Page:The Queens of England.djvu/91

ISABELLA OF ANGOULEME. 75 now to witness a conflict between the forces of her husband and those of the man whom she really loved. John was suc- cessful; and Lusignan, his rival in love, and Arthur, his rival in empire, were both taken prisoners by him. There can be little doubt but that the entreaties of Isabella prevailed in Lusignan's favor ; for although John treated him with the grossest indignity, even carrying him in a tumbril- cart, bound hand and foot, in triumph through the country, yet he spared his life ; whilst others of the insurgent barons of Poitou, having been conveyed to England, were starved to death in a dungeon of Corfe Castle, by the king's especial order. Bitterly now must Isabella have repented her splendid match, for the temper of John was gradually growing more morose and violent. Arthur was murdered ; and the proud Lusignan, refusing all submission, was consigned to one of the dungeons of Bristol Castle, at the same time that the lovely sister of the murdered Arthur, surnamed the Pearl of Brit- tany, was also a prisoner there. John, who in some measure had been kept in check by his mother, the able Eleanor, seemed, after her death to give full scope to his evil nature, and even Isabella became the object of his harsh and brutal treatment. Himself in the constant habit of invading the honor of the female nobility, he naturally believed his wife to be guilty of infidelity, and therefore listened to the reports of every dishonest knave whom he hired to watch her. No less than three persons against whom his suspicions were raised were murdered ; and, in order to strike terror into the heart of his wife, their dead bodies were discovered by her hang- ing over her bed. Soon after this, and although she was the mother of three children, she was arrested and placed un- der restraint, and lived for some time in constant fear of assassination. From the year 12 12 it is probable that John and his wife came to an amicable understanding; her mother visited Eng- land, and put herself under the protection of John, and he and his queen went over to Angouleme. The Poitovin prov- inces of John being again seized by Philip, he was compelled to enter into an alliance with his former rival, Count Hugh de Lusignan, who had been now some years at liberty. The count refused his aid unless John gave him his eldest daughter, then an infant, to wife: — an atonement, as he said, for having