[Original]
was Henry's own subject he had to pay a heavy fine, which his majesty pocketed for his own private wants.
Queen Eleanor was lying ill at Wark Castle, and requested her daughter Margaret, with the young king of Scotland, to join her without delay. They obeyed, and as soon as the royal mother was convalescent, accompanied her to Woodstock, where King Henry joined them. The court was kept with extraordinary splendor at that beautiful palace, which contained three kings and three queens, with their retinues, during the winter of 1255, for besides the English and the Scottish royal couples, there was Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had been elected King of the Romans, and his second wife, Queen Eleanor's sister.
[Original]
They all made a public entry into London in February, wearing their crowns and royal robes, and the entire populace assembled to witness the splendid procession. After the departure of the royal visitors, there was a season of misery and gloom caused by a dreadful famine, and by the drain that had been made on the public treasury by the King and Queen of the Romans, who, on departing for Aix-la-Chapelle, where they were to be crowned, carried with them seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. Added to this were the battles of the barons, to whom both Henry and Eleanor had made themselves obnoxious by frequent acts of selfishness and injustice, and finally the shameful attack upon the Jews, whose wealth had excited the envy of the nation.
The mob was led on by the Marshal of London and John Fitz-John, a powerful baron, killing and plundering without mercy, men, women and children of that noble race, and driving hundreds from their beds into the street half clad as they were. The next morning they began again with such demoniacal yells that the queen, who was at the Tower, was so terrified that she got into her barge with several of her ladies, intending to escape to Windsor Castle. But as soon as the populace observed the royal barge, they made a rush for the bridge, crying: "Drown the witch!—drown the witch!" at the same pelting the queen with mud and trying to sink the vessel by hurling down huge blocks of wood and stone that they tore from the unfinished bridge. There was nothing for Eleanor to do but to hasten back to the Tower, where she remained until nightfall, then sought shelter in the Bishop of London's palace at St. Paul's, whence she was privately removed to Windsor Castle, where Prince Edward was garrisoned with his troops.
A.D. 1264. While the civil war continued King Henry took the queen and her children to France, where she remained under the care of King Louis and her sister Margaret.