Yet Elizabeth succeeded in accomplishing all this in spite of the fact that she was born the daughter of a king and married the reigning prince of one of the most important ducal houses in Germany. One would expect to find that her life had been long, so many traditions have gathered around her name. She was twenty when her husband died, and she survived him only four years. Literally she had accomplished a long space in a short time and her generation in raising in her honor the charming Gothic Cathedral at Marburg, one of the most {326} beautiful in Germany, was honoring itself nobly as well as her. It is the greatest monument to a woman in all the world. The next great woman of the century also belonged to a reigning family and is for obvious historical reasons better known, perhaps, than her Saint contemporaries. This was Blanche, daughter of the King of Castile, but intimately related to the English royal family. Married to Louis VIII of France she is known principally as the mother of Louis IX. She ruled France for many years while her boy was a minor and when he came to the age, when he might ordinarily assume the reins of government, he voluntarily permitted his mother to continue her regency for some time longer. France was probably happier under her than under any ruler that the country has ever had with the possible exception of her son Louis. She succeeded in suppressing to a great extent the quarrels so common among the nobility, she strengthened and centralized the power of the crown, she began the correction of abuses in the administration of justice which her son was to complete so well, she organized charity in various ways, and the court was an example to the kingdom of simple dignified life, without any abuse of power, or wealth, or passion. No wonder that when Louis went on the Crusade, he left his mother to reign in his stead confident that all would go well. If one needed a demonstration that women can rule well there is an excellent example in the life of Blanche.