Y. Mor. No; unless thou bring me news of Edward's death. Enter Matrevis and Gurney. Mat. Gurney, I wonder the king dies not, Mat. He hath a body able to endure More than we can inflict: and therefore now Let us assail his mind another while. Gur. Send for him out thence, and I will anger him. Enter Lightborn. Light. My Lord Protector greets you. Gur. What's here? I know not how to construe it. Mat. Gurney, it was left unpointed for the nonce; Edwardum occidere nolite timere, That's his meaning. [Exit, [Gives letter. Light. Know you this token? I must have the king. [Gives token. Mat. Ay, stay a while, thou shalt have answer straight. This villain's sent to make away the king. Gur. I thought as much. Mat. And, when the murder's done, See, how he must be handled for his labour,- What else?-Here is the keys, this is the lake : Do as you are commanded by my lord. Light. I know what I must do. Get you away: Yet be not far off; I shall need your help: See that in the next room I have a fire, And get me a spit, and let it be red hot. Mat. Very well. Gur. Need you any thing besides ? Light. What else? a table and a feather bed. Light. Ay, ay: so, when I call you, bring it in. Mat. Fear not thou that. Gur. Here's a light to go into the dungeon. [Exit with Matrevis Light. So, now must I about this gear: ne'er was there any So finely handled as this king shall be. Foh, here's a place indeed, with all my heart! Edw. Who's there? what light is that? wherefore com'st thou 7 Light. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks: Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me. Light. To murder you, my most gracious lord! Far is it from my heart to do you harm. The queen sent me to see how you were used, And what eyes can refrain from shedding tears, Edw. Weep'st thou already list a while to me, Edw. And there, in mire and puddle have I stood They give me bread and water, being a king; Tell Isabel the queen, I look'd not thus, When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, And there unhors'd the Duke of Cleremont. Light. Oh, speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart. Lie on this bed, and rest yourself a while. Edw. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death, I sce my tragedy written in thy brows. Yet stay a while; forbear thy bloody hand, Light. What means your highness to mistrust me thus? Edw. Forgive my thought for having such a thought. One jewel have I left; receive thou this: Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause, [Giving jewel. But every joint shakes as I give it thee. Oh, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul ! I feel a hell of grief! where is my crown? Gone, gone! and do I still remain alive? Light. You're ever-watch'd, my lord: lie down and rest. Edw. But that grief keeps me waking, I should sleep; For not these ten days have these eye-lids clos'd. Now, as I speak, they fall; and yet with fear Light. If you mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord. Matrevis brings in a table. King Edward is murdered by holding Light. So, lay the table down, and stamp on it, Light. Tell me, sirs, was it not bravely done? Come, let us cast the body in the moat, [Stabs Lightborn. [Exeunt with the bodies. 107.-THE ENGLISH POSSESSIONS IN FRANCE. B. ST. LEGER. There are few subjects connected with English history of which the general reader is more apt to lose sight, than the acquisition, the continuance, and the loss, of those possessions in France, which became attached to our own crown from its being worn by the princes of the lines of Normandy and of Anjou. The matters relating to these provinces are but episodical to the main story of our country ;-they were rather foreign dominions of the king than dependencies of the kingdom. From these causes, they appear upon the stage of our history only at distant and unconnected periods, when they chanced in any way to act upon the policy or the fortunes of England;—and thus no distinct, consecutive, and unbroken picture remains impressed upon the mind concerning them. The English power in Aquitaine arose, as is well known, from the marriage of Henry II., with Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and Countess of Poitou, the repudiated wife of Louis VII. of France. Eleanor had accompanied her first husband into Palestine, during one of the Crusades,-where, as he suspected, she was false to him in favour of a young Saracen. On his return to France, he applied to the church for a divorce; and alleged the above reason in support of his demand. A council of prelates was accordingly held; which, avoiding the discussion of so delicate a question, found a simpler mode of acceding to the king's request. They discovered that Eleanor and her husband were cousins within the prohibited degrees, and they therefore pronounced the marriage null and void. The lady, accordingly, the marriage tie being dissolved, set off to return into her own dominions. In her passage thither, she narrowly escaped marriage by force, two or three different times, from the gallant and loyal barons, through whose territories she passed. She was once imprisoned, and once, by a sudden change of route, escaped abduction; the flaw in her character being thus, as it would seem, overlooked, in consideration of her rich and extensive dower. She resisted, however, this approved method of wooing, (one of the suitors who employed it was Henry's younger brother,) and at last arrived safely at Poitiers, the capital of her minor state. It was hither that Henry, who had not yet succeeded to the crown of England, came to try his fortune as a lover, and returned with the duchess as his bride into Normandy. For political, as well as personal, reasons, Louis had opposed this marriage. Henry was already duke of Normandy; he was the heir-apparent (his father being still alive) to the counties of Anjou and Touraine,-and the countries belonging to Eleanor, completed (with the exception of Brittany), the whole of western France, from the borders of Picardy to the Pyrenees. The possessions of Louis himself were in no degree equal to these. They were less in point of extent, and still more inferior in wealth, commerce, and civilisation. In point of fact, the French king possessed, at that time, nothing to the south of the Loire. He had, it is true, a suzerainty over the greater number of the various petty potentates, among whom that fine country was divided ;-but it was little more than nominal, and frequently resisted and disputed, even to that limited extent. In the present instance, Louis endeavoured to exert, if not to stretch, the rights of a suzerain over a vassal-by commanding Henry not to marry without his consent. But as the practical extent of these rights was usually commensurate with the power of the respective parties, Henry paid no sort of attention to this mandate ;-but, having married Eleanor, did homage to the French king for the possessions which he had gained through her. To the inhabitants of Aquitaine, this change of husbands, on the part of their duchess, was by no means displeasing. It seems to have been the universal line of policy of the petty independencies, in the south of France, to endeavour to ally themselves as much as possible with potentates at a distance from their frontiers, and to shun connection with those in nearer neighbourhood. They felt that their liberties, even their distinctive existence, were likely to merge in a great neighbouring power, while from a distant ruler they had nothing of this kind to fear; and he, at the same time, would be able to protect them from encroachments on the former part, and would have a personal interest in doing so. Thus, therefore, the Aquitains, however they might have preferred a chief born among themselves, -received with pleasure rather than otherwise, the assumption by Henry of the title and powers of duke, which, according to the customs of the time, his late marriage entitled him to assume. Not long after this event, Henry became Count of Anjou, by the death of his father; on the condition, however, (to which he swore), of yielding it to his younger brother Geoffrey, as soon as he succeeded to the English crown. This stipulation he never fulfilled; but, exercising the right of the strongest, he retained the in heritance of his brother by force; after whose death, he still further extended his possessions in France, oy the acquisition of Brittany. This originated in the pretended right of Henry to the small county of Nantes; which, detaching itself from Celtic Brittany, of which it had been only a forced appendage, had called Geoffrey of Anjou, the dispossessed brother, to be their Count. As the inheritance of this very brother, did Henry claim Nantes and its territory ;-and by getting his foot into this stirrup, did he ultimately ride supreme over Brittany altogether. Thus did he become possessed of the whole western coast of France, south of Picardy; and this was the zenith of the English power on the continent, previously to the time of Henry V. But, though the inhabitants of Aquitaine preferred the alliance of the English to that of the French king, they still looked back with regret to the times when they were governed by one of their own nation, chosen by themselves to the times, in a word, of their national independence. To regain this they made several struggles: especially, they took advantage of the dissension between Henry II. and his sons, to further this purpose. The county of Poitou, which had been a part of Eleanor's dowry, as well as Aquitaine, had already been given to prince Richard, and the Aquitains more than once placed him at their head, in their revolts against his father. The repeated revolts, however, which took place in Aquitaine, during the latter part of the reign of Henry II., did not take it from under subjection to the English crown. On the contrary, it was destined to remain attached to our kings, after their old inheritance of Normandy was wrested from them, and incorporated with France. The immediate cause of this loss was the death of Arthur of Brittany. Normandy, in despite of the many points of collision which existed between it and France, properly so called, became amalgamated with it in a period singularly short. Before half a century had elapsed, the feelings of the Normans were completely identified with those of the French, and became entirely sundered and foreign from their ancient brethren on the other side of the channel. But Aquitaine still remained. Poitou, indeed, passed under the power of the French king; but further it did not extend. One of the most important of the many errors which arise, in reading the history of early times, from giving modern signification to words, is with reference to the kingdom of France. Even at the period of which I am treating, the beginning of the 13th century, it was only slowly, and by degrees, extending itself to the south of the Loire. When Philip Augustus embarked for Palestine, France, strictly so called, did not possess a single port in the Mediterranean; nay, it did not reach to within many leagues of it. By the death of Arthur and the forfeiture of John, Poitou was now added to Philip's dominions; and as they thus adjoined Aquitaine, the people of the latter country, true to the principle I have more than once alluded to, adhered the more closely to England, in consequence of the nearer neighbourhood of France. During the reign of Henry III., there seems to have been but slight variation in the state of Aquitaine; and its affairs seem to have gone on very peaceably from this time till, in the middle of the subsequent reign, when Edward I. was immersed in his Scottish projects, Philip the Bold took advantage of a quarrel between the crews of a French and an English vessel, near Bayonne, to prosecute the ambitious views which the kings of France had long had upon Aquitaine. He accordingly sent a citation to Edward to appear before him at Paris, as his vassal for the duchy of Aquitaine, to answer for the outrages committed by his Gascon subjects. With this Edward did not choose to comply; but he sent his brother Edmund, earl of Lancaster, to Paris, to negociate on the subject. Philip, however, who was exceedingly irritated, |