nature, for never was a more uncomfortable, unmanageable personage than Barbara in her after life.  Married to one Pyramus Kegell, who was made a military commissary in the Netherlands, she was left a widow in the beginning of Alva’s administration.  Placed under the especial superintendence of the Duke, she became the torment of that warrior’s life.  The terrible Governor, who could almost crush the heart out of a nation of three millions, was unable to curb this single termagant.  Philip had expressly forbidden her to marry again, but Alva informed him that she was surrounded by suitors.  Philip had insisted that she should go into a convent, but Alva, who, with great difficulty, had established her quietly in Ghent, assured his master that she would break loose again at the bare suggestion of a convent.  Philip wished her to go to Spain, sending her word that Don John was mortified by the life his mother was leading, but she informed the Governor that she would be cut to pieces before she would go to Spain.  She had no objection to see her son, but she knew too well how women were treated in that country.  The Duke complained most pathetically to his Majesty of the life they all led with the ex-mistress of the Emperor.  Never, he frequently observed, had woman so terrible a head.  She was obstinate, reckless, abominably extravagant.  She had been provided in Ghent with a handsome establishment:  “with a duenna, six other women, a major domo, two pages, one chaplain, an almoner, and four men-servants,” and this seemed a sufficiently liberal scheme of life for the widow of a commissary.  Moreover, a very ample allowance had been made for the education of her only legitimate son, Conrad, the other having perished by an accident on the day of his father’s death.  While Don John of Austria was, gathering laurels in Granada, his half-brother, Pyramus junior, had been ingloriously drowned in a cistern at Ghent.

Barbara’s expenses were exorbitant; her way of life scandalous.  To send her money, said Alva, was to throw it into the sea.  In two days she would have spent in dissipation and feasting any sums which the King might choose to supply.  The Duke, who feared nothing else in the world, stood in mortal awe of the widow Kegell.  “A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman,” wrote secretary Gayas, from Madrid, at the close of Alva’s administration for, notwithstanding every effort to entice, to intimidate, and to kidnap her from the Netherlands, there she remained, through all vicissitudes, even till the arrival of Don John.  By his persuasions or commands she was, at last, induced to accept an exile for the remainder of her days, in Spain, but revenged herself by asserting. that he was quite mistaken:  in supposing himself the Emperor’s child; a point, certainly, upon which her, authority might be thought conclusive.  Thus there was a double mystery about Don John.  He might be the issue of august parentage on one side; he was; possibly, sprung of most ignoble blood.  Base-born at best, he was not sure whether to look for the author of his being in the halls of the Caesara or the booths of Ratisbon mechanics.