n her from Henry's camp by her
confidential messenger, would indicate that she did know. "The Grand
Equerry, the second king," mentioned in the letter was Charles Brandon,
then Viscount Lisle and later ennobled by Henry for Marguerite's sake,
gossip said Lord Suffolk. The messenger, Philippe de Brigilles, writes:

"MADAME:

"The Grand Equerry, my Lord Lisle, has been to me to beg of me that I
would convey to you his most humble respects and the hearty desire which
he had to do you service. I think you know sufficiently well that he is
the second king and it is only proper that you should write him a
gracious letter, for he it is who does and undoes all. This knoweth God,
who give you, Madame, what ever you most desire. From the camp before
Therouanne, this Wednesday last.

"Your most humble and most obedient slave,

"PHILIPPE DE BRIGILLES."

Marguerite was now thirty-three. A portrait of her at Hampton Court
shows that she was a fine-looking, if not, strictly speaking, a
beautiful woman. The face is oval, the hair, showing from underneath the
rather picturesque widow's headdress of the sixteenth century, is brown,
the eyes are dark and expressive, the nose Grecian, the lips somewhat
full. The hands, resting upon a balcony, are beautiful, with long,
tapering fingers.

Brandon is described as "a large man, tall and elegantly proportioned,
with dark brown eyes and hair: he was handsome in his countenance,
courtly in his manners, and extremely prepossessing in his address."

For the next few months, the soul of Marguerite of Austria was
struggling in deep waters. The facts, as clearly as they can be made out
through the misty perspective of centuries, seem to be these: Marguerite
loved Charles Brandon, then Viscount Lisle and afterward the Duke of
Suffolk. He asked her hand in marriage, wooing her passionately. The
young and powerful king, Henry VIII., favored Suffolk's suit, even to
the point of making several personal appeals to Marguerite, whose pride
and her fear of causing a political catastrophe made her hesitate to
accept Suffolk. Gossiping rumors concerning the love affair were spread
broadcast, and Maximilian, hearing them, became enraged. Marguerite drew
back. Henry VIII. pretended to the emperor that he knew nothing about
the matter except by hearsay. Brandon accepted the situation and later
consoled himself by marrying the youngest sister of the king, the bride
first selected for Charles, Mary Tudor.