Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/441

Rh came in the middle of the night, to tell her that the council had resolved to arrest her, the earl of Kent, and Mortimer, in order to deliver them up to the English. He counselled her to retire into Hainault; and could not have given her better advice. She found there, in John, brother of the earl of Hainault, a new knight, yet more zealous, more affected by the recital of her sufferings, than Robert d'Artois had been; he vowed to replace her upon the throne of England; and when his brother, to whose second daughter the queen had married her son, prince Edward, represented the danger and uncertainty of such an enter prize, he answered. He had but one death to die, and every loyal knight ought to assist, to the utmost of his power, ladies in distress. He departed with 3000 men only, not doubting that a queen, so beautiful and unfortunate, would meet with defenders; and his romance proved true. He disembarked with her in a port of Sussex, where her army increased at every step. The king and the Spencers shut themselves up in Bristol. Isabella besieged and took it. The Spencers were put to death in a most cruel manner, and' she began to be less interesting to her followers.

Her husband was shut up in the castle of Kenilworth, and Isabella sent to demand the great seal of him, to convoke the parliament, which was to depose him. He was deposed, degraded, and insulted; and the pity of the people began to be raised. The hypocritical tears which the impudent Isabella affected to shed for the fate of her husband, as if that fate had not depended upon her, but only upon the nation, could not impose upon them. She and Mortimer feared the effects of this pity.

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