ong as he was able he took his part in all that was going on, even
helping to build the churches (there were five of them now) with his own
hands. It was only three weeks before his death that his strength gave
out, and he laid himself on his bed, knowing that he would nevermore
rise from it. So he died, with his friends around him and the noise of
the sea in his ears. His task was done, for he had 'set alight a fire'
in Molokai 'which should never be put out.'

THE CONSTANT PRINCE

When, some years ago, a banquet was given at the Guildhall to king
Alfonso of Spain on the occasion of his marriage to an English princess,
the lord mayor said in his speech that four queens of England were
Spaniards by birth. Can any of you tell me without looking at your
history books what were their names?

Yet in different ways three out of the four are very well known to us.
One flits through a delightful romance of the great deeds of the
Crusaders; a second is remembered for having risked her life to save her
husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the crosses which he
set up on every spot which her body touched on its road to its last
resting-place; while the fourth and latest had a troubled life and every
kind of insult heaped on her.

_Now_ can you guess?

* * * * *

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages between England and
the countries south of the Pyrenees were very frequent, for in those
times Spain was our natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward
III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, married the daughters
of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and Constance, wife of John of
Gaunt, had the pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by in
her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's elder daughter by his
first wife, became queen of Portugal.

Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom of Portugal, for the
legal heir was the queen of Castile, the only child of Fernando. But her
uncle, grand master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of the
Portuguese, who would tell their children in low voices the sad story of
his father's first wife, the beautiful Inez de Castro, whose embalmed
body was crowned by her husband, many years after her cruel murder. And
besides their love for the master of Aviz, the Portuguese hated the
Castilians, as only near neighbours _can_ hate each other, and were
resolved to choose their own sov