THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, whole length portrait of, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, and daughter of M. de Tascher de la Pagerie, a West India planter. She was born at Martinique in 1763, and having left her native island to reside with an aunt in France, was married in her sixteenth year to the Viscount Beauharnais, one of the partisans, and, subsequently, a victim of the revolution. Released from prison by the fall of Robespierre, Madame de Beauharnais married in 1796, General Bonaparte, then about to set out for Italy, shared his power as first consul, his grandeur as emperor, aided him with her counsels, and was ever the object of his esteem and affection, even when induced by ambitious policy to resolve on the measure of her divorce in 1810. She afterwards took up her abode at Malmaison, where, in the exercise of every amiable quality, she passed the latter years of her life, and died in 1814. Her two children by the Viscount de Beauharnois were, the prince Eugene, and Hortense, married to Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland. To be transferred from Dec. 1840,

and face p. 1. MARGUERITE DE VALOIS (whole length ancient portrait of), daughter of Odette de Champ Divers and Charles VI., legitimated by Charles VII., and married to John of Harpedane, lord of Belle-Ville and Poitou. . To face p. 85. ELIZABETH WYDEVILLE (whole length ancient portrait of, from an illumination in the British Museum), queen-consort of Edward IV. of England, daughter of Sir Richard Wydeville and Jacquetta of Luxemburg, duchess dowager of Bedford. She was born about the year 1438, and, at an early age, received the appointment of maid of honor to queen Margaret of Anjou wife of Henry VI. At the age of 16, she married Sir John Gray of Groby, a partisan of the house of Lancaster, in whose cause he fell at the second battle of St. Albans in 1461. As a petitioner for the restoration of her late husband's confiscated estate, the young widow's beauty excited the admiration of King Edward IV., who married her in 1464, a step by which that monarch incurred the implacable enmity of Warwick, the king-maker, and brought on himself and his country all the horrors of civil war. On the death of Edward in 1483, his two sons Edward V. and his young brother the duke of York having been murdered in the tower, by their uncle Richard III., their unhappy mother retired into the sanctuary at Westminster, with her daughters, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth, married the earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. Stung by the neglect of the new king, both towards herself and daughter, Elizabeth was induced to encourage the imposture of Lambert Simnel, or at least was suspected of so doing. Her property was afterwards confiscated, and she herself imprisoned by Henry, in the Nunnery of Bermondsey, where she ended her life in 1488. . To face p. 165. ELIZABETH OF YORK, full length ancient portrait of, queen consort of Henry VII. of England, daughter of Edward IV., and Elizabeth

Wydeville, born in 1466; this princess was early contracted in marriage to the dauphin Charles, son of Louis XI., whose evasion of the compact caused Edward to determine on a war with France; the preparations for Elizabeth's union, in 1486, with the earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., was the happy means of terminating the bloody contest of the roses. A few days after, having given birth to a daughter, she expired in 1502, at her apartments in the Tower, beloved and mourned by all classes of her subjects from whom she had obtained the deserved appellation of good queen Elizabeth.

Full length portrait of MADAME DE LAVALETTE in the dress in which she effected her husband's release from the Conciergerie.-This lady, born in 1786, was daughter to the marquis de Beauharnais and niece, by marriage, to the empress Josephine. Her union in 1796 with M. de Lavalette, one of Bonaparte's aidesde-camp, was hastily brought about by the ge neral himself-but that it proved one of sincere attachment was sufficiently attested, by the most interesting event which marked the life of this heroic wife-that of her personal agency in effecting her husband's escape from prison. Her anxiety on that occasion, and the harsh treatment she experienced, were probable causes of a temporary derangement of mind, in which afflicting state she was found by M. de Lavalette on his return from exile. She, however, subsequently recovered her reason, and passed an after period of happiness in the companionship of her husband, whom contrary to the statement in various biographies she still survives, and is living in Paris. . To face p. 329.

ISABELLA OF ANGOULEME, for whom king John so unscrupulously broke the bonds of his first marriage, and endangered his crown by provoking the hatred and revenge of the betrothed, the count de la Marche, was the only daughter of Aimar, count of Angoulême, and accounted the most celebrated beauty of her time. By her marriage with John, in 1200, she became queen of England at the youthful age of fifteen, but being afterwards neglected by him, she is stated to have followed the example of her husband, but he avenged himself for his disgrace by hanging her gallants over her bed. This statement is, however, generally rejected as a fabrication. Letters, nevertheless, from king John in 1215, are still extant in the Tower of London, ordering Isabella under restraint, and which, though by no means confirmatory of her alleged infidelities, prove at least that from some cause unexplained, she had then lost the king's confidence. By one of these, Theodoric, a German favorite of John is thus commanded" to proceed without delay to Gloucester with the lady queen, and there keep her guarded in the chamber wherein our daughter Joan was nursed." This guardianship of Isabella, however, might have arisen from the unsettled state of the midland counties - the barons being at the time in arms for the recovery of their liberties, which were secured to them that