heavy piece of furniture, which he had brought with him; but not till the inn had many times changed owners did the landlady find that it had a double bottom filled with gold pieces; but the poor woman suffered for her discovery, for her maid, with seven men, murdered her for the sake of the treasure, and were all hanged in 1613. The bed, beautifully inlaid with various coloured wood, still exists, and the inn remained till 1836, when it was unmercifully pulled down.

On that dreary moor of Bosworth ended the royalty of the great House of Anjou. The last King was but thirty-three years old, and in ability and courage was fully equal to any of his race; though even his apologists cannot deny that the darkest side of their fierce and ambitious nature had descended to him, and that even if the deaths of Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI., of his brother Clarence and his young nephews, be not laid to his charge, and that of Buckingham were justifiable, the destruction of Hastings and the three nobles at Pontefract was a monstrous violation of all law and justice. It is true that his reign was full of sagacious acts of clear-sighted wisdom, and that had it been prolonged, he would probably not have been classed with King John as a monarch, whatever he might be as an uncle; and it is also true that he fell by a conspiracy of a few nobles, not by a national rising, and that he had not fair play in his last battle, but was betrayed by the treacherous inactivity of Northumberland, and the more treacherous attacks of the Stanleys; but all this does not alter the fact that he deserved to fall.

Our greatest poet, mere play-wright though he deemed himself, beheld the hand of Heaven in the wonderful history, and pointed it out to us in the grand cycle of chronicles-beginning with the crime of Henry IV.; then shewing the retribution falling on the meek Henry VI., but displaying how those who struggled for their right became hardened and forgetful of all save ambition, till they destroyed one another, and the sun of Plantagenet went down in blood upon Bosworth Field, after four hundred years, during which-if we take into account the collateral branches-there never was a time (except perhaps the interval between John's death and Edward the First's birth) when the family was without a member as notable for his abilities as his birth.

On that 22nd of August, 1485, the only male bearer of the name of Plantagenet was the idiot boy, Edward of Clarence, Earl of Warwick, who perished a few years later by a cruel act of injustice on Henry Tudor's part, in order to obtain the confidence of Ferdinand of Castille; and his sister Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, died even more tragically under the second Henry Tudor. The five daughters of Edward IV. likewise survived; Elizabeth to unite her rights to those of Henry VII., three more to marry English nobles, and the youngest to become a nun.

There remained Richard's illegitimate three. Of John no more is heard, and he probably died with his father at Bosworth, as he generally

seems to have been with him. Katharine seems to have led an ordinary life as Countess of Huntingdon; but of the boy who saw his father first on that bloody morning there is a curious story. He fled in terror when he saw the royal standard fall; and after nearly starving, he offered himself to work for a stone-mason at Eastwell, in Kent, where he toiled, unknown, till he became a very old man, when, in Queen Elizabeth's days, he told his story to the lord of the manor, who gave him leave to build a cottage in his grounds, where he remained till his death. The foundations of the cottage and the well belonging to it still remain, and the parish register of Eastwell contains the notice of the burial :—

Anno Domini, 1560,

RYCHARD PLANTAGENET was buried the xxii day of Decembre,
Anno de supra.

One brighter page let us turn, ere closing the ghastly record of the Wars of the Roses, namely, the joy of the long crushed and persecuted Lancastrians, who had suffered so severely for the passionate revenge of their Queen. Dear to romance is the story of John Clifford, the infant son of the noble who slew young Edmund of York on Wakefield bridge. His mother feared even to keep him with her, though she was married to a kindly northern gentleman, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld; but placed him under the charge of a Cumberland shepherd, where he tended the flock on the hills, in ignorance of his birth, but learning all 'the secret lore of rural things,' till the fall of the House of York made him one of the greatest barons of the north. Brave yet gentle, a good knight yet with a heart for the poor, the Shepherd Lord Clifford was deeply loved in the northern hills. His early love is sung in the popular ballad of the Nut Brown Maid,'-dressed up in Prior's Henry and Emma;' and his return to his native home is beautifully commemorated in Wordsworth's Feast of Brougham Castle.

(To be continued.)

THE ANGEL OF BRITTANY.

BY C. MILLER.

CHAPTER III.

THE long nursing Maria de la Fruglaye had gone through, combined with the grief she felt on the death of her father, did not fail to affect her health. She remained for a month at Kèranroux, praying unceasingly for the soul of M. de la Fruglaye; and then went to Kerdüel, where she remained for some time with Madame de Champagny. After this she returned to Keranroux, where she stayed but a very short while. Her

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PART 64.

desire was to enter a convent at once; but her spiritual director, her doctor, and her friends, all advised her to remain at Pau during the winter, as they considered her health in too shattered a state to admit of anything but perfect rest. She therefore decided to leave Keranroux early in November. At last, says Madame de Champagny, 'came the moment of separation, so painful for Maria, for us, for her friends, for the poor-indeed, I might say for the whole country round; for all regretted her, but most secretly hoped she would return. I went with her as far as Morlaix, and every moment I feared she was going to have one of her old attacks of nervous spasms, but her strong will conquered her weak and worn-out body, and she managed the journey very well as far as Paris.' There she remained for a few days at the Convent des Oiseaux, and again proposed to begin her life as a religieuse. But the Reverend Mère Sophie would not allow it, feeling sure her friends were wise in entreating her to take some months of entire rest; and Maria, who ever preferred the path of obedience, went on her way to Pau.

We have seen how fondly attached to Brittany she was, and how much she suffered in leaving that well-loved soil; but now, when she had said adieu to these good sisters, whose loving welcome had fallen very gratefully on the heart of the desolate woman, she felt alone indeed. Perhaps no one can estimate the real force of human ties till the moment they are broken; and Maria seems to have been almost overpowered by the sense of desolation which came upon her. The journey from Paris to Pau was to her the first step of the road which led indeed to the place where she would be; but it was full of thorns, which pierced ber bleeding heart, and of sharp stones which wounded her tender feet. She writes thus: How I suffered during that melancholy journey! Hardly less, I think, than in losing my beloved father. Oh, my dear friend, what a haven of rest blest Heaven will seem to us, for our hearts are more fitted to suffer in this world than to rejoice! To be united without the dread of separation, to be secure in the possession of supreme good-an eternity in which to be happy! How short life will seem as we look back upon it, and our crosses will seem futile in proportion to their weight of glory! Speak to me sometimes, nay often, of all that so deeply interests me-of our friends and of the poor, who are the friends of our Sovereign Master.'

She found, however, at Pau the true secret of comfort—that of helping others yet more sad than herself; and it is very touching to note how she seemed to find out by instinct the Breton families, who chance, or more truly Providence, had led to Pau whilst she was there. Nor did care for those near her prevent her from remembering those far away. In a letter to a friend in Brittany, to whom she had confided several of her poor, she says:

'You will laugh at the first thing I am going to ask you to do for me; but never mind, a good laugh will do neither you nor me any harm, when it is not at the expense of any one, but I hope for their profit.

I have discovered that at Pau a good livelihood is made as artiste shoeblack, a trade little known at Morlaix. From this I have conceived the notion that F might make his fortune in this way, especially as he has already some notions thereon, from being a cobbler. I have therefore received all the needful instructions for the kind of box and the tools to furnish it with. I enclose a pattern of the box. The blacking and the India-rubber will be brought from Paris by my sister, so that the polish may shine with an unusual lustre. But I don't believe Fcapable of becoming a shoe-black of renown without the help of your good counsels, aided by the practical lessons of your servant. You must make him understand that he must be found where the omnibuses stop, at the library door at the hour people go there; in one word, he must be everywhere where there is a chance of employment for him. By-thebye, he might very likely find regular work in those houses where they keep few or no servants, and where they would engage him to go every morning to brush and black shoes and sabots. He should also have a clothes-brush, with which for the fee of one or two liards he would brush those who wish to be brushed. For this he should get from thirty to forty francs a month, according to the number of shoes. Now don't think F- may make his fortune by becoming the first shoe-black

you
of Morlaix?'

We are struck

once that F

by the clear practical sense with which she sees at is more likely to become a good shoe-black, because he is already a cobbler, with the minute details which rendered the benevolent scheme easy for her friend to carry out, and also with the grace and charm she contrives to throw over a very prosaic subject.

She had not been long at Pau when the cholera re-appeared in Brittany. She writes thus: 'Dear friend, I have just received your letter, and was on the point of writing to you..... Ah! how much more I suffer in my exile from all my friends, now that I know to what dangers they are exposed! But what use could I be to them now if I were with them, having so little strength at command? Perhaps the great sacrifice of quitting them, and prayer, to which I can devote more time here than there, are the offerings which God wishes me to bring. Certainly it would cost nte less to be nursing them if I were near; and I believe if the epidemic had broken out a fortnight earlier it would have kept me in Brittany. Doubtless Providence had other purposes for me to fulfil, and His thoughts are not always our thoughts. . . . How often we say, I do not care for myself; it is for those belonging to me. But they are all as much the children of God as we are, and we are no less obliged to believe in His holy Providence over them than over ourselves. . . . Dear friends, when your children throw themselves in the fullness of their hearts into your arms, they give you a lesson of faith in the God Whọ has deigned to say, "A mother may forget her sucking child, before I will forsake him who puts his trust in Me." When our fate depends on a cherished father or a devoted friend, are we uneasy and troubled?'

The quiet unexciting life she led at Pau seems to have been the very best she could have chosen at this time. As she grew stronger, she delighted in walking all over the beautiful country around her, and in studying the geology of its mountains and the flora of its woods. Her enlightened mind was always on the alert to make the most of every power and every opportunity; and when we follow her into her convent cell, we shall admire the use she made of the knowledge of every kind she had acquired in the world. Day by day her resolution grew stronger to keep to her plan of entering the Convent des Oiseaux; but firm as was her resolve, we must not suppose it cost her nothing. On the contrary, as in saying adieu to Brittany, she discovered how deeply its love was engrafted in her very soul; so when she felt that the step she was about to take would separate her for ever on earth from that 'amitié parlante,' so precious to her affectionate nature, she did not disguise from herself the magnitude of the sacrifice she was desired to make before Him, Who says, 'My son, give Me thy heart.' Maria was no ascetic on whom social ties had feeble hold, but a warm, tender, loving woman; and again and again she reiterates the prayer that God would render her able to say, 'I delight to do Thy Will.' It may be urged against this, that Maria was now fulfilling what had been the avowed desire of her heart since childhood, and that if she were indeed so great a saint, how could there be for her any trial in a convent life? Just for this reason, that had she been dead to all the sweet charities of life, and only conscious of spiritual joys, the life of a religieuse would have involved no sacrifice, no self-denial; and if in her vocation she bore no cross, how could she look for the Heavenly crown? The sister religieuse, to whom we are indebted for all that we know of Maria de la Fruglaye, says very truly on this point, 'The biographies of saints rarely furnish any record of their hours of weakness and despondency, yet their lives must contain failures, and strivings, and temptations: hence, though we hear of virtue practised, no appearance of the effort it has required ever meets our eyes; and in time we begin to think that the Saints were not people like ourselves, and therefore it is no use for us to try to imitate them.' Knowing, as we do, how dearly loved Maria was by her friends, we are not surprised to find that her resolution no longer to defer taking the veil met with considerable opposition from them. We have in a long letter to Madame de Champagny a clear view of the grounds of their opposition and of Maria's answers thereto. In the first place, they urged that her delicate health would never allow her to endure the hardships of conventual life; to this she replies, that the doctor she consulted on the subject told her, 'As a friend and as a man of the world, I shall be very sorry to see you enter Les Oiseaux, because I believe you could do much more for God by remaining in the world. As a doctor, my conscience obliges me to tell you that there are many cases of deplorably bad health, which are very much improved by cloister life, and yours may be amongst the number.' Secondly, her friends reminded her of her family ties; but she truly said