Cely Papers - Richard III Society - New Zealand Branch

INTRODUCTION.
XXI
Dauphin were not taken, England continued merely to negotiate
and to be fooled.
One Englishwoman, the dowager Duchess Margaret, ' myn
howlld Lady ' of the Celys' Letters-she was about thirty-two -
exerted herself vigorously in her step-daughter's cause. Her first
idea was a marriage between Mary and her own brother Clarence.
When this appeared to be considered impossible by all parties at
the English o Court she exerted her influence elsewhere.
Already, before the death of Charles the Bold, a negotiation
had been set on foot for a marriage between his heiress and
Maximilian of Austria, son of the Emperor Frederic. The dowager
Duchess warmly espoused his cause. The young lady herself
despatched an emissary to the Emperor and his son at Frankfort,
and affirmed that in her father's lifetime she had already accepted
the Archduke as her future husband. They had never met, and
when they did it appeared that Maximilian could speak no French
and she no German. But Maximilian in his youth was well fitted
to engage her real affection. He was shifty and unstable, always
in want of money, and, like the proverbial empty bag, unable to
stand upright; but he had in him a touch of romance and knight-
errantry, and was not without noble aspirations. A marriage
with a rich heiress was attractive to himself and to his avaricious
father, and a marriage with a damsel in distress appealed to his
feelings of chivalry and adventure. He was not yet twenty. The
Flemings were sensible that an alliance with the imperial overlord
of half the Burgundian inheritance was a safeguard for them
against French aggression; the dowager Duchess supported the
scheme, and the marriage was hurried on. Maximilian arrived at
Ghent on August 18, 1477, and the marriage was performed next
day. The bride, slenderly attended, still wore mourning for the
death of her father, and the union, so fraught with consequences
for the future political arrangements of Europe, was celebrated
without any of the pomp for which the Court of Burgundy had
become famous. Louis had to make the best of what seemed for