little queen, because she
was so young and small when she was married. She was only about nine
years old at that time. The story of this case will show a little how
the marriages of kings and princesses in those days were managed.

It was not long after the death of good Queen Anne before some of
Richard's courtiers and counselors began to advise him to be married
again. He replied, as men always do in such cases, that he did not
know where to find a wife. The choice was indeed not very large, being
restricted by etiquette to the royal families of England and of the
neighboring countries. Several princesses were proposed one after
another, but Richard did not seem to like any of them. Among other
ladies, one of his cousins was proposed to him, a daughter of the Duke
of Gloucester. But Richard said no; she was too nearly related to him.

At last he took it into his head that he should like to marry little
Isabella, the Princess of France, then about nine years old. The idea
of his being married to Isabella was calculated to surprise people for
two reasons: first, because Isabella was so small, and, secondly,
because the King of France, her father, was Richard's greatest and
most implacable enemy. France and England had been on bad terms with
each other not only during the whole of Richard's reign, but through a
great number of reigns preceding; and now, just before the period when
this marriage was proposed, the two nations had been engaged in a long
and sanguinary war. But Richard said that he was going to make peace,
and that this marriage was to be the means of confirming it.

"But she is altogether too young for your majesty," said Richard's
counselors. "She is a mere child."

"True," said the king; "but that is an objection which will grow less
and less every year. Besides, I am in no haste. I am young enough
myself to wait till she grows up, and, in the mean time, I can have
her trained and educated to suit me exactly."

So, after a great deal of debate among the king's counselors and in
Parliament, it was finally decided to send a grand embassage to Paris
to propose to the King of France that he should give his little
daughter Isabella in marriage to Richard, King of England.

This embassage consisted of an archbishop, two earls, and twenty
knights, attended each by two squires, making forty squires in all,
and five hundred horsemen. The party proceeded from London to Dover,
then crossed to Calais, which wa