the dagger was poisoned. So she sucked the blood from his wound with her
own lips, and so most likely saved his life. But he was very ill in
spite of this, and England nearly lost one of her best and bravest
princes.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1272.]

As soon as he was well enough to travel, he set out for England, and on
the way he was met with the sad news that his father and two of his
children were dead. So he became King of England, and he was the father
of the first Prince of Wales.

[Illustration: PRINCESS ELEANOR]

[Illustration: The First Prince of Wales.

ICH DIEN]

THERE were Welsh princes long before there were English kings, and the
Welsh princes could not bear to be subject to the kings of England. So
they were always fighting to get back their independence. But the
English kings could not let them be free as they wished, because England
could never have been safe with an independent kingdom so close to her.
So there were constant wars between the two countries, and sometimes the
fortune of battle went one way and sometimes the other.

But at last the Welsh Prince Llewellyn was killed. He had gone to the
south of Wales to cheer up his subjects there, and he had crossed the
river Wye into England, when a small band of English knights came up. A
young knight named Adam Frankton met with a Welsh chief as he came out
of a barn to join the Welsh army. Frankton at once attacked him, and
after a struggle, wounded the Welsh chief to death. Then he rode on to
battle, and when he came back he tried to find out what had become of
the Welshman. He heard that he was already dead, and then they found
that the dead man was the great Welsh Prince Llewellyn. His head was
taken off and sent to London, where it was placed on the battlements of
the Tower and crowned, in scorn, with ivy. This was because an old Welsh
magician, years before, had said that when English money became round,
the Welsh princes should be crowned in London. And money had become
round in this way:--

Before this there were silver pennies, and when anyone wanted a
half-penny, he chopped the silver penny in two, and if he wanted a
farthing he chopped the silver penny in four, so that money was all
sorts of queer shapes. But Edward the First had caused round copper
half-pennies and farthings to be made, and when the Welsh prince had
heard of this he had believed that the old magician's words were coming
true, and that he should defeat Edward and b