Isabella of Portugal, wife of Charles V., likewise came here, and in her train the Marques de Lombay, afterwards Duke of Gandia, and Viceroy of Catalonia, now venerated on our altars under the name of San Francisco de Borja. With him was his wife, the beautiful Leonora de Castro, lady of honor to the empress. As a memorial of her visit, Isabella presented the church with a silver pax of artistic workmanship worth two thousand ducats, and a little ship garnished with diamonds valued at 10,800 pesos.
Some years after Doña Maria, daughter of Charles V., came here with her husband, Maximilian II., Emperor of Austria, to obtain a blessing on their marriage, and she spent several days here on her return to Spain. Her page, at that time, was the young Louis de Gonzaga, son of the Marquis of Castiglione, who afterwards entered the Society of Jesus, and is now canonized.
With this empress came also her daughter, the Princess Margarita, who prostrated herself at the feet of the Virgin and implored the grace of becoming the spouse of her divine Son. Tradition says the Virgin gently inclined her head in token of consent. At all events, the princess, after her prayer, took a dagger from one of the cavaliers, and with blood from her own veins thus wrote:
“I solemnly pledge myself to become the spouse of Christ, to whom I here offer myself, begging his Virgin Mother to be my mediator. In faith of which I subscribe myself,
“Margarita.”
She placed this vow in the Virgin’s hand, and afterwards fulfilled it by becoming a nun in the royal foundation of the Carmelites at Madrid under the name of Sr. Margarita de la Cruz. This interesting document was long preserved in the abbey, but disappeared when the house was ravaged under Napoleon.
Philip II., the monarch who boasted that the sun never set on his dominions, visited Montserrat four times, one of which was on Candlemas day, when he took part in the procession, devoutly carrying his taper. He presented Our Lady with a silver lamp weighing over a hundred pounds, and an elaborate retablo for her altar which cost ten thousand ducados.
Don John of Austria came here after the battle of Lepanto, and brought several flags taken from the enemy, as trophies to the Virgin of Montserrat, and hung up in the centre of the church the signal-lantern taken from the vessel of the Turkish admiral.
The abbey at this time was one of the richest in Spain. It was surrounded by ramparts and towers for defence. It had its courts and cloisters full of sculptures, and carvings, and tombs of precious marble, whereon knights lay in their armor, and abbots with mitre and crosier. But the church was too small for the number of pilgrims, and dim in spite of its seventy silver lamps. Abbot Garriga, one of the ablest men who ever ruled over the monastery, resolved to build a new one. This distinguished abbot rose from the humblest condition in life. When he was only seven years old his father, a poor man, ascended the mountain on an ass, with a kid in one pannier and his son in the other, and offered them both at the convent gate. The porter accepted the kid, but refused the boy. The father, however, persisted in leaving him, and the abbot, struck with his intelligence, gave him a place in the school. He received the monastic habit at the age of nine. While a novice he used to lament the inadequate size of the church, and predicted he should rebuild it. He subsequently became abbot, and fulfilled his prophecy, but he ended his days in the lofty hermitage of St. Dimas, where he had retired to prepare for eternity.
When the new church was completed, as the Virgin could not be removed under penalty of excommunication, the sanction of the pope had to be obtained. Philip III. came to take part in the ceremony, and with him a crowd of courtiers and Spanish grandees. On Sunday, July 11, 1593, the king and all the court went to confession and holy Communion in the morning. In the afternoon the sacred image was taken down from the place it had occupied for centuries, and clothed in magnificent robes, given by the Infanta Isabella and the Duchess of Brunswick. Then the procession was formed, preceded by a cross-bearer carrying a cross of pure silver, in which was set a piece of the Lignum Crucis surrounded by five emeralds, five diamonds, a topaz as large as a walnut, and a great number of pearls. Then came forty-three lay brothers, fifteen hermits, and sixty-two monks, chanting the Ave Maris Stella, each one carrying a wax candle weighing a pound. After them were twenty-four scholastics, and then the statue of Our Lady, borne by four monks in orders, wearing rich dalmaticas. Over it was a gorgeous canopy supported by noble lords. Behind followed Abbot Garriga and his attendants, and, after the peasant’s son, King Philip III., bearing a torch on which was painted the royal arms, and a long train of lords and ladies, the highest in the realm. With all this pomp the Madonna was borne up the nave of the new church, and, amid the ringing of bells and the chant of the Te Deum, was placed on her silver throne, given by the Duke of Cardona.