The First Governess of the Netherlands, Margaret of AustriaTremayne, Eleanor E.
History
The First Governess of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria
Tremayne, Eleanor E.
Margaret, of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, 1480-1530; Netherlands -- History -- Charles V, 1506-1555
When some months afterwards, in August 1498, Maximilian had made a
separate peace with France, much to Ferdinand's indignation, he
determined to bring Margaret home at any cost. Why, asked Fuensalida
of Maximilian, was he sending so important and unexpected an embassy
to Spain? 'I am sending for my daughter,' replied the King of the
Romans. 'If your Majesty means to bring her home at once,' exclaimed
the ambassador, 'you ought to have sent notice to my King and Queen,
and not bring away so great a princess as she is thus suddenly. In any
case she could not come until December.' 'I cannot wait so long as
that,' replied Maximilian. 'But,' objected the ambassador, 'she cannot
come before. It will take until September for your ambassadors to
reach Spain, and all October will be spent in getting ships ready, and
then another month for the Princess to join them, and perhaps even
two months; and then the season of the year will be unfit for any one
to go to sea, and the King and Queen will not like to expose the
Princess to such danger. Besides,' continued he, always ready to
appeal to Maximilian's parsimony, 'if your Majesty had given due
notice to my King and Queen you might have saved a great deal of
money, for they would have fitted out a fleet in which the Princess
might have come with all honour and safety; and even now, if your
Majesty will wait until March, I will do my best to arrange it in this
way, and you will not have to spend half so much money.'
But Maximilian knew the value of his daughter in his hands, and
replied roughly that he would not wait. He would have her safe home,
he said, before he began war again. 'If I send a single carrack from
Genoa, and the King and Queen give her a convoy of four barks, she
will come safe enough.' In vain the ambassador urged that corsairs and
Frenchmen could not be trusted, and that it was a slight for such a
princess to be sent home in so unceremonious a fashion. Maximilian was
obstinate; he would have his daughter Margaret home at once, no matter
at what risk. To add to his eagerness news came from Margaret herself,
brought by special messengers of her household, who had much to say of
the changed demeanour of the Spaniards, now that Maximilian had made a
separate peace. Fuensalida did his best by underhand means,
frightening the German ambassadors of the sea-voyage from Genoa to
Spain and back in the winter, and of the dreadful corsairs who
infested the Mediterranean, until they at last, really alarmed, begged
Maximilian in Fuensalida's presence to let them have a very big
carrack for their greater safety. Better send them by way of Flanders,
interposed the artful Fuensalida, knowing the long delay which such a
voyage would entail; but Maximilian angrily told him that he would do
nothing of the sort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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