to a heart, as to a city, found no such word as fail in the bright lexicon of his youthful ardor.

Some time after the wedding the royal couple crossed over to their island kingdom, and Catherine was crowned at Westminster.

In 1422, troubles in France called him again to lead his armies there, but in the stress of a campaign he was stricken with a fatal fever. There was to be another feature of likeness between his career and that of the Black Prince; each a great leader and a successful soldier in the long wars with France came to his end in the kingdom which had been the unhappy scene of his triumphs; each was the father of an unwarlike son who was not able to keep his crown upon his head; nor, indeed, to keep his head.

Guizot, describing the death scene, concludes: "His voice died away; he closed his eyes, and amid the prayers which were repeated around him, the great soul of King Henry V entered into eternal repose."

HENRY VI, 1422-1461.

DURING the two decades following the death of the warrior Henry, England was that unhappy kingdom whose king was a child-a child left the heir of two kingdoms gained by his grandfather, Henry IV, and his father, Henry V, but destined to lose them both, and to furnish in his whole life a striking example of how uneasy the head may lie that wears a

crown.

When the body of the hero of Agincourt was lowered into its grave the heralds shouted, "God grant long life to Henry, by the grace of God king of France and of England," while the people cried, "Long live the king." The body which was born to be the bearer of this heavy load was not yet able to stand alone.

The Duke of Bedford, the elder of Henry V's two brothers, was made regent of France; Gloster, the other brother, became protector of the state and the church in England. Bedford, as a statesman and soldier, was almost the equal of Henry. Gloster was very erratic in character; by his personal and political blunders he made the regent's task a harder

one, and did something to pull down the house of Lancaster.

The two great events which demanded the attention of Europe during Henry VI's life were in France the overthrow of the English government and at home the Wars of the Roses. The most striking character in the French wars was one who still has the serious attention of historian, poet, and novelist; fact and fiction struggling each to paint her to its liking, the shepherd girl of Domrémy, Jeannette d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans.

In 1431, the Duke of Bedford, in order to fan whatever glow of loyalty there might be in the hearts of his French subjects, had the little King Henry VI brought over to Paris and crowned at Notre Dame. Henry V had been in his grave eight years, and Henry VI was now in his ninth year. Within four years from this time the Duke of Bedford died at Rouen, the same city which had shuddered at the sight of the burning scaffold of the shepherd girl who had saved France.

It is, of course, not my intention to write the history of those times, but to tell the story of this English king as I find it in the play, or rather to have the play set forth the story.

Deadly enmity existed between the king's uncle Gloster and his great-uncle Beaufort, the Bishop of Winchester. The brawls of their retainers troubled the streets, and their own quarrels, as in the following, disturbed the council board. The king is there, a little boy in the charge of his mother.