Death, as the synthesis of and counter-balance of life, can only be considered holy for a queen who lived in holiness. Margaret fulfilled all the tasks entrusted to her, strengthened the Catholic religion against the Ottomans and Protestants and gave her king and her kingdom many heirs. Upon Margaret’s death, the grateful king ordered in Spain and throughout the kingdom the most solemn funerals ever paid up to then. Grand Duke Cosimo II championed this glorification ‘in real time’, providing painters with methods for depicting a life and death that would coincide with a sanctification. In the painting, together with the cumbersome, heavy religious presence of the Capuchins who bless her, her dynastic heirs surround her deathbed: all of the couple’s children are present together with the king. Given the age of the children at the time of the funeral and given that seven ‘pledges of love’ are mentioned in the Latin cartouche, we are inclined to believe that the seventh child, Alfonso, is the one represented in the upper part of the canvas within the scene of the Assumption of Margaret in glory. She holds him lovingly in her arms.