In the spring of 1530 Mary met Charles at Innsbruck, and accompanied him to Augsburg. When, a few months later, the news of Margaret's death reached him at Cologne, the Emperor begged her to become Regent of the Low Countries and share the burden of government with him. But Mary had no wish to enter public life, and asked her brother's leave to retire to Spain and devote herself to the care of their unhappy mother, Queen Juana. For some time she resisted the entreaties of both her brothers, and it was only a strong sense of duty which finally overcame her reluctance to assume so arduous and ungrateful a task. When at length she consented, she made it a condition that she should not be troubled with offers of marriage, and pointed out that her Lutheran sympathies might well arouse suspicion in the Netherlands. But Charles brushed these objections lightly aside, saying that no one should disturb her peace, and that he should never have trusted her with so important a post if he had regarded her Lutheran tendencies seriously. All he asked was that the Queen should not bring her German servants to the Low Countries, lest they should arouse the jealousy of his Flemish courtiers. Mary scrupulously fulfilled these conditions, and on the 23rd of January, 1531, the new Regent entered Louvain in state, and was presented to the Council by the Emperor, as Governess of the Netherlands. Two months later she accompanied Charles to Malines, where for the first time she embraced her little nieces. For the present, however, Dorothea and Christina, who were only nine and ten years old, remained at Malines, while Prince John accompanied his uncle and aunt on a progress through the provinces. Mary soon realized all the difficulties of the task that she had undertaken with so much reluctance. "The Emperor," she wrote to Ferdinand from Brussels, "has fastened the rope round my neck, but I find public affairs in a great tangle, and if His Majesty does not reduce them to some degree of order before his departure, I shall find myself in a very tight place."[68] The Treasury was exhausted, the people groaned under the load of taxation, and the prodigal generosity of the late Regent had not succeeded in suppressing strife and jealousy among the nobles. As Mary wrote many years afterwards to her nephew, Philip II.: "No doubt our aunt, Madame Marguerite, ruled the Netherlands long and well; but when she grew old and ailing she was obliged to leave the task to others, and when the Emperor returned there after her death, he found the nobles at variance, justice little respected, and all classes disaffected to the imperial service."[69] [Sidenote: 1523-31] A FORLORN HOPE]