ANNE OF BOHEMIA, ^irst (unni! nf Eirjmrìi φ # intuir. CHAPTER I. Vain endeavours io obtain a consort for Richard tlie Second—Successful négociationsfor the hand of Anne of Bohemia—Her birth—Parentage—Lack of personalcharms—Disposition—Procurators for her marriage appointed—Theirproceedings—The marriage delayed by the Wat Tyler insurrection—Anne journeys to England—Her reception—Marriage to Richard the Second—Coronation—Head-dress, side saddles, pins, introduced by her—Her dower—Religious opinions—Bohemianknight slain—The King condemns his brother—Death of the Princess of Wales— The Duke of Ireland falls in love with one of the Queen's maids. LTHOtJGH when blind King of Bohemia, who fell at the Richard the Second battle of Cressy, whilst bravely fighting ascended the throne in the cause of France. Her mother, he was a hoy in the Elizabeth, daughter of Bogislaus, Duke eleventh year of his of Stetten, and grand-daughter to Casiage, his council, two mir the Third, King of Poland, was the years afterwards, enfourth wife of the Emperor Charles ; and tered into négociabeing a princess of great parts and virtue, tions for his marriage with a daughter she educated her family with the utmost of the Duke of Milan; but this project care ; and to this is the kind, gentle disfailed; and in the subsequent year an position of the amiable Anne greatly effort was made to obtain for him the to be attributed. hand of a daughter of the late Emperor Anne of Bohemia possessed few or no Lewis, but with no better success. The personal charms. Several of our chronicouncil next proposed an alliance with clers call her the beauteous queen ; but Anne of Bohemia, and her uncle, the they certainly have erred in so doing, as Emperor Wencalaus, lent a willing ear her figure was short, square, and undigto the suit. nified, her forehead and chin narrow and The Princess Anne entered the world peaky, her cheeks high and bony, her at Prague, in Bohemia, about the year complexion sallow and muddy, and her 1367. Her father, Charles the Fourth, face vacant and inexpressive, This lack King of Bohemia, and Emperor of Ger-of beauty, however, was more than counmanyj—a monarch remarkable for duterbalanced by a rightly-directed, wellplicity and avarice,—was the son of the informed mind, and a tender, sympa