ed him but four years; but the Lady
Joan his wife died four years gone, the very day and month that he was
taken prisoner, to wit, the nineteenth day of October, 1356, nigh two
years afore Queen Isabel.

The eve of Saint Andrew, as I writ, was the Mortimer hanged, without
defence by him made (he had allowed none to Sir Hugh Le Despenser and my
Lord of Kent): and four days hung his body in irons on the gibbet, as
Sir Hugh's the father had done. Verily, as he had done, so did God apay
him, which is just Judge over all the earth.

And the very next day, Saint Andrew, came His dread judgment upon one
other--upon her that had wrought evil and not good, and that had
betrayed her own lord to his cruel death. All suddenly, without one
instant's warning, came the bolt out of Heaven upon Isabel of France.
While the body of the Mortimer hung upon the gibbet at the Elms of
Tyburn, God stripped that sinful woman of the light of reason which she
had used so ill, and she fell into a full awesome frenzy, so dread that
she was fain to be strapped down, and her cries and shrieks were
nearhand enough to drive all wood that heard her. While the body hung
there lasted this fearsome frenzy. But the hour it was taken down, came
change over her. She sank that same hour into the piteous thing she was
for long afterward, right as a little child, well apaid with toys and
shows, a few glass beads serving her as well as costly jewels, and a
yard of tinsel or fringe bright coloured a precious treasure. The King
was sore troubled; but what could he do? At the first the physicians
counselled that she should change the air often; and first to Odiham
Castle was she taken, and thence to Hertford, and after to Rising. But
nothing was to make difference to her any more for many a year,--only
that by now and then, for a two-three hours, she hath come to her wit,
and then is she full gent and sad, desiring ever the grace of our Lord
for her ill deeds, and divers times saying that as she hath done, so
hath God requited her. I have heard say that as time passed on, these
times of coming to her wit were something oftener and tarried longer,
until at last, a year afore she died, she came to her full wit, and so
abode to the end.

The King, that dealt full well with her, and had as much care of her
honour as of his own (and it was whispered that our holy Father the Pope
writ unto him that he should so do), did at the first appoint her to
keep her esta