Note 91 — Book I. LETTERS TO MAXIMILIAN. (continued 2)

Duke Eric of Brunswick succeeded his father the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, in the principalities of Gottingen and Calenberg. Brought up as a Lutheran, he afterwards became a Roman Catholic. He fought on the Spanish side at St. Quentin, and was subsequently employed in the Netherlands and Portugal. He does not seem to have taken his rejection much to heart, as in the following December he married Dorothea, daughter of Christina, Duchess of Lorraine (see note, page 63), and sister of Charles, the reigning Duke. Busbecq’s Queen honoured the marriage of her rejected suitor with her presence (see page 129). He died at Pavia in 1584. In the opinion of Thuanus (iii. 703), he was ‘terribilis suis, neque tamen re ulla memorabili gesta admodum clarus.’ His widow afterwards married the Marquis de Varembon, the lover of Mademoiselle de Tournon, whose pathetic story is told by her royal mistress. See Mémoires de Marguerite, 110-114.