Page:The Queens of England.djvu/170

 144 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. Scotland, was destined to end for ever the influence of Joanna. Lord Stafford, son to the Earl of Stafford, being sent by the king with messages to Anne (who had appointed him her knight and shown him many well-merited marks of favor), he was met at York by Sir John Holland, the king's half- brother, who having long entertained towards him the most violent jealousy, partly on account of the adoration shown him by the army, and partly from the queen's regard, sought a quarrel with him, the ostensible cause of which was that Lord Stafford's archers had, while protecting a Bohemian knight, an adherent of the queen's, slain a squire of Sir John Holland's. Seizing upon this pretext, Sir John attacked Lord Stafford, and, without hesitation or parley, killed him on the spot. The king, furious at this brutal murder, and still further ex- cited by the passionate appeals of the bereaved father for ven- geance on the slayer of his noble son, declared that justice should be done ; and, despite the prayers and tears of the un- happy Joanna for her guilty son, vowed, that as soon as his brother should leave the sanctuary of St. John of Beverley, whither he had fled, he should suffer death as the punishment of his crime. Such was the effect of this determination on the princess, that after four days of violent grief she expired at Wallingford, and Richard was so deeply shocked and afflicted at this melancholy event, that he pardoned the offender, who shortly afterwards departed for Syria on a pilgrimage. It had been well for Richard, had he never returned. It is with regret that we have to record one act of the gentle queen, for the injustice of which there is no defense. Richard's prime favorite, Robert de Vere, duke of Ireland, having fallen violently in love with an attendant of the queen's, resolved to put away his wife, Philippa, grand-daughter to Edward the Third, being the child of his daughter Isabel, by Enguerrand de Coucy, the king's near relative, in order to marry this woman. Historians differ widely in their statements as to the birth of the lady in question. Speed says she was "a Bohemian of base birth, called in her mother-tongue LancerOne ;" and Wal- singham calls her "Scllarii fflia" a saddler's daughter ; while Rymer states that she was landgravine of Luxemburg; and Carte mentions her as "a Bohemian lady of the queen's bed- chamber, called the landgrave, a fine woman, very pleasant and agreeable in conversation..