walls, where Edward and his few trusted knights went in and burst open Mortimer’s bed-room, where he was himself plotting the death of Edward. Comes the queen rushing in, _en déshabillé_, screaming, “Do not hurt my darling Mortimer!” Mortimer goes to the block, nevertheless; and the scene closes with the guilty queen’s agony for the loss of the only love of her unhappy life, her succeeding years of alternate brooding and raving, while all Europe is ringing with the feats of her son and grandson, (the Black Prince), not one ray of which glory penetrated the gloom of her solitary mourning over a lost and guilty passion. Is not this opening picture of the reign sufficiently tragic? Next we should have the first exhibitions of the equally unholy passion of Edward for foreign conquest. His intrigues in the Netherlands for the invasion of France are a study in early diplomacy. A foremost figure in the scene is the remarkable “Brewer of Ghent,” de Artevelde, whose romantic career and tragic death at the hands of the people he most loved and benefited, because they resented his devotion to Edward, “read like a novel.” Here appear, too, the sturdy burghers of the Netherlands, painted by Motley’s matchless pen: “Commerce plucks up half drowned Holland by the locks and pours gold into her lap. Fishermen and river raftsmen become ocean adventurers and merchant princes. Flemish weavers become mighty manufacturers. Armies of workmen, fifty thousand strong, tramp through the swarming streets. Silk-makers, clothiers, brewers, become the gossips of kings, lend their royal gossips vast sums and burn the royal notes of hand in fires of cinnamon wood. Wealth brings strength, strength confidence. Learning to handle cross-bow and dagger, the burghers fear less the baronial sword, finding that their own will cut as well, seeing that great armies—flowers of chivalry—can ride away before them fast enough at battles of spears and other encounters.... And so, struggling along their appointed path, making cloth, making money, making treaties with great kingdoms, making war by land and sea, ringing great bells, waving great banners, these insolent, boisterous burghers accomplish their work.” These burghers took all Edward’s money for fighting and did not fight. From three invasions of France their armies came back with whole skins and full pockets, until Edward was beggared, his crown jewels pawned, his estates mortgaged, and he at last obliged to give hostages to the thrifty Dutchmen for payment of their claims.