twelve years of age) postponed her departure till the next year. She had arrived at Boulogne certainly on the 1st of August 1401; and was afterwards delivered up to her friends by the Earl of Worcester, with the solemn assurance of her spotless purity. [Footnote 115: Many of our own historians have, either in ignorance or design, very much misled their readers on the subject.] It is impossible to glance at this lady's brief and melancholy career without feelings of painful interest:--espoused when yet a child to the reigning monarch of England; whilst yet a child, crowned Queen of England; whilst yet a child, become a virgin-widow; when she was not yet seventeen years old, married again to Charles, Earl of Angouleme; and three years afterwards, before she reached the twentieth anniversary of her birthday, dying in childbed.[116] [Footnote 116: It is not generally understood, (indeed, some of our historians have not only been ignorant of the fact, but have asserted the contrary,) that this princess was the elder sister of Katharine of Valois, married thirteen years after Isabella's death to Henry of Monmouth. Katharine was not born till after Isabella's restoration from England to her father's home. Isabella was born November 9, 1389; was solemnly married by the Archbishop of Canterbury to Richard II. in Calais, November 4, 1397 (not quite nine years old); was crowned at Westminster on the 8th of January following; was married to her second husband, 29th June 1406; and died at Blois, 13th September 1409.--Anselme, vol. i. p. 114.] By the above letter of the King, which led to this digression, (p. 116) we are informed that the Prince was neither with his father, nor in London; for the King promised to write to him to send the jewels to London. He was probably at that time on the borders of North Wales; or engaged in reducing the Castles of Conway and Rhees, and in bringing that district into subjection. Indeed, that the Prince was still personally exerting himself in suppressing the Welsh towards the north of the Principality, seems to be put beyond all question by the records of the Privy Council, which state that "certain members of the Prince's council brought with them to the King's council the indenture between the said Prince and Henry Percy the son (Chief Justice) on one part, and those who seized the Castle[117] of Conway on the other (p. 117) part, made at the time of the restitution of the same castle."[118]