Margaret took much interest in her maids of honour, and when necessary did not spare them either advice or punishment. She warned them especially to avoid gossiping or foolish conversation. During the long winter evenings she played chess, or when summer came with long fine days, she rode with them through the forests of Scheplaken, Groenendael, and Boisfort, followed by her greyhounds. If one of her maids married, Margaret took care to prepare the trousseau. Sometimes she put aside a certain sum for this purpose from her privy purse, and often begged a post from Maximilian for the girl's future husband. Thus she dowered and provided for many maidens whose names are mentioned in the Archives of Lille. As a rule, Margaret and her father treated each other with the greatest confidence. Maximilian took a fatherly interest in whatever concerned his daughter's happiness. He would like to have seen her married to Henry VII., for then, as he said, she would not have been 'a person lost and forgotten.' Sometimes he made her small presents, 'a carbuncle which his father the Emperor Frederick had valued,' or a haunch of venison off which she could 'feast at some dinner or supper.' On another occasion he sent her the plan of a triumphal arch before 'having it erected, so that it might remain for ever as a monument to their perpetual glory.' One day, in a fit of rare generosity (for he was very impecunious), he made her a present of 100,000 crowns. Margaret will be ungrateful, he says, 'if she is not well pleased with him.' He tells her his most secret thoughts... that he intends soliciting the papal tiara, for the Pope 'cannot live long.' He wishes to be nominated coadjutor of the Sovereign Pontiff, so as 'to be assured of having the Papacy and becoming a priest and afterwards made holy.' With this intention he begins to 'win over the cardinals' with two or three thousand ducats, and he sends 'a messenger to the King of Aragon, begging him to help him to get what he wants.' But this confidence between the emperor and his daughter was often broken. Maximilian sometimes complains that she treats him badly and 'takes him for a Frenchman!' She was not always his 'good daughter;' she sometimes speaks too plainly and asks him when he intends sending an answer to the English ambassadors, who have been kept waiting for eight months, and reminds him ironically 'that it is time to move in this business.' On another occasion she writes these words in a letter which he calls 'rude and ungracious': 'I know that it is not my business to interfere in your said affairs, as I am an inexperienced woman in such matters, nevertheless the great duty I have towards you emboldens me to... beg of you... to take care whilst there is yet time.'