Although Lucretia was suffering from a fever, she did not die of grief, nor did she rise to avenge her husband's murder, or to flee from the terrible Vatican.
She was in a position similar to that of her sister-in-law, Dona Maria Enriquez, after Gandia's death; but while the latter and her sons had found safety in Spain, Lucretia had no retreat to which she could retire without the consent of her father and brother.
It would be wrong to blame the unfortunate woman because at this fateful moment of her life she did not make herself the subject of a tragedy.

Of a truth, she appears very weak and characterless.

We must not look for great qualities of soul in Lucretia, for she possessed them not.

We are endeavoring to represent her only as she actually was, and, if we judge rightly, she was merely a woman differentiated from the great mass of women, not by the strength, but by the graciousness, of her nature.

This young woman, regarded by posterity as a Medea or as a loathsomely passionate creature, probably never experienced any real feeling.