His health was now fast declining, and strange fancies took possession of his mind. Being dissatisfied with the construction of a palace he had ordered at Innsprück, he said, ‘I will build myself another house,’ and sending for a carpenter, told him to make a coffin with all speed. For four years this ghastly reminder accompanied him in all his marches and wanderings. Maximilian died at Wels, in Upper Austria, it is said his death was accelerated by eating too freely of melon! Finding his end approaching, he prepared for it, with much calmness; making his will, giving the most eccentric orders concerning his interment, and joining with fervour in the prayers for the dying which were being offered up in his presence. His body was at a later period transferred to Innsprück, where the Emperor Ferdinand I. erected a magnificent tomb to his memory. It is of white marble, representing in high relief the principal events of his most eventful life, while on either side of the mausoleum, noble statues in bronze of illustrious sovereigns, knights, and dames of all ages and nations, form a body-guard round Maximilian’s last resting-place.
He had only two children, Philip, afterwards Emperor of Germany and King of Castille, in right of his wife, ‘Mad Joan,’ as she was called, (the only child of Ferdinand and Isabella,) by whom he had Charles V., and Ferdinand, who both succeeded to the Imperial throne. Maximilian’s only daughter, Margaret, was sent on the death of her mother to France, to be educated with the children of Louis XI., who designed the little heiress as bride for the Dauphin Charles. The betrothal took place with great pomp and ceremony when Margaret had attained the advanced age of three years. But in 1491, Charles, who had then succeeded his father as King of France, resolving on an alliance with Anne, heiress of Brittany, sent his little child-wife back to her father, an indignity which Maximilian resolved to wipe out in French blood.
Margaret afterwards married John Infant of Spain, and secondly Philibert Duke of Savoy, and she eventually became Governess of the Netherlands.
Albert Dürer was much esteemed not only by the Emperor Maximilian, but by his successors Charles and Ferdinand.
LARGE UPPER CORRIDOR.
