Richard’s second wife, Isabella of Valois, was as inordinately fond of dress as her husband was; and never, perhaps, were royal couple so profusely provided with means whereby to look well in the eyes of men. But she was but a little child, and he, man-grown, treated her as a daughter. Little did Isabella have cause to wear in England but the trappings of woe; and the gems of tears, ever set in her eyes, were brighter than the jewels in her famous casket, and about which, the two Crowns ultimately quarrelled with no more dignity than a couple of Abigails. Queen Joanna of Navarre, spouse of Henry IV., and her ladies, appear to have been attired at her coronation after much the same fashion as was observed at the crowning of Queen Victoria. In after-days Joanna, who was terribly “near,” dressed as ladies do who labour under that infirmity: even her mourning for the King was calculated like a widow of small means; and a black cloth gown at seven shillings and eightpence per yard, with one and sixpence for the making, and shoes at sevenpence per pair, tend to show that the royal widow furnished herself at what may be called the “mitigated affliction department.” How Katherine of Valois was wooed by Henry V. may be seen in Shakspeare. The record is probably as true as much that is penned down by those other poets, the chroniclers. She is the second Queen of England who passed from the couch of a king to that of a soldier; and Katherine founded a new line of sovereigns when she gave her hand to Owen Tudor. Like all Frenchwomen, she dressed with taste; and she deserved a better fate than to be left, as her body was, during so many years, a spectacle for sightseers in Westminster Abbey. Her corpse, removed from her tomb during repairs, in the reign of her grandson, Henry VII., was never restored. It became mummified, and, in a coffin with a loose lid, was open to the eye and touch. People kissed it for twopence, until the year in which Louis XVI. was beheaded, and thrones began to tumble. The Revolution showing to what complexion royalty might come, the body of Katherine was deemed no longer profitable as a morsel, nor indeed as an investment, to those self-denying men, the Dean and Chapter. At the end of the last century, when it became the fashion to sweep away kings and queens, and nobody would pay to see their wretchedly-dressed mummies, the body of Katherine of France was unceremoniously swept off, too, into the general dust-hole covered by Westminster Abbey.