Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/262

Rh could have been brought about, she would have sent far enough the hard life of a widow, and been right glad to take up again the soft and pleasant one of a wife." This may well be allowed; but this likewise it must be granted on the other hand, that the great wish she did display to wed this puissant Monarch was but a manifestation of her proud and ambitious Spanish heart, for to show her high spirit, and prove she would in no wise take a lowly place; but seeing her sister an Empress, not able to be one too, yet fain to rival her, she did therefore aspire to be Queen of the realm of France, which is as good as any Empire, or better, and, if not in actual fact, yet in will and desire to be on an equal footing with her. Such motives do well accord with her character, as I have heard it described. To make an end, she was in mine opinion one of the most noble and high-bred foreign Princesses I have ever seen, albeit she may perhaps be reproached with her retirement from the world, due rather to despite than to genuine devotion. Yet she did thus piously withdraw her; and her good life and holy have sufficiently made manifest the true sanctity of her character.

 

ER aunt, Queen Mary of Hungary, did the like, but at a very advanced age, and this no less from her own desire to retire from the world than in order to help her brother the Emperor to serve God well and piously. This same Queen was widowed at a very early age, having lost King Louis, her husband, which fell very young in a battle he fought with the Turks, a battle he should never of rights have lost,