could he mean by the "woe" after the "weal"?

John was to her the embodied fulfilment of the most ardent prayers. The
blessings she had besought for him, and for which she had placed her own
heart on the rack, had become his-glory and splendour, fame and honour.

She had not been able to give them to him, and undoubtedly he owed much
to his own powers and to the favour of his royal brother, but Barbara
was firmly convinced that her prayers had raised him to his present
grandeur.

What more could now be given to him? Everything the human heart desires
was already his. His happiness was complete, and during recent years
this, too, had cheered her heart and restored her lost capacity for
the enjoyment of life. She had been carried to the very verge of
recklessness whenever bitter grief had oppressed her heart.

Her greatest sorrow had been that she was not permitted to see and
embrace him, and the knowledge that another filled the place in his
heart which belonged to her; but lesser troubles had also gnawed at her
soul.

It had been especially hard to bear that, as the object of the greatest
Emperor's love and the mother of his son, she had so long felt that
she was reluctantly tolerated, and not really recognised in the circles
which should have been hers also. Moreover, the consciousness of
exercising an art over which she had once attained a mastery, yet never
being able to shake off the painful doubt whether the applause that
greeted her performance was genuine, spoiled many a pleasant hour.

Still, all these things had probably been only the tribute which she was
compelled to pay for the proud joy of being the mother of such a son.

Now she at last felt safe from these malicious little attacks. She had
gained a good social position; she was not only valued as a singer, but
always sought wherever the women of Ghent were earnestly pursuing music
and singing. The invitation to the Rassinghams flung wide the doors
which had formerly been closed against her, and she might be sure of not
being deemed the least important among the ladies of her party to whose
hearts the cause of King and Church was dear.

When she returned to Ghent, even if Don John had not been appointed
governor, she might even have ventured to make her house the rendezvous
of the heads of the royalist party.

But now that her son entered the Netherlands as the leader, the
representative of the sovereign, to reign in Philip's name, everything
she