beauty had rendered violence impossible-had even touched the heart of the great destroyer Time himself." How easy and how dignified is the attitude of the recumbentfigure! How elegant the hands! How gracefully, from under the regal diadem, the long tresses fall on the rounded shoulders! The countenance, too, which is represented as serenely smiling, is one of angelic loveliness, breathing eloquently of that feminine softness of character and purity of heart which were the characteristics of its living original. The former tomb is that of the great warrior, Edward the First; the other that of his beautiful and affectionate consort, Eleanor of Castile,―of her

"Who, like a jewel, did hang twenty years

About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ;
Of her, that loved him with that excellence
That angels love good men with."

Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand the Third, King of Castile, by