The Chronicle of Adam of Usk. May 1395. The next year, at the end of May, the king returned to England, landing at Bristol; and forthwith he sent envoys into France to contract his second marriage, of which more anon. And so, a matter for wonder, he took to wife [Isabella Valois Queen Consort England (age 5)] a child not yet seven years old, rejecting the daughter and heiress of the king of Aragon, though very fair and of marriageable years¹, But why he chose this young child,—and though a child she was married to him at Calais with much outlay of money and show—they say was that, eager to pour forth his pent-up venom, he thought by help and favour of the king of France to destroy his enemies. Yet this in the end turned to the ruin of himself and his confederates, as will afterwards appear².

Note 1. The actual age of Isabella of France was eight years. The marriage took place at Calais, on the Ist November, 1396. The daughter of the king of Aragon, referred to above, appears to have been Yolande, daughter of John I (age 44). She married, in 1400, Louis II (age 17), titular king of Naples and count of Provence, and thus became grandmother to Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI.

Note 2. The surrender by Richard, in 1393 and 1397, of Cherbourg and Brest, which were held in pawn of the king of Navarre and duke of Brittany, was most distasteful to the English. Men recalled the conquests of Edward III. and their speedy loss, and had come to look upon even the givitig up of towns held in pledge as a national wrong. This, added to the French marriage, gave rise to various rumours of Richard’s designs in favour of the French: among others, that Calais, too, was to be handed over to them. See the story of Richard’s quarrel, on this score, with the duke of Gloucester, as told in the Chronique de la Tratson et Mort de Richart II., ed. B. Williams (English Hist. Soc.), 1846.