Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/22

8 lady in a long black cloak, and she cried

—"Justice, my lord king!"

—"What is your complaint, lady?"

—"My husband has been cruelly slain, and I crave vengeance on his murderer."

—"You shall have it. But who was your husband?"

Anna produced from under her cloak the ghastly head of Emmeran, and demanded to prove his innocence by "the judgment of God."

Here, two forms of the story diverge. The Golden Legend, which does not give the name of Emmeran, but calls him "the governor of Modena," says Anna walked barefooted and uninjured over nine red-hot ploughshares, which proved, to the satisfaction of every one, that her cause was just, and that she spoke the simple truth when she said her husband was innocent. Otho confessed himself guilty of the unjust death of his knight, and said he was ready to submit to be beheaded, but the nobles and prelates gave him a delay of ten days, in which to investigate the matter; these being ended, they gave him seven days more, then six more, by which time all were convinced that the real criminal was the empress Mary. Then Otho "dyde do brenne his wyfe all quycke," and gave four castles as were-geld to the widow of Emmeran. According to another and probably older tradition, the ordeal consisted of plunging her arms into molten lead. She did not, indeed, take them out uninjured, but she bravely held them there, with unmoved countenance, keeping her eyes fixed on the empress Mary, who gazed at her in horrible fascination. Anna died with her arms in the boiling lead and eyes fixed on the queen, who, seized by an impulse beyond her own control, threw herself at the Emperor's feet and confessed her crime. She was at once pronounced guilty of the death of Emmeran and Anna, and of untruth to her husband, and was then and there condemned to be burned alive. The sentence being executed the next day, Otho declared his own life forfeited for having condemned an innocent man; but his nobles and the great ecclesiastics unanimously granted him a reprieve of seven years, at the end of which it would doubtless have been further extended he lived.

Meantime Adelaide had completed many of the works she had desired to do, and she saw that the accomplishment of other projects must remain unfulfilled or be left to other hands, for her working day was done, and she must now prepare for her final rest; she had outlived many of her dearest friends, and all the near relations who at all approached her own age. A great affliction, too, was the death of her daughter, the abbess, who had fulfilled her dearest aspirations, and to whom she looked for comfort to the last; but she was cut off about a year before her mother. After Adelaide had retired from all worldly affairs, she thought it right to leave her seclusion, in response to the call of her nephew, Rudolph III., of Burgundy, who had quarrelled with his subjects, and wanted her to make peace. She accomplished this for him, visiting on her way several churches and monasteries she had built or endowed. He came to meet her at Lausanne, and conducted her to Orbe, where the desired reconciliation took place. She now betook herself to the monastery of Saltz, in the diocese of Strasburg, where she spent the very short time she still had to live.

Her talents, her wealth, her piety, her beauty, her superior education, her discretion, and the universal confidence and admiration inspired by her character, combined with her exalted station to render her a conspicuous figure in Europe for half a century. She is a rare example of a woman having immense power and influence and invariably using it for good; almost as rare was the courage with which she bore misfortune and injustice; for this woman, so great and so happy, had also known the depths of misfortune, insults, blows, starvation, the hardships and privations of a prison, the hairbreadth escapes of flight. St. Majolus, abbot of Cluny, who was at one time her confessor, considered that she never would have been the noble, magnanimous, charitable woman she was, but for those four months of imprisonment at Garda; she