The Lord du Bouchage, ten or twelve days after his return into France, received letters from a herald, whom he had left behind to wait on the ambassadors that were to come from thence. The letters were to this purpose, that he must not wonder at their deferring the embassy, because of the death of the Prince of Castile[495] (as they called him), to the unspeakable grief of the king and queen, but especially of the queen, who was more like to die than to live; and certainly I never heard of so solemn and so universal a mourning for any prince in Europe. I have since been informed by ambassadors, that all the tradesmen put themselves into black clothes, and shut up their shops for forty days together; the nobility and gentry covered their mules with black cloth down to their very knees, so that there was nothing of them to be seen but their eyes; and set up black banners upon all the gates of the cities. When the Lady Margaret (daughter to the King of the Romans[496], sister to the Archduke of Austria[497], and wife to the said Prince of Castile) was informed of the news of his death, she miscarried of a daughter (being six months gone with child), which was born dead. What a terrible blow must this have been to a family which had known nothing before but felicity and renown, and had a larger territory (I mean by succession) than any other prince in Christendom! And, besides the late acquisition of Granada, they had forced the greatest monarch in Europe out of Italy, and defeated his enterprise, which was looked upon to be such a mighty action even by the Pope[498] himself, that he would have taken away the title of “Most Christian” from the King of France, and conferred it on the King of Castile, to whom several briefs were addressed with that title superscribed; but, because some of the Cardinals opposed it, he gave him another title, which was, “The Most Catholic,” by which title he is called now, and I suppose he will be styled so for ever at Rome. What a sad and surprising turn of fortune must this accident have been! at a time when they had reduced their kingdom to obedience, regulated the laws, settled the administration of justice, and were so well and happy in their own persons, as if God and man had conspired to advance their power and honour above all the rest of the princes in Europe.