She Married In 1501 Philibert The Handsome,
Duke Of Savoy, To Whom The Province Of Bresse Be-
Longed, And Who Died Two Years Later.
She had been
betrothed, is a child, to Charles VIII.
Of France, and
was kept for some time at the French court, - that of
her prospective father-in-law, Louis XI.; but she was
eventually repudiated, in order that her _fiance_ might
marry Anne of Brittany, - an alliance so magnificently
political that we almost condone the offence to a
sensitive princess. Margaret did not want for hus-
bands, however, inasmuch as before her marriage to
Philibert she had been united to John of Castile, son
of Ferdinand V., King of Aragon, - an episode ter-
minated, by the death of the Spanish prince, within a
year. She was twenty-two years regent of the Nether-
lands, and died at fifty-one, in 1530. She might have
been, had she chosen, the wife, of Henry VII. of Eng-
land. She was one of the signers of the League of
Cambray, against the Venetian republic, and was a
most politic, accomplished, and judicious princess.
She undertook to build the church of Brou as a mau-
soleum, for her second husband and herself, in fulfil-
ment of a vow made by Margaret of Bourbon, mother
of Philibert, who died before she could redeem her
pledge, and who bequeathed the duty to her son. He
died shortly afterwards, and his widow assumed the
pious task. According to Murray, she intrusted the
erection of the church to "Maistre Loys von Berghem,"
and the sculpture to "Maistre Conrad." The author
of a superstitious but carefully prepared little Notice,
which I bought at Bourg, calls the architect and
sculptor (at once) Jehan de Paris, author (sic) of the
tomb of Francis II.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 264 of 276
Words from 72245 to 72542
of 75796
