ng persons backed slowly out of the danger into which they
had so thoughtlessly and unnecessarily forced themselves.
The lions' gate closed behind them with a clang; the shouts of approval
and of welcome sounded from the thronging gallery, and over all they
heard the voice of the Lord of Holland mingling commendation and praise
with censure for the rashness of their action.
And it WAS a rash and foolish act. But we must remember that those
were days when such feats were esteemed as brave and valorous. For the
Princess Jaqueline of Holland was reared in the school of so-called
chivalry and romance, which in her time was fast approaching its
end. She was, indeed, as one historian declares, the last heroine
of knighthood. Her very titles suggest the days of chivalry. She was
Daughter of Holland, Countess of Ponthieu, Duchess of Berry, Lady of
Crevecoeur, of Montague and Arloeux. Brought up in the midst of tilts
and tournaments, of banquets and feasting, and all the lavish display of
the rich Bavarian court, she was, as we learn from her chroniclers,
the leader of adoring knights and vassals, the idol of her parents,
the ruler of her soft-hearted boy husband, an expert falconer, a daring
horsewoman, and a fearless descendant of those woman warriors of her
race, Margaret the Empress, and Philippa the Queen, and of a house that
traced its descent through the warlike Hohenstaufens back to Charlemagne
himself.
All girls admire bravery, even though not themselves personally
courageous. It is not, therefore, surprising that this intrepid and
romance-reared young princess, the wife of a lad for whom she never
especially cared, and whose society had for political reasons been
forced upon her, should have placed as the hero of her admiration, next
to her own fearless father, not the Dauphin John of France, but this
brave young rebel lad, Otto, the Lord of Arkell.
But the joyous days of fete and pleasure at Quesnoy, at Paris, and The
Hague were fast drawing to a close. On the fourth of April, 1417, the
Dauphin John died by poisoning, in his father's castle at Compiegne--the
victim of those terrible and relentless feuds that were then disgracing
and endangering the feeble throne of France.
The dream of future power and greatness as Queen of France, in which the
girl wife of the Dauphin had often indulged, was thus rudely dispelled,
and Jacqueline returned to her father's court in Holland, no longer
crown princess and heiress
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