Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/254

Rh all ever he could, not forgetting to quote all the most telling passages of Holy Scripture of every sort that might advance his object. But the Queen did straight confound him with other as good and more appropriate quotations, for since her widowhood she had applied her earnestly to the study of God's Word, alleging moreover her fixed determination, which was her chiefest bulwark, never to forget her husband in a second marriage. The end was the Jesuit came back with naught accomplished. However, being strongly urged there by letters from the King of Spain, he did return once again to the attack, not content with the firm answer he had already had of the said Princess. The latter, unwilling to waste more time in vain contest with him, did treat him to some strong words and actual menaces, cutting him short with the warning that if he would persist in deafening her any more with the matter, she would make him repent his interference, even threatening she would have him whipped in her kitchen. I have further heard tell,—I know not with how much truth, —that, the man having attacked her for the third time, she went beyond threats, and had him chastised for his insolence. But this I do not believe, seeing she did too well love folk of holy life, such as these men be.

Such was the constancy and noble firmness of this virtuous Queen,—a constancy she did keep unbroken to the end of her days, ever honouring the sacred ashes of her husband. Faithfully did she water these with her mournful tears, whose fountain at the last drying up, she did succumb to her sorrow and die very young. She could not have been more than five and thirty at her decease,—truly a quite inestimable loss, for she might long have