During the six weeks that Isabel remained in the Tower Henry renewed his son's suit, and urged truly that nowhere would Isabel find a more gallant husband. The prince of Wales, boy though he was, had always admired and loved Isabel; 'there was no princess like her,' he thought, 'and now that she was free why should she not be queen of England again?' And so she might have been had not the shadow of Richard lain between them; once more she refused, though she liked the youth well, and would have been content to know that years after she was dead he would marry her sister Katherine. It was only on French soil that Isabel parted with tears from her English ladies, to whom she gave as remembrances the few jewels she had left. Then she was delivered by Sir Thomas Percy to the count de St. Pol, who was waiting with a company of high-born damsels sent to attend on her, and by him she was conducted to the dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon, with an armed force at their back. So the merry little girl of seven years old came home again, sad, widowed, and penniless, for Henry had refused to restore her dowry or to make her the customary allowance. This behaviour so enraged her uncle, Louis duke of Orleans, that he is said to have challenged Henry to fight a duel, but Henry had replied that no king ever fought with a subject, even one of royal blood. Isabel herself cared little about the matter. She found, on arriving in Paris, that things were changed very much for the worse. Her father's fits of madness were more frequent and more severe, her mother was more bent on pleasure, and her children were more neglected than before. Isabel did what she could, we may be sure; but the queen of France, though she omitted to perform her own duty, would not suffer it to be done by other people; and Isabel, finding she could be of little use, passed most of her time with her uncle, the duke of Orleans, and his wife, Violante Visconti. ---------------------