State Library of NSW
[Page 26]
for completion.
When looking through my issue of Henry V I noted some sentiments put into the mouth of some of the characters which have waited for more than three hundred years to come to fruition. King Charles the Sixth of France in giving to Henry his daughter for a wife is made to say:–"Take her fair son, and from her blood raise upIssue to me; that the contending KingdomsOf France & England, whose very shores look paleWith envy of each other's happiness,May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunctionPlant neighbourhood and Christian-like accordIn their sweet bosoms, that never war advanceHis bleeding sword 'twixt England & fair France."Hy. V – V.2 – 374 et seq.
And Queen Isabel ends her remarks upon the same subject hoping:–"That English may as French, French Englishmen,Receive each other. God speak this Amen!"Idem. V. 2 – 395 & 6.
In our day in Flanders this has come about, which just previous to the dates supposed time whereon the above written characters spoke was the scene of the battle of Agincourt, before and since having witnessed many a battle 'twixt English and French. Let us pray that the trials now being endured will cement a friendship sufficiently strong to last for centuries to come that peace may be in the time of our children and our childrens children ad majorem Dei gloriam [to the greater glory of God].
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