"Madame my good Aunt," he wrote,
"I hear with great pleasure of the kindness shown by M. de Brégilles, the Master of your Household, to my nephew, the Prince of Denmark, and am very grateful to him for teaching the boy to ride and mounting him so well. And you will please tell Brégilles that I beg him to go on from good to better, and train the boy in all honest and manly exercises, as well as in noble and virtuous conduct, for you know that he is likely to follow whatever example is set before him in his youth. And I have no doubt that, not only in this case, but in all others, you will not cease to watch over him.
"Your good nephew,
"Charles."[63]
When in July, 1528, Margaret's servant Montfort was sent on an important mission to Spain, the Emperor's first anxiety was to hear full accounts of Prince John and his sisters from the Envoy's lips. He expressed great satisfaction with all Montfort told him, saying that he entertained the highest hopes of his nephew, and would far rather support his claim to Denmark than help his father to recover the throne—"the more so," he added, "since we hear that King Christian, to our sorrow, still adheres to the false doctrine of Luther."
IV.
King Christian, as the Emperor hinted, was still a thorn in the Regent's side. Although, since his wife's death, most of his time had been spent in Germany, he remained a perpetual source of annoyance. In July, 1528, he induced his sister Elizabeth to leave her husband, Joachim of Brandenburg, and escape with him to Saxony. All Germany rang with this new scandal, and while the Marquis appealed to Margaret, begging her to stop Christian's allowance as the only means of bringing him to his senses, Elizabeth, who had secretly embraced the reformed faith, implored the Emperor's protection against her husband, and refused to return to Berlin. At the same time the King did his utmost to stir up discontent round Lierre, and raised bands of freebooters in Holland, whose lawless depredations were a constant source of vexation to Charles's loyal subjects. When the Regent protested, he replied that he had nothing to do with these levies, and that his intentions were absolutely innocent, assurances which, Margaret remarked, would not deceive a child. Under these circumstances, relations between the two became daily more strained. "Margaret loves me not, and has never loved me," wrote Christian to his Lutheran friends, while the Regent turned to Charles in her despair, saying: "Monseigneur, if the King of Denmark comes here, I simply do not know what I am to do with him!"[64]
1523-31] DEATH OF MARGARET
Suddenly a new turn in the tide altered the whole aspect of affairs. On the 3rd of August, 1529, the Peace of Cambray was finally concluded. The long war, which had drained the Emperor's resources, was at an end, and his hands were once more free. Christian lost no time in taking advantage of this opportunity to secure his powerful kinsman's help. He addressed urgent petitions to the Emperor and King Ferdinand, and sent an Envoy to plead his cause at Bologna, where on the 24th of February, 1530, Charles V. received the imperial crown from the hands of Pope Clement VII. But the only condition on which the exiled monarch could be admitted into the new confederation was his return to the Catholic Church. For this, too, Christian seems to have been prepared. On the 2nd of February he signed an agreement at Lierre, in which he promised to obey the Emperor's wishes, and to hold fast the Catholic faith, if he should be restored to the throne of Denmark. When Charles crossed the Brenner, Christian hastened to meet him at Innsbruck, and, throwing himself at the foot of Cardinal Campeggio, craved the Holy Father's pardon for his past errors, and received absolution. But, in spite of this public recantation, the King still secretly preferred the reformed faith, and continued to correspond with his Lutheran friends. On the 25th of June he arrived at Malines with letters of credit for 24,000 florins, which he had received from the Emperor as the price of his submission. But the Council refused to give him a farthing without the Regent's consent, and Margaret declined to see him, pleading illness as her excuse. Although only fifty years of age, she had long been in failing health, and only awaited the Emperor's coming to lay down her arduous office and retire to a convent at Bruges. An unforeseen accident hastened her end. She hurt her foot by treading on the broken pieces of a crystal goblet, blood-poisoning came on, and she died in her sleep on the 30th of November, without ever seeing her nephew again. The touching letter in which she bade him farewell was written a few hours before her death: