ended his miserable career in Berkeley Castle, being, it is supposed, cruelly murdered by his keepers. EDWARD THE THIRD'S CORONATION festivities were a sumptuous enlargement of the Christmas celebration, which usually extended over Twelfth Night. It is said that the banqueting cost the equivalent of forty thousand pounds of our money; and before the young king there appeared quite a multitude of minstrels, mimics, and gleemen. Professor Henry Morley[21] gives a specimen of the metrical romances which were translated from the French for recitation at the royal and noble banquets of this period. They were "busy with action, and told with a lively freedom;" and, in the one quoted, "The Fabliau of Sir Cleges," we catch some interesting references to the celebration of Christmas:-- "Every year Sir Cleges would At Christmas a great feast hold In worship of that day, As royal in alle thing As he hadde been a king For sooth as I you say. Rich and poor in the country about Should be there withouten doubt; There would no man say nay. Minstrels would not be behind, For there they might most mirthes find There would they be aye. "Minstrels when the feast was done Withouten giftes should not gon, And that both rich and good: Horse, robes and riche ring, Gold, silver, and other thing, To mend with their mood. Ten yeare such feast be held, In the worship of Mary mild And for Him that died on the rood. By that his good began to slake For the great feasts that he did make. The knight gentil of blood." "KEPE OPEN COURT" AT CHRISTMAS. Froissart, in Cap. XIIII. of his "Chronicles,"[22] gives the following account of the Christmas Celebration at which Edward the Third was crowned:--