The night of the lost battle, when Henry’s headless body lay on the field, Hedwige, after a prayer of unusual length, woke her nearest friend and favorite attendant, and said to her:
“Demundis, this night I have lost my only son. He has left me as swiftly as a bird flies upwards, and I shall never look upon his face again.” She forbade her to say anything of this to the dead man’s wife and sister until some messenger from the army should bring news of the battle; and it was not till the third day that Jaroslaus von Janowitz came with the terrible tidings. Anna, Henry’s young widow, hastened to the field to seek and recover her husband’s body, which was so mutilated that she only recognized it by the six toes of the left foot. The corpse was brought to Trebnitz and buried with his father, brother, and infant sons in the abbey church. Hedwige prayed thus aloud over his grave: “O Lord! I thank thee that thou hast given me such a son, who, as long as he lived, loved and honored me truly, and never gave me an hour’s sorrow. However gladly I would have kept him by my side on earth, I hold him blessed in that, by the shedding of his blood, he is now united in heaven with thee, his Creator. With supplication, O Lord! do I commend his soul unto thee.”
Hedwige’s life and work were drawing to an end. Her last public act was one of charity to the dead and comfort to the bereaved living. The bodies of many heroic defenders of their country had been left to rot upon the field of battle. She had these gathered together and buried in consecrated ground, and ordered solemn requiems to be sung for the repose of their souls, while she made herself accessible to every sorrowing widow, mother, sister, or orphan of the dead soldiers, listened to their complaints and laments, comforted and helped them, and brought God’s peace once more into their hearts. After this she prepared herself to die. Her first care was a practical one: she set her affairs in order—a moral duty too often foolishly confounded with worldliness. Then she redoubled her devotions, and, sending for her chaplain, asked to receive Extreme Unction. He demurred, seeing no sign of death about her; but her holiness was so well known that he asked her the reason of her request.