le which maintains that
monarchs are indifferent authors. As a poet, he is entitled to a very
high rank indeed, being, I think, in point of sweetness and melody of
verse, not much inferior to Chaucer. From the window of his chamber in
the Tower, he had often seen a young lady, of great beauty and grace,
walking in the garden; and the admiration which at once possessed him
soon ripened into love. This was Lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the
Earl of Somerset and niece of Henry IV., and who afterwards became his
queen. How he loved and how he wooed her is told in his own beautiful
poem of "The King's Quhair," of which the following are a few stanzas:--

"Now there was made, fast by the towris wall,
A garden fair; and in the corners set
An arbour green, with wandis long and small
Railed about, and so with trees set
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,
That lyf was none walking there forbye,
That might within scarce any wight espy.

"So thick the boughis and the leavis greene
Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And mids of every arbour might be seen
The sharpe, greene, sweete juniper,
Growing so fair, with branches here and there,
That, as it seemed to a lyf without,
The boughis spread the arbour all about.

"And on the smalle greene twistis sat
The little sweet nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear the hymnis consecrat
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung
Right of their song.

"And therewith cast I down mine eyes again,
Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
Full secretly, now comen here to plain,
The fairest or the freshest younge flower
That e'er I saw, methought, before that hour:
For which sudden abate, anon astart
The blood of all my body to my heart.

"And though I stood abasit for a lite,
No wonder was; for why? my wittis all
Were so o'ercome with pleasance and delight--
Only through letting of my eyen fall--
That suddenly my heart became her thrall
For ever of free will, for of menace
There was no token in her sweete face."

_Wherefore, Love, didst thou betray me?
Where is now the tender glance?
Where the meaning looks once lavished
By the dark-eyed Maid of France?_--p. 168.

There appears to be no doubt that Prince Charles was deeply attached to
one of the princesses of the royal family of France. In the interesting
collection called "Jacobite Memoirs," com