“And it stood there all alone,
Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,
Till the brood was fledged and flown,
Singing o’er those walls of stone
That the cannon-shot had shattered.”
In the last years of his life at Yuste, he made great pets of a cat and parrot. After his death, they were transferred to his daughter, the Princess Juana, who with true Spanish courtesy, dispatched a litter for them in charge of a faithful servant. In due time they reached Valladolid, well and happy, having traveled together a number of days without one single recorded peck or scratch.
Charles’s contemporary, William of Orange, liked dogs—and with reason—for he owed his life to a pet spaniel. It roused him from sleep just in time to escape by one door as the enemy entered the other.
FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS SISTER WILHELMINA.