Matilda's aunt seeks to compel her to take the veil-Appeal to Anselm the Primate Council of Ecclesiastics at Lambeth Palace-Anselm restores ELIZABETH WOODVILLE is supposed to have been born about the year 1431-we say supposed, for there is no certainty upon the point. Her mother, a princess of the house of Luxembourg, had originally been married to the warlike Duke of Bedford, who left her a widow at the age of seventeen; as third lady of the realm, she was dowered upon the royal domains; but love levels all distinctions, and Richard Woodville, a young esquire in her late husband's household, considered at the time as the handsomest man in the kingdom, won her heart whilst employed in the honorable office of escorting the widow of his late master to England, and soon after they were privately married. The duchess's dower was forfeited on the discovery of her marriage, but on her petition to Parliament it was restored. Grafton Castle was her principal residence, and here Elizabeth was born some years before her mother's marriage was made public; hence the uncertainty as to the date of her birth. On the death of Queen Catherine, who had espoused a simple Welsh gentleman named Owen Tudor, and the Queen-dowager Joanna, the Duchess of Bedford, as the wife of Richard Woodville was still styled, became the first lady in England, and remained so till the arrival of the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou, the queen of Henry VI., through whose influence she caused her husband to be created first Baron, and finally Earl Rivers. Her lovely daughter Elizabeth was named maid of honor to her majesty about the same time. The first lover of the future Queen of England was a valiant knight, Sir Hugh Johns, who had greatly distinguished himself in the wars in France. But however brave as a soldier, he was but a timid wooer, and employed the intercession of the Duke of York, protector of the kingdom, and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, better known as the King-maker. Two singular letters are still extant, in which the above-named powerful nobles recommend the suit of the amorous knight to the fair Mistress Woodville. Doubtless the lady had other suitors, but history is silent respecting them. Few women admire a bashful lover; they prefer a bold, frankspoken gallant who can plead for himself. The young maid of honor, although of royal descent, had no taste to be wooed by proxy. Sir Hugh was formally rejected, and the hand he so vainly sought was bestowed upon John Gray, the heir of the house of Ferrers of Groby, and possessor of the ancient domain of Bradgate, a noble family attached to the Lancastrian party. Elizabeth bore her husband, who succeeded to the title of Lord Ferrers by the death of his father, in 1457, two sons, both of them born at Bradgate. During the war of the roses, Lady Ferrers accompanied her youthful husband in his campaigns, till he fell mortally wounded at the battle of St. Albans, where he commanded the cavalry. According to the chroniclers of the period, he was a gallant general, and contributed materially to the victory by his personal courage on that memorable occasion. On the downfall of the house of Lancaster, the victorious York ists confiscated the possessions of the helpless widow, who, with her two infants, found a refuge in Grafton Castle, the dower of her mother, where she remained in the deepest retirement, mourning the loss of the lover of her youth and father of her children, as woman mourns the extinction of the first dream of the heartthe clouding of the sunlight of her existence. How beautiful in its devotion-how strong in its disinterestedness-is the sentiment of maternity in the heart of woman! At its voice the widowed heart subdues the throbbings of its agonies—the feeble find energy-the desolate hope. What the youthful widow in all probability would have lacked courage to attempt even for herself, she accomplished for her children—the restoration of the confiscated inheritance of Bradgate. On hearing that Edward IV., the youthful heir of the house of York-and confessedly one of, if not the handsomest man in his dominions was hunting in Whittlebury Forest, in the immediate neighborhood of Grafton, she resolved to present herself before him, and implore his commiseration for her children. Tradition still marks the spot where she waited for the approach of the gallant monarch. Holding her fatherless boys by the hand, she stood under the shelter of a magnificent oak, whose hollow trunk. -known by the name of the Queen's Oak-remains even to the present day a record and a witness of the past. We can well imagine the young king, in the full pride of manhood, attended by a train of youthful nobles, startled in the full ardor of the chase by the beautiful apparition before him. Tradition has not left us the exact words in which the widowed lady addressed him; and what imagination can supply a mother's eloquence? Perhaps some of his more prudent courtiers whispered in his ear the impolicy of listening to her prayer; but the beauty of the pleader, the romance of the interview, had more power over the amorous heart of Edward than all their prudent suggestions. If for an instant he turned aside-it was but for an instant-the imploring look, the mute entreaty of her tearful eye fascinated him, and the prayer of the petitioner was granted. Bradgate was restored to her children, and the first gleam of |