The armorial bearings of Angoulême were on the tomb, gold lozenges or bezants sprinkled on a red field. If we may venture to dive into heraldic mysteries, such a shield might signify gold bought with blood. Her statue is still preserved.1

The person of the queen is that of a very beautiful woman in the decline of life. Her statue is tall and of full proportions, clad in flowing garments, confined to the waist by a girdle. She wears the wimple veil and conventual frontlet. Her face is oval, with regular and majestic features.

The Count de la Marche survived his unhappy partner but till the year 1249. The enmity between him and

1 The state of the royal effigies at Fontevraud in the present century is thus described in Stothard's Monumental Antiquities, by the admirable pen of Mrs. Bray.

"When Mr. Stothard first visited France, during the summer of 1816, he came direct to Fontevraud to ascertain if the effigies of our ancient kings who were buried there were yet in existence. He found the abbey converted into a prison, and discovered in a cellar belonging to it the effigies of Henry II., his queen Eleanora of Guienne, Richard I., and Isabella of Angoulême. The chapel where the figures were placed previous to the revolution was entirely destroyed, and these valuable effigies then removed to a cellar, where they were exposed to constant mutilation from the prisoners who came to draw water from a well twice every day.

"It appeared they had sustained severe injury, as Mr. Stothard found the broken fragments scattered round. He made drawings of the figures, and upon his return to England suggested to our government the propriety of obtaining possession of these interesting relics, that they might be placed among the rest of our royal effigies in Westminster Abbey. The application failed, but it succeeded in calling the attention of the French government towards these remains, and of preserving them from total destruction."

the family of St. Louis entirely disappeared after the death of Isabella. Her husband shared the crusade that the king of France made to Damietta, and fell covered with wounds in one of the eastern battles, fighting by the side of his old antagonist, Alphonso Count of Poictiers.1

Isabella left several children by this marriage; five sons, and at least three daughters. Her eldest son by the Count de la Marche succeeded not only to his father's patrimony, but to his mother's inheritance of the Angoumois, which (it would have been thought) would have pertained to his elder brother Henry III. He is reckoned in the genealogy of Lusignan as Hugh XI., Count de la Marche and Angoulême.

The Count de la Marche sent all his younger sons, with his daughter Alice, to Henry III., who provided for them very liberally, to the great indignation of his subjects; but the war that Isabella had imprudently provoked left them utterly destitute. The Lady Alice was given in marriage by her royal brother to the Earl of Warren.

1 Montfaucon, who gives the date of his death 1249.

2 As a modern writer has committed the strange blunder of marrying Isabella to her own son, instead of her former husband, the following note is subjoined from Speed, no slight authority in matters of genealogy. 'Queen Isabella, surviving King John, was married to Hugh le Brun, Earl of March, and Lord of Lusignan and Valence in Poictou, to whom first she should have been married, but yet (as seemeth) continued her affection to him till now. By him she had divers children, greatly advanced by Henry III., their half brother, (and as greatly maligned by his subjects.) The eldest was Hugh Earl of March and Angoulême; the second, Guy de Lusignan, slain at the battle of Lewes; the third, William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke; the fourth, Aymer de Valence, Bishop of Winchester; the fifth, Geoffrey of Lusignan, Lord of Hastings.

VOL. II.

E

Matthew of Westminster devotes more than one page of sonorous Latin to the discussion of this lady's bad qualities, among which he reckons ugliness, ill temper, and pride. She died insane, after indulging in many strange freaks. The other Provençal daughters of Queen Isabella do not appear in English annals.

75

ELEANOR OF PROVENCE,

SURNAMED LA BELLE,

QUEEN OF HENRY III.

CHAPTER I.

Eleanor of Provence-Parentage-Birth—Talents—Poem written by her -Her beauty-Henry accepts Eleanor without dowry-Escorted to England—Married at Canterbury-Crowned at Westminster-Costume and jewels-Henry's attention to dress-Rapacity of the queen's relatives-Birth of her eldest son-Paintings in her chambers-Attempt on the king's life-Eleanor rules the king-Birth of her eldest daughter-Queen accompanies the king to Guienne-Birth of the Princess Beatrice-Return to England-Turbulence of Eleanor's uncle--Eleanor's second son born-King and queen robbed on the highway-Eleanor's unpopularity in London-Dower-Eleanor's mother—King pawns plate and jewels-Marriage of Princess Margaret-Projected crusade -Eleanor appointed queen-regent-King's departure for GuienneMakes his will-Bequeaths royal power to Eleanor-Princess Catharine born.

ELEANOR of Provence was perhaps the most unpopular queen that ever presided over the court of England. She was unfortunately called to share the crown and royal dignity of a feeble-minded sovereign at an earlier

age than any of her predecessors; for, at the time of her marriage with King Henry, she had scarcely completed her fourteenth year,1 a period of life when her education was imperfect, her judgment unformed, and her character precisely that of a spoiled child, of precocious beauty and genius-perilous gifts! which in her case served but to foster vanity and self-sufficiency.

This princess was the second of the five beautiful daughters of Berenger, Count of Provence, the grandson of Alfonso, king of Arragon. Berenger was the last and most illustrious of the royal Provençal counts; and even had he not been the sovereign of the land of song, his own verses would have entitled him to a distinguished rank among the troubadour poets. His consort Beatrice, daughter of Thomas Count of Savoy, was scarcely less celebrated for her learning and literary powers.3

3

From her accomplished parents the youthful Eleanor inherited both a natural taste and a practical talent for poetry, which the very air she breathed tended to foster and encourage. Almost before she entered her teens, she had composed an heroic poem in her native Provençal tongue.

This work is still in existence, and is to be found in MS. in the royal library at Turin. The composition of this romance was the primary cause to which the

1 M. Paris.

2 Sismondi's Literature of the South.

3 According to some writers, she was the friend and correspondent of Richard Cœur de Lion, and it has been generally supposed that the concluding verse Envoye, in his celebrated prison poem, beginning "Comtesse," is addressed to this lady, to whom also he is said to have sent a copy of his sonnets. Sismondi and J. P. Andrews.

4 Nostradamus Hist. of Troubadours.