scorned to show to the mightiest of England's monarchs; and the Earl of Oxford, acting as Lord Steward, took in the trial a part which has left a blot upon the escutcheon of the De Veres. A promise of pardon, never intended to be kept, induced the simple youth to plead guilty. The judgment of the peers was pronounced by Oxford, and on the 28th of November, 1499, the ill-fated Prince was executed on Tower Hill.

While Henry was congratulating himself on the state craft which had at once cut the life's-thread of a dangerous rival, and smoothed the way for the marriage of his son and the Infanta Katherine, a burst of indignation from the people of England roused him to a sense of the iniquity of which he had been guilty. The wily Tudor thereupon endeavoured to shift the odium from himself to the cunning Ferdinand, and even showed letters, in which that dear friend and ally demanded the Earl's death. "But here," remarks Lord Bacon, "as the King did, in some part, remove the envy from himself, so he did not observe that he did withal bring a kind of malediction and infausting upon the marriage, as an ill prognostic, which in event so far proved true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time after the marriage, and the Lady Katherine herself (a sad and religious woman) long after, when King Henry the Eighth's resolution of a divorce from her was first made known to her, used some words, "That she had not offended; but it was a judgment of

God, for her former marriage was made in blood, meaning that of the Earl of Warwick."

Two paces of earth in the Chapel of St. Edward at Westminster, where around the Confessor's shrine lie the dust of the heroes of Agincourt and of Cressy, and of that still greater King known as the English Justinian, were not spared to the last prince who bore that illustrious surname. Henry did not, however, deny honourable interment to the heir of those kings whose place he so unworthily occupied; nor did he select a place of sepulture unassociated with noble memories.

Within the priory of Bisham, in Berkshire, founded during the fourteenth century by those Earls of Salisbury whose.names are connected with the brightest cra of English chivalry, had been laid generation after generation of Montagues; and thither had been carried from the field of Barnet the bodies of "the Kingmaker" and his brother. In that Priory, hard by the Thames, the son of Clarence, freed by the headsman's axe from a cruel captivity, was laid amid the dust of kinsmen and ancestors. No regal honours, we can well imagine, were paid to his corpse; no hearse blazed with hundreds of lights; no princely banners were hung around his tomb. But his death called forth the pity of men and the lamentation of women. The nation, which his progenitors had made prosperous and free, bewailed his fate; and fear of the tyrant on the English throne could not prevent the English people shedding tears over the grave of the last male heir of the people's kings.

174

GASTON DE FOIX,

DUKE OF NEMOURS.

WHEN the English had been deprived of all their continental conquests except Calais, and when great feudal potentates, like the Dukes of Burgundy and Britanny, no longer existed to threaten the French monarchy, the kings of the House of Valois turned their eyes cove tously towards the fair fields and rich cities of Italy.

Louis the Crafty was, indeed, too sagacious to undertake any expedition promising no more substantial reward than martial glory; but his weak son Charles almost ere attaining to legal age began to delight his soul with dreams of foreign conquest. At one time this boy thought of wresting Constantinople from the Turks; but, on second thoughts, he decided on trying his prowess in the Italian provinces. The expedition of Charles to Italy proved fruitless, and he returned to France" a sadder and a wiser man." But his successor, Louis the Twelth, a king of some capacity, having claims on Milan as heir of Valentine, Duchess of Orleans, who has been mentioned as suspected of witchcraft, resolved upon pursuing the game which his

predecessor had played with so little success.

Accord

ingly he commenced those wars which, continued by Francis the First, proved so disastrous alike to the French invaders and the Italian States.

Some years before Louis crossed the Alps, his sister, Mary of Orleans, had been married to the Count of Narbonne, son of one of those Counts de Foix who derived their male descent from the Kings of Arragon. The fair princess, in 1489, became a mother; and her boy received the name of Gaston, which had been borne by his ancestors, whose love of the chase, prowess in war, and splendid housekeeping, Froissart has celebrated.

Chroniclers tell that King Louis and Anne of Britanny, his queen, having no son, loved Gaston as their own child; and the princely boy, with whom love of war and skill in arms were hereditary, became a chevalier almost while in his second lustre, and a warrior of renown ere well out of his teens. We never think of him as a boy, but as a gallant stripling standing by his war-steed and panting for the fight; his tall handsome form in plate armour, his hair parted over an open forehead, and falling backwards in graceful curls, and a slight moustache covering his proud lip. This is the figure, as commemorated by marble statues, of that Gaston de Foix who never knew what fear was, who was long the hero of many popular songs, and who is celebrated in history as "the Thunderbolt of Italy."

We are told of the great Turenne, that when little more than ten years of age, he was one day found asleep beside a gun, which he embraced with every appearance of real affection. On being awakened from his repose, the embryo warrior declared that he meant to have passed the night in that position, in order to convince people that he was capable of enduring the hardships of war. Something like this spirit, we can well suppose, animated the boyhood of the great De Foix; and if we are correct in supposing his juvenile aspirations to have been warlike, they were soon gratified by his being allowed to take part in the Italian

wars.

While Louis the Twelfth was engaged in a hopeless struggle in Italy, instead of proving at home his claim to the proud title of "Father of his people," he formed with Pope Julius the League of Cambray, the object of which was to humble the pride of the Republic of Venice. The "Queen of the Adriatic" was in the utmost danger. The Venetians, abandoning their possessions on the Continent, took refuge in the city, while the French destroyed the Republic's army in the battle of Agnadello. The conquest was achieved as far as the Adda, when Julius changed his politics, and formed a new league with the Venetians and the King of Spain, the object of which was to expel the French from Italy," to drive the barbarians beyond the Alps."

Julius was not an ordinary Italian priest. He had