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_TALE XLI_.

_A Grey Friar to whom a maiden had presented herself on
Christmas night that he might confess her, laid upon her so
strange a penance that she would not submit to it, but rose
from before him without having received absolution; but her
mistress, hearing of the matter, caused the Grey Friar to be
flogged in her kitchen, and then sent him back, bound and
gagged, to his Warden_.

In the year when my Lady Margaret of Austria came to Cambray on behalf
of her nephew the Emperor, to treat of peace between him and the Most
Christian King, who on his part was represented by his mother, my
Lady Louise of Savoy, (1) the said Lady Margaret had in her train the
Countess of Aiguemont, (2) who won, among this company, the renown of
being the most beautiful of all the Flemish ladies.

1 It was in June 1529 that Margaret of Austria came to
Cambrai to treat for peace, on behalf of Charles V. Louise
of Savoy, who represented Francis I., was accompanied on
this occasion by her daughter, Queen Margaret, who appears
to have taken part in the conferences. The result of these
was that the Emperor renounced his claims on Burgundy, but
upheld all the other stipulations of the treaty of Madrid.