s in
respect to their personal attractions. This was especially the case
with King Henry VI. Each of the two great parties, that of Cardinal
Beaufort on one hand, and that of the Duke of Gloucester on the other,
were desirous of being the means of finding a bride for the king, and
both were eagerly looking in all directions, and plotting for the
accomplishment of this end, and any attempt of the king to leave the
kingdom for any purpose whatever would undoubtedly have brought these
parties at once to open war.

[Sidenote: Plan of the Duke of Gloucester.]

The Duke of Gloucester and those who acted with him fixed their eyes
upon three princesses of a certain great family, called the house of
Armagnac. Their plan was to open negotiations with this house, and to
obtain portraits of the three princesses, to be sent to England, in
order that Henry might take his choice of them. Commissioners were
appointed to manage the business. They were to open the negotiations
and obtain the portraits. The cardinal, of course, and his friends
were greatly interested in preventing the success of this plan,
though, of course, it was necessary for them to be discreet and
cautious in manifesting any open opposition to it in the then present
stage of the affair.

[Sidenote: The three princesses of Armagnac.]

[Sidenote: Their portraits.]

The king was very particular in the instructions which he gave to the
commissioners in respect to the portraits, with a view of securing, if
possible, perfectly correct and fair representations of the originals.
He wished that the princesses should not be flattered at all by the
artist in his delineation of them, and that they should not be dressed
at their sittings in any unusually elegant manner. On the contrary,
they were to be painted "in their kirtles simple, and their visages
like as ye see, and their stature, and their beauty, and the color of
their skin, and their countenances, just as they really are." The
artist was instructed, too, by the commissioners to be expeditious in
finishing the pictures and sending them to England, in order that the
king might see them as soon as possible, and make his choice between
the three young ladies whose "images" were to be thus laid before him.

[Sidenote: The plan fails.]

This plan for giving the king an opportunity to choose between the
three princesses of Armagnac, nicely arranged as it was in all its
details, failed of being carried successfully int