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Royal Children of 
 English History 
 
 From Alfred the Great to 
 Edward Seventh 
 
 TOLD FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 
 
 A True and Instructive Story of England's 
 Royal Princes Who Became Famous. A 
 History of Nearly One Thousand Years. 
 Edited and Arranged From the Writings of 
 Charles Dickens and Others by 
 
 Charles Morris, 
 
 Author of "Child's Story of Nineteenth Century," "Young People's History of 
 World," and Many Other Books for Young People. 
 
 PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED 
 
 With Nearly One Hundred Pictures, including Beautiful Colored Litho- 
 graph, Half Tones and Special Artist's Drawings. 
 
LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 NOV 2 1904 
 
 rfCopynsnt Entry 
 
 
 
 
 
 ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF 
 CONGRESS IN THE YEAR 1904 BY 
 W. E. SCULL, IN THE OFFICE 
 OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, 
 AT WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
!^*.* o 
 
 "m^ 
 
 
 I HE purpose of this book is to interest the children 
 in the History of their Fatherland — Old England. 
 It is the grandest History in the world. It is full 
 of romance and adventure which never grow old. 
 We have. selected for this volume the most interesting stories 
 which center around the boys and girls who were born to high 
 places. Their position in life was due to inheritance which they 
 could not help, but the boys and girls of to-day do not owe their 
 fortune to inheritance — but to inheritance and individual effort. 
 Although it was thus with them, it will teach the lesson of 
 contentment to those of us who are not born in royal purple, 
 but who have greater opportunities than birth, to rise by our 
 own struggles to places of eminence, and to earn, by living 
 noble lives, the true purple, which is the symbol of royal worth. 
 Every boy and girl may in this way become a royal child and 
 have a career of usefulness. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The stories told in this book are, as far as possible, 
 arranged in chronological order, and told in connection with 
 bits of history, which will create an interest in knowing more 
 of the remarkable growth of the English nation, not only in 
 the British Islands, but in the four quarters of the earth. The 
 children of Canada, of Australia, of the United States, and all 
 who are descended from English stock wherever they may 
 live, will always have an abiding interest in the royal families 
 who have, through a directing Providence, been the means of 
 perpetuating the best and noblest of English customs, which 
 are now the heritage of the twentieth century. 
 
 It is intended that these stories should interest boys and 
 
 girls even before they can read them for themselves. They 
 
 are told in simple language and short sentences. They will 
 
 be read and re-read by their older brothers and sisters, who 
 
 will then be ready for the larger and more complete story of 
 
 England and her people. 
 
 The Editor. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 How England Became English 13 
 
 England Two Thousand Years Ago. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Alfred The Great 21 
 
 The Beginning of Old England's History. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Six Boy Kings 31 
 
 England in the Middle Ages. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Disobedient Princes 47 
 
 And What Happened to Four of Them. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 How a Wicked Prince Made a Wicked King . . 57 
 
 England under Richard I. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Prince Arthur 67 
 
 The Story of an Awful Crime. 
 
io TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Henry III 81 
 
 England in the Year A. D. 1216. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The First Prince of Wales ........ 97 
 
 England in the Year A.. D. 1300. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Edward the Black Prince •. . .113 
 
 England in the Year A. D. 1340. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Royal Robes Do Not Make a King 125 
 
 England Under Richard II. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Henry V and the Baby King . . . . .. . . . .139 
 
 England in the Year A. D. 1400. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Prince Edward and Queen Margaret . . . . .155 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Princes in the Tower 177 
 
 The Saddest Story in History. 
 
 CHAPTER XTV. 
 Edward VI 187 
 
 England Nearly Four Centuries Ago. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Lady Jane Grey 197 
 
 A Queen Without Power and Influence. 
 
TABLE OP CONTENTS 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Mary and Elizabeth 209 
 
 The Two Sisters who Became Queens. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 The Baby Queen Only Nine Months Old . . . 223 
 
 The Unhappy Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The White Rose of England 235 
 
 The Struggle of Two Princes for the Throne. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Prince Charles and the Spanish Princess . . . 247 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Queen Victoria 257 
 
 England in the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Edward VII 271 
 
 England in the Twentieth Century. 
 
 j, 
 
 -^W^^mr 
 
 '&df-A/\<M 
 
 X 
 
England Two Thousand Years Ago. 
 
 BEFORE we tell you of the Royal Children in whom 
 you are interested, and speak of their adventures, we 
 are sure your curiosity is sufficient to ask who lived 
 in England long before there were any Royal Chil- 
 dren. We know that here in America before the white man 
 came, the red men lived, whom we know as Indians. They 
 were governed by chiefs, and lived in tents, and most of the 
 tribes wandered from place to place obtaining a living as best 
 they could. We also know that when the European came to 
 America he drove the Indian from his home and took posses- 
 sion of his land, built houses and started villages and cities for 
 white men. This was only four or five centuries ago, but 
 how was it in England ? 
 
 Let us begin by looking at a map of the world, where we 
 will discover in the upper left hand corner of the eastern 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 hemisphere two tiny islands. One of them we know as Eng- 
 land and Scotland and the other as Ireland. These islands, 
 surrounded as they are by several smaller islands, were there 
 at the time of Christ, but they did not have the cities and fine 
 harbors, which we know, and into which the merchandise of 
 the world sails. They were inhabited 
 bypoor savages, who went about almost 
 naked, and only dressed in the rough 
 skins of beasts. The first people to dis- 
 cover them were said to be the Phoeni- 
 cians, who were celebrated travelers 
 and traders. They found on the islands 
 tin and lead, which were very valuable, 
 and that the natives, although called 
 savages, had mined the ore and were 
 making useful implements out of the 
 metals. Soon after the French and Bel- 
 gians came over to England and settled 
 in what is now Kent, and no doubt other 
 peoples came from Spain to Ireland and 
 settled there. 
 
 The whole country was covered 
 with forests and swamps. There were 
 no roads, no bridges, no streets, and 
 no houses that you would think deserv- 
 ing of the name. After the French and 
 Belgians had settled in England, and lived there a while, 
 the natives became bolder and stronger, and learned a great 
 many things which helped them. They soon began to be 
 known as Britons. They were very fond of horses, which 
 were so well trained that they could run at full gallop over 
 the most stony places and even through the woods. They 
 
 A BRITISH WARRIOR WHEN 
 CESAR CAME TO ENGLAND. 
 
HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 15 
 
 drew war chariots, which had scythes, or long sharp blades, 
 fastened to their wheels, and when they drove through the 
 enemy's ranks would wound or kill them. In this way the 
 native Britons grew brave and bold in fighting among them- 
 selves, or in driving back people who came from the main- 
 land to take their country. 
 
 But we cannot tell you all of the heroes who appeared 
 during this time. However, we must not forget to mention that 
 even before the time of Christ, Julius Caesar, a great Roman 
 general, invaded England with his army and war chariots. 
 He conquered it, of course, which you will all learn more about 
 when you go to school and read the books which he wrote 
 in Latin, and which tell of his wars in Gaul and in Britain. 
 After Julius Caesar, many other Roman generals came to 
 England and waged war. There are still found there many 
 roads which the Romans built. These are curious places, 
 which the boys and girls will want to visit when they go to 
 England. Almost all of the towns, whose names end in 
 Chester were begun by the Romans, and bits of their houses- 
 are to be seen still, built of very small bricks, and sometimes 
 people dig up a bit of colored tile, which used to be the floors 
 of their houses, or a piece of money, or one of their orna- 
 ments. 
 
 There is a little incident told of the time of the Roman 
 invasion which we might mention here. One of the Roman 
 emperors, whose name was Claudius, sent his soldiers to con- 
 quer the islands, and afterwards he himself came to see it. 
 In honor of the conquest another emperor called himself 
 Britannicus. There was a British chief whose name was Car- 
 actacus, who had fought very bravely against the Romans. 
 He was brought to Rome and set before the Emperor. As 
 he looked at the great buildings of stone and marble in the 
 
i6 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 streets, he said he could not think why the Romans should 
 want to take away the poor rough stone huts of the Britons. 
 The poor wife of the British chief had also been brought a 
 prisoner to Rome. She fell upon her knees before the 
 Emperor and implored pity, and that her husband and she 
 might not be punished. For her sake Claudius, the Emperor, 
 
 was kind to Caracta- 
 cus ; but nevertheless, 
 the Emperor went on 
 conquering and taking 
 possession of the is- 
 lands, very much the 
 same as the Europeans 
 took possession of 
 America. 
 
 What we have 
 told you of the Romans 
 all occurred a century 
 before and after the 
 Birth of Christ, and by 
 that time the Britons 
 had grown strong 
 enough, or else the 
 Romans had grown so 
 weak, that the islands 
 were left to the Britons and the Romans had to leave. 
 
 But now we come to speak of the people from which most 
 of us are descended, and who are called English. On the 
 borders of the North Sea, which you can find on your map of 
 Europe, lived a tribe of people who were bold and braVe sail- 
 ors, full of the spirit of adventure. They were neighbors to 
 the Germans, but were far ahead of them in the arts of 
 
 CARACTACUS LED IN CHAINS. 
 
HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 
 
 17 
 
 workmanship and their manner of living. They lived in com- 
 fortable huts, they tilled their soil skillfully, and enjoyed the 
 hardy sports such as American boys and girls enjoy. This 
 made the boys and girls strong and healthy, and when they 
 came to be men and women they were bold warriors, ready 
 to defend their country and to attack their neighbors. They 
 were called Angles. 
 
 In the fifth century, and after the Romans had been 
 compelled to leave England, the native Britons got to con- 
 quering many places, and 
 one bold chief, whose 
 name is rather hard to 
 pronounce, but you will 
 know it when you see it ; 
 it was Vortigern. He had 
 fought the Romans and 
 had learned how to man- 
 age armies. But when 
 his tribe got into trouble (( 
 with other tribes, and 
 was likely to be beaten, 
 he invited these stran- 
 gers over from the North 
 Sea to help, among whom were the Angles. They, together 
 with the Saxons and Jutes who came with them, not only 
 helped Vortigern against his enemies, but later turned and 
 conquered him and got a foothold in England. So Vortigern 
 in bringing in these strangers had done the worst thing possible 
 for the independence of the Britons, for he had brought to Great 
 Britain a race that was to overspread and rule it. The strangers 
 came over the sea in two gigantic boats under two great 
 chiefs, Hengist and Horsa. Their boats were queerly shaped 
 
 A SHIP OF THE NORTHMEN. 
 
1 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and propelled by oars. These people belonged to the tribe 
 which early discovered America, and which we call Norse- 
 men or Northmen, the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia. 
 
 These Angles, from whom we get the word English, 
 were heathens and believed in many false gods. From their 
 gods we get many of the names of our days in the week. 
 The Sun, whom they worshipped, made Sunday sacred. The 
 Moon, another of their gods, gives us Monday. Wednesday 
 from Woden, Thursday from Thor or the god of thunder, and 
 so on. Those old Angles did many cruel things, and their 
 worship included many ceremonies which are too horrible to 
 mention. When the Angles and their neighbors, the other 
 Northmen, came into power and ruled the islands, there were 
 seven kings, and the islands were divided up into as many 
 kingdoms. They fought one another, it is sad to say, and sold 
 their captives to merchants who came from the south of 
 Europe. Some of the children, who had been made slaves, were 
 taken to Rome and sold in the market place. When Gregory, 
 who was a good priest and interested in strangers, saw the 
 beautiful captives, with their fair faces, blue eyes, and long 
 light hair, he inquired who they were. "Angles.from the Island 
 of Britain," was the reply. "Angles" said he, "from the 
 Island of Britain ? They have angel faces, and they ought 
 to be heirs with the angels in heaven." After that he did 
 not rest easy until he had sent teachers to the islands to con- 
 vert the heathens to the Christian faith. He afterwards 
 became Pope and learned that one of the English kings, 
 Ethelbert of Kent, had married Bertha, the daughter of the 
 King of France. She was a Christian, and was to have a 
 priest to take with her to Britain. So the Pope Gregory sent 
 Augustine and gave him a letter to King Ethelbert and Queen 
 Bertha. When the priest came to England the King 
 
HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 
 
 19 
 
 Ethelbert met him under a tree at Canterbury and listened to 
 him while he spoke of the true God. The King then gave up 
 worshipping his heathen gods, accepted Christianity and was 
 baptized. Thus Christianity came to be the worship of the 
 English. Schools were opened, and the boys and girls were 
 taught reading, writing, singing and Latin. 
 
 Now that we have learned of the first English king who 
 became a Christian, and how the island began to be ruled by 
 Englishmen, we are ready to learn more of the boys and girls 
 who were called Royal Children. Our story begins in the 
 next chapter. 
 
mY-Sffll^-ROlfNFrRFWURnH^WMHTHOMf-TKFflSIIRF^ \ 
 
EDWARD OF CAERNARVON, THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 He was always very fond of hunting and, when only a small boy, slew a deer in the forest, and hi! 
 attendants found him as seen in the picture. His title came from his principality— Wales. 
 
HENRY VI THE BABY KING. 
 
The Beginning of Old England's History, a.d.', 827. 
 
 WHEN I was very, very little, I hated history more than 
 all my other lessons put together, because I had 
 to learn it out of a horrid little book, called some- 
 body's "Outlines of English History"; and it 
 seemed to be all the names of the kings and dates of battles, 
 and, believing it to be nothing else, I hated it accordingly. 
 
 I hope you do not think anything so foolish, because, 
 really, history is a story, a story of things that happened to 
 real live people in England — which is the motherland of all 
 our boys and girls — years ago ; and the things that are hap- 
 pening here and now, and that are put in the newspapers, will 
 be history for little children one of these days. 
 
22 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The people in those old times were the same kind of 
 people who live now. Mothers loved their children then, and 
 fathers worked for them, just as mothers and fathers do now, 
 and children then were good or bad, as the case might be, 
 just as little children are now. And the people you read 
 about in history were real live people, who were good and 
 bad, and glad and sorry, just as people are now-a-days. 
 
 You know that if you were to set out on a journey from one 
 end of England to another, wherever you went, through fields 
 and woods and lanes, you would still be in the kingdom of 
 King Edward. When you travel through Canada from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, and then cross the great ocean to 
 Australia, and, perchance, go on to India, and back home 
 by the Suez Canal, you are all the time in the larger Empire 
 of good King Edward. 
 
 But once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, if a 
 child had set out to ride on horseback, he might have 
 begun his ride in the morning in one kingdom, and finished 
 it in the evening in another, because England was not one 
 great kingdom then as it is now, but was divided up into 
 seven pieces, with a king to look after each, and these seven 
 kings were always quarreling with each other and trying to 
 take each other's kingdom away, just as you might see seven 
 naughty children, each with a plot of garden, trying to take 
 each other's gardens and spoiling each other's flowers in their 
 wicked quarrels. 
 
 But presently (a. d. 827) came one King, namea Egbert, 
 who was stronger than all the others ; so he managed to 
 put himself at the head of all the kingdoms, and he was 
 the first King of all England. But though he had got the 
 other kings to give in to him, he did not have at all a peaceful 
 time. There were some very fierce wild pirates, called Danes, 
 
ALFRED THE GREAT 
 
 who used to come sailing across the North Sea in ships with 
 carved swans' heads at the prow, and hundreds of fighting 
 men aboard. Their own country was bleak and desolate, and 
 they were greedy and wanted the pleasant English land. So 
 they used to come and land in all sorts of places along the 
 sea-shore, and then they would march across the fields and 
 kill the peaceful farmers, and set fire to their houses, and take 
 their sheep and cows. Or sometimes they would drive them 
 out, and live in the farm- 
 houses themselves. Of 
 course, the English peo- 
 ple were not going to 
 stand this ; so they were 
 always fighting to drive 
 the Danes away when 
 they came here. 
 
 Egbert's son allowed 
 the Danes to 
 grow very strong 
 in England, and 
 when he died he 
 left several sons 
 
 KING ALFRED LEARNING TO READ. 
 
 like the kings in the fairy tales ; and the first of these princes 
 was made King, but he could not beat the Danes, and then 
 the second one was made King, but he could not beat the 
 Danes. In the fairy tales, you know, it is always the youngest 
 prince who has all the good fortune, and in this story the same 
 thing happened. This prince did what none of his brothers 
 could do. He drove out the Danes from England, and gave 
 his people a chance of being quiet and happy and good. His 
 name was Alfred. This happened about a. d., 871. 
 
 Like most great men, this King Alfred had a good 
 
24 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 mother. She used to read to him, when he was little, out of 
 a great book with gold and precious stones on the cover, and 
 inside beautiful songs and poetry. And one day she said to 
 the young princes, who were all very fond of being read to 
 out of this splendid book — 
 
 "Since you like the book so much, I will give it to the 
 one who is first able to read it, and to say all the poetry in it 
 by heart." 
 
 The eldest prince tried to learn it, but I suppose he did 
 not try hard enough ; and the other princes tried, but I fear 
 they were too lazy. But you may be quite sure the youngest 
 prince did the right thing. He learnt to read, and then he 
 set to work to learn the poems by heart ; and it was a proud 
 day for him and for the Queen when he was able to say all 
 the beautiful poetry to her. She put the book into his hands 
 for his very own, and they kissed each other with tears of 
 pride and pleasure. 
 
 You must not suppose that King Alfred drove out the 
 Danes without much trouble, much thought, and much hard 
 work. Trouble, thought, and hard work are the only three 
 spells the fairies have left us, so of course he had to use them. 
 He was made King just after the Danes had gained a great 
 victory, and for the first eight years of his reign he was fight- 
 ing them continually. At one time they had conquered 
 almost the whole of England, and they would have killed 
 Alfred if they could have found him. 
 
 You know, a wise prince always disguises himself when 
 danger becomes very great. So Alfred disguised himself as 
 a farm laborer, and went to live with a farmer, who used to 
 make him feed the beasts and help about the farm, and had 
 no idea that this laborer was the great King himself. 
 
 One day the farmer's wife went out — perhaps she went 
 
ALFRED THE GREAT 
 
 25 
 
 out to milk the cows ; at any rate it was some important busi- 
 ness — and she had made some cakes for supper, and she saw 
 Alfred sitting idle in the kitchen, so she asked him to look 
 after the cakes, to see they did not burn. Alfred said he 
 would. But he had just received some news about the 
 Danes, and he was thinking, and thinking and thinking over 
 this, and he forgot all about the cakes, and when the farmer's 
 wife came in she found them burnt black as coal. 
 
 ' OH, YOU SILLY, GREEDY FELLOW! " 
 
 " Oh, you silly, greedy fellow," she said, "you can eat 
 cakes fast enough; but you can't even take the trouble to 
 bake them when other people take the trouble to make them 
 for you." 
 
 And I have heard that she even slapped his face. He 
 bore it all very patiently. 
 
 "I am very sorry," he said, "but I was thinking of 
 other things." 
 
 Just at that moment her husband came in followed by 
 several strangers, and, to the good woman's astonishment, 
 
26 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 they all fell on their knees and greeted her husband's laborer 
 as their King. 
 
 "We have beaten the Danes," they said, " and everyone 
 is asking where is King Alfred ? You must come back 
 with us." 
 
 "Forgive me," cried the woman. "I didn't think of 
 your being the King." 
 
 "Forgive me," said Alfred, kindly. "I didn't think of 
 your cakes being burnt." 
 
 The Danes had more fighting men than Alfred ; so he 
 was obliged to be very cautious and wise, or he could never 
 have beaten them at all. In those days very few people could 
 read; and the evenings used to seem very long sometimes, so 
 that anybody who could tell a story or sing a song was made 
 much of, and some people made it their trade to go about 
 singing songs and telling stories and making jokes to amuse 
 people who could not sing songs or tell stories or make jokes 
 themselves. These were called gleemen, and wherever they 
 went they were always welcomed and put at a good place at 
 table, and treated with respect and kindness ; and in time of 
 war no one ever killed a gleeman, so they could always feel 
 quite safe whatever was going on. 
 
 Now Alfred once wanted to know how many Danes 
 there were in a certain Danish camp, and whether they were 
 too strong for him to beat. So he disguised himself as a 
 gleeman and took a harp, for his mother had taught him to- 
 sing and play very prettily, and he went and sang songs to 
 the Danes and told stories to them. But all the time he kept 
 his eyes open, and found out all he wanted to know. And 
 he saw that the Danes were not expecting to be attacked 
 by the English people, so that, instead of keeping watch, 
 they were feasting and drinking and playing all their time. 
 
ALFRED THE GREAT 
 
 27 
 
 Then he went back to his own soldiers, and they crept up to 
 the Danish camp and fell upon it while the Danes were 
 feasting and making merry, and as the Danes were not expect- 
 ing a fight, the English were easily able to get much the best 
 of it. 
 
 At last, after many fights, King Alfred managed to make 
 peace with the Danes, and then he settled down to see what 
 he could do for his own people. He saw that if he was to 
 keep out the wicked Danes he must be able to fight them by 
 sea as well as by land. So he learned how to build ships 
 and taught his people ./■ 
 
 how to build them, and 
 that was the beginning 
 of the great English 
 navy, which you ought 
 to be proud of if you 
 are big enough to read 
 this book. Alfred was 
 wise enough to see that 
 
 knowledge 
 
 is 
 
 pOWer, 1N JHQ5E. DAYS. Bur HE HADE. A CL°CK OUT OF 
 
 ACANOLE- 
 
 and, as he wanted his 
 people to be strong, he tried to make them learned. He built 
 schools, and at University College, Oxford, there are people that 
 will tell you that that college was founded by Alfred the Great. 
 He used to divide up his time very carefully, giving part 
 to study and part to settling disputes among his people, and 
 part to his shipbuilding and his other duties. They had no 
 clocks and watches in those days, and he used sometimes to 
 get so interested in his work as to forget that it was time to 
 leave it and go on to something else, just as you do some- 
 times when you get so interested in a game of rounders that 
 you forget that it is time to go on with your lessons. The 
 
28 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 idea of a clock never entered into Alfred's head, at least not 
 a clock with wheels, and hands on its face, but he was so 
 clever that her made a clock out of a candle. He painted 
 rines of different colours round the candle, and when the 
 candle had burnt down to the first ring it was half an hour 
 gone, and when it was burnt to the next ring it was another 
 half-hour, and so on. So he could tell exactly how the time went. 
 
 He was called Alfred the Great, and no king has better 
 deserved such a title. 
 
 "So long as I have lived," he said, "I have striven to 
 live worthily." And he longed, above all things, to leave 
 "to the men that came after a remembrance of him in good 
 works." 
 
 He did many good and wise things, but the best and 
 wisest thing he ever did was to begin to write the History of 
 
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 WW 
 
 wo 
 w* 
 
 wz 
 
 25 
 
 hZ 
 
 OO 
 
 WW 
 
 >w 
 
 So 
 
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ALFRED THE GREAT 
 
 29 
 
 England. There had been English poems before this, but no 
 English stories that were not written in poetry. So that 
 Alfred's book was the first of all the thousands and thousands 
 of English books that you see on the shelves of the big libra- 
 ries. His book is generally called the Saxon Chronicle, and 
 was added to by other people after his death. 
 
 So many abbeys had been burnt and the monks killed 
 by the Danes, that there were hardly any books to be had, 
 or scholars to read them. King Alfred invited learned men 
 from abroad, and wrote and translated books himself for 
 them ; and he had a school in his house, where he made the 
 young nobles learn with 
 his own sons. He built 
 up the churches, and 
 gave also to the poor ; 
 and he was always ready ^^j 
 to hear the troubles of 
 any poor man. Though 
 he was always working 
 so hard, he had a disease 
 that used to cause him 
 terrible pain almost every day. His last years were less 
 peaceful than the middle ones of his reign, for the Danes tried 
 to come again ; but he beat them off by his ships at sea, and 
 when he died at fifty-two years old, in the year 901, he left 
 England at rest and quiet, and we always think of him as one 
 of the greatest and best kings who ever reigned in England, 
 or in any other country. As long as his children after him and 
 his people went on in the good way he had taught them, all 
 prospered with them, and no enemies hurt them ; and this 
 was all through the reigns of his son, his grandson, and great- 
 grandsons. Their council of great men was called by a long 
 
 OLD DANISH ARMS. 
 
3 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 word that is in our EngUsh, "Wise Men's Meeting," and 
 there they settled the affairs of the kingdom. The king's 
 wife was not called queen, but lady, and what do you think 
 lady means? It means "loaf-giver" — giver of bread to her 
 household and the poor. So a lady's great work is to be 
 charitable. 
 
 Alfred made a number of wise laws. It is believed that it 
 was he who first ordained that an Englishman should be tried 
 not only by a judge but also by a jury of people like himself. 
 
 Though he had fought bravely when fighting was needed 
 to defend his kingdom, yet he loved peace and all the arts of 
 peace. He loved justice and kindness, and little children; 
 and all folk loved and wept for him when he died, because he 
 was a good King who had always striven to live worthily, 
 that is to say, he had always tried to be good. 
 
 His last words to his son, just before he died, were these 
 — "It is just that the English people should be as free as 
 their own thoughts." 
 
 You must not think that this means that the English peo- 
 ple should be free to think as they like or to do as they like. 
 What it means is, that an Englishman and his descendants 
 should be as free to do good deeds as he is to think good 
 thouehts. 
 
England in the Middle Ages. 
 
 ATHELSTAN, the son of Edward the Elder, and 
 grandson of Alfred the Great, succeeded his father. 
 He reigned only fifteen years ; but he remembered 
 the glory of his grandfather, the great Alfred, and 
 governed England well. He reduced the turbulent people 
 of Wales, and obliged them to pay him a tribute in money, 
 and in cattle, and to send him their best hawks and hounds. 
 He was victorious over the Cornish men, who were not yet 
 quiet under the Saxon government. He restored such of the 
 old laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse ; made 
 some wise new laws, and took care of the poor and weak. 
 A strong alliance, made against him by Anlaf, a Danish 
 prince, Constantine King of the Scots, and the people of 
 North Wales he broke and defeated in one great battle, long 
 famous for the vast numbers slain in it. After that, he had a 
 quiet reign ; the lords and ladies about him had leisure to 
 become polite and agreeable ; and foreign princes were glad 
 (as they have sometimes been since) to come to England on 
 visits to the English court. 
 
32 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his 
 brother Edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. He 
 was the first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. 
 
 They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a 
 taste for improvement and refinement. But he was beset by 
 the Danes, and had a short and troubled reign, which came 
 to a troubled end. One night, when he was feasting in his 
 hall, and had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw among the 
 company a noted robber named Leof, who had been banished 
 from England. Made very angry by the boldness of this 
 man, the king turned to his cup-bearer, and said : " There is 
 a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his crimes, is an 
 outlaw in the land, — a hunted wolf, whose life any man may 
 take, at any time. Command that robber to depart!" "I 
 will not depart ! " said Leof. "No?" cried the king. "No, 
 by the Lord ! " said Leof. Upon that the king rose from his 
 seat, and, making passionately at the robber, and seizing him 
 by his long hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber 
 had a dagger underneath his cloak, and in the scuffle stabbed 
 the king to death. That done, he set his back against the wall, 
 and fought so desperately, that, although he was soon cut to 
 pieces by the king's armed men, and the wall and pavement 
 were splashed with his blood, yet it was not before he had 
 killed and wounded many of them. You may imagine what 
 rough lives the kings of those times led, when one of them 
 could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own 
 dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who 
 ate and drank with him. 
 
 Then succeeded the boy-king Edred, who was weak and 
 sickly in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought 
 the Northmen, — the Danes and Norwegians, or the sea-kings, 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 
 
 33 
 
 as they were called, — and beat them for the time. And in 
 nine years Edred died, and passed away. 
 
 Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age ; but 
 the real king, who had the real power, was a monk named 
 Dunstan, — a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud 
 and cruel. 
 
 Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither 
 
 
 
 EDWY, THE BOY-KING. 
 
 the body of King Edmund the Magnificent was carried to be 
 buried. While yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night 
 (being then in a fever), and walked about Glastonbury Church 
 when it was under repair ; and because he did not tumble off 
 some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it was 
 reported that he had been shown over the building by an angel. 
 He had also made a harp that was said to play of itself; which 
 it very likely did, as yEolian harps, which are played by the 
 
34 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 wind, and are understood now, always do. For these wonders 
 he had been once denounced by his enemies, who were jealous 
 of his favor with the late King Athelstan, as a magician; and 
 he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a 
 marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal 
 of trouble yet. 
 
 The priests of those days were, generally, the only 
 scholars. They were learned in many things. Having to 
 make their own convents and monasteries on uncultivated 
 grounds that were granted to them by the Crown, it was 
 necessary that they should be good farmers and good garden- 
 ers, or their lands would have been too poor to support them. 
 For the decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for 
 the comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was 
 necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, 
 good painters among them. For their greater safety in sick- 
 ness and accident, living alone by themselves in solitary 
 places, it was necessary that they should study the virtues of 
 plants and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, 
 scalds, and bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accord- 
 ingly, they taught themselves, and one another, a great variety 
 of useful arts ; and became skillful in agriculture, medicine, 
 surgery, and handicraft. And when they wanted the aid of 
 any little piece of machinery, which would be simple enough 
 now, but was marvelous then, to impose a trick upon the 
 poor peasants, they knew very well how to make it ; and did 
 make it many a time and often, I have no doubt. 
 
 Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the 
 most sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, 
 and worked at a forge in his little cell. This cell was made 
 too short to admit of his lying at full length when he went to 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 
 
 35 
 
 sleep — as if that did any good to anybody ! — and he used to 
 tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, 
 who, he said, came there to persecute him. For instance, he 
 related that, one day when he was at work, the devil, in the 
 form of a beautiful youth, looked in at the little window, and 
 tried to tempt him to 
 lead a life of idle 
 pleasure ; whereupon, 
 having his pincers in 
 the fire, red hot, he 
 seized the devil by the 
 nose, and put him to 
 such pain, that his bel- 
 lowings were heard for 
 miles and miles. Some 
 people are inclined to 
 think this nonsense a 
 part of Dunstan's mad- 
 ness (for his head never 
 quite recovered the 
 fever), but I think not. 
 I observe that it in- 
 d u c e d the ignorant 
 people to consider him 
 a holy man, and that 
 it made him very pow- 
 erful, which was exactly what he always wanted to be. 
 On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king 
 Edwy, it was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury 
 (who was a Dane by birth), that the king quietly left the 
 coronation feast, while all the company was there. Odo, much 
 displeased, sent his friend Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan 
 
36 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife Elgiva, 
 and her mother Ethelgiva, a good and virtuous lady, not only 
 grossly abused them, but dragged the young king back into 
 the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, think Dunstan did 
 this because the young king's fair wife was his own cousin, 
 and the monks objected to people marrying their own cousins ; 
 but I believe he did it because he was an imperious, audacious, 
 ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady him- 
 self before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and 
 everything belonging to it. 
 
 The young king was quite old enough to feel this insult. 
 Dunstan had been treasurer in the last reign, and he soon 
 charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last king's 
 money. The Glastonbury Abbot fled to Belgium (very nar- 
 rowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his 
 eyes, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows), 
 and his abbey was given to priests who were married ; whom 
 he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But he 
 quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up 
 the king's young brother, Edgar, as his rival for the throne ; 
 not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen 
 Elgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, 
 to be stolen from one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the 
 cheek with a red-hot iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. 
 But the Irish people pitied and befriended her ; and they said, 
 " Let us restore the girl-queen to the boy-king, and make the 
 young lovers happy!" And they cured her of her cruel 
 wound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. But the 
 villain, Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, caused her to be 
 waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her 
 husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to be 
 barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 37 
 
 the Fair (his people called him so because he was so young 
 and handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken 
 heart ; and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and 
 husband ends. Ah ! Better to be two cottagers in these bet- 
 ter times, than king and queen of England in those bad days, 
 though never so fair ! 
 
 Then came the boy-king Edgar, called the Peaceful, 
 fifteen years old. Dunstan being still the real king, drove 
 all married priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and 
 replaced them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid 
 order called the Benedictines. He made himself Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, for his greater glory ; and exercised such power 
 over the neighboring British princes, and so collected them 
 about the king, that once, when the king held the court at 
 Chester, and went on the River Dee to visit the monastery of 
 St. John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people 
 used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight 
 crowned kings, and steered by the king of England. As 
 Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they 
 took great pains to represent him as the best of kings ; but he 
 was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. • He once forc- 
 ibly carried off a young lady from the convent at Wilton ; and 
 Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned 
 him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years, no 
 great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have been a 
 more comfortable ornament to wear than a stewpan without a 
 handle. His marriage with his second wife, Elfrida, is one of 
 the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of this 
 lady, he despatched his favorite courtier, Athelwold, " to her 
 father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as 
 charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedingly 
 beautiful, that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and 
 
P,H ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 married her; but he told the king that she was only rich, not 
 handsome. The king, suspecting the truth when they came 
 home, resolved to pay the newly married couple a visit; and 
 suddenly told A.thelwold to prepare for his immediate coming. 
 Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had 
 said and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some 
 u^ly dress or .illy manner, that he might be safe from the 
 king's anger. She promised that she would ; hut she was a 
 
 proud woman, who WOUld far rather have heen a queen than 
 the wife of a COUrtier, She dressed herself in her best dress, 
 and adorned herself with her richest jewels ; and when the 
 
 king came presently, he discovered the cheat. So he caused 
 
 his false friend Alhelwold to he murdered in a wood, :um\ 
 married his widow, this had Elfrida. Six or seven years 
 afterwards he died, and was hnried (as if he had heen .ill 
 that Hie monks Said he was) in the abbey of ( iiastonbury, 
 which he— or Dunstan for him — had much enriched. 
 
 England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by 
 wolves, which, driven outof the open country, hid themselves 
 in the mountains of Wales, when they were not attacking 
 
 travelers and animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh 
 people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing 
 every year three hundred wolves' heads. And the Welsh- 
 men weie so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, 
 that in four years there was not a wolf left. 
 
 Then came the boy-king Edward, called the Martyr, from 
 die manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethelred, 
 
 for whom she claimed (he throne ; but I hmstan did not choose 
 
 to favor him, and he made Edward king. The boy was hunt- 
 ing one day down in Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe 
 < astle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to sec: 
 
 them kindly, he rode away from his attendants, and galloped 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 
 
 39 
 
 to the castle gate, where he arrived at twilight, and blew his 
 hunting-horn. "Von are welcome, dear king," said Elfrida, 
 coming out with her brightest smiles. "Pray you dismount 
 and cnicr." "Not. so, dear madam," said the king. "My 
 company will miss me, and fear that I have met with some 
 harm. Please you to give me a i up of wine, that I may drink 
 here in the saddle to you and to my little brother, and so 
 ride away with the good speed I have made in riding here." 
 Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered to an armed 
 servant, one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkening 
 gate w ay , and 
 1 1 ept round be- 
 hind the king's 
 horse. A 1 , the 
 king raised the 
 cup to his lips, 
 say inj.';, ' I lealth I' 
 to the wicked 
 woman who was 
 smiling on him, 
 and to his inno- 
 < ent brother 
 whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten years 
 old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in 
 the back. He dropped the cup and spurred his horsi away; 
 but, soon fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, 
 and, in his fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. 1 he 
 li ightened horse dashed on ; trailing his rider's < ui Is upon the 
 ground; dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and 
 stones, and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud ; until the 
 hunters, tracking the animal's course by the king's blood, 
 caught his bridle, and released his disfigured body. 
 
 ' Hill! ItOHIM'.l/ I MAT 1. 1 II'. WOULD." 
 
4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, Ethelred, 
 whom Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered 
 brother riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat 
 with a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. 
 The people so disliked this boy, on account of his cruel 
 mother, and the murder she had done to promote him, that 
 Dunstan would not have had him for king, but would have 
 made Edgitha, the daughter of the dead King Edgar, and of 
 the lady whom he stole out of the convent at Wilton, Queen 
 of England, if she would have consented. But she knew the 
 stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be per- 
 suaded from the convent where she lived in peace ; so Dun- 
 stan put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put 
 there, and gave him the nickname of " The Unready " — know- 
 ing that he wanted resolution and firmness. 
 
 At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young 
 king, but as he grew older and came of age, her influence 
 declined. The infamous woman, not having it in her power 
 to do any more evil, then retired from court, and, according 
 to the fashion of the time, built churches and monasteries, 
 to expiate her guilt. As if a church, with a steeple reaching 
 to the very stars, would have been any sign of true repentance 
 for the blood of the poor boy, whose murdered form was 
 trailed at his horse's heels ! As if she could have buried her 
 wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole world, 
 piled up one upon another, for the monks to live in ! 
 
 About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan 
 died. He was growing old then, but was as stern and artful 
 as ever. Two circumstances that happened in connection 
 with him, in this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise. 
 Once, he was present at a meeting of the Church, when 
 the question was discussed whether priests should have 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 
 
 4i 
 
 permission to marry, and, as he sat with his head hung down, 
 apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of 
 a crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of his 
 opinion. This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and was 
 probably his own voice disguised. But he played off a worse 
 juggle than that, soon afterwards ; for, another meeting being 
 held on the same subject, and he and his supporters being 
 seated on one side of a great room, and their opponents on 
 . the other, he rose and said, "To Christ himself, as Judge, do 
 I commit this cause!" Immediately on these words being 
 spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave way ; some 
 were killed and 
 many wounded. 
 You may be 
 pretty sure it had 
 been weakened 
 under Dunstan's 
 directions, and 
 that it fell at 
 Dunstan's sig- 
 nal. His part of 
 the floor did not go down 
 workman for that. 
 
 Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be 
 rid of this holy saint ; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak 
 king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The 
 restless Danes, led by Sweyn, a son of the king of Denmark, 
 who had quarreled with his father, and had been banished 
 from home, again came into England, and year after year 
 attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax these sea-kings 
 away, the weak Ethelred paid them money; but the more 
 money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. At first 
 
 No, no ! He was too good a 
 
42 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 he gave them ten thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, 
 sixteen thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, four-and- 
 twenty thousand pounds, to pay which large sums, the unfor- 
 tunate English people were heavily taxed. But as the Danes 
 still came back and wanted more, he thought it would be a 
 good plan to marry into some powerful foreign family that 
 would help him with soldiers. So in the year 1002, he courted 
 and married Emma, the sister of Richard, Duke of Normandy, 
 — a lady who was called the Flower of Normandy. 
 
 And now a terrible deed was done in England, the like 
 of which was never done on English ground before or since. 
 On the 13th of November, in pursuance of secret instructions 
 sent by the king over the whole country, the inhabitants of 
 every town and city armed, and murdered all the Danes who 
 were their neighbors. Young and old, babies and soldiers, 
 men and women, — every Dane was killed. No doubt there 
 were among them many ferocious men, who had done the 
 English great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swag- 
 gering in the houses of the English, and insulting their 
 wives and daughters, had become unbearable ; but, no doubt, 
 there were also among them many peaceful Christian Danes, 
 who had married English women, and become like English 
 men. They were all slain, even to Gunhilda, the sister, of 
 the King of Denmark, married to an English lord ; who was 
 first obliged to see the murder of her husband and her child, 
 and then was killed herself. 
 
 When the king of the sea-kings heard of this deed 
 of blood, he swore that he would have a great revenge. He 
 raised an army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet 
 had sailed to England. And in all his army there was not 
 a slave nor an old man ; but every soldier was a free man, 
 and the son of a free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 
 
 43 
 
 to be revenged upon the English nation, for the massacre of 
 that dread 13th of November, when his countrymen and 
 countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were 
 killed by fire and sword. And so the sea-kings came to 
 England in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own 
 commander. Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts 
 of prey, threatened England from the prows of those ships, 
 as they came onward through the water ; and were reflected 
 in the shining shields that hung upon their sides. The ship 
 that bore the standard of the king of the sea-kings was carved 
 and painted like a 
 mighty serpent; 
 and the king in his 
 anger prayed that 
 the gods in whom 
 he trusted might 
 all desert him, if 
 his serpent did not 
 strike its fangs into 
 England's heart. 
 
 And indeed it 
 did. For, the great 
 army landing from the great fleet, near Exeter, went forward, 
 laying England waste, and striking their lances in the earth as 
 they advanced, or throwing them into rivers, in token of their 
 making all the island theirs. In remembrance of the black 
 November night when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever 
 the invaders came, they made the Saxons prepare and spread 
 for them great feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts, and 
 had drunk a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew 
 their swords, and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched 
 on. For six long years they carried on this war ; burning 
 
 'DO WITH ME WHAT YOU PLEASE.' 
 
44 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the crops, farm-houses, barns, mills, granaries ; killing the 
 laborers in the fields ; preventing the seed from being sown 
 in the ground ; causing famine and starvation ; leaving only- 
 heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich 
 towns. To crown this misery English officers and men 
 deserted, and even the favorites of Ethelred the Unready, 
 becoming traitors, seized many of the English ships, turned 
 pirates against their own country, and aided by a storm occa- 
 sioned the loss of nearly the whole English navy. 
 
 There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, 
 who was true to his country and the feeble king. He was a 
 priest, and a brave one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury defended that city against its Danish besiegers ; 
 and when a traitor in the town threw the gates open and 
 admitted them, he said, in chains, "I will not buy my life 
 with money that must be extorted from the suffering people. 
 Do with me what you please ! " Again and again, he steadily 
 refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the poor. 
 
 At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assem- 
 bled at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the 
 feasting-hall. 
 
 "Now, Bishop," they said, "we want gold." 
 
 He looked round on the crowd of angry faces, — from the 
 shaggy beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the 
 walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see 
 him over the heads of others, — and he knew that his time was 
 come. 
 
 " I have no gold," said he. 
 
 "Get it, bishop !" they all thundered. 
 
 "That I have often told you I will not," said he. 
 
 They gathered closer round him, threatening; but he 
 stood unmoved. Then one man struck him ; then another ; 
 
SIX BOY-KINGS 45 
 
 then a cursing soldier picked up from a heap in the corner of 
 the hall, where fragments had been rudely thrown at dinner, 
 a great ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood 
 came spurting forth ; then others ran to the same heap, and 
 knocked him down with other bones, and bruised and bat- 
 tered him ; until one soldier whom he baptized (willing, as 
 I hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the suffer- 
 ings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. 
 
 If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of 
 this noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. 
 But he paid the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead ; 
 and gained so little by the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon 
 afterwards came over to subdue all England. So broken was 
 the attachment of the English people by this time, to their 
 incapable king and their forlorn country, which could not 
 protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides as a 
 deliverer. London faithfully stood out as long as the king 
 was within its walls ; but when he sneaked away, it also wel- 
 comed the Dane. Then all was over; and the king took 
 refuge abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already 
 given shelter to the king's wife (once the Flower of that coun- 
 try), and to her children. 
 
 Still the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, 
 could not quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon 
 race. When Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a 
 month after he had been proclaimed king of England, they 
 generously sent to Ethelred, to say that they would have him 
 for their king again, "if he would only govern them better 
 than he had governed them before." The Unready, instead 
 of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons, to make 
 promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English 
 declared him king. The Danes declared Canute, the son of 
 
46 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Sweyn, king. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for 
 three years, when the Unready died. And I know of nothing 
 better that he did, in all his reign of eight and thirty years. 
 
 Was Canute to be king now ? Not over the Saxons, 
 they said ; they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the 
 Unready, who was surnamed Ironside, because of his strength 
 and stature. Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and 
 fought five battles — O unhappy England, what a fighting- 
 ground it was ! — and then Ironside, who was a big man, 
 proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two 
 should fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the 
 big man, he would probably have said yes, but, being the 
 little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that 
 he was willing to divide the kingdom — to take all that lay 
 north of Watling Street, as the old Roman military road from 
 Dover to Chester was called, and to give Ironside all that lay 
 south of it. Most men being weary of so much bloodshed, 
 this was done. But Canute soon became sole King of Eng- 
 land ; for Ironside died suddenly within two months. Some 
 think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No 
 one knows. 
 
8Bp 
 
 And What Happened to Four of Them. 
 
 BECAUSE boys had royal blood in their veins this did 
 not make them good. In fact, they often were diso- 
 bedient and wicked. Henry II was the fourth king 
 after William the Conqueror, and reigned from 1 154 
 to 1 189, a period of thirty-five years. This was a good 
 long time for one king. He was the first king of the Plan- 
 tagenet family, also called the House of Anjou. The mean- 
 ing of Plantagenet I shall explain further on. He was a very 
 clever, brisk, spirited man, who hardly ever sat down, but was 
 always going from place to place, and who would let no one 
 disobey him. A rather unpleasant sort of a man he was. He 
 kept everybody in order, pulled down almost all the castles 
 the wicked barons had built, and would not let the barons ill- 
 treat the people. The Normans who spoke and thought in 
 the French language, and who had come over with William 
 the Conqueror, were now quite English in their feelings. 
 French was, however, chiefly spoken at court. King Henry 
 was really a Frenchman, and he married a French wife, 
 
 47 
 
4 8 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Eleanor, the lady of Aquitaine, one of the four ancient divi- 
 sions of France, now forming two departments of that country. 
 
 Henry was a most powerful king; but his latter years 
 were very unhappy. His wife was not a good woman, and 
 her four sons, were all disobedient and rebellious. 
 
 Henry, now aged eighteen — his secret crowning of whom 
 had given such offence to Thomas a Becket; Richard, aged 
 sixteen ; Geoffrey, fifteen ; and John, his favorite, a young 
 boy, whom the courtiers named Lackland, because he had no 
 
 inheritance, but to whom the king meant to give the Lordship 
 of Ireland. All these misguided boys, in their turn, were 
 unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each other. 
 Prince Henry, stimulated by the French king, and by his bad 
 mother, Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history. 
 
 First, he demanded that his young wife Margaret, the 
 French king's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. 
 His father, the king, consented, and it was done. It was no 
 sooner done, than he demanded to have a part of his father's 
 
THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 49 
 
 dominions, during his father's life. This being refused, he 
 made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full 
 of bitterness, and took refuge at the French king's court. 
 Within a day or two, his brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, fol- 
 lowed. Their mother tried to join them — escaping in men's 
 clothes — but she was seized by King Henry's men and immured 
 in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen years. Every 
 day, however, some grasping English noblemen, to whom the 
 king's protection of his people from their avarice and oppres- 
 sion had given offence, deserted him and joined the princes. 
 Every day, he heard some fresh intelligence of the princes 
 levying armies against him ; of Prince Henry's wearing a 
 crown before his own ambassadors at the French court, and 
 being called the Junior King of England ; of all the princes 
 swearing never to make peace with him, their father, without 
 the consent and approval of the barons of France. But, with 
 his fortitude and energy unshaken, King Henry met the shock 
 of these disasters with a resolved and cheerful face. He called 
 upon all royal fathers, who had sons, to help him, for his 
 cause_was theirs ; he hired, out of his riches, twenty thousand 
 men to fight the false French king, who stirred his own blood 
 against him ; and he carried on the war with such vigor, that 
 Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. 
 
 The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading 
 green elm tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. 
 The war recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting 
 career, by leading an army against his father ; but his father 
 beat him and his army back ; and thousands of his men would 
 have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked 
 cause, had not the king received news of an invasion of Eng- 
 land by the Scots, and promptly come home through a great 
 storm to repress it. And whether he really began to fear that 
 
50 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 he suffered these troubles because a Becket, the stern priest, 
 had been murdered by his command, or whether he wished to 
 rise in the favor of the Pope, who had now declared a Becket 
 to be a saint, or in the favor of his own people, of whom many 
 believed that even a Becket's senseless tomb could work 
 miracles, I don't know; but the king no sooner landed in 
 England than he went straight to Canterbury ; and when he 
 came within sight of the distant Cathedral, he dismounted 
 from his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with bare and 
 bleeding feet to a Becket's grave. There, he lay down on the 
 ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people ; and 
 by-and-by he went into the Chapter House, and, removing 
 his clothes from his back and shoulders, submitted himself to 
 be beaten with knotted cords (not beaten very hard, I dare 
 say), by eighty priests, one after another. It chanced that on 
 the very day when the king made this curious exhibition of 
 himself, a complete victory was obtained over the Scots; 
 which very much delighted the priests, who said that it was 
 won because of his great example of repentance. For the 
 priests in general had found out, since a Becket's death, that 
 they admired him of all things — though they had hated him 
 very cordially when he was alive. 
 
 The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base 
 conspiracy of the king's undutiful sons, and their foreign 
 friends, took the opportunity of the king being thus employed 
 at home, to lay siege to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But 
 the king, who was extraordinarily quick and active in all his 
 movements, was at Rouen, too, before it was supposed 
 possible that he could have left England ; and there he so 
 defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that the conspirators pro- 
 posed peace, and his bad sons Henry and Geoffrey submitted. 
 
THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 
 
 5i 
 
 Richard resisted for six weeks ; but, being beaten out of castle 
 after castle, and his followers deserting him, he at last sub- 
 mitted too, and his father forgave him. 
 
 To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford 
 them breathing time for new acts of disobedience. They were 
 so false, disloyal, and dishonorable, that they were no more 
 to be trusted than common thieves. In the very next year, 
 Prince Henry rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In 
 eight years more, Prince Richard rebelled against his elder 
 brother ; and Prince Geoffrey infamously said that the brothers 
 could never agree well 
 together, unless they 
 were united against 
 their father. In the 
 very next year after 
 their reconciliation by 
 the king, Prince Henry 
 again rebelled against 
 his father ; and again 
 submitted, swearing to 
 be true; and was 
 again forgiven ; and again rebelled with Geoffrey, and so on. 
 
 But the end of this perfidious prince was come. He fell 
 sick at a French town ; and his conscience terribly reproach- 
 ing him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the king his 
 father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive 
 him for the last time on his bed of death. The generous 
 king, who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his chil- 
 dren always, would have gone ; but this prince had been so 
 unnatural, that the noblemen about the king suspected treach- 
 ery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust his 
 life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore 
 
 ASKING THE WAY TO BECKET'S TOMB. 
 
52 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the king sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of for- 
 giveness ; and when the prince had kissed it, with much grief 
 and many tears, and had confessed to those around him how 
 bad, and wicked, and undutiful a son he had been ; he said 
 to the attending priests : " O, tie a rope about my body, and 
 draw me out of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, 
 that I may die with prayers to God in a repentant manner ! " 
 And so he died, at twenty-seven years old. 
 
 Three years afterwards, Prince Geof- 
 frey, being unhorsed at a tournament, 
 had his brains trampled out by a crowd 
 of horses passing over him. So, there 
 only remained. Prince Richard, and Prince 
 John — who had grown to be a young 
 man, now, and had solemnly sworn to 
 be faithful to his father. Richard soon 
 rebelled again, encouraged by his friend 
 the French king, and soon submitted and 
 was again forgiven, swearing on the New 
 Testament never to rebel again ; and, in 
 another year or so, rebelled again ; and, 
 in the presence of his father, knelt down 
 on his knee before the King of France; 
 and did the French king homage ; and 
 declared that with his aid he would possess himself, by force, 
 of all his father's French dominions. 
 
 Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, 
 and almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy king who 
 had so long stood firm began to fail. But the Pope, to his 
 honor, supported him ; and obliged the French king and 
 Richard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. Richard 
 wanted to be crowned King of England, and pretended that 
 
 PRINCE RICHARD. 
 
THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 53 
 
 he wanted to be married (which he really did not) to the 
 French king's sister, his promised wife, whom King Henry 
 detained in England. King Henry wanted, on the other 
 hand, that the French king's sister should be married to his 
 favorite son John ; the only one of his sons (he said) who 
 never rebelled against him. At last King Henry, deserted 
 by his nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken- 
 hearted, consented to establish peace. 
 
 One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. 
 When they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in 
 writing, as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the 
 list of the deserters from their allegiance, whom he was 
 required to pardon. The first name upon this list was John, 
 his favorite son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 
 
 "O John! child of my heart!" exclaimed the king in a 
 great agony of mind. " O John, whom I have loved the best ! 
 O John, for whom I have contended through these many 
 troubles ! Have you betrayed me too ? " And then he lay 
 down with a heavy groan, and said, ." Now let the world go 
 as it will. I care for nothing more ! " 
 
 After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the 
 French town of Chinon — a town he had been fond of, during 
 many years. But he was fond of no place now ; it was too 
 true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. He 
 wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the 
 children whom he left behind him ; and expired. 
 
 As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the 
 Court had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, 
 so they now abandoned his descendant. The very body was 
 stripped, in the plunder of the royal chamber; and it was not 
 easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the abbey 
 church of Fontevraud. 
 
54 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to 
 have the heart of a lion. It would have been far better, I 
 think, to have had the heart of a man. His heart, whatever it 
 was, had cause to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he 
 came — as he did — into the solemn abbey, and looked on his 
 dead father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, 
 had been a black and perjured heart, in all its dealings with 
 
 the deceased king, and more defi- 
 cient in a single touch of tender- 
 ness than any wild beast's in the 
 forest. 
 
 There is a pretty story told of 
 this reign, called the Story of Fair 
 Rosamond. It relates how the 
 king doted on Fair Rosamond, 
 who was the loveliest girl in all 
 the world ; and how he had a beau- 
 tiful bower built for her in a park 
 at Woodstock ; and how it was 
 erected in a labyrinth, and could 
 only be found by a clue of silk. 
 How the bad Queen Eleanor, be- 
 coming jealous of the Fair Rosa- 
 mond, found out the secret of the clue, and appeared before 
 her, one day, with a dagger and a cup of poison, and left her 
 to the choice between those deaths. How Fair Rosamond, 
 after shedding many piteous tears and offering many useless 
 prayers to the cruel Queen, took the poison, and fell dead in 
 the midst of the beautiful bower, while the unconscious birds 
 sang gaily all around her. 
 
 Now, there was a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare 
 say) the loveliest girl in all the world, and the king was 
 
 FAIR ROSAMOND 
 
THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 
 
 55 
 
 certainly very fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was 
 certainly made jealous. But I am afraid — I say afraid, because 
 I like the story so much — that there was no bower, no laby- 
 rinth, no silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid fair 
 Rosamond retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there, 
 peaceably ; her sister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her 
 tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance 
 of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the king when 
 he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him. 
 
 It was dark and ended now ; faded and gone. Henry 
 Plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in . 
 the fifty-seventh year of his age — never to be completed — 
 after governing England well, for nearly thirty-five years. 
 
56 
 
England Under Richard the First. 
 
 IN the year 1189, one of the disobedient sons of whom we 
 have read, Richard of the Lion Heart, succeeded to the 
 throne of King Henry the Second, whose paternal heart 
 
 he had done so much to break. He had been, as we 
 have seen, a rebel from his boyhood ; but the moment he 
 became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out 
 that rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this 
 pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had 
 befriended him against his father. He could scarcely have 
 done anything that would have been a better instance of his 
 real nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not 
 to trust in lion-hearted princes. 
 
 He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and 
 locked him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free 
 until he had relinquished, not only all the crown treasure, but 
 all his own money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion's 
 share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had 
 a Lion's heart or not. 
 
 He was crowned King of England with great pomp at 
 Westminster; walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy 
 stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great 
 
 57 
 
58 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 lord. On the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of 
 the Jews took place, which seems to have given great delight 
 to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. 
 The King had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews (who 
 were generally hated, though they were the most useful mer- 
 chants in England) to appear at the ceremony ; but as they had 
 assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to show 
 their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured 
 down to Westminster Hall with their gifts, which were very 
 
 readily accepted. 
 It is supposed, 
 now, that some 
 noisy fellow in the 
 crowd, set up a 
 howl at this, and 
 struck a Jew who 
 was trying to get 
 in at the Hall door 
 with his present. 
 A riot arose. The 
 Jews who had got 
 into the Hall were 
 
 A KNIGHT OP THE CRUSADES. 
 
 driven forth ; and some of the rabble cried out that the new 
 king had commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. 
 Thereupon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the 
 city, slaughtering all the Jews they met ; and when they could 
 find no more out of doors (on account of their having fled to 
 their houses, and fastened themselves in), they ran madly about 
 breaking open all the houses where the: Jews lived, rushing 
 in and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging 
 old people and children out of window into blazing 
 fires they had lighted up below. This great cruelty lasted 
 
HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 59 
 
 four-and-twenty hours, and only three men were punished for 
 it. Even they forfeited their lives not for murdering and rob- 
 bing the Jews, but for burning the houses of some Christians. 
 
 King Richard, who was a strong restless burly man, with 
 one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome 
 idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impa- 
 tient to go on a Crusade to the Holy Land, with a great 
 army. As great armies could not De raised to go, even to 
 the Holy Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the 
 crown domains, and even the high offices of State ; recklessly 
 appointing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, not 
 because they were fit to govern, but because they could pay 
 high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling pardons 
 at a dear rate, and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he 
 scraped together a large treasure. He then appointed two 
 bishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave 
 great powers and possessions to his brother John, to secure 
 his friendship. John would rather have been made Regent 
 of England ; but he was a sly man, and friendly to the expe- 
 dition ; saying to himself, no doubt, "The more fighting, the 
 more chance of my brother being killed; and when he is 
 killed, then I become King John !" 
 
 Richard, having completed his plans, with his troops went 
 on, in no very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was 
 undertaken jointly by the King of England and his old friend 
 Philip of France. They commenced the business by review- 
 ing their forces, to the number of one hundred thousand men. 
 Afterwards, they severally embarked their troops for Messina, 
 Sicily, which was appointed as the next place of meeting. 
 
 King Richard's sister had married the king of this place, 
 but he was dead ; and his uncle, Tancred, had usurped the 
 crown, cast the royal widow into prison, and possessed 
 
6o 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 himself of her estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister's 
 release, the restoration of her lands, and (according to the 
 royal custom of the island) that she should have a golden 
 chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver cups and four- 
 and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to be suc- 
 cessfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his demands ; and then 
 the French King grew jealous, and complained that the Eng- 
 lish King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Sicily and 
 everywhere else. Richard, however, cared, little or nothing 
 for this complaint, and in consideration of a present of twenty 
 
 thousand pieces 
 of gold, prom- 
 ised his pretty 
 l\v little nephew, 
 Arthur, then a 
 child two years 
 old, in marriage 
 to the daughter 
 of Tancred Of 
 this little Arthur, 
 who was put to death by his uncle John, we shall hear again. 
 This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains 
 being knocked out (which must have rather disappointed 
 him), King Richard took his sister away, and also a fair lady 
 named Berengaria,with whom he had fallen in love in France, 
 and whom his mother, Queen Eleanor, had brought out 
 there to be his wife ; and sailed with them to Cyprus. 
 
 He soon had the pleasure of fighting the king of the 
 Island of Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of 
 the English troops who were shipwrecked on the shore ; and 
 easily conquering this poor monarch, he seized his only 
 daughter, to be a companion to the lady Berengaria, and put 
 
 SARACEN ARCHER. 
 
HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 
 
 61 
 
 the king himself into silver fetters. He then sailed away 
 again with his mother, sister, wife and the captive princess ; 
 and soon arrived before the town of Acre, which the French 
 King with his fleet was besieging from the sea. But the French 
 King was in no triumphant condition, for his army had been 
 thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the 
 plague ; and Saladin, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the 
 head of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defend- 
 ing the place from the hills that rise above it. 
 
 Wherever the united army of the Crusaders went, they 
 agreed in few 
 points except in 
 gaming, drink- 
 ing and quarrel- 
 ing, in a most 
 unholy manner; 
 i n debauching 
 the people with 
 whom they tar- 
 ried whether they 
 were friends or 
 foes, and in car- 
 
 STOCKS— TWELFTH CENTURY. 
 
 rying disturbance and ruin into quiet places. The French 
 King was jealous of the English King, and the English 
 King was jealous of the French King, and the disorderly 
 and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of 
 one another; consequently, the two Kings could not at first 
 agree, even upon a joint assault on Acre ; but when they did 
 make up their quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised 
 to yield the town, to give up to the Christians the wood of 
 the Holy Cross, to set at liberty all their Christian captives, 
 and to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold. All this 
 
62 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 was to be done within forty days ; but, not being done, King 
 Richard ordered some three thousand Saracen prisoners to 
 be brought out in the front of his camp, and there, in full 
 view of their own countrymen, to be butchered. 
 
 The French King had no part in this crime, for he was 
 by this time traveling homeward with the greater part of his 
 men. being offended by the overbearing conduct of the Eng- 
 lish King:, being- anxious to look after his own dominions, 
 and being ill, besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot 
 and sandy country. King Richard carried on the war without 
 him, and remained in the East, meeting with a variety of 
 adventures, nearly a year and a half. Every night when his 
 army was on the march, and came to a halt, the heralds cried 
 out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause in 
 which they were engaged, "Save the Holy Sepulchre !" and 
 then all the soldiers knelt, and said, "Amen!" Marching or 
 encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot 
 air of the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers ani- 
 mated and directed by the brave Saladin, or with both to- 
 gether. Sickness and death, battle and wounds, were always 
 among them, but through every difficulty King Richard fought 
 like a giant and worked like a common laborer. Long and 
 long after he was quiet in his grave, his terrible battle-axe, 
 with twenty English pounds of English steel in its mighty 
 head, was a legend among the Saracens ; and when all the 
 Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, 
 if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his 
 rider would exclaim, "What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost 
 thou think King Richard is behind it?" 
 
 No one admired this king's renown for bravery more 
 than Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. 
 When Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits 
 
HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 63 
 
 from Damascus and snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly 
 messages and compliments were frequently exchanged between 
 them — and then King Richard would mount his horse and 
 kill as many Saracens as he could, and Saladin would mount 
 his horse and kill as many Christians as he could. In this 
 way King Richard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof 
 and at Jaffa ; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do 
 at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, some 
 fortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed, he 
 kicked his ally, Duke Leopold of Austria, for being too proud 
 to work at the fortifications, 
 
 The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of 
 Jerusalem; but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quar- 
 reling, and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Sara- 
 cens upon a truce for three years, three months, three days 
 and three hours. Then the English Christians, protected by 
 the noble Saladin from Saracen revenge, visited our Saviour's 
 tomb ; and then King Richard embarked with a small force at 
 Acre to return home. 
 
 But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was 
 fain to pass through Germany under an assumed name. Now, 
 there were many people in Germany who had served in the 
 Holy Land under that proud Duke of Austria who had been 
 kicked, and some of them easily recognizing a man so 
 remarkable as King Richard, carried their intelligence to the 
 kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner at a little inn 
 near Vienna. 
 
 The Duke's master, the Emperor of Germany, and the 
 King of France, were equally delighted to have so trouble- 
 some a monarch in safekeeping. Friendships which are 
 founded on a partnership in doing wrong are never true, and 
 the King of France was now quite as heartily King Richard's 
 
64 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 foe as he had ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct 
 to his father. He monstrously pretended that King Richard 
 had designed to poison him in the East ; he charged him 
 with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth 
 befriended ; he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him 
 close prisoner ; and, finally, through the plotting of these two 
 princes, Richard was brought before the German legislature, 
 charged with the foregoing crimes, and many others. But 
 he defended himself so well, that many of the assembly were 
 moved to tears by his eloquence and earnestness. It was 
 decided that he should be treated, during the rest of his captivity, 
 in a manner more becoming his dignity than he had been, 
 and that he should be set free on the payment of a heavy 
 ransom. This ransom the English people willingly raised. 
 When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany, it was at first 
 evaded and refused. But she appealed to the honor of the 
 princes of all the German Empire in behalf of her son, and 
 appealed so well that it was accepted, and the king released. 
 Thereupon, the King of France wrote to Prince John — 
 "Take care of thyself. The devil is unchained !" 
 
 King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by 
 his enthusiastic subjects with great display and splendor, and 
 had no sooner been crowned afresh at Winchester, than he 
 resolved to show the French King that the devil was un- 
 chained indeed, and made war against him with great fury. 
 
 The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was 
 still in progress, when a certain lord named Vidomar, Viscount 
 of Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient 
 coins. As the king's vassal, he sent the king half of it ; but 
 the king claimed the whole. The lord refused to yield the 
 whole. The king besieged the lord in his castle, swore that 
 
HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 
 
 65 
 
 he would take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its 
 defenders on the battlements. 
 
 Bertrand de Gourdon, a young man who was one of the 
 defenders of the castle, saw, from his post upon the ram- 
 parts, the king, attended only by his chief officer, riding below 
 the walls surveying the place. He drew an arrow to the head, 
 
 DEATH OF KING RICHARD FIRST FROM THE ARROW OF BERTRAND DE GOURDON. 
 
 took steady aim, said between his teeth, " Now I pray God 
 speed thee well, arrow!" discharged it, and struck the king 
 in the left shoulder. 
 
 Although the wound was not at first considered danger- 
 ous, it was severe enough to cause the king to retire to his 
 tent, and direct the assault to be made without him. The 
 castle was taken ; and every man of its defenders was hanged, 
 5 
 
66 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 as the king had sworn all should be, except Bertrand de 
 Gourdon, who was reserved until the royal pleasure respect- 
 ing him should be known. 
 
 By that time unskillful treatment had made the wound 
 mortal, and the king knew that he was dying. He directed 
 Bertrand to be brought into his tent. The young man was 
 brought there heavily chained. King Richard looked at him 
 steadily. He looked steadily at the king, 
 
 "Knave ! " said King Richard, " what have I done to thee, 
 that thou shouldst take my life?" 
 
 " What hast thou done to me ?" replied the young man. 
 "With thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my two 
 brothers. Myself thou wouldst have hanged. Let me die, 
 now, by any torture thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture 
 can save thee. Thou, too, must die ; and through me the 
 world is quit of thee." 
 
 Again the king looked at the young man steadily. Again 
 the young man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some 
 remembrance of his generous enemy Saladin, who was not a 
 Christian, came into the mind of the dying king. 
 
 " Youth," he said, " I forgive thee. Go unhurt ! " 
 
 Then turning to the chief officer who had been riding 
 in his company when he received the wound, King Richard 
 said : 
 
 "Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and 
 let him depart." 
 
 He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in 
 his weakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often 
 rested, and he died. His age was forty-two ; he had reigned 
 ten years. His last command was not obeyed ; for the chief 
 officer flayed Bertrand de Gourdon alive, and hanged him. 
 
The Story of an Awful Crime. 
 
 THE Danes never succeeded in conquering England and 
 in making it their own, though many of them settled 
 in England and married English wives. But some 
 relations of the Danes, called the Normans, were 
 bolder and stronger and more fortunate. And William, who 
 was called the Conqueror, became King of England, and left 
 his son to rule after him. And when four Norman Kings had 
 reigned in England, the Count of Anjou was made the Eng- 
 lish King, because his mother was the heiress of the English 
 crown. 
 
 His great-grandfather, Ingeger, the first Count of Anjou, 
 must have been a very brave man. When he was quite a 
 boy he was page to his godmother, who was a great lady. 
 It was the custom then for boys of noble family to serve 
 noble ladies as pages. 
 
 67 
 
68 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 One morning this lady's husband was found dead in his 
 bed, and the poor lady was accused by a nobleman, named 
 Gontran, of murdering him. Gontran said he was quite sure 
 of her guilt, and that he was ready to stake his life on it, that 
 is to say, he offered to fight anyone who should say that the 
 lady was innocent. This seems a curious way of finding out 
 
 a person's innocence or 
 1^^5 guilt, but it was the cus- 
 
 irj^K'.'ij Hw|^^ H """'■ (I torn of the times. 
 J— ~ U i] ( FiL^^x^Bt *1 The poor lady could 
 
 find no one who believed 
 in her enough to risk his 
 life, and she began to 
 despair, when suddenly 
 her boy-page rushed for- 
 ward and begged that, 
 though he was not yet a 
 knight, and so had really 
 no right to fight, yet that 
 he might be allowed to 
 , do combat in her defence. 
 !,. | ' , ' -'' fa " The whole Court were 
 
 | yf/. , j|_ZIIl f spectators. The Duke 
 
 Charles was on his throne, 
 and the accused widow in 
 a litter curtained with black. Prayers were offered that God 
 would aid the right. The trumpets sounded, and the champions 
 rode in full career against each other. At the first onset Gon- 
 tran's lance pierced his adversary's shield so that he could not 
 disengage it, and Ingeger was thus enabled to close with him, 
 hurl him to the ground, and despatch him with a dagger. Then, 
 while the lists rang with applause, the brave boy rushed up to 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 
 
After the I 
 Prince Edv 
 said, "Giv 
 
 FLIGHT OF QUEEN MARGARET AND PRINCE EDWARD. 
 
 Battleof Northampton the King was taken prisoner, but Queen Margaret with 
 
 flight they were caught by two robbers, one of who 
 
 : your jewels and i 
 
 ■life.' 
 
 little 
 
THE PRINCES IN THETOWER. 
 
 These were the two little hoys 1 
 strangled in the tower, hoping 
 told in history. 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 69 
 
 his godmother and threw himself into her arms in a transport 
 
 of joy." 
 
 When William conquered England he became King of 
 England and still owned his own possessions in Normandy, 
 and the Count of Anjou, when he became king, still held 
 the lands he had held as count, so that the kings of Eng- 
 land held a great part of France as well as England. The 
 counts of Anjou used to wear a sprig of broom, or ftlanta 
 genista, in their helmets, and from this they were called the 
 Plantagenet Kings. 
 
 The first of them was brave and clever, and the second 
 was brave, but the third, John, was mean and cruel and cow- 
 ardly, and had really no right to the throne at all. His 
 nephew, Prince Arthur of Brittany, ought to have been 
 King, because he was the son of John's elder brother 
 
 The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the 
 rignt of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of 
 Arthur. You must not suppose that he had any generosity 
 of feeling for the fatherless boy ; it merely suited his ambi- 
 tious schemes to oppose the King of England. So John and 
 the French King went to war about Arthur. 
 
 He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years 
 old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains 
 trampled out at the tournament ; and, besides the misfortune 
 of never having known a father's guidance and protection, 
 he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother 
 (Constance by name), lately married to her third husband. 
 She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French King, 
 who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made 
 him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage ; 
 but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it 
 his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did 
 
7o 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 little Prince, 
 
 so without the least consideration for the poor 
 and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests. 
 
 Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly ; 
 and in the course of that time his mother died. But the 
 French King then finding it his interest to quarrel with King 
 
 THE BOY PAGE WHO BECAME A KNIGHT. 
 
 John again, again made Arthur his pretence, 
 
 and invited the orphan boy to court. "You 
 
 know your rights, Prince," said the French 
 
 King, "and you would like to be a king. 
 
 Is itnotso?" "Truly," said Prince Arthur, 
 
 " I should greatly like to be a king." 
 
 "Then," said Philip, "you shall have two 
 
 hundred gentlemen who are knights of 
 
 mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces 
 
 belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping King of 
 
 England, has taken possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head 
 
 a force against him in Normandy." Poor Arthur was so 
 
 flattered and so grateful that he signed a treaty with the crafty 
 
 French King, agreeing to consider him his superior lord, and 
 
 M 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 71 
 
 that the French King should keep for himself whatever he 
 could take from King John. 
 
 Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip 
 was so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well 
 have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so 
 young, he was ardent and flushed with hope ; and, when the 
 people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five 
 hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, he 
 believed his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had 
 been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he 
 might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly-famous. 
 English Arthur, the hero of so many wonderful deeds, whom 
 they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of 
 an old king of their own. They had tales among them about 
 a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had fore- 
 told that their own king should be restored to them after 
 hundreds of years ; and they believed that the prophecy would 
 be fulfilled in Arthur; that the time would come when he 
 would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head ; and 
 when neither King of France nor King of England would 
 have any power over them. When Arthur found himself 
 riding in a glittering suit of armor, on a richly caparisoned 
 horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he be- 
 lieved this too, and considered old Merlin a superior prophet. 
 
 He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and 
 inexperienced ? — that his little army was a mere nothing against 
 the power of the King of England. The French king knew 
 it ; but the poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King 
 of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King 
 Philip went his way into Normandy ; and Prince Arthur went 
 his way towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both 
 very well pleased. 
 
72 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, 
 because his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her 
 appearance in this history (and who had always been his 
 mother's enemy), was living there, and because his knights 
 said, "Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able 
 to bring the king, your uncle, to terms ! " But she was not 
 to be easily taken. She was old enough by this time — eighty; 
 but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and 
 wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's approach, 
 she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her 
 soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little 
 army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how mat- 
 ters stood, came up to the rescue with his army. So here 
 was a strange family party ; the boy-prince besieging his grand- 
 mother, and his uncle besieging him. 
 
 This position of affairs did not last long. One summer 
 night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, 
 surprised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his 
 knights, and seized the prince himself in his bed. The knights 
 were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts drawn 
 by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most 
 inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to 
 death. Prince Arthur was sent to the Castle of Falaise. 
 
 One day while he was in prison at that castle, mourn- 
 fully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so 
 much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the 
 deep dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door 
 was softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king, standing 
 in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 
 
 "Arthur," said the king, with his wicked eyes more on 
 the stone floor than on his nephew, "will you not trust to the 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 
 
 73 
 
 gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulnesss of your loving 
 uncle?" 
 
 " I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy," when 
 he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of 
 England, and then come to me and ask the question." 
 
 The king looked at him and went out. " Keep that boy 
 close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. 
 
 One dark night, as Prince Arthur lay sleeping, dreaming 
 perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were 
 obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, 
 and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the 
 foot of the tower. 
 He hurriedly 
 dressed himself 
 and obeyed. 
 When they came 
 to the bottom of 
 the winding 
 stairs, and the 
 night air from 
 the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his 
 torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the darkness was 
 hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. In that boat, he found 
 his uncle and one other man, and in the dark night, as 
 they passed along by the river, the wicked king stabbed the 
 young prince with his own hand, and pushed him into the 
 swift-flowing water. "There," he cried, "that is the king- 
 dom I promised you." 
 
 And the poor young Prince sank into the dark flood, 
 never to rise again. 
 
 i Shakespeare tells another story of Prince Arthur's death, 
 which you will read for yourselves cne day ; this is the story : 
 
74 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 After King John had taken the young Prince prisoner, 
 he shut him up in the Castle of Northampton, and ordered 
 Hubert de Burgh, the Governor of the Castle, to put poor 
 Arthur's eyes out, because he thought that no one would 
 want a blind boy to be King of England. So Hubert went 
 into the room where the little Prince was shut up. 
 
 "Good morning," 
 Hubert." 
 
 " Indeed, I have been merrier," said Hubert, who, though 
 he did not like to disobey the king, was yet miserable at the 
 wicked deed he had been asked to do. 
 
 "Nobody," said Arthur, "should be sad but I. If I were 
 out of prison and kept sheep I should be as merry as the day 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 
 
 75 
 
 is long. And so I would be here but for my uncle. He is 
 afraid of me, and I of him. Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey's 
 son ? Indeed it is not, and I would to heaven I were your 
 son, so you would love me, Hubert." 
 
 " If I talk to him," said Hubert to himself, " I shall never 
 have the courage to do this wicked deed." 
 
 "Are you ill, Hubert?" Arthur went on. "You look 
 pale to-day. If you were ill I would sit all night and watch 
 you, for I believe I love you more than you do me." 
 
 Hubert dared not listen. 
 
 He felt he must do the king's 
 wicked will, so he pulled out 
 the paper on which the king 
 had written his cruel order, 
 and showed it to the young 
 prince. Arthur read it calmly 
 and then turned to Hubert. 
 "So you are to put out my 
 eyes with hot irons. " 
 
 "Young boy, I must," 
 said Hubert. 
 
 "And you will?" asked Arthur. MAGNA CHAETA SEAL - 
 
 And Hubert answered, "And I will." 
 
 " Have you the heart ? " cried Arthur. " Do you remem- 
 ber when your head ached how I tied it up with my own 
 handkerchief, and sat up with you the whole night holding 
 your hand and doing everything I could for you ! Many a 
 poor man's son would have lain still and never have spoke a 
 loving word to you ; but you, at your sick service, had a 
 prince. Will you put out my eyes — those eyes that never 
 did, nor never shall, so much as frown on you ?" 
 
 "I have sworn to do it," said Hubert. He called two 
 
7 6 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 men, who brought in the fire and the hot irons, and the cord 
 
 to bind the little Prince. 
 
 " Give me the irons," said Hubert, "and bind him here." 
 "For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound," 
 
 cried Arthur. " I will not struggle — I will stand stone still. 
 
 Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away and I will sit 
 
 as quiet as a lamb, and I will forgive you whatever torment 
 
 you may put me to." 
 
 KING JOHN'S MISERABLE 
 CONDITION IN HIS LAST 
 
 And Hubert was moved by his pleading, and told the 
 men to go ; and as they went they said — "We are glad to 
 have no part in such a wicked deed as this." 
 
 Then Arthur flung his arms round Hubert and implored 
 him to spare his eyes, and at last Hubert consented, for all the 
 time his heart had been sick at the cruel deed he had prom- 
 ised to do. Then he took Prince Arthur away and hid him, 
 and told the king: he was dead. 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 77 
 
 But King John's lords were so angry when they heard 
 that Arthur was dead, and John seemed so sorry for having 
 given the order to Hubert, that Hubert thought it best to tell 
 him that Arthur had not been killed at all, but was still alive 
 and safe. John was now so terrified at the anger of his lords 
 on Arthur's account that Arthur might from that time have 
 been safe from him. But the poor boy was so frightened 
 by what he had gone through that he made up his mind 
 to risk his life in trying to escape. So he decided to leap 
 down from the top of the tower as his only means of escape. 
 Then he thought he could get away in disguise without, 
 being recognized. 
 
 "The wall is high, and yet will I leap down," he said. 
 " Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not." 
 
 So he leaped, but the tower was high, and the fall killed 
 him. And before he died, he murmured — " Heaven take my 
 soul and England keep my bones." 
 
 That is the story as Shakespeare gives it. 
 
 Almost every one in England hated King John, even 
 before this dreadful affair of Prince Arthur's death. The 
 King of France took Normandy away from him, and his own 
 people would not help him to fight for it. 
 
 He was very cruel and revengeful, and often put people 
 in prison or killed them without giving any reason for it, or 
 having them properly tried. So the great nobles of England 
 joined together and said that they would not let John be 
 king any longer in England unless he would give them a 
 written promise to behave better in future. At first he laughed 
 at the idea, and said he should do as he chose, and that he 
 would fight the lords and keep them in their proper place. 
 But he had to give in when he found that only seven of the 
 lords of England were on his side and all the rest against 
 
78 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 him. So then he asked the barons and the bishops to meet 
 him at Runnymede, and there he put his big seal to a writing, 
 promising what they wished. He did not sign his name to it, 
 but you can see that very parchment, called Magna Charta, 
 
 sealed in the British Museum 
 
 with the King's big seal to it. 
 
 But though he fixed his 
 
 seal to the paper he did not 
 
 keep the promises that were 
 
 in it, and the barons grew so 
 
 angry that they asked the King of • 
 
 France to help them to fight John, 
 
 and to turn him out. 
 
 John ran away when he heard 
 that the French were coming. He 
 is friends to fight his battles, 
 went off, wrecking the castles 
 of the barons who had asked the 
 French Prince to come over, and 
 who were now with him. Then 
 some one told the barons that the 
 French Prince was determined to 
 cut off all their heads as soon as 
 he had got England for his own. 
 So they saw how foolish they had 
 been to ask him to come and help them. John was in Lin- 
 colnshire, and was coming across the sands at the Wash, but 
 the tide suddenly came in and swept away his crown, his 
 treasure, his food, and everything was lost in the sea. King- 
 John was very miserable at losing all his treasures, and he tried 
 to drown his sorrows by drinking a lot of beer and eating 
 
PRINCE ARTHUR 79 
 
 much more than was good for him. This brought on a fever, 
 and he died miserably, with no one at all to be sorry for him. 
 He was and is the best-hated of all our English kings. 
 
 There was much danger in traveling in those days, 
 for robbers used to hide in the woods and lonely places, and 
 so attack and rob travelers. Many of the nobles themselves 
 who were in attendance on the king, being often unable to 
 get their proper pay, either belonged to these robber bands or 
 secretly helped them, and shared with them the plunder they 
 took from those they robbed. The best known of these 
 robbers was the famous Robin Hood, who lived in the time 
 of King Richard and King John. He is supposed to have 
 been a nobleman, and to have had his hiding place in Sher- 
 wood Forest, and he is said to have been kind and merciful 
 to the poor, and to have helped them out of the money and 
 good things he stole from the rich. Many songs about him 
 have come down to us. The poor suffered in those old days 
 many and great hardships at the hands of the nobles of Eng- 
 land, who indeed robbed and oppressed them very cruelly. 
 So they were ready enough to sing the praises of one who 
 stole only from the rich and who gave to the poor. 
 
So 
 
England in the Year, a. d., 1216. 
 
 HENRY THE THIRD was crowned at Gloucester 
 when he was only nine years old. You remember 
 that King John's crown had been lost in the Wash 
 with his other treasures, so they crowned Henry with 
 a gold bracelet of his mother's. The lords who attended the 
 coronation banquet wore white ribbons round their heads as 
 a sign of their homage to the innocent, helpless child. They 
 made him swear to do as his father had promised in the great 
 charter sealed in Runnymede; and the Earl of Pembroke was 
 appointed to govern the kingdom till Henry grew up. 
 
 Henry grew up unlike his cruel father. He was gentle, 
 tenderhearted, fond of romance, music and poetry, sculpture, 
 painting and architecture. Some of the most beautiful 
 churches we have were built in his reign. But, though he 
 had so many good qualities, he had no bravery, no energy 
 and perservance. He was fond of pleasure and of the beauti- 
 ful things of this world, and cared too little for the beautiful 
 things of the soul. He was fond of gaiety, and his young 
 
 6 Si 
 
82 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 queen was of the same disposition. She was one of four 
 sisters. Two of them married kings, and two married counts, 
 and the kings' wives were so proud of being queens that they 
 used to make their sisters, the countesses, sit on little low 
 stools while they themselves sat on handsome high chairs. 
 
 Henry's time passed in feasts and songs and dancing. 
 Romances and curious old Breton ballads were translated 
 into English, and recited at the Court with all sorts of tales 
 of love and battle and chivalry. 
 
 The object of chivalry was to encourage men in noble 
 and manly exercises, and to teach them to succor the op- 
 pressed, to uphold the dignity of women, and to help the 
 Christian faith. And chivalry was made attractive by all sorts 
 of gay and pretty devices. Knights used to wear in their 
 helmets a ribbon or a glove that some lady had given them, 
 and it was supposed that, while they had the precious gift of 
 a good lady in their possession, they would do nothing base 
 or disloyal that should dishonor the gift they carried. 
 
 Each young noble at twelve years old was placed as page 
 in some other noble household. There, for two years, he 
 learned riding and fencing, and the use of arms. When the 
 lord killed a deer the pages skinned it and carried it home. 
 At a feast the pages carried in the chief dishes and poured 
 the wine for their lords to drink. They helped the ladies of 
 the house in many ways, and carried their trains on state 
 occasions. 
 
 At fourteen a page became a squire. He helped his lord 
 to put on his armor, carried his shield to battle, cleaned and 
 polished his lord's armor and sharpened his sword, and he 
 was allowed to wear silver spurs instead of iron ones, such 
 as the common people wore. 
 
 When he was considered worthy to become a knight he 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 
 
 83 
 
 went through a ceremony which dedicated him to the service 
 of God. We will tell you what it was. 
 
 The day before he was to become a knight the young man 
 stripped and bathed. Then he put on a white tunic — the 
 white as a promise of purity ; a red robe — the red meant the 
 blood he was to shed 
 in fighting for the right ; 
 and he put on a black 
 doublet (which is a sort 
 of jacket), and this was 
 black in token of death, 
 of which a knight was 
 never to be afraid. Then 
 he went into the church, 
 and there he spent the 
 night in prayer. He 
 heard the priests sing- 
 ing their chant in the 
 darkness of the big 
 church, and he thought 
 of his sins, and stead- 
 fastly purposed to lead 
 a new life. In the 
 
 morning he confessed 
 
 his sins, walked up to 
 
 the altar, laid down his 
 
 belt and sword, and 
 
 then knelt at the foot of the altar steps. He received the Holy 
 
 Communion, and then the lord who was to make him a knight 
 
 gave him the accolade — three strokes on the back of the bare 
 
 neck with the flat side of the sword — and said : 
 
 "In the name of Saint George I make thee a knight," — and 
 
 AT FOURTEEN HE BECAME A SQUIRE. 
 
84 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 bade him take back his sword — "in the name of God and 
 Saint George, and use it like a true knight as a terror and 
 a punishment for evil-doers, and a defence for widows and 
 orphans, and the poor, and the oppressed, and the priests — 
 the servants of God." 
 
 The priests and the ladies came round him and put on 
 his gilt spurs, and his coat of mail, and his breastplate, and 
 armpieces, and gauntlets, and took the sword and girded it 
 on him. Then the young man swore to be faithful to God, 
 the king, and woman ; his squire brought him his helmet, 
 and his horse's shoes rang on the church pavement and under 
 the tall arches as his squire led the charger up the aisle. In 
 the presence of priests, and knights, and ladies assembled, 
 the young knight sprang upon his horse and caracoled before 
 the altar, brandishing his lance and his sword. And then 
 away to do the good work he was sworn to. 
 
 Many, of course, forgot their promises and broke their 
 vows, but in those wild times many a rough man was made 
 gentle, many a cruel man less cruel, and many a faint-hearted 
 one made bold by the noble thoughts from which the idea of 
 chivalry sprang. 
 
 Now, you know, England is governed by the king and 
 Parliament. But in those old days England was ruled by 
 kings and by such nobles as had money and strength enough 
 to be able to rule by force. These nobles were indeed a ter- 
 ror to the people. They lived in strong, stoutly-built castles, 
 with a great moat or ditch round them, and having always 
 many retainers and armed servants, they were often able to 
 resist the king himself. It was the growing power and 
 riches of the king which they most dreaded, for he only 
 could do them harm. It was then for their own sakes — to 
 guard their own persons, to protect their own property against 
 
HENEY THE THIRD 
 
 35 
 
 the king- 
 
 rather than from any desire to help the people, 
 that the barons resisted first John and then Henry. 
 
 But among them was a noble, unselfish man, who loved 
 
 r 
 
 his fellow countrymen, and 
 who saw, that to make 
 people rich, and happy, 
 and prosperous, they must 
 be allowed to share in the 
 government of the country 
 in which they live. This 
 noble Englishman, Simon 
 de Montfort, was called the 
 great Earl, and it was he who headed the resistance to Henry 
 the Third, when that king tried to escape from keeping the 
 promises contained in the Great Charter which he had bound 
 himself to obey. 
 
86 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and 
 a great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king through 
 his disputes with the barons, and to follow the barons through 
 their disputes with one another — so I will make short work 
 of it for both of us, and only relate the chief events that arose 
 out of these quarrels. The good King of France was asked 
 to decide between them. He gave it as his opinion that the 
 king must maintain the Great Charter, and that the barons 
 must give up the Committee of Government, and all the rest 
 that had been done by the Parliament at Oxford ; which the . 
 Royalists, or king's party, scornfully called the Mad Parliament. 
 The barons declared that these were not fair terms, and they 
 would not accept them. Then they caused the great bell of 
 St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the Lon- 
 don people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and 
 formed quite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, how- 
 ever, that instead of falling upon the king's party with whom 
 their quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed 
 at least five hundred of them. They pretended that some of 
 these Jews were on the king's side, and that they kept hidden 
 in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certain 
 terrible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be 
 put out with water, but only burned the fiercer for it. What 
 they really did keep in their houses was money ; and this their 
 cruel enemies wanted, and this their cruel enemies took, like 
 robbers and murderers. 
 
 The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these 
 Londoners and other forces, and followed the king to Lewes 
 in Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. Before 
 giving the king's forces battle here, the Earl addressed his 
 soldiers, and said that King Henry the Third had broken so 
 many oaths, that he had become the enemy of God, and 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 87 
 
 therefore they would wear white crosses upon their breasts, as if 
 they were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, but against 
 a Turk. White-crossed accordingly, they rushed into the 
 fight. They would have lost the day — the king having on 
 his side all the foreigners in England ; and from Scotland, 
 John Comyn, John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, with all their 
 men — but. for the impatience of Prince Edward, who in his 
 hot desire to have vengeance on the people of London, threw 
 the whole of his father's army into confusion. He was taken 
 prisoner ; so was the king ; so was the king's brother the 
 king of the Romans ; and five thousand Englishmen were 
 left dead upon the bloody grass. 
 
 For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of 
 Leicester; which neither the Earl nor the people cared at all 
 about. The people loved him and supported him, and he 
 became the real king ; having all the power of the govern- 
 ment in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful 
 to King Henry the Third, whom he took with him wherever 
 he went, like a poor old limp coat-card. He summoned a 
 Parliament (in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty- 
 five) which was the first Parliament in England that the peo- 
 ple had any real share in electing ; and he grew more and 
 more in favor with the people every day, and they stood by 
 him in whatever he did. 
 
 Many of the other barons, and particularly the Earl of 
 Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his 
 father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular Earl, who 
 was proud too, and began to conspire against him. Since the 
 battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as a hostage, 
 and, though he was otherwise treated like a prince, had never 
 been allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the 
 Earl of Leicester, who watched him. The conspiring lords 
 
88 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 found means to propose to him, in secret, that they should 
 assist him to escape, and should make him their leader ; to 
 which he very heartily consented. 
 
 So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his atten- 
 dants after dinner (being then at Hereford), " I should like 
 to ride on horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the 
 country." As they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to 
 have a canter in the sunshine, they all rode out of the town 
 together in a gay little troop. When they came to a fine level 
 piece of turf, the prince fell to comparing their horses one 
 with another, and offering bets that one was faster than 
 another ; and the attendants, suspecting no harm, rode gal- 
 loping matches until their horses were quite tired. The prince 
 rode no matches himself, but looked on from his saddle, and 
 staked his money. Thus they passed the whole merry after- 
 noon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going 
 slowly up a hill, the prince's horse very fresh, and all the 
 other horses very weary, when a strange rider mounted on a 
 gray steed appeared at the top of the hill, and waved his hat. 
 "What does the fellow mean?" said the attendants one to 
 another. The prince answered on the instant, by setting spurs 
 to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed, joining the 
 man, riding into the midst of a little crowd of horsemen who 
 were then seen waiting under some trees, and who closed 
 around him ; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving 
 the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who sat look- 
 ing at one another, while their horses drooped their ears and 
 panted. 
 
 The prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The 
 Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old 
 kine was at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, 
 Simon de Montfort, with another part of the army was in 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 
 
 89 
 
 Sussex. To prevent these two parts from uniting was the 
 prince's first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort by 
 night, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and 
 forced him into Kenilworth Castle, in Warwickshire, which 
 belonged to his family. 
 
 His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not 
 knowing what had happened, marched out of Hereford with 
 his part of the army and the king, to meet him. He came, 
 
 THE PRIESTS ATTENDED THE SICK. 
 
 on a bright morning in August, to Evesham, which is watered 
 by the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiously across 
 the prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners 
 advancing ; and his face brightened with joy. But it clouded 
 darkly when he presently perceived that the banners were cap- 
 tured, and in the enemy's hands ; and he said, " It is over. 
 The Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are Prince 
 Edward's ! " 
 
S o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 He fought like a true knight, nevertheless. When his 
 horse was killed under him he fought on foot. It was a fierce 
 battle, and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old king, 
 stuck up in a suit of armor on a big war-horse, which didn't 
 mind him at all, and which carried him into all sorts of places 
 where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, and very 
 nearly got knocked on the head by one of his own son's men. 
 But he managed to pipe out, " I am Harry of Winchester ! " 
 and the prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took 
 him out of peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought bravely, 
 until his best son Henry was killed, and the bodies of his best 
 friends choked his path ; and then he fell, still fighting, sword 
 in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it. as a present to 
 a noble lady — but a very unpleasant lady, I should think — 
 who was the wife of his worst enemy. They could not man- 
 gle his memory in the minds of his faithful people, though. 
 Many years afterwards, they loved him more than ever, and 
 regarded him as a saint, and always spoke of him as " Sir 
 Simon the Righteous." 
 
 And even though he was dead, the cause for which he 
 had fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon 
 the king in the very hour of victory. Henry found himself 
 obliged to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated 
 it, and to make laws similar to the laws of the Great Earl of 
 Leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards the peo- 
 ple at last — even toward the people of London, who had so 
 long opposed him. There were more risings before all this 
 was done, but they were set at rest by these means, and 
 Prince Edward did his best in all things to restore peace. 
 One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight 
 in arms ; but the prince vanquished him in single com- 
 bat in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 
 
 91 
 
 friend, instead of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrate- 
 ful. He ever afterwards remained devoted to his generous 
 conquerer. 
 
 Some of the priests in England had grown very wicked 
 and greedy. They neglected their duties and thought only, 
 of feasting and making themselves comfortable. But some 
 good monks came over from Rome, and determined to try to 
 show the English priests what a Christian's duty was. They 
 made a vow to be poor, and to deny themselves everything, 
 except just enough food to keep body and soul together. 
 They would not even have books at first, but spent all the 
 money they could collect on the poor. They nursed the sick 
 and helped the unfortunate. They would not wear pretty 
 clothes or beautiful vestments, but were dressed in plain grey 
 or black serge, with a rope round the waist, and bare feet. 
 Although they were foreigners and could speak but little Eng- 
 lish, they encouraged people to write in the English language 
 instead of in Latin or French. 
 
 It was a favorite dream of the early English and French 
 kings to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the hands 
 of the Saracens, and to let Christians be the guardians of the 
 place where Christ lived and died. To do this they were 
 constantly making war on the Saracens, and these wars were 
 called Crusades, and the knights who went to them Crusaders. 
 Crusaders carried a red cross on their banners and on their 
 shields. The Saracens' banners and shields had a crescent 
 like a new moon. For two hundred years this fighting went 
 on, and the last of our English princes to take part in it was 
 Prince Edward. He had only three hundred knights with 
 him, and was not able to attack Jerusalem, because he could 
 not get together more than seven thousand men. His knights 
 went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but he stayed in his camp 
 
92 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 at Acre. One day a messenger came into his tent with letters, 
 and while he was reading them, the wicked messenger stabbed 
 him. He had been sent to do so by the Saracens, because 
 they were afraid of this brave prince. The prince caught the 
 blow on his arm, and kicked the messenger to the ground, 
 but the man rose and rushed at him again with the knife. 
 The dagger just grazed the prince's forehead, and seizing a 
 wooden footstool Prince Edward dashed out the messenger's 
 brains. His wife, the Princess Eleanor, was afraid the dagger 
 was poisoned. So she sucked the blood from the wound with 
 her own lips, and so most likely saved his life. But he was 
 very ill in spite of this, and England nearly lost one of her 
 best and bravest princes. 
 
 As the king, his father, had sent entreaties to him to 
 return home, he now began the journey. He had- got as far 
 as Italy, when he met messengers who brought him intelli- 
 gence of the king's death. Hearing that all was quiet at 
 home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but 
 paid a visit to the Pope, and went in state through various 
 Italian towns, where he was welcomed with acclamations as 
 a mighty champion of the Cross from the Holy Land, and 
 where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing 
 horses, and went along in pomp and triumph. The shouting 
 people little knew that he was the last English monarch who 
 would ever embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years 
 every conquest which the Christians had made in the Holy 
 Land, at the cost of so much blood, would be won back by 
 the Turks. But all this came to pass. 
 
 There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain 
 in France, called Chalons. When the king was coming 
 toward this place on his way to England, a wily French 
 lord, called the Count of Chalons, sent him a polite challenge 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 
 
 93 
 
 to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the 
 Count and his knights, and make a day of it with sword and 
 lance. It was represented to the king that the Count of 
 Chalons was not to be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday 
 fight for mere show and in good humor, he secretly meant a 
 real battle, in which the English should be defeated by supe- 
 rior force. 
 
 The king, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed 
 place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When 
 the count came with two 
 
 thousand and attacked the 
 
 English in earnest, the 
 
 English rushed at them 
 
 with such valor that the 
 
 count's men and the count's 
 
 horses soon began to be 
 
 tumbled down all over the 
 
 field. The count himself 
 
 seized the king round the 
 
 neck, but the king tumbled 
 
 him out of his saddle in 
 
 return for the compliment, 
 
 and, jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, 
 
 beat away at his iron armor like a blacksmith hammering on 
 
 his anvil. Even when the count owned himself defeated and 
 
 offered his sword, the king would not do him the honor to 
 
 take it, but made him yield it up to a common soldier. 
 
 There had been such fury shown in this fight, that it was 
 
 afterwards called the battle of Chalons. 
 
 The English were very well disposed to be proud of 
 their king after these adventures ; so, when he landed at 
 Dover in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-fcur 
 
94 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 (being then thirty-six years old), and went on to West- 
 minster where he and his good queen were crowned with 
 great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the 
 coronation-feast there were provided, among other eatables, 
 four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and 
 fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon 
 and twenty thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in 
 the streets flowed with red and white wine instead of water; 
 the rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colors 
 out of their windows to increase the beauty of the show, and 
 threw out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scram- 
 bles for the crowd. In short, there was such eating and 
 drinking, such music and capering, such a ringing of bells and 
 tossing up of caps, such a shouting, and singing, and revel- 
 ing, as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City 
 had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people 
 were merry — except the poor Jews, who, trembling within 
 their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to fore- 
 see that they would have to find the money for this joviality 
 sooner or later. 
 
 To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, 
 I am sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmer- 
 cifully pillaged. They were hanged in great numbers, on 
 accusations of having clipped the King's coin — which all 
 kinds of people had done. They were heavily taxed ; they 
 were disgracefully badged ; they were, on one day, thirteen 
 years after the coronation, taken up with their wives and 
 children and thrown into beastly prisons, until they purchased 
 their release by paying to the king twelve thousand pounds. 
 Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized 
 by the king, except so little as would defray the charge of their 
 taking themselves away into foreign countries. Many years 
 
HENRY THE THIRD 95 
 
 elapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their race to 
 return to England, where they had been treated so heartlessly 
 and had suffered so much. 
 
 If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to 
 Christians as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. 
 But he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under 
 whom the country much improved. He had no love for the 
 Great Charter — few kings had, through many, many years — 
 but he had high qualities. The first bold object that he con- 
 ceived when he came home, was to unite under one sover- 
 eign England, Scotland and Wales ; the two last of which 
 countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the 
 people were always quarreling and fighting and making a 
 prodigious disturbance — a great deal more than he was worth. 
 In the course of King Edward's reign he was engaged, besides, 
 in a war with France. Let us tell about his troubles with the 
 Welsh. 
 
 Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on 
 the side of the barons in the reign of the stupid old king, 
 but had afterwards sworn allegiance to him. When King 
 Edward came to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear 
 allegiance to him also, which he refused to do. The king, 
 being crowned and in his own dominions, three times more 
 required Llewellyn to come and do homage, and three times 
 more Llewellyn said he would rather not. He was going to 
 be married to Eleanor de Montfort, and it chanced that this 
 young lady, coming from France with her youngest brother, 
 Emeric, was taken by an English ship, and was ordered by 
 the English king to be detained. Upon this, the quarrel 
 came to a head. The king went, with his fleet, to the coast 
 of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn, that he could 
 only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon, 
 
96 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 in which no provisions could reach him, he was soon starved 
 into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into paying 
 the expenses of the war. The king, however, forgave him 
 some of the hardest conditions of the treaty and consented 
 to his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales 
 to obedience. But the Welsh, although they were naturally 
 a gentle, quiet, pleasant and hospitable people, were of great 
 spirit when their blood was up. So they went to war and 
 for reasons we shall speak of in the next chapter. 
 
 King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's 
 brother, by heaping favors upon him ; but he was the first to 
 revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy 
 night he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, killed the whole 
 garrison and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. 
 Upon this, the Welsh people rose like one man. King 
 Edward with his army, marching from Worcester to the Menai 
 Strait, crossed it — near to where the wonderful tubular iron 
 bridge now, in days so different, makes a passage for railway 
 trains — by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march 
 abreast. He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his 
 men forward to observe the enemy. The sudden appearance 
 of the Welsh created a panic among them, and they fell back 
 to the bridge. The tide had in the meantime risen and sepa- 
 rated the boats ; the Welsh pursuing them, they were driven 
 into the sea, and there they sunk, in their heavy iron armour, 
 by thousands. After this victory Llewellyn, helped by the 
 severe winter weather of Wales, gained another battle ; but 
 the King ordering a portion of his English army to advance 
 through South Wales, and catch him between two foes, and 
 Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was 
 surprised and killed — very meanly, for he was unarmed and 
 defenceless. But of this we shall hear more in a few moments. 
 
England in the Year, a.d., 1300. 
 
 THERE were Welsh princes long before there were 
 English kings, and the Welsh princes could not bear 
 to be subject to the kings of England. So they were 
 always fighting to get back their independence. But the 
 English kings could not let them be free as they wished, 
 because England could never have been safe with an inde- 
 pendent kingdom so close to her. So there were constant 
 wars between the two countries, and sometimes the fortune 
 of battle went one way and sometimes the other. 
 
 But at last the Welsh Prince Llewellyn was killed. He 
 had gone to the south of Wales to cheer up his subjects there, 
 and he had crossed the river Wye into England, when a 
 small band of English knights came up. A young knight 
 named Adam Frankton met with a Welsh chief as he came 
 out of a barn to join the Welsh army. Frankton at once 
 attacked him, and after a struggle, wounded the Welsh chief 
 to death. Then he rode on to battle, and when he came 
 back he tried to find out what had become of the Welshman. 
 He heard that he was already dead, and then they found that 
 the dead man was the great Welsh Prince Llewellyn. His 
 7 97 
 
93 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 head was taken off and sent to London, where it was placed 
 on the battlements of the Tower and crowned, in scorn, with 
 ivy. This was because an old Welsh magician, years before, 
 had said that when English money became round, the Welsh 
 princes should be crowned in London. And money had 
 become round in this way : — 
 
 Before this there were silver pennies, and when anyone 
 wanted a half-penny, he chopped the silver penny in two, and 
 if he wanted a farthing he chopped the silver penny in four, 
 so that money was all sorts of queer shapes. But Edward 
 the First had caused round copper half-pennies and farthings 
 to be made, and when the Welsh prince had heard of this he 
 had believed that the old magician's words were coming true, 
 and that he should defeat Edward and become king of Eng- 
 land himself. Instead of this, the poor man's head was cut 
 off, and, in mockery of his hopes and dreams, they crowned 
 the poor dead head with a wreath of ivy. 
 
 Now the Welsh wanted another prince, and King Edward 
 said : "If you will submit to me and not fight any more, you 
 shall have a prince who was born in Wales, can speak never 
 a word of English, and never did wrong; to man, woman, or 
 child." The Welsh people agreed that if they could have such 
 a prince as that, they would be contented and quiet, and give 
 up fighting. And so one day the leaders of the Welsh met 
 King Edward at his castle in Caernarvon, and asked for the 
 Prince he had promised them, and he came out of his castle 
 with his little son, who had only been born a week before, in 
 his arms. 
 
 " Here is your Prince," he said, holding up the little 
 baby. " He was born in Wales, he cannot speak a word 
 of English, and he has never done harm to man, woman or 
 child." 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OP WALES 
 
 99 
 
 Instead of being angry at the trick the king had played 
 them, the Welsh people were very pleased. Welsh nurses 
 took care of the baby, so that he really did learn to speak in 
 Welsh before he could speak in English. . And the Welsh 
 were so pleased with their baby king that from that time 
 Edward the First had no more trouble with them. 
 
 There are many stories told of this prince's boldness as 
 a child. He promised them to grow up as brave as his 
 
 "HERE IS YOUR PRINCE. HE WAS 
 BORN IN WALES, HE CANNOT SPEAK 
 A WORD OF ENGLISH, AND HE HAS 
 NEVER DONE HARM TO MAN, 
 WOMAN OR CHILD." 
 
 father, and it would have been better for him if he had done 
 so. He was always very fond of hunting, and once when he 
 was quite young, he and his servants were hunting the deer. 
 His servants lost the trace of the deer, and presently, when 
 they reined up their horses, they found that the young prince 
 was no longer with them. They looked everywhere for him, 
 very frightened lest he should have fallen into the hands of 
 robbers ; and at last they heard a horn blown in the forest. 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
ioo ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 They followed the sound of it and presently found that the 
 young prince had seen which way the deer went, and had 
 followed it and killed it all by himself. 
 
 Now King Edward the First had great trouble with his 
 Scotch nobles, and many were the battles he fought with 
 them, until at last he forced the Scottish king Balliol to 
 declare himself his vassal, and he became the over-lord of 
 Scotland. But there arose a brave Scot named William 
 Wallace, who longed to see his country free from England, 
 and he drove the English back, and again and again he beat 
 them. 
 
 But in a few years Edward got together another army, 
 and leading them into Scotland he beat the Scots and took 
 Wallace prisoner. Wallace was tried and found guilty of 
 treason, and when he had been beheaded, they crowned his 
 head with laurel and placed it on London Bridge, for all the 
 passers-by, by road or river, to see. 
 
 Then two men claimed the Scottish crown, Robert Bruce 
 and John, who was called the Red Comyn. They were 
 jealous of each other, and Bruce thought that Comyn had 
 betrayed him. They met in a church to have an explana- 
 tion. 
 
 "You are a traitor," said Bruce. 
 
 "You lie," said Comyn. 
 
 And Bruce in a fury struck at him with his dagger, and 
 then, filled with horror, rushed from the church. "To horse, 
 to horse," he cried. One of his attendants, named Kirk- 
 patrick, asked him what was the matter. 
 
 "I doubt," said Bruce, "that I have slain the Red 
 
 Comyn," 
 
 "You doubt!" said Kirkpatrick. " I will make sure." 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 So saying, Kirkpatrick ran hurriedly back into the 
 church, and ruthlessly dealt the wounded man his deathblow. 
 
 And now the task of defending Scotland against Edward 
 was left to Rob- 
 ert Bruce. Kingf 
 
 Edward was 
 angry when 
 
 so 
 
 he 
 heard of this 
 murder, that at 
 the feast, when 
 his son was made 
 a knight, he 
 swore over the 
 swan, which was 
 the chief dish 
 and which was 
 the emblem of 
 truth and con- 
 stancy, that he 
 would never rest 
 two nights in the 
 same place till 
 he had chastised 
 the Scots. And 
 for some time 
 the Scots and 
 English were at 
 bitter war, and 
 when King Edward died 
 would go on fighting. 
 
 But Edward the Second was not a man like his father. 
 He was more like his grandfather Henry the Third, caring 
 
 COMYN STABBED BY BRUCE. 
 
 he made his son promise he 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 for pretty colors and pretty things, rich clothes, rich feasts, 
 rich jewels, and surrounding himself with worthless favorites. 
 Bobert Bruce said he was more afraid of the dead bones of 
 Edward the First than of the living body of Edward of Caer- 
 narvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from his son 
 than a foot of land from the father. Gradually the castles the 
 English had taken in Scotland were won back from them. 
 For twenty years the English had held the castle of Edin- 
 burgh, and at the end of that time, Randolph, a Scottish 
 noble, and a cousin of Robert Bruce, came to besiege it. 
 
 The siege was long, 
 and the brave English 
 showed no signs of 
 giving in. Randolph 
 was told that it was 
 possible to climb up 
 the south face of the 
 rock on which the cas- 
 tle stood, and steep as 
 the rock was, Randolph 
 and some others began 
 to climb it one dark 
 night. When they were part of the way up, and close to 
 the wall of the castle, they heard a soldier above them 
 cry out: "Away, I see you," and down came stone after 
 stone. Had many more been thrown Randolph and his 
 companions must have been dashed to the ground and 
 killed, for it was only on a very narrow ledge that they had 
 found a footing. But the soldier was only in joke, trying to 
 frighten his fellows. He had not really seen them at all, and 
 he passed on. When all was quiet again, the daring Scots 
 climbed up till they reached the top of the wall, and when 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OP WALES 103 
 
 they had fixed a rope ladder the rest of their men came up. 
 Then they fell upon the men of the garrison and killed them, 
 and the castle was taken by the Scots. 
 
 Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging 
 Stirling Castle, and that the governor had been obliged to 
 pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved 
 before a certain day. Hereupon, the king ordered the nobles 
 and their fighting men to meet him at Berwick ; but, the 
 nobles cared so little for the king, and so neglected the sum- 
 mons, and lost time, that only on the day before that appointed 
 for the surrender, did the king find himself at Stirling, and 
 even then with a smaller force than he had expected. How- 
 ever, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand men, and Bruce 
 had not more than forty thousand ; but, Bruce's army was 
 strongly posted in three square columns, on the ground lying 
 between the Burn or Brook of Bannock and the walls of 
 Stirling Castle. 
 
 On the very evening, when the king came up, Bruce did 
 a brave act that encouraged his men. He was seen by a 
 certain Henry de Bohun, an English knight, riding about 
 before his army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in 
 his hand and a crown of gold on his head. This English 
 knight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in 
 steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to overthrow 
 Bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to his 
 great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with 
 his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one 
 blow of his battle-axe split his skull. 
 
 The Scottish men did not forget this, next day when the 
 battle raged. Randolph, Bruce's valiant nephew, rode, with 
 the small body of men he commanded, into such a host of 
 the English, all shining in polished armor in the sunlight, 
 
io 4 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had 
 plunged into the sea. But they fought so well, and did such 
 dreadful execution, that the English staggered. Then came 
 Bruce himself upon them, with all the rest of his army. While 
 they were thus hard pressed and amazed, there appeared 
 upon the hills what they supposed to be a new Scottish army, 
 but what were really only the camp followers, in number 
 fifteen thousand, whom Bruce had taught to show themselves 
 at that place and time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding 
 the English horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of 
 the day ; but Bruce (like Jack the Giant-killer in the story) 
 had had pits dug in the ground, and covered over with turfs 
 and stakes. Into these, as they gave way beneath the weight 
 of the horses, riders and horses rolled by hundreds. The 
 English were completely routed ; all their treasure, stores 
 and engines, were taken by the Scottish men; so many wagons 
 and other wheeled vehicles were seized, that it is related that 
 they would have reached, if they had been drawn out in a 
 line, one hundred and eighty miles. The fortunes of Scotland 
 were, for the time, completely changed ; and never was a 
 battle won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this 
 great battle of Bannockburn. 
 
 Edward with difficulty saved his life, and throughout 
 England there were bitter lamentings at the loss and shame 
 the country had suffered. Scotland was free from the English 
 yoke, and of all the great conquests the first Edward had 
 won, only Berwick-on-Tweed remained to the English. 
 
 Edward II was never loved by his subjects. He made 
 favorites of silly and wicked persons, and so gave much 
 offence to good folk. 
 
 There was a certain favorite of his, a young man from 
 Gascony, named Piers Gaveston, of whom his father had so 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 105 
 
 much disapproved that he had ordered him out of England, 
 and had made his son swear by the side of his sick bed, 
 never to bring him back. But, the prince no sooner found 
 himself king, than he broke his oath, as so many other princes 
 and kings did (they were far too ready to take oaths), and 
 sent for his dear friend immediately. 
 
 Now, this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but 
 was a reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested 
 by the proud English lords, not 
 only because he had such power 
 over the king, and made the court 
 such a dissipated place, but, also, 
 because he could ride better than 
 they at tournaments, and was used, 
 in his impudence, to cut very bad 
 jokes on them ; calling one, the 
 old hog ; another, the stage-player; 
 another, the Jew ; another, the black 
 dog of Ardenne. This was as 
 poor wit as need be, but it made 
 those lords very wroth ; and the 
 surly Earl of Warwick, who was 
 the black dog, swore that the time 
 should come when Piers Gaveston, this proud, insolent and 
 detested favorite of the king, should feel the black dog's teeth. 
 
 It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be 
 coming. The king made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him 
 vast riches; and, when the king went over to France to marry 
 the French Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip le Bel, who 
 was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, he 
 made Gaveston regent of the kingdom. His splendid mar- 
 riage ceremony in the church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where 
 
 Tir 
 
 THE LOVELY FRENCH PRINCESS. 
 
ic6 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 there were four kings and three queens present (quite a pack 
 of coat cards, for I dare say the knaves were not wanting), 
 being over, he seemed to care little or nothing for his beau- 
 tiful wife ; but was wild with impatience to meet Gaveston again. 
 
 When he landed at home, he paid no attention to any- 
 body else, but ran into the favorite's arms before a great con- 
 course of people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called 
 him his brother. At the coronation, which soon followed, 
 Gaveston was the richest and brightest of all the glittering 
 company there, and had the honor of carrying the crown. 
 This made the proud lords fiercer than ever ; the people, 
 too, despised the favorite, and would never call him Earl of 
 Cornwall, however much he complained to- the king and 
 asked him to punish them for not doing so, but persisted in 
 stvling him plain Piers Gaveston. 
 
 The barons were so unceremonious with the king, in 
 giving him to understand that they would not bear this 
 favorite, that the king was obliged to send him out of the 
 country. The favorite himself was made to take an oath 
 (more oaths !) that he would never come back, and the barons 
 supposed him to be banished in disgrace, until they heard 
 that he was appointed governor of Ireland. Even this was 
 not enough for the besotted king, who brought him home 
 again in a year's time, and not only disgusted the court and 
 the people by his doting folly, but offended his beautiful 
 wife, too, who never liked him afterwards. 
 
 He had now the old royal want — of money — and the 
 barons had the new power of positively refusing to let him 
 raise any. He summoned a Parliament at York; the barons 
 refused to make one, while the favorite was near him. He 
 summoned another Parliament at Westminster, and sent 
 Gaveston away. Then, the barons came, completely armed, 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 107 
 
 and appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in 
 the state and in the king's household. He got some money 
 on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston for the 
 border country, where they spent it in idling away the time, 
 and feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English out 
 of Scotland. For, though the old king had even made this 
 poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would not 
 bury his bones, but 
 
 would have them 
 boiled clean in a 
 caldron, and car- 
 ried in front of the 
 English army until 
 Scotland was en- 
 tirely subjugated, 
 the second Edward 
 was so unlike the 
 first Edward that 
 Bruce gained in- 
 creasing strength 
 and power daily. 
 The commit- 
 tee of nobles, after 
 some months of 
 deliberation, ordained that the king should henceforth call a 
 Paraliment together, once every year, and even twice if neces- 
 sary, instead of summoning it only when he chose. Further, 
 that Gaveston should once more be banished, and, this time, 
 on pain of death if he ever came back. The king's tears were 
 of no avail ; he was obliged to send his favorite to Flanders. 
 As soon as he had done so, however, he dissolved the Parlia- 
 ment, with the low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to the 
 
108 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 north of England, thinking to get an army about him to 
 oppose the nobles. And once again he brought Gaveston 
 home, and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of which 
 the barons had deprived him. 
 
 The lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to 
 put the favorite to death. They could have done so, legally, 
 according to the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I 
 am sorry to say, in a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of 
 Lancaster, the king's cousin, they first of all attacked the king 
 and Gaveston at Newcastle. They had time to escape by 
 sea, and the mean king, having his precious Gaveston with 
 him, was quite content to leave his lovely wife behind. 
 When they were comparatively safe, they separated ; the king 
 went to York to collect a force of soldiers ; and the favorite 
 shut himself up, in the meantime, in Scarborough Castle over- 
 looking the sea. This was what the barons wanted. They 
 knew that the castle could not hold out ; they attacked it, 
 and made Gaveston surrender. He delivered himself up to 
 the Earl of Pembroke — that lord whom he had called the 
 Jew — on the earl's pledging his faith and knightly word, that 
 no harm should happen to him and no violence be done him. 
 
 Now, it was agreed with Gaveston, that he should be 
 taken to the Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honor- 
 able custody. They traveled as far as Dedington, near 
 Banbury, where, in the castle of that place, they stopped for 
 a night to rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left his 
 prisoner there, knowing what would happen, or really left 
 him thinking no harm, and only going (as he pretended) to 
 visit his wife, the countess, who was in the neighborhood, is 
 no great matter now ; in any case, he was bound as an hon- 
 orable gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do 
 it. In the morning, while the favorite was yet in bed, he was 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 109 
 
 required to dress himself and come down into the court- 
 yard. He did so without any mistrust, butstarted and turned 
 pale when he found it full of strange armed men. "I think 
 you know me?" said their leader, also armed from head to 
 foot. ' ' I am the 
 black dog of 
 Ardenne!" 
 
 The time had 
 come when Piers 
 Gaveston was to 
 feel the black 
 dog's teeth, in- 
 deed. They set 
 him on a mule, 
 and carried him, 
 in mock state and 
 with military mu- 
 sic, to the black 
 dog's kennel — 
 Warwick Castle 
 — where a hasty 
 council, com- 
 posed of some 
 great noblemen, 
 considered what 
 should be done 
 with him. Some v 
 were for sparing 
 him, but one loud voice — it was the black dog's bark, I 
 dare say — sounded through the castle hall, uttering these 
 words : " You have the fox in your power. Let him go. now, 
 and you must hunt him again." 
 
 RANDOLPH WAS DASHED TO THE GROUND AND KILLED. 
 
no ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the 
 feet of the Earl of Lancaster — the old hog — but the old hog 
 was as savage as the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant 
 road, leading from Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful 
 river Avon, by which, long afterwards, William Shakespeare 
 was born and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright land- 
 scape of the beautiful May day ; and there they struck off his 
 head, and stained the dust with his blood. 
 
 When the king heard of this black deed, in his grief and 
 rao;e he denounced relentless war against the barons, and 
 both sides were in arms for half a year. But, it then became 
 necessary for them to join their forces against Bruce, who had 
 used the time well while they were divided, and had now a 
 great power in Scotland. 
 
 Edward II was wasteful and extravagant, and did not 
 even try to govern the country wisely and well, while his 
 favorites made themselves hated more and more by their dis- 
 honesty and wickedness. The last of his favorites was named 
 Despenser, and he was as much hated by the Queen Isabella 
 as by the lords and people of England. Despenser not only 
 made himself hated by the queen, but he managed also to 
 make her dislike her husband, the king, with whom she had 
 long been on unfriendly terms. At last Isabella, disgusted 
 with her husband and his favorite, ran away to France, and 
 there, with the help of the Count of Hainaultand other friends 
 in England, she raised an army and attacked and defeated 
 her husband and his favorite. The young Despenser was 
 hanged on a gibbet fifty feet high, and a Parliament was called 
 to deci-de what should be done with the king. 
 
 The Parliament declared its right to make or unmake 
 kings, and ordered that Edward should not be king any more. 
 Some members went to Edward at Kenilworth to tell him 
 
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 
 
 what they had decided, and Ed- 
 ward, clad in a plain black gown, 
 received them and quietly prom- 
 ised to be king no more. Then 
 he was taken to Berkeley Castle, 
 and a few months after the peo- 
 ple learned that he was dead. 
 
 There has always been much 
 doubt whether he died a natural 
 death or was murdered. The 
 queen was certainly not a good 
 woman, and she hated her hus- 
 band bitterly, and, perhaps for 
 these reasons, people were ready 
 to believe that she had helped to 
 kill the wretched king. At any 
 rate there was some ground for 
 suspecting that some of her great- 
 est friends in England caused 
 Edward to be murdered. 
 
 The Bishop of ■ Hereford, 
 who had always been on the 
 queen's side, is said to have sent 
 to two wicked men the follow- 
 ing message written in Latin: 
 " Edward him occidcre uolitetimerc 
 bonum est." Now this message 
 had two meanings according to 
 the way the stops were put in. 
 The first was: "Be unwilling to 
 fear to kill Edward — it is good." 
 
n2 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The other was: "Be unwilling to kill Edward — it is good to 
 fear." So you see that, if this message fell into any one's 
 hands for whom it was not intended, the bishop would have 
 been able to say he meant to warn people not to kill the 
 king, while Gurney and Maltravers, who received the message, 
 could say that the paper was an order to kill him. 
 
 The story goes, as told by Marlowe, a great English 
 poet, that they came to the castle and there found the poor 
 king in a dungeon. He was standing in mire and puddle, 
 and, although he was a king, they gave him only bread and 
 water, and when he tried to sleep they beat loudly upon a 
 drum so that he could get no rest. Then the poor king 
 thought of his former greatness and how brave and galant a 
 show he had made as a knight in many a tournament, and 
 he cried out: 
 
 " Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus 
 When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, 
 And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont." 
 
 He was too weak to resist these wicked men, and they 
 had no mercy in their hearts, but murdered him. 
 
$ Edward, tdc 
 
 England in the Year, A.D., 1340. 
 
 THE name of Edward the Black Prince will always be 
 remembered with love and admiration by all brave 
 boys and girls, because he was by all accounts a very 
 brave, gallant, and courteous prince, feared by his 
 foes and by his friends beloved. His father, Edward the 
 Third, had not given up his hopes of regaining his lost pos- 
 sessions in France, so he spent two long years in getting 
 together money and ships and an army. He fought the 
 French fleet near Sluys. Both sides fought fiercely, and at 
 last the English won. The French had thought that they 
 were quite sure to get the best of it, and they were afraid to 
 tell the King of France how the English had beaten them, for 
 hundreds of the French had been either killed or been forced 
 to jump into the sea to escape the swords of the English. 
 
 Now, at this time every king kept a jester to make 
 
 8 113 
 
H4 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 jokes and amuse him and his friends at their feasts, and the 
 jester was a privileged person, who could say anything he 
 liked. So now they told the jester of the King of France that 
 he must tell the king the bad news, because he could say 
 what he liked and no one would punish him for it. So the 
 jester said — 
 
 "Oh ! what dastardly cowards the English are ! " 
 "How so?" said the king, who expected to hear that 
 the cowardly English had been driven away by his men. 
 
 "Because," an- 
 swered the jester, "they 
 
 '•ffi/jNCL* h ave n °t jumped into 
 the sea as our brave 
 men had to do." 
 
 So then the king 
 
 asked him what he 
 
 meant, and then the 
 
 courtiers came forward 
 
 and told the sad story 
 
 of the English victory. 
 
 Then Edward besieged a town called Tournay, but he 
 
 had not enough money to get provisions for his men, so he 
 
 had to make friends with the king of France for a little while 
 
 and go back to England. 
 
 Six years later he pawned his crown and his queen's 
 jewels, and at last got together enough money to go and 
 fight with the French again. He landed at La Hogue, and as 
 he landed he fell so violently that his nose began to bleed. 
 
 " Oh, this is a bad sign," said his courtiers, " that your 
 first step on French soil should be a fall." 
 
 "Not so," said the king. " It is a good sign. It shows 
 that the land desires me ; so she takes me close to her." 
 
EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 
 
 115 
 
 He had thirty-two thousand men with him, and his son, 
 the Black Prince. Some say he was called the Black Prince 
 because he wore black armor, but others say it was because 
 he made himself as great a terror to the French as a black 
 night is to foolish children who are by themselves in a room. 
 
 Then Ed- 
 ward inarched 
 towards the 
 French, and the 
 French inarched 
 to meet him, and 
 as they marched 
 they broke down 
 all the bridges, 
 so that the Eng- 
 lish could not 
 advance by them. 
 But Edward had 
 made up his 
 mind to get 
 across the river 
 Seine and fight 
 with his enemies ; 
 and he was no 
 more to be 
 stopped by the 
 water than a dog 
 would have been who wanted to get over to the other side to 
 fight another dog. He got a poor man to show him a place 
 where the river was shallow at low tide, and there he plunged 
 into the river, crying, "Let him who loves me follow me," and 
 the whole army followed and got safely to the other side. 
 
 THE BRAVE ENGLISH KNIGHT. 
 
n6 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Edward arranged his soldiers well, and went himself to 
 the top of a little hill where there was a windmill. From this 
 he could see everything that went on. The French had a far 
 larger army than the English, and when they came in sight 
 of Edward's army and saw how well placed it was, the wiser 
 Frenchmen said, "Do not let us fight them to-day, for our 
 men and horses are tired. Let us wait for to-morrow and 
 then we can drive them back," So the foremost of the French 
 army turned back, but those behind were discontented and 
 thought the fighting had begun and that they had not had a 
 chance. So they pushed forward till the whole French army 
 was close to the English. 
 
 King Edward had made all his soldiers sit on the grass 
 and eat and drink. Mounted on his horse he rode among 
 them telling them to be brave, for that they were now going 
 to win a glorious victory and cover themselves with eternal 
 glory. At three in the afternoon the first French soldiers 
 came face to face with the Englishmen, and the battle began. 
 Some soldiers from Genoa who had been paid to fight for the 
 French King, said they did not want to fight ; they Avere too 
 tired and could not fight as good soldiers should, but the 
 men behind pressed them on, and they were beaten. A heavy 
 rain fell, with thunder, and a great flight of crows hovered in 
 the air over all the battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly 
 afterwards it cleared up and the sun shone very bright. But 
 the French had it in their faces and the English at their 
 backs. This was about the year 1346. 
 
 When the Genoese drew near, they approached the Eng- 
 lish with a loud noise to frighten them ; but the English 
 remained entirely quiet, arid did not seem to mind it. They 
 then set up a second shout and advanced a little forward. 
 The English never moved. Still they hooted a third time, 
 
EDWARD VI KEEPING HIS DIARY. 
 
 This young Prince was the son of Henry VIII. His education began i 
 age he had two tutors, and when only eight years old he was able 
 
PRINCESS ELIZABETH-AFTERWArtDS THE GREAT QUEEN. 
 
 i treated very rudely by Queen Mary 
 ; was sent to the country to be out 
 ;n, William Shakespeare lived and wrc 
 
 In her girlhood days Princess Elizal 
 her. This made her very unhappy 
 Queen. While Princess Elizabeth \ 
 
EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 
 
 117 
 
 and advanced with their crossbows presented and began to 
 shoot. The English archers then moved a step forward and 
 shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed 
 as if it snowed. The fight raged furiously, and presently a 
 knight came galloping up to the windmill and begged the 
 king to send help to his son, as he was sore pressed. 
 
 " Is my son in danger of his life ? " said the king. 
 
 "No, thank God," returned the 
 knight, "but in great need of your help." 
 
 Then the king answered " Return to 
 them that sent you and say that I com- 
 mand them to let the boy win his spurs, 
 for I am determined that, if it please God, 
 all the glory of this day shall be given to 
 him and to those to whose care I have 
 entrusted him." This message cheered 
 the prince mightily, and he and the Eng- 
 lish won the battle of Crecy, where the 
 French lost over 4,000 men, together 
 with the flower of the French noblesse. 
 
 And the battle of Crecy, one of the 
 most glorious in English history, was 
 won by the common people of England, 
 yeomen and archers, foot soldiers against 
 the knights and squires of France with 
 their swords and horses, who were the most celebrated 
 soldiers of Europe. In this battle the blind king of Bohemia 
 took part with the French. 
 
 "I pray you," he said to his friends, "lead me into the 
 battle that I may strike one more stroke with this good sword 
 of mine," So they led him in and he was killed. 
 
 The battle of Poictiers was fought entirely under the 
 
 GENOESE CROSS.BOWMAN. 
 
Ii8 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 direction of the Black Prince, and this was another splendid 
 victory to England ; and in this battle the French king was 
 taken. It happened in this way : 
 
 After eight years of differing and quarreling, the Prince 
 of Wales again invaded France with an army of sixty thou- 
 sand men. He went through the south of the country, burn- 
 ing and plundering wheresoever 
 he went ; while his father, who had 
 still the Scottish war upon his 
 
 THE KING AND HIS COURT JESTER. 
 
 hands, did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and worried 
 in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men, who 
 repaid his cruelties with interest. 
 
 The French king, Philip, was now dead, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his son John. The Black Prince, called by that 
 name from the color of the armor he wore to set off his fair 
 complexion, continuing to burn and destroy in France, roused 
 John into determined opposition ; and so cruel had the Black 
 Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the French 
 
EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 
 
 ng 
 
 peasants suffered, that he could not. find one who for love, or 
 money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the French 
 king was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he 
 came upon the French king's forces, all of a sudden, near the 
 town of Poictiers, and found that the whole neighboring coun- 
 
 &?.<~ -?&£¥»' 
 
 c 
 
 THE BLACK PRINCE AND HIS KNIGHT. 
 
 try was occupied by a vast French army. "God help us!" 
 said the Black Prince; "we must make the best of it." 
 
 So on a Sunday morning, the 18th of September, the 
 prince, whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in 
 all, prepared to give battle to the French king, who had sixty 
 thousand horse alone. While he was so engaged, there came 
 
i2o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 riding from the French camp a cardinal, who had persuaded 
 John to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of 
 Christian blood. " Save my honor," said the prince to this 
 good priest, "and save the honor of my army, and I will 
 make any reasonable terms." He offered to give up all the 
 towns, castles and prisoners he had taken, and to swear to 
 make no war in France for seven years ; but, as John would 
 hear of nothing but to surrender, with a hundred of his chief 
 knights, the treaty was broken off, and the prince said quietly, 
 "God defend the right ; we shall fight to-morrow! " 
 
 Therefore, on the Monday morning, at the break of day, 
 the two armies prepared for battle. The English were posted 
 in a strong place, which could only be approached by one 
 narrow lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. The French 
 attacked them by this lane, but were so galled and slain by 
 English arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced 
 to retreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round 
 about, and, coming upon the rear of the French army, rained 
 arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown 
 into confusion, quitted their banners, and dispersed in all 
 directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the prince, "Ride 
 forward, noble prince, and the day is yours. The king of 
 France is so valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never 
 fly, and may be taken prisoner." Said the prince to this, 
 " Advance English banners, in the name of God and St. 
 George !" and on they pressed until they came up with the 
 French king, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and when 
 all his nobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last 
 by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen years of age. Father 
 and son fought well ; and the king had already two wounds in 
 his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last delivered 
 
EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 121 
 
 himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his 
 right-hand glove in token that he had done so. 
 
 The king was brought to the Black Prince as he was rest- 
 ing in his tent, and he behaved like the true gentleman he 
 was. He showed the deepest respect and sympathy for his 
 vanquished foe. He ordered the best of suppers to be served 
 to the king, and would not sit with him to eat, but stood 
 behind his chair and waited on him like a servant, saying — 
 " I am only a prince. It is not fitting that I should sit in the 
 presence of the king of France." And King John said : 
 
 " Since it has pleased Heaven that I am a captive, I thank 
 my God that I have fallen into the hands of the most generous 
 and valiant prince alive." 
 
 King John was taken a prisoner to London. They rode 
 into the city, King John mounted on a beautiful white horse 
 that belonged to the Black Prince, while Prince Edward him- 
 self, riding on a black pony, was ready to wait on him, and 
 to do his bidding. 
 
 It was this generous temper which made the Black Prince 
 beloved by all who knew him ; it was only during his last 
 illness that his character seemed to be changed by the great 
 sufferings that he underwent, and it was only during the last 
 year of his life that he did anything of which a king and an 
 Englishman need be ashamed. 
 
 He seems to -have inherited his skill in war from his 
 father, and from his mother, Queen Philippa, he inherited 
 gentleness, goodness, and true courtesy. There are many 
 stories told of the goodness and courage of this lady. Among 
 others, this : 
 
 When Edward the Third had besieged Calais for a year, 
 the good town which had held out so long was obliged to 
 surrender, for there was no longer anything to eat in the city, 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and the folks said : " It is as good to die by the hands of the 
 English as to die here by famine like rats in a hole." So 
 they sent to tell the king they would give up the town to him. 
 But Edward the Third was so angry with them for having 
 resisted him so long, that he said that they should all be 
 hanged. Then Edward the Black Prince begged his father 
 not to be so hard on brave men who had only done what they 
 believed to be their duty, and entreated him to spare them. 
 Then said the king — "I will spare them on condition 
 
 that six of the 
 citizens, bare- 
 headed, bare- 
 footed, clad 
 only in their 
 shirts, and with 
 ropes around 
 their necks, 
 shall come to 
 me here, and 
 bring the keys 
 of the city with 
 them." 
 
 And when the men of Calais heard this, they said, "No; 
 better to die than live a dishonored life by giving up even one 
 of these our brothers who have fought and suffered with us." 
 But one of the chief gentlemen of Calais — Eustace de S. 
 Pierre — said : 
 
 "It is good that six of us should win eternal glory in this 
 
 world and the sunshine of God's countenance in the next, by 
 
 dying for our town and our brethren. I, for one, am willing 
 
 to go to the English king on such terms as he commands." 
 
 Then up rose his son and said likewise, and four other 
 
 THE SIX BURGESSES OF CALAIS. 
 
EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 123 
 
 gentlemen, inspired by their courage, followed their example. 
 So the six in their shirts, with ropes round their necks and the 
 keys of the town in their hands, went out through the gates, 
 and all the folk of Calais stood weeping and blessing them, 
 as they went. When they came to the king, he called for the 
 hangman, saying — " Hang me these men at once." 
 
 But Queen Philippa was there, and though she was ill, 
 she left her tent weeping so tenderly that she could not stand 
 upright. Therefore she cast herself upon her knees before 
 the king, and spoke thus : 
 
 "Ah, gentle sire, from the day I passed over sea I have 
 asked for nothing ; now I pray you, for the love of Our 
 Lady's son, Christ, to have mercy on these." 
 
 King Edward waited for a while before speaking, and 
 looked at the queen as she knelt, and he said : " Lady, I had 
 rather you had been elsewhere. You pray so tenderly that I 
 dare not refuse you ; and, though I do it against my will, 
 nevertheless take them. I give them to you." 
 
 Then took he the six citizens by the halters and delivered 
 them to the queen, and released from death all those of Calais 
 for the love of her. She had them led away, and gave each 
 a good dinner and a fresh suit of clothes. The king, how- 
 ever, turned all the French people out of Calais, and filled it 
 with English, and it remained quite an English town for more 
 than 200 years. 
 
124- 
 

 
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 mm 
 
 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT. 
 
 This picture shows a trip they made to one of the beautiful parks of London, where the scho 
 children received them by singing national anthems. 
 
 EDWARD VII, PRINCE OF WALES, RECEIVING DIGNITARIES. 
 
England Under Richard Second 
 
 Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years 
 of age, succeeded his grandfather, Edward Third, to the 
 crown, under the title of King Richard Second. The whole 
 English nation was ready to admire him for the sake of his 
 brave father. As the lords and ladies about the court, they 
 declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the 
 best, even of princes, whom the lords and ladies about the 
 court generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, 
 and best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base 
 manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good 
 was in him, and it brought him to anything but a good or 
 happy end. Had the Black Prince lived a little longer, he 
 would have become king to succeed his father, Edward Third. 
 This boy king was fond of beautiful robes and rich clothing — 
 but, as we shall see, royal robes do not make a king. 
 
 The Duke of Lancaster, the young king's uncle, 
 commonly called John of Gaunt, from having been born at 
 the Flemish city of Ghent, a name which the common people 
 called Gaunt, was supposed to have some thoughts of the 
 
 125 
 
i26 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 throne himself; but as he was not popular, and as the memory 
 of the Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew. 
 
 The war with France being still unsettled, the govern- 
 ment of England wanted money to provide for the expenses 
 that might arise out of it ; accordingly a certain tax, called 
 the poll-tax, was ordered to be levied on the people. This 
 was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and female, 
 above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three fourpenny 
 pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only 
 beggars were exempt. 
 
 I have no need to repeat that the common people of 
 England had long been suffering under great oppression. 
 They were still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on 
 which they lived, and were on most occasions harshly and 
 unjustly treated. But they had begun by this time to think 
 very seriously of not bearing quite so much, and probably 
 were emboldened by that French insurrection I mentioned in 
 the last chapter. 
 
 The people of Essex rose against the poll-tax, and, being 
 severely handled by the government officers, killed some of 
 them. At this very time some one of the tax-collectors 
 going his rounds from house to house at Dartford, in Kent, 
 came to the cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed 
 the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, 
 declared that she was under the age of fourteen ; upon that, 
 the collector (as other collectors had already done in different 
 parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally in- 
 sulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the 
 mother screamed. Wat, the Tiler, who was at work not far 
 off, ran to the spot, and did what any honest father under 
 such provocation might have done — struck the collector dead 
 at a blow. 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 
 
 Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. 
 They made Wat Tyler their leader; they joined with the 
 people of Essex, who were in arms under a priest called Jack 
 Straw ; they took out of prison another priest named John 
 Ball ; and, gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced 
 in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is 
 said that they wanted to abolish all property, and to declare 
 all men equal. I do not think this very likely, because they 
 stopped the travellers on the road and made them swear to 
 be true to King Richard and the people. Nor were they at 
 all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, 
 merely because they 
 were of high station ; 
 for the king's moth- 
 er, who had to pass 
 through their camp 
 of Blackheath, on her 
 way to her young son, 
 lying for safety in the 
 Tower of London, 
 had merely to kiss 
 a few dirty-faced 
 rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so 
 got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole mass 
 marched on to London Bridge. 
 
 There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William 
 Walworth, the mayor, caused to be raised to prevent their 
 coming into the city ; but they soon terrified the citizens into 
 lowering it again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, 
 over the streets. They broke open the prisons ; they burned 
 the papers in Lambeth Palace ; they destroyed the Duke of 
 Lancaster's palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the 
 
 WAT TYLER AND THE TAX COLLECTOR 
 
i23 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 most beautiful and splendid in England ; they set fire to the 
 books and documents in the Temple, and made a great riot. 
 Many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness, since 
 those citizens who had well-filled cellars were only too glad 
 to throw them open to save the rest of their property ; but 
 even the drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. 
 They were so angry with one man, who was seen to take a 
 silver cup at the Savoy palace and put it in his breast, that 
 they drowned him in the river, cup and all. 
 
 The young king had been taken out to treat with them 
 before they committed these excesses, but he and the people 
 about him were so frightened by the riotous shouts that they 
 got back to the Tower in the best way they could. This 
 made the insurgents bolder ; so they went on rioting away, 
 striking off the heads of those who did not at a moment's 
 notice declare for King Richard and the people, and killing 
 as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be 
 their enemies as they could by any means lay hold of. In 
 this manner they passed one very violent day, and then proc- 
 lamation was made that the king would meet them at Mile- 
 End and grant their request. 
 
 The rioters went to Mile-End, to the number of sixty 
 thousand, and the king met them there, and to the king the 
 rioters peaceably proposed four conditions. First, that neither 
 they nor their children, nor any coming after them, should 
 be made slaves any more. Secondly, that the rent of land 
 should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being 
 paid in service. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy 
 and sell in all markets and public places, like other free men. 
 Fourthly, that they should be pardoned for past offences. 
 Heaven knows there was nothing very unreasonable in these 
 proposals ! The young king deceitfully pretended to think 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 
 
 129 
 
 so, and kept thirty clerks up all night writing out a charter 
 accordingly. 
 
 Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He 
 wanted the entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not 
 at Mile-End with the rest, but, while that meeting was being 
 held, broke into the Tower of London and slew the arch- 
 bishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people had 
 cried loudly the day before. He and his men even thrust 
 their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales, while the 
 
 RIOTING WENT ON THE STREETS 
 
 Princess was in it, to make certain that none of their enemies 
 were concealed there. 
 
 So Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode 
 about the city. Next morning the king with a small train 
 of some sixty gentlemen — among whom was Walworth, the 
 mayor — rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people 
 at a little distance. Says Wat to his men, "There is the 
 king. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we want." 
 9 
 
13° ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Straightway Wat rode up to him and began to talk. 
 "King," says Wat, " dost thou see all my men there?" 
 
 " Ah ! " says the king. " Why ? " 
 
 "Because," says Wat, "they are all at my command, 
 and have sworn to do whatever I bid them." 
 
 Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this he laid 
 his hand on the king's bridle. Others declared that he was 
 seen to play with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he 
 just spoke to the king like a rough, angry man, as he was, 
 and did nothing more. At any rate, he was expecting no 
 attack and preparing for no resistance, when Walworth, the 
 mayor, did the not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword 
 and stabbing him in the throat. He dropped from his horse, 
 and one of the king's people speedily finished him. So fell 
 Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph of 
 it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find an echo to 
 this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who had suf- 
 fered much, and had been foully outraged, and it is probable 
 that he was a man of much higher nature and a much braver 
 spirit than any of the parasites who exulted then, or have 
 exulted since, over his defeat. 
 
 Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows 
 to avenge his fall. If the young king had not had presence 
 of mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the mayor to 
 boot might have followed Tyler pretty fast. But the king, 
 riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and 
 that he would be their leader. They were so taken by sur- 
 prise that they set up a great shouting, and followed the boy 
 until he was met at Islington by a large body of soldiers. 
 
 The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon 
 as the king found himself safe he unsaid all he had said and 
 undid all he had done ; some fifteen hundred of the rioters 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 131 
 
 were tried (mostly in Essex) with great rigor and executed 
 with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged on gibbets 
 and left there as a terror to the country people ; and, because 
 their miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, 
 the king ordered the rest to be chained up — which was the 
 beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. 
 The king's falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful 
 figure that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond 
 comparison the truer and more respectable man of the two. 
 
 Richard was now sixteen years of age and married Anne 
 of Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called the "good 
 Queen Anne." She deserved a better husband, for the kine 
 had been fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, 
 dissolute, bad young man. 
 
 He was under the power of the great Duke of Gloucester 
 for some time. But Gloucester's power was not to last for- 
 ever. He held it only one year, in which the famous battle 
 of Otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was 
 fought. When the year was out, the king, turning suddenly 
 to Gloucester in the midst of a great council, said, "Uncle, 
 how old am I?" "Your Highness," returned the duke, "is 
 in your twenty-second year." "Am I so much?" said the 
 king; "then I will manage my own affairs! I am much 
 obliged to you, my good lords, for your past services, but I 
 need them no more." He followed this up by appointing a 
 new chancellor and a new treasurer, and announced to the 
 people that he had resumed the government. He held it for 
 eight years without opposition. Through all that time he 
 kept his determination to revenge himself some day upon his 
 uncle Gloucester in his own breast. 
 
 At last the good queen died ; and then the king, desir- 
 ing to take a second wife, proposed to his council that he 
 
132 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 should marry Isabella of France, the daughter of Charles the 
 Sixth, who, the French courtiers said (as the English cour- 
 tiers had said of Richard), was a marvel of beauty and wit, 
 and quite a phenomenon, of seven years old. The council 
 was divided about this marriage, but it took place. It secured 
 peace between England and France for a quarter of a century, 
 but it was strongly opposed to the prejudices of the English 
 people. The Duke of Gloucester, who was anxious to take 
 the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed against it 
 loudly, and this at length decided the king to execute the 
 vengeance he had been nursing so long. 
 
 He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's 
 house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the duke, suspecting 
 nothing, came out into the court-yard to receive his royal 
 visitor. While the king conversed in a friendly manner with 
 the duchess, the duke was quietly seized, hurried away, 
 shipped for Calais and lodged in the castle there. His 
 friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in 
 the same treacherous manner and confined to their castles. A 
 few days after, at Nottingham, they were impeached for high 
 treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned and be- 
 headed and the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then a 
 writ was sent by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, 
 requiring him to send the Duke of Gloucester over to be 
 tried. In three days he returned an answer that he could 
 not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester had died in 
 prison. The duke was declared a traitor, his property was 
 confiscated to the king, a real or pretended confession he 
 had made in prison to one of the justices of the common 
 pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of 
 the matter. How the unfortunate duke died very few cared 
 to know. Whether he really died naturally, whether he 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 133 
 
 killed himself, whether by the king's order he was strangled 
 or smothered between two beds (as a serving-man of the 
 governor's, named Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be 
 discovered. There is not much doubt that he was killed, 
 somehow or other, by his nephew's orders. Among the 
 most active nobles in the proceedings were the king's cousin, 
 Henry Bolingbroke, whom the king had made Duke of 
 Hereford to smooth down the old family quarrels, and some 
 others who had in the family plotting times done just such 
 acts themselves as they now condemned in the duke. They 
 seem to have been a corrupt set of men ; but such men were 
 easily found about the court in such days. 
 
 The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore 
 about the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the 
 king cared for law and how crafty he was, and began to be 
 somewhat afraid of themselves. The king's life was a life of 
 continued feasting and excess ; his retinue, down to the 
 meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, 
 and caroused at his table, it is related, to the number of ten 
 thousand every day. He himself, surrounded by a body of 
 ten thousand archers, and enriched by a duty on wool, which 
 the Commons had granted him for life, saw no danger of 
 ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, and was as 
 fierce and haughty as a king could be. 
 
 He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the 
 Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more 
 than the others, he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until 
 he got him to declare, before the Council, that the Duke of 
 Norfolk had lately held some treasonable talk with him as he 
 was riding near Brentford, and that he had told him, among 
 other things, that he could not believe the king's oath — which 
 nobody could, I should think. For this treachery he obtained 
 
i34 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was summoned to appear 
 and defend himself. As he denied the charge, and said his 
 accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, according to 
 the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the 
 truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Cov- 
 entry. This wager of battle meant that whosoever won the 
 combat was to be considered in the right, which nonsense 
 meant, in effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. A 
 great holiday was made, a great crowd assembled, with much 
 parade and show, and the two combatants were about to rush 
 at each other with their lances, when the king, sitting in a 
 pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he carried in 
 his hand and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford 
 was to be banished for ten years and the Duke of Norfolk 
 was to be banished for life. So said the king. The Duke 
 of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The 
 Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
 afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart. 
 
 After this the king went on faster and fiercer in his ca- 
 reer. The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the 
 Duke of Hereford, died soon after the departure of his son ; 
 and the king, although he had solemnly granted to that son 
 leave to inherit his father's property, if it should come to him 
 during his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a rob- 
 ber. The judges were so afraid of him that they disgraced 
 themselves by declaring this theft to be just and lawful. His 
 avarice knew no bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties 
 at once on a frivolous pretence, merely to raise money by 
 way of fines for misconduct. In short, he did as many dis- 
 honest things as he could, and cared so little for the discon- 
 tent of his subjects — though even the spaniel favorites began 
 to whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 
 
 i35 
 
 afloat — that he took that time, of all others, for leaving Eng- 
 land and making an expedition against the Irish. 
 
 He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York regent 
 in his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came 
 over from France to claim the rights of which he had been 
 so monstrously deprived. He was immediately joined by the 
 two great Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland ; and his 
 uncle, the regent, finding the king's cause unpopular and the 
 disinclination of the army to 
 act against Henry very strong, 
 withdrew the royal forces to- 
 wards Bristol. Henry, at the 
 head of an army, came from 
 Yorkshire (where he had 
 landed) to London and fol- 
 lowed him. They joined their 
 forces — how they brought that 
 about is not distinctly under- 
 stood — and proceeded to 
 Bristol Castle, whither three 
 noblemen had taken the 
 young queen. The castle 
 surrendering, they presently 
 put those three noblemen to 
 death. The regent then re- 
 mained there and Henry went on to Chester. 
 
 All this time the boisterous weather had prevented the 
 king from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At 
 length it was conveyed to him in Ireland and he sent over the 
 Earl of Salisbury, who, landing at Conway, rallied the Welsh- 
 men and waited for the king a whole fortnight ; at the end of 
 that time the Welshmen, who were perhaps not very warm 
 
 RICHARD WENT FROM CASTLE TO CASTLE 
 
1 36 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went home. 
 When the king did land on the coast at last he came with a 
 pretty good power; but his men cared nothing for him and 
 quickly deserted. Supposing the Welshmen to be still at 
 Conway, he disguised himself as a priest and made for that 
 place in company with his two brothers and some few of their 
 adherents. But there were no Welshmen left — only Salis- 
 bury and a hundred soldiers. In this distress the king's two 
 brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henry to learn 
 what his intentions were. Surrey, who was true to Richard, 
 was put into prison. Exeter, who was false, took the royal 
 badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the 
 rose, the badge of Henry. After this it was pretty plain to 
 the king what Henry's intentions were, without sending any 
 more messengers to ask. 
 
 The fallen king-, thus deserted, hemmed in on all sides 
 and pressed with hunger, rode here and rode there, and went 
 to this castle and went to that castle, endeavoring to obtain 
 some provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly 
 back to Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl 
 of Northumberland, who came from Henry in reality to take 
 him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms, and whose 
 men were hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted 
 to the Castle of Flint, where his cousin Henry met him and 
 dropped on his knee, as if he were still respectful to his 
 sovereign. 
 
 "Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the king, "you are very 
 welcome" (very welcome, no doubt; but he would have been 
 more so in chains, or without a head). 
 
 "My lord," replied Henry, "I am come a little before 
 my time ; but with your good pleasure I will show you the 
 reason. Your people complain, with some bitterness, that 
 
ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 137 
 
 you have ruled them vigorously for two-and-twenty years. 
 Now, if it pleases God, I will help you to govern them better 
 in future." 
 
 "Fair cousin," replied the abject king, "since it pleaseth 
 you, it pleaseth me mightily." 
 
 After this the trumpet sounded, and the king was stuck 
 on a wretched horse and carried prisoner to Chester, where 
 he was made to issue a proclamation calling a Parliament. 
 From Chester he was taken on towards London. At Lich- 
 field he tried to escape by getting out of a window and 
 letting himself down into a garden ; it was all in vain, how- 
 ever, and he was carried on and shut up in the Tower, where 
 no one pitied him, and where the whole people, whose 
 patience he had quite tired out, reproached him without 
 mercy. Before he got there, it is related that his very dog 
 left him, and departed from his side to lick the hand of 
 Henry. 
 
 The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to 
 this wretched king and told him that he had promised the 
 Earl of Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the 
 crown. He said he was quite ready to do it, and signed 
 a paper in which he renounced his authority and absolved 
 his people from their allegiance to him. He had so little 
 spirit left that he gave his royal ring to his triumphant 
 cousin Henry with his own hand, and said that if he could 
 have had leave to appoint a successor that same Henry was 
 the man of all others whom he would have named. Next 
 day the Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where 
 Henry sat at the side of the throne, which was empty and 
 covered with a cloth of gold. The paper just signed by the 
 king was read to the multitude amid shouts of joy, which 
 were echoed through all the streets ; when some of the noise 
 
138 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 had died away the king was formally deposed. Then Henry 
 arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and 
 breast, challenged the realm of England as his right; the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on the 
 throne. 
 
 The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed 
 throughout all the streets. No one remembered now that 
 Richard the Second had ever been the most beautiful, the 
 wisest and the best of princes ; and he now made living a 
 far more sorry spectacle in the Tower of London than Wat 
 Tyler had made lying dead among the hoofs of the royal 
 horses in Smithfield. 
 
 The poll-tax died with Wat. The smiths to the king 
 and royal family could make no chains in which the king 
 could hang the people's recollection of him ; so the poll-tax 
 was never collected. 
 
TRANCE- THAT CAN- BE -WON" 
 ! WITH -A- DANCE ORASONG.' 
 
 and toe 
 
 England in the Year, a. d., 1400. 
 
 HENRY the Fourth was the Black Prince's nephew, and 
 he came to be king of England. His son was 
 Henry the Fifth, the greatest of the Plantagenet 
 kings. When he was a young man, and only Prince 
 of Wales, he was very wild and fond of games and jokes. 
 They used to call him Harry Madcap. 
 
 Once, when he got into some trouble or other, his father, 
 who was ill, sent for him, and he went at once in a fine dress 
 that he had had made for a fancy dress party. It was of light 
 blue satin with odd puckers in the sleeves, and at every 
 pucker the tailor had left a little bit of blue thread and a tag 
 like a needle. The king was very angry with the prince for 
 daring to come into the royal presence in such a silly coat. 
 Then Prince Harry said — 
 
 "Dear father, as soon as I heard that you wanted me, I 
 was in such a hurry to come to you that I had no time to 
 even think of my coat, much less change it." 
 And so the king forgave him. 
 
 Another time, one of his servants got into trouble and 
 
 139 
 
i 4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 was taken before the Chief Judge Sir William Gascoyne. 
 The Prince went directly to the Court where the judge was, 
 and said — 
 
 " Lord Judge, this is my servant, and you must let him 
 go, for I am the king's son." 
 
 "No," said the judge, "I sit here in the place of the 
 king himself, to do justice to all his subjects, and were this 
 man the Prince of Wales himself, instead of being his servant, 
 he should be punished in that he has offended against the law." 
 The prince was so angry that he actually forgot himself 
 so far as to strike Sir William Gascoyne. The good judge 
 did not hesitate a minute, but said very earnestly : 
 
 "You have insulted 
 
 the king himself, in my 
 
 >w> v~v ; V*t@*t person, since I sit here 
 
 in his place to do jus- 
 tice. The common folks 
 who offend against the. 
 law offend merely against 
 
 THE PRINCE AND THE JUDGE. fae 1-^g . fr^ y QU> y OUn g 
 
 man, are a double traitor to your king and your father." 
 
 And he sent the prince to prison. 
 
 Henry begged the good judge's pardon afterwards, and 
 when he came to the throne he thanked him for having 
 behaved so justly and wisely, and gave him great honor 
 because he had not been afraid to do his duty without respect 
 of rank, and Henry behaved to the judge like a good son to 
 a good father. 
 
 No king of England was ever more wise or brave or just 
 than Henry the Fifth ; and even now he is remembered with 
 affection. One of Shakespeare's most splendid plays is writ- 
 ten about him, and, when you have once read that, you will 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 14 r 
 
 always remember and love Henry the Fifth, as all English- 
 men and their kinsmen should do. 
 
 At the very beginning of his reign the wars with France 
 began again. The king sent to France and claimed some 
 lands that had belonged to Edward the Third ; and the young 
 prince of France sent back the message — "There is nothing 
 in France that can be won with a dance or a song. You can- 
 not get dukedoms in France by playing and feasting, and the 
 prince sends you some- 
 thing that will suit you 
 better than lands in 
 France. He has sent 
 you a barrel of tennis 
 balls, and bids you play 
 with them and let serious 
 matters be." Then King 
 Henry was very angry, and said — "We thank him for his 
 present. 
 
 When we have matched our rackets to these balls, 
 We will in France, by God's grace, play a set 
 Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard. 
 
 Before I was King of England I was wild and merry because 
 I knew not how great and solemn a state waited for me. I 
 have played in my youth like a common man because I was 
 only Prince of Wales ; but now that I am King of England I 
 will rise up with so full a glory that I will dazzle all the eyes 
 of France." These words had the true royal ring in them, 
 and won the hearts not only of his wise men, but of the com- 
 mon people who flocked to his standard when they heard the 
 message their king had received. 
 
 Henry sailed to France and besieged a town called Har- 
 fieur. He spoke to the soldiers before they attacked the town. 
 
142 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 "Break down the wall and go through," he said, "or 
 close the wall up with our English dead. 
 
 Bend every spirit 
 To his full height. On, on, you noblest English, 
 Whose blood is fetched from fathers of war proof. 
 Be copy now to men of grosser blood 
 And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, 
 Whose limbs were made in England, let us swear 
 That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not ; 
 Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George." 
 
 With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged 
 the town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; 
 at the end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhab- 
 itants were allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a 
 part of their clothes. All the rest of their possessions was 
 divided amongst the English army. But that army suffered so 
 much, in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, 
 that it was already reduced one-half. Still, the king was 
 determined not to retire until he had struck a greater blow. 
 Therefore, against the advice of all his counsellors, he moved 
 on with his little force toward Calais. When he came up to the 
 river Somme he was unable to cross, in consequence of the ford 
 being fortified ; and, as the English moved up the left bank 
 of the river looking for a crossing, the French, who had broken 
 all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and 
 waiting to attack them when they should try to pass it. At 
 last the English found a crossing, and got safely over. The 
 French held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the 
 English battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by 
 which road he was going. " By the road that will take me 
 straight to Calais ! " said the king, and he sent them away 
 with a present of a hundred crowns. 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 
 
 He 
 
 The English moved on until they beheld the French, 
 and then the king gave orders to form in line of battle. The 
 French, not coming on, the army broke up, after remaining 
 in battle array till night, and got good rest and refreshment 
 at a neighboring village. The French were now all lying in 
 another village, through which they knew the English must 
 pass. They were resolved that the English p 
 should begin the battle. The English had|ij 
 no means of retreat, if their king had any 
 such intention ; and so the two armies V 
 passed the night close together. 
 
 To understand these armies well, you 
 must bear in mind that the immense i£ 
 French army had, among its notable per- it 
 sons, almost the whole of that wicked hi 
 nobility whose debauchery had made, 
 France a desert ; and so besotted were 
 they by pride, and by contempt for the 
 common people, that they had scarcely 
 any bowmen (if, indeed, they had any at 
 all) in their whole enormous number, 
 which, compared with the English army, 
 was at least as six to one ; for these proud 
 fools had said that the bow was not a fit ^^^^^^^^^^ 
 weapon for knightly hands, and that AN archer. 
 France must be defended by gentlemen only. We shall see 
 presently what kind of a hand these " gentlemen " made of it. 
 
 Now, on the English side, among the little force, there 
 was a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen, by 
 any means, but who were good stout archers for all that. 
 Among them, in the morning, having slept little at night, 
 while the French were carousing and making sure of victory, 
 
i44 ROYAL CHLDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the king rode, on a gray horse, wearing on his head a helmet 
 of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling 
 with precious stones, and bearing over his armor, embroidered 
 together, the arms of England and the arms of France. The 
 archers looked at the shining helmet, and the crown of gold, 
 and the sparkling jewels, and admired them all ; but what 
 they admired most was the king's cheerful face, and his bright 
 blue eye, as he told them, that for himself, he had made up 
 his mind to conquer there or to die there, and that England 
 should never have a ransom to pay for him. 
 
 Though they were in a strange country and many times 
 outnumbered by their foes, the knights and archers kept up a 
 brave heart, as Englishmen have done many's .the good time, 
 all the world over. So few were they that the Earl of West- 
 moreland said, just before the battle : 
 
 " Oh, that we now had here, 
 But one ten thousand of those men in England 
 That do no work to-day!" 
 
 The king came in just as he was saying this, and said : 
 " No, if we are marked to die, we are enough for our 
 country to lose. If we are to live, the fewer there are of us 
 the greater share of honor. I do not covet gold or feasting, 
 or fine garments, but honor I do covet. Wish not another 
 man from England. I would not lose the honor of this fight 
 by sharing it with more men than are here, and if any among 
 our soldiers has no desire to fight, let him go. He shall 
 have a passport and money to take him away. I should be 
 ashamed to die in such a man's company. We need not 
 wish for men from England. It is the men in England who 
 will envy us when they hear of the great crown of honor and 
 glory that we have won this day. This is Saint Crispin's 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH H5 
 
 day. Every man who fights on this day will remember it 
 and be honored to the last hour of his life. Crispin's 
 day shall ne'er go by from this day to the ending of the world, 
 
 But we in it shall be remembered, 
 
 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, 
 
 For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
 
 Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile. 
 
 And gentlemen in England now abed 
 
 Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 
 
 And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks 
 
 That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day. 
 
 Lord Salisbury came in as the king was saying this. 
 
 "The French are in battle order," he said, "and ready 
 to charge upon our men." 
 
 "All things are ready," said the king quietly, "if our 
 minds are ready." 
 
 " Perish the man whose mind is backwark now," said 
 Westmoreland. 
 
 "You wish no more for men from England then," said 
 the king, smiling. 
 
 And Westmoreland, inspired with courage and confi- 
 dence by the king's brave speech, answered : 
 
 "I would to God, my king, that you and I alone without 
 more help might fight this battle out to-day." 
 
 "Why, now you have unwished five thousand men," 
 said the king laughing, "and that pleases me more than to 
 wish us one more. God be with you all." 
 
 So they went into battle tired as they were. 
 
 The verses we have given are taken from Shakespeare's 
 noble play of " Henry V." Let us now go on with the story 
 of the famous battle, as told, in his interesting way, by Charles 
 Dickens. 
 
146 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 So great were the numbers of the French that they were 
 drawn up in a solid mass thirty men deep. The little English 
 force was only three deep, and looked as if it would be quite 
 swallowed up. The ground between the two armies was very 
 rough and difficult, so Henry wisely waited for the French, 
 for he knew that when they moved their compact ranks must 
 be thrown into confusion, and then would come a good time 
 for the English to strike. 
 
 As they did not move he sent off two parties, — one to 
 lie concealed in a wood on the left of the French, the other 
 
 THE EARL OF WESTMORELAND 
 
 to set fire to some houses behind the French after the battle 
 should be begun. This was scarely done, when three of the 
 proud French gentlemen, who were to defend their country 
 without any help from the base peasants, came riding out, 
 calling upon the English to surrender. The king warned 
 those gentlemen to retire with all speed, if they cared for their 
 lives, and ordered the English banners to advance. Upon 
 that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a great English general who 
 commanded the archers, threw his truncheon into the air joy- 
 fully ; and all the Englishmen, kneeling down upon the 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 
 
 147 
 
 ground, and biting it as if they took possession of the coun- 
 try, rose up with a great shout, and fell upon the French. 
 
 Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with 
 iron, and his or- 
 
 ders were, to 
 thrust this stake 
 into the ground, 
 to discharge his 
 arrow, and then 
 to fall back when 
 the French horse- 
 men came on. 
 As the haughty 
 French gentle- 
 men who were 
 to break the Eng- 
 lish archers, and 
 utterly destroy 
 them with their 
 knightly lances, 
 came riding up, 
 they were re~p 
 ceived with such 
 a blinding storm 
 of arrows that 
 they broke and 
 turned. As at 
 Crecy, the white 
 feathers of the arrows seemed to fill the air like snow. 
 The proud French array was soon utterly broken. Horses and 
 men rolled over one another, and the confusion was terrific. 
 Those who rallied, and charged the archers, got among 
 
 AT THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. 
 
i43 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewil- 
 dered that the English archers — who wore no armor, and even 
 took off their leathern coats to be more active — cut them to 
 pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen got 
 within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All 
 this time the dense French army, being in armor, were sinking 
 knee deep into the mire ; while the light English archers, half 
 naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a 
 marble floor. This famous fight occurred in 141 5. 
 
 But now the second division of the French, coming to 
 the relief of the first, closed up in a firm mass ; the English, 
 headed by the king, attacked them ; and the deadliest part of 
 the battle began. The king's brother, the Duke of Clarence, 
 was struck down, and numbers of the French surrounded 
 him; but King Henry, standing over the body, fought like a 
 lion until they were beaten off. Presently came up a band 
 of eighteen French knights, bearing the banner of a certain 
 French lord, who had sworn to kill or take the English king. 
 One of them struck him such a blow with a battle-axe, that 
 he reeled, and fell upon his knees ; but his faithful men, 
 immediately closing round him, killed every one of those 
 eighteen knights, and so that French lord never kept his oath. 
 
 The French Duke of Alencon, seeing this, made a des- 
 perate charge, and cut his way close up- to the royal standard 
 of England. He beat down the Duke of York, who was 
 standing near it ; and when the king came to his rescue, 
 struck off a piece of the crown he wore. But he never struck 
 another blow in this world ; for even as he was in the act of 
 saying who he was, and that he surrendered to the king, and 
 even as the king stretched out his hand to give him a safe 
 and honorable acceptance of the offer, he fell dead, pierced by 
 innumerable wounds. 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 
 
 149 
 
 The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The 
 third division of the French army, which had never struck a 
 blow yet, and which was, in itself, more than double the 
 whole English power, broke and fled. At this time of the 
 fight, the English, who as yet had made no prisoners, began 
 to take them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in 
 doing so, or in killing those who would not surrender, when 
 a great noise arose in the rear of the French, — their flying 
 banners were seen to stop, — and King Henry, supposing 
 a great reinforce- 
 ment to have ar- 
 rived, gave orders 
 that all the pris- 
 oners should be 
 put to death. As 
 soon as itwas found 
 that the noise was 
 only occasioned by 
 a body of plunder- 
 ing peasants, the 
 terrible slaughter 
 was soon stopped. 
 
 Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and 
 asked him to whom the victory belonged. 
 
 The herald replied, "To the King of England." 
 
 " We have not made this havoc and slaughter," said the 
 king. "It is the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. 
 What is the name of that castle yonder?" 
 
 "The herald answered him, " My lord, it is the Castle of 
 Azincour." 
 
 Said the king, "From henceforth this battle shall be 
 known to posterity by the name of the battle of Azincourt" 
 
 THE BABY KING. 
 
i5o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The English historians have made it Agincourt, and under 
 that name it will ever be famous in English annals. 
 
 The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three 
 dukes were killed, two more were taken prisoners ; seven 
 counts were killed, three more were taken prisoners ; and ten 
 thousand knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. 
 The English loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among 
 whom were the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 
 
 There is something sweet and pitiful in the story of the 
 death of these two noble men. As the Earl of Suffolk lay 
 sorely wounded and dying, the Duke of York, his warm 
 friend, also wounded to death, dragged himself to his side 
 and took him by the beard and kissed his wounds, crying out, 
 as Shakespeare tells us, 
 
 " Tarry, dear Cousin Suffolk, 
 My soul shall keep thine company to heaven, 
 Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast, 
 As in this glorious and well-foughten field 
 We kept together in our chivalry." 
 
 Then he put his two arms around Suffolk's neck, and 
 the two friends died together. But they had done their duty 
 for England in life, and the battle was won. 
 
 Peace was made with France, and to seal the peace Henry 
 married the French princess Katherine. A little son was 
 born to them at Windsor, and was called Henry of Windsor, 
 Prince of Wales ; he was afterwards Henry the Sixth. When 
 Henry the Fifth knew he was going to die, he called his 
 brothers together and gave them good advice about ruling 
 England and France, and begged them to take great care of 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 151 
 
 his little son. Henry the Sixth was not a year old when his 
 father died, and was crowned at once. 
 
 One of the finest English poems we have, was written 
 about the battle of Agincourt. 
 
 1. 
 
 Fair stood the wind for France 
 When we our sails advance, 
 Nor now to prove our chance 
 
 Longer will tarry ; 
 But putting to the main 
 At Caux, the mouth of Seine, 
 With all his martial train, 
 
 Landed King Harry. 
 
 11. 
 And turning to his men, 
 Quoth our brave Harry then, 
 Though they be one to ten, 
 
 Be not amazed. 
 Yet have we well begun ; 
 Battles so bravely won 
 Have ever to the sun 
 
 By fame been raised. 
 
 in. 
 
 And for myself (quoth he) 
 This my full rest shall be, 
 England ne'er mourn for me, 
 
 No more esteem me. 
 Victor I will remain, 
 Or on this earth lie slain, 
 Never shall she sustain 
 
 Loss to redeem me. 
 
i 5 2 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Poictiers and Crecy tell 
 
 When most their pride did swell, 
 
 Under our swords they fell ; 
 
 No less our skill is 
 Then when our grandsire great, 
 Claiming the regal seat, 
 By many a warlike feat 
 
 Lopped the French lilies. 
 
 They now to fight are gone, 
 Armor on armor shone, 
 Drum now to drum did groan, 
 
 To hear was wonder ; 
 That with the cries they make 
 The very earth did shake, 
 Trumpet to trumpet spake, 
 
 Thunder to thunder. 
 
 With Spanish yew so strong, 
 Arrows a cloth-yard long, 
 That like to serpents stung, 
 
 Piercing the weather ; 
 None from his fellow starts, 
 But playing manly parts, 
 And like true English hearts, 
 
 Stuck close together. 
 
 VII. 
 
 When down their bows they threw 
 And forth their bilbos drew, 
 And on the French they flew, 
 Not one was tardy ; 
 
HENRY THE FIFTH 153 
 
 Arms were from shoulders sent, 
 Scalps to the teeth were rent, 
 Down the French peasants went — 
 Our men were hardy. 
 
 This while our noble king, 
 His broadsword brandishing, 
 Down the French host did ding. 
 
 As to o'erwhelm it. 
 And many a deep wound lent 
 His arms with blood besprent, 
 And many a cruel rent 
 
 Bruising his helmet. 
 
 Upon Saint Crispin's day 
 Fought was this noble fray, 
 Which fame did not delay 
 
 To England to carry. 
 O when shall Englishmen 
 With such acts fill a pen, 
 Or England breed again 
 
 Such a King Harry ? 
 
154 
 
and Queeq JlZargat/ef. 
 
 In the year 1 422, when King Henry Fifth died, most people 
 in England were very ignorant. They believed in magic and 
 witches, and anything they could not understand they at once 
 believed to be done by magic. So when young Henry, the 
 boy king, grew up a weak young man in mind and body, the 
 doctors were not clever enough to find out what was the matter 
 with him, and the people believed he had been bewitched; 
 and the wife of his guardian, Duke Humphrey, was accused 
 of having bewitched him. They said that this poor lady, 
 Eleanor Cobham, had made a wax figure of the king and 
 melted it before the fire, and that as it melted, the king's 
 health and wits melted away with it. She was tried for this 
 and found guilty. 
 
 She had the good luck not to be burned alive — a thing 
 which very often happened to people who were said to be 
 witches. But she was made to walk in a white sheet with 
 bare head and bare feet, carrying a lighted candle, through 
 the streets of London, to show that she was sorry for what 
 
 155 
 
156 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 she had never done. Then she was sent out of England for 
 ever, and the disgrace of this broke her husband's heart, so 
 that he died. 
 
 During this period the wars in France began again. The 
 English got the better of the fighting, and France had almost 
 lost all hope of getting back the kingdom when a young 
 shepherdess, named Joan of Arc, dreamed that she saw the 
 angels of God, and that they told her she should be the 
 means of winning back his kingdom for the king of France. 
 The remarkable adventures of this young French girl, 
 
 who won back the honor 
 and the kingdom of 
 France from the Eng- 
 lish, and died a terrible 
 death after gaining im- 
 mortal fame, are too 
 wonderful and interest- 
 ing to be told in a few 
 words here. As she 
 won her great renown 
 by fighting against the 
 English for the recovery 
 of her native land, we 
 shall tell her strange 
 story in full in the next 
 chapter, and confine our- 
 selves here to the deeds of Henry Sixth. 
 
 During all the fights of kings and barons, and French 
 and English, which took place in these years, the poor people 
 of England had from time to time tried to make the king and 
 the nobles see how unhappy they were, and how much they 
 were oppressed by the great lords. 
 
PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 
 
 l 57 
 
 In the reign of Richard Second, thirty or forty years 
 before, the laborers of Kent and Essex had got together all 
 their scythes and bill-hooks, and had made spears of poles 
 with long knives tied at the end, and armed in this way they 
 had marched to London to demand their rights, led by a 
 good priest, John Ball, and by Wat Tyler, whose story we 
 have already told. 
 
 Again in the reign of the new King Henry the people of 
 Kent grew very angry because France had been lost, and they 
 were also made very miserable by the wickedness of the rich 
 people. So 
 they tried to 
 call the king's 
 attention to 
 their wrongs, 
 in the way 
 they had done 
 under Wat 
 Tyler. The 
 Kentish men 
 rose up to the 
 number of 
 twenty thous- 
 and, and under their leader, Jack Cade, they beat the royal 
 army and killed its general. Then Jack dressed himself in 
 the dead general's armor, and led his men to London. 
 
 Jack passed into the city from Southwark, over the bridge, 
 and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his 
 men not to plunder. Having made a show of his forces 
 there, while the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into 
 Southwark in good order, and passed the night. Next day, 
 he came back again, having got hold in the meantime of 
 
 THE MAKING OF WAXEN IMAGES 
 
158 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Lord Say, an unpopular nobleman. Says Jack to the Lord 
 Mayor and judges : "Will you be so good as to make a tribu- 
 nal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?" The court 
 being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and his 
 men cut his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off- the 
 head of his son-in-law, and then went back in good order to 
 Southwark again. 
 
 But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an 
 unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pil- 
 laged. And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner — perhaps 
 
 he had drunk a little too much — began to plunder the house 
 where he lodged ; upon which, of course, his men began to 
 imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with 
 Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower, and 
 defended London Bridge and kept Jack and his people out. 
 This advantage gained, it was resolved to divide Jack's army 
 in the old way, by making a great many promises on behalf 
 of the State, that they never intended to be performed. This 
 did divide them. Some of Jack's men said that they ought 
 to take the conditions which were offered, and others said 
 that they ought not, for they were only a snare. Some went 
 
PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 
 
 i59 
 
 home at once; others stayed where they were; and all quar- 
 reled among themselves. 
 
 Jack Cade, seeing that all was at an end, and that his 
 only hope for life was in flight, now mounted a good horse 
 and galloped away into Sussex. But, there galloped after 
 him on a better horse, one Alexander Iden, who came up 
 with him, had a hard 
 fight with him, and 
 killed him. Jack's 
 head was set aloft on 
 London Bridge, with 
 the face looking to- 
 wards Blackheath, 
 where he had raised 
 his flag; and Alexander Iden got the 
 thousand marks. As for the people, 
 they got nothing whatever of what 
 had been promised them. 
 
 Henry Sixth grew up to be a 
 very silly man. His wife, Margaret 
 of Anjou, wanted to govern the king- 
 dom herself. But many noblemen 
 and gentlemen and the people of 
 London wished to take away the 
 crown from the poor king, and to 
 have the Duke of York for king. Some gentlemen- were 
 walking in the Temple garden after dinner, disputing about 
 the king and the Duke of York. Some of the gentlemen did 
 not like to speak out plainly and say which they preferred. 
 
 Then said Richard Plantagenet, the leader of the Yorkist 
 party: "Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak, 
 let him that is a true-born gentleman and stands upon the 
 
i6o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 honor of his birth, if he believes that I have spoken true, from 
 off this briar pluck a white rose with me." 
 
 The Earl of Somerset, who wanted Henry to remain 
 king, said : 
 
 " Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer, 
 But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me." 
 
 Then some plucked red and some plucked white roses ) 
 and those that plucked red roses said: "We have our swords 
 here, which shall dye your white rose in a bloody red." 
 "Meantime," said the others, "your cheeks are as pale as our 
 roses, for you are pale with fear, in witness that the truth is 
 on our side." 
 
 So they all quarreled and parted. The party of York 
 was called the party of the white rose, and the party of Lan- 
 caster, who wished Henry to be king, was called the party of 
 the red rose. And this was the beginning of the Wars of the 
 Roses, which lasted for thirty years. 
 
 Queen Margaret got an army together to drive away the 
 Duke of York. A battle was fought at Northampton, and 
 Henry was taken prisoner. The queen, with the little Prince 
 Edward, got away to Scotland, and the Duke of York ruled 
 England with the king's consent. But the queen, who was 
 very brave though very cruel, got together another army. 
 She fought the Duke of York, and at last beat him at 
 Wakefield. She cut off his head, put a paper crown 
 upon it, and stuck it on one of the gates of York. His 
 second son, Lord Rutland, cried out for mercy to Lord 
 Clifford ; but Lord Clifford's father had been killed in one 
 of the other battles, and he said: "As your father killed 
 mine, I will kill you," and he plunged his dagger into Lord 
 Rutland's heart. 
 
PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 
 
 161 
 
 A great many battles were fought, and thousands of 
 Englishmen were killed. Poor King Henry hid for some 
 time in Scotland, sleeping in woods and caves, and some- 
 
 QUEEN MARGARET AND THE ROBBER 
 
 times nearly dying of hunger. The queen got another 
 army together, but she was beaten at Hexham. King Henry 
 was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower. 
 
1 62 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The queen and the young prince managed to get 
 away into the woods. However, they were caught by two 
 robbers, who took away the queen's jewels and bracelets 
 and necklaces. The queen and prince stood trembling, 
 feeling quite sure that the robbers would kill them. But 
 the robbers could not agree about dividing the jewels, 
 and while they were quarreling as to which should have 
 the most, the queen caught up her little son in her arms 
 and slipped quietly away among the dark bushes of the 
 forest. There she wandered all night, hoping to meet 
 with someone who was on her side, and who would help 
 her to get away with her child to some safe place. At 
 last she met a man with a spear and a sort of dagger. 
 Seeing by her dress that she was a great lady, he spoke to 
 her roughly and said — "Give me your jewels and money, or 
 I will have your life." 
 
 "My jewels and money have been taken from me," 
 cried the poor queen. "I have nothing left but this, my 
 only treasure." 
 
 She pointed to the child and fell on her knees before 
 the robber. 
 
 "I am Margaret, Queen of England," she said "and 
 this is my son, the young prince. The nobles and the 
 people of England have forgotten what they owe to their 
 king and their queen since they have set aside the laws of 
 England. Show me now that an outlaw can be more 
 gentle and more noble than they." 
 
 "By my faith in God, I will," said the robber, touched 
 by her appeal. He took her to his hut and hid her there 
 till her enemies had ceased to look for her, and then he 
 managed, by disguising her and the little prince, to get them 
 safe over to Flanders. 
 
PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 
 
 163 
 
 This brave queen was not yet beaten. She got more 
 men together and came to fight the new Duke of York, who 
 had been made King of England. The new king had 
 got over some German soldiers, who, instead of fighting 
 with swords and bows and arrows, fought with strange new 
 weapons — guns, which till then had never been used in war. 
 He also used 
 heavy cannon, 
 and so it was 
 that he beat 
 Margaret. She 
 lost the battle 
 and was taken 
 prisoner. Her 
 young son too 
 was found on the 
 battlefield by the 
 new king, who 
 asked him how 
 he dared to come 
 over with an 
 army. 
 
 ' ' I come to 
 recover my fath- 
 er's kingdom," 
 said the brave 
 youth. 
 
 And the new king brutally struck him on his face with 
 his glove, and one of his lords killed the boy with a dagger. 
 
 Henry Sixth died in the Tower, a prisoner, and most 
 people think he was murdered — a sad end for the son of the 
 great king who won the battle of Agincourt. 
 
 HENRY SIXTH A PRISONER IN THE TOWER 
 
164 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Margaret lived miserably for nine years after her son, 
 Prince Edward, was killed, and for five of those years she 
 was kept a prisoner in the Tower. Then the King of France 
 paid money for her, and she was allowed to go to France, 
 where she died. 
 
flfeatb 
 
 of 
 ©cleans 
 
 A Girl Heroine who Frightened the English Army 
 
 We have told you, in a previous story, how a brave 
 French girl led the troops of her country against the English, 
 and said we would give a more complete account of her life 
 and adventures. This is the story told by Charles Dickens. 
 
 In a remote village among some wild hills in the 
 province of Lorraine in sunny France, there lived a 
 countryman whose name was Jacques d'Arc. He had a 
 daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time in her 
 twentieth year: She had been a solitary girl from her 
 childhood; she had often tended the sheep and cattle 
 for whole days where no human figure was seen or 
 human voice heard ; and she had often knelt, for hours 
 together, in the gloomy, empty little village chapel, looking 
 up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, 
 until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing 
 there, and even that she heard them speak to her. The 
 people in that part of France were very ignorant and super- 
 stitious ; and they had many ghostly tales to tell about what 
 
 165 
 
1 66 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 they had dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely hills 
 when the clouds and the mists were resting on them. So 
 they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights ; and they 
 whispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked 
 to her. 
 
 At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been 
 surprised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards 
 heard a solemn voice, which said it was St. Michael's voice, 
 telling her that she was to go and help the dauphin. Soon 
 after this (she said), St. Catharine and St. Margaret had 
 appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and 
 had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. These 
 visions had returned sometimes, but the voices very often ; 
 and the voices always said, "Joan, thou art appointed by 
 Heaven to go and help the dauphin!" She almost always 
 heard them when the chapel bells were ringing. 
 
 There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and 
 heard these things. It is very well known that such delu- 
 sions are a disease which is not by any means uncommon. 
 It is probable enough that there were figures of St. Michael 
 and St. Catherine and St. Margaret in the little chapel (where 
 they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon their 
 heads) and that they first gave Joan the idea of those three 
 personages. She had long been a moping, fanciful girl ; and 
 though she was a very good girl, I daresay she was a little 
 vain and wishful for notoriety. 
 
 Her father, something wiser than his neighbors, said, "I 
 tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a 
 kind husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ 
 thy mind!" But Joan told him in reply, that she had taken 
 a vow never to have a husband, and that she must go, as 
 Heaven directed her, to help the dauphin. 
 
GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 167 
 
 It happened, unfortunately for her farthers persuasions, 
 and most unfortunately for the poor girl too, that a party of 
 the dauphin's enemies found their way into the village, while 
 Joan's disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and 
 drove out the inhabi- 
 tants. The cruelties she 
 saw committed touched 
 Joan's heart, and made 
 her worse. She said 
 that the voices and the 
 figures were now con- 
 tinually before her; that 
 they told her she was 
 the girl who, according 
 to an old prophecy, was 
 to deliver France, and 
 she must go and help 
 the dauphin, and must 
 remain with him until 
 he should be crowned 
 at Rheims ; and that she 
 must travel a long way 
 to a certain lord, named 
 Baudricourt, who could, 
 and would, bring her 
 into the dauphin's 
 presence. 
 
 As her father still said, "I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy," 
 she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a 
 poor village wheelwright and cart maker, who believed in the 
 reality of her visions. They traveled a long way, and went 
 on and on, over a rough country, full of the Duke of Bur- 
 
1 68 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 gundy's men, and of all kinds of robbers and marauders, 
 until they came to where the lord was. 
 
 When the servants told him that there was a poor peasant- 
 girl named Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old 
 village wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to see him, 
 because she was commanded to help the dauphin and save 
 France, Baudricourt, burst out laughing, and bade them send 
 the girl away. But he soon heard so much about her linger- 
 ing in the town, and praying in the churches, and seeing 
 visions, and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her and 
 questioned her. As she said the same things after she had 
 been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said before 
 the sprinkling, Baudricourt began to think there might be 
 something in it. At all events, he thought it worth while to 
 send her on to the town of Chinon, where the dauphin was. 
 So he bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave her two 
 squires to conduct her. As the voices had told Joan that she 
 was to wear a man's dress, now she put one on, and girded 
 her sword to her side, and bound spurs to her heels, and 
 mounted her horse, and rode away with her two squires. As 
 to her uncle, the wheelwright, he stood staring at his niece in 
 wonder until she was out of sight — as well he might — and 
 then went home again. The best place, too. 
 
 Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came 
 to Chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the 
 dauphin's presence. Picking him out immediately from all 
 his court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven 
 to subdue his enemies, and conduct him to his coronation at 
 Rheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, 
 to make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number 
 of his secrets known only to himself, and, furthermore, she 
 said there was an old, old sword in the Cathedral of St. 
 
GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 169 
 
 Catherine at Fierbois, marked with five old crosses on the 
 blade, which St. Catherine had ordered her to wear. 
 
 Now nobody knew anything about this old, old sword ; 
 but when the cathedral came to be examined, which was 
 immediately 
 done, there, 
 sure enough, 
 the sword was 
 found. The 
 dauphin then 
 required a num- 
 ber of grave 
 priests and 
 bishops to give 
 him their opin- 
 ion whether the 
 girl derived her 
 power from 
 good spirits or 
 from evil spirits; 
 which they held 
 prodigiously 
 long debates 
 about, in the 
 course of which 
 several learned 
 men fell fast as- 
 leep, and snored 
 loudly. At last, JOANOFARC 
 
 when one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan, "What 
 language do your voices speak?" and when Joan had replied 
 to the gruff old gentleman, "a pleasanter language than 
 
170 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 yours," they agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of 
 Arc was inspired from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance 
 put new heart into the dauphin's soldiers when they heard of 
 it, and dispirited the English army, who took Joan for a witch. 
 
 So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, 
 until she came to Orleans. But she rode now as never 
 peasant-girl had ridden yet. She rode upon a white war- 
 horse, in a suit of glittering armor, with the old, old sword 
 from the cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt, with a white 
 flag carried before her upon which were a picture of God and 
 the words Jesus Maria. In this splendid state, at the head of 
 a great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for 
 the starving inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared before that 
 beleaguered city. 
 
 When the people on the wall beheld her, they cried out, 
 "The Maid is come! the Maid of the prophecy is come to 
 deliver us!" And this, and the sight of the Maid fighting 
 at the head of their men, made the French so bold, and 
 made the English so fearful, that the English line of forts 
 was soon broken, the troops and provisions were got into 
 the town, and Orleans was saved. 
 
 Joan, henceforth called the Maid of Orleans, remained 
 within the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be 
 thrown over, ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to 
 depart. from before the town according to the will of Heaven. 
 As the English general very positively declined to believe 
 that Joan knew anything about the will of Heaven (which 
 did not mend the matter with his soldiers ; for they 
 stupidly said if she were not inspired she was a witch, 
 and it was of no use to fight against a witch), she mounted 
 her white war-horse again, and ordered her white banner to 
 advance. 
 
GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 171 
 
 The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers 
 upon the bridge; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked 
 them. The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a 
 scaling-ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower- 
 wall, but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and 
 fell into the trench. She was carried away, and the arrow 
 was taken out, during which operation she screamed and 
 cried with the pain, as any other girl might have done ; but 
 presently she said that the voices were speaking to her, and 
 soothing her to rest. After awhile she got up, and was again 
 foremost in the fight. When the English, who had seen her 
 fall and supposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with 
 the strangest fears ; and some of them cried out that they be- 
 held St. Michael on a white horse (probably Joan herself) 
 fighting for the French. They lost the bridge, and lost the 
 towers, and next day set their chain of forts on fire and left 
 the place. 
 
 But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no further than the 
 town of Jargean, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of 
 Orleans besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As 
 the white banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the 
 head with a stone, and was again tumbled down into the 
 ditch; but she only cried all the more, as she lay there, "On, 
 on, my countrymen ! and fear nothing ; for the Lord hath de- 
 livered them into our hands !" After this new success of the 
 Maid's several other fortresses and places which had pre- 
 viously held out against the dauphin were delivered up 
 without a battle ; and at Patay she defeated the remainder of 
 the English army, and set up her victorious white banner on 
 a field where twelve hundred Englishmen lay dead. 
 
 She now urged the dauphin (who always kept out of the 
 way when there was any fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as 
 
1 72 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the first part of her mission was accomplished ; and to com- 
 plete the whole by being crowned there. The dauphin was 
 in no particular hurry to do this, as Rheims was a long way 
 off, and the English and the Duke of Burgundy were still 
 strong in the country through which the road lay. However, 
 they set forth with ten thousand men, and again the Maid of 
 Orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in 
 her shining armor. .Whenever they came to a town which 
 yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her ; but whenever 
 they came to a town which gave them any trouble, they be- 
 gan to murmur that she was an impostor. The latter was 
 particularly the case at Troyes, which finally yielded, how- 
 ever, through the persuasion of one Richard, a friar of the 
 place. Friar Richard was in the old doubt about the Maid 
 of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with the holy 
 water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate 
 by which she came into the city. Finding that it made no 
 change in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old 
 gentlemen had said, that it was all right, and became her 
 great ally. 
 
 So at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of 
 Orleans, and the dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes 
 believing and sometimes unbelieving men, came to Rheims. 
 And in the great Cathedral of Rheims the dauphin actually 
 was crowned Charles Seventh in a great assembly of the 
 people. Then the Maid, who, with her white banner, stood 
 beside the king in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down 
 upon the pavement at his feet, and said, with tears, that 
 what she had been inspired to do was done, and that the 
 only recompense she asked for was, that she should now 
 have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily 
 incredulous father, and her first simple escort, the village 
 
GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 173 
 
 wheelwright and cart-maker. But the king said, "No!" and 
 made her and her family as noble as a king could, and settled 
 upon her the income of a count. 
 
 Ah ! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans if she 
 had resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home 
 to the little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all 
 these things, and had been a good man's wife, and had heard 
 no stranger voices than the voices of little children ! 
 
 It was not to be ; and she continued helping the king 
 (she did a world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and 
 trying to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and lead- 
 ing a religious, an unselfish and a modest life, herself, beyond 
 any doubt. Still, many times she prayed the king to let her 
 go home ; and once she even took off her bright armor, and 
 hung it up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. 
 But the king always won her back again — while she was of 
 any use to him ; and so she went on and on to her doom. 
 
 .When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, 
 began to be active for England, and, by bringing the war 
 back into France, and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to 
 his faith, to distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles 
 sometimes asked the Maid of Orleans what the voices said 
 about it? But the voices had become (very ordinary voices 
 in perplexed times) contradictory and confused, so that now 
 they said one thing, and now said another, and the Maid 
 lost credit every day. Charles marched on Paris, which was 
 opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of St. Honore'. In 
 this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, Joan was 
 abandoned by the whole army. She lay down unaided 
 among a heap of dead, and crawled out how she could. 
 Then some of her believers went over to an opposition Maid, 
 Catherine of La Rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell 
 
i74 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 where there were treasures of buried money — though she 
 never did ; and then Joan accidently broke the old, old sword, 
 and others said that her power was broken with it. Finally, 
 at the siege of Compfegne, held by the Duke of Burgundy, 
 where she did valiant service, she was basely left alone in a 
 retreat, though facing about and fighting to the last ; and an 
 archer pulled her off her horse. 
 
 the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that 
 were sung, about the capture of this one poor country girl! 
 O the way in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery 
 and heresy, and anything else you like, by the Inquisitor- 
 General of France, and by this great man, and by that great 
 man until it is wearisome to think of! She was bought at 
 last by the Bishop of Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and 
 was shut up in her narrow prison — plain Joan of Arc again, 
 and Maid of Orleans no more. 
 
 1 should never have done if I were to tell you how they 
 had Joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and 
 re-examine her, and worry her into saying anything and 
 everything; and how all sorts of scholars and doctors be- 
 stowed their utmost tediousness upon her. Sixteen times 
 she was brought out and shut up again, and worried and en- 
 trapped and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the 
 dreary business. On the last occasion of this kind she was 
 brought into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with 
 a scaffold and a stake and fagots, and the executioner, and a 
 pulpit with a friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. It is 
 very affecting to know that even at that pass the poor girl 
 honored the mean vermin of a king, who had so used her for 
 his purposes and so abandoned her; and that, while she had 
 been regardless of reproaches heaped upon herself, she spoke 
 out courageously for him. 
 
GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 175 
 
 It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save 
 her life, she signed a declaration prepared for her — signed it 
 with a cross, for she couldn't write — that all her visions and 
 voices had come from the Devil. Upon her recanting the 
 past, and protesting that she would never wear a man's dress 
 in the future, she was condemned to imprisonment for life, 
 "on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction." 
 
 But on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction the 
 visions and the voices soon returned. It was quite natural 
 that they should do so, for that kind of disease is much 
 aggravated by fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It 
 was not only got out of Joan that she considered herself in- 
 spired again, but she was taken in a man's dress, which had 
 been left — to entrap her — in her prison, and which she put 
 on in her solitude ; perhaps in remembrance of her past 
 glories ; perhaps because the imaginary voices told her. For 
 this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything else 
 you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. And in 
 the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the 
 monks had invented for such spectacles, with priests and 
 bishops sitting in a gallery looking on,- — though some had 
 the Christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infa- 
 mous scene — the shrieking girl, last seen amidst the smoke and 
 fire holding a crucifix between her hands, last heard calling 
 upon Christ, was burnt to ashes. They threw her ashes in 
 the river Seine ; but they will rise against her murderers on 
 the last day. 
 
 From the moment of her capture, neither the French 
 king nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to 
 save her. It is no defence of them that they may have never 
 really believed in her, or that they may have won her victories 
 by. their skill and bravery. The more they pretended to be- 
 
176 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 lieve in her, the more they had caused her to believe in her- 
 self; and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever 
 nobly devoted. But it is no wonder that they who were in 
 all things false to themselves, false to one another, false to 
 their country, false to Heaven, false to earth, should be mon- 
 sters of ingratitude and treachery to a helpless peasant-girl. 
 In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and 
 grass grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable 
 Norman streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight, though 
 the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have 
 long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene 
 of her last agony, the square to which she has given its pres- 
 ent name. I know some statues of modern times — even in 
 the world's metropolis, I think — which commemorate less 
 constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the world's 
 attention, and much greater impostors. 
 
Che "Princes 
 
 England in the Year, A. d., 1461. 
 
 THE Duke of York was now king, and was called Edward 
 the Fourth, and during his reign England had peace, 
 and as the people were not afraid of being robbed, 
 they were able to turn their attention to making things, 
 and so trade improved very much. 
 
 Edward the Fourth has been called the Merchant King, 
 because he went into trade on his own account, and used to 
 send ships to all parts of the world with things made in Eng- 
 land, to exchange them for foreign goods that were wanted 
 by the people in his kingdom. 
 
 He was a greedy, grasping man, but he took a great inter- 
 est in books. It was in his reign that printing was first done 
 
 in England. A man named Laurentius, of Haarlem, seems to 
 
 12 l77 
 
178 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 fl- REAL- PICTURE FROM- 0N£ . 
 
 OF 
 
 have been the first person to think of printing. His old ser- 
 vant says he went out walking in the country as the rich citi- 
 zens were wont, and one day diverted himself by cutting 
 letters on the bough of a beech tree — and, for fancy's sake, 
 the thought struck him to take off an impression of it on 
 paper with ink to please his grandchildren. So he inked the 
 letters on the bough and pressed the paper on it, and there 
 were the letters just as he had drawn them, only, of course, 
 they were all backwards. So then Laurentius saw that, if he 
 cut the letters backwards and inked them, the printing would 
 
 come off the opposite way 
 and be the right way 
 round, as letters should 
 be. Then he and his 
 son-in-law began to try 
 to print words and sen- 
 tences. 
 
 There is an old 
 
 parchment in a library in 
 
 Germany which has the 
 
 Lord's Prayer printed 
 
 on it, and people say 
 
 this was one of the first things done by Laurentius. 
 
 William Caxton, who was a tradesman of London, had 
 to go to Holland on the business of his trade, and heard about 
 printing. He thought such a wonderful thing ought to be 
 used in England. So he learned how to print, and when he 
 had printed a book about the history of Troy, he came to 
 England and set up a printing press at Westminster. He 
 put up a sign-board with a shield, and under it he said that 
 printed matter could be had "good chepe" there. 
 
 The king and the young nobles were only too pleased to 
 
 WILLIAM- 
 
 ■CAXTONS 
 
 •BOOKS 
 
 «V6ow£v.y. 
 
THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 
 
 179 
 
 buy his books as fast as he could print them. He printed 
 Chaucer's poems and those of Lydgate and Gower, and many 
 translations and other works. These, you must remember, 
 were the earliest of English poets. We are sorry that 
 boys and girls do not read them now. They are read in 
 high schools and colleges. He complains in one of his 
 books that he would like to please all men, but that some 
 wanted him to print in French, and some in Latin, and some 
 in English as it was spoken in Kent, and some in the English 
 of other counties. 
 
 I dare say you have often been told that the people in 
 Dorsetshire speak quite a different English from the people of 
 London, and the Yorkshire people again would hardly be 
 understood if they went into Devonshire. And in Edward 
 the Fourth's time this difference was even greater than it is 
 now. "Any English," Caxton says, "that is spoken in one shire 
 differs from another so much that in my days it happened that 
 certain merchants from another part of the country were in a 
 ship in Thames, and went on land to refresh themselves, and 
 one of them came into a house and asked for meat, and 
 especially he asked for eggs. The goodwife answered that 
 she could speak no French, and the merchant was angry, 
 because he also could speak no French, and would have had 
 eggs, but she understood him not. Then one of the others 
 said he would have eyren, and then the goodwife said she 
 understood him well," 
 
 You see, eggs were called "eggs" in one part of the coun- 
 try, and "eyren" in another. 
 
 Caxton was busy translating when he died. 
 
 Among the nobles who encouraged Caxton, was the 
 king's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. He 
 was a cruel and ambitious man, and when King Edward died, 
 
i8o 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Richard thought he would try to be king instead of letting 
 his little nephew Edward the Fifth succeed to the crown. 
 
 As soon as Edward the Fourth died his widow, Queen 
 Elizabeth Woodville, took refuse at Westminster with her 
 second son Richard, for she was afraid to trust herself among 
 the enemies of her sons. The Young king, Edward the Fifth, 
 was with his uncle Richard. The first thing Richard did was 
 
 to kill as many of 
 the nobles as he 
 could among those 
 who were favorable 
 to the little prince. 
 Archbishop Roth- 
 erham went to see 
 the queen at West- 
 minster. As long 
 as she was in sanc- 
 tuary there, she and 
 her son were safe 
 and no one could 
 touch them. The 
 Archbishop found 
 about the queen 
 "much heaviness, 
 rumble, haste and 
 business ; carriage and conveyance of her stuff into sanctuary; 
 chests, coffers, packs and bundles trussed all on men's backs ; 
 no man unoccupied ; some lading, some going, some unload- 
 ing, some going for more, some breaking down the wall to 
 bring in the nearest way. The queen herself sat alone low on 
 the ruins, all desolate and dismal." The Archbishop tried to 
 comfort her, but she seems to have been beyond the reach of 
 
THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 181 
 
 comfort, for she knew that with the death of her husband all 
 safety was taken away from her and her little ones. 
 
 The Duke of Gloucester did not dare to say at once 
 straight out that he meant to be king. He pretended to be 
 very friendly to his little nephew, and rode before him 
 bareheaded, saying to the people of London — "Behold your 
 king." Two days after, he called a meeting of the little king's 
 friends to settle the date of the coronation. So all the lords 
 who wished him well came to the Tower and sat together 
 waiting for the Duke of Gloucester. At last the duke came 
 in very angry. 
 
 "I have found," he said, "that there are wicked men 
 who have tried to enchant me and do me harm. They wish 
 to kill me by their cruel sorceries." 
 
 Then he turned to Lord Hastings, who was a great 
 friend to the little king, and said — "What should be done to 
 such traitors ? ' ' 
 
 "They deserve much punishment," said Lord Hastings, 
 "if they have done so." 
 
 "If? Dost thou answer me with 'ifs'?" roared out 
 Gloucester. "By Saint Paul, I will not dine till your head 
 is off." 
 
 He struck his hand on the table, and a band of soldiers 
 rushed into the room crying, "Treason, treason!" They 
 seized on all the young king's friends and carried them off. 
 But Richard ordered Lord Hastings to kneel on the floor 
 and put his head on a log that had been brought in for fire- 
 wood, and his head was chopped off then and there, before 
 Richard went to dinner. 
 
 Richard still pretended to be a friend to the young king, 
 and said that he was only trying to protect the kingdom from 
 traitors. He insisted that Elizabeth, the Queen, should give 
 
1 82 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 up her second son, because he said it would never do for the 
 young king to be crowned and for his little brother not to be 
 present when they put the crown on him. The queen, with 
 many tears and kisses, consented to let her little son go. It 
 was a sad pity that she did, for she never saw him again. 
 
 People went on preparing for the great feast that always 
 was held when a king was crowned. But, no doubt, there 
 were many who knew that poor little Edward the Fifth would 
 never wear the crown of England. 
 
 Richard persuaded a lot of the nobles that Edward the 
 Fifth was not fit to be king, and so they asked whether he 
 would not be king instead. He pretended that he could not 
 think of such a thing, and said, " My love of my brother's 
 children is greater than my love of the crown." 
 
 Then these nobles, who were all on his side, said he must 
 be king for the good of England ; and he consented, pretend- 
 ing all the time that he consented against his will. 
 
 But he knew very well that as long as his brother's two 
 sons remained alive, there were many brave hearts in England 
 that would not submit tamely to see them wronged, and many 
 brave arms that would strike a blow to see them righted. So 
 he hired two wicked men to go and murder the little princes 
 in the Tower. The little brothers were there alone. You can 
 fancy how sadly the time passed for them. They had no 
 amusements and no playfellows. They could only sit all day 
 and hold each other's hands, and weep for their dead father, 
 and long for the mother they were never to see again. 
 
 And one night as they lay sleeping side by side, two 
 wicked men crept in with knives in their hands to kill them 
 as they slept. They were sleeping with their arms round 
 each other, and their little faces lying close together, still wet, 
 
THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 
 
 183 
 
 perhaps, with the tears they had shed before they went to sleep. 
 Their prayer-book was lying on the bed beside them. 
 
 When he saw them lying there so helpless and so young, 
 one of the murderers had for a moment some better thoughts. 
 Perhaps he thought of his own mother and of the time when 
 he, too, was a little child, and said his prayers at night, and 
 asked God to let the good angels take care of him. 
 
 "God forgive me," he said," I can't kill these pretty babes." 
 
 But the other one 
 said — "If we don't do 
 as we have been told to 
 do, you know that we 
 shall both be killed." 
 
 The other man 
 threw his knife away 
 from him. " I can't do 
 it," he said. 
 
 "Be not so faint- 
 hearted," said his com- 
 panion. ' ' Let the knife 
 lie there if you will. 
 Turn your head away 
 and cover them with 
 the pillows. Then they will die quietly in their sleep, and 
 we shall save our heads." 
 
 So they did, and when the two little princes were quite 
 dead, they took them as they lay in each other's arms and put 
 their bodies in a chest ; and this chest was buried at the foot 
 of some stairs in the Tower. 
 
 Two hundred years afterwards some workmen were 
 mending a staircase in the Tower, and they found the box 
 with the bodies of the two poor little princes. Charles the 
 
 '^^^^^y^MQcvvJ 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Second, who was king at that time, ordered them to be buried 
 in Westminster Abbey, and there you can see their tomb to this 
 day. Some people say that this story is not true, and that the 
 two princes lived in the Tower for many years after their uncle 
 was king. But when one remembers how cruelly he made 
 away with their friends, it does not seem likely that he let 
 them live. 
 
 Richard, who had taken the throne as Richard the Third, 
 was not allowed to en- 
 joy his ill-gotten king- 
 dom long, and he ap- 
 pears to have been very 
 unhappy, as he de- 
 served to be. 
 
 Sir Thomas More, 
 writing of him, says : 
 " He never had quiet in 
 his mien, never thought 
 himself sure. When 
 he went abroad his eyes 
 were rolled about, his 
 hand was on his dagger. 
 His countenance and 
 manner like one ever ready to strike again ; he took ill-rest 
 at night ; lay long waking and musing, sore wearied with care 
 and watching ; troubled with frightful dreams; sometimes 
 started up and ran about the chamber. So was his restless 
 heart continually tossed and tumbled." 
 
 There was another cousin of Richard's, a much better 
 man, whose name was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. His 
 mother was a lady of the family of Lancaster, which fought 
 for the Red Rose ; and many people thought that he ought to 
 
 THE LITTLE PRINCES ASLEEP. 
 
THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 
 
 185 
 
 be king instead of the wicked Richard. So he sailed from 
 France to Wales, where he soon had an army of Welshmen. 
 Many English nobles and soldiers also joined him. Richard 
 also gathered an army and fought his cousin Richmond at 
 Bosworth Field. They say he lay awake all the night before 
 the battle, thinking over all the wicked things he had done ; 
 and the next morning he was tired and miserable, as people 
 are who lie awake all night with only sad thoughts to keep 
 them company. And at Bosworth field he was beaten, and 
 died — as he deserved to die — miserably. The crown he had 
 worn was found hanging" in the branches of a hawthorne, and 
 was set on Henry's head. 
 
 The battle of Bosworth was the end of the wars of 
 the Roses. 
 
 
England in the Year, A.D., 1547. 
 
 WHEN the great Henry the Eighth lay dying, his 
 chief thought was to secure the safety of his 
 young son, Edward. So he named sixteen per- 
 sons, of whom the chief were the boy's uncles, 
 Edward and Thomas Seymour, to carry out king Edward's 
 intentions. 
 
 The little king and his sister Elizabeth wept bitterly when 
 they heard of their father's death. When they went to the 
 Tower a day or two later, though Elizabeth was still very 
 sad, Edward, who was only nine years old, clapped his hands 
 with delight when the cannons were fired off to greet him as 
 king. His Council received him with bent knees and kisses 
 on his hands, and the words, "God save your Grace." The 
 boy had been told what he must do. He took off his cap 
 and said with pretty courtesy, "We heartily thank you, my 
 
 187 
 
iSS 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 lords all, and hereafter, in all that you shall have to do with 
 us for any suit or cause, ye shall be heartily welcome." 
 
 Little Edward from his infancy had been crammed with 
 teaching. When he was six years old, he was taken from his 
 nurses, and two tutors were appointed, who worked the poor 
 child so hard that at eight years old he was able to write 
 Latin letters to his father. He was capable of keeping a diary 
 for himself from the time of his accession — "stiff, dry and 
 
 without character, as 
 
 Edward vl^^ f rojvj 
 
 draw- 
 -INC* 
 
 by 
 
 could only be expected 
 in a mere child of nine 
 years old, but very 
 curious." 
 
 He was a beautiful 
 boy, with blue eyes, 
 light hair, and the fair 
 skin of the royal line. 
 And his nature seems 
 to have been very 
 docile and agreeable, 
 though not without a 
 certain sort of obstinacy 
 such as could hardly fail to be developed in a little scholar- 
 king who would have been the "prize boy" at a grammar 
 school. He had a mighty conception of his own dignity. 
 His uncle Thomas Seymour kept the king hard at his 
 books, and his uncle Edward Seymour got the king to 
 make him duke of Somerset. This duke was a very proud 
 and greedy man. He built a splendid palace for himself in 
 London, destroying for its sake the parish church of St. Mary 
 in the Strand, and pulling down the houses of several bishops. 
 The pleasure grounds were to have reached from the Strand 
 
EDWARD THE SIXTH 
 
 to Saint Paul's Cathedral ; the chapel of the dead in Saint 
 Paul's churchyard was pulled down to make room for the 
 pleasure grounds, and the bones of the dead were scattered 
 to the fields. 
 
 Edward's 
 stepmother, 
 Katherine Parr, 
 had charge of 
 him and his sister 
 Elizabeth, and 
 also of his cousin, 
 Lady Jane Grey, 
 who was of the 
 same age as the 
 little king. Ed- 
 ward was fond of 
 his stepmother, 
 who seems t o 
 have been very 
 kind in a rough 
 sort of way. 
 
 Edward had 
 been brought up 
 to be a Protest- 
 ant, and in his 
 reign a great 
 many things that 
 
 make the Church Service beautiful were declared to be unlaw- 
 ful ; and the king commanded a new Prayer-book to be 
 made, which was very much disliked by the people, and led to 
 riots and fights in almost every county in England. There 
 had not been such rebellion since the days of Wat Tyler. 
 
190 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The people of England were as usual being oppressed 
 and ill-treated by the rich, who had now found out a new 
 means of injuring them. 
 
 You must know that there had been, as far back as any 
 one could remember, large pieces of grassland and woodland 
 which did not belong to any particular owner, but to the com- 
 
 THE KING ATTENDS A PLAY. 
 
 mon people, and these were called commons or common 
 lands. They were of the greatest value to the people, because 
 any poor man who had a horse or a cow or a sheep could 
 turn his beasts out to feed on the common lands, and his 
 beasts got just as much food off these lands as they would 
 have done if their owner had been able to fence in a little 
 plot and call it his very own. 
 
EDWARD THE SIXTH 191 
 
 But the rich lords were greedy to have this good pasture- 
 land for themselves. So they used to enclose a field or a wood 
 here and there with a fence, and then say it was their own, 
 and that the common people had no right to it. 
 
 There was a great rebellion against this theft — for it was 
 nothing less — and it would have been well for the poor of 
 England if that rebellion had been successful. 
 
 In Norfolk, the leader of the people was a tanner named 
 Robert Ket, who got together quite an army, and marched 
 with them to a place near Norwich, There was a large oak 
 tree in that place, on a spot called Mousehold Hill, which 
 Ket named the Tree of Reformation ; and under its green 
 boughs, he and his men sat in the midsummer weather, hold- 
 ing courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They were 
 even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome public 
 speakers to get up into this Tree of Reformation, and point 
 out their errors to them in long discourses, while they lay lis- 
 tening (not always without some grumbling and growling) in 
 the shade below. 
 
 At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared below 
 the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless 
 from that moment they dispersed and went home ; in which 
 case they were to receive a pardon. But Ket and his men 
 made light of the herald, and became stronger than ever, 
 until the Earl of Warwick went after them with an army of 
 7,500 men, and cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered as traitors ; and their limbs were sent 
 into various country places to be a terror to the people. Nine 
 of them were hanged upon nine green branches of the Oak of 
 Reformation ; and so, for the time, that tree may be said to 
 have withered away. The sad thing is that the poor people 
 were forced to submit to be robbed of the lands which had 
 
i92 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 belonged to them since the days when the Saxons came to 
 England, that is to say, from the fifth and sixth centuries. 
 
 The Church Catechism was written about this time. It 
 would have been well if these idle and rich men had learned 
 their Catechism and put it in practice, for you know the Cat- 
 echism says that each man is not to covet or desire other 
 men's goods, but to learn and labor truly to get his own liv- 
 ing, and to do his duty in that state of life to which it shall 
 please God to call him. And a man's living should be what 
 he earns by his own work, not what he can steal from other 
 people by enclosing their lands, or in any other way. 
 
 The people in England were growing more and more 
 clever in most things, and it was soon after this time that the 
 greatest plays in the world were written. But in the reign of 
 Edward the Sixth there were no plays such as you see now in 
 theatres. The first kind of play was called a Miracle play. It 
 was generally acted on a platform out of doors, and acted 
 mostly at first by priests. They used to act some story 
 taken out of the Old Testament, and the plays went on for 
 many days together. 
 
 Every nobleman of distinction kept his own company of 
 players to amuse him and his friends. After the Miracles 
 there came what were called Mysteries, and these represented 
 something taken out of the New Testament. Then they 
 invented a new kind of play called a Morality, in which per- 
 sons, dressed to represent virtues and vices, came in and 
 made long speeches, which must very often have been exceed- 
 ingly tiresome. But they lasted a good while in England. 
 
 Rough little plays, something like the harlequinades of 
 the pantomimes, called Interludes, were introduced between 
 the acts of the Miracle play or Morality, and these the people 
 
EDWARD THE SIXTH 
 
 193 
 
 must have liked very much, for they were full of funny 
 scenes and speeches, and relieved the tedium of waiting. 
 Masques were a very gorgeous sort of play, with not 
 much acting, but a great deal of dressing and ornament, so 
 that they were more of a show than a play. These were 
 
 THE KING MAKING HIS WILL. 
 
 given at court and in private houses, and the young king was 
 very fond of all these entertainments. 
 
 But all was not play. The Duke of Somerset, the Pro- 
 tector of the Kingdom, as he was called, had offended some 
 great lords, and they persuaded the king that he ought to be 
 made to die. But the poor people loved him, and the laws 
 
 that were made while he was Protector were meant for 
 13 
 
194 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 England's good. In spite of all that, his enemies got the 
 young king to sign a warrant for his execution. 
 
 On the morning that he was to be beheaded a great many- 
 people had assembled to show their respect for him, and their 
 grief at his death. Suddenly the sound of a horse's hoofs 
 was heard, and the people hoped that the king had repented 
 of his cruelty and sent a pardon to his uncle at the last 
 
 moment, and they 
 
 shouted for joy. But 
 
 it was not so. The 
 
 king had only sent a 
 
 messenger to see that 
 
 the execution was 
 
 carried out. Then 
 
 the people groaned 
 
 and were sad. The duke begged they 
 
 would be quiet and still, because he wished 
 
 to make a brave end, and the si^ht of their 
 
 sorrow for him almost unmanned him. 
 
 "For," said he, "through your tumult 
 you might trouble me, for though the spirit 
 is willing the flesh is weak, and if you are 
 quiet I shall be much more quiet." 
 
 He then laid down his head on the 
 fatal block, and had it struck off at a blow. Many of the 
 bystanders rushed forward, and steeped their handkerchiefs 
 in his blood, as a mark of their affection. 
 
 It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay 
 in prison under sentence of death, the young king was being 
 vastly entertained by plays and dances and sham fights ; but 
 there is no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is 
 pleasanter to know that not a single Roman Catholic was 
 
EDWARD THE SIXTH 195 
 
 burnt in this reign for holding that religion ; though two 
 wretched victims suffered for heresy or adverse view of faith. 
 
 King Edward's health was growing worse and worse, 
 and he was persuaded by one of the high nobles to make a 
 will, leaving the crown not to either of his sisters, but to his 
 cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and this foolish will cost many lives 
 and much unhappiness. 
 
 The best thing Edward did in his reign was the founding 
 of Grammar Schools in many parts of the country. One 
 school you all know. It is Christ's Hospital, called the Blue 
 Coat School, which was established to feed and clothe four 
 hundred poor children. And the boys who are taught there 
 now still wear the dress which boys wore in Edward's reign. 
 
 Edward the Sixth's father had taken away the lands of 
 the monks and given them to his lords. Some of the monks 
 had been wicked and selfish, but many of them had been kind 
 and good, especially to the poor ; and while the monasteries 
 or monks' houses flourished in England, poor beggars were 
 always sure of help from the monks. But when the monks 
 were turned out, they themselves had to become beggars, and 
 the poor whom they had helped wandered about the country 
 with no one to lend them a helping hand.. The numbers of 
 people who had no work, and who had in former times been 
 helped by the monks, were so great, that later on it was 
 necessary to make a law for the relief of the poor. 
 
 This was well meant at first, but led to a great deal of 
 unhappiness, partly because the help given to the poor under 
 the Poor Law was forced help, for which people had to be 
 taxed, whereas the help that the old monks had given them 
 had been from charity, the generous gift of love. It was to 
 provide for the children of these poor people, who suffered so 
 
i 9 6 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 much from the loss of the monks' charity, that Edward the 
 Sixth founded his schools. 
 
 The chief thing that led Edward to make the will he did 
 was that the Princess Mary, the nearest heir to the throne, 
 had been brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, and the 
 young king greatly feared that if she succeeded him the Prot- 
 estant religion would be put down and the Catholic religion 
 set up again. It was this trouble in the king's mind on which 
 the Duke of Northumberland worked, and which induced him 
 to make the will that chose Lady Jane Grey to wear the crown. 
 
 It was completed none too soon ; for Edward was now 
 sinking in a rapid decline ; and, by way of making him better, 
 they handed him over to a woman doctor, who pretended to 
 be able to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the 6th of 
 July, in the year 1553, he died, very peaceably, praying God 
 with his last breath, to protect the reformed religion. 
 
 The king died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the 
 seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the charac- 
 ter of one so young might afterwards have become among so 
 many bad, ambitious, quarreling nobles. But he was an ami- 
 able boy, of very good abilities, and had nothing coarse or 
 cruel or brutal in his disposition, which in the son of such a 
 father is rather surprising. 
 
 It is interesting here to recall a piece of history of a very 
 common household article. It was during this reign or the 
 preceding that pins were invented. But, as a matter of fact, 
 they were introduced at a much earlier period. Before pins 
 were invented ladies used to use little skewers of bone or 
 wood to fasten their clothes. As for needles, they were tre- 
 mendously valuable. One needle in a house was considered 
 a precious possession, and was handed down from mother to 
 daughter. There were not any made in England at that time. 
 
England in the Year, A.D., i^o. 
 
 THE Duke of Northumberland persuaded Edward the 
 Sixth to make a will saying who should reign after 
 him. He would not name his sister Mary, because 
 she was a Roman Catholic, and he had been brought 
 up to be a Protestant ; and people said that his sister Eliza- 
 beth, though she was a Protestant too, had no right to be 
 queen. So he named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who was 
 only sixteen years old and was married to Lord Guildford 
 Dudley, the son of the Duke of Northumberland. She and 
 her husband were both Protestants, and the duke hoped that 
 the people would rather have a Protestant to be Queen than 
 a Catholic like Mary ; and then he thought that, as Lady Jane 
 was his daughter-in-law, he would rule the country through 
 her. 
 
 Lady Jane had been brought up very carefully. She was 
 very learned. She knew Latin and Greek ; she could speak 
 French and Italian as well as she could English ; she under- 
 stood Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, and was able to play, 
 sing, and work embroidery. A very learned man, named 
 Roger Ascharn, went to visit her parents in Broadgate, 
 
 197 
 
1 9 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Leicestershire. He found all the family hunting the deer in 
 the park except this one young girl, Lady Jane, and she sat 
 reading a Greek book. 
 
 " I wonder that you like reading," said the visitor, 
 "better than hunting the deer." 
 
 And she answered, " All their sport in the park is but a 
 shadow, I wis, of the pleasure that I find in my book. Alas, 
 good folks, they never knew what good pleasure meant," 
 
 "And how came you," asked Roger Ascham, "to this 
 deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you 
 to it, seeing that not many men and very few women attain 
 thereto ? " 
 
 "She answered, "Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp 
 and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster. For when I 
 am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I 
 speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or 
 sad, be singing or dancing, or at anything else, I must do it, 
 as it were, in such weight, measure and number, even as per- 
 fectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted 
 and cruelly threatened, yea, presently sometimes with pinches, 
 nips and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself 
 in hell till the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who 
 teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with so fair allurements 
 to learning, that I think all the time is as nothing while I am 
 with him; and thus my book hath been so much more 
 pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure, and more 
 that, in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed be but 
 trifles and very troubles with me." 
 
 She did not care for rich dresses, and would have been 
 content to live a quiet country life with her pretty garden 
 and her many books rather than to have been Queen of 
 England. 
 
LADY JANE GREY 
 
 199 
 
 As soon as Edward the Sixth was dead, her father and 
 mother and her husband's father and mother came to see her, 
 and told her of her cousin's death, and explained to her that 
 she must now be Queen, and they gave their reasons. Then 
 her husband and his father, and some other lords who were 
 present, fell on their knees and did homage to her as Queen. 
 The poor child was so horrified at the news of her cousin's 
 death, and by hearing 
 that she was to be 
 Queen of England, which 
 was the last thing she 
 wanted to be, that she 
 screamed aloud and 
 fainted away. When she 
 came to herself again, 
 she begged that they § 
 would not try to make 
 her Queen, but would 
 leave her to be happy in 
 her own way. " I will 
 not be Queen," she said, 
 but her father and mother 
 insisted that she must be, 
 and threatened her with 
 all sorts of punishments if she refused, and her husband 
 and his parents persuaded her. " Don't hold back," they 
 said, "and imperil the Protestant cause by faint-hearted- 
 ness." 
 
 She yielded at last, and, as she afterwards wrote to 
 Mary — " I turned myself to God, humbly praying and entreat- 
 ing Him that, if this which was given me were rightly and 
 lawfully mine, His Divine Majesty would give me such grace 
 
2oo ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and spirit that I might govern to His glory and the welfare 
 of this realm." 
 
 When she had recovered from the shock, and had been 
 arrayed for the occasion, Jane was taken by water to the 
 Tower. She entered it in state, her train being borne by her 
 mother, and at her entrance the Lord Treasurer presented 
 her with the crown, while her relations saluted her on their 
 knees. 
 
 The same evening heralds proclaimed round London 
 that Edward was dead and that Jane was Queen, but the 
 Londoners were not pleased, for they wanted Mary or Eliza- 
 both to be Queen. The people of London looked on Lady 
 Jane Grey as an upstart ; and though Northumberland and 
 Lady Jane's father got together an army, it was in vain, for 
 Queen Mary was proclaimed from Paul's Cross amid shouts 
 of joy from all the people. There were bonfires, illumina- 
 tions, and shoutings, and sounds of joy, whereas, when Lady 
 Jane was proclaimed Queen, there had only been a miserable 
 silence. The next day, just twenty days after they had made 
 her Queen, Jane was taken back to her own house. Her 
 whole time during her brief reign had been made miserable 
 by her husband and his mother, because though she would 
 make him a duke, she had made up her mind that she would 
 not let him call himself King. He scolded and tormented 
 her, and then sulked and would not speak to her, so that she 
 was very miserable and tired of playing at being Queen, for 
 it was only a play, and she was very glad to go back to being 
 only Lady Jane Grey. 
 
 The Duke of Northumberland saw that his plans had 
 failed ; so he tried to save himself by pretending to be very 
 glad that Queen Mary was proclaimed Queen. " The Queen 
 is merciful," he said, "she will pardon me." 
 
LADY JANE GREY 
 
 "Don't think of it," answered a gentleman who was 
 with him. "Whoever else escapes, you will not." 
 
 The Princess Mary was at this time far from London. 
 The crafty Duke of Northumberland had at first tried to 
 keep the death of young King Edward a secret until he could 
 get the two princesses into his power. But the Earl of 
 Arundel, who knew of it, and was a friend of Princess Mary, 
 secretly sent her word that her brother was dead and that 
 Lady Jane Grey 
 had been named 
 as queen in his 
 will. Mary was 
 then riding to 
 London to see 
 her sick brother, 
 but on hearing of 
 his death and her 
 own danger, she 
 turned the head 
 of her horse and 
 rode at full speed 
 into the county 
 of Norfolk 
 
 Here some lady jane and her tutor. 
 
 powerful lords declared that Mary was the true queen and 
 raised troops to support her cause. They had her proclaimed 
 queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the Castle of 
 Framlingham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For 
 she was not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to 
 keep her in a castle on the sea coast, from whence she might 
 be sent abroad if necessary. 
 
 When news of this came to London, the council of the 
 
202 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 kingdom, which felt that it must obey the king's will, wished to 
 send Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, as the general 
 of the army, against this force ; but as she implored that her 
 father might remain with her, and he was known to be but a 
 weak man, they told the Duke of Northumberland that he 
 must take the command himself. He was not very ready to 
 do so, as he mistrusted the council much ; but there was no 
 help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing to 
 a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head 
 of the troops, that, although the people pressed in great num- 
 bers to look at them, they were terribly silent. 
 
 And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. 
 While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the 
 council, they took it into their heads to turn their backs 
 on Lady Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. 
 This was chiefly owing to the Earl of Arundel, who said to 
 the lord mayor and aldermen, in an interview with them, that, 
 as for himself, he did not perceive the reformed religion to 
 be in much danger — which Lord Pembroke backed by flour- 
 ishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The lord 
 mayor and aldermen thus talked to, changed their minds very 
 quickly, and said there could be no doubt that the Princess 
 Mary ought to be queen. So she was proclaimed, as we have 
 said, at the Cross by St. Paul's ; and barrels of wine were 
 given to the people, and they got very drunk, and danced 
 round blazing bonfires, shouting and huzzahing with great joy. 
 
 It was now plain that Lady Jane's sorry dream of royalty 
 was at an end. She very willingly gave up the crown, say- 
 ing that she had accepted only in obedience to her father 
 and ^mother, and went gladly enough back to her pleasant 
 house by the river, and to her books, which she loved far 
 more than she did power. 
 
LADY JANE GREY 
 
 203 
 
 Mary, at this time, was coming on towards London. At 
 Wanstead, in Essex, she was joined by her half-sister, the 
 Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of Lon- 
 don to the Tower, and there the new queen met some emi- 
 nent prisoners then confined in it, kissed them and gave them 
 their liberty. 
 
 The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, 
 and, together with his son, Lady Jane's husband, and five others, 
 was quickly brought 
 before the Council. He 
 asked that Council, in 
 his defence, whether it 
 was treason to obey or- 
 ders that had been is- 
 sued under the great 
 seal ; and, if it were, 
 whether they, who had 
 obeyed them too, ought 
 to be his judges ? But 
 they made light of these 
 points ; and, being re- 
 solved to have him out 
 of the way, soon sen- 
 tenced, him to death. 
 
 He had risen into power upon the death of another man, 
 and made but a poor show when he himself lay low. He 
 entreated Bishop Gardiner whom Queen Mary, having ascen- 
 ded the throne, hastened to reward by the office of chancellor 
 of England, to let him live, if it were only in a mouse's hole ; 
 and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on Tower 
 Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying that he 
 had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to 
 
204 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the Catholic religion, which he told them was his faith. There' 
 seems reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, 
 in return for his confession ; but it matters little whether he 
 did or not. His head was struck off. 
 
 As for Lady Jane, she was not allowed to stay long in 
 her pleasant room among her books, but was taken from 
 there and shut up in the Tower of London, along with her 
 husband. They were permitted to walk about in the gardens 
 of the Tower, but they were kept close prisoners. We may 
 be sure that Lord Dudley, her husband, no longer tormented 
 her with his petty desire to be called king. He could not now 
 even bear the title of duke, which she had promised him. 
 There were those who wished Queen Mary to have her girlish 
 rival's head cut off, as had long been the fashion in such 
 cases, but the new queen would not consent. 
 
 " I am not afraid of Jane Grey," she said. " She has no 
 friends powerful enough to do me any harm, and why should 
 I take the life of that insignificant girl, who will never be any- 
 thing but a mere book worm." 
 
 Soon after Mary was crowned Queen of England at 
 Westminster. Her sister Elizabeth, who would follow her 
 on the throne if she should die without children, carried the 
 crown of England from the Abbey Church to Westminster 
 Hall on a cushion. She complained to the French ambassador 
 that the crown was very heavy. 
 
 "You will not find it so," he said, " when you are queen 
 and you have to wear it on your own head." 
 
 Queen Mary wanted to marry a Spanish prince, he who 
 afterwards became the cruel Philip II, but the English people 
 hated the Spaniards, partly on account of their cruelty, partly 
 because they were Roman Catholics ; and a gentleman, named 
 Sir Thomas Wyatt, with several other nobles, made a plot to 
 
LADY JANE GREY 
 
 205 
 
 take the crown from Mary and make Princess Elizabeth queen. 
 Fifteen hundred armed men assembled around Wyatt at 
 Rochester, where he took possession of the castle, and as 
 many as 5000 were gathered there as soon as Mary's army 
 advanced against him. 
 
 When Mary's troops had come up to the castle, one of 
 her captains turned round to the soldiers and said: "Will 
 you fight and shed the blood of these brave Englishmen who 
 want to save you 
 from the domina- 
 tion of Spain?" 
 And they called 
 out, "Wyatt, 
 Wyatt!"' When 
 Sir Thomas Wy- 
 att appeared they 
 cheered him and 
 went over to his 
 side. Then Sir 
 Thomas Wyatt 
 and his men ad- 
 vanced toward 
 London, and 
 would have sue- playing at queen. 
 
 ceeded in driving Mary away if she had not bravely gone 
 down to the city, and declared that, if she were to lose her 
 crown, she would die with the brave men who were fighting 
 for her. This inspired her men with courage. They fought 
 Sir Thomas Wyatt's party and defeated them. 
 
 Lady Jane Grey's relations had taken advantage of the 
 disturbances to proclaim publicly that she ought to be queen ; 
 and Queen Mary was so angry at this, that, although Lady 
 
2o6 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Grey knew nothing about it, Mary did one of the most cruel 
 acts of her cruel reign. She sentenced poor Lady Jane and 
 her husband to be executed. 
 
 Lady Jane received the news of her sentence very bravely 
 and quietly. She wrote a letter to her father on the blank 
 leaves of a Greek Testament, and another letter to her sister 
 Catherine. This was written in Greek, to prevent its being 
 read by the guards who surrounded her. They offered to 
 let her see her husband again for the last time before her 
 head and his were taken off; but she refused, saying that 
 she had need of all her courage, and she might break down 
 if she saw him. She seems to have been fond of him, though 
 he was so disagreeable to her when she would not agree to 
 let him be called king. 
 
 Early in the morning, poor Lady Jane Grey stood by the 
 iron-barred window of her prison and saw her poor young 
 husband led out to be beheaded. About an hour later, as 
 she still stood by the window in prayer, she saw a common 
 cart come through the gate, and in it her husband's body, all 
 covered with blood. She wrote in a little book in Greek — 
 " If his slain body so comes before man, his blessed soul 
 shall vindicate me before God." And she wrote in Latin — 
 " Man's justice destroyed his body; God's mercy preserves 
 his soul." And in English she wrote — " If my fault deserved 
 punishment, my youth and imprudence were worthy of excuse." 
 The Governor of the Tower asked her for a keepsake when 
 he came to lead her to the scaffold, and she gave him this 
 little book. 
 
 She came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet 
 face, and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. They 
 were not numerous ; for she was too young, too innocent and 
 fair, to be murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as her 
 
LADY JANE GREY 
 
 207 
 
 husband had just been ; so, the place of her execution was 
 within the Tower itself. She said she had done an unlawful 
 act in taking what was Queen Mary's right ; but that she had 
 done so with no bad intent, and that she died a humble Chris- 
 tian. She begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, 
 •and she asked him : "Will you take my head off before I lay 
 me down?" He answered: "No, Madam," and then she 
 was very quiet while they bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, 
 and unable to see the block on which she was to lay her 
 young head, she was seen to feel about for it with her hands, 
 and was heard to say, confused: "Oh, what shall I do! 
 Where is it?" Then they guided her to the right place, and 
 the executioner struck off her head. You know too well, 
 now, what dreadful deeds the executioner did in England, 
 through many, many years, and how his axe descended on 
 the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest, 
 wisest and best in the land. But it never struck so cruel and 
 vile a blow as this. 
 
208 
 
England in the Year, A.D., i^o. 
 
 HAVE you ever read the story of Henry the Eighth of 
 England, that huge, blustering beast of a king, who 
 married six times. Two of his wives he got rid of 
 by divorcing, and two by the easy way of cutting 
 off their heads ? One of them died soon after he married 
 her, and the last one was lucky enough to outlive him. 
 Thus the whole six are accounted for. 
 
 It was Henry the Eighth who established the Protestant 
 Church in England, but this was- not that he cared anything 
 about religion, but because the Pope refused to give him a 
 divorce from, his first wife, Catharine of Aragon. He founded 
 a church of his own, that he might get a bishop that would 
 do what he wanted. 
 
 The reason Henry wanted to divorce his wife Catharine 
 was because he had fallen desperately in love with a beautiful 
 lady of the court, named Anne Boleyn. His love for her 
 soon wore out, however, or it was driven out of his heart by 
 jealousy, and three years after their marriage he had her head 
 
 i 4 
 
 209 
 
2io ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 cut off on the headman's fatal block. But though poor Anne 
 Boleyn was gone, she left a fine legacy to England, in the 
 shape of a beautiful little princess, who was to become the 
 great Queen Elizabeth, one of the most famous of all the 
 monarchs who have been seated on England's throne. 
 
 Henry the Eighth left three children, all of whom wore 
 the crown of England. One of them was the son of his third 
 wife, Jane Seymour, who died when her baby boy was born. 
 He became the boy king Edward VI, the story of his life we 
 have given. Another was the daughter of Catharine of Ara- 
 gon, Henry's Spanish wife. She came to the throne as Queen 
 Mary — Bloody Mary she is often called, for she put many 
 of her subjects to death by sword or fire. One of the first of 
 these was hapless Lady Jane Grey, whose unhappy tale you 
 have just read. 
 
 Mary was a Catholic, like her mother, and tried to do 
 away with the Protestant faith which her father had brought 
 in, by burning to death those who taught it. It is said that 
 three hundred people were burned alive during her short 
 reign of a little over five years, sixty of them being women 
 and forty of them children. It is hard to believe that any 
 woman could have done such dreadful work, and think that 
 she was in this way helping the cause of Christ. 
 
 The third of Henry's children to come to the throne was 
 Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, a Protestant like her 
 mother, and who firmly established the Protestant faith in 
 England during her long reign. For while Edward and Mary 
 together reigned less than twelve years, Elizabeth was on the 
 throne for forty-five years. But, great queen as she was, there 
 were many unhappy moments in her youthful life, and she 
 had much reason to fear that she would suffer the fate of her 
 cousin Lady Jane Grey. 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 
 
 There was a gallant young nobleman named Courtenay, 
 of whom Mary seemed very fond, and whom she made Earl 
 of Devonshire. But just when it was thought she would 
 marry him, she changed her mind and chose the Catholic 
 prince, Philip of Spain. This created much bitter feeling 
 among the people, and a plot was formed to marry Courte- 
 nay to the Princess Elizabeth, and there were tumults all over 
 the country against the queen. In the bold old county of 
 Kent it led to a rebellion, of which Sir Thomas Wyatt, a man 
 of great daring, was the leader. We have told in the last 
 chapter all that need be said about this rebellion. 
 
 Though Lady Jane 
 Grey and her husband 
 were killed because of 
 the Wyatt rebellion, 
 the hope of that rebel- 
 lion was to put the 
 Princess Elizabeth on 
 the throne and to get 
 rid of Queen Mary. 
 When Mary was made 
 queen she took her sister to live with her ; but she treated 
 the princess very rudely and pretended to think she was not 
 a princess at all, making her come into the room after coun- 
 tesses and duchesses, as if she were a person of inferior rank, 
 whereas she ought really to have come in next after the Queen 
 herself. 
 
 Elizabeth was a very unhappy Princess at court, and 
 begged her sister, the queen, to let her go away and live in 
 her country house, and at last she was allowed to go and live 
 at Ashbridge, in Buckinghamshire. 
 
 Then came the Wyatt rebellion, and in the midst of it 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 obliged to come to London. 
 
 Queen Mary. sent for her sister. Princess Elizabeth said she 
 was ill, and would not let anyone into her house, and the 
 people who were in attendance on her said they would fight 
 to the death rather than she should be taken back to Mary's 
 Court, because they feared what might happen to their Prin- 
 cess. At last, after Wyatt had been taken, Elizabeth was 
 
 She was really weak and ill 
 when she set out, 
 but they traveled very 
 slowly, and she got 
 better on the way. 
 
 She entered 
 London, dressed in 
 white, looking very 
 pale, grave and reso- 
 lute. A hundred 
 gentlemen in velvet 
 marched before her, 
 and a hundred be- 
 hind, dressed in black 
 velvet. The roads 
 were lined with peo- 
 ple who wept and 
 cried because they 
 thought Princess Elizabeth was going to be killed. She 
 was not allowed to see the Queen, but she sent a ring to her 
 which the Queen had given her to send if ever there should 
 be any quarrel between them. 
 
 She was kept at Westminster Palace with two gentlemen, 
 six ladies, and four servants of her own, and she was not 
 allowed to go out or receive visitors unless she had guards 
 with her. 
 
 'THtTRAITORS'GfflE 
 
ALFRED THE GREAT LEARN'NG TO READ. 
 
 ed to read to him out of a great book, with gold and precious ! 
 autiful songs and poetry. He became a good and great King. 
 
THE CORONATION OF HENRY III. 
 
 This young King was only nine J 
 Chair, which is seen in the picture, 
 land for hund-eds of years. 1 1 has 
 
 ter. The Coronation 
 of the Kings of Eng- 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 213 
 
 At last the Queen decided to put her in the Tower. 
 The Earl of Sussex went to the Princess at Westminster, and 
 told her to have her barge got ready at once, so that the tide 
 might carry them through London to the Tower. 
 
 It seems that Wyatt had written her several letters, which 
 she said she had never received, and for this reason they 
 thought she had something to do with his rebellion. She 
 now insisted on waiting to write a letter to her sister, and by 
 the time she had finished it, the tide had turned, so she could 
 not go to the Tower that day, The Earl of Sussex took the 
 letter to Mary, who was very angry on hearing that Elizabeth 
 had not yet been shut up in the Tower. 
 
 " I wish my father were alive," she said, "you would not 
 dare to disobey him." 
 
 The next day Elizabeth was taken to the Tower by the 
 river. Her guards hoped that all the London people would 
 be at dinner, and they hurried her so that they were too early 
 for the tide, and the boatmen were afraid to go under the 
 bridge. But the nobles who were with her insisted, and so 
 the boatmen had to do their best, and, though it was very 
 dangerous, it was safely done. 
 
 The barge was brought up to a low, wide arch, looking 
 over the river. It is called the Traitors' Gate. So Elizabeth 
 said : 
 
 "This is for traitors, and I am none," and refused to 
 land there. 
 
 "Madam, you may not choose," said one of the lords, 
 offerino" her his cloak, for it was then raining, but " she 
 dashed it from her with a good dash," and said, as she 
 stepped out of the barge on to the stone step, " Here lands 
 as true a subject as ever trod. Before Thee, O God, I speak 
 it, having no other friend but Thee alone." 
 
2I 4 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 She came up the steps where the warders were drawn 
 up, and some of them, as she passed, knelt and prayed aloud 
 for her safety. When she reached the Tower prison itself, 
 she sat down on a stone and refused to go in. Then they 
 said : " Madam, you had best come in, for it is not whole- 
 some to sit in 
 the rain." 
 
 " Better sit 
 here than in a 
 worse place, "she 
 cried, "God 
 knoweth whither 
 you will bring 
 me." 
 
 One of her 
 gentlemen burst 
 into crying. 
 \ "You do ill. 
 
 You ought to be 
 my support and 
 comforter," she 
 said. 
 
 At last she 
 let them take her 
 into her rooms, 
 and the door 
 was made fast 
 on her with locks and bolts. Then she gathered her ser- 
 vants together, called for her books, and read the prayers. 
 She was not very strong when she came to the Tower, and 
 being shut up in close little rooms, she began to get paler and 
 thinner, and though many of the lords in the kingdom were 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 215 
 
 deeply considering whether they should cut off her head or 
 not, they did not wish her health to suffer while they were 
 making up their minds, so they gave her leave to walk in the 
 gardens every day for her health. 
 
 The son of one of the warders, a little boy named Martin, 
 who was only five years old, was very much pleased with the 
 Princess's looks, and he used to run up to her with bunches 
 of flowers, which she received gently and quietly. She liked 
 to talk with him and to listen to his childish chatter. One 
 day, a little girl, named Susannah, ran up to the Princess and 
 gave her a bunch of little keys. " Now," she said, "you can 
 open the garden gate and walk about where you will," 
 
 This was only the child's fancy, for the keys of the Tower 
 were very big keys, and none of these little ones could possi- 
 bly have unlocked any of its doors. But the act made some 
 persons think that perhaps little Martin's nosegays were used 
 to hide letters in from the people who wanted Elizabeth to be 
 queen. So the child was sent for by the Council, and the 
 lords asked him dozens of questions, but they could get 
 nothing against the princess or the people out of him, so they 
 contented themselves with forbidding him to bring his nose- 
 gays any longer. 
 
 As soon as he got back to the Tower, he ran to the 
 princess's room and called through the keyhole: "Mistress, 
 I can bring you no more flowers now," and you can guess 
 how sad the Princess Elizabeth was to hear that she was 
 to have no more flowers from her little friend. 
 
 Sir Henry Bedingfield was appointed Governor of the 
 Tower soon after. He arrived with a guard of one hundred 
 men in blue coats ; and Elizabeth thought her head was really 
 going to be cut off this time ; and, no doubt, she spent some 
 very sad moments. 
 
!I6 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 But instead he had come to take her away to a coun- 
 try home at the mansion of Woodstock, where she was kept 
 as a prisoner, being allowed to walk out only with guards, to 
 prevent her running away. But of course, she had much 
 more freedom than at the Tower. Yet she was very miser- 
 able at Woodstock. Tennyson pictures her sad and lonely 
 in her imprisonment, and as she sits grieving, she hears a 
 milkmaid singing outside : 
 
 "Shame upon you, Robin, 
 
 Shame upon you now ! 
 Kiss me, would you ? with my hands 
 
 Milking the cow ? 
 Daisies grow again, 
 
 Kingcups blow again, 
 And you came and kissed me milking 
 the cow ! " 
 
 ELIZABETH READING PRAYERS. 
 
 Princess Elizabeth sighed as she heard the song and said 
 
 ; I would I were a milkmaid, 
 
 To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die, 
 Then have my simple headstone by the church, 
 And all things lived and ended honestly." 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 217 
 
 Elizaheth was kept a captive at Woodstock for some 
 time, and was then removed to Hatfield House, where she 
 lived a long time. At last the queen died, but first, by 
 the advice of her husband, she named Elizabeth to succeed 
 her. The Princess was at Hatfield House when the news of 
 the queen's fatal illness was brought her. She was not 
 allowed to see her sister, though she was dying; and when 
 they brought the news of the queen's death and told her that 
 she now was herself queen, she refused to believe them until 
 they brought her the wedding ring, which had never before left 
 Mary's finger. When the councillors arrived and paid their 
 homage 'to Elizabeth as queen, she sank on her knees and 
 said in Latin, "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous 
 in our eyes." 
 
 No time was lost in setting out for London, and when 
 Elizabeth entered the city she was attended by a splendid com- 
 pany of lords and ladies ; and she rode at their head, among 
 the people, who greeted her with cries of love and delight. 
 
 On the day that Queen Elizabeth was crowned and was 
 driven through the streets of London, the people threw flow- 
 ers at her carriage and cheered and shouted for joy. One 
 poor woman who had no flowers to give, came up to the 
 coach with a bunch of rosemary, and the queen accepted it 
 with a gentle smile, and held it in her hand the whole day. 
 
 Altogether, the people had greater reason for rejoicing 
 than they usually had when there were processions in the 
 streets ; and they were happy with some reason. All kinds 
 of shows and images were set up ; Gog and Magog were 
 hoisted to the top of Temple Bar ; and (which was more 
 to the purpose) the corporation dutifully presented the young 
 queen with the sum of a thousand marks in gold — so heavy a 
 present, that she was obliged to take it into her carriage with 
 
2i3 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 both hands. The coronation was a great success ; and on 
 the next day one of the courtiers presented a petition to the 
 new queen, praying that, as it was the custom to release some 
 prisoner on such occasions, she would have the goodness to 
 release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, 
 and also the Apostle St. Paul, who had been for some time 
 shut up in a strange language, so that the people could not 
 get at them. 
 
 To this the queen replied that it would be better first to 
 inquire of themselves whether they desired to be released or 
 not; and, as a means of finding out, a great public discussion 
 — a sort of religious tournament — was appointed to take place 
 between certain champions of the two religions, in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey. You may suppose that it was soon made pretty 
 clear to common sense, that for people to benefit by what they 
 repeat or read it is rather necessary they should, understand 
 something about it. In consequence a church service in plain 
 English was ordered. But while the Protestant religion was 
 firmly established, the Catholics were not so harshly dealt 
 with as the Protestants had been under Queen Mary, the min- 
 isters of the new queen showing a more wise and merciful spirit. 
 
 England was tired of the cruelties of Mary, but the new 
 queen was far too brave and good a woman, and far too 
 clever and strong in her own opinions, to be willing to burn 
 other people because they had strong opinions too. So the 
 people soon knew that they would be allowed to do what they 
 thought right in matters of religion, and need no longer fear 
 being burnt alive for their faith, as in Mary's time. 
 
 The reign of Elizabeth was long and prosperous, and 
 England rose then to great glory in arms and art and song. 
 William Shakespeare lived and wrote in her reign. Then, 
 too, lived the noble poets Spenser, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 219 
 
 Drayton (who wrote the great song about Agincourt), Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, and many other great 
 men. For the queen was clever, and loved art and poetry 
 as well as bravery. She rewarded a clever saying with her 
 brightest smile, and showered her favors oil men of letters. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth was very fond of show and sport, and 
 fine processions, and grand entertainments. She liked to 
 make journeys in great state through the country, that the 
 loyal people might see and admire the splendor of their queen, 
 and the nobles might have the opportunity of entertaining 
 her at their castles. The people, no doubt, enjoyed it very 
 much, gathering in great companies, and shouting, and clap- 
 ping and hurrahing gladly and wildly when the queen and 
 her gaily-dressed courtiers went by. But I fancy the nobles 
 did not enjoy it so much, for the queen brought so many 
 people with her in these royal pilgrimages that her hosts were 
 nearly eaten out of house and home. She expected to receive 
 rich presents, too, and got them, as her entertainers felt 
 obliged to give them, so that many of them were almost ruined. 
 
 These journeys she called Progresses. The most famous 
 of them was that made to Lord Leicester's castle of Kenil- 
 worth. Leicester was one of. the queen's lovers, of whom 
 she had many, but she seemed to like him more than any of 
 the others, though he did many foolish and some wicked 
 things. He was rich enough to feed her host of followers 
 without feeling it, and to show his hospitality he kept the 
 hands of the clock always at twelve, that it might seem to be 
 always dinner time. And the fine shows and plays and costly 
 entertainments that he provided kept the castle in a continual 
 bustle and would have beggared any one less rich than he was. 
 
 If any of us had seen Queen Elizabeth, I am sure we 
 would not have thought her a handsome woman. She was 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 anything but the beautiful creature her courtiers made her out 
 to be in their foolish compliments. She was little, and had 
 red hair, and a long and rather hooked nose, but her eyes 
 were bright and could be as fierce as those of a lion when 
 she was out of temper, and she could look very dignified. 
 
 One of her great faults was her van- 
 ity. She liked to be praised and courted 
 ) and to have lovers, though she would 
 j never marry any of them. She allowed 
 t foreign princes to send her their portraits, 
 I and also rings and jewels, and sometimes 
 I to come and see her, but she had no fancy 
 for taking any of them for a husband. As 
 i to the gentlemen at her own court, she 
 ,; liked them to make the most absurd and 
 ridiculous compliments to her, calling her 
 their sun and goddess, and her hair golden 
 beams of the morning, and the like ; and 
 . the older she grew, the more she enjoyed 
 i these fine but ridiculous compliments. 
 Her -dress was a huge hoop; a tall ruff 
 covered with lace, and jewels in the ut- 
 most profusion, all as splendid as it could 
 ■| be made, and in wonderful variety. She 
 is said to have had three hundred gowns 
 and thirty wigs. Lord Burleigh said of 
 her that she was sometimes more than 
 a man, and sometimes less than a woman. And in one way 
 she was, for she did not like her ladies to wear handsome 
 dresses and thus to compete with her in display. 
 
 One of the people who had wanted to marry Elizabeth 
 was her brother-in-law, Philip II, of Spain, who had been 
 
 SOLDIER OF ELIZABETH. 
 
THE KING AND QUEEN RETURNING FROM WESTMINSTER ABBEY AFTER 
 THE CORONATION CEREMONY 
 
 They rode to Buckingham Palace in the state coach, wearing their golden crowns for the first time 
 
 in public. Large concourses of people assembled to witness the spectacle of their monarch, riding 
 
 through the streets of their capital, crowned and in royal robes. 
 
THE DEPARTURE OF THE " OPHIR " FROM PORTSMOUTH 
 With the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall starting on their tour around the Empire. March 1G. laoi. 
 
MARY AND ELIZABETH 221 
 
 Queen Mary's husband. Very likely what he would have 
 liked to do would have been to set up the Catholic religion 
 in England and punish the Protestants, as Mary had done, 
 and as he did himself in the Netherlands. As he could not 
 get control of England in this way, he tried to do so in another 
 way, fitting out a great expedition that was intended to con- 
 quer the island kingdom and make him its lord and master. 
 
 Never had such a mighty expedition sailed from the 
 shores of Spain. It consisted of one hundred and thirty 
 ships, some of them very great and formidable ; nineteen 
 thousand soldiers ; eight thousand sailors ; two thousand 
 slaves and between two and three thousand cannon. It took 
 several years to get ready so great a force, and England made 
 ready to meet it. All the men between sixteen and sixty 
 years old were trained and drilled ; the national fleet of ships 
 (in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged by public 
 contributions, and by private ships, fitted out by noblemen ; 
 the City of London, of its own accord, furnished double the 
 number of ships and men that it was required to provide ; 
 and, if ever the national spirit was up in England, it was up 
 all through the country to resist the Spaniards. 
 
 Some of the queen's advisers were for seizing the prin- 
 cipal English Catholics and putting them to death ; but the 
 queen — who, to her honor, used to say she would never 
 believe any ill of her subjects which a parent would not believe 
 of her children — rejected the advice, and only confined in the 
 fens in Lincolnshire a few of those who were the most sus- 
 pected. The great body of Catholics deserved this confidence ; 
 for they behaved most loyally, nobly and bravely. 
 
 So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry 
 man, and with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with 
 the soldiers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, 
 
222 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the country waited for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, 
 which was called The Invincible Armada. The queen her- 
 self, riding in armor on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex 
 and the Earl of Leicester holding her bridle-rein, made a 
 brave speech to the troops at Tilbury Fort, opposite Gravesend, 
 which was received with such enthusiasm as is seldom known. 
 
 Then came the Spanish Armada into the English Chan- 
 nel, saili lg along in the form of a half-moon, of such great size 
 that it was seven miles broad. But the English were quickly 
 upon it; and woe then to all the Spanish ships that dropped 
 a little out of the half-moon, for the English took them 
 instantly ! And it soon appeared that the Armada was any- 
 thing but invincible ; for on a summer night, bold Admiral 
 Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right in the midst of it. 
 In terrible consternation the Spaniards tried to get out to sea, 
 and so became dispersed, while the English pursued them at 
 a great advantage. A storm came on and drove the Span- 
 iards among rocks and shoals, and the end of the invincible 
 fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten or twenty 
 thousand men, and then fled home again in defeat and dis- 
 grace. Being afraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed 
 all round Scotland and Ireland. Some of the ships were 
 cast away on the latter coast in bad weather, and the 
 Irish plundered those vessels and killed their crews. So 
 ended this great attempt to invade and conquer England. 
 
 This was the greatest and most glorious warlike event in 
 Elizabeth's reign. She lived fifteen years afterwards, and 
 died with the reputation of being a great queen, who had 
 gloriously upheld the honor of England. And the reign of 
 Elizabeth is still looked on as being one of the noblest in Eng- 
 lish history, but this is more for the great men who adorned 
 it than for the queen herself. 
 
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 33aby 
 (Pueen 
 
 ©nly 
 
 Time 
 
 JTfontfys 
 
 <Dlb 
 
 The Unhappy Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 IN the year 1542 there was born in the royal palace at 
 Edinburgh, the capital of the kingdom of Scotland, 
 a beautiful little princess, the daughter of James V, 
 monarch of that kingdom. She was a direct descendant 
 from Margaret, the daughter of King Henry the Seventh of 
 England, and was the next heir to the English throne if 
 Queen Elizabeth should die without children. This claim to 
 the throne of England was to bring the girl child many 
 unhappy days in her later life, and in the end to lead to her 
 cruel death. Far better had it been for her if her cousin Eliza- 
 beth had married and left an heir to the throne. 
 
 Mary's father died a few days after she was born, and 
 when she was only nine months old she was crowned Queen 
 of Scotland by Cardinal Beatoun, who made himself regent 
 of the kingdom. Has ever any other girl baby been made a 
 queen, and at so tender an age? It would have been better 
 
 223 
 
224 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 for her, as it would have been for Lady Jane Grey, if she had 
 not been of royal blood, or never been raised to a throne. 
 
 As she grew to girlhood the kings around her entered into 
 a contest for her hand. Henry the Eighth even sent an army 
 to Scotland to obtain her as a wife for his son Edward, and 
 thus bring the two countries under one crown. But in 1548, 
 when little Mary was six years old, she was betrothed to 
 Prince Francis, the heir to the throne of France, and she was 
 sent to Paris to complete her education. Her mother was a 
 French woman, Mary of Guise, and the child queen was 
 brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 Educated at the polite and lively court of Paris, little 
 Queen Mary showed herself very quick and bright, and soon 
 excelled in various accomplishments. At an early age she 
 could talk French and Italian, and was a very good Latin 
 scholar. When she was only fourteen she composed and 
 read before the French king a Latin oration, for which she 
 was highly complimented. Perhaps the compliments were as 
 much to the queen as to the oration. 
 
 In fact, no one could help complimenting little Mary for 
 herself. Such a rare and beautiful creature had not often 
 been seen even at the brilliant court of France. She was a 
 perfect vision of girlish grace and beauty, and was so admired 
 for the graces of her mind and the fascinating charm of her 
 manner that she became the general favorite and the chief 
 ornament of the French court. No one who speaks of Mary 
 of Scotland fails to grow eloquent over her great beauty of 
 face and form, fascination of mind and manner, and wonder- 
 ful powers of pleasing. 
 
 In 1558, when she was sixteen years of age, Mary was 
 married to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and a lovely pair 
 they made, for Francis was a handsome and engaging youth, 
 
THE BABY QUEEN 
 
 225 
 
 and they were very happy together. In the next year Henry 
 II, King of France, died, and Francis became king in his 
 place. Thus Mary was now a double queen, of Scotland and 
 France. And the young couple also took the title of King 
 and Queen of England, for the English Queen Mary was 
 now dead, and the Catholic party held that Elizabeth was not 
 the true heir to the throne, for they said that her mother, 
 Anne Boleyn, had ^— .. 
 
 not been the legal 
 wife of Henry 
 Eighth, who had 
 married her with- 
 out permission of 
 the Pope, and while 
 his first wife was 
 still living. All 
 this was to make 
 trouble in the com- 
 ing years. 
 
 It happened 
 soon that the young 
 French king died, 
 leaving Mary a 
 young widow. She 
 was then invited by 
 her Scottish subjects to return home and reign over them ; 
 and, as she was not now happy where she was, she complied. 
 
 Elizabeth had been queen three years when Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarreling 
 country. As she came out of the harbor, a vessel was lost 
 before her eyes ; and she said, "O good God ! what an omen 
 this is for such a voyage ! " She was very fond of France, 
 
 15 
 
 QUEEN MARY AT THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
226 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and sat on the deck, looking back at it and weeping, until it 
 was quite dark. When she went to bed, she directed to be 
 called at daybreak, if the French coast was still visible, that 
 she might behold it for the last time. As it proved to be a 
 clear morning, this was done ; and she again wept for the 
 country she was leaving, and said many times, " Farewell, 
 France ! Farewell, France ! I shall never see thee again ! " 
 All this was long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and 
 interesting in a fair young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I 
 am afraid it gradually came together with her distresses, to 
 surround her with greater sympathy than she deserved. 
 
 When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at 
 the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself 
 among uncouth strangers, and wild, uncomfortable customs, 
 Very different from her experience in the court of France. 
 She found people who were disposed to love her, and people 
 who were not disposed to love her, and among the latter 
 were the powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who 
 were bitter upon her amusements, however innocent, and 
 denounced music and dancing as the works of the devil. John 
 Knox, the great Scotch preacher and reformer, himself often 
 lectured her violently and angrily, and did much to make her 
 life unhappy. All these reasons confirmed her old attachment 
 to the Romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, 
 most imprudently and dangerously, both for herself and for 
 England too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the 
 Roman Church, that, if she ever succeeded to the English 
 crown, she would set up that religion again. In reading her 
 unhappy history, you must always remember this. 
 
 That Elizabeth was not inclined to like her is pretty cer- 
 tain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had an extra- 
 ordinary dislike to people being married. She treated Lady 
 
THE BABY QUEEN 
 
 227 
 
 Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such 
 shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly 
 married, that she died and her husband was ruined ; so, when 
 a second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, prob- 
 ably Elizabeth disliked her more. 
 
 Aside from her being a queen, Mary was sought in mar- 
 riage by many for herself alone. A lovely and attractive 
 widow of nineteen, even without a crown as a wedding dower, 
 might well have gained many suitors. Celebrated far and 
 wide, as she was, for her radiant beauty, the great charm of 
 her manners, and her 
 gaiety and love of 
 pleasure, it is not 
 strange that princes 
 as well as nobles 
 sought to win her 
 hand. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth 
 and her council were 
 opposed to Mary's 
 marrying a Catholic 
 prince, for no one could say that she might not some day sit on 
 the English throne, and if so it would be far better for her to 
 have a Protestant husband. It was even proposed that Lord 
 Leicester, one of the most favored lovers of Elizabeth, should 
 marry the Scottish queen — as a matter of policy. But she at 
 length found a lover who pleased Elizabeth in Henry Stuart, 
 Lord Darnley, who was Mary's cousin, and, like her, was 
 descended from the royal families of Scotland and England. 
 Elizabeth, who doubtless wanted to get this troublesome 
 matter off her hands, consented that Darnley should go to 
 Edinburgh and try his fortune at the palace of Holyrood. 
 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS EMBARKING AT CALAIS. 
 
228 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 It was not much of a compliment to the Queen of Scots, 
 to send her such a suitor. All that can be said in his favor 
 was that he could dance and play the guitar. Lord Darnly 
 soon married the queen. This marriage does not say much 
 for her, but what followed will presently say less. 
 
 Mary had been married but a little while, when she 
 began to hate her husband — which is not to be wondered at, 
 considering the kind of man he was. He, in his turn, began to 
 hate David Rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain 
 her favor, and whom he now believed to be her lover. He 
 hated Rizzio to that extent, that he made a compact with 
 Lord Ruthven and three other lords to get rid of him by 
 murder. This they cruelly did in the queen's presence. 
 
 Soon after this Darnley was stricken with small-pox in his 
 father's house at Glasgow, and thither went Mary, pretending 
 to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much. 
 If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her 
 heart's content ; for she induced him to go back with her to 
 Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house 
 outside the city called the Kirk of Field. Here he lived for 
 about a week. One Sunday night, she remained with him 
 until ten o'clock, and then left him to go to Holyrood to 
 be present at an entertainment given in celebration of the 
 marriage of one of her favorite servants. At two o'clock in 
 the morning the city was shaken by an explosion, and the Kirk 
 of Field was blown to fragments, and so perished Darnley. 
 
 Bothwell soon afterwards seized the queen, on her return 
 from a visit to Sterling, and carried her to Dunbar Castle, 
 saying plainly that he intended to force her to marry him. 
 It may be that this was another plot to which Mary was a 
 party, for she married him willingly. When this marriage was 
 made public the indignation of the people knew no bounds. 
 
THE BABY QUEEN 229 
 
 Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and 
 wife had lived together but a month, when they were separated 
 forever by the successes of a band of Scotch nobles who 
 associated against them for the protection of Mary's son 
 James, then only a year old. Mary was sent a prisoner to 
 Lochleven Castle ; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, 
 could only be approached by boat. Here, one Lord Lindsay, 
 who was so much of a brute that the nobles would have done 
 better if they had chosen a mere gentleman for their messen- 
 ger, made her sign her abdication in favor of her infant son, 
 and appoint her brother, Murray, regent of Scotland. Mary 
 succeeded in escaping from the castle after several attempts. 
 On the shore of the lake remote from the castle, she was met 
 by Earl Douglas and a few lords ; and, so accompanied, rode 
 away on horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three 
 thousand men. Here, she issued a proclamation declaring 
 that the abdication she had signed in her prison was illegal, 
 and requiring the regent to yield to his lawful queen. This 
 was to no purpose for she and her followers were defeated 
 and she had to take shelter at Dundrennan Abbey, whence 
 she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions. 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots came to England — to her own 
 ruin, the trouble of the kingdom and the misery and death of 
 many — in the year 1568. How she left it and the world, 
 nineteen years afterwards, is soon told. 
 
 When Mary arrived in England, she was almost destitute 
 of all necessaries and rashly threw herself on the generosity 
 of Queen Elizabeth, who refused to admit her into her pres- 
 ence, because she was not yet cleared from the charge of 
 murder. Treated as a prisoner, Mary was confined at Bolton 
 Castle, Coventry and Fotheringay. 
 
 She had many adherents in England, who made several 
 
2 3 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 attempts against the power and life of Elizabeth. In 1586 
 she was accused of complicity in Babington's conspiracy, for 
 which she was tried by a commission and condemned almost 
 without proof. But let us speak of this more fully. 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money 
 and without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote 
 to Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured 
 piece of royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her 
 Scottish subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, 
 as her character was already known in England to be a very 
 different one from what she made it out to be, she was told 
 in answer that she must first clear herself. Made uneasy by 
 this condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, would 
 have gone to Spain or to France, or would even have gone 
 back to Scotland. But, as her doing either would have been 
 likely to trouble England afresh, it was decided that she 
 should be detained here. She first came to Carlise, and, 
 after that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was con- 
 sidered necessary ; but England she never left again. 
 
 There was not much that came of the trial, though letters 
 between her and Bothwell were produced which seemed to 
 prove that she was one of the guilty parties in the murder of 
 Darnley. One thing came, which was that Elizabeth never let 
 her see Scotland again, though she soon found that she had 
 a very troublesome prisoner. 
 
 First, the Duke of Norfolk took a fancy that he would 
 like to marry her, and acted in a way that made Elizabeth 
 send him to the Tower of London. Then there came a con- 
 spiracy in which the Pope and some of the Catholic kings of 
 Europe took part, to depose Elizabeth, put Mary on the 
 throne, and bring back the old religion. Some time after that 
 the Duke of Norfolk was set free, and he quickly began to 
 
THE BABY QUEEN 231 
 
 plot again, and wrote letters to the Pope, seeking to foment 
 a rebellion in England which would force Elizabeth to let him 
 marry Mary and repeal the laws against the Catholics. This 
 time he was tried and found guilty of treason, and had his 
 head cut off for his pains. 
 
 Years after that there arose another plot, the worst of 
 them all, for its purpose was to murder Queen Elizabeth and 
 thus put Mary on the throne. It was not long before this 
 was found out, with the result that all the conspirators were 
 taken and executed. As there was good reason to believe 
 that Mary was concerned in this plot, she was taken to 
 Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, and put on trial for 
 the crime. She denied it all, even her own letters, which 
 were produced at the trial, but she was found guilty and 
 declared to have incurred the penalty of death. 
 
 The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayed 
 the queen to have her executed. The queen replied that she 
 requested them to consider whether no means could be found 
 of saving Mary's life without endangering her own. The 
 Parliament rejoined, No, and the citizens illuminated their 
 houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy that all 
 these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death of 
 the Queen of Scots. 
 
 She feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a 
 letter to the Queen of England, making three entreaties : first, 
 that she might be buried in France ; secondly, that she might 
 not be executed in secret, but before her servants and some 
 others ; thirdly, that, after her death, her servants should not 
 be molested, but should be suffered to go home with the 
 legacies she left them. It was an affecting letter; and Eliza- 
 beth shed tears over it, but sent no answer. Then came a 
 special ambassador from France, and another from Scotland, 
 
232 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 to intercede for Mary's life ; and then the nation began to 
 clamor, more and more, for her death. 
 
 What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, 
 can never be known now, but it is strongly to be suspected that 
 she wished only one thing more than Mary's death, and that was 
 to keep free of the blame of it. On the ist of February, 1587, 
 Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the execution, 
 the queen sent to the secretary, Davison, to bring it to her 
 that she might sign it ; which she did. Next day, when 
 Davison told her it was sealed she angrily asked him why 
 such haste was necessary. Next day but one she joked about 
 it, and swore a little. Again next day but one, she seemed 
 to complain that it was not yet done ; but still she would not 
 be plain with those about her. So, on the 7th, the Earls of 
 Kent and Shrewsbury, with the sheriff of Northamptonshire, 
 came with the warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of 
 Scots to prepare for death. 
 
 When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary 
 made a frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her 
 will, went to bed, slept for some hours and then arose and 
 passed the remainder of the night saying prayers. In the 
 morning she dressed herself in her best clothes ; and at 
 eight o'clock when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, 
 took leave of her servants who were there assembled praying 
 with her, and went down stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand 
 and .a crucifix in the other. Two of her women and four of 
 her men were allowed to be present in the hall, where a 
 low scaffold was erected and covered with black ; and where 
 the executioner and his assistants stood, dressed in black 
 velvet. The hall was full of people. While the sentence 
 was being read, she sat upon a stool ; and when it was 
 finished, she again denied her guilt. The Earl of Kent 
 
THE BABY QUEEN 
 
 *33 
 
 and the Dean of Peterborough, in their Protestant zeal, 
 made some very unnecessary speeches to her ; to which she 
 replied she died in the Catholic religion, and they need 
 not trouble themselves about that matter. When her head 
 and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said, that 
 she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, 
 or before so much company. Finally, one of her women 
 fastened a cloth over her face ; and she laid her neck upon 
 the block, and repeated more than once in Latin, " Into 
 thy hands, O Lord ! I commend my spirit." Some say her 
 head was struck off in two blows, some say in three. How- 
 ever that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the 
 real hair beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen 
 to be as gray as that of a woman of seventy, though she was 
 at that time only in her forty-sixth year. All her beauty was 
 gone. 
 
 But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, 
 cowered under her dress, frightened, when she went 
 the scaffold, and who lay down beside her headless 
 when all her earthly sorrows were over. 
 
 who 
 upon 
 
 body 
 
 
gSUfc^-'-J-g^ftafeiSili 
 
 .■v..|EL 
 
 SSVJas 
 
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 F IP 
 
 fife; < ' * - ; 
 
 
Two Princes Want the Throne 
 
 You have read the pitiful story of how the little princes 
 in the Tower were slain by order of their wicked uncle, 
 Richard Third. It was then said that there were some who 
 did not believe they were dead, but that they still lived and 
 might come to the throne at last. We have now to tell the 
 story of one who claimed to be the Duke of York, one of 
 the princes in the Tower, and who had many and exciting 
 adventures in his struggle for the throne. 
 
 This was in the reign of Henry Seventh, who became 
 king after the death of the wicked Richard on Bosworth Field. 
 Henry was an able monarch, and he was not a cruel one 
 where there was nothing to be gained by it. He was cold, 
 crafty and calculating, and loved money so greatly that he 
 would do almost anything for it. The most famous event in 
 his reign was the struggle of two boys for the throne. It is 
 the story of these with which we are now concerned. 
 
 There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, 
 who had for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, 
 the son of a baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, 
 
 235 
 
236 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed 
 against the king, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, 
 was no other than the young Earl of Warwick, a descendant 
 of Edward Third, who (as everybody might have known) 
 was safely locked up in the Tower of London. The priest 
 and the boy went over to Ireland and at Dublin enlisted 
 in their cause all ranks of the people. The Earl of Kildare, 
 the Governor of Ireland, declared that he believed the boy 
 to be what the priest represented; and the boy, who had 
 been well tutored by the priest, told them such things of his 
 childhood and gave them so many descriptions of the royal 
 family that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing 
 and drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and 
 thirsty demonstrations to express their belief in him. 
 
 Nor was this feeling confined to Ireland alone ; for the 
 Earl of Lincoln, whom Richard Third had named as his 
 successor, went over to the young pretender. After holding 
 a secret correspondence with the Dowager Duchess of Bur- 
 gundy, the sister of Edward Fourth, who detested the present 
 king and all his race, he sailed to Dublin with two thousand 
 German soldiers provided by her. In this promising state 
 of the boy's fortunes he was crowned with a crown taken 
 off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary, and was then, ac- 
 cording to the Irish custom of those days, carried home on the 
 shoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more 
 strength than sense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was 
 mighty busy at the coronation. 
 
 Ten days afterwards the Germans and the Irish, and the 
 priest and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in 
 Lancashire to invade England. The king, who had good 
 intelligence of their movements, set up his standard at Not- 
 tingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day, 
 
TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 
 
 237 
 
 while the Earl of Lincoln could gain very few. With his 
 small force he tried to make for the town of Newark ; but the 
 king's army getting between him and that place, he had no 
 choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the 
 complete destruction of the pretender's forces, one-half of 
 whom were killed; 
 among them the earl 
 himself. 
 
 The priest and 
 the baker's boy were 
 taken prisoners. The 
 priest, after confess- 
 ing the trick, was shut 
 up in prison, where 
 he afterwards died — 
 suddenly, perhaps. 
 The boy was taken 
 into the king's kitchen 
 and made a turnspit. 
 Henry thought it 
 better to make him 
 ridiculous than to cut 
 off his head and make 
 him a martyr. He 
 was afterwards raised 
 to the station of one 
 of the king's falcon- 
 ers; and so ended this strange imposition. 
 
 One might suppose that the end of this story would have 
 put the Irish people on their guard ; but they were quite 
 ready to receive a second impostor, as they had received the 
 first, and that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon 
 
 ON BOSWORTH FIELD 
 
2 3 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 gave them the opportunity. All of a sudden there appeared 
 at Cork, in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of 
 excellent abilities, of very handsome appearance and most 
 winning manners, who declared himself to be Richard, Duke 
 of York, the second son of King Edward Fourth. 
 
 "O," said some, even of those ready Irish believers, 
 "but surely that young prince was murdered by his uncle in 
 the tower!" "It is supposed so," said the engaging young 
 man; "and my brother was killed in that gloomy prison; 
 but I escaped — it don't matter how, at present — and have 
 been wandering about the world for seven long years." 
 
 This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of 
 the Irish people, they began again to shout and hurrah, and 
 to drink the handsome young fellow's health, and to make the 
 noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. And the 
 big chieftain in Dublin began to look out for another coro- 
 nation and another young king to be carried home on his back. 
 
 Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, 
 the French king, Charles Eighth, saw that by pretending 
 to believe in the handsome young man he could trouble his 
 enemy sorely. So he invited him over to the French court 
 and appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all 
 respects as if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, 
 however, being soon concluded between the two kings, the 
 pretended duke was turned adrift and wandered for protection 
 to the Duchess of Burgundy. She declared him to be the 
 very picture of her. dear departed brother, gave him a body- 
 guard at her court of thirty halberdiers, and called him by 
 the sounding name of the White Rose of England. 
 
 The leading members of the White-Rose party in Eng- 
 land sent over an agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascer- 
 tain whether the White Rose's claims were good; the king 
 
TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 239 
 
 also sent over his agents to inquire into his history. The 
 White Rose declared the young man to be really the Duke 
 of York; the king's agents declared him to be Perkin War- 
 beck, the son of a merchant of the city of Tournay, who had 
 acquired his knowledge of England, its language and man- 
 ners, from the English merchants who trade in Flanders ; it 
 was also stated by the royal agents that he had been in the 
 service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English 
 nobleman, and that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused 
 him to be trained and taught expressly for this deception. 
 
 The king required the Archduke Philip — who was 
 the sovereign of Burgundy — to banish this new pretender 
 or to deliver him up; but, as the archduke replied that he 
 could not control the duchess in her own land, the king, in 
 revenge, took the market of English cloth away from Ant- 
 werp, and prevented all commercial intercourse between the 
 two countries. 
 
 He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert 
 Clifford, a member of the White-Rose party, to betray 
 those who had employed him, and being told that 
 several famous English noblemen were secretly the friends 
 of Perkin Warbeck, the king had three of the foremost 
 executed at once. Whether he pardoned the remainder 
 because they were poor I do not know ; but it is only too 
 probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman 
 against whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed, 
 because he was rich. This was no other than Sir William 
 Stanley, who had saved the king's life at the battle of Bos- 
 worth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted 
 to much more than his having said that, if he were sure the 
 young man was the Duke of York, he would not take arms 
 against him. Whatever he had done he admitted like an 
 
2 4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 honorable spirit, and he lost his head for it and the covetous 
 king gained all his wealth. 
 
 Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years ; but as the 
 Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their 
 trade by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, 
 and as it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as 
 to take his life or give him up, he found it necessary to do 
 something. Accordingly, he made a desperate sally and 
 landed, with only a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. 
 
 But he was soon glad to get back to the place from 
 whence he came ; for the country people rose against his 
 followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty 
 prisoners, who were all driven to London, tied together with 
 ropes like a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged 
 on some part or other of the sea-shore, in order that, if any 
 more men should come over with Perkin Warbeck, they might 
 see the bodies as a warning before they landed. 
 
 Then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce 
 with the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that coun- 
 try, and, by completely gaining over the Irish to his side, 
 deprived him of that asylum too. The youth next wandered 
 away to Scotland, and told his story at that court. King 
 James Fourth of Scotland, who was no friend to King Henry, 
 and had no reason to be (for King Henry had bribed his 
 Scotch lords to betray him more than once, but had never 
 succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called 
 him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine 
 Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature, related to the 
 royal house of Stuart. 
 
 Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, 
 the king still undermined and bought and bribed, and kept his 
 doings and Perkin Warbeck' s story in the dark, when he might, 
 
TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 
 
 241 
 
 one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all 
 England. But for all this bribing of the Scotch lords, at 
 the Scotch king's court, he could not procure the Pretender 
 to be delivered up to him. James, though not very particular 
 in many respects, would not betray his guest; and the 
 ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy so 
 provided him with arms and good 
 soldiers, and with money besides, 
 that he had soon a little army of 
 fifteen hundred men of various 
 nations. With these, and aided by 
 the Scottish king in person, he crossed 
 the border into England and made 
 a proclamation to the people, in which 
 he called the -king "Henry Tudor," 
 offered large rewards to any who 
 should take or distress him, and 
 announced himself as King Richard 
 Fourth, come to receive the homage 
 of his faithful subjects. His faithful 
 subjects, however, cared nothing for 
 him, and hated his faithful troops, 
 who, being of different nations, 
 quarreled also among themselves. 
 Worse than this, if worse were 
 possible, they began to plunder the 
 country; upon which the White Rose 
 said that he would rather lose his 
 rights than gain them through the miseries of the English 
 people. The Scottish king made a jest of his scruples; 
 but they and their whole force went back again without 
 fighting a battle. 
 16 
 
 A LADY OF THIS PERIOD 
 
242 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and 
 never to find rest anywhere — a sad fate, almost a sufficient 
 punishment for an imposture which he seems in time to 
 have half believed himself — lost his Scottish refuge through 
 a truce being made between the two kings and found 
 himself once more without a country before him in which 
 he could lay his head. But James (always honorable and 
 true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even 
 the great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay his 
 soldiers in his cause, and now, when that cause was lost 
 and hopeless) did not conclude the treaty until Perkin had 
 safely departed out of the Scottish dominions. He and his 
 beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all reverses, 
 and left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, 
 were put aboard ship with everything necessary for their 
 comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland. 
 
 But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit 
 Earls of Warwick and Dukes of York for one while, and 
 would give the White Rose no aid. So the White Rose — 
 encircled by thorns indeed — resolved to go with his beauti- 
 ful wife to Cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what 
 might be made of the Cornish men, who had risen valiantly 
 a little while before, and who had fought bravely at Deptford 
 Bridge. 
 
 To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly came Perkin 
 Warbeck and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for 
 safety in the castle of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched 
 into Devonshire at the head of three thousand Cornish men. 
 These were increased to six thousand by the time of his ar- 
 rival in Exeter ; but there the people made a stout resistance, 
 and he went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the 
 king's army. 
 
TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 
 
 243 
 
 The stout Cornish men, although they were few . in 
 number and badly armed, were so bold that they never 
 thought of retreating, but bravely looked forward to a battle 
 on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who was pos- 
 sessed of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so 
 many people to his side when he had 
 nothing else with which to tempt them, 
 was not as brave as they. In the night, 
 when the two armies lay opposite to 
 each other, he mounted a swift horse 
 and fled. When morning dawned, the 
 poor confiding Cornish men, discover- 
 ing they had no leader, surrendered to 
 the king's power. Some of them were 
 hanged; and the rest pardoned and 
 went miserably home. 
 
 Before the king pursued Perkin 
 Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieu 
 in the New Forest, where it was soon 
 known that he had taken refuse, he 
 sent a body of horsemen to St. Mich- 
 ael's Mount to seize his wife. She 
 was soon taken, and brought as a 
 captive before the king. But she was 
 so beautiful and so good, and so de- 
 voted to the man in whom she believed, 
 that the king regarded her with com- 
 passion, treated her with great respect, 
 and placed her at court, near the queen's person. And many 
 years after when Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his 
 strange story had become like a nursery tale, she was called the 
 White Rose, by the people, in remembrance of her beauty. 
 
 A DANDY OF THIS PERIOD 
 
244 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the 
 king's men ; and the king, pursuing his usual dark, artful 
 ways, sent pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade 
 him to come out and surrender himself. This he soon did. 
 The king, having, taken a good look from behind a screen at 
 the man of whom he had heard so much, directed him to be 
 well mounted, and to ride behind him at a little distance, 
 guarded, but not bound in any way. So they entered Lon- 
 don with the king's favorite show — a procession ; and some 
 of the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly through 
 the streets to the Tower, but the greater part were quiet and 
 very curious to see him. From the Tower he was taken to 
 the palace at Westminster, and there lodged like a gentle- 
 man, though closely watched. He was examined every now 
 and then as to his imposture, but the king was so secret in 
 all he did that even then he gave it a consequence which it 
 cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved. 
 
 At last Perkin Warbeck ran away and took refuge in 
 another sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he 
 was again persuaded to deliver himself up, and being con- 
 veyed to London, he stood in the stocks for a whole day, 
 outside Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting 
 to be his full confession, and relating his history as the king's 
 agents had originally described it. He was then shut up in 
 the Tower again, in the company of the Earl of Warwick, who 
 had now been there for fourteen years — ever since his removal 
 out of Yorkshire, except when the king had him at court, 
 and had shown him to the people, to prove the imposture 
 of the baker's boy. 
 
 It is but too probable, when we consider the crafty char- 
 acter of Henry Seventh, that these two men were brought 
 together for a cruel purpose. A plot was scon discovered 
 
TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 
 
 245 
 
 between them and the keepers, to murder the governor, get 
 possession of the keys and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King 
 Richard Fourth. That there was some such plot is likely; 
 that they were tempted into it is at least as likely; that the 
 unfortunate Earl of Warwick — last male of the Plantagenet 
 line — was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and 
 simple to know much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly 
 certain; and that it was the king's interest to get rid of him 
 is no less so. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin 
 Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn. 
 
 Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose 
 shadowy history was made more shadowy, and ever will be, 
 by the mystery and craft of the king. That he was really the 
 Duke of York is very unlikely, but so much mystery sur- 
 rounds his story that no one can be sure that he was not the 
 prince he claimed to be. 
 
2 4 6 
 
1/ftlir 
 
 £f?e Story 
 
 of 
 
 Prince (Efyctrtes 
 
 anb €fy> 
 
 Spanish Princess 
 
 A Romance of Two Kingdoms. 
 
 IN reading about the doings of kings and princes we must 
 bear in mind that they all began life as boys, just like 
 the rest of us, and that many of them loved fun and 
 were given to wild pranks. If any of you read the 
 plays of Shakespeare you will find there the story of the jolly 
 doings of Prince Hal, who afterwards became King Henry 
 the Fifth. I am now going to tell you of a boyish adventure 
 of another of the princes of England, Prince Charles, who 
 became king as Charles the First. 
 
 Prince Charles had been shown the picture of a beautiful 
 young girl, the daughter of the king of Spain, whom his 
 father, James the First, wanted him to marry. The warm- 
 hearted young man looked long at the picture, and looked 
 long again, and said to himself, "If she is so pretty on paper, 
 how lovely she must be in real life. How I would like to 
 see her and learn if she is as charming as this lovely portrait 
 makes her." , The desire to meet her grew on him day by 
 247 
 
2 4 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 day, and in time it led to a wild adventure, such as we do not 
 look for in princes, who usually are watched very closely. I 
 am sure you will all enjoy reading about this boyish prank of 
 Prince Charles. 
 
 If any of you had been at the ferry at Gravesend, on the 
 river Thames, on a fine morning in February, 1623, you 
 might have seen two plainly dressed young men, wearing 
 heavy black beards and with their caps pulled low down over 
 their faces, talking with the old ferryman, who was delighted 
 to receive a gold coin for his fare. They called themselves 
 Tom and John Smith, but the shrewd old fellow looked after 
 them cunningly as they rode away, saying: "There's mis- 
 chief under those beards. Very likely these gay young bloods, 
 who fling gold about in this way, are off for a duel or some 
 other wild game." 
 
 On rode the travelers through the winter morning, 
 meeting several adventures on their way, and even making a 
 narrow escape from being arrested for two murderers whom 
 the police were after. But at length they found themselves 
 safely on the deck of a ship and speeding with a fresh breeze 
 across the English Channel. On landing in France, they 
 rode straight to Paris, and there, like schoolboys on a frolic, 
 they amused themselves in wandering about the streets of 
 that gay city. No doubt they were stared at by many of the 
 people, not only for their foreign air, but for the beards, which 
 did not seem to fit their faces very well. It is a wonder they 
 were not taken up by the police for conspirators in disguise. 
 
 There was a royal merrymaking taking place at the 
 king's court that night, and to this the two young Englishmen 
 obtained admittance, on the plea of being strangers in Paris. 
 They highly enjoyed what they saw there, especially a dance 
 in which the queen, the princess Henrietta Maria, and many 
 
PRINCE CHARLES 
 
 249 
 
 other fair ladies took part. The prettiest of them all was the 
 queen, who was a sister of that princess of Spain with whose 
 picture Prince Charles had fallen in love. 
 
 Early the next morning the gay young travelers were up 
 and riding out of the gates of Paris, on the road leading to 
 Bayonne. They were in high spirits and pushed on at full 
 speed, Tom Smith taking the lead and riding so fast that his 
 comrade had some trouble to keep up with him. 
 
 " Come on, lazy bones," cried the lively cavalier. " Yon- 
 der is Spain, and there are many miles of fair France to cross 
 before we set foot on its soil. We have no time to lag." 
 
 This lively pace 
 brought them before 
 many days to the banks 
 of the small river Bia- 
 dossa, the boundary 
 between the two king- 
 doms. Crossing its 
 waters, the truant lads 
 stood on the soil of 
 Spain, and here Tom 
 Smith danced with wild delight, laughing merrily at the long 
 face of John Smith, his companion, who was quite worn out 
 by the long and hard ride. If they had been fleeing from 
 pursuers they could not have made greater speed, but Tom 
 seemed as fresh and gay as if he had just set out from home. 
 He was as merry as a schoolboy out on a holiday. 
 
 Now let us go back for a while to the school from which 
 these truants came, the great school of life named London. 
 Just now there was trouble in the streets and the court of that 
 grand city. Young Prince Charles had disappeared, and no 
 one knew where he had gone. The news had got abroad, 
 
2 5 o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 and people in the streets looked at one another in alarm, and 
 wondered if any harm could have come to the heir to the 
 throne. In the palace, among the courtiers, there was still 
 greater fear, and the privy councillors hurried to the king and 
 fell on their knees before him, asking him in tones of terror 
 if the wild rumor they had heard could be true, which was 
 that the prince had gone in disguise to Spain. 
 
 Their terror was greater when the king acknowledged 
 that it was true, that Prince Charles and his bosom friend 
 Buckingham had set out on a mad and merry ride to Spain, 
 from which land the prince hoped to bring home a lovely 
 bride. They had gone with the king's consent. 
 
 " The king of Spain is not to be trusted with England's 
 hope?" the councillors cried out. "Suppose he seizes the heir 
 to the throne and holds him as a hostage ! Who knows how 
 much mischief may come out of such madness ! " 
 
 And as the news spread through England everybody 
 said the same, until even the king, foolish as he was, began 
 to fret and fume, and to fear that his "sweet boys and dear 
 venturesome knights" might come into trouble from their 
 truant prank. 
 
 Our readers will know now who the errant scapegraces 
 were, in spite of their false beards and their pulled down caps. 
 But the lads themselves knew little and cared less about the 
 alarm they had left behind them, as they scampered on over 
 the hills and plains of Spain, Buckingham gay from the pure 
 love of adventure, the heart of Charles beating with merry 
 music as he thought of the charming infanta of Spain whom 
 he had come so far to see. So ardent were they that on the 
 evening of March 7th, seventeen days after they had left 
 Buckingham's villa, they were knocking at the door of the 
 Earl of Bristol, England's minister at Madrid. 
 
PRINCE CHARLES 
 
 251 
 
 We may imagine Bristol's stare of wonder on seeing who 
 his visitors were. He received them as serenely as though 
 they had called on him in his London mansion, but in his 
 heart he wished the 
 madcaps were a thou- 
 sand miles away. There 
 was not the best of 
 feeling at that time be- 
 tween the two king- 
 doms, andmo one could 
 tell what Philip of Spain 
 might do. If he should 
 hold Prince Charles as 
 a prisoner, it might give 
 him a great advantage 
 in his dealings with 
 England. 
 
 Bristol knew well 
 that the secret would 
 not be kept. Charles 
 would be recognized by 
 some one in Madrid, 
 and he had better throw 
 off his disguise at once. *&£ y £$m 
 So he told Count Oli 
 vares, and Olivares 
 told King Philip, and 
 the mystery of Tom 
 and John Smith was at an end. If the Prince of Wales 
 had come so far to see the infanta, Philip decided it only 
 kind to let him see her, and the next day the royal family 
 rode through the streets of the city, with a very unconcerned 
 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL SPANISH PRINCESS AND HER SUITOR. 
 
2 5 2 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 air, as if out only for exercise, while in another carriage 
 Charles and Buckingham rode through the same streets. In 
 this way the ardent lover caught a passing glimpse of the fair 
 Spanish princess, and said to himself that she was more beau- 
 tiful than even the portrait sent him had told. 
 
 A rumor as to who the strangers were had already got 
 abroad, and as the carriage bearing them passed up and down 
 through the streets all eyes were fixed upon them. Yet 
 silence prevailed. The visit was a secret, and the loyal peo- 
 ple of Madrid felt that they must keep the secrets of those of 
 royal blood. 
 
 But there was one thought in all minds, a thought of 
 triumph. The English prince would not have . come so far, 
 they said, unless he was ready to accept the national faith of 
 Spain. King Philip, who was a devoted Catholic, felt the 
 same. It seemed to him that Charles would never have 
 come to Spain unless he intended to change his religion and 
 embrace that of his longed-for bride. And he vowed that not a 
 step towards marriage should be taken unless this was done. 
 
 Let us go on now to a week later, when the secret had 
 ceased to be a secret, and rooms were prepared for the prince 
 in the king's palace, and Charles and Philip rode side by side 
 through the streets to the royal abode, the people shouting 
 with joy and singing a song written for them by the famous 
 poet Lope de Vega, which said that Charles had come, guided 
 by love, to the sky of Spain to see his star Maria. 
 
 The palace was richly decorated, the streets showed 
 many signs of public joy, and that all might join in the enjoy- 
 ment all prisoners, except those held for mortal crimes, were 
 set free. Among them were many Englishmen, who had 
 been captured as pirates while preying on Spanish commerce, 
 and were held as galley slaves. 
 
PRINCE CHARLES 
 
 253 
 
 Yet all this outward show did not help in the business of 
 the marriage. The infanta may have liked the appearance of 
 Charles, but she was a fervent Catholic and would not marry 
 any one whom she looked on as a heretic. As for Charles, 
 he had no idea of turning Catholic, and so it looked very bad 
 for the match he had come so far to make. The king backed 
 up his daughter, the pope backed up the king, and it appeared 
 as if the prince had come to Spain in vain. 
 
 But Charles grew daily more in love with the princess. 
 He begged to have a closer interview, and this was granted 
 him on Easter 
 day, April 7th. 
 On that day the 
 king, with a train 
 of grandees, led 
 the English 
 prince to the 
 apartments of 
 the queen, where 
 she sat in state 
 with her lovely 
 daughter. 
 
 Charles had been told what he must say. A few words 
 of courtly ceremony had been taught him, and after greeting 
 the queen with due respect, he turned to speak to the fair 
 princess by her side. But the words given him were too cold 
 for his ardent heart, and he began to address the princess in 
 warm words of his own choice. In a moment there was a 
 sensatibn, people began to whisper, the queen looked at him 
 with angry eyes, the princess seemed sadly annoyed. Charles 
 hesitated and stopped, seeing that something had gone wrong. 
 The princess answered with a few cold sentences, and the 
 
 CARRIAGE OP THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
2 5 4 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 interview came to a sudden end. English ideas of love- 
 making were not of the sort to fit the etiquette of a Spanish 
 court. 
 
 As the days and weeks went on matters grew worse 
 instead of better. The infanta showed a dislike for her lover. 
 Charles refused to change his faith. Buckingham's hot tem- 
 per led him to quarrel with the councillors and insult the 
 priests. But as for the prince, his love deepened day by 
 day, and one day, in the ardor of his feelings, he leaped into 
 the garden in which his lady-love was walking and addressed 
 her in words of passion. The startled girl shrieked and fled, 
 and it was with difficulty that the ardent suitor was kept from 
 following her. 
 
 This warmth of love led Charles to sign all the Spaniards 
 asked for except that he would become a Catholic; but left 
 Spain without making any more progress in his suit. He 
 bade a loving good-bye to the king, though Buckingham's 
 good-bye was of a different sort, taking the shape of a violent 
 quarrel with Count Olivares, minister of state. The journey 
 home was very different from the ride to Spain, That had 
 been in the fashion of two knights-errant, a pair of gay 
 youths, posing as Tom and John Smith, riding gaily through 
 France and Spain, one filled with thoughts of love, the other 
 with the spirit of adventure. The return journey was a stately 
 cortege, its two leaders filled with anger and disappointment. 
 
 It was, indeed, understood that the bride was to follow 
 the prince to England in the spring, but the farther that 
 Charles got from Madrid the more his hot love cooled, and 
 the less he wanted her. He remembered her coldness instead 
 of her beauty, and his passion, which had never been much 
 more than a fancy, heated by the obstacles he had met, fled 
 from his heart as he left the miles behind. 
 
PRINCE CHARLES 
 
 255 
 
 Never was there a warmer welcome than that Prince 
 Charles received on reaching London. The people, who 
 had no fancy for the Spanish marriage, were wild with delight 
 that he had come back unwed. On all sides the people 
 applauded, the bells merrily rang, there were shouts of " Long 
 live the Prince of Wales !" The day was kept as a holiday. 
 Tables laden with food and wine were set in the streets ; 
 prisoners for debt were set free, their debts being paid by 
 persons unknown to them ; when night fell every window 
 was lighted and bonfires blazed on all sides. No one then 
 would have dreamed that Prince Charles, when he became 
 king, would turn the 
 love of the people 
 against him by his 
 folly, and that some 
 of those who now 
 shouted with joy would 
 look on with pleasure 
 when he was brought 
 to London as a captive 
 and even when he was 
 put to death by the command of stern Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 As for the Spanish marriage, it never came off. Charles 
 had lost his love. New obstacles arose. Before the year 
 ended all thought of it was at an end, and Charles was look- 
 ing elsewhere for a bride. He finally took for wife Princess 
 Henrietta Maria of France, the handsome lady whom he and 
 Buckingham had seen dancing in a royal masque, during 
 their holiday visit in disguise to Paris. 
 
256 
 
England in the Nineteenth Century, 
 
 AND now we come to the history of what happened only 
 the other day — that is, some sixty years before you 
 children were born or thought of. 
 
 In a pleasant palace, surrounded by beautiful gardens, a 
 little girl was brought up by her loving mother. Her teach- 
 ers instructed her in music and languages, in history, and all 
 the things that children learn at school. Her mother taught 
 her goodness and her duty. There she grew up fresh and 
 innocent as the flowers in her own garden, living a secluded 
 life, like a princess in an enchanted palace. 
 
 And there one morning in early summer, when the roses 
 were just beginning to bloom in the beautiful palace gardens, 
 the young Princess was wakened by her mother, who told 
 her that her uncle, the King, was dead, and now she herself, 
 this young girl, must wear the crown. The King's Ministers 
 were waiting to speak to her. 
 
 17 . 257 
 
253 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 The young Princess jumped out of bed and put on her 
 dressing gown. She did not even wait to put on her stock- 
 ings, but went down with her little pink feet showing like 
 rose-leaves above her slippers, and there she received the 
 homage of the old men who had been her uncle's advisers, 
 and who greeted the fair young girl as Queen of England. 
 But we are sure you wish to know more of the good 
 
 Queen Victoria than we 
 have told you about the 
 other queens of England. 
 She was, as you know, the 
 mother of King Edward 
 VII and the grandmother 
 of the Prince of Wales, 
 who so recently visited 
 Canada and other parts of 
 the empire. So we shall go 
 back with our story and 
 begin from the first. 
 
 The childhood of 
 Queen Victoria was not 
 so full of adventure as the 
 childhood of other kings 
 and queens of England, 
 yet her home life was a 
 most interesting one, and we will learn as we go on that she 
 was much like other little girls in what she did, and what she 
 studied, for she had a most sensible mother, who did not 
 allow the thought of her little daughter ever being Queen of 
 England to influence her in the least as to her education and 
 training. So the little Princess received as good a training 
 as any sensible mother could have given her daughter. 
 
 GATEWAY OF KENSINGTON PALACE. 
 
259 
 
26o 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Victoria's father was the Duke of Kent, who was the 
 fourth son of George III of England. Being the fourth son 
 he, of course, did not have any idea of ever becoming King 
 of England himself. But, as we shall learn, by the death of 
 his older brothers, who did not leave any children, the right 
 to become king or queen came to his family, and in this way 
 his little daughter became the Queen of England. Her 
 mother was a sister of Leopold I, King of the Belgians, a most 
 lovely and sensible woman, as every one knows who knows 
 
 the story of the life of the little 
 princess. 
 
 This little girl named Princess 
 Victoria was born within the homely 
 brick walls of Kensington Palace 
 on May 24, 181 9. At the time of 
 her birth she had several first 
 cousins, and almost all of 
 were German born. There 
 several of these who would 
 had the first chance of 
 Queen of England had they lived, 
 so it was not really sure at the 
 time" when Princess Victoria was a baby that she would 
 become the Queen of England, yet, when she was born 
 in this palace, which was one of the poorest of the royal 
 palaces, her chances were good enough to cause a great deal 
 of interest among her relatives and friends. In fact, one of 
 her old aunties in writing of her birth says: "Again a Char- 
 lotte destined perhaps to play a great part one day, if a brother 
 is not born to take it out of her hands. The English like 
 queens." This was indeed truer than people thought at the 
 time. The English people have cause to like queens, for 
 
 \ 
 
 LEOPOLD I, KING OF THE BELGIANS. 
 
 them 
 were 
 have 
 
 becoming 
 
262 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 England has never been more famous or full of genius than 
 when her monarchs were women, and, although George III 
 with his many good qualities was a popular king, he was the 
 only one of his race who had been so well thought of. 
 
 As George III, who was the grandfather of Queen Vic- 
 toria, was a German 
 and belonged to the 
 House of Hanover, 
 so Victoria and her 
 descendants are 
 called Hanoverians. 
 The English people 
 never did like to 
 have it said that their 
 rulers came from Ger- 
 many, but when the 
 charming Princess 
 was born in England 
 and educated there, 
 she won the hearts 
 of the English people 
 and overcame the 
 prejudices they had 
 towards the German 
 family. 
 
 When the Prin- 
 cess Victoria was only a few months old, her father died, 
 and soon after poor old King George, her grandfather, 
 passed away. As we have told you before, Princess 
 Victoria's father was the fourth son of George III so he 
 did not come to the throne. The next king was George 
 IV an uncle of Queen Victoria. George III did not leave 
 
 PRINCESS VICTORIA AT THE AGE OF TEN. 
 
VICTORIA REGINA 263 
 
 very much property to his son, the Duke of Kent, who was 
 Victoria's father, so that she really was the daughter of a poor 
 man, and the mother, now left a widow, had very small means 
 with which to educate her child. Her mother, being a Ger- 
 man princess, naturally would desire to return to her own 
 land with her little girl and educate her there, but she was a 
 sensible woman, and thought that the English people would 
 like her little girl much better if Victoria stayed in England 
 and was educated there, for she still had an idea that Victoria 
 might some day become queen of all England. It would be 
 much bettdr for her in that case to be an English than a Ger- 
 man girl. 
 
 It was very fortunate for the little princess that her mother 
 had a good brother in Prince Leopold. He hastened over to 
 England to help his sister, and did much to make the life of 
 the little princess comfortable and happy. So it was in the 
 Palace of Kensington, away from the eyes and bustle of Lon- 
 don, in the most quiet and unpretending way, that the little 
 princess received her early education. 
 
 When Princess Victoria was nine years old, Sir Walter 
 Scott, the famous writer of those beautiful stories which all 
 children enjoy reading, visited the Duchess of Kent, as the 
 mother of Princess Victoria was called, and met the little 
 princess. In writing of this visit he says, " This little lady is 
 educated with much care and watched so closely that no busy 
 maid has a moment to whisper ' You are the heir of England.' 
 I suspect if we could dissect the little heart we should find 
 that some pigeon or other bird of the air had carried the mat- 
 ter. She is fair like the royal family." But nevertheless it 
 was true that the little princess for many years knew nothing 
 of the important position she was to occupy. 
 
 Her mother brought her up to practice economy, and to 
 
264 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 be careful how she spent her pin money. In fact, there were 
 very few children who had so little pocket money to spend. 
 There is a story told which is very interesting, as it shows 
 how carefully the little princess was watched There was a 
 bazaar, or public sale, being held near the castle, and the little 
 princess was taken there to buy presents. After she had 
 bought some for almost all her cousins, and had spent her 
 
 last shilling, she remem- 
 bered one cousin more 
 and saw a box which 
 pleased her. Its price 
 was half a crown. 
 
 The shop people, as 
 we may well believe, 
 placed the box with the 
 other purchases the prin- 
 cess had made, but the 
 ;•;. - little lady's governess 
 |p||?s told them that she could 
 -V-not have it. "You see," 
 lllliS^she said, "the princess 
 has not got the money ; 
 therefore, of course, she 
 cannot buy the box " On 
 the queen as an officer of her regiment hearing this, the shop 
 people offered to lay the box aside until it could be paid 
 for, and the answer was, " Oh, well, if you will be so good 
 as to do that." On quarter day, when she received her pin 
 money, before seven in the morning, the princess appeared 
 on her donkey to claim her purchase. Does not this read 
 like a story out of some fairybook. For all that, we believe 
 it is true. 
 
 
VICTORIA REGINA 265 
 
 After the death of George the Fourth, William the Fourth 
 became king. Little Victoria was only twelve years old, and 
 as her nearest English relative was not popular in England, 
 Parliament passed a law by which the mother of the little 
 Princess, the Duchess of Kent, would become regent, or tem- 
 porary ruler of England, if the king should die before the 
 little princess was eighteen years old. After this law was 
 passed, it was thought necessary to tell the little girl herself 
 of what might happen, and make her understand that she was 
 not merely one of an ordinary lot of princesses and princes, 
 but that she was the first among all of them, the future 
 head of the royal family. So, as she was in the midst 
 of her daily lessons, somewhat surprised, it would seem, at 
 the hard work required of her, since it was much harder than 
 that expected from the other children, the news was broken to 
 her. The story is told in a letter from her governess written 
 to her after she had become queen. She said that : 
 
 "The princess, having lifted up the forefinger of her right 
 hand while she spoke, gave me that little hand, saying, ' I 
 will be good. I understand now why you urged me so much 
 to learn even Latin. My cousins Agusta and Mary never 
 did ; but you told me Latin is the foundation of English 
 grammar and of all the elegant expressions, and I learned it 
 as you wished; but I understand all better now.' And the 
 little princess gave me her hand, repeating 'I will be good.' " 
 
 For six years little Victoria was in training for her great 
 life work. She was enabled to enjoy most of the pleasures 
 of childhood, although there were many things she could not 
 do that other children do. You remember, I told you, that 
 her mother was a German princess, so it happened that she 
 had many cousins who were German, but as her mother 
 never took her out of England, she did not know them. 
 
266 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 There was one in particular whom every one afterwards 
 learned to love. He was her second cousin, and one she 
 soon became very fond of. He was known later as the 
 good Prince Albert, the husband of the queen, her wise 
 counsellor and the good father of her children. 
 
 Albert was born within a few months of the time in 
 which Victoria was born, and the good Prince Leopold — who 
 
 THE QUEEN AND HER CONSORT GREETED BY THE PEOPLE. 
 
 in the year 1831 was elected king of the Belgians — was 
 his uncle, just as he. was uncle to Princess Victoria. As 
 Prince Leopold was very fond of his little nephew in Ger- 
 many, it is not surprising that the thought occurred to him 
 that if the little boy grew up to be a handsome and noble 
 prince, the little princess in England, although his second 
 cousin, might become fond of him, and who could tell what 
 would be the result. So the wise Leopold took as much 
 
VICTORIA REGINA 267 
 
 care in seeing that his little German nephew received a care- 
 ful education and training as was done in the case of his little 
 English niece, the Princess Victoria. 
 
 After awhile Albert made his first trip to England to pay 
 a visit to his aunt and cousin whom he had never yet seen. 
 Each of the cousins, Prince Albert and Princess Victoria, was 
 now seventeen years of age. He was fine and noble-looking, 
 and she had a beautiful young face and charming manners. 
 After having a good time at parties and balls given in honor 
 of Prince Albert and his brother, who was with him, the 
 young German princes went back to their own country. Gf 
 course, people began to talk, but no one thought there was 
 anything unusual in this visit of the German prince. 
 
 Soon after the visit of the prince to England, there took 
 place another event of great importance to the princess, of 
 which I shall now tell you. When Victoria was a mere 
 girl in her teens, her uncle, William IV, who was then 
 king of England, was taken by his death illness, and one 
 night, sooner than was expected, he died, This is what then 
 happened. The king died at twenty minutes after two o'clock 
 in the morning, and it became somebody's duty immediately 
 to tell the young princess that she was the Queen of England. 
 This duty was performed by the King's Councillors, who 
 came in state to her apartments in the palace. So she 
 was roused from slumber in the early morning to be told 
 she was the Queen of England. She was just past her 
 eighteenth birthday. 
 
 I am sure you wish to know what came of that first visit 
 of the German Prince Albert to his cousin. I hardly need 
 tell you this, for, no doubt, all of you will say at once that 
 he afterwards married the queen. Yes, that is true, but 
 the story of how it came about is also interesting, for it 
 
268 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 reads almost like a romance, and you must read it when you 
 are older in the complete story of the queen and her reign. 
 
 In the meantime the young queen went on performing 
 her duties. She met with her lords in council and opened 
 Parliament in state. Every one was surprised at the knowl- 
 edge she had of state affairs, and the grace and ease with 
 which she presided at the meetings of her councillors. She 
 also had made for herself a military uniform which she wore 
 when she reviewed her troops. She wore a cap and a sash, 
 and the soldiers were very proud of her in her pretty uniform. 
 
 Here let me tell you of the queen's wedding day, which 
 came very soon after the announcement of her engagement. 
 All the preparations for the marriage had been made. The 
 English Parliament had set aside an allowance for the young 
 prince, who was to be known as the Prince Consort, and 
 everything was ready for the marriage to take place on the 
 ioth of February, 1840. Although it was a dull and cloudy 
 day, with frequent showers, the streets were crowded with 
 spectators, who stood throughout all the rain to see their 
 good queen on the way to St. James, where the marriage 
 ceremony was to take place. It wasn't real " queen's weather," 
 as you may know, for such weather is all sunshine and 
 pleasant breezes. On this day the bride was, as is the case 
 with every bride, . even the humblest, the centre of attraction 
 to everybody. 
 
 The queen, we are told, was received with tremendous 
 shouts of applause as she drove slowly along from Bucking- 
 ham Palace to St. James, through such a crowd as had sel- 
 dom, if ever before, been seen in loyal England. She was 
 very pale as she passed along under the gaze of multitudes, 
 her mother by her side, guarded with nothing but those pure 
 flowers which are so becoming to the marriage day, and not 
 
VICTORIA REGINA 269 
 
 even allowed a veil over her drooping face, which was left so 
 that all might see her. Even then she belonged to her people. 
 
 After the wedding ceremony the clouds broke, and 
 the sun, as if by magic, came out and gave London real 
 "queen's weather." They set out in carriage for Windsor, 
 the roadsides, for the twenty-two miles, being lined with 
 people, who were enthusiastic and hearty in their applause 
 as the carriage went dashing by. At Windsor, where the 
 happy young couple spent their honeymoon, the old castle 
 sparkled with lights, and the boys at old Eaton School turned 
 out for a holiday to receive their young queen and her consort. 
 
 Now we have told you of how good Queen Victoria 
 spent her childhood days. You will read in your history 
 books of the great statesmen who lived in her time, of the 
 great wars which were fought, and of other things, still greater 
 than any wars, which happened in peaceful days during her 
 reign. You will learn also of the great things which Prince 
 Albert did, of the great exposition which he helped to hold 
 in London, the first of all the great world's fairs. In his day it 
 was the most wonderful event in England. 
 
 How happily the good queen and her husband, Prince 
 Albert, lived, and the dear home which was made merry by 
 the voices of so many children, when you grow older you 
 will wish to know. All these things are told you in a great 
 book, which tells all the things that happened in the life of 
 Queen Victoria. But all boys and girls of America, who 
 enjoy the advantages of free schools and free libraries, must 
 be told that it was during Queen Victoria's reign that the 
 first free school was started in England. England's great- 
 ness, no doubt, is due as much to the good schools which 
 were founded during Queen Victoria's time as to any other 
 one thing. 
 
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 England in the Twentieth Century. 
 
 ' Huzza. ! we've a little Prince at last 
 
 A roaring Royal boy ; 
 And all day long the booming bells 
 
 Have rung their peals of joy. " 
 
 THESE were the words which told of the rejoicing in 
 London town when, on November 9, 1841, Edward 
 VII was born. All England was glad that they 
 would some day have a king, the son of the Queen 
 whom they dearly loved. There had been a little girl born 
 to the Queen two years before, and unless this little boy had 
 come along she would have been queen to succeed her 
 mother. But as there was a boy now the English people 
 were delighted to think that they would have a king. 
 
 Although it was early whispered around that the little 
 boy was in the palace, it was at noon that the people were 
 
 271 
 
ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 officially told from Buckingham Palace of the great event for 
 which they might rejoice. Everyone wanted to join in singing 
 the national hymn, and in the theaters and public places the 
 audience broke out in singing and shouting, so that almost 
 all play and business was stopped for awhile. 
 
 And what was the little Prince to be named, and what 
 were to be his titles ? Can any of you guess ? I am sure you 
 could not, for his titles were so many, and so long, that I 
 am almost afraid to tell you. Amidst the greatest scenes of 
 splendor, and surrounded by officials in bright uniforms, with 
 
 ribbons and decora- 
 tions shining irom 
 their coats and 
 dresses, with princes 
 and high officials 
 from other countries, 
 he was baptized on 
 January 25, 1842, in 
 St. George's Chapel, 
 Windsor, and christ- 
 ened by the simple 
 name of Albert Ed- 
 ward. The first was for his father, and the second for Queen 
 Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent. Officially, he was 
 to be known as the Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester; 
 also he was given the titles of Prince of the United Kingdom 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Saxony, Duke of Corn- 
 wall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord 
 of the Isles and Prince, or Great Steward of Scotland. Now, 
 how would any of the boys who read this book like to have 
 so many titles hitched to their names? But as you know he 
 was called simply Albert Edward or the Prince of Wales. 
 
 BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 273 
 
 For nearly six hundred years the one who was to 
 become king was known as Prince of Wales. The first 
 was the son of Edward I, the Black Prince of whom we have 
 already learned, and who was probably the most famous of 
 all the Princes who bore the title of Prince of Wales. 
 But this little baby, afterward Edward VII, was for nearly 
 sixty years known as the Prince of Wales. For his mother, 
 Queen Victoria, lived to a good old age, and when he suc- 
 ceeded to the throne he was sixty years of age. 
 
 You will not be surprised to know that Queen Victoria 
 was a good mother 
 for her little boys and 
 girls. She and Prince 
 Albert employed the 
 best teachers they 
 could find, besides 
 spending many hours 
 themselves with their 
 little children teach- 
 ing them and playing 
 with them. It was 
 just such a model 
 
 home as our boys and girls have, and although the young 
 Prince's mother was Queen of all England, yet she did not 
 forget her little boy. 
 
 Writing to the good Prince Leopold, who had done so 
 much for her, the Queen said : "I wonder very much who my 
 littly boy will be like. You will understand how fervent are 
 my prayers, and I am sure every one's must be, to see him 
 resemble his father in every respect, both in body and mind. " 
 If you could have taken a peep into their nursery, you would 
 have found Prince Albert playing on the floor surrounded 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
274 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 with all the toys you could imagine, and at other times if you 
 visited the castle you would find him out driving with his 
 father and mother, just as other boys and girls go out 
 riding. 
 
 As the people were so happy to have a Prince, it was, 
 of course, right that they should see him once in a while. So 
 before he was one year old he was taken out to see the sol- 
 diers. His first public appearance was on February 4, 1842, 
 when the Queen, his mother, was inspecting some troops near 
 Windsor Castle. The baby Prince was held up by his nurse 
 from a window of the castle so that the crowd could see him. 
 He was an active lively babe, and the way he would raise his 
 arms and legs amused the people and called forth as much 
 applause as would the drilling of a regiment of soldiers. 
 
 Again in September, 1843, when the Queen and the 
 Prince Consort were in France, the royal children were taken 
 to Brighton in charge of Lady Lyttleton^ who was a great 
 friend of the Queen mother, and one she could trust with her 
 little folks. The people used to take great delight in waiting 
 for the daily outing on the beach of the little Prince and his 
 sister, and every day a loyal salute would be made by the 
 raising of hats and the waving of handkerchiefs. The little 
 boy had been taught to raise his chubby fist to his forehead 
 in reply to these salutes, and someone said at the time that 
 he did it "with evident enjoyment and babylike dignity". 
 
 A little later a party of nine Indians from America were 
 presented to the Queen at Windsor Castle. Prince Edward 
 was toddling around the floor evidently not at all afraid of 
 the red men from the West. The chief looking at the baby 
 Prince very gravely spoke of him in his speech as " the very 
 big little White Father whose eyes are like the sky that sees 
 all things and who is fat with goodness like a winter bear," 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 275 
 
 Once when Tom Thumb, the little man who was less 
 than three feet tall, visited England, he was invited to Buck- 
 ingham Palace and the baby Prince was much entertained by 
 seeing him. Soon after he had one of the greatest pleasures 
 a boy can have, and he enjoyed it hugely. Can you guess 
 what it was? It was an opportunity to go to the circus. 
 How he clapped his hands when the clown went through all 
 his funny pranks and jokes, and after the circus was over the 
 clown was brought to the royal box, and the little Prince 
 gravely shook hands with him and thanked him "for 
 making me laugh so 
 much." 
 
 Before he was 
 eight years old he had 
 traveled around with 
 his father and mother 
 to several places. As 
 you know, they had 
 a royal yacht, which 
 they called the Vic- 
 toria and Albert, and 
 in which the little 
 
 family took a trip to the coast Of Cornwall where the little 
 Prince was formally welcomed, and the people rejoiced greatly 
 at having him come to them, for he was called the Duke of 
 Cornwall. At another time he went to Scotland, and then 
 later to Ireland, and everywhere the people were delighted to 
 see the baby Prince. 
 
 When nearly eight years old a great reception was 
 given for him in Westminster, and he traveled with all the 
 pomp and splendor of a royal Prince from Westminster 
 to London. All London turned out to see the young 
 
 THE PRINCE OF WALES VISITS A HOSPITAL. 
 
276 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 prince and his sister, who was called the Princess Royal. Miss 
 Louisa Alcott, who is the author of "Little Women," which 
 every American boy and girl has read, and who saw this 
 wonderful procession wrote home: "The Prince was a yellow- 
 haired laddie, very much like his mother. Fanny and I 
 nodded and waved as he passed, 'and he openly winked his 
 boyish eye at us, and Fanny, with her yellow curls waiving, 
 looked rather rowdy, and the little Prince wanted some fun." 
 
 But we cannot tell you all of the happy times Prince 
 Edward had in his boyhood days. He did not spend all of 
 his time in playing and going to royal parties. His good 
 father and mother saw to it that he had the best education 
 that could be given him. As they knew he must know a 
 great many things to be a good king, so they had in mind 
 what he should study and employed the best teachers. Every 
 hour of his day was planned for, and the boy was taught to 
 mind in order that he might be a king who could teach others 
 how to mind. So several years passed in his early education. 
 
 But we must not forget to tell you of the very happy 
 times the children had at Windsor, or Osborne or Balmoral, 
 whichever home they happened to be at in the winter time. 
 Once the children were given a party where they wore masques. 
 Prince "Bertie," as he was sometimes called, was then twelve 
 years of age. The Prince was dressed to represent Winter, 
 and was clad in a coat covered with imitation icicles. Prin- 
 cess Alice, his sister, was Spring, and his older sister, the 
 Princess Royal, was Summer. Prince Alfred, his brother, 
 was Autumn, while his other brothers and sisters represented 
 other things, so they had a great time in the castle, and the 
 rooms fairly echoed with laughter and fun. 
 
 Once his father and mother took him on a visit to France. 
 It had been a long time since an English king and queen 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 277 
 
 had taken their family to a foreign land on a visit, but the 
 French people were delighted to have the visitors, and a great 
 reception was given them. Prince Edward, and his older 
 sister, the Princess Royal, were presented at a splendid ball 
 given in the Palace at Versailles and sat down at supper with 
 the emperor and empress. 
 
 The young prince enjoyed his visit so much, and liked 
 the emperor and empress so well, that he begged the em- 
 press to get leave for his sister and himself to stay a little 
 longer. The queen and his father, he told them, had six 
 more children at 
 home, and they could, 
 he thought, do with- 
 out him for a while. 
 What do you think 
 of that? Of course, 
 his father and mother 
 could not agree to 
 such a thing, for even 
 if they did have eight 
 children they could 
 not spare one of them. 
 Yet the Prince Consort was greatly pleased with the way in 
 which the children had behaved, and was glad they had 
 enjoyed their visit. 
 
 After Prince Edward was fourteen years old he traveled 
 through England, Scotland and Ireland, his teachers going 
 with him, and also men who were well acquainted with every 
 place. This was done in order that he might see and be 
 seen by the people he was some time to rule, and also know 
 all about what they were doing. He visited factories and 
 railroads, and schools and hospitals and workshops, and his 
 
 BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 
 
278 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 instructors told him all they could about them. He did not 
 claim his rights as the Prince of Wales, but traveled under 
 one of his other titles, and people were not allowed to stop 
 their work because he was looking on. Then again his 
 teachers took him over to Germany and France and Italy, in 
 order that he might see something of the outside world. 
 
 But now we come to tell you something which was very 
 sad for Prince Edward. When he had reached the age of 
 nineteen the first great sorrow of his life came to him. His 
 good father, the Prince Consort, whom everybody loved, died 
 on December 13, 1861, a loss which his son felt very deeply. 
 From this time the young prince, who was almost a man, 
 was obliged to learn what his mother, the good queen, had 
 to do, and try his best to help her. He proved to be a good 
 son, and for many, many long years after his father's death 
 he helped her in all the ways he could. 
 
 I cannot stop to tell you all the many things which hap- 
 pened to him after he became a man, but there is one thing 
 which will interest you very much, and that was the visit he 
 made to America. It is one which every American boy and 
 girl should know of, as their fathers and mothers can remem- 
 ber the story of the fervent rejoicing which took place when, 
 in i860, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited this country. 
 Great preparations were made in England for the trip, and 
 the people of our country also went to great expense, and 
 took a great deal of trouble to give him a royal welcome. 
 The great Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River at 
 Montreal had just been completed, and Prince Edward was 
 invited to come over and be present at the opening ceremony. 
 The name of the ship which brought the prince to this country 
 was the "Hero." 
 
 On his arrival in Newfoundland he was received by the 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 279 
 
 ringing of bells, lusty cheers, waving of flags and huge bon- 
 fires. When he visited Halifax the whole city turned out to 
 welcome the queen's son. The streets were lined with sol- 
 diers, and were beautifully decorated by arches, lanterns and 
 evergreens. At one place 4,000 children sang a song espe- 
 cially written for the occasion. 
 
 He visited many other places, including St. John, where 
 he was also given a royal welcome. The school children 
 crowded the streets to see the young prince. Other places 
 he visited were Fredericton, where he attended church, and 
 Charlottetown, where 
 the rain fairly poured 
 down, yet the people 
 stood out in the midst 
 of it all to see him 
 and the children 
 again sang the nat- 
 ional hymn. 
 
 But I must tell 
 you what a royal 
 welcome he had at 
 Quebec. The old- 
 fashioned French city, built along the side of a cliff, was 
 bright with flags and the streets were filled with arches, while 
 crowds of happy people filled every part of the place. The 
 governor-general welcomed the prince at the wharf, and 
 speeches were made telling him that he was a welcome 
 guest. He spent a very happy time in the old city, during 
 which he visited its schools and the great universities. 
 
 From Quebec he went to Montreal, where a fleet of ves- 
 sels met him as he came up the river. The mayor in scarlet 
 robes and his officers in beautiful uniforms welcomed him to 
 
 BALMORAL CASTLE, SCOTLAND. 
 
2 So ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the city. The streets were gay with flags, banners, evergreens 
 and eight beautiful arches. The prince, as I have told you, 
 was invited to attend the opening of the new Victoria Bridge 
 at that city. This he enjoyed very much. So he spent many 
 days in Canada, going to all the large cities, and being every- 
 where welcomed by young and old as the greatest prince who 
 had ever visited America. 
 
 He had been invited to make a visit to the United States 
 and this he did on leaving Canada. He was received there 
 with a great deal of rejoicing and pleasure. He had been 
 invited to make this visit by President Buchanan, but it was 
 understood when he accepted the invitation that he would 
 travel, not as the Royal Prince of England, but under one of 
 his other titles, Lord Renfrew. However, this did not matter, 
 for his cousins in the United States insisted upon giving him 
 a royal welcome. He visited Chicago and saw that wonder- 
 ful city, which was not one-fourth the size it is now. He also 
 visited St. Louis, which was then a place of only 17,000 
 people, and while there a State fair was being held, which he 
 visited. Of course, it was nothing like the great fair which 
 took place there in 1904. Many people came to the fair 
 because it was known that the royal prince would be there. 
 
 When the prince reached Washington -he was welcomed 
 to the Capital by the distinguished American, General Cass, 
 and taken to the White House, where he was presented to the 
 President. A great ■ reception was given in his honor, and 
 thousands of people came to see him. From Washington he 
 passed through Baltimore and Philadelphia and on to New 
 York, where he was received by the people with a great deal 
 of joy and pleasure. Everybody wanted to do honor to him 
 and to give him special attention. But after a short stay 
 in New York and Boston he left the American shores, 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 
 
 accompanied by a British squadron, for home, and on Nov- 
 ember 9th arrived at Plymouth, after an absence of many 
 months from his native land. 
 
 And now I am sure you have enjoyed learning so much 
 of our good King Edward VII, and no doubt, you know the 
 rest very well, but there are a few things I must tell you of 
 the kind which interest every boy and girl. First is the story 
 of the good and beautiful 
 
 young princess who be- 
 came the wife of Prince 
 Edward, and whom we 
 know now as Queen 
 Alexandra. She was 
 born a Princess, but in an 
 humble home in Copen- 
 hagen, Denmark. Her 1 
 father afterwards became 
 King of Denmark, where 
 he is known as King 
 Christian IX. The mother 
 of the little princess was 
 a sensible woman, very 
 fond of her home and her 
 children whom she gave 
 a careful education. She was also fond of music, and at the 
 same time loved to keep her home neat and tidy ; so her girls 
 were trained not only to be good musicians but also to be 
 good housekeepers. One of her daughters became Empress 
 of Russia and the other one the Queen of Great Britain. 
 
 Princess Alexandra, as she was called, was one of the 
 most beautiful girls in Europe. Prince Albert happened to 
 see her portrait, and was so well pleased with it that he wanted 
 
 THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA. 
 
2 82 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 to see the girl herself. By chance he met her in a cathedral 
 in Europe while he was traveling, and again met her several 
 times during his tour. It was not long before the young 
 people were engaged to be married, and there was great rejoic- 
 ing both in England and Denmark. The Danish people, 
 although they were very poor, were so delighted that they 
 made a purse of 8,000 pounds (nearly $40,000 in our money) 
 to give to the princess on her marriage. But the good prin- 
 cess, although she was delighted with the love of her people as 
 shown by this present, asked that a large portion of it should 
 be given to six poor girls whose weddings would take place 
 on the same day, for she knew that she would have all she 
 needed when she became Crown Princess of England. 
 
 In this country when a girl is to be married her lover 
 comes to her town for the wedding, but in the case of the 
 Crown Prince of England it was thought best for the princess, 
 whom he was to marry, to come to England for the marriage, 
 so, accompanied by he'r parents, and brothers and sisters, the 
 princess left Denmark for her new home. The streets were 
 strewn with flowers and crowded with the people who loved 
 her so much. She came to England on board the "Victoria 
 and Albert," which had been sent for her, and accompanied 
 by a squadron of ships. A great time indeed it was when she 
 arrived, for the people were delighted to welcome the bride 
 of their prince. 
 
 The dense crowds which lined the shores where the boat 
 landed saw a sight which someone has well described as 
 pretty, "A timid girlish figure, dressed entirely in white, who 
 appeared on the deck at her mother's side and then, retiring 
 to the cabin, was seen first at one window, then at another, 
 the bewildering face framed in a little white bonnet, the work 
 of her own hands." 
 
EDWARD THE SEVENTH 283 
 
 Of course, the prince went in his yacht to meet her. As 
 the royal couple landed girls strewed flowers under their feet. 
 Then came the procession from Gravesend to London and 
 thence to Windsor, through long lines of decorated houses 
 covered with garlands of flowers, and on both sides of the 
 streets were crowds of people and soldiers. Tennyson, the 
 poet Laureate of England, wrote a beautiful poem on the 
 coming of Princess Alexandra, which all of you should read, 
 and speaking of her welcome, said : 
 
 " Welcome her; thunders of fort and of fleet ! 
 Welcome her ; thundering cheer of the street ! 
 Welcome her ; all things youthful and sweet ! 
 Scatter the blossoms under her feet." 
 
 In Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, the young people 
 were married with great pomp and splendor. One who saw 
 it said': "It was a very magnificent sight — rich, gorgeous and 
 imposing. Beautiful women were arrayed in the richest attire, 
 in bright colors, blue, purple, red, and were covered with 
 diamonds and jewels. As each of the royal persons, with 
 their attendants, walked up the aisle of the Chapel, at a 
 certain point each stopped and made an obeisance to the 
 queen. The bride, with her bridesmaids, made the best and 
 most beautiful scene. The princess looked very charming 
 and graceful in her appearance and demeanor. After the 
 wedding the happy wedded pair took their departure for 
 Osborne, on the Isle of Wight, where they spent their honey- 
 moon. A new home had been prepared for them at Sand- 
 ringham where they began housekeeping, as happy as any 
 two people ever were. 
 
 For nearly sixty years, which is a long time indeed, Albert 
 Edward was Prince of Wales ; but on the death of his mother, 
 
284* 
 
 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 the good Queen Victoria, which happened on January 22, 1901, 
 he became King of England and took the title of Edward 
 the Seventh. 
 
 And now I shall end this story, for I am sure you all 
 know what has happened since he became king, and how much 
 he is loved wherever the English flag waves. You will well 
 remember that his son, the present Prince of Wales, visited 
 this country on his way around the world in 1902, and that 
 a royal reception was given him. It was very much like the 
 tour that his father had taken many years before, and of which 
 I have already told you. The Prince of Wales has also boys 
 and girls of his own, one of whom will, no doubt, in his turn 
 be known as the Prince of Wales and finally become King of 
 
 England. 
 
 We shall learn more of them by-and-by. 
 
 *In folioing this book the full-page half-tone Illustrations are not counted. 
 ^There are in all 300 pages in this book | 
 
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