The fate of Isabelle was of course what now occupied the royal family of France. Her father sent ambassadors to see her and demanded that she should immediately be sent back to France with all her dowry and possessions. Henry IV., on the other hand, was most anxious that she should marry his son, now Prince of Wales, who was, as he truly remarked, of a much more suitable age for her than Richard had been. But Isabelle would not hear of this plan. She had been extremely fond of King Richard, whose visits to her at Windsor or wherever she happened to be pursuing her studies under the care of her ladies had been her greatest pleasure and holidays, and she doubtless looked forward to the time when, free from every restraint, she would live and reign always with the handsome, magnificent hero of romance who treated her with affectionate kindness and unlimited indulgence. If, as Sainte-Marthe and other French historians say, and as seems certain, Isabelle was the eldest daughter of Charles VI. and was born in 1388, she could not at this time have been more than twelve years old, but she appears to have felt for King Richard the kind of romantic worship that very young girls occasionally feel for a man much older than themselves. At any rate, she took an extraordinarily prominent part in a conspiracy to restore Richard, tore the badge of Lancaster from the liveries of her household, issued a proclamation declaring that she did not recognise Henry as king, went with the barons of Richard’s party to Cirencester, and after his death vehemently refused to marry the Prince of Wales, asking only to be sent back to France to her father and mother; and a constant interchange of letters upon that subject went on between the royal families of France and England during the whole of this year.
In January the Dauphin Charles, who had been gradually growing thinner and weaker, faded away and died. His doctors could not find out what was the matter nor do him any good. The King, who was just then in his right mind, went to St. Denis to pray for him; the Dukes of Burgundy, Bourbon, and Orléans went to Ste. Catherine and Notre Dame for the same purpose, and prayers and processions went on everywhere, but he died on the 11th of January in the middle of the night.[193]