Page:The Queens of England.djvu/154

 PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT, CONSORT OF EDWARD THE THIRD. Hainau — or, as we usually spell it, Hainault — had the honor of giving birth to one of the best queens-consort which England ever possessed. She was the daughter of William the Third, surnamed the Good, Count of Hainau and Holland. Her mother was Jane of Valois, daughter of Charles of France, Count de Valois, and sister of that Philip of Valois to whom Edward subsequently proved so injurious an antagonist. Dur- ing, therefore, all the long warfare which occurred between France and England, prior to the year 1350, Philippa could never see a husband triumph but at the expense of an uncle. After that period, the monarch who succeeded to the throne was, in one degree, less closely allied to her ; yet in the captive, John the Good, she possessed a cousin-german. In those days, however, when the most abominable violations of the claims of the closest consanguinity were wilfully practiced with a frequency which rendered mankind habituated to the contem- plation of them, Philippa probably did not find her conscience much burdened by her husband's infraction of her own ties of lineage. Edward's iniquitous mother, Isabella of France, was, for her own selfish and wicked purposes, the origin of his marriage with Philippa. When this vile woman, or she-wolf, as she was called, quitted England, in order to organize on the continent a conspiracy for the subversion of her weak and unfortunate husband from his throne, she cared little at what price, or at whose cost and sacrifice, she obtained countenance and coadju- tors. For this purpose, one of her first expedients was to affiance her son Edward, then a boy whose age was less than fifteen years, to the daughter of any powerful nobleman who would abet her bad cause. The ally she required she found in I JO