succour or console him. The priest at Westminster, for a dean and twelve admonished him of his situation, and secular canons. holding up the crucifix, bade him pre- In personal accomplishments and in pare to appear before his Maker. The mental powers. Edward is said to have forsaken monarch thanked the priest for been equal. if not superior, to any of his kindness, took the symbol of sal- his predecessors. He could speak Envation into his hands, kissed it, pro-glish, French, German, and Latin. His nounced the name of Jesus, wept, and person was elegant, his deportment expired. Amongst other acts of munificence, King Edward the Third rebuilt Windsor Castle, founded King's Hall, in Cambridge, now part of Trinity College, and the collegiate chapel of St. Stephen's. graceful. He defended the privileges of the people, as well as the prerogatives of the crown; and, being bold, enterprising, active, and sagacious, most of his projects were planned with prudence, and executed with vigour. ANNE OF BOHEMIA, First Queen of Richard the Second. CHAPTER I. Fain endeavours to obtain a consort for Richard the Second-Successful negociations for the hand of Anne of Bohemia-Her birth-Parentage-Lack of personal charms-Disposition-Procurators for her marriage appointed-Their proceedings -The marriage delayed by the Wat Tyler insurrection-Anne journeys to England-Her reception-Marriage to Richard the Second-Coronation-Head-dress, side saddles, pins, introduced by her-Her dower-Religious opinions-Bohemian knight slain-The King condemns his brother-Death of the Princess of WalesThe Duke of Ireland falls in love with one of the Queen's maids. LTHOUGH when Richard the Second ascended the throne he was a boy in the eleventh year of his age, his council, two years afterwards, entered into negocia tions for his marriage with a daughter of the Duke of Milan; but this project failed; and in the subsequent year an effort was made to obtain for him the hand of a daughter of the late Emperor Lewis, but with no better success. The council next proposed an alliance with Anne of Bohemia, and her uncle, the Emperor Wencalaus, lent a willing ear to the suit. blind King of Bohemia, who fell at the battle of Cressy, whilst bravely fighting in the cause of France. Her mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Pogislaus, Duke of Stetten, and grand-daughter to Casimir the Third, King of Poland, was the fourth wife of the Emperor Charles; and being a princess of great parts and virtue, she educated her family with the utmost care; and to this is the kind, gentle disposition of the amiable Anne greatly to be attributed. Anne of Bohemia possessed few or no personal charms. Several of our chroniclers call her the beauteous queen; but they certainly have erred in so doing, as her figure was short, square, and undignified, her forehead and chin narrow and The Princess Anne entered the world peaky, her cheeks high and bony, her at Prague, in Bohemia, about the year complexion sallow and muddy, and her 1367. Her father, Charles the Fourth, face vacant and inexpressive. This lack King of Bohemia, and Emperor of Ger- of beauty, however, was more than counmany,-a monarch remarkable for du-terbalanced by a rightly-directed, wellplicity and avarice, was the son of the informed mind, and a tender, sympa thising heart, which rendered her an endearing wite, and a lucen so gracious and beneficent, that after her death she was long remembered by the people under the appeilation of the "Good Queen Anne." John of Cauut, Duke of Lancaster, wished the King to marry one of his daughters, but the alliance was objected to, and the choice of the council fell upon Anne of Bohemia. Sir Simon Burly was deputed to go to Germany and negociate the marriage; and on his reaching Prague, and opening the business, the Empress despatched to the Court of England Duke Primislaus, of Saxony, whose report being favourable both the Emperor and Richard appointed | procurators to treat of the marriage; and shortly afterwards, Anne, of her own free will, nominated procurators on her own part. In their subsequent proceedings, the procurators stipulated that Anne should be married and crowned within a given time, and have conferred on her all the honours and income usually enjoyed by the Queens of England; and the preliminaries were concluded by Anne herself writing a letter to the English council, declaring that she accepted King Richard of her own free will and choice. Preparations were next commenced for the marriage, but ere they were brought to a conclusion the formidable Wat Tyler insurrection happened in England, and absorbed the whole attention of the King and his advisers. These troubles quelled, the arrangements of the marriage were proceeded with, and towards the close of the year 1381, the Princess Anne set out for England, accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Saxony, and a large retinue. From Bohemia she proceeded through her uncle's Duchy of Brabant to Brussels, where, detained by a fear of being captured, she tarried for about a month, it being reported that the French King intended to carry her off, and that, for this purpose, twelve large Norman warships were coasting between Calais and Holland. Her uncle sent envoys to King Charles of France, who, for the love he bore to his cousin Anne, granted passports for her and her suite.—an act of condescension which greatly pleased the royal bride and all concerned. From Brussels Anne and her train were escorted by one hundred spears through Ghent and Bruges to Gravelines, where she was mit by the Earls of Devonshire and Salisbury, who, with an escort of five hundred spears, and the same number of archers, conducted her in safety to Calais, where an English embassy awaited her arrival. From Calais she sailed without delay, and lauded at Dover just in time to escape the destructive effects of a violent ground swell, which before her very face rent into pieces the ship in which she had voyaged, and tossed and greatly injured the rest of the fleet. After tarrying two days at Dover to repose herself, she proceeded on her journey to Canterbury, whence the King's uncle, Thomas, conducted her with great pomp to London. On approaching the metropolis she was met by the Mayor, aldermen, and commons, in grand procession, and welcomed to the City with an enthusiasm which she remembered with pleasure to the day of her death. On this occasion all the mysteries of the City were arrayed in vestures of red and black, each mystery wearing its own conuzance thereon. The most splendid of these were the goldsmiths, who, on the red of their dresses, wore bars of silver-work and powders of trefoils and silver, and each man of the same mystery, to the number of seven score, had upon the black part tine knots of gold and silk, and upon their heads they wore hats covered with red, and powdered with trefoils. They also hired and richly apparelled seven minstrels to do honour to the Caesar's sister, as they called the imperial bride, at an expense of four pounds sixteen shillings and a penny; whilst, at their own cost, was erected, at the upper end of Cheapside, a castle with four towers, on two sides of which ran fountains of wine. From these towers beautiful damsels with white vestures blew towards the King and Queen small shreds of gold leaf, and showered upon them counterfeit florins. This, the most striking of the several pageants, was furnished by the Goldsmiths' Company, at an expense of thirty-five pounds and ninepence halfpenny. points and tags, clasps, hooks and eyes, and skewers of brass, silver, and goid. Shoes were worn in this reign with Shortly after this pompous entry into long pointed toes,-a fashion probably London, the marriage of Anne of Bobe-introduced by Anne of Bohemia. Their mia to Richard the Second was so shoes and pattern." says Camden, “were lemnized, with royai splendour, on the snowted and piked more than a finger fourteenth of January, 1382, in St. Ste-long, which, as they look like the phen's Chapel, Westminster. At the claws of the devil, they call cracowes, end of the week, Richard and his con- and which they fasten with chains of sort, accompanied by the Princess of silver or gold to their knees." Wales, the Duchess of Brittany, and other royal and noble personages, proceeded to Windsor, where for several days they kept open house, feasting and magnificently entertaining all comers, high and low, gratuitously. These festivities terminated, the royal pair returned to London, and the splendid coronation of the Queen was performed at Westminster by Courtney, Archbishop of Canterbury. At the intercession of the Queen, the King marked her marriage and coronation by proclaiming a general pardon to all implicated in the late insurrection,-an act of grace much needed, as since the suppression of the popular tumults under Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, John Ball and other ultra-democrats, upwards of one thousand five hundred of the deluded peasantry had been executed as traitors. At her wedding, the Queen's headdress consisted of an ungainly horned cap, about two feet high, and as many wide, made of pasteboard, like an expanding mitre, and with light gauze tissue spread over the top. Ugly as this moony tire" was, the royal bride no sooner appeared in it, than every maid, wife, and widow, who aspired to the rank of a lady, imitated her example, and horned caps became so general, that, both at home and abroad, the heads of the lords of the creation were quite eclipsed by the ambitious head-gear of their better halves. 66 Although the importer of this hideous fashion from Bohemia, Queen Anne deserves credit for introducing the first side-saddles used in this country, and also for making us acquainted with pins, such as are at present in use. Previous to her arrival in England both sexes used ribands, loop-holes, laces with According to Froissart, Richard the Second dowered his consort, Anne, with property worth twenty-five thousand nobles a-yeas; and, instead of her bringing a marriage portion, her royal husband gave the Emperor ten thousand marks for the alliance, and paid all the expenses of her journey over to boot,indeed, the expenses of the bridal were so enormous, that, to cover them, the coronet of Aquitaine, and much of the royal jewellery and plate, were pawned to the London merchants. By the Protestant Church, the name of Anne of Bohemia is enrolled at the head of the list of the illustrious princessses who supported those principles of religious freedom which ultimately led to the Reformation. Shortly after her arrival in England, Wickliffe triumphantly referred to the Queen as possessing a Bible, a polyglot translated into the Bohemian and German, which she perused with pride and diligence: and he urged, that by rendering the Scriptures available to all, he did but that which she greatly approved of. Whether Anne ever met Wickliffe, or studied his writings, is not known; but certain it is, that she was surrounded by many of his converts: and when he was condemned by the Council of Lambeth, in 1382, it was chiefly her secret influence with the King that saved him from the vindictive vengeance of Archbishop Courtney, who, above all things, desired his destruction. Not the least of the illustrious disciples of the bold reformer was Joanna of Kent, Princess of Wales. This Princess had been introduced to him by his follower, John of Gaunt, and she greatly aided the Queen in saving his life. The efforts of the Queen to extend a purer faith pro cured her many enemies. Walsingham, if ever he quitted the sanctuary of Be in a spirit of bitterness, which was verley. In a few days the Queen-mother doubtless occasioned by her adherence; died of grief, which so overcame Richard, to the new tenets, complains of her and that. unable to save the life of his her Bohemians visiting the abbeys and mother, he pardoned his brother, who monasteries. not to give, but to take shortly afterwards married Elizabeth, away. And, according to Prynne, the second daughter of the Duke of LanParliament, in 1384, after inveighing caster. The King's reluctance to paragainst the King's extravagance and misrule, petitions, amongst other articles more or less reasonable, against the Queen's gold; but this request the King promptly negatived, declaring that he would never consent to diminish the revenue of his beloved consort. don his brother was attributed to the influence of the Queen; but this was evidently a purposed misrepresentation, as, although her friends were the wronged persons, she sought not to be revenged on the murderer or his ex cusers. Anne of Bohemia made it a rule of life to sedulously comply with the will of her beloved husband. It is my unbounded duty," she would say, "to love all that the King loves, to do a. that he desires me, for I have vowed before God and man to cherish and to obey him." In one instance this womanly obedience In 1385, an incident occurred which further increased the hostility of the King's relations to Anne of Bohemia. Whilst Richard was on his way to repel the incursions of the Scots with a powerful army, the King's half-brother, John Holland, murdered Lord Stafford, who was about proceeding from York to London with letters from the King to a rare but commendable qualitythe Queen. Feelings of bitter jealousy carried her beyond the bounds of justice, led to the perpetration of the foul deed. and lost her the esteem of every descendStafford was a brave knight, a great ant of the royal house of Plantagenet. favourite, and a powerful adherent of In her household was a beautiful Bohethe Queen's, whilst Holland bitterly mian woman, mentioned in the "Fehated her and her friends. According dera" as the Landgravine of Luxemto Froissart, whilst Stafford's archers bourg, with whom the King's especial were protecting Sir Meles, a Bohemian favourite, the young Duke of Ireland, knight and friend of the Queen's, they, fell deeply in love. This nobleman had in the fray, slew an esquire of Holland's been married to Philippa, daughter of and he, to be revenged, drove his dagger Lord de Coucy, and grand-daughter of into the heart of Stafford, and killed the late King Edward the Third, "but him on the spot. The murderer fled for now," says Walsingham, "he divorced sanctuary to the shrine of St. John of her to marry the Bohemian damsel:" Beverley. The father and relatives of and Richard the Second. being quite the slain loudly demanded justice; and blind to the faults of his favourite, had although Joanna, the mutual mother of the weakness to shock the nation by the King and the homicide, implored sanctioning this abandonment of his fair the mercy of her son in favour of his cousin, whilst the Queen, by not opbrother, her pleadings were vain. Rich- posing the disgraceful transaction, infiard confiscated the property of the assas-nitely injured the good name of herself, sin, and threatened him with the gallows and the husband she so adored. CHAPTER II. The regal power usurped by the Duke of Gloucester-The King's friends condemned to death or exiled-Execution of Burleigh-Sorrow of the King and Queen-The King recovers his authority-The sovereignty of Aquitaine conferred on the Duke |