Maximilian then goes on to describe his own sport. He has taken 'at least four large stags in the morning, and after dinner five herons. Ducks and kites we catch daily without number; even to-day we got four herons besides, and thirteen ducks or river birds in twelve flights in one half league. Every day we get three kites, for here there is any amount, and all in the most beautiful country....'
These few quotations will show that the letters are more or less memoirs of Margaret's life for about twenty-five years, and give us a good idea of the part she played in the stirring events of her time.
CHAPTER VIII
A LOVE AFFAIR
After the reduction of Tournay and Therouenne in the autumn of 1513, Henry VIII. and Maximilian met Margaret at Lille. She was accompanied by the Archduke Charles and a large retinue. This was Henry's first meeting with his wife's nephew; it was also Margaret's first introduction to the man whose engaging manners and brilliant personality nearly made her give up the resolution to which she had adhered for so many years, and marry again.
Amongst Henry's VIII.'s officers was Sir Charles Brandon, one of the handsomest men of his time, and a great favourite with the English king, who, in May 1513, had been created Viscount Lisle. The new Lord Lisle had accompanied his master to the war in France, being marshal of the host and captain of the foreward, with 3000 men under him. Hall, in his Chronicle, gives the following interesting account of the meeting of Margaret and Charles Brandon:—'Monday, the 11th day of October, the king without the town received the Prince of Castile, the Lady Margaret, and divers other nobles of their countries, and them brought into Tournay with great triumph. The noise went that the Lord Lisle made request of marriage to the Lady Margaret, Duchess of Savoy, and daughter to the Emperor Maximilian, which before that time was departed from the king with many rich gifts and money borrowed; but, whether he proffered marriage or not, she favoured him highly. There the prince and duchess sojourned with great solace by the space of ten days. On the 18th of October the jousts began, the king and Lord Lisle answered all comers. Upon the king attended twenty-eight knights on foot, in coats of purple velvet and cloth of gold. A tent of cloth of gold was set in the place for the armoury and relief. The king had a base and a trapper of purple velvet both set full of fine bullion, and the Lord Lisle in the same suit. There were many spears broken, and many a good buffet given; the strangers, as the Lord Walon and the Lord Emery, and others, did right well. When the jousts were done, the king and all the others unhelmed them, and rode about the tilt, and did great reverence to the ladies, and then the heralds cried, "To lodging!"
'This night the king made a sumptuous banquet of a hundred dishes to the Prince of Castile and the Lady Margaret, and to all the other lords and ladies, and after the banquet the ladies danced; and then came in the king and eleven in a masque, all richly apparelled with bonnets of gold, and when they had passed the time at their pleasure, the garments of the masque were cast off amongst the ladies, take who could take.
'The 20th day of October, the Prince of Castile and the Lady Margaret, with many great gifts to them given, returned to Lille with all their train.'
A few months after this meeting Lord Lisle was created Duke of Suffolk (February 1st, 1514) on the same day that the dukedom of Norfolk was restored to the Howards, and when there was only one other peerage of that grade, namely, Buckingham, existing in England.