THE COURT, LADY'S MAGAZINE,

MONTHLY CRITIC AND MUSEUM.

A Family Journal

OF ORIGINAL TALES, REVIEWS OF LITERATURE, THE FINE ARTS, MUSIC, DRAMA, FASHIONS, &c., &c.

UNDER THE DISTINGUISHED PATRONAGE OF

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

MEMOIR OF

ISABELLA OF ANGOULEME,

QUEEN-CONSORT OF JOHN, king of England, and MOTHER OF KING HENRY THE THIRD.

Embellished with a full-length Authentic Portrait from her effigy in the Abbey of Fontevraud, (No. 97 of the Series of full-length Authentic Ancient Portraits.)

ISABELLA of Angoulême-the most celebrated beauty of her time, and who, at the very early age of fifteen, most unexpectedly became queen of England-was the only child of Aimar, count of Angoulême, and Alice de Courtenay, grand-daughter of Pierre de Courtenay, fifth son of Louis Le Gros, king of France. About the period of her birth, her father, count Aimar, having entered into a confederation with the count of Limoges, and other Poitevin lords, against the redoubtable Richard Cœur de Lion, had carried fire and sword into the Acquitanian territories of that prince, who, in turn, failed not to retaliate upon theirs with twofold devastation. In the year 1192-3, during the treacherous captivity of that warlike monarch in Germany, Aimar profited by such absence to renew his incursions into the Angoumois, a fertile province situate in the centre of Acquitaine; and though the gallant prince of Navarre, Sancho the Strong, Richard's brother-in-law, aided by the brave seneschal of Gascony, offered a determined resistance to the insurgent nobles, the struggle for the mastery continued long marked by alternate reverses, until the death of Geoffrey de Rançon, lord of Taillebourg, one of Aimar's most intriguing and ever turbulent allies, deprived the count's party of a considerable portion of its strength, without, however, bringing this border warfare to an immediate termination. In 1194, Cœur de Lion, being at length freed from his chains, entered Acquitaine at the head of a powerful army, bent on revenge. The strong castle of Taillebourg surrendered to him without striking a blow; and he made himself master of all the other places dependant upon that fortress. Thence 2 F-JUNE, 1841.

passing into the Angoumois, he subjected the whole of that country with such astonishing rapidity, that, in the short space of six hours, he carried the capital after a most sanguinary assault. In this short but fierce campaign, he took prisoners three hundred knights and about forty thousand soldiers. During this scene of slaughter, Philip Augustus, who had stirred up these vassals of his brother monarch to revolt, himself remained inactive, in order that no obstacle might arise to a truce, which was under negotiation between the two crowns, and which was, in fact, concluded by their plenipotentiaries on the 23rd July, 1194. Count Aimar was now compelled to throw himself wholly upon the generosity of Richard: he succeeded not only in appeasing his incensed suzerain, but regained possession of his lands. This was effected by the betrothment of his only daughter, Isabella—the subject of the present memoir-to the son of Hugh de Lusignan, count de la Marche. The youthful Isabella, at the conclusion of this arrangement, not being of a marriageable age, was consigned to the care of the countess Matilda, her mother-in-law, the better to ensure the stipulations of the contract; and in such wardship she remained until, in the autumn of 1200— the year fixed for her union with young count Hugh de Lusignan-the lovely heiress of the Angoumois captivated the heart of the usurping king of England.

In the preceding year John, earl of Mortaigne, surnamed Lackland, youngest son of Henry the Second, had succeeded his brother, Richard, on the throne of England, as well as in his foreign dominions, to the exclusion of Arthur, the youthful duke of Brittany, the only son of Geoffrey, his elder brother. John was at this time thirty-two years old-a manly age-which gave him many advantages over kings commencing their reigns in earlier youth. He was robust, healthy, and, like most of the Angevin race, handsome; but his evil passions distorted his countenance, giving it a treacherous and cruel expression. The defects of his character appeared so early in his father's life, that his clerical friend, Giraldus, then describes him as a prey to the follies of youth, impressible as wax to vice; rude to his better advisers; more addicted to luxury than war, to effeminacy than hardships; remarkable rather for juvenile levity than for the promise of that manly maturity to which he was hastening. He is not distinguished to us, by the observant monk, with any of those positive excellencies which characterised his brothers. At his accession he was already hated by the people, and his reign opened inauspiciously. Many of the nobles of England immediately showed disaffection. The king of Scotland, William the Lion, who had quarrelled with him on account of the provinces of Northumberland and Cumberland, threatened him with invasion; and on the continent, with the exception of those in Normandy, all the great vassals were up in arms for his nephew, Arthur, and in close alliance with the French king, who had renewed the war, promising himself every success, from well knowing the difference between the warlike Richard and the cowardly John. Leav-. ing William de Stuteville to keep in check the Scots, John crossed over to Normandy, where the earl of Flanders, and other great lords, who had confederated with Richard, brought in their forces. Philip demanded and obtained a truce for six weeks, at the end of which term he met John to propose a definitive peace. His demands led to an instant renewal of the war, for he not only required the surrender, by the English king, of all his French possessions (Normandy excepted) to Arthur, but the cession, also, of a considerable part of Normandy itself to the French crown.

The only being engaged in this game of ambition that can at all interest the feelings was the innocent Arthur, who was too young and helpless to play his own part in it. The greatest of our poets has thrown all the intensity both of pathos and horror around the last days of this prince; but all the days of his brief life were marked with touching vicissitudes. Like William of Normandy, the hapless son of duke Robert, Arthur was the child of sorrow from his cradle, upwards. His misfortunes, indeed, began before he came into the world; his father Geoffrey was killed in a tournament eight months prior to his birth, and Brittany, to which he had an hereditary right through his mother, was divided into factions, fierce yet changeable, destructive of present prosperity and unproductive of future good; for, the national independence, their main object, was an empty dream, in the neighbourhood of such powerful and ambitious monarchs as the Plantagenets of England and the Capetians of France. The people of Brittany, however, hailed the birth of the posthumous child of Geoffrey with transports of patriotic

joy. In spite of his grandfather Henry, who wished to give the child his own name, they determined upon the name of Arthur. The mysterious hero was as dear to the people of Brittany as to their kindred of our own island: tradition painted him as the champion in arms of their "king Hoel the Great;" and though he had been dead some centuries, they still, like the Highlanders of recent times, expected his coming as the restorer of their old independence. Merlin had predicted this, and Merlin was still revered as a prophet in Brittany as well as in Wales.* Popular credulity thus attached ideas of national glory to the cherished name of Arthur; and as the child was handsome and promising, the Bretons looked forward to the day when he should rule them without the control of French or English. His mother, Constance, a vain and weak woman-(for historic truth compels us to dispel the illusory portrait drawn by the magical fancy of Shakspere)-could spare little time for her amours and intrigues to devote to her son, and at the moment when his uncle John threatened him with destruction, she was occupied by her passion for a third husband, whom she had recently married, her second husband being still living. During the life-time of Richard Coeurde-Lion, she had bandied her son between that sovereign and the French king as circumstances and her caprice varied; and now, when awakened to a sense of his danger, the only course she could pursue was to carry him to Paris, and to place him under the protection of the astute and selfish Philip, to whom she offered the direct vassalage not only of Brittany, which, through her, Arthur was to inherit, but also of Normandy, Anjou, Acquitaine, and the other states he claimed as heir to his father. John's troops, composed almost entirely of mercenaries, fell with savage fury upon Brittany, burning and destroying the houses and fields, and selling the inhabitants as slaves. Philip assisted William Desroches, the commander of the small Breton army, and took several castles on the frontiers of Brittany and France from the English. But as soon as he gained these fortresses he destroyed them, in order evidently to leave the road open to himself, when he should throw off the mask and invade the country on his own account. Desroches, incensed at these proceedings, withdrew Arthur and his mother from the French court, and they would both have sought his peace, and delivered themselves up to John, had they not been scared away by the report that he intended the murder of his nephew. After this, young Arthur returned to Philip, who knighted him, notwithstanding his tender age, and promised to give him his daughter Mary in marriage. But Philip only intended to make a tool of the unfortunate boy; and when some troublesome disputes, in which he was engaged with the pope, induced him to treat with John, he sacrificed all his interests without any remorse. treaty of peace which was concluded between the kings, in the spring of 1200, John was to remain in possession of all the states his brother Richard had occupied; and thus Arthur was completely disinherited, with the connivance and participation of the French king; for it is said, that by a secret article of the treaty, Philip was to inherit his continental dominions, if John died without children. Circumstances and the unruly passions of John soon nullified the whole of this treaty, and made Philip again the slippery friend of young Arthur; but nothing could efface the French king's perfidy, or re-inspire confidence in him, in reasonable men.

By the

In the summer of this same year, the second of his reign, John made a royal progress into Acquitaine, to receive the homage of the barons of that province. He delighted the lively people of the south with his magnificence and parade, and captivated some of the volatile and factious nobles with a display of familiar and festive humour; but these feelings were but momentary; for neither with the people nor their chiefs could he keep up the favorable impression he had made. Though a skilful actor, his capability was confined to a single scene or two; it could never extend itself over a whole act his passions, which seem to have partaken of insanity, were sure to baffle his hypocrisy on anything like a lengthened intercourse. He had thus shown his true character, and disgusted many of the nobles of Poictou and Acquitaine, when his sudden passion for the young betrothed of count Hugh de Lusignan completed their irritation and disgust. Twelve years had elapsed since the marriage of John with

• It was the existence of the same tradition in the latter country which, after a lapse of three centuries more, prompted Henry VII. to baptize his first-born son with that name.-See Memoir of Elizabeth of York, April, 1811.