broidered in
the border with golden swans, and her cabinet with blue say, powdered
with lily-flowers in gold, which is the arms of France, as every man
knoweth, seeing they are borne by our King that now is, in right of this
same Queen Isabel his mother. He, that was then my Lord of Chester, was
also of the cortege, having sailed from Dover two days before Holy Cross
[Note 3], and joined the Queen in Guienne; but the Queen went over in
March, and was all that time in Guienne.

Dear heart! but Jack--which loveth to be square and precise in his
matters--should say this were strange fashion wherein to write
chronicles, to date first September and then the March afore it! I had
better go back a bit.

It was, then, the 9th of March the Queen crossed from Dover to Whitsand,
which the French call Guissant. She dwelt first, as I said, in Guienne,
for all that summer; very quiet and peaceful were we, letters going to
and fro betwixt our Queen and her lord, and likewise betwixt her and the
King of France; but no visitors (without there were one that evening
Dame Isabel lay in the pallet in my stead, and was so late up, and
passed by the antechamber door with her shoes in her hands, as little
Meliora the sub-damsel would have it she saw by the keyhole): and we
might nearhand as well have been in nunnery for all the folks we saw
that were not of the house. Verily, I grew sick irked [wearied,
distressed] of the calm, that was like a dead calm at sea, when ships
lie to, and can win neither forward nor backward. Ah, foolish Cicely!
thou hadst better have given thanks for the last peace thou wert to see
for many a year.

Well, my Lord of Chester come, which was the week after Holy Cross, we
set forth with few days' delay, and came to Paris, as I said, the eve of
Michaelmas. Marvellous weary was I with riding, for I rade of an horse
the whole way, and not, as Dame Isabel did, with the Queen in her char.
I was so ill tired that I could but eat a two-three wafers [Note 4], and
drink a cup of wine, and then hied I to my bed, which, I thank the
saints, was not the pallet that night.

The King and Queen of France were then at Compiegne, King Charles having
been wed that same summer to his third wife, Dame Jeanne of Evreux: and
a good woman I do believe was she, for all (as I said aforetime) there
be but few. But I do think, and ever shall, that three wives be more
than any man's share. The next morrow, they came in from Compiegn