Isabella Color
The Archduke Albert married the infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II., King of Spain, with whom he had the Low Countries in dowry. In the year 1602 he laid siege to Ostend, then in the possession of the heretics, and his pious princess, who attended him in that expedition, made a vow that she would not change her clothes until the city was taken. Contrary to expectation, it was three years before the place was reduced, in which time the linen of her highness had acquired a hue which, from the superstition of the princess and the times, was much admired, and was adopted by the court fashionables under the name of the “Isabella color.” It is a whitish yellow, or soiled buff—better imagined than described.