In this condition, she had recourse to the bishop of Winchester, to whom she was related; but this furnished her enemies with a new handle for calumny: and it was determined she should submit to the trial of the fire-ordeal, in which she came off unhurt. And king Edward fell on his knees before his mother, begged her pardon, and submitted to be scourged by the bishop, as a penitent.
Rapin, however, says, that she spent the last ten years of her life in misery, in a kind of prison at Winchester; from whence she was not delivered but by death, in the year 1052.
ENGLISH, ESTHER.
A remarkable fine penwoman in the reign of queen Elizabeth and James. Some of her performances are still extant in several collections. One of them is very curious, it is intituled, Octonaries upon the Vanity and Inconstancy of the World; written by Esther Inglis, the first of January, 1600: it is done on an oblong 8 vo. in French and English verse: the French in print hand, and the English in Italic, or secretary; and is ornamented with flowers and fruits, painted in water colours, and, on the first leaf, is her own picture, in a small frame. At the age of forty, she married a Mr. Kello, by whom she had a son, who was in orders. From one of her pieces, it appears that bishop Hall, of Norwich, was her particular friend.
