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 satisfaction in seeing with her own eyes the fulfilment of her dire will!
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 old—and did not live to enjoy his freedom, so long wished for. The widow then 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, it is said that 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 JANE OF NAVARRE,
Consort of Henry the Fourth of England, was the second daughter of Charles 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 the Fifth, 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 the Fourth. She was a beautiful and very intelligent woman.
JOANNA,
Of Naples, daughter of Robert, King of Naples, of the Anjou dynasty, succeeded her father in 1343. She was then sixteen, hand-
