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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 239



performed the sendee ; and, in an impressive funeral sermon, urged his hearers, with all the eloquence in his power, to imitate the worthy example of her who, although a Queen, had had the Holy Scriptures translated into her native tongue, and daily read and diligently studied a portion of them. On the burial of the Queen, Richard was so overwhelmed with sorrow, that, to divert his melancholy, he was advised to visit his Irish dominions, then in rebellion. "All this and the next year," says Froissart, " he appeared inconsolable ; and it was not till full ten months after Anne's death, that he eould decide on a tomb worthy of her memory ; and even then, so linked was his heart in hers, that, on the tomb made of fine marble, he had the monumental statue of himself placed by the side of the Queen's, with her hand clasped within his." The tomb was began in 1395, and ordered to be completed by 1397. The marble part was made by Messrs. Yemely and Lot Loudon, stone-masons. The effigies were formed of copper by Messrs, Rroker and Priest, citizens and coppersmiths, and, according to the "Feedcra," the whole was to cost four hundred pounds. On a tablet by the side of her tomb is a Latin ineription, of which the following is a translation by Skelton :— "Queen Anne, Richard the Second's wife, Lyeth buried in this place, Adorned with the Britons' crown, "With whom she found much grace. Whose noble sire, of daughter proud, Of son-in-law full glad, Of Rome thrice happy Emperor was, And that large empire had. Winceslaus so called by name, Who thus in joyful plight, SeTit her to London guarded well, With valiant men of might, Against whom comming plays were made, And sights and shows were seen, With princely pomp to gratify This noble virgin queen. But all men's treasures last not long, They hang but on a twine Of slender thread, death kings and queen Doth all catch up in fine. This queen was of the royal race Of Romana by descent, Of all beloved, most dear to most, In honour reluceiit. Full liberal and bountiful, Adorned with virtues rare ; No child she had, hut issueless She lies without much care." It would be an act of injustice to the memory of the gentle Anne of Bohemia, to conclude these memoirs without mentioning that in her the renowned poet Chaucer found a patroness, and a warm and sincere friend. With Richard, Chaucer had been intimate from his early childhood. Previous to 1384, he filled more than one public appointment ; but in that year he became involved in the riots of the Lollards, as the followers of Wickliffe were called; and, as these transactions endangered his personal liberty, he fled to Holland, and when he returned, two years afterwards, he was imprisoned in the Tower, where, in all likelihood, he would have remained till the day of his death, had not the good Queen Anne by earnest entreaties procured his liberation, and appointment as clerk of the works, a kindness which he ever afterwards remembered, and for which he in numbera sweet, and tones of earnest gratitude, addressed her in the prologue to hie legend of Godo Women, as— " The clereness and the veray light That in this darke world me wins and ledeth, The herte within my sorrowful brest you dredeth, And loveth so sure, that ye ben verily The maistress of my wit, and nothing I." Again, in " the Cuckoo and the Nightingale," he alludes to • ' A maple that is fair and grene, lïefore the chamber window of the Quene At Woodstock."


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