AN EXTRAVAGANT QUEEN
The household expenses of Isabella “the she-wolf of France”—confined at Castle Rising, Norfolk, and at Hertford after Edward II had been murdered in Berkeley Castle —furnish a picture of private life six centuries ago. She pays 13s 4cl for four minstrels who play to her in her Lombard-street house, which cost 25s 2d a year to rent; Os 8d to nuns who meet her at Chcshunt; ancl the equivalent of £3,000 to charity. She pays 50s to tilers, carpenters, and plasterers, and buys bird-cages, with hemp-seed, for her pet birds. Writing vellum costs 14s, and two mules £2B 13s, and in 1357 she borrowed £2OO from an earl. Her extravagance on jewellery was immense. At one period she spent £1,309, or £20,000 of modern money, on jewellery. A dele tor received 40s for attending her and the Queen of Scotland for a month. When she died, it is said through taking too powerful medicine, 14 poor persons were paid 2d daily, beside food, to watch the body.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NEM19340430.2.120
Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 30 April 1934, Page 8
Word Count
170AN EXTRAVAGANT QUEEN Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 30 April 1934, Page 8
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