art of
music, so that they might be ready, when called upon, to perform
before the king. In the mean time they were to be paid good wages, and
to be considered already, while receiving their instruction, as acting
under the charge and in the service of the queen.

[Sidenote: Pretended pilgrimages.]

[Sidenote: The king comforted.]

Margaret and the other friends of the king used to contrive various
other ways of amusing and comforting his mind, some of which were not
very honest. One was, for example, to have different nobles and
gentlemen come to him and ask his permission that they should leave
the kingdom to go and make pilgrimages to various foreign shrines, in
order to fulfill vows and offer oblations and prayers for the
restoration of his majesty's health. The king was of a very devout
frame of mind, and his thoughts were accustomed to dwell a great deal
on religious subjects, and especially on the performance of the rites
and ceremonies customary in those days, and it seemed to comfort him
very much to imagine that his friends were going to make such long
pilgrimages to pray for him.

So the nobles and other great personages would ask his consent that
they might go, and would take solemn leave of him as if they were
really going, and then would keep out of sight a little while, until
the poor patient had forgotten their request.

[Sidenote: One real pilgrimage.]

It is said, however, that one nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk, who was
so kind-hearted a man that he went by the name of the Good Duke,
actually made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on this errand, and there
offered up prayers and supplications at the famous chapel of the Holy
Sepulchre for the restoration of his sovereign's health.

[Sidenote: The philosopher's stone.]

[Sidenote: Promised treasures.]

They used also to amuse and cheer the king's mind by telling him, from
time to time, that he was going to be supplied with inexhaustible
treasures of wealth by the discovery of the philosopher's stone. The
philosopher's stone was an imaginary substance which the alchemists of
those days were all the time attempting to discover, by means of which
lead and iron, and all other metals, could be turned to gold. There
were royal laboratories, and alchemists continually at work in them
making experiments, and the queen used to give the king wonderful
accounts of the progress which they were making, and tell him that the
discovery was nearly completed, and