rs by the Black Prince, father of Richard. During his
captivity he lived in considerable state in London at the Savoy Palace,
which occupied the site of the present Savoy Hotel in the Strand; he
brought his own painter from France with him, who painted his portrait
which still exists in Paris. This King John was the father of four
remarkable sons, Charles V., King of France, with whom Edward III.
and the Black Prince fought the latter part of the Hundred Years' War;
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy; John, Duke of Berry; and Louis,
Duke of Anjou. In this list, all are names of remarkable men and great
art-patrons, about whom you may some day read interesting things.
Numerous lovely objects still in existence were made for them, and
would not have been made at all if they had not been the men they were.
It was only just becoming possible in the fourteenth century for a
prince to be an art-patron. That required money, and hitherto even
princes had rarely been rich. The increasing wealth of England, France,
and Flanders at this time was based upon the wool industry and the
manufacture and commerce to which it gave rise. The Lord Chancellor
in the House of Lords to this day sits on a woolsack, which is a reminder
of the time when the woolsacks of England were the chief source of
the wealth of English traders.

After the Black Death, an awful plague that swept through Europe in
1349, a large part of the land of England was given up to sheep grazing,
because the population had diminished, and it took fewer people to
look after sheep than it did to till the soil. Although this had been
an evil in the beginning, it became afterwards a benefit, for English
wool was sold at an excellent price to the merchants of Flanders, who
worked it up into cloth, and in their turn sold that all over Europe
with big profits. The larger merchants who regulated the wool traffic
were prosperous, and so too the landowners and princes whose property
thus increased in value. The four sons of King John became very wealthy
men. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, by marrying the heiress of
the Count of Flanders acquired the Flemish territory and the wealth
obtained from the wool trade and manufacture there. Berry and Anjou
were great provinces in France yielding a large revenue to their two
Dukes. Each of these princes employed several artists to illuminate
books for him in the most splendid way; they built magnificent chateaux,
and had tapestries and