At length, on the 17th of June, 1579, the Duchess made her state entry into the city. The magistrates met her at the gates with a stately baldacchino fringed with gold and silver, and escorted their Sovereign Lady to the house of Bartolommeo Busseto, where she alighted to partake of the banquet which had been prepared. Afterwards the loyal citizens accompanied her to the Palazzo Pubblico, halfway up the hill above the town, which had been splendidly fitted up for her occupation. The beauty of the view delighted the Duchess as much as the enthusiastic warmth of her reception, and the health-giving breezes of the Lombard city proved even more beneficial than her physicians had expected. "She came to our city of Tortona a dying woman, and lived there in health and comfort for more than ten years."[649] So wrote Niccolò Montemerlo, the historian whose chronicles of Tortona were published in 1618, when Christina had not yet been dead thirty years. His contemporaries joined with him in praising the Duchess's wise and beneficial rule, the strictness with which she administered justice, her liberality and benevolence.
"The Duchess Christina of Milan," wrote Campo of Cremona in 1585, "celebrated for her beauty and gracious manners, for her affability and generosity, has lately come to spend her widowhood in the city of Tortona, and lives there in great splendour, beloved by all."[650]
June, 1579] THE LADY OF TORTONA
Christina's administrative powers found ample scope in the government of the city, and under her rule Tortona enjoyed a brief spell of peace and prosperity. She reformed abuses, obtained the restitution of lost privileges, and healed a long-standing feud with the city of Ravenna. At her prayer, Pope Gregory XIII. repealed a decree exacting a heavy fine from every citizen of Tortona who entered Ravennese territory, and friendly communications were restored between the two cities. Before her coming, the Spanish Viceroy had incurred great unpopularity by building a new citadel on the heights occupied by the ancient Duomo and episcopal palace, and converting these into barracks and powder-magazines. In 1560 the foundations of a new Cathedral were laid by Philip's orders in the lower city, but this could not atone in the eyes of the citizens for the desecration of the venerated shrine founded by St. Innocent in the fourth century, and adorned with priceless mosaics and marbles. When, in 1609, the lofty campanile was struck by lightning, and 400 barrels of gunpowder stored in the nave exploded with terrific force, the accident was regarded as a Divine judgment, and the panic-stricken Spaniards joined in the solemn procession that bore the relics of the martyrs from their old resting-place to the new sanctuary.[651]
But if Christina could not atone for this indignity, or deliver Tortona from the presence of the hated Spaniards, she protected her subjects from their outrages, and rigidly enforced the observance of the law. Many were the petitions and remonstrances on behalf of her own rights and those of the citizens which she addressed to her dear and illustrious cousin, Don Carlos of Aragon, Duke of Terranuova, who reigned over the Milanese as Viceroy from 1583 to 1592. The Duchess was in frequent correspondence with her children beyond the Alps, and many requests for passes for horses which she is sending to Lorraine and Bavaria, as well as for privileges for her Equerries, Signor Alfonso and Gaspare Visconti, are to be found in the archives of Milan.[652]
Jan., 1585] THE LAST PHASE
Many were the illustrious guests, remarks Montemerlo, who came to visit the Duchess at Tortona. In October, 1581, the Empress-Dowager Maria, widow of Maximilian II., passed through Lombardy on her return to Spain, and was received at Alessandria by Madame de Lorraine. Together they drove through streets hung with tapestries and adorned with triumphal arches, until, after three days' festivities, they went on to Tortona, and thence to Genoa. The families of the old Milanese nobles who had remained loyal to the House of Sforza welcomed Christina's return to Lombardy with joy. The nephew and heir of Count Massimiliano Stampa placed his superb pleasure-house at Montecastello, in the fief of Soncino, at her disposal, and named his eldest son Christian in her honour. The Guaschi of Alessandria, the Counts of Oria, the Trivulzi, the Somaglia and Visconti, vied with each other in entertaining her sumptuously.[653] The saintly Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo, visited her more than once, and the excellent Bishop of Tortona, Cesare Gambara, sought her help and advice in all that concerned the welfare of his people. From the day when, hardly more than a child herself, she begged Cardinal Caracciolo's protection for the destitute ladies at Pavia, Christina always cared for the poor and needy, and in her old age she was busy with active works of mercy. One of her last good actions was to send to Paris for Madame Castellani, a daughter of her old friend the Princess of Macedonia, who was living in reduced circumstances at the French Court, and bring her to Tortona to spend the rest of her life in peace and comfort. So she earned the love and gratitude of all around her, and thousands blessed the good Duchess's name long after she was dead.
II.
This last phase of Christina's life was on the whole peaceful and happy. Brantôme pitied this great lady, a daughter of Kings and niece of Emperors, and the rightful Queen of three kingdoms, who, after reigning over Milan and Lorraine, was reduced to hold her Court in an insignificant Lombard town, and was known in her last years as "Madame de Tortone."[654] But after her troubled life Christina was grateful for the peace and repose which she found at Tortona, and would have been perfectly content if it had not been for the continual annoyances to which she was exposed by Philip and his Ministers. From the moment that she settled in her dower city, the King began to dispute her right to its sovereignty, and insisted that, since Tortona had been settled upon her as an equivalent for the dower given her "out of pure liberality" by the late Emperor, she was bound to surrender her claims on payment of the sum in full. Christina, on her part, maintained with good reason that her claim to the city had never before been questioned, and that it was settled on her at her marriage, and belonged to her and her heirs of the House of Lorraine in perpetuity. The assertion of this claim roused Cardinal Granvelle to the highest indignation. "So dangerous a thing," he wrote to Philip, "cannot possibly be allowed." But, as he confessed, what made the situation awkward was that Madame de Lorraine's claims were strongly supported, not only by her son, Duke Charles, but by the Emperor Rudolf, the Duke of Bavaria, the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles, and all the Princes of the Empire.[655] A long wrangle ensued, which ended in a declaration on the King's part that he would consent to Tortona being retained by the Duchess for her life, and afterwards held by her son-in-law and daughter, the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick.
Dec., 1584] DUKE ERIC'S DEATH