Three days after Isabel’s death, the sainted mystic of Agreda saw, as she asserted, the phantom of the Queen before her, asking for the prayers of the godly to liberate her from the pains she was suffering in purgatory, for the vain splendour of her attire during her life.[231] To the nun Philip’s cry of pain went up, whilst to all the rest of the world he turned a leaden face. On the 15th November he wrote—‘Since the Lord was pleased to take from me to himself the Queen, who is now in heaven, I have wanted to write to you, but the great distress I am in, and the business with which I am overwhelmed, have hitherto prevented me from doing so. I find myself more oppressed with sorrow than seems bearable, for I have lost in one person alone all that I can lose in this world: and if it were not that I know, according to the faith I hold, that God sends to us that which is best and wisest, I know not what would become of me. But this thought, and this alone, makes me suffer my grief with utter resignation to the will of God; and I must confess to you that I have needed much help from on high to bring me to bear this cross patiently. I wanted to ask you to pray to God very earnestly for me in this dire trouble, and to aid me in asking Him to grant me grace to offer up this sorrow to Him, and take advantage of it for my own salvation.’[232] A yet more terrible trial for him came two years later; and a yet more heartbroken appeal to the nun for prayers, and to God to save him from rebellion against his hard fate, burst from the King’s breaking heart when his only son died in his budding manhood, and left Philip, aged by suffering, to face matrimony again for the sake of leaving an heir to the crown of sorrow that was weighing him down. Isabel of Bourbon died bravely, as she had lived. She was a Frenchwoman, married to bring about a friendship between France and Spain, and the two countries were at war continually from the time that her marriage was completed to the day of her death. In her time the sun of Spain sank as surely as the day of France brightened, and yet she never gloried in the triumph of the land of her birth, and kept faithful to the end to the Spain which she loved so well. It would be unfair to credit her with so clear and high a soul as either of the previous Isabels; but hers was a brave, sturdy, heart that accepted things as they were if she was unable to mend them; and, like her father before her, she enjoyed herself as much as she could whilst doing her duty valiantly and well. BOOK IV II MARIANA OF AUSTRIA