Margaret herself was determined not to be drawn into the shameful intrigue by which her brother sought to supplant his wife and her father in order to rule Castile himself and for his own pleasure; but it is evident that no stone was left unturned to gain her, directly or indirectly, by Don Juan Manuel and his friends. One of Margaret's officers was a certain Monsieur Louis, to whom Manuel offered, 'that if he would prevail upon his mistress to follow in all things the wishes of King Philip, her brother, he would get the King to give to Louis from the revenues of Castile an income equal to the highest officer of his household. Louis, he said, knew Castile: let him look about and choose any office or place he liked, and it should be granted to him. Louis succumbed to this temptation; but the Duchess (Margaret) heard of it, and never consented to speak to him again, although he had been her most trusted servant.'
Through this wretched business, which ended in the triumph of Ferdinand by the untimely death, probably by poison, of Philip in Spain, and the lifelong incarceration of crazy Joanna, Margaret is the only person who stands forth pure and unselfish. In the summer of 1505, when Philip and Joanna were about to start on their voyage to Spain, Margaret set out for her own castle of Pont d'Ain, full of her projects for building Brou; but just as she reached the frontier of her brother's dominions she was stopped by the news that her little nephew, Charles, was suffering from fever, and she determined to retrace her steps to see the children again, and bid farewell once more to unhappy Joanna.
From her quiet retreat in Bresse Margaret was summoned, on the death of her brother, to rule the States, and care for the children whom he had left behind, bereft of a mother's care by the lunacy of Joanna. How nobly and self-sacrificingly she fulfilled her trust this book to some extent will tell; but of all the sacrifices she made in her wise and gentle life none was greater than the renunciation of her love, perhaps the only love she ever experienced, for the handsome Englishman who appears to have treated her so shabbily. For Charles Brandon, though his King's first favourite and brother-in-law, hardly played the game of love very fairly with Margaret. Kneeling at her feet in sweet dalliance after the banquet at Tournai, he drew from her finger, as lovers will, a ring, and placed it upon his own hand. In gentle chiding she told him in French, and then in Flemish so like English that he understood, that he was a thief. But soon she became alarmed when she saw he meant to keep it for a pledge; for it was well known and might compromise her; and she prayed him to restore it. 'But he understood me not,' and only the intervention of Henry the King, and a promise of a bracelet of hers in exchange, made Charles Brandon give up his capture. But not for long; for again on his knees before the Princess at Lille soon afterwards, he took the ring a second time, and all the entreaties of the lady were unavailing to obtain its restoration, though a ring of far greater value was given to her in exchange, with all sorts of imprudent, perhaps not more than half-serious, promises on both sides never to marry without the consent of the other. Margaret, as she pathetically says, had never any intention of marrying at all, so unhappy had she been in her previous marriages: but at all events she hid Brandon's ring in her bosom, unseen by the world, and cherished the secret of her little love passage. Not so King Henry's flamboyant favourite, who made no concealment of his conquest, and vaunted the possession of the jewel, though faithful Margaret could not believe it of him: 'for I esteem him much a man of virtue and wise.'
The sad little romance presents Margaret as a dignified great lady, who for one short space allowed herself to be simply a trustful woman in love, only to find that to such as she duty must be paramount over the promptings of the heart, and that a wooer, though he may be a duke, is not always a gentleman. Thenceforward, for many years, Margaret's life was that of a wise Vice-Regent for the Emperor whom she had reared from his childhood; until death relieved her from the task to which she devoted the best of her life. She died in harness, defrauded of an old age of refined leisure, to which she had looked forward, deprived even of a sight of the splendid church which is her own worthy tomb and monument; but it was perhaps most fitting that she should fall in the plenitude of her powers, leaving her beloved nephew the undisputed sovereign of the greatest dominion in the world, at peace with all Christendom, thanks largely to her efforts; and that she should go down to posterity remembered mainly as the first and noblest of the women of her imperial race who bore the title of Governess of the Netherlands.
Martin Hume
THE FIRST GOVERNESS OF
THE NETHERLANDS
MARGARET OF AUSTRIA
CHAPTER I
QUEEN OF FRANCE
In the year 1491 an interview took place in the little town of Baugy in Poitou, between a youth of twenty-one and a girl of twelve. The fate of more than one kingdom was involved in this farewell meeting between two playfellows who had been companions and friends for nearly nine years. The youth had tears in his eyes as he hesitatingly made his excuses and unfolded his plan. He told his fair-haired companion that though he loved her with all his heart, yet he had made up his mind to send her back to her father, who had often expressed the wish to have her with him. The little maiden listened to her youthful husband's repudiation of his marriage vows with calm dignity, but when he continued to make excuses for his conduct she stopped him, saying with much spirit, 'that by reason of her youth, those who had counted on her fortune could never say or suspect that this had come upon her through any fault of her own.' The slight thus inflicted, the girl never forgot; and when years later she became Governess of the Netherlands, France knew no greater enemy than Margaret of Austria, former Queen of France.