minority, she was known to have been for two days together retired to her closet, without admitting her menial servants to her presence.”  Some few days after, having called for Monsieur de Mesme, one of the Long Robe, and always firm to her interest, she delivered him a steel box, fast locked, to whom she said, giving him the key:  ’That in respect she knew not what might come to her by fortune, amidst those intestine broils that then shook France, she had thought fit to enclose a thing of great value within that box, which she consigned to his care, not to open it upon oath, but by an express order under her own hand.’  The queen dying without ever calling for the box, it continued many years unopened in the family of De Mesme, after both their deaths, till, at last, curiosity, or the suspicion of some treasure, from the heaviness of it, tempted Monsieur de Mesme’s successor to break it open, which he did.  Instead of any rich present from so great a queen, what horror must the lookers on have when they found a copper plate of the form and bigness of one of the ancient Roman Votive Shields, on which was engraved Queen Katherine de Medicis on her knees, in a praying posture, offering up to the devil sitting upon a throne, in one of the ugliest shapes they used to paint him, Charles the IXth, then reigning, the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III., and the Duke of Alanson, her three sons, with this motto in French, “So be it, I but reign.”

And in the Court Rolls of the Manor of Hatfield, near the Isle of Axholme, Yorkshire, the following ridiculous story is given:  “Robert de Roderham appeared against John de Ithon, for that he had not kept the agreement made between them, and therefore complains that on a certain day and year, at Thorne, there was an agreement between the aforesaid Robert and John, whereby the said John sold to the said Robert the Devil, bound in a certain bond, for threepence farthing, and thereupon, the said Robert delivered to the said John one farthing as earnest money, by which the property of the said devil, was vested in the person of the said Robert, to have livery of the said devil on the fourth day next following, at which day the said Robert came to the forenamed John and asked delivery of the said devil, according to the agreement between them made.  But the said John refused to deliver the said devil, nor has he yet done it, &c., to the great damage of the said Robert, to the amount of 60gs, and he has, therefore, brought his suit.

“The said John came, and did not deny the said agreement; and because it appeared to the Court that such a suit ought not to subsist among Christians, the aforesaid parties are, therefore, adjourned to the infernal regions, there to hear their judgment, and both parties were amerced by William de Scargell, Seneschall.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[34] Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Legends,” 15-16.