This hen has laid the egg of a new dynasty and realizes the imposing
magnitude of the event. She is giving notice in the usual way. You
notice I am improving in the construction of hens. At first I made them
too much like other animals, but this one is orthodox. I mention this
to encourage you. You will find that the more you practice the more
accurate you will become. I could always draw animals, but before I was
educated I could not tell what kind they were when I got them done, but
now I can. Keep up your courage; it will be the same with you, although
you may not think it. This Henry died the year after Joan of Arc was
born.
Henry V.; nine _blue _squares. (Fig. 18)
There you see him lost in meditation over the monument which records
the amazing figures of the battle of Agincourt. French history says
20,000 Englishmen routed 80,000 Frenchmen there; and English historians
say that the French loss, in killed and wounded, was 60,000.
Henry VI.; thirty-nine _red _squares. (Fig. 19)
This is poor Henry VI., who reigned long and scored many misfortunes
and humiliations. Also two great disasters: he lost France to Joan of
Arc and he lost the throne and ended the dynasty which Henry IV. had
started in business with such good prospects. In the picture we see him
sad and weary and downcast, with the scepter falling from his nerveless
grasp. It is a pathetic quenching of a sun which had risen in such
splendor.
Edward IV.; twenty-two _light-brown_ squares. (Fig. 20.)
That is a society editor, sitting there elegantly dressed, with his
legs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies
wear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out
finer than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That
flower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose—a white rose, a
York rose—and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that
the white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and
dispossessed the Lancastrian dynasty.
Edward V.; one-third of a _black _square. (Fig. 21.)
His uncle Richard had him murdered in the tower. When you get the
reigns displayed upon the wall this one will be conspicuous and easily
remembered. It is the shortest one in English history except Lady Jane
Grey’s, which was only nine days. She is never officially recognized as
a monarch of England, but if you or I should ever occupy a throne we
should like to have proper notice taken of it; and it would be only
fair and right, too, particularly if we gained nothing by it and lost
our lives besides.
Richard III.; two _white _squares. (Fig. 22.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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