Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

114 MARY, PRINCESS-ROYAL. [1658.
appointment with her. He, however, chose to take up a
causeless affront, and refrained from seeing her.
His behaviour was only an imitation of the previous
conduct of the Spanish ambassador to the Princess, whom
he declined for some time to visit.
A letter, of intelligence, 28th of May, from the Hague,
states that the " Princess-royal, had met her three brothers,
King Charles, the Duke of York, and Duke of Gloucester,
with O'Niel and Ormonde, at Brussels, where the burghers
of Brussels, received and entertained them nobly at dinner ;
their respective trains dining at a separate table. They were
served with much respect, and stayed till eight o'clock."*
After her return from Brussels, where she and her
brother Charles had been entertained by the Spanish
minister, Cardenas, Mary found it necessary to remind her
ever careless brother, that he had omitted the almost in-
dispensable fee, to the servants of that important personage.
" Having been so long without writing to your majesty,"
she says, " I would not let this occasion go, though
I have very little to say, except to put you in mind for
some money to give the Marquis of Cardenas's servants.
Your majesty knows how necessary it is to be done, and that
I cannot handsomely appear amongst them till it is done."t
The royal widow of Orange was sometimes troubled,
like many a mother in private life, about the wear and tear
perpetrated by her august son, in his princely wardrobe,
which does not appear to have been too ample for a
boy in his position. She writes from Breda, the 14th of
January, to her faithful friend, the Lord of Heenvliet :
" My son's gloves are so torn that it is high time they
should give him others. Pray hasten them about it."
Her boy was then a little turned of eight years old.
During his mother's absence the young prince had become
* Thurloe's ' State Papers,' vol. vii. p. 141. f Lambeth MS.