Never, he frequently observed, had woman so terrible a head.

She was obstinate, reckless, abominably extravagant.
She had been provided in Ghent with a handsome establishment: "with a duenna, six other women, a major domo, two pages, one chaplain, an almoner, and four men-servants," and this seemed a sufficiently liberal scheme of life for the widow of a commissary.

Moreover, a very ample allowance had been made for the education of her only legitimate son, Conrad, the other having perished by an accident on the day of his father's death.

While Don John of Austria was, gathering laurels in Granada, his half-brother, Pyramus junior, had been ingloriously drowned in a cistern at Ghent.
Barbara's expenses were exorbitant; her way of life scandalous.

To send her money, said Alva, was to throw it into the sea.