The Caged Lion

The next day the royal train set forth from Pontefract, and ere mounting, James presented his young kinsman to the true Joan Beaufort--fair-haired, soft-featured, blue-eyed, and...

'Listen, belle demoiselle. I have been forth into the world, and have learnt to see that monasteries have become mere haunts for the sluggard, who will not face the world; and t...

Wintry winds and rains were sweeping over the English tents on the banks of the Marne, where Henry V. was besieging Meaux, then the stronghold of one of those terrible freeboote...

More than a year had passed, and it was March when Malcolm was descending the stone stair that leads so picturesquely beneath the archway of its tower up to the hall of the coll...

Malcolm understood it at last. In the great chamber where he was bidden to wait within 'Nigel' till 'Sir James' came from a private conference with 'Harry,' he had all explained...

James of Scotland and John of Bedford sat together in the twilight of a long and weary day, spent by the one in standing like a statue at the head of his deceased friend as a pa...

A master hand has so often described the glens and ravines of Scotland, that it seems vain and presumptuous to meddle with them; and yet we must ask our readers to figure to the...

'The poor scholar,' now only existing in Ireland and Brittany--nay, we believe extinct there since the schoolmaster has become not abroad, but at home, in Government colleges--w...

For Malcolm to speak with his sister was well-nigh an impossibility. Had he been detected, he would have been immediately treated as a spy, and the suspicion thus excited would...

It was a lonely tract of road, marked only by the bare space trodden by feet of man and horse, and yet, in truth, the highway between Berwick and Edinburgh, which descended from...

King Henry V. left his friends and foes alike almost dizzy, as in place of his grand figure they found a blank; instead of the hand whose force they had constantly felt, mere em...

It was the 24th of May, 1425, when in the vaulted hall of the Castle of Stirling the nobles of Scotland were convened to try, as the peers of the realm, men of rank--no less tha...

The sun had not long been shining on the dark walls of St. Ebba's monastery, before the low-browed gate of Coldingham Priory opened to let pass the guests of the previous night....

The Queen was coming! No sooner had the first note of surrender been sounded from the towers of Meaux, than Henry had sent intelligence to England that the way was open for the...

'That is a gentle and gracious slip of the Stewart. What shall you do with him?' asked King Henry of James, as they stood together at one end of the tilt-yard at Westminster, wa...

Trembling and awed, the ladies waited at Paris. It was well known how the King's illness must end. No one, save the Queen, professed to entertain any hope of his amendment; but...

The summer morning came; the _reveille_ sounded, Mass was sung in the chapel tent, without which Henry never moved; and Malcolm tried to reassure his sinking heart by there pled...

The seven months' siege ended at last, but it was not until the brightness of May was on the fields outside, and the deadly blight of famine on all within, that a haggard, waste...

After all, Alice Montagu was married almost privately, and without any preparation. Tidings came that the Duke of Alencon was besieging Cosne, a city belonging to the Duke of Bu...