heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

ROYAL HERALDRY. 381
Alonzo's consent inscribed in a scroll sealed with gold. In August, 1254,
the marriage was solemnized with much splendour at Burgos, the young
bridegroom being just fifteen, and the bride younger,
at the time of their
espousals.
They were young lovers, but lovers they must have been ; for certainly
lovers they were during their wedded life of thirty-six years, which
then commenced. And never was lover more broken-hearted than when
the gallant Edward turned back from his journey to Scotland, at the first
tidings of the illness of his beloved Eleanor, only to find on his arrival
at Hardby, near to Grantham, that she had already breathed her last at the
house of a gentleman named Weston, November agth. The King* had only
left her at Hardby on the 2oth, having journeyed thus far in her company*
holding his Parliament at Clipston on October 27th, and enjoying the diversion
of the chase, as appears from an entry in his wardrobe accounts of the
payment of 6s. %d. of the King's gift to Robert at Hall of Wyrardeston,
" Quia navigavit in aqua post cervum in quoddam stagnum in foresta
" de Pecco." All had been done which the rude medical skill of that
time could suggest.
" Magister Leopardus fisicus Reginae," probably the
Spanish physician sent from the King of Aragon, to whom she gave
a silver cup, and who thus diagnosed her case " Modicae febris igniculo
" contabescens," attended her. Henry de Montepessulano procured syrup
and other medicines for the Queen's use from Lincoln, for i^s. t\d.,
but
to no avail. Sir Garcia de Ispannia, her father confessor, soothed her
closing hours, and on the eve of the Feast of St. Andrew, 1290,
her birthday,
she entered into rest. In measured and stately procession the body>
carefully embalmed, was carried, first to Lincoln, where all that was not
embalmed was interred in the chapel of the blessed Virgin, at the Minster ;
thence by easy stages to Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton,
Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, where the body, which had been met
by the whole convent, "solemniter revestitus in capis," lay, one night,
"in medio chori " of the Priory Church thence on to St.
;
Albans, Waltham,
West Cheap, and Charing, the King, accompanied by the whole nobility,
prelates, and other dignified clergy, going forth to meet it, and conducting
it to the abbey where, " cum summa omnium reverentia et honore," it
was finally laid in the Confessor's chapel, at the feet of her father-in-law,
Henry III.
From thence the widowed King went to Ashridge, where he kept
sweeter still in
his Christmas, that holy festival sweet in prosperity, yet
sorrow ;
and on January 2Oth, proceeded to visit his aged mother, Eleanor
of Provence, who died in the June following, in her seclusion at Ambresbury,
comforted in her declining years by his daughter Mary, who, young
*
Archceologia,
xxix.