The latter appears to have cherished, as after he ascended the throne, he pre even to manhood, a kindly feeling- tosented her with twenty shillings for wards Mary of Caernarvon, the woman coming from the western cxtremitv of who tended him in hie early infancy, Wales to see him. CHAPTEE III. Death of Prince AFphonso—Misfortune of the King of Castile—The Princess Mary takes the veil—Life of a nun—Merry life of the nun Princess—Devotion of'the royal family—Aquatic excursion—Eleanora accompanies her royal lord to the continent—Her children remain in England—The Jews—Edward's extortions from them—They are banished—Marriages of the Princesses Joanna and Margaret —Eleanora's jewels. I Ν August, 1284, At the earnest request of Eleanora, death deprived the King Edward interfered in his behalf, King and Queen of but to no purpose ; Alphonso regarding their heir, Prince his subjects as fools, quietly pursued his Alphonso, whose abstruse studies in prison, where ho health had long been died, regretted by few save his learned in a declining state. assistants. Being a prince of Although in matters of religion, Elea promising parts, and already betrothed nora, like her royal lord, kept the happy to the only daughter of Florence, Karl medium between bold infidelity and blind of Flanders, his demise severely affected fanaticism, she was compelled in 1285, his parents, and cast a transient gloom to yield to the superstitions of her era. over the English court. He breathed The dignitaries of the church had long his last at Windsor, in the eleventh implored her to dedicate one of her nu year of his age, and by the desire of his merous flock to the cloister, and with a sorrowing mother, his body was con heavy heart she at length assented that her daughter, the Princess Mary, should veyed to Westminster, where it was sobe veiled a nun. The profession of lemnly interred by the side of his brothe Princess, then seven years old, took place on the fifteenth of August, at Amthers, John and Henry, and a statue erected to his memory. His heart, howbrosbury convent, in the presence of the ever, was taken out, and sent by EleaKing, Queen, the whole of the royal nora to her favourite order the Friars family, and the leading prelates and noPreachers, who entombed it with pombles of the kingdom. Although pledged S ous obsequies in their church in Lon to a life of celibacy and piety, the future on. existence of the Princess Mary was nei Shortly after this sad event, Eleather a solitary nor a gloomy one. Innora's beloved brother, Alphonso the deed, in that age, when the only reliTenth, King of Castile, met with a segion was the Roman Catholic, the movere reverse. By neglecting state afnastic vow was in practice little more fairs for the study of astronomy and than one of perpetual chastity, and so mathematics, this learned Prince, and long as the nun did not permanently ab inventor of the celebrated Alphonsine sent herself from her convent, nor pub Tables of Astronomy, so greatly offended licly violate her oath—then deemed the his chivalric subjects, that they promost sacred of pledges—she, if possessed nounced him a conjuror, who dealt with ι of the affluence and rank, could take an the devil, and supported the pretensions active and a right merry part in the ge-GÌ his unnatural son, Sancho the Brave, I neral affairs of life. For it was only by whom he was deposed and imprisoned.