d'Albert, king of Navarre, surnamed the Bad. Her mother was Jane, daughter of John, king of France. Joanna was born about 1370, and in 1386, she married John de Montfort, duke of Bretagne, surnamed the Valiant, by whom she was tenderly beloved, and who left her regent and sole guardian of the young duke, their eldest son, on his death, in 1399. In 1402, Joanna married Henry of Lancaster, king of England, who died in 1413; after which event, Joanna still remained in England. In 1419, she was arrested on a charge of witchcraft against the king, Henry V., her step-son. She was condemned, deprived of all her property, and imprisoned till 1422, when she was set free, and her dower restored. She died at Havering Bower, in 1437. Joanna had nine children by the duke of Bretagne, some of whom died before her; but none by Henry IV. She was a beautiful and a very intelligent woman.

JOANNA,

COUNTESS of Hainault and Flanders. Baldwin, count of Flanders, born in 1171, was one of the heroes of the fourth crusade. He had taken the city of Constantinople, and borne for a short time the empty title of emperor. The fortunes of war rendered him prisoner during a tedious captivity of eighteen years. In parting for the crusade, Baldwin left two young daughters, Joan and Margaret the former destined to be his heiress and successor. Their mother, Mary di Sciampagna, died at Acre, in making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During the absence of Baldwin, Flanders was governed by the guardian and cousin of the infants, Philip of Namur.

Joan, from early girlhood, manifested an imperious will and ardent desire for sway. Profiting by a rumour of the death of her father, which began to be spread abroad, she seized the reins of government, and caused herself, in 1209, to be declared countess of Hainault and Flanders. Two years after this she formed a marriage, which, judging from its result, must have arisen on her side from motives of policy, unmingled with affection. The husband she selected was Ferdinand,

son of Sancho, king of Portugal. Uncertain in disposition, unskilful in conduct, and weak in design, Ferdinand attempted various expeditions, and performed all with ill-success. He began by forming an alliance with Philip Augustus; then owing to some frivolous pique we find him deserting to the English, just at the time of the famous battle of Bouvines. Covered with wounds, he fell into the hands of the French, and was conveyed a prisoner to Paris, where he remained fifteen years in captivity. Joan appears to have considered him well disposed of, as she maintained an amicable relation with Philip Augustus, and afterwards with Louis VIII. These kings were her friends, supporters, and trusty allies. No doubt they consulted her wishes in retaining the unhappy Ferdinand in the Louvre, while they granted her the honours and privileges of a sovereign per se, among which was the holding an unsheathed sword before them. She seems to have governed with vigour and judgment. Her political treaties were made with a sagacity rare at that period. She had none of the tenderness of an amiable woman, but was gifted with the shrewd sense and hardness of a statesman. Circumstances soon arose before which a less stout heart would have quailed, and a more sensitive conscience refused to act.

In 1225, a broken-down, grey-haired, feeble old man made his appearance in Lisle, and declared himself to be Baldwin, the father of the countess, returned to resume his sovereignty! Joan boldly asserted that he was an impostor, and denied him admission to the palace; but his piteous tale, his venerable appearance, and the natural bias of the populace to side with the oppressed, gained him numerous partizans. Joan's residence was surrounded by a tumultuous mob, and she hastily fled to Peronne, and put herself under the protection of her trusty friend king Louis, who summoned the soi-disant Baldwin to appear before his tribunal, when as suzerain he would pronounce between the contending parties. His decision would probably have been the same had the unfortunate pretender offered the strongest evidence - as it was, the old man was unable to answer questions propounded to him about early events and persons. He pleaded that age, and trouble, and present sickness and agitation, dulled his faculties and injured his memory; but Louis gave sentence that he was an impostor, and as such, ordered him out of the kingdom, though he respected the safe-conduct under which he had presented himself, and had him carried safely beyond the frontiers. The countess being reinstated in her domains, showed by her cruelty that she did not despise the claims of the wretched veteran. She sent persons to seize him, and when under her jurisdiction, after submitting his aged limbs to the torture, she caused him to be decapitated. Kneeling on the scaffold, with one hand on the crucifix, and his head on the block, he repeated that he was the true and real Baldwin, count of Flanders. At a neighbouring window appeared a pale visage, with closed teeth and contracted muscles-it was Joan-who took a fearful satis

After this scene of blood, the countess governed Flanders peacefully and prosperously for sixteen years. The justice of St. Louis when he ascended the throne of France opened the prison-doors of Ferdinand; but the privations, and sufferings, and solitude of years, had weakened his moral and physical economy-he was prematurely oldand did not live to enjoy his freedom, so long wished for. The widow princess deemed it expedient to enter into new nuptials. She espoused Thomas of Savoy. The day after this marriage, mounted in a stately car with her husband, she went in procession through the city of Lisle; but when she arrived at the place where her father had been executed, a bloody phantom rose before her-the head but half attached to the bust-and uttered the most frightful menaces. Who shall pronounce whether this apparition was the effect of a guilty conscience, stimulated by the accusations of the populace, or a nervous disorder, the beginning of divine vengeance! At all events, from that day Joan led a life of agony and terror, always haunted by the fatal spectre. Consulting holy churchmen, she was advised to build a monastery on the very spot where the phantom rose. Joan not only did this, but also erected a hospital and two convents; and that her repentance might prove still more efficacious, assumed herself the habit of a nun, and died in the cloister in the year 1241. Her death-bed was surrounded by the holy sisterhood, who lavished every comfort of religion upon her; she grasped convulsively the crucifix, and her last words were, in accents of despair, "Will God forgive me?"

JOANNA,

Or Naples, daughter of Robert, king of Naples, of the Anjou dynasty, succeeded her father in 1343. She was then sixteen, handsome and accomplished. She had been for some time married to her cousin Andreas of Hungary; but this union was not a happy one. Andreas claimed to be king and to share his wife's authority, which, by her father's will, had been solely left to her. The

offended the Neapolitan nobility, and his Hungarian guards excited their jealousy. A conspiracy was formed by the nobles, and one night while the court was at Aversa, Andreas was strangled, and his body thrown out of a window of the castle.

Joanna went immediately to Naples, and thence issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers. Many persons were put to a cruel death as accessaries, but public opinion still implicated the queen in the murder. The same year Joanna married her cousin Louis, prince of Tarentum. Soon after Louis, king of Hungary, the brother of Andreas, came with an army to avenge his brother's death. He defeated the queen's troops, and entered Naples. Joanna then took refuge in her hereditary principality of Provence. She soon repaired to Avignon, and, before Pope Clement VI., protested her innocence and demanded a trial. She was tried and acquitted; and, out of gratitude, she gave up to the papal see the town and county of Avignon.

In the mean time, a pestilence had frightened away the Hungarians from Naples, and Joanna, returning to her kingdom, was solemnly crowned with her husband, in 1351. Joan reigned many years in peace. Having lost her husband in 1362, she married James of Arragon, a prince of Majorca, and on his death she married, in 1876, Otho, duke of Brunswick; but having no children, she gave her niece Margaret to Charles, duke of Durazzo, and appointed him her successor. On the breaking out of the schism between Urban VI. and Clement VII., Joanna took the part of the latter. Urban excommunicated her, and gave her kingdom to Charles Durazzo, who revolted against his sovereign and benefactress. With the aid of the pope he raised troops, defeated the queen, and took her prisoner. He then tried to induce Joanna to abdicate in his favour; but she firmly refused, and named Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles V., king of France, as her successor. Charles then transferred Joanna to the castle of Muro, in Basilicata, where he caused her to be murdered, in 1382. She was a woman of great accomplishments, and many good qualities.

JOANNA II.,

DAUGHTER of Charles Durazzo, and sister of Ladislaus, king of Naples, succeeded the latter in 1414. She was then forty-four, and was noted for her licentiousness and weakness. She married, from political motives, James, Count de la Marche, who was allied to the royal family of France. But the union proved a most unhappy one, and James fled to France, where it is said that he ended his days in a convent. Meantime unworthy favourites ruled in succession in the court of Joanna. One of them, Ser Gianni Caracciolo, of a noble family, saw his influence disputed by the famous Condottiere Sforza Attendolo, who, together with many barons that were jealous of Caracciolo, took the part of Louis of Anjou, grandson of that Louis to whom Joanna I. had bequeathed the crown. The queen sought for support in Alfonso of Arragon, king of Sicily, whom she appointed her suc

cessor.

Alfonso came to Naples; but the fickle Joan, having made her peace with Sforza, revoked her adoption of Alfonso, and appointed Louis of Anjou her successor. Alfonso was obliged to return to Sicily, and soon after Caracciolo was murdered in consequence of court jealousy. Louis of Anjou died also, and was followed to the grave by Joanna herself, who appointed René of Anjou her successor. She died in 1435, leaving her kingdom in great disorder, and with the prospect of disputed succession and civil war.

JUDITH,

DAUGHTER of Welff, a count, by some writers called the duke of Bavaria, was selected, from her beauty, to be the second wife of Louis le Debonnaire, son of Charlemagne, emperor of France. She was well educated, and succeeded in obtaining such control over the king's affections, that she governed not only in the palace, but also exercised the greatest influence in the government. Her oldest son, who afterwards reigned under the name of Charles the Bald, was born in 823; but as the king had already divided his estates between the sons of his former marriage, there was nothing left for him. Judith immediately exerted herself to obtain a kingdom for her child; and having made her god-son, Bernard, duke of Aquitaine, prime minister, a national assembly was convoked at Worms, and by the consent of Lothaire, the eldest son of Louis, the country between the Jura, Alps, Rhine, and Maine, was given to Charles, who was placed under the care of Bernard.

Pepin, the second son of Louis, having convinced Lothaire of his folly in yielding up his possessions at the request of Judith, induced him to unite with him in a rebellion against Judith and Louis. In 829 they surrounded Aix, took Judith and her husband prisoners, and accusing Judith of too great intimacy with Bernard, forced her to take the veil, in the convent of St. Radegonde, at Poitiers. They, however, permitted Judith to have a private interview with her husband, on condition that she would urge on him the necessity of an immediate abdication. Judith promised to do so; but instead, advised Louis to yield to circum

The

stances, and go to the monastery of St. Médard, at Soissons, but not to abdicate the crown. king followed her advice; and, in 830, Lothaire, having quarrelled with his brother, restored the crown to Louis, who immediately recalled Judith. The pope released her from her conventual vows, and she cleared herself by an oath from the accusation of adultery that was brought against her. Bernard, who had fled to Aquitaine, also returned, and offered to prove his innocence of the crime by single combat, with any of his accusers. No one accepted the challenge, but the public feeling was so strong against him, that the empress was obliged to send him away.

In 833, the emperor was again betrayed and deposed by his children, although Judith had exerted herself in every way, even by cruelty, to retain for her weak husband the power he could not keep for himself. After a year of confinement, Louis was again placed on the throne; and by the new division of the empire, arranged in 839, Judith had the satisfaction of seeing her son placed in possession of a large share of those estates from which he had seemed forever excluded. Louis the Mild died in 840, and Judith only survived him three years. She died at Tours. Some historians, however, say that her death did not occur till 848, or even till 874. In her heart the mother's ambition was the predominating power.

WAS the daughter of a noble Phoenician, a high priest of the temple of the sun, at Emesa. Nature had blessed her with great intellectual and personal endowments; and the high gifts of beauty, wit, imagination, and discernment, were augmented by all the advantages of study and education. She is said to have been well acquainted with history, moral philosophy, geometry, and other sciences, which she cultivated through life; and her mental accomplishments won her the friendship of all the most distinguished among the learned in Rome, "where," (says one of her modern historians, in modern phrase,) "elle vint, dans l'intention de faire fortune, et y reussit."

From the time of her union with Severus,

(twenty years before his elevation to the throne,) he almost always adopted her counsels, and mainly owed to them that high reputation with his army, which induced his troops in Illyria to proclaim him emperor. Although Julia Domna has been accused, by the scandal of ancient history, of gallantry in her early days, (the common accusation of the compilers of anecdotes, who pass for historians,) all writers acknowledge that the follies of her youth were effaced by the virtues and the genius which glorified her maturity; and that, when seated on the throne of the empire, she surrounded it by whatever the declining literature and science of the day still preserved of the wise, able, and eminent.

Her husband esteemed her genius, and consulted her upon all affairs; and she, in some measure, governed during the reign of her sons, though she had the misfortune of seeing one slain by his execrable brother, whose excesses she inwardly murmured at, when she dared not openly condemn.

To the last hour of her son's life, Julia Domna, who had accompanied him to the East, administered all that was moral or intellectual in the government of the empire; and the respectful civility of the usurper Macrinus to the widow of Severus, might have flattered her with the hope of an honourable if not a happy old age, in the society of the lettered and the scientific, whom to the last she served and protected.

But the heart, if not the spirit of this great woman, and most unfortunate of mothers, was broken. "She had experienced all the vicissitudes of fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to greatness, only to taste the superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the life of another. The terrible death of Caracalla, though her good sense must have long taught her to expect it, awakened the feelings of a mother and an empress. She descended with a painful struggle into the condition of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death, from an anxious and a humiliating dependence." She refused all food and died of starvation.

JULIA MAM MEA,

MOTHER of Alexander Severus, emperor of Rome, in 222, was possessed of equal genius and courage. She educated her son very carefully for the throne, rendering him a man of virtue and sensibility. Severus thought so highly of his mother that he consulted her in every thing, and followed her advice. Julia having heard of Origen, sent for him, and is supposed to have been converted by him to Christianity. She was murdered with her son, in Gaul, by the discontented soldiery, in 235.

to common sense and duty. She saw that the Romans would not long bear such a shameful yoke, and she induced the emperor, who always | retained his respect for her, to nominate his cousin, Alexander Severus, his successor. Julia Mosa attained a happy and respected old age, and was placed by Alexander Severus in the list of divinities.

JULIA SEMIUS,

MOTHER of Heliogabalus, emperor of Rome, was a native of Apamea; her father was Julius Avitus, and her mother, Mosa. Her sister, Julia Mammea, was the second wife of the emperor Septimus Severus. Julia Somius was made president of a senate of women, which she had elected, to decide the quarrels and affairs of the Roman matrons, an office of some difficulty, if not honour. She at last provoked the people by her debaucheries, extravagance, and cruelties, and was murdered with her son and family, in 222.

JULIA,

A VIRGIN and martyr of Carthage. At the sack of Carthage by Genseric, king of the Vandals, Julia was sold to a heathen merchant, and carried to Syria. Here she was discovered to be a Christian, by her refusal to take a part in some of the festivals instituted in honour of the female deities, and was put to death, in 440.

JULIANNA,

WIFE of Eustace de Breteuil, was the natural daughter of Henry I. of England. Her husband having confided to her the defence of the castle de Breteuil, in 1119, she defended it bravely against her father, at the head of a large army. Her father had taken her two sons prisoners, and given them to their enemies, who had mutilated their faces. When Julianna found that she could hold out no longer, she sent to desire an interview with her father, who, suspecting no treachery, went to meet her, when she attempted to kill him. Henry avoided the blow, and forced her to surrender. She was obliged to leave the castle ignominiously, and went to rejoin her husband at Pacy-sur-Eure.

K. KHAULA,

AN Arabian heroine, who, in the famous battle of the Yermonks, between the Greeks and the Arabs, in the seventh century, rallied the Arabs, when they were driven back by the furious onset of their assailants, and, with several other of the chief women, took the command of the army. In leading the van, Khaula was beaten to the ground by a Greek, when Wafeira, one of her female friends, rescued her, by striking off his head with one blow. This courageous conduct so animated the Arabs, that they routed the Greeks with great loss. Khaula afterwards married the caliph

Ali.

L.

LABANA,

A MOORISH-SPANIARD, of a noble family at Corduba. She was a most accurate poetess, and also was skilled in philosophy and music. She died young, in 995.

LAURA,

THE beloved of Petrarch, is better known by that title, than by her own name of Laura de Noyes. She was born at Avignon, and married Hugo de Sade. Petrarch first saw her in 1827, and conceived a passion for her, which existed during her life; yet her chastity has never been called in question. Petrarch wrote three hundred and eighteen sonnets and eighty-eight songs, of which Laura was the subject. She died of the plague, in 1348, aged thirty-eight. She is said to have had a graceful figure, a sweet voice, a noble and distinguished appearance, and a countenance which inspired tenderness.

The poetry of Petrarch gave Laura a wide celebrity during her lifetime. It is recorded, that the king of Bohemia, arriving at Avignon, sought out this well-sung lady, and kissed her on the forehead, in token of homage. All this may appear very pleasant; romantic young ladies may even account Laura a very fortunate woman; but there is a dark side to the picture. The husband of Laura was not pleased with the notoriety which the devotion of Petrarch conferred on the object of his passion or his poetry. No wonder the jealousy of the husband, even an Italian husband, should have been awakened; and though no real infidelity of his wife was ever discovered, yet it was not possible he could enjoy the quiet happiness of domestic life, which is based on perfect confidence in the affections as well as principles of the married pair. The children of this illmatched couple showed either that their training was neglected, or their natural gifts very mediocre; both consequences unfavourable to the character of their mother. Of Laura's nine sons, not one was ever distinguished for sense or spirit;

and her only daughter conducted herself in such an irregular manner, that her friends were forced to shut her up in a convent. Such were the children of this "beloved of Petrarch." Surely, Laura's celebrity can be no object of envy to any good mother who has good children. And Petrarch-could he have been an honourable man, who, for twenty-two years, made love to another man's wife?

LEELA,

Or Granada, a Moorish-Spaniard, who was celebrated for her learning. She died in the early part of the thirteenth century.

LEVI,

JUSTIN DE, daughter of André Perotti, of Sasso Ferrato, a descendant of the illustrious house of Levi, was born at Cremona, in the fourteenth century, and was a successful writer of Italian poetry. She was a contemporary and correspondent of Petrarch. She addressed to him a sonnet, to which he replied by another. But, to avoid the appearance of rivalry with this celebrated poet, she determined to write only in French. She married Louis de Puytendre, a French gentleman, living on the borders of the Rhine, and was the ancestress of Clotilde de Surville.

LEIVA,

MARIA VIRGINIA DI. Horace remarks, in an often-quoted sally, that many heroes worthy of renown have existed, acted, and been forgotten, because there was no bard to cast his sacred light around their deeds. The interest awakened by the poet, is indeed universal and far-spreading. Who, for instance, does not feel more alive to the identity of Agamemnon the very king noted by Homer-or of Andromache, or of Helen, than to the well-authenticated existence of many an actual prince or pretty woman, who, wanting the bard, is made known to us merely by chronological tablets? It is that sort of interest, inspired by being the subject of the pen of genius, that renders the Signora Di Leiva worthy a place in these sketches. Manzoni, in the best romance Italy has