The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-10-04
The Baby King.

the days were short and the winter at
its hardest, a little wailing infant,
weakly from it's birth, though born
Prince of Wales and heir to the most
powerful of European Kingdoms. was
born in Windsor Castle in the year
l42l: Henry, only child of Henry ",
the conqueror of the age, and grandson
OF Henry w., one of the most wise of
English kings. He himself was not
destined to be either brave or wise or
fortunate. His mother, Katherine of
France, had been won at the sword s
point; and the marriage was supposed
to give some claim of right to the SOW.
ereignty of France, which Herr V.
had got by right of conquest before he
married her. What her own feelings
were about it, or whether she loved
her bold English husband and her Fee
BILE English baby we'll enough to be
willing that her brother should be dis.
inherited for them, and her country
brought under a strangers rule, no
one knows it is always difficult to
make out what the poor woman felt
about it, who have to take a passive
place in history and say nothing about
what they are thinking. Anyhow,
poor Katherine, one would imagine,
must have been sad enough in those
dull wintry days at Windsor-her hus-
band far off in France, fighting against
her family and her people, and doing
all he could to crush out every germ of
freedom in the conquered country !;
for in those days, and even in our days
a man may be very fond of freedom
for himself and for his own country,
who is quite ready to call the love of
liberty rebellion in other people.
Henry V. was a patriotic and popu-
lar monarch, doing everything he
could to enrich England and secure
her peace by running her neighbor, as
the most of us have lived to see an
other great nation do. But Henry did
not succeed, and l hope the other enc
my of France will not succeed either.
He was far away IN France. at his fav.
orite work Of fighting, when he got
the news of his sons birth-his first
and only child. 1t seems that brave
Henry had in him some touch of super
stiti0n, as is not very unusual with
fighting men; and he did not wish his
child to be born at Windsor, no doubt
from some idea that it was unlucky or
unwholesome. When he heard where
the event had taken place, he turned
to his chamberlain, Lord Fitzhugh, and
gave vent to a dreary prophecy II,
Henry, born at Monmouth, shall small
time reign and much get,' said the
foreboding King, land Henry, born at
Windsor, shall long reign and all lose !;
but as God wills, so be it, This was
Henry Wis welcome into this cold
and wintry world. And, after while
his mother went away to France, and
the baby was left solitary in the great
silent Castle; so great and powerful,
heir to two kingdoms, yet SO feeble
and helpless and small. You cannot
fancy greater difference than there
was between this poor little atom Of
humanity and his position; and if he
had died then in his cradle, or been
suffered to grow up among the grooms
in the stable, q humble servant of the
Kings household. one cannot but
think it would have been better for
that last Henry Plantagenet-bette
for England, and certainly better for
him.
The poor little baby prince was but
eight months old when his father
died, and he in his swaddling clothes
became King Of England Z; and the first
time that history shows us a glimpse
of him is III a strange, gorgeous scene
which took place in the September
after his birth, when a procession of
spendid noblemen in all their robes of
state, bishops and archbishops, and
the great officials of the country, came
thronging into the castle to bring the
Great Seal of England, the highest EN-.
blem Of imperial authority, to the new
monarch. Poor little soul, in his
nurses arms There he sat while all
the fine people came iG, carrying the
Seal in an embroidered bag, itself seal.
ed by the Lord Chancellor. that no one
might tamper with it. Perhaps the
gold and jewels, the ribbons of the
Garter, and the beautiful badge (ot
which I told you) all wrought in enamel
and gold,-the "George,' which all
the Knights of the Garter wore,-daz.
zled and delighted the baby. Or, per.
haps, he only sat and looked on with
that solemnity which you see in babies
sometimes, as if, just newly arrived
out of Heaven, they were too much
above us to trouble themselves about
such trjfles.
1t was at the hour of vespers, when
the bell was pealing from St. Georges
Chapel, and all the chorister boys in
their white robes were streaming into
the cool, dim choir out of the slantine
sunshine; and all about the Castle the
fair woods lay green, and the sun drop
ping into the west made the long line
of the Thames into Il shining, COLDER
pathway. This outside; and all the