Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/572

558 but the advantages of the reduction of Meaux were as distinguished as the costs; for it laid all the north of France as far as the Loire, with the exception of Maine, Anjou, and a few castles in Picardy, under his dominion. Whilst he lay before Meaux, however, he received the joyful intelligence of the safe delivery of his queen of a son, who had received his own name; the Duke of Bedford, the Bishop of Winchester, and Jacqueline Countess of Hainault and Holland—who proved the cause of many misfortunes to the infant prince—being sponsors at his baptism.

Paris in the Fifteenth Century.

One thing, however, troubled his joy on this auspicious event. Henry had probably studied the so-called science of astrology at Oxford, for it was part of the heap of rubbish regarded as real knowledge at that time. On leaving England, therefore, he strictly enjoined Catherine not to lie-in at Windsor, for he had ascertained that the planets cast forward a lowering shadow upon Windsor, in the week when she might expect her confinement. From waywardness, or some other cause, Catherine especially chose as the place of her accouchement the forbidden spot—a conduct which she lived bitterly to rue. On the news being brought to Henry at Meaux, he eagerly demanded where the boy was born, and on being told it was at Windsor, he appeared greatly struck and chagrined, and repeated to his chamberlain, Lord Fitzhugh, the following lines:—