Page:The Queens of England.djvu/164

 138 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. seem to have bent to this ungenial career ; and whenever a moment's pause could be obtained, there was Philippa's hand ever promptly ready to disseminate the useful virtues, and to promote and cultivate the general good. Hers was no visionary, fantastic mind, vainly and frivolously aspiring to imaginary and vapid excellences ; all that she did was real, substantial, and productive always of actual good, and frequently so permanent, that its effects have endured until our own times. In fact, she does not appear to have had in her disposition one spark of sentimental romance, but to have been prudent, affec- tionate, benevolent, active, generous, and signally endowed with the faculty of perceiving and advocating homely and beneficial truths. She was not, however, devoid of a sense of queenly state, or incapable of magnificence ; she was far from being ignoble or penurious ; yet even in her pageantries she had an eye to the public weal. Unlike the French signioral lady of the last century, who attempted to rejoice her retainers' hearts by supplying the prettiest of their children with spangled tunics, silk breechings, and wings of silver foil, Philippa's more prosaic philanthropy would have detected that the peasant parents of the spurious Cupidons had themselves not only an equally scanty clothing for a wintry climate, but also an in- sufficiency of fuel and sustenance. In fact, she was a judicious and benevolent princess, and a good and amiable woman. Froissart says of her last days : — "I must now speak of the death of the most courteous, liberal, and noble lady that ever reigned in her time, the Lady Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England. While her son, the Duke of Lancaster, was encamped in the valley of Tonneham, ready to give battle to the Duke of Burgundy, her death happened in England, to the infinite mis- fortune of King Edward, his children, and the whole kingdom. That excellent lady, the queen, who had done so much good, aiding all knights, ladies, arid damsels, when distressed, who had applied to her, lay at this time dangerously sick at Windsor Castle, and every day her disorder increased. "When the good queen perceived that her end approached, she called to the king, and extending her hand from under the bedclothes, put it into the hand of King Edward, who was op- pressed with sorrow, and thus spoke : " 'We have, my husband, enjoyed our long career in hap- piness, peace, and prosperity. But I entreat, before I depart, and we are forever separated in this world, that you will grant me these requests.'