proper father; but the having any claim to it.

king always excused himself as not

She may indeed have called in help,

for the matter was variously talked of.

"At length she was seized with a bowel complaint, and was a long time ill, during which she was very contrite, and sincerely repented of her sins. She often remembered Mary Magdalene, who had been a great sinner, and devoutly invoked God and the virgin Mary to her aid like a true catholic: after she had received the sacraments, she called for her book of prayers, in which she had written with her own hand the verses

of St. Bernard to repeat them. She then made many gifts (which were put down in writing, that her executors might fulfil them, with the other articles of her will), which including alms and the payment of her servants might amount to nearly sixty thousand crowns.

"Her executors were Jacques Coeur, councellor and master of the wardrobe to the king, master Robert Poictevin physician, and master Stephen Chevalier treasurer to the king, who was to take the lead in the fulfilment of her will should it be his gracious pleasure.

"The fair Agnes, perceiving that she was daily growing weaker, said to the lord de la Trimouille, the lady of the seneschal of Poitou, and one of the king's equerries called Gouffier, in the presence of all her damsels, that our fragile life was but a stinking ordure.

"She then required that her confessor would give her absolution from all her sins and wickedness, conformable to an absolution, which was, as she said, at Loches, which the confessor on her assurance complied with. After this she uttered a loud shriek, and called on the mercy of God and the support of the blessed virgin Mary, and gave up the ghost on Monday the 9th day of February, in the year 1449, about six o'clock in the afternoon. Her body was opened, and her heart interred in the church of the said abbey, to which she had been a most liberal benefactress; and her body was conveyed with many honours to Loches, where it was interred in the collegiate church of our Lady, to which also she had made many hand

some donations and several foundations. May God have mercy on her soul, and admit it into Paradise."

Monstrelet, vol. ix. p. 97.

On the 13th day of June, the seneschal of Normandy, count of Maulevrier, and son to the late sir Pierre de Breze, killed at the battle of Montlehery, went to the village of Romiers, near Dourdan, which belonged to him, for the sake of hunting. He took with him his lady, the princess Charlotte of France, natural daughter of the late king Charles the VII. by Agnes Sorel. After the chace, when they were returned to Romiers to sup and lodge, the seneschal retired to a single-bedded room for the night; his lady retired also to another chamber, when moved by her disorderly passions (as the husband said) she called to her a gentleman from Poitou, named Pierre de la Vegne, who was head huntsman to the seneschal, and made him lie with her. This was told to the seneschal by the master of his household, called Pierre l'Apothicaire; when he instantly arose, and taking his sword, broke open the door of the chamber where his lady and the huntsman were in bed. The huntsman started up in his shirt, and the seneschal gave him first a severe blow with his sword on the head, and then thrust it through his body, and killed him on the spot. This done, he went into an adjoining room where his children lay, and finding his wife hid under the coverlid of their bed, dragged her thence by the arm along the ground, and struck her between · the shoulders with his sword. On her raising herself on her knees he ran his sword through her breast, and she fell down dead. He sent her body for interment to the abbey of Coulens, where her obsequies were performed, and he caused the huntsman to be buried in the garden of the house wherein he had been killed. - Monstrelet, vol. ii. p. 233.

Page 12. line 481.

And would that I had lived

In those old times.

Μηκετ' επειτ' ωφειλον εγω πεμπτοισι μετείναι
Ανδρασιν, αλλ' η προσθε θανειν η επειτα γενεσθαι.

Νυν γαρ δη γενος εστι σιδηρεον ωδεποτ ημαρ
Παύσονται καματω και οιζυος, ώδε τι νύκτωρ,

Φθειρομενοι.

Hesiod.

Page 122. line 518. Then was that noble heart of Douglas

pierced.

The heart of Bruce was, by his own dying will, entrusted to Douglas to bear it to Jerusalem. This is one of the finest stories in the whole age of chivalrous history. Douglas inshrined the heart in a golden case, and wore it round his neck; he landed in Spain on his way, and stopt to assist the Castillians against the Moors, probably during the siege of Algeziras. There in the heat of action he took the heart from his neck and cast it into the thick of the enemy, exclaiming, as Barbour has it,

"Now pass thou forth before

As thou wast wont in fight to be,

And I shall follow or else die."

In this action he perished, and from that time the bloody heart has been borne by the family.

Il n'est rien de si doux, pour des cœurs pleins de gloire,
Que la paisible nuit qui suit une victoire,

Dormir sur un trophee, est un charmant repos,

Et le champ de battaile est le lict d'un heros.

The night after a battle is certainly more agreeable than the night before one. A soldier may use his shield for a pillow, but he must be very ingenious to sleep upon a trophy.

Page 129. line 33. Gazing with such a look as though she fear'd
The thing she sought.

With a dumb silence seeming that it fears
The thing it went about to effectuate.

Daniel.

Play'd o'er his cheek's black paleness.
"Noire pasleur."

Le Moyne. St. Louis. Liv. xvi.

Next the bayle was the ditch, foss, graff, or mote: generally where it could be a wet one, and pretty deep.

The passage over it was by a draw-bridge, covered by an advance work called a barbican. The barbican was sometimes beyond the ditch that covered the draw-bridge, and in towns and large fortresses had frequently a ditch and draw-bridge of its own. Grose.

Page 133. line 150.

The embattled wall.

The outermost walls enclosing towns or fortresses were commonly perpendicular, or had a very small external talus. They were flanked by semi-circular, polygonal, or square towers, commonly about forty or fifty yards distant from each other. Within were steps to mount the terre-pleine of the walls or rampart, which were always defended by an embattled or crenellated parapet. Grose.

The fortifications of the middle ages differed in this respect from those of the ancients. When the besiegers had gained the summit of the wall, the descent on the other side was safe and easy. But "the ancients did not generally support their walls on the inside with earth, in the manner of the talus or slope, which made the attacks more dangerous. For though the enemy had gained some footing upon them, he could not assure himself of taking the city. It was necessary to get down, and to make use of some of the ladders by which he had mounted; and that descent exposed the soldier to very great danger."

Rollin.

Page 133. line 154.

Behind the guardian pavais fenced.

The pavais, or pavache, was a large shield, or rather a port

able mantlet, capable of covering a man from head to foot, and probably of sufficient thickness to resist the missive weapons then in use. These were in sieges carried by servants, whose business it was to cover their masters with them, whilst they, with their bows and arrows, shot at the enemy on the ramparts. As this must have been a service of danger, it was that perhaps which made the office of scutifer honourable. The pavais was rectangular at the bottom, but rounded off above: it was sometimes supported by props. Grose.

Page 133. line 158. With all their mangonels. Mangonel is a term comprehending all the smaller engines.

The tortoise was a machine composed of very strong and solid timber work. The height of it to its highest beam, which sustained the roof, was twelve feet. The base was square, and each of its fronts twenty-five feet. It was covered with a kind of quilted mattress made of raw hides, and prepared with different drugs to prevent its being set on fire by combustibles. This heavy machine was supported upon four wheels, or perhaps upon eight. It was called tortoise from its serving as a very strong covering and defence against the enormous weights thrown down on it; those under it being safe in the same manner as a tortoise under his shell. It was used both to fill up the fosse, and for sapping. It may not be improper to add, that it is believed, so enormous a weight could not be moved from place to place on wheels and that it was pushed forward on rollers. Under these wheels or rollers, the way was laid with strong planks to facilitate its motion, and prevent its sinking into the ground, from whence it would have been very difficult to have removed it. The ancients have observed that the roof had a thicker covering, of hides, hurdles, sea-weed, &c. than the sides, as it was exposed to much greater shocks from the weights thrown upon it by the besieged. It had a