ry of fire-and-fagot memory; and Philip gladly
would have placed Mary's sister Elizabeth in his half-vacant bed. The
marriage of Philip and Mary was barren, and poor Mary's belief that a
"blessed baby" was coming has been matter for laughter for more than
three hundred years. Had her agonizing prayers for offspring been heard,
what a change would have been wrought in human destinies, even had the
child lived to be no older than Edward VI.! The second son of Philip the
Fair and Juana was Ferdinand, named from his maternal grandfather,
Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Argon. He was the founder of the German
branch of the house of Austria, the younger branch, which has long
survived the elder branch, though now it exists only in the female line,
and really is the house of Lorraine. Ferdinand became Ferdinand I.,
Emperor of Germany, and he did far more than was done by his elder
brother to keep up the character of his family for making much through
marriage. In 1522, when but nineteen, he married Anne Yagellon, princess
of Hungary and Bohemia,--a marriage that might not have proved very
important, but that death came in and made it so, and also the births
that came from it, as will presently appear. Charles and Ferdinand had
four sisters, and they all four made great marriages, three of which
were very useful to the Austrian house. The eldest of these ladies,
Eleanora, was married to Emanuel, king of Portugal,--a man old enough to
be her father, with some years to spare,--being sacrificed to the
ambition of her brother Charles, for she was attached to the Count
Palatine. Becoming a widow, she was compelled to give her hand to that
popular rascal, Francis I. of France, when her brother wished to
strengthen the treaty he made with his "good brother" at Madrid, and
which the Frenchman had arranged to disregard even before he signed it.
The second sister, Isabella, married Christian II., king of Denmark,
when she was but fourteen, and died at twenty-four. Mary, the third
sister, became the wife of Louis II., king of Hungary and Bohemia, and
last of the Yagellons. The fourth sister, Catherine, married John III.,
king of Portugal. It was the marriage of the third sister, Mary, that,
in connection with his own marriage, had the greatest effect on the
fortunes of her brother Ferdinand, as his wife was the sister of Louis
II., Mary's husband. Louis was defeated by the Turks at the battle of
Mohacz, in 1526, and lost his life while flyi