, to whom the ancient Romans
would have raised altars, was Don Diego Bothei, one of the greatest
lords of the court of Portugal, and who drew his origin from the kings
of Bohemia.

Hume supplies an anecdote of singular royal distress. The queen of
England, with her son Charles, "had a moderate pension assigned her; but
it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that one morning when the
Cardinal de Retz waited on her, she informed him that her daughter, the
Princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie a-bed for want of a fire to warm
her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a queen of
England, and a daughter of Henry IV. of France!" We find another proof
of her extreme poverty. Salmasius, after publishing his celebrated
political book, in favour of Charles I., the _Defensio Regia_, was much
blamed by a friend for not having sent a copy to the widowed queen of
Charles, who, he writes, "though poor, would yet have paid the bearer."

The daughter of James the First, who married the Elector Palatine, in
her attempts to get her husband crowned, was reduced to the utmost
distress, and wandered frequently in disguise.

A strange anecdote is related of Charles VII. of France. Our Henry V.
had shrunk his kingdom into the town of Bourges. It is said that having
told a shoemaker, after he had just tried a pair of his boots, that he
had no money to pay for them, Crispin had such callous feelings that he
refused his majesty the boots. "It is for this reason," says Comines, "I
praise those princes who are on good terms with the lowest of their
people; for they know not at what hour they may want them."

Many monarchs of this day have experienced more than once the truth of
the reflection of Comines.

We may add here, that in all conquered countries the descendants of
royal families have been found among the dregs of the populace. An Irish
prince has been discovered in the person of a miserable peasant; and in
Mexico, its faithful historian Clavigero notices, that he has known a
locksmith, who was a descendant of its ancient kings, and a tailor, the
representative of one of its noblest families.

FEUDAL CUSTOMS.

Barbarous as the feudal customs were, they were the first attempts at
organising European society. The northern nations, in their irruptions
and settlements in Europe, were barbarians independent of each other,
till a sense of public safety induced these hordes to confederate. But
the private