Gaston de Blondeville, vol. 1 of 4 : $b or the court of Henry III. keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's abbey, a metrical tale; with some poetical piecesRadcliffe, Ann Ward
History
Gaston de Blondeville, vol. 1 of 4 : $b or the court of Henry III. keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's abbey, a metrical tale; with some poetical pieces
Radcliffe, Ann Ward
Gothic fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Henry III, 1216-1272 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
Yet were there some in the court, men of English ground, who liked him
not; it may be, because he was a stranger in our land, or that he bore a
proud defiance in his eye, or that they envied him his favour with the
King.
Some way before the Queen, went fifty of the foresters of Ardenn clothed
in green, sounding their horns. She was in her litter, tapestried with
cloth of gold, and she was compassed all about with her ladies and her
nobles and esquires. Her litter was borne by two brave coursers, right
richly trapped with velvet, and led by pages apparelled in sumptuous
liveries; other pages, in ‘broidered doublets, went beside her, or
following. Then came her master of the horses, leading her palfrey, very
richly appointed, the bridle and breast-chain studded with jewels,
followed by another of her palfreys, led by a page. Her Highness was
adorned in a close gown of velvet, ’broidered about with pearls, and
bearing upon her head a great hood of black velvet, richly sewed with
large pearls. Following her Highness, came her ladies and gentlewomen
mounted on fair palfreys, richly appointed and apparelled; a goodly
company.
Then came her Highness’s chariot empty, drawn by six horses, led by
pages in jackets of scarlet damask, with the English crown ’broidered on
their backs. They bore in their caps a white feather; dropping aside, in
the manner of France, whereat the people murmured, and well they might;
for such a sight of strangers, from her own land, the like was never
seen! But the Queen bore herself so graciously towards the people,
smiling upon them with her comely countenance, that she won away their
discontent. Other gentlewomen of her court followed her car, mounted on
palfreys.
Next came Eleanor, the widowed Countess of Pembroke, the King’s sister,
now Countess of Leicester, in her litter, with a sumptuous train: and
then Cincia, the Countess of Cornwall, the sister of the Queen, right
freshly apparelled, and sumptuously attended by noble dames and gentils;
and a sight of people followed, in the different liveries of their
masters.
Before the Queen, went her _mynstrells of music_; who, when they came
nigh to Kenilworth, began to blow upon their pipes, and to strum their
stringed instruments with most sweet noise—so that the bells of a
village there, which were rung for mirth, could not be heard so far.
Amongst the damsels attending the Queen, none were so fair as the lady
Isabel, daughter of the Earl of Arundel, and the lady Barbara, daughter
of the Earl of Huntingdon; who followed her Highness, on white palfreys.
Ychon of them was beautiful beyond thought: the lady Isabel was the more
stately and carried a higher brow; but Lady Barbara’s smiles were
blyther than the morn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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