"Monseigneur,
"The hour has come when I can no longer write with my own hand, for I am so dangerously ill that I fear my remaining hours will be few. But my conscience is tranquil, and I am ready to accept God's will, and have no regrets saving that I am deprived of your presence, and am unable to see you and speak with you before I die.... I leave you your provinces, greatly increased in extent since your departure, and resign the government, which I trust I have discharged in such a way as to merit a Divine reward, and earn the good-will of your subjects as well as your approval. And above all, Monseigneur, I recommend you to live at peace, more especially with the Kings of France and England. Finally I beg of you, by the love which you have been pleased to bear me, remember the salvation of my soul and my recommendations on behalf of my poor servants. And so I bid you once more farewell, praying, Monseigneur, that you may enjoy a long life and great prosperity.
"Your very humble aunt,
"Margaret."[65]
"From Malines the last day of November, 1530."
This letter reached the Emperor at Cologne together with the news of Margaret's death, and a solemn requiem was chanted for her soul in the cathedral. Charles and his subjects fully realized the great loss which his pays de par-deça had suffered by his aunt's death.
"All the provinces," said Cornelius Agrippa, in the funeral oration which he pronounced in S. Rombaut of Malines, "all the cities, and all the villages, are plunged in tears and sorrow. For no greater loss could have befallen us and our country."
1523-31] MARY OF HUNGARY
The young Prince of Denmark, whom Margaret had loved so well, was chief mourner on this occasion, and rode at the head of the procession which bore her remains to Bruges. Here they were laid in the Convent of the Annunciation until the magnificent shrine that she had begun at Brou in Savoy was ready to receive her ashes and those of her husband. When, in the following March, the Emperor came to Malines, Prince John welcomed him in a Latin speech, in which he made a pathetic allusion to the loss which he and his sisters had sustained in the death of one who had been to them the wisest and tenderest of mothers. Then, turning to his uncle with charming grace, he begged the Emperor to have compassion upon him and his orphaned sisters, and allow them to remain at his Court until their father should be restored to his rightful throne. The young Prince's simple eloquence produced a deep impression. The Emperor with tears in his eyes embraced him, and the magistrates of Malines presented him with a barrel of Rhenish wine in token of their regard.[66]
Fortunately for the children of Denmark, as well as for the provinces which Margaret had ruled so well, another Habsburg Princess was found to take her place. This was the Emperor's sister Mary, whose gallant husband, King Louis of Hungary, had fallen on the field of Mohacz four years before, fighting against the Turks. The widowed Queen, although only twenty-one, had shown admirable presence of mind, and it was largely due to her tact and popularity that her brother Ferdinand and his wife Anna, the dead King's sister, were recognized as joint Sovereigns of Bohemia and Hungary. Her own hand was sought in marriage by many Princes, including the young King James V. of Scotland and her sister Eleanor's old lover, the Palatine Frederic, whose romantic imagination was deeply impressed by the young Queen's heroic bearing. But Mary positively refused to take another husband, saying that, having found perfect happiness in her first marriage, she had no wish to try a second. To the end of her life she remained true to her dead lord, and never put off her widow's weeds. But her courage and spirit were as high as ever. She was passionately fond of hunting, and amazed the hardest riders by being all day in the saddle without showing any trace of fatigue. Her powers of mind were no less remarkable. She was the ablest of the whole family, and the wisdom of her judgments was equalled by the frankness with which she expressed them. Like all the Habsburg ladies, she was highly educated, and spoke Latin as well as any doctor in Louvain, according to Erasmus, who inscribed her name on the first page of his "Veuve Chrétienne." Mary shared her sister Isabella's sympathy with the reformers, and accepted the dedication of Luther's "Commentary on the Four Psalms of Consolation." When this excited her brother Ferdinand's displeasure, she told him that authors must do as they please in these matters, and that he might trust her not to tarnish the fair name of their house. "God," she added, "would doubtless give her grace to die a good Christian."[67]
1523-31] THE NEW REGENT