by the Bishop of Arras was placed in the boy's hands, and the heralds of Burgundy, Flanders, Holland, and Friesland, raising their fallen pennons, each in turn proclaimed the titles of the youthful Prince, who was to be known to the world as Charles V. No one wept more bitterly for King Philip than his only sister, Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, as she knelt in her oratory close to the great church. Although only twenty-seven, she had known many sorrows. After being wedded to the Dauphin at two years old, and educated at the French Court till she reached the age of thirteen, she was rejected by Charles VIII. in favour of Anne of Brittany, and sent back to her father, the Emperor Maximilian. Three years afterwards she went to Spain as the bride of Don Juan, the heir to the crowns of Castille and Aragon, only to lose her husband and infant son within a few months of each other. In 1501 she became the wife of Duke Philibert of Savoy, with whom she spent the three happiest years of her life. But in September, 1504, the young Duke died of pleurisy, the result of a chill which he caught out hunting, and his heart-broken widow returned once more to her father's Court. [Sidenote: FEB., 1509] MAXIMILIAN'S GRANDCHILDREN] On the death of Philip in the following year, Maximilian prevailed upon his daughter to undertake the government of the Netherlands, and in April, 1507, Margaret was proclaimed Regent, and took up her abode at Malines. She was a singularly able and gifted woman, and her personal charms and rich dowry soon attracted new suitors. Before she became Regent she had received proposals of marriage from Henry VII. of England, which Maximilian urged her to accept, saying that she might divide the year between England and the Netherlands. Louis XII., who in his boyhood had played with the Archduchess at Amboise, would also gladly have made her his second wife, but, as he remarked: "Madame Marguerite's father has arranged marriages for her three times over, and each time she has fared badly." Margaret herself was quite decided on the subject, and declared that she would never marry again. Henceforth she devoted herself exclusively to the administration of the Netherlands and the guardianship of her brother's young family. Of the six children which Juana of Castille had borne him, two remained in Spain, the younger boy Ferdinand and the infant Katherine, who did not see the light until months after her father's death. But the elder boy, Charles, and his three sisters, grew up under their aunt's eye in the picturesque old palace at Malines, which is still known as the Keyserhof, or Cour de l'Empereur. The eldest girl, Eleanor, afterwards Queen of Portugal and France, was two years older than her brother; the second, Isabella, the future Queen of Denmark, born on the 15th of August, 1501, was nearly six; and Mary, the Queen of Hungary, who was to play so great a part in the history of the Netherlands, had only just completed her first year.