Before long negotiations were entered upon for his marriage. Towards the end of the year a mission was sent to the King of France, proposing in general terms alliances between the two royal families. The proposal was rejected contemptuously. The King of France knew of no King of England but his son-in-law Richard. Before many weeks were past, Richard was dead--by what means it does not belong to our present purpose to inquire--leaving a virgin widow, Isabella of Valois. Isabella, eldest of the five daughters of Charles the Sixth of France and Isabeau of Bavaria, was then in her thirteenth year. She had all the beauty of her race, and would be a richly-dowered bride. Henry lost no time in asking her hand for his eldest son. The demand was not welcome either to the French Court, which was not disposed to recognise Henry’s title, or to the young lady herself, who seems to have cherished a fond recollection of her husband. It was renewed more than once with the same ill-success. Henry was afterwards to win for himself by a very rough wooing a bride of the same house, the youngest of Isabella’s sisters. If we are to believe a local tradition, the young Henry studied for a time at Queen’s College, Oxford, under the care of his uncle Henry, afterwards Cardinal Beaufort, whom we know to have been Chancellor of the University during the two years 1397–8. The Chancellor was then a resident officer, performing the functions now delegated to the Vice-Chancellor. Queen’s College had been founded in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield under the auspices of Philippa, Queen of Edward the Third, and might therefore be considered a specially appropriate residence for princes of the Plantagenet line. A room in the college over the gateway that fronts St. Edmund’s Hall was long shown as having been occupied by Prince Henry. His portrait was to be seen painted on the glass of the window, while an inscription in Latin recorded (it disappeared with the gateway early in the last century) the fact that “Henry V, conqueror of his enemies and of himself, was once the great inhabitant of this little chamber.” This glass is now in the upper library. It is difficult to estimate the precise value of such a tradition. There is no documentary evidence to confirm it; on the other hand, it is not intrinsically unlikely. Henry had some of the tastes of a student. This fact and the academical standing of his uncle might have suggested a residence at Oxford as a useful way of employing some of his time. Such a residence, if it ever took place, must be assigned to some time between October 1399 and March 1400–1. At the latter date he had begun to take a part in public affairs, for we find on March 10th, 1400–1, that King Henry grants, “on the supplication of his most dear son, the Prince of Wales,” a pardon to all the rebels of four counties of North Wales, with three exceptions, of whom Owen Glendower is one. Thenceforth his