The young queen soon began to evince those kind and gracious qualities of heart which afterward made her so beloved among the people of England. Instead of occupying herself solely with her own greatness and grandeur, and with the uninterrupted round of pleasures to which her husband invited her, she began very soon to think of the sufferings which she found that a great many of the common people of England were enduring, and to consider what she could do to relieve them. The condition of the people was particularly unhappy at this time, for the king and the nobles were greatly exasperated against them on account of the rebellion, and were hunting out all who could be proved, or were even suspected to have been engaged in it, and persecuting them in the most severe and oppressive manner, and they were bloody and barbarous beyond precedent. The young queen, hearing of these things, was greatly distressed, and she begged the king, for her sake, to grant a general pardon to all his subjects, on the occasion of her coronation, which ceremony was now soon to be performed. The king granted this request, and thus peace and tranquillity were once more fully restored to the land. After this, during all her life, Anne watched for every opportunity to do good, and she was continually engaged in gentle but effective efforts to heal dissensions, to assuage angry feelings, and to alleviate suffering. She was a general peace-maker; and her lofty position, and the great influence which she exercised over the king, gave her great power to accomplish the benevolent purposes which the kindness of her heart led her to form. The arrival of the young queen produced a great sensation among the ladies of Richard's court, in consequence of the new fashions which she introduced into England. The fashions of dress in those days were very peculiar. We learn what they were from the pictures, drawn with the pen or painted in water-colors, in the manuscripts of those days that still remain in the old English libraries. There are a great many of these drawings, and, as they agree together in the style and fashion of the costumes represented, there is no doubt that they give us correct ideas of the dresses really worn. Besides, there are many allusions in the chronicles of those times, and in poems and books of accounts, which correspond precisely with the drawings, and thus confirm their correctness and accuracy. The engravings on the following page are copied from one of these ancient manuscripts. Observe the singular forms of the caps, both those of the men and of the women. The men wore sometimes jackets, and sometimes long gowns which came down to the ground. The most singular feature of the dresses of the men, however, is the long-pointed shoes. Were it not that fashions are often equally absurd at the present day, we should think it impossible that such shoes as these could ever have been made. [Illustration: MALE COSTUME IN THE TIME OF RICHARD II.]