"The Queen, hearing of the silk, resolved naturally enough to unravel it. She accordingly started for Woodstock one afternoon, and, suspecting something wrong, took a large bowl of poison in one hand and a stout dagger in the other. Having found Fair Rosamond, she held the poniard to the heart and the bowl to the lips of that unfortunate young person, who, it is said, preferred the black draught to the steel medicine."
Later on in the history we have another good example of Leech's humour. King Edward, having subdued the Welsh, "endeavoured to propitiate his newly acquired subjects by becoming a resident in the conquered country. His wife Eleanor gave birth to a son in the castle of Caernarvon, and he availed himself of the circumstance to introduce the infant as a native production, giving him the title of Prince of Wales, which has ever since been held by the eldest son of the British sovereign."
[Illustration: QUEEN ELEANOR AND FAIR ROSAMOND.]
[Illustration: KING EDWARD INTRODUCING HIS SON AS PRINCE OF WALES TO HIS NEWLY-ACQUIRED SUBJECTS.]
A well-known historical scene is parodied as follows: Henry IV. being ill, "the Prince of Wales was sitting up with him in the temporary capacity of nurse," says Mr. à Becket. "The son, however, seemed rather to be waiting for his father's death than hoping for the prolongation of his life; and the King having gone off in a fit, the Prince, instead of calling for assistance or giving any aid himself, heartlessly took that opportunity to see how he should look in the crown, which always hung on a peg in the royal bedchamber. Young Henry was figuring away before a cheval glass with the regal bauble on his head, and was exclaiming, 'Just the thing, upon my honour!' when the elder Henry, happening to recover, sat up in bed and saw the conduct of his offspring.
[Illustration: UNSEEMLY CONDUCT OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.]
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER GOES INTO MOURNING FOR HIS LITTLE NEPHEWS.]
"'Hallo!' cried the King, 'who gave you leave to put that on? I think you might have left it alone till I've done with it.'"
The savage and hypocritical character of Richard III. afforded Leech an opportunity for satire in his design of that monarch, when still Duke of Gloucester, in the shape of a crocodile shedding tears for the death of the two Princes in the Tower.