A.D. 1339. Thus fell the son of the Black Prince at the early age of thirty-two, and Queen Isabella was made a widow before she was thirteen.
The King of France was suffering from an attack of insanity, therefore could take no steps for the restoration of his daughter, but the French council requested Henry IV. to allow her to return to her native land. He refused, saying "that she should reside in England, as all other queen-dowagers had done, in great honor; and that if she had unluckily lost a husband she should be provided with another who would be young, handsome, and in every way deserving of her love, that person being no other than the Prince of Wales." But Isabella mourned her murdered spouse so sincerely that she rejected the gallant Henry of Monmouth and no longer felt any pride in being Queen of England.
When Charles VI. recovered, he sent ambassadors to inquire into the condition of his daughter in England, and to make arrangements for her return. But it was not until late in July, eighteen months after the death of Richard II. that his widow was restored to her parents. Henry had seized her jewels and dower, and refused to give them up.
A.D. 1402. The goodness and amiable disposition of the youthful queen had won the affection of her English ladies, and when she parted from them they wept so much
that she was obliged to comfort them, though she, too, was in tears.
In 1406 Henry IV. again proposed for the hand of Isabella for the Prince of Wales, declaring that if the marriage could be brought about he would abdicate the English crown in favor of his son. But the little queen had meanwhile promised to marry her cousin, Charles of Angoulême, sun of the Duke of Orleans. An unfavorable answer was therefore given to the English ambassadors, who were very much displeased at their failure.
Isabella was not married to her cousin until the murder of his father by the Duke of Burgundy made him Duke of Orleans.
A.D. 1410. She loved him dearly, and lived happily with him for nearly two years, but she was only a little more than twenty-one when her death occurred. This Duke of Orleans was a celebrated poet, whose compositions are still read in France. We quote one written shortly after his sad bereavement, but it is much prettier in the original French:—
"Alas!
Death, who made thee so bold,