over the kingdom.  The young Louis, who was but a boy, was not disposed to engage in a quarrel with his mother, and for a time submitted to this interference; but gradually he was roused by his adherents, to emancipate himself from these shackles, and to assume the authority of a sovereign.  This led to very serious trouble.  The abdicated king, in his moping melancholy, was entirely in subjection to his wife.  There were now two rival courts.  Parties were organizing.  Some were for deposing the son; others for imprisoning the father.  The kingdom was on the eve of a civil war, when death kindly came to settle the difficulty.

The young King Louis, but eighteen years of age, after a nominal reign of but eight months, was seized with that awful scourge the small-pox, and, after a few days of suffering and delirium, was consigned to the tomb.  Philip, notwithstanding his vow, was constrained by his wife to resume the crown, she probably promising to relieve him of all care.  Such are the vicissitudes of a hereditary government.  Elizabeth, with woman’s spirit, now commanded the emperor to renounce the title of King of Spain, which he still claimed.  Charles, with the spirit of an emperor, declared that he would do no such thing.

There was another serious source of difficulty between the two monarchs, which has descended, generation after generation, to our own time, and to this day is only settled by each party quietly persisting in his own claim.

In the year 1430 Philip III., Duke of Burgundy, instituted a new order of knighthood for the protection of the Catholic church, to be called the order of the Golden Fleece.  But twenty-four members were to be admitted, and Philip himself was the grand master.  Annual meetings were held to fill vacancies.  Charles V., as grand master, increased the number of knights to fifty-one.  After his death, as the Burgundian provinces and the Netherlands passed under the dominion of Spain, the Spanish monarchs exercised the office of grand master, and conferred the dignity, which was now regarded the highest order of knighthood in Europe, according to their pleasure.  But Charles VI., now in admitted possession of the Netherlands, by virtue of that possession claimed the office of grand master of the Golden Fleece.  Philip also claimed it as the inheritance of the kings of Spain.  The dispute has never been settled.  Both parties still claim it, and the order is still conferred both at Vienna and Madrid.

Other powers interfered, in the endeavor to promote reconciliation between the hostile courts, but, as usual, only increased the acrimony of the two parties.  The young Spanish princess Mary Anne, who was affianced to the Dauphin of France, was sent to Paris for her education, and that she might become familiar with the etiquette of a court over which she was to preside as queen.  For a time she was treated with great attention, and child as she was, received all the homage