Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/256

Rh 'Twas most highly thought on of her, and pronounced a most admirable production. At the word of so noble and divine an oracle, what can we do but believe 'twas verily so?

Such then is the summary account I have been able to give of our good Queen Elisabeth, of her kindness, virtue, constancy and faithfulness, and her true and loyal love toward the King, her husband. And 'twas but her nature to be so good and virtuous (I have heard M. de Lansac, who was in Spain when she died, tell how the Empress said to him on that occasion, El mejor de nosotros es muerto,—"The best of us all is dead"), and we may well believe how in such actions this Queen was but for imitating her own mother, her great aunts and aunts. For the Empress, her mother, albeit she was left a widow when still quite young and very handsome, would never marry again, but did ever after continue in her widowhood, right wisely and steadfastly, having quitted Austria and Germany, the scene of her rule, after the death of the Emperor, her husband. She went to join her brother in Spain, having been summoned of him and besought to go thither to help him in the heavy burden of his affairs. This she did, for indeed she was a very prudent and well-counselled Princess. I have heard the late King Henri III., who was more skilled in reading character than any other man in all his Kingdom, declare she was in his opinion one of the most honourable, wise and accomplished Princesses in the world.

On this, her journey to Spain, after passing through the divers States of Germany, she did presently arrive at Genoa in Italy, where she embarked. But seeing 'twas in winter, in the month of December, that she took ship, a