chamber in which our daughter Joan was nursed, until we direct otherwise," and which seems to intimate that she was then placed under restraint. As in the following month there is a precept in the Close Rolls, directing Reginald of Cornhill to provide twenty-seven ells of cloth to make a robe "for our lady queen; " and as in the May following, the very kind direction is given to the constable of Marlborough, “to fish, on Friday and Saturday, in our fish-ponds, and take for our lady queen's use roach and pike; she may have been conveyed to Gloucester solely to protect her from the inconveniences arising from the unsettled state of the midland counties. In May, from a precept in the Patent Rolls, she appears to have been at Winchester; and from thence she was conveyed, with her son Henry, to Marlborough. Subsequently to the signing of the charter, there is a precept directed to Isabel, and the before-mentioned Theodoric, directing them to deliver up the brother of the constable of Chester, then in their custody. This proves that John and Isabel were certainly at this period reconciled.

The peace for which the nation so earnestly prayed, was indeed of short duration;-the promises extorted from John were swiftly broken, and the indignant barons again rushed to arms. After a series of contests, which were concluded only by the death of the king, and during which some of the barons had invited over young Louis of France as a competitor for the crown, the royal army, having reduced Lincoln, arrived on the 9th of October at

Lynn, on its progress to Wisbeach. In passing

over the Wash, from Cross Keys to the Fossdyke, the long train of horses and carriages laden with the royal treasures, money, and crown jewels,-all were swallowed up in a whirlpool, formed by the tide and current of the Welland; and John, who from the shore witnessed this total ruin of his hopes, in a state of desperation went forward to the Cistercian abbey of Swineshead. Arrived there, from the united effects of long continued anxiety, fatigue, and disappointment, he fell into a violent fever, of which, on the ninth day after having proceeded to Newark, he died.* He there committed his children to the guardianship of pope Honorius; and dictated the outline of a will, in which he states, that, "not having sufficient space, in this time of my weakness," to make a regular testament, he assigned the charge of so doing to twelve of his most trusty counsellors. In this document no mention is made of the queen, and the only specific directions are, that he should be interred at Worcester; and that they should endeavour to secure the crown to his eldest son.

Both these directions were fulfilled ;-the corpse of John was conveyed to Worcester cathedral, and on the tenth day after his father's decease, the Third Henry, a child of but ten years of age, was led to the abbey of Gloucester; where, having taken the usual oaths, he was crowned by the legate Gualo, assisted by the bishops of Winchester, Exeter, and Bath; who placed a plain circlet of gold on his head, the royal crown having been lost with the rest of

The story of John's being poisoned, is recorded by no contempoary; it may therefore be considered as wholly apocryphal.

the treasures. The following day a proclamation was issued by the great earl of Pembroke-who was constituted guardian of the kingdom, in the name of his infant sovereign-promising full amnesty for the past, and their lawful liberties for the future, to all who should claim them; and forbidding any person to appear, during the next month, in public, without a white fillet round his head, in honour of the coronation.

Whether Isabel were with her husband at the time of his decease is very uncertain; most probably she was not. That she was with her son Henry, or soon after joined him, is probable, from the circumstance of only three days after his coronation a precept appearing in the Close Rolls, directing full possession of the city of Exeter, and some places adjacent, to be given her, "as were assigned to her in dower. In December we find a grant to her from her son of the stannaries" in the counties of Devon and Cornwall; and in June, in the following year, a precept to the sheriff of Devon appears in the same collection, directing him to provide, without delay,

ships for our lady mother the queen, whence she may be honourably transported to foreign parts: this is signed by the earl of Pembroke.

From this period, Isabel of Angoulesme disappears altogether from the history of England. Neither in the superintendence of the education of her four other children,* any more than in that of her eldest

* Her children were Henry III.; Richard, who subsequently assumed the title of king of the Romans; and three daughters; Joan, who bebecame the first wife of Alexander II. of Scotland; Elinor, married to

son, does she appear to have had any concern:—it is even questionable whether she ever again visited England. She, however, soon laid aside the garb of widowhood, and in 1218 again became a bride. The noble, who was thus honoured with the hand of the queen dowager of England, was no other than Hugh the tenth count of Marche, the son and heir to that Hugh le Brun, to whom, when a mere child, she had been contracted by her father, and from whom she had been so arbitrarily taken in order to her marriage with John. This Hugh had been contracted to her eldest daughter Joan; but finding it probable that he might obtain the mother, (who, in addition to her royal dower, now possessed the important fief of Angoulesme, as heiress of her father), he very warily broke off his previous contract, and proceeded to conclude a marriage with her who more than eighteen years before had been so near becoming his step-mother. Singular as it may appear, the first notice of this marriage seems to have been received at the English court with great approbation; and there is a letter extant, from Henry, expressing his joy and his firm trust, that by this alliance his good friend the count of Marche might become a yet trustier ally; he also requests him to send back his sister Joan, he having about this time formed for her a new alliance with the king of Scotland.* This request, the count of Marche, for what reason it would be difficult to determine, thought proper to

the younger earl of Pembroke, and afterwards to Symond de Montfort; and Isabel, who, as wife of Frederic II., became empress of Germany.

* Fœdera, vol. i.

refuse. Henry was, therefore, forced to have recourse to that last resort of monarchs indisposed to war-an appeal to the spiritual power; and he accordingly sent a letter to the sovereign pontiff praying his aid.* In this letter he states, that his late father had contracted his daughter Joan to this Hugh; that he had offered no objection; and yet now, "regardless of his solemn oath, and scorning our sister, he has formed a marriage with our mother: "--so completely did the royal accuser forget his own former letter of gratulation.

He there prays "the most holy paternity” to write to the bishops of Saintoinges and Limoges, to compel his acquiescence by the terrors of the spiritual sword; a similar letter was also addressed to the cardinals. These threats of ecclesiastical discipline appear to have produced the desired effect, for a few months after we find a letter addressed "to our faithful and beloved father Hugh," requesting that Joan might forthwith be placed in the hands of the bishop of Saintoinges, at the town of Rupel; it concludes, however, with an emphatic hint, that as her "farther detention would by no means redound to his honour," he had better at once acquiesce. Joan was therefore safely consigned to the care of her friends; and de la Marche, within the two following years, received the reward of his acquiescence in the full grant of Isabel's dower.

But de la Marche, although he had delivered up Joan, still kept possession of those castles in Poic

* Fœdera, vol. i.