One of the most interesting records of the domestic life of our ancestors that we remember to have read, is a series of "Notices of the Last Days of Isabella, Queen of Edward II. drawn from an Account of the Expenses of her Household," and communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, by Mr. E. A. Bond, of the British Museum. Nothing can exceed the minuteness of this memorial of the domestic manners of the middle of the fourteenth century--_the private life of five hundred years since_. No court circular ever chronicled the movements of royalty more circumstantially than does this household account; nor can any roll among our records detail more closely the personal expenses of the sovereign than do the notices before us. It will be recollected by the attentive reader of our history, that, after the deposition and murder of King Edward II., we hear little of the history of the chief mover of these fearful events.[45] The ambitious Mortimer expiates his crimes on the scaffold. Isabella, the instigator of sedition against her king, the betrayer of her husband, survives her accomplice; but, from the moment that her career of guilt is arrested, she is no more spoken of. Having mentioned the execution of Mortimer, Froissart tells us that the King soon after, by the advice of his council, ordered his mother to be confined in a goodly castle, and gave her plenty of ladies to wait and attend on her, as well as knights and esquires of honour. He made her a handsome allowance to keep and maintain the state she had been used to; but forbade that she should ever go out, or drive herself abroad, except at certain times, when any shows were exhibited in the court of the castle. The Queen thus passed her time there meekly, and the King, her son, visited her twice or thrice a year. Castle Rising was the place of her confinement. This castle, which in part gives name to the town, is believed to have been originally built by Alfred the Great: at any rate, William de Albini, to whose ancestors the Conqueror gave several lordships in the county, built a castle here before 1176; and this edifice appears to inclose a fragment of a more ancient building. There are, to this day, considerable remains: the keep is still standing, though much dilapidated; the walls are three yards thick; and the division and arrangement of the apartments are very obvious. It stands in a ballium or court, surrounded by a moat and an embankment. The general style of the building is Norman, and bears a resemblance to that of Norwich Castle. Here the Queen took up her abode in 1330; after the first two years the strictness of her seclusion was relaxed. She died at Hertford, August 22, 1358, and was buried in the church of the Grey Friars, within Newgate, now the site of Christ's Hospital.