who were to enter the lists
then came in a grand cavalcade through the streets of London to the
palace. There were sixty ladies mounted on beautiful palfreys,
accoutred with the new-fashioned side-saddles. Each of these ladies
conducted a knight, whom she led by a silver chain. They were preceded
by minstrels and bands of instrumental music, and the streets were
thronged with spectators.

After the tournament there was a grand banquet at the palace of the
Bishop of London, with music and dancing, and other such amusements,
which continued to a late hour of the night.

* * * * *

For some years after this the king and queen lived together in great
prosperity. Outwardly things went pretty well with the king's affairs,
and, as he was fond of pomp and display, he gradually acquired habits
of very profuse and lavish expenditure. Indeed, he is said to have
made it an object of his ambition to surpass, in the magnificence of
his style of living, all the sovereigns of Europe. He kept many
separate establishments in his different palaces, and at all of them
gave entertainments and banquets of immense magnificence and of the
most luxurious character. It is said that three hundred persons were
employed in his kitchens.

At length, in the year 1394, when Richard was preparing for an
expedition into Ireland to quell a rebellion which had broken out
there, the queen was seized with a fatal epidemic which was then
prevailing in England, and after a short illness she died. She was at
her palace of Shene at this time. The king hastened to attend her the
moment that he heard the tidings of her illness, and was with her when
she died. He was inconsolable at the loss of his wife, for he had
loved her sincerely, and she had been a singularly faithful and
devoted wife to him. He was made almost crazy by her death. He
imprecated bitter curses on the palace where she died, and he ordered
it to be destroyed. It was, in fact, partially dismantled, in
obedience to these orders, and Richard himself never occupied it
again. It was, however, repaired under a subsequent reign.

Richard gave up, for the time being, his expedition into Ireland,
being wholly absorbed in his sorrow for the irreparable loss he had
suffered. He wrote letters to all the great nobles and barons of
England to come to the funeral, and the obsequies were celebrated with
the greatest possible pomp and parade. Two months were expended in
maki