Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire
Stella:
Penelope Orsini.
Pernella Concubina:
the Elder:
the Younger:
Bertha of Rosenberg:
--'His daughter Perchta, or rather Bertha, was married, in the year 1449, to John Von Lichtenstein, a rich baronet in Steyermark. But as her husband led a vicious and profligate life, Bertha was very unhappy. Her marriage proved a constant source of grief to her, and she was obliged to seek relief from her relatives. Hence it was that she could never forget the insults and indescribable distress she had endured, and thus left the world under the influence of this bitter passion. At length this unhappy marriage was dissolved by the death of her husband, and she removed to her brother, Henry IV. The latter began to reign in the year 1451, and died, without issue, in 1457.
--'Lady Bertha lived at Neuhaus, and built the castle there, which occupied several years in building, to the great grievance of the townspeople. Lady Bertha, however, spoke kindly to her vassals, and consoled them with the speedy termination of the work, and the due payment of their services. Among other things, she generally called out to the workmen, ' Work for your masters, ye faithful subjects, work !— when the castle is finished, you and all your families shall be feasted with sweet porridge,' for so our forefathers expressed themselves when they invited any one to be their guest.
--'Now in autumn, when the building was finished, Lady Bertha kept her word, by treating all her subjects with an excellent repast, and said to them during dinner, 'In consequence of your loyalty to your liege lord, you shall every year have such a feast as this ; and thus the praise of your good conduct shall flourish in after-ages.'
--'The lords of Rosenberg and Slavata found it afterward more appropriate to transfer this beneficent and charitable feast to the day of the institution of the Lord's Supper, on which day it is still continued.
--"'I do not find at what time Lady Bertha Von Rosenberg died ; but it was probably toward the end of the fifteenth century. Her portrait is to be met with in several Bohemian castles, in a widow's white dress, which exactly corresponds with the appearance of the White Lady. She is most frequently seen at Roumlau, Neuhaus, Trzebon, Islubocka, Bechin, and Tretzen, which are all Bohemian castles, inhabited by her descendants ; and as individuals of her family married into the houses of Brandenburg, Baden, and Darmstadt, she is also in the habit of visiting them: and wherever she comes, her object is to announce an approaching death—perhaps also to warn against some misfortune, for she sometimes appears likewise without any one dying. . . .'" (Roback: 205)
the White Lady of Rosenberg:
--" . . . Bertha, like all widows of her time, wore white, which she continued to wear till death, when she was buried in her white widow's weeds. To this she owed her name of the White Lady, by which she was known during her life, and under which she is now almost worshipped as a saint. The people of the surrounding country firmly believe that she continues to wander through the castles then belonging to the house of Rosenberg, that she looks about to see whether the houses are kept in good order, and whether the poor receive their dulce mus regularly. . . ." (Kohl: 54)
--'In the ancient castle of Neuhaus, in Bohemia, among the pictures of the ancient and celebrated family of Rosenberg, there was found a portrait which bears an exact resemblance to the White Lady. She is clothed after the fashion of those times, in a white habit, and was called Perchta von Rosenberg. The history of this lady's life is briefly as follows: She was born between 1420 and 1430 ; her father is said to have been Ulrich II., Von Rosenberg, and her mother, Catherine of Wartenberg, who died in 1436. This Ulrich was lieutenant-governor in Bohemia, and, at the instance of the Pope, commander-in-chief of the Roman Catholic troops against the Hussites.
the First Citizen of Athens:
the Olympian:
the Tennis-Ball of Fortune [11]
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