Excerpt
A CHILD QUEEN. By Cecilia Cleveland.
I wonder how many of the little girl readers of St. Nicholas are fond of history? If they answer candidly, I do not doubt that a very large proportion will declare that they prefer the charming stories they find in St. Nicholas to the dull pages of history, with its countless battles and murdered sovereigns. But history is not every bit dull, by any means, as you will find if your elder sisters and friends will select portions for you to read that are suitable to your age and interests. Perhaps you are very imaginative, and prefer fairy tales to all others. I am sure, then, that you will like the story I am about to tell you, of a little French princess, who was married and crowned Queen of England when only eight years old, and who became a widow at twelve.
This child-sovereign was born many hundred years ago—in 1387—at the palace of the Louvre in Paris, of whose noble picture-gallery I am sure you all have heard,—if, indeed, many of you have not seen it yourselves. She was the daughter of the poor King Charles VI., whose misfortunes made him insane, and for whose amusement playing-cards were invented, and of his queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, a beautiful but very wicked woman. Little Princess Isabella was the eldest of twelve children. She inherited her mother's beauty, and was petted by her parents and the entire court of France.
King Richard II. of England, who was a widower about thirty years old, was urged to marry again; and, instead of selecting a wife near his own age, his choice fell upon little Princess Isabella.
"She is much too young," he was told. "Even in five or six years she will not be old enough to be married." The king, however, thought this objection too trifling to stand in the way of his marriage, and saying, "The lady's age is a fault that every day will remedy," he sent a magnificent embassy to the court of France, headed by the Archbishop of Dublin, and consisting of earls, marshals, knights, and squires of honor uncounted, with attendants to the number of five hundred.
When the embassy reached Paris, and the offer of marriage had been formally accepted, the archbishop and the earls asked to see the little princess who was soon to become their queen. At first the French Council refused, saying so young a child was not prepared to appear on public occasions, and they could not tell how she might behave. The English noblemen were so solicitous, however, that at last she was brought before them. The earl marshal immediately knelt before her, and said, in the old-fashioned language of the time: "Madam, if it please God, you shall be our lady and queen."
Queen Isabeau stood at a little distance, curious and anxious, no doubt, to know how her little daughter would answer this formal address. To her great pleasure, and the great surprise of all present, Princess Isabella replied:
"Sir, if it please God and my father that I be Queen of England, I shall be well pleased, for I am told I shall then be a great lady."
Then, giving the marshal her tiny hand to kiss, she bade him rise from his knees, and leading him to her mother, she presented him to her with the grace and ease of a mature woman....