Oblations are as numerous--and sometimes more costly--as in her earlier accounts. She gives 6 shillings 8 pence to the _head_ of the eleven thousand virgins, and 2 shillings to minstrels to play "before the image of the blessed Mary in the crypt" of Canterbury Cathedral. Friars who preach before her are usually rewarded with 6 shillings 8 pence. Her Easter robes are of blue cloth, her summer ones of red mixed cloth. Two of Isabelle's ruling passions went with her to the grave--her extravagance and her love of making gifts. Her purchases of jewellery are vast and costly during this year, up to the very month in which she died: two of the latest being a gold chaplet set with precious stones, price 150 pounds (the most expensive I ever yet saw in a royal account), and a gold crown set with sapphires, Alexandrian rubies, and pearls, 80 pounds, expressly stated to be for her own wearing. Two ruby rings she purchased exactly a fortnight before her death. She was probably ill for some weeks, since a messenger was sent in haste to Canterbury to bid Master Lawrence the physician repair to Hertford "to see the state of the Queen," and he remained there for a month. Medicines were brought from London. Judging from the slight indications as to remedies employed, among which were herbal baths, she died of some cutaneous malady. Her Inquisition states that her _death_ took place at Hertford, August 23rd, 1358; but the Household Book twice records that it was on the 22nd. Fourteen poor men watched the corpse in the chapel at Hertford for three months, and in December the coffin (the entire cost of which was 5 pounds, 9 shillings, 11 pence) was brought to London, guarded by 40 torches, and _buried_ in the Church of the Grey Friars. It may be stated with tolerable certainty that the Queen was not confined for life at Rising Castle, though she passed most of her time either at Rising or Hertford; that she never became a nun, as asserted by some modern writers, the non-seclusion, the coloured robes, and the crown, being totally inconsistent with this supposition; that if it be true, as is said, that she was seized with madness while Mortimer hung on the gallows, and passed most of her subsequent life in this state, probably with lucid intervals--a story which various facts tend to confirm--this was quite sufficient to account for her retirement from public life, and ordinary restriction to a few country residences; yet that the incidents chronicled in the Household Book seem to indicate that she was generally, if not fully, sane at the time of her death.