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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 270



m effect, if not in words, admitted that he had unjustly plundered and impri soned her. The restitution of Joanna's sequestered S ropertywas found to be a matter of great ïrficulty. Henry the Fifth had sold, mortgaged, or given away the whole of it ; his consort, Katherine of France, had received a large part of the dower; the Abbess Syon had come in for a thousand marks ; numerous grants had been made to other persons ; and, indeed, it had been so disposed of, that without the aid of parliament it could not be regained. But this aid Joanna applied for, and obtained, in the second year of Henry the Sixth ; from which time we hear no more com plaints on the matter. From the period of her restoration to liberty, Joanna passed her remaining years mostly at her favourite Palaces of Langley or Havering Bower, in quiet retirement. But though she had in a great measure withdrawn from the world, she paid occasional visits to court, and maintained a state and dignity befitting her exalted station. AV'ith advancing age her avariciousness and meanness increased. To art, to the cause of religion, and other good works she afforded little or no encouragement ; she seldom gave alms, and then under no circumstances more than a mark at a time. She appears to have experienced some difficulty in procuring her foreign income, as in 1430, and again two years afterwards, she entreated her son, the Duke of Brittany, to procure the arrears due to her from the eounty of Nantes. AYith the young King Henry the Sixth she maintained an affectionate intercourse. On one occasion she presented the youthful monarch with a unique gold tablet, on which the figure of St. George was formed with sapphires, rubies, and other precious stones; andini 437, he, in return, sent her a " golden tablyt with eight large pearls, four baleys, rubes, and a grete sap phir in ye middle." It was in this year that death put a period to the existence of Joanna of Navarre. Of the mournful event nothing is known beyond the fact that she died at Havering Bower, on the ninth of July, 1437. In compliance with her own desire, she was entombed in the grave of her second husband, Henry the Fourth, in the chapel of St. Thomas à Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral. Her funeral was pompous, and attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and most of the leading prelates and nobles. The body rested on its way to Canterbury at Bermondsey Abbey, where the monks watched and prayed by it the night through, and a solemn service was performed before it was removed in the morning. The effigy of Joanna of Navarre reposes by the side of that of her husband, Henry the Fourth, on the splendid altartomb prepared by her royal commands for that monarch. The tomb is still in tolerable preservation ; and presuming the effigy to be a correct likeness, Joanna must certainly have been a woman of surpassing loveliness. The features are regular and even ; her figure rather slim, but round and finely modelled. She is robed in a rich flowing mantle, with a crown on her head, an elegant S.S. collar encirclingher throat, and a bandof choice jewels round her waist. She wears several brooches, studs, and other female ornaments, and her dress is remarkably elegant and graceful. At her feet is the badge of Brittany, and on the canopy of her tomb, her paternal arms, with her motto " Temperance," are carved in bold relief.


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