other important persons, taken prisoners. This was the last victory achieved against the Scots by the great "Sire Edward." While on his way to join his army, he was attacked with a violent illness at Burghon-the-Sands, and, feeling his end approaching, he summoned Prince Edward to receive his parting admonitions. In these he commanded "that he should carry his father's bones about with him in some coffin till he had marched through all Scotland and subdued all his enemies, for that none should be able to overcome him while his skeleton marched with him;" that he should "love his brethren, Thomas and Edmund; but especially treat with tenderness and respect his mother Queene Margaret."

Shortly after this, while his servants were raising him up to take some refreshment, he expired in their arms.

Of his person Carte gives us the following description :-He was one of the goodliest personages that could be seen; taller than most men, finely shaped, and well made; a lively, piercing eye; a manly beauty in his visage; a majestic air, mixed with an indescribable sweetness ; a noble port; an easy and engaging manner of address, which, without lessening his dignity, was full of goodness and condescension; an inimitable gracefulness in his look, his speech, his gestures, and behaviour in a word, all his exterior commanded reverence, and inspired at once affection and admiration." To this may be added, that he was seldom ill; never lost his teeth, nor was his sight dimmed by age. He was temperate; never wore his crown after his coronation, thinking it a burden, but going about in the plain garments of a citizen, excepting on festival days.

Marguerite's grief for his death was as sincere as had been her affection. A curious record of this still exists in the document of John o' London, who was employed by the queen to chronicle the heroic actions of her husband, and her own great sorrow for his loss. Her first appearance in public after his death was in obedience to his dying. commands, in order that no time might be lost in fulfilling the treaty for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Isabella of France, Marguerite's niece. She assisted at the nuptial ceremony at Boulogne; after which she led a life of the utmost retirement, expending the greater part of her large dowry in charity and for the encouragement of art.

Edward the Second seems fully to have carried out his father's wishes with regard to his step-mother, for he ever treated her with the utmost affection and respect. She died at Marlborough Castle, in 1317, at the early age of thirty-six, and was buried at the Grey Friars' Church, before the altar in the choir, which she herself had built.

ISABELLA OF FRANCE,

QUEEN OF EDWARD THE SECOND.

ISABELLA stands darkly prominent in English history as the only queen who murdered her husband. Shakspeare has immortalised her infamous renown by the title of "She-wolf of France." Her character and name are thus, perhaps, more familiar to the public than those of any queen-consort in the British annals. Her early years gave evidence of levity, but it was only when her passions and her thirst of domination had acquired their full growth, that she stood forth in all the genuine horrors of her nature, and stamped herself as the true daughter of the cruel Philip le Bel.

Isabella was the daughter of Philip le Bel, King of France, and Jane, Queen of Navarre. She was thus the offspring of two sovereigns in their own right; and her three brothers, Louis le Hutin, Philip le Long, and Charles le Bel, were successively kings of France. No queen-consort of England, therefore, came to the matrimonial throne with higher rank. She was born in the year 1295, and in 1303, when yet not quite nine years old, she was betrothed to Edward, Prince of Wales, the son of Edward the First. This betrothal took place in Paris, in presence of the King and Queen of France, the Count of Savoy and the Earl of Lincoln being the procurators on the part of the prince. Scarcely was Edward the First dead, when Edward of Caernarvon, now Edward the Second of England, was so impatient to complete his marriage with the fair young princess of France, still only in her fourteenth year, that before the funeral of the late king, his father, had taken place, he dispatched the Bishops of Durham and Norwich, the Earls of Pembroke and Lincoln, to obtain an early appointment of the day of marriage. Such was the characteristic weakness of Edward, who never stopped to reflect where his inclinations were concerned, that on learning the proposed day of celebration of the