A Courageous Heart in the Age of Adversity

*The first time I met the prince and the knight, I was not yet fifteen years of age.

I had just given birth to my first child, a baby boy. My husband was away on a trip with his military unit, and so it was only me and the midwife helping me through the labor. When I finally gave birth, the midwife immediately began to wash him in wine.

"Is that necessary?" I asked, still panting from the labor. "What are you doing?"

She looked at me sharply over her spectacles. "He needs to be cleansed," she replied. "Are you so eager to take him into your arms so soon? You must be careful, or else he'll grow up to be weak."

"But why would he grow weak?" I asked again, worried. "We're in peace time now."

She turned away from me, continuing to wash my son clean with rags and wine. "You've been living here for many years now," she said, as if she were talking about something much more important than my child's health. "You can't have failed to notice how our nation is changing."

I spent a moment thinking back to what she said, trying to find an explanation for why my son needed to be washed in wine after birth. Then it suddenly dawned on me: The midwife was referring to the religious restrictions which were being placed on our citizens by King Ferdinand II of Spain. My husband had been one of the leaders against these restrictions, along with many other nobles across Europe; they had fought back against Ferdinand's attempts at establishing Catholicism as the state religion throughout Europe. They had won their battle over Ferdinand and his religious suppression - but now we were in a new battle altogether: A battle over whether Spain would continue to exist as its own nation or be merged with France into one giant kingdom under King Louis XIII.

"My son is healthy," I said firmly, drawing myself up proudly despite my exhaustion. "He will not grow weak because of some stupid superstition."

The midwife rolled her eyes and shook her head at me like a mother exasperated with her child's foolishness; she continued washing my son without so much as another word from me. Seeing that she wasn't going to reply any further, I turned away from them both and tried to rest a while longer on the bed before taking my son into my arms.