Page 268. line 3. Church.] This nobleman would have fallen unpitied had it not been for the execrable inhumanity which accompanied his execution, his children being brought to the scaffold and made to stand there in such a position that the blood of their father might sprinkle their bodies.
Mary of Anjou his wife, died in childbirth of the effects of the shock which she experienced on hearing of his captivity. Of his three sons, Louis only lived to the age of manhood. He was restored to his father's honours and fell at the battle of Cerignole on the 28th of April 1503. Of his daughters, Margaret was the wife of the mareschal de Gié, Catherine married John duke of Bourbon, and Charlotte, Charles de Rohan.
Page 281. line 19. Expired.] This improbable story is, I believe, satisfactorily refuted and justly ridiculed by historians.
Page 287. last line. With.] Heuterus relates a story, something similar, of a governor of a town under Charles duke of Burgundy, upon whom that prince afterwards caused exemplary punishment to be inflicted for his crime. The alleged crime of Kirke, is, I believe, now pretty generally admitted to be a fabrication, and was probably founded on the Burgundian anecdote by some anti-jacobite writer.
Page 313. line 19. Brother.] Say rather, "Should have been charged with the murder of their brothers." The duke of Guienne is believed by the best historians to have died a natural death; and the earl of Mar (youngest brother of James III.) met his fate, according to the account adopted by Drummond of Hawthornden, in a manner merely accidental. The execution of George duke of Clarence, though it may well be said that the king ought to have pardoned his brother, yet, as it was the consequence of actual treason fully proved in the regular course of law, certainly does not merit the appellation of a murder.
Page 315. line 17. King of Poulaine.] Who this imaginary personage may be intended for I cannot tell. If for Maximilian, it is entirely a mistake. He was not made prisoner. Nor was there any other prince or son of a king present at the engagement.
Page 332. line 10. Niece to the duke of Bourbon.] Her death was occasioned by a fall from her horse while hunting. Maximilian was really much attached to her. But if he had not been so, his sorrow for her loss could scarcely have been the less sincere as the death of their natural sovereign left him with very little personal claim on the affections of the states of Flanders and other parts of her remaining dominions. Her only son was Philip of Austria duke of Burgundy who, by his marriage with Joanna the heiress of Castille and Arragon, transmitted the kingdom of Spain to his posterity. Her daughter Margaret was first affianced to the dauphin, but afterwards most imprudently rejected by him for Ann of Bretagne. She was then affianced to John prince of Spain; but he died before the solemnization of the nuptials. At last she found a husband in Philibert the fair, duke of Savoy, but had no children by him, and after his death (which happened within three years from the time of their union) she retired to the court of the emperor her father, and became, towards the end of her life, justly celebrated as the governess of the low countries. She died in 1532.
Page 337. line 15. Sir William de la Mark.] Third son of John the first, count of Aremberg and brother of Robert de la Marck, first duke of Bouillon. He married Jane of Arschot baroness of Schonhouen, by whom he had John baron of Lumain who died 1526.
Page 339. line 16. Thing.] Louis XI. is exculpated by Du Clos, in the account which he gives of this transaction, from any concern in the bishop's murder other than that of having furnished "the Wild Boar" with the means of raising a force for the purpose of securing a passage through the territories of Liege for the French armies in any future attempts to subdue the country of Brabant. When the bishop was so treacherously abandoned by his followers, "the Wild Boar" advanced directly to him and thus addressed him. "Louis of Bourbon, I have sought thy friendship and thou hast refused it to me." Saying this, he clove his head with a battle-axe and ordered his body to be thrown into the Meuse. The crime did not pass unpunished, the murderer being executed at Utrecht two years afterwards by order of Maximilian.
Page 349. line 3. Lord d'Albret.] Alan, lord of Albret, father of John who was afterwards king of Navarre.