Chapter II

1553-1554

The Coronation of Mary—Noailles _versus_ Renard—Mary
accepts Philip—The marriage treaty—Alarm in London—Egmont’s
missions—Wyatt’s rebellion—Attitude of Elizabeth—The coming
of Philip—His voyage and arrival—His popular manners in
England—Arrival at Winchester

All London was ringing with preparations for the coming pageant of the Queen’s coronation. Fenchurch, Gracechurch, and Leadenhall, Cornhill, Chepe, and Saint Paul’s were erecting the scaffoldings for their triumphs, repainting and gilding gable ends and pinnacles, and trimming forth their fine stuffs and liveries in honour of the great day when the Queen was to ride in state from the Tower to Westminster.[19] Away across the fields in the little sylvan palace of Saint James’s, Mary sat under her canopy in her audience chamber one day in late September, surrounded by courtiers, all, like the Queen herself, in a blaze of magnificence; for the prim Puritanism of the late reign had been banished as savouring of Reform, and the splendour of King Henry was being copied by his daughter. To one man alone had Mary somewhat sourly prescribed modesty in attire, and that was to Courtenay. The dissoluteness of this young man of twenty-six, who had never before been free since his childhood, had already shocked the austerely virtuous Mary, and had made his chances of winning her hand more impossible than ever. But neither she nor those around her could fail to see that the cunning Frenchman Noailles was still ostentatiously feasting and honouring him, and already the talk of the French party at Court was coupling the names of Courtenay and the Princess Elizabeth in a way that boded ill to Mary’s peace of mind. Courtenay had ordered a gorgeous suit of blue velvet covered with gold for the coming ceremony; but blue was the colour the Queen had chosen for her own outer garb, and she had no intention of allowing so much bravery to the man she knew was being made the tool of her enemies to injure her, and Courtenay was ordered to put his finery aside and wear more modest raiment. At the public audience Renard brought forward to present to the Queen two great Spanish nobles—Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Don Diego de Geneda—who were on their way from Flanders to Spain, the latter a member of Philip’s household. As the two gentlemen in their distinctive Spanish garb and with national gravity were led forward for presentation to the Queen, many scowling brows were bent upon them; for although the matter was supposed to be so secret, the talk of the Spanish marriage was already common at Court; and Noailles, in the deepest chagrin at the way things were tending, noticed that Don Diego de Geneda on this occasion had whispered conference with the Queen, unheard even by his colleague or by the Imperial ambassador.[20]

Whatever French gold or interest could effect to alarm people at the idea of the coming of a Spanish Consort was done. Stories of the terrible rule of the Inquisition in Spain, and of the pride and cruelty of Spaniards generally, were spread industriously by the agents of Noailles, and by the day fixed for the Queen’s state procession to Westminster, the 30th of September, 1553, London was almost in a panic of fear. The Queen had come in with promises of toleration, and already the zeal of the Churchmen and her own had belied her people’s hope for religious peace. Parliament had been summoned for the 5th October, specially for the purpose of restoring England to the orthodox Church; Cardinal Pole was known to be coming to the land of his fathers as the Legate of the Pope to receive the submission of England to the Power which King Henry had flouted so contemptuously; and already the dungeons in the Tower were being filled by the prelates of the newer ritual.

All the dazzling magnificence that accompanied the passage of the Queen through London from the Tower to Westminster, on the last day of September—all the official greetings, the frequent pageants at the street corners, and the wonder of the multitude at the rare show of sumptuous garb—could not banish the dread thought amidst the crowd that, perhaps, all this bravery was only a prelude to a Spanish domination over England. The nobles who rode in Mary’s train and filled the great Court offices in her household had most of them been enriched by the plunder of the monastic lands, and had their own reasons for dreading a return of the old order in its extreme form; though they did not know as yet that the Spanish Consort, whose advent they feared so much, would be the great modifying influence in their favour. Frenchmen and Venetians joined the alarmed Englishmen in their apprehensions of the coming change, but the few Spaniards in London were jubilant. One Spanish resident,[21] who described the splendid show for the benefit of a noble patron in Spain, thus writes with reference to the match: “If the Lord vouchsafed us to behold this glorious day, what great advantage would befall our Spain in holding the Frenchmen in check, by the union of these kingdoms with his Majesty’s dominions. And were it only to preserve the States of Flanders, surely the Emperor and son must greatly desire it, for, as your Lordship knows well, the day that the Emperor dies the Low Countries will be in peril of attack from the French or of a German invasion under French auspices, help from Spain being so remote, and Flanders itself not being free from suspicion of revolt on the ground of religion or from the disaffection of the people towards Spaniards. It would be most advantageous, too, to Spain, for should aught happen to the Prince’s son (Don Carlos), the son born here would be King of both countries, which would be a good thing for the English too.... All the Catholics here would lift up their hands to God, for they love their country and the Queen, and especially Spain, for the sake of the good Queen Katharine; and the goodly here are so many that there are a hundred Catholics for every four heretics.”

With these mixed hopes and fears amidst the multitude, there went a general trust in, and affection for, the Queen personally. She had been ill-treated so long, as the people knew; she had grown faded and middle-aged under unjust oppression, and she was a true Royal Princess descended on both sides from kings of highest lineage. So when at the Abbey next day, 1st October, during the interminable ceremony of the coronation, Gardiner led the Queen, in her crimson velvet and ermine, to the four corners of the daïs and called in a loud voice, “Is this the true heir to this realm?” there was no hesitation, and all the lieges shouted as if with one voice, “Yea! yea! God save the Queen!”[22]

Parliament met on the 5th October. The Catholics in the country were unquestionably in a majority, though not so great, probably, as in the ratio of twenty-five to one, as the Spaniards asserted; and Mary had no difficulty in obtaining the repeal of all the anti-Papal laws which severed England from Rome. Gardiner was willing enough to aid the Queen in this; but, prompted by Noailles, he managed dexterously to get the House of Commons to vote an Address to the Queen, praying her not to marry a foreigner. This, it is true, voiced a very general feeling in the country, but the Queen had now (November) quite made up her mind; for she had seen a portrait of Philip by Titian, and had fairly fallen in love with the young, fresh-coloured man with the curly, yellow beard who was asking for her hand. So in a rage, and after much delay, Mary received the deputation of the Commons led by the Speaker. “This is one of the Chancellor’s tricks,” she muttered, “and I will be equal with him for it.” Then haughtily addressing the deputation, she rebuked their presumption in attempting to dictate to her on such a matter, and said that if private persons were allowed to choose mates for themselves, surely sovereigns were not to be less privileged. This was the true Tudor attitude towards the representatives of the people; and the Queen, having legalised her religious changes, promptly dissolved Parliament.

Watchful eyes followed Renard everywhere. The Queen’s Council, with the exception of Paget, Arundel, and Petre, looked askance at him; French and Venetian spies at Court reported his every movement; and his own colleagues were bitterly jealous of him, as the marriage negotiation had been kept exclusively in his hands. For many days he could obtain no private access to Mary for the purpose of giving her the Emperor’s message; but at last, by Paget’s management, on the 10th October, he was introduced secretly into the Queen’s presence at Westminster. The Emperor deplored, said Renard, that his age and infirmities prevented him from offering his own hand in marriage to his cousin, as he would have wished; but that being impossible, he begged her to accept his only and beloved son as her husband. To the chagrin of Renard, Mary was now full of hesitation. What would her people say, and how could her Council be persuaded? She feared that when Philip succeeded his father, his many other realms would occupy the whole of his time, and that he would never be able to stay in England. Was Renard, moreover, quite sure of his character? He could not be so wise as the Emperor, and he was very young for her. Of course she would obey her husband, but he must not think for a moment that she would allow him to rule her State, nor could she give any offices to foreigners; and she threw out a strong hint that perhaps Philip’s Austrian cousin, Maximilian, would be a better husband for her, as she was absolutely free, and she had heard the Archduke was considered wise. Besides, if Philip was voluptuous in his ideas, she had no desire for anything of the sort at her age.

FROM THE PAINTING BY TITIAN IN THE PRADO MUSEUM]

All these objections were, no doubt, only a display of becoming maiden modesty, but they somewhat disturbed Renard. He painted to her in lurid colours the enmities by which she was surrounded, and the dangers that threatened her—the intrigues of the French with Courtenay and Elizabeth, the menacing attitude of the Protestant party in the provinces—and Mary answered as best she might, asking Renard at last to put in writing the arguments he urged in favour of her marriage with Philip. Four days later he saw her again, and this time her hesitation took a more personal form. With tears in her eyes she seized the ambassador’s hands and conjured him to tell her truly whether Philip was so moderate, settled, and well-behaved as he said. On his life and honour the ambassador protested that he was, but still the perplexed Queen was unconvinced. If she could only have seen the Prince first, she said, she would be better able to judge. That, the ambassador gently told her, was not possible; but a good portrait of him could be sent to her, and with this she was obliged to be content.[23]

It was only after long hesitation and prayerful searching of heart that Mary finally decided to carry through her marriage, in the face of the almost universal opposition of her people. She undoubtedly yearned for the support of a husband in her difficult position, and naturally hoped for a son who should carry on her tradition of a Catholic England. She was of affectionate disposition, and for all her modest assurance to Renard that she had never felt the promptings of the flesh, there is nothing unbecoming in believing that the sight of her cousin’s portrait had lit up the feeling of love in her heart where natural affection had been suppressed for so long. But, withal, her principal desire for the match and her determination to effect it were mainly prompted by public considerations. The intrigues of the French with the Protestant elements in the country, and the almost open way in which Noailles was playing off Courtenay and Elizabeth against her, had convinced Mary that France was her enemy. The only force in Europe strong enough to resist France was the Emperor; and unless the Queen could depend absolutely upon his support, it was evident that sooner or later the Protestant element in England with French aid would oust her from the throne—probably in favour of the young Queen of Scots, her cousin, already betrothed to the heir of France.

Motives personal, religious, and political, therefore all dictated to Mary the absolute necessity of her prompt marriage with Philip; and, as we have already seen, the motives of the Emperor and his son for the marriage were equally strong. Some of Mary’s Council—especially Arundel, Paget, and Petre—were first won over, for they were in the Emperor’s pay before; and when Gardiner saw that the tide was too strong for him to resist, he also accepted the inevitable with the best grace he could. But when he had to be consulted on the terms of the marriage treaty, he drove as hard a bargain as possible; for he, and, it is just to say, most of his colleagues also, were determined that the marriage should not mean the political subjugation of England by Spain. On the 31st October, Sunday evening, Mary summoned Renard to her oratory, where she received him, attended only by her devoted nurse, Mrs. Clarencius. Her eyes were red with weeping, and she told the ambassador that for days she had been sleepless, praying for guidance as to the choice of a husband. “My last resource in all my difficulties,” she said, “is the Holy Sacrament, and as it is even now displayed upon this altar, I will appeal to it for counsel.” Then kneeling, as did Renard and Mrs. Clarencius by her side, she recited with whispered fervour the _Veni Creator Spiritus_. After a short period of silent meditation she rose, calm and self-possessed, and told the ambassador that her mind was now made up: he, Renard, should be her father confessor. She had consulted some of her Councillors, and herself had pondered deeply upon the subject; and now, bearing in mind what she had been told of Philip’s good qualities, she prayed the Emperor to accept her as a daughter, to be indulgent with her, and to consent to the conditions which her Councillors declared would be necessary for the welfare of her realm. She hoped that henceforward the Emperor would be doubly a father to her, and Philip a good husband. Then with all solemnity she approached the altar and, with her hand upon the gospel before the Sacred Presence, swore to marry Philip of Spain and make him a good wife. God had now sent her light, she said, after she had wavered long. No man but Philip should be her husband.[24]

Whilst Renard and the Council were fighting hard over every point of the marriage treaty, Noailles and the Venetian ambassadors were busy intriguing against it, entertaining Courtenay constantly, and doing their best to draw cautious Elizabeth into their plots. The muttering of coming trouble sounded on all sides—Mary, jealous and distrustful of Elizabeth, whose illegitimacy she was determined to assert; the Protestant elements in the Court and country already in a ferment, thanks largely to French incitement, and disaffection showing itself by partial disturbances in various parts of the country. Religious persecution, too, began to raise its head. Cranmer and Ridley were condemned to death, as were Lady Jane Grey and the three sons of Northumberland; whilst the Emperor, determined for his part to avoid exacerbating the evil, had, to the great indignation of the Pope and the Churchmen, almost violently forbidden Pole to go to England with his extreme Papal mission, at least until the ultimate control of it had passed into the Emperor’s own politic hands.

At length, by the end of the year, the hard terms of the treaty were drafted. Renard had done his best, and so had the Imperial ministers in Flanders; but Gardiner had been firm, and the conditions were a bitter dose for Spanish pride to swallow; for, as they stood, they bade fair to deprive the bridegroom’s country of the only benefit to be derived from the marriage—namely, control of the policy and resources of England. The Consort was to have no rule in the country, and none of his countrymen were to hold office of any sort; the Queen was to receive a jointure of 30,000 ducats a year from Flanders; and the issue of the marriage, if any, should, failing Philip’s only son Carlos, succeed to all his Crowns, as well as to England; whilst in the case of Mary’s death, the Consort was to have no hold whatever upon her country, nor was he to take the Queen or her children out of England without the consent of the Council. These and many similar provisions fenced round the authority of the Consort so completely as to deprive him of any direct political power in England; but Charles, confident in Mary’s secret promises to Renard that, notwithstanding the conditions, the will of the Emperor should prevail in England after the marriage,[25] determined to make the best of it, and to gain the stubborn islanders by his son’s charming, if they were not to be won by a diplomatic document.

Noailles grew daily more bitter, and almost came to blows with Paget on the subject of the marriage, but it became clear even to him now that he had been beaten, and that in future England and the Emperor would make common cause against France. A pompous Flemish embassy, headed by the splendid young Count of Egmont, was known to be on its way across to ratify the marriage treaty in the name of the Emperor; and Noailles took care that all London should be in a fever of apprehension at their coming. On the 1st January a great retinue of servants with the baggage of the ambassadors rode through London to Durham House in the Strand, where Egmont and his suite were to be lodged. Thick snow lay upon the ground, and as the foreigners, with their long line of pack-horses, passed through the narrow lanes of the old city, the very street-boys pelted them with snowballs, “so hatfull was the sight of ther coming in to theym.”[26]

The next day, at the Tower Stairs, a gallant company of courtiers, headed by Sir Anthony Browne, in the gorgeous garb he loved so well, awaited the coming of the Emperor’s representatives, whilst the guns on the Tower overhead boomed out their salutation. Egmont, the first of the Flemish nobles, was accompanied by Montmorenci, Sieur de Courrières, who had formerly come with Renard to England, as well as by several other high Imperial functionaries; and they were escorted by Lord William Howard, from Calais, and by Lord Cobham, from Dover, as Lieutenant of Kent. As the gallant embassy of eighty finely clad gentlemen pranced out of the Tower Gate, they were affectionately greeted by Courtenay, Hastings, and Strange on Tower Hill, and led through the City in state, though “the people,” we are told, “nothing rejoysing, helde downe their heddes sorrowfully.”[27] Nothing was left undone by Mary and her Court to show honour to the guests; and banquet followed banquet, whilst Egmont unsuccessfully strove to modify the terms of the treaty. Renard tells in a letter to the Emperor of a banquet given to the ambassadors by the Queen on the 6th January,[28] after which a little scene took place which well illustrates the free manners of the time. “And towards the end of the dinner the Lord Admiral [Howard], who had dined in an adjoining chamber, came in and stood before her [the Queen], who seemed pensive. He said something to her in English, and then turning to us, asked us whether we would like to know what he had said. Although her Majesty did her best to prevent him from translating it to us, he went on and said that he had wished that his Highness [Philip] had been seated there by her side, pointing to her right, in order to banish her melancholy. She blushed at this and asked why he said it, to which he replied that he was sure she was not cross and liked to hear it; whereupon the Queen and every one else laughed, and it all went off in good part.”

The day after this entertainment (7th January, 1554), Egmont wrote an urgent letter to Prince Philip, praying him to hasten his coming to claim his bride. The treaty, he says, has now been agreed to with only a word or two changed, and will be signed in two days. It is clear from this letter that Egmont foresaw the trouble that was looming. The nobility, he said, had received them better than he had expected. “But as for the people, they are uncertain. We will advise the Queen to raise forces to prevent any hostile movement, which would not be extraordinary, for these people are very unstable.... It is of the utmost importance that your Highness should come without delay. I hear that the French are arming strongly in Normandy and Brittany.... I beseech you humbly to consider how urgent it is that you come hither at once, for many reasons which I hope to lay before you verbally soon. Besides this, I should like your Highness to know that the Emperor has not provided us with a sou to spend on necessary presents. More can be done here with money than anywhere else in the world.”[29]

The hollow affectation of keeping the Queen’s marriage secret could not be continued after the treaty was signed, and on the 13th January Gardiner, with the best countenance he could command, made an oration in the Presence Chamber of the Palace of Westminster before the assembled lords and courtiers, declaring the Queen’s intention to marry the Prince of Spain “in most godly, lawful matrimonye: and further that she should have for her joynter xxxᵐⁱˡ duckets by the yere, with all the Lowe Countries of Flanders; and that the issue betweene them two lawfully begotten shoulde yf there be any, be heir as well to the Kingdom of Spayne as also to the sayde Lowe Country.” He declared, farther, that “we were much bounden to thancke God that so noble, worthye and famouse a prince would vouchsaff so to humble himself in this maryadge to take upon him rather as a subject than otherwise: and that the Quene should rule all things as nowe: and that there should be of the Council no Spanyard, nether should have rule or office in the quenes house or elsewhere in England nor have custody of any fortes or castells.”[30] Gardiner made the best of it; but the bare fact of the announcement being officially made set light to the tinder which Noailles and his allies had so carefully prepared. When, on the following day, Gardiner made a similar announcement to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, Noailles had seen enough to justify him in sending off a special courier post-haste to his master in France. “The nobles and commonalty declare,” he wrote, “that they will never tolerate the Prince of Spain for their King. They would rather die fighting against him than obey him, and will defend their liberties by force before they will submit to such servitude. They are making ready to rise in arms any day and expel this Queen, who they now see is unworthy of the Crown and as she had twice broken her promise to them after they had raised her to the position she occupies. First, in changing the religion after she had promised them toleration; and, secondly, in taking a foreign husband although she had promised that she would not.”[31] In a few days the result of all this excitement was seen. Carew and his friends and kin in the west, depending upon poor feeble Courtenay’s open co-operation, rose in revolt. Rumours ran that French troops were on the way across to aid him. But Courtenay was a reed easily broken, and allowed Gardiner to frighten him into alarmed submission, whilst Elizabeth, closely watched at Ashridge, was too cunning to be drawn into open complicity by Noailles’s intrigues; though the Emperor and Renard were urging Mary to put her sister well out of harm’s way in prison.

And then came the most perilous movement of all—that of the men of Kent under Wyatt. From the 26th January to the 3rd February Mary’s crown was not worth a day’s purchase; for, though the cry of the rebels was only against the Spanish marriage, the Queen knew full well that she must now stand or fall by that. And she stood manfully when many of her courtiers were distraught by fear and ready to desert her at a moment’s notice. Whilst Wyatt and his growing host swept triumphantly onward from Rochester Bridge to Blackheath, and so to Southwark, the Council were wrangling. Should the Queen retire to the Tower or should she fly to the country; should she believe what the friends of the French faction urged, that the only safe place for her was Calais, where she could claim the Emperor’s protection? Mary, almost alone, was undismayed. She sent word privately to Renard that for their own safety’s sake the other Imperial ambassadors should return home, but that she had no intention of backing out of the marriage or of leaving London, although she might temporise with Wyatt whilst she mustered her forces.[32] Riding to Guildhall, stern and sorrowful but unafraid, she made a stirring oration to the citizens; and although many were in favour of Wyatt, London Bridge was held firmly by the Queen’s friends, until the rebel force began to melt away discouraged at the delay.

If Wyatt had struck promptly, he would probably have won; but loath to shed blood and to use arms openly against the Crown, he lingered in Bermondsey, hoping for the declaration of the citizens of London in his favour, until it was too late. Then came the ignominious march through the mire to Kingston Bridge, and the footsore, famished, and rain-soaked crew tramping through the night into London, to be beaten almost without effort by those who, if they had shown a fine front, would have joined them. Vengeance promptly fell upon the offenders. The scaffolds at the street corners with their dangling corpses taught the common people that treason was a dangerous game to play; the block in the Tower was soaked with the blood of Greys and Dudleys and many of their noble friends, and Elizabeth was no longer bidden courteously to join her sister at Court, but was sternly, if ceremoniously, brought to London, dangerously ill though she seemed to be (22nd February). And, as the young Princess passed through the silent, sorrowful crowd that greeted her, making, as she did, an appeal to their sympathies by her proud, pale face and her snow-white garments, the Londoners in their hearts felt that Elizabeth was their champion against the Spaniard, whose coming they feared so much. On the same day (Ash Wednesday, 7th February) that poor Wyatt’s draggled host toiled up to Ludgate, there to meet final failure and the gallows, Renard urged the Queen to make an end of Elizabeth and Courtenay; and the Count of Egmont was already hurrying to England with advice from the Emperor to the same effect; but Mary, who allowed herself to be drawn into extreme severity against those who had openly conspired against her crown, asserted her own will in the matter of her sister, whose countenance of the French ambassador’s intrigues was amply proved by Wyatt’s avowals and the seizure of Noailles’s letters at Gravesend. Thus whilst Courtenay once more found himself in the Tower a prisoner, Elizabeth was at first only secluded in her sister’s palace at Whitehall.

A perusal of the letters of Renard and Noailles, and the evidence given by Wyatt himself, leaves no shadow of doubt that Elizabeth and Courtenay were accomplices in the series of risings that, with French support, were intended to frustrate the Spanish match; and, although Froude and other English historians have done their best to exonerate them, Mary’s clemency to her sister on this occasion is at least entitled to a word of praise, considering the great provocation she had suffered at her hands. When at last Elizabeth was sent to the Tower, in March, it was only because Mary was about to absent herself from the capital for a time; and it was, of course, impossible to leave the disaffected Princess, beloved as she was by the Londoners, practically at liberty in their midst. Thus the open enemies of the marriage were silenced; Wyatt and his accomplices, as well as the Greys and Dudleys, were dead or doomed, Noailles was found out and raging impotently, Courtenay and Elizabeth behind the bars, and the Carews and their West-country friends refugees in France.

When, therefore, on the 2nd March, 1554, Egmont again arrived in London, with the Bulls, powers, and other formal documents necessary for the solemn betrothal, it seemed as if all would now run smoothly. Renard, it is true, always anxious to augment the importance of Philip, gravely raised the question before the Queen and Council whether it would be safe to bring the Prince to England in the circumstances; because, he said, if there was to be any risk to either the Queen or her betrothed, it might be better to abandon the match. But whilst Mary declared that for the world she would have no harm happen to Philip, “neither she nor her Council saw any means or danger that should cause the postponement of a marriage so beneficial and honourable. Thank God, the heretics and rebels were imprisoned, their conspiracy discovered and proved, and in a short time exemplary punishment would be inflicted upon them! For the future the Queen would see to it that the strong hand would be hers, and that she retained full authority over her subjects; so that they had no doubt whatever that his Highness might safely pass over to England, provided that he guarded himself against the French naval force which was being prepared to intercept him.”[33]

A more private matter still had to be settled by Renard with the Queen. Which of her ministers and household should be pensioned and bribed by the Emperor, and to what extent, “as in order to gain them for his Highness [Philip] his Majesty had ordered us to be liberal to those she thought best”? and this question was gravely submitted to the Council for consideration. Charles, as usual, was dreadfully driven for money, but an extra turn of the screw could always be applied to long-suffering Castile; and when it was a question of gaining England, money had to be procured in plenty at any cost. As may be supposed, the list sent by the Council to Renard for presents to themselves and others did not err on the side of modesty; and four thousand crowns’ worth of gold shoulder-chains and as much ready money was promptly handed over to the itching palms of the English courtiers; whereupon “the Councillors gave us such a good response, that if the result corresponds with their words, we have no doubt that safety will attend the coming of his Highness to this country.”[34]

The further to secure Philip from the attacks of the French, a fleet of twenty English ships was commissioned for his escort in the Channel; and when all this was arranged, a deputation of the Council on the 7th March came to lead Renard and Egmont to a chamber in Whitehall, where the Queen and her household awaited them. Upon an altar in the room the Blessed Host was exposed, and before it Mary and Egmont respectively swore that the conditions of the marriage treaty should be held binding. Mary was fervid and excited. Before taking the oath she spontaneously “fell upon her knees and cried to God to witness that the marriage she had agreed to had not been prompted by any carnal affection, by cupidity, or any other reason than the honour, welfare, and profit of her realm, the repose and tranquillity of her subjects; and that she had no other intention than to keep true to the marriage and oath that she had already made to her Crown; saying all this with such grace that the spectators were moved to tears.”[35] The ceremony ended with more devout prayer by the Queen on her knees; and then Egmont, handing to her the magnificent ring that had been sent by Philip as a token of his troth, bade her farewell and hurried off to Spain.[36]

In the meanwhile Philip himself was busy with his great preparations. All Spain was impressed with the grandeur of the occasion. The marriage meant for Philip’s faithful lieges the final conquest over France and the bringing back into the Catholic fold of the rich realm of England; it meant, they believed, a cessation of the ruinous wars which had beggared the realms of Castile and reduced whole provinces to misery. But, though the Spaniards rejoiced at the great stroke of policy that in their view was to fasten another crown upon the brows of their beloved Prince, they were doubly enthusiastic at the noble self-sacrifice that he was making for their sake, and filled with regret at his leaving them. Endless preparations had to be made for the tremendous transport that would be necessary for the crowds of nobles, courtiers and servants who were to accompany the Prince to England. The absence was looked upon as being for an indefinite time, and only such persons as were able-bodied and fairly unencumbered were allowed to go. Indeed, a great assembly of members of the household was held in order that the Duke of Alba might announce that any of those who had good reason for not accompanying his Highness were free to stay behind. Those who elected to go—the great majority—were granted considerable sums of money for their outfit; and the nobles, too, were given leave to go to their own towns to prepare the gorgeous dresses and appointments they and their households were expected to take with them. It is curious to note that many of the servitors who were to undertake the journey sold all their property in Spain, in the belief that they were at once to settle and take possession of the land of England. We are told that the wife of one officer, expecting to obtain the approval of Philip, asked for his leave to sell all they had in order to follow him unencumbered. Philip’s answer was significant and characteristic. “I do not order you either to sell or not to sell your property, for know ye that I am not going to a marriage feast, but to a fight.”[37] This was the spirit in which all regarded the sacrifice he was making. He was going on a holy crusade, amidst many heretics, whom he was to win for the Church; the French were lying in wait to thwart or capture him; and all Spaniards felt that the Prince went to conquer and not to woo, though none doubted, nor did he, that victory would finally be his. Old servitors unable to make the journey were pensioned; the girl children of those who went were, at Philip’s expense, boarded and educated in their parents’ absence, the boys being similarly provided for at Alcalá de Henares.

Whilst all Spain was thus busy providing the splendid stuffs and adornments by which the savage Englishmen were to be dazzled, news came to Philip at Valladolid that the English special ambassadors, the Earl of Bedford and Lord Fitzwalter, who were coming with greetings from his betrothed, might be expected any day at Laredo, on the Biscay coast, and his Steward, Gutierre Lopez de Padilla, hurried off to do them honour at the end of February, whilst Valladolid was hastily decked from end to end with bravery and lists erected for sports, bullfights, tourneys, and the like. But the news was premature, for it was the 13th March before Bedford and his colleagues left London on their embassy; and before they arrived in Spain the rejoicings prepared for their reception were turned into mourning by the news of the death of Philip’s brother-in-law and cousin, the Prince of Portugal.

As soon as the tidings of Mary’s ratification of the treaty reached Philip, he, like the gallant suitor he intended to appear, despatched the Marquis de las Navas to England with a present to his bride truly magnificent in its richness. “A table diamond set as a rose, beautifully wrought and worth 50,000 ducats; a necklace of brilliant diamonds consisting of eighteen stones worth 30,000 ducats. A great diamond with a large pendant pearl, one of the most beautiful pieces ever seen in the world, worth 25,000 ducats; besides many jewels, necklaces, pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies of inestimable value.” This list is given by one of Philip’s lackeys, attached to the service of Don Carlos. The sartorial splendour of velvets, silks, satins, and bullion, which the same authority sets forth for our admiration, as being in preparation for Philip and his Court, and the extravagant richness of the appointments, dresses, armour, saddlery, plate, and furniture, for the Prince’s service sent forward to Corunna, where he was to embark, reads like a fairy tale. Every noble’s dress and livery is described with the minuteness of a tailor’s bill, and the appearance of these proud hidalgos must have been sumptuous in the extreme.[38] Philip himself always preferred serious gravity in his dress; but he had been told that the English loved splendour, and he was determined on this occasion that they should have it to their hearts’ content. Some of his beautiful garments we shall have an opportunity of describing later, but here is one suit which must have been exceedingly gorgeous. A crimson velvet cape, covered with little chains made of silk twist, enclosing lozenges, and a sort of sprig with large leaves running between them, made of silver lace and filled in with silver fringe. The lining of this cape was smooth cloth of silver embroidered with the same sort of work; the trunks, doublet, and tunic were of smooth crimson velvet embroidered in the same way.

All these elaborate preparations being completed, Philip, with the Dukes of Alba and Medini Celi, Egmont, Feria, Pescara, Ruy Gomez, and a score of the highest grandees of Spain and nearly a thousand horsemen glittering and flashing in the Castilian sun, rode out of Valladolid on the 14th May, 1554. The Prince’s Spanish and Teuton guards and his three hundred servants were all dressed in the gaudy red-and-yellow livery of Aragon, and each of the nobles was followed by a retinue which vied with that of the Prince in brilliance. The cavalcade had to make a long detour down to the Portuguese frontier to receive the grief-stricken young widow, Philip’s sister, who was to govern Spain in his absence, and again to Tordesillas for the Prince to take a last farewell of his mad grandmother, Jane the Crazy. At each town, too, especially at Benavente and Astorga, there were bullfights and tourneys, banquets and religious ceremonials, so that it was the 22nd June, the day before the Vigil of St. John, when the kneeling aldermen of Santiago de Compostela tendered to Philip the golden keys at the gates of their sainted city.

As the Prince and his suite rode through the decorated streets to worship at the shrine of the Spanish patron Saint James, and thank him for his protection so far, a party of gentlemen at the upper window of a house looked on with faces shrouded in their cloaks. These were the English ambassadors—the Earl of Bedford, Lord Fitzwalter, and others—sent by Mary to pledge her troth to her new husband; and on the following morning they were brought by a crowd of Spanish hidalgos into the presence of the future King Consort of England. Philip received them smilingly, cap in hand, for even thus early he had taken to heart the injunctions of his father and of Renard that he would conciliate the English by changing his habitual grave aloofness for the gay amiability which he afterwards assumed in England. Bedford, Fitzwalter, Sidney, and the rest of them, bowed low and half bent the knee before him one by one;[39] and when the presentations were over, Bedford took from a secretary a copy of the capitulations and handed them to the Prince, who confirmed them by word of mouth without opening the paper. Bedford appears to have impressed the Spaniards favourably as “a great gentleman and a good Christian,” and both he and his colleagues did their errand in courtly fashion. When Philip had confirmed the capitulations, we are told, “they showed the greatest delight, from the highest to the lowest, kissing his Highness’s hands with great demonstration; and as they went out they said to each other in their own tongue, ‘Blessed be to God who has given us as good a king as this!’ This was said so quietly amongst themselves that it would not have been noticed, but that a Spanish gentleman who understood their tongue heard and repeated it.”[40] The next day the Englishmen attended pontifical Mass at the Cathedral with Philip, greatly, we are told, to their edification and devotion, “which God grant may continue, for they need it badly enough.” Before starting on his thirty-miles’ ride from Santiago to Corunna, Philip distributed costly presents to the English embassy, Bedford’s gift being “one of the finest pieces of gold plate ever seen, more than three feet in height, exquisitely and elaborately chased with classical and grotesque figures, the intrinsic value of the gold contained being six thousand ducats.”

A brave show of ships awaited the arrival of Philip in Corunna, for many soldiers were to pass over with the Prince to defend him from the French on the way and reinforce the Emperor’s army in Flanders; and as the glittering cavalcade came in sight of the harbour, he was met “by six hundred seaman—lancers from the province of Guipuzcoa, smart men and prettily accoutred, who performed many evolutions, waving their lances joyously, with much playing of drums and fifes. Then the fleet and the fortress shot such a salute that in very truth it seemed as if town and fortress together were coming down, the people being in great fear and wonder to see the houses tremble thus as if by earthquake. All said that the human race had never witnessed such a discharge as this. The smoke was so great during the hour and a half that the firing lasted that neither earth nor heaven could be seen. After this there entered the harbour nine ships of the fleet, well supplied with everything and very smart, with a vast number of painted standards and 3,500 soldiers on board. These ships then took up the salute with their big guns, after which the infantry shot with their muskets for half an hour.”[41]

On Philip’s return to his lodging, forty fishing sloops cast at his feet their fresh-caught harvest of the sea, and the next day he inspected the ship, _The Holy Ghost_, of Martin de Bertondona, in which it had just been arranged that he was to make the voyage to England. From end to end the ship was alive with scarlet silk streamers, and many-hued heraldic pennons waved aloft: the bulwarks and castles were hung with crimson damask, and the cabin destined for the Prince was a marvel of chased and chiselled gold and exotic woods. The great standard of crimson damask, painted with the Imperial arms and golden flames, was thirty yards long, and dozens of other standards rivalling it in size fluttered from every mast and spar. Three hundred sailors, garbed in scarlet liveries, manned this gallant craft. But all this splendour seems to have aroused some jealousy amongst the English, and when Philip went on board the ship that had brought the ambassadors to Spain to be bounteously entertained at dinner, Bedford urged him to trust himself to an English ship and English sailors. The Prince hesitated a while, but his councillors, and particularly the Duke of Alba, would not hear of it, for none knew as yet how far they might trust to the islanders so recently heretic. To please the English sailors, however, Philip allowed them to choose for him the Spanish ship they considered the safest; and at their recommendation he sailed in Bertondona’s vessel, instead of, as intended, in the galleon of the great sailor Alvaro de Bazan.

To muster and ship six thousand soldiers as well as the great train of courtiers and servants that followed Philip took many days, whilst the Prince was being feasted and entertained by neighbouring nobles. During this time there entered Corunna the Spanish ship that had carried the Marquis of Las Navas to England with the presents for Mary, and marvellous stories had the mariners to tell of the eager preparations being made by the Queen and her people to receive the new King. How she was at Winchester with a thousand gentlemen, and how, amongst other fine things to welcome her bridegroom, she had collected two thousand fine horses for the Spaniards, believing that they would bring none by sea with them.[42] At length the fleet of nearly a hundred sail was ready. The gilding upon the towering stern and forecastles, with lines of shining lanterns, flashed back the summer sun, and the crowds of gaily clad soldiers and sailors played strange pranks in the rigging and amongst the gaudy flags to amuse grave Philip, whilst for two days the ships lay idle in Corunna harbour awaiting the fair wind that was to carry the Prince of Spain upon his mission of conquest.

On Friday, 13th July, a soft breeze from the south enabled the fleet to sail, whilst a dense crowd upon the shore sent up fervent prayers for the safety of the Prince, who in a pure spirit of martyrdom was thus going to “our new realm of England for the exaltation of our holy faith and the good of Christendom.” Others there were on the shore who shouted insults, taunts, and challenges to all the Frenchmen alive; for with England at the bidding of the Emperor, the poorest beggar in Spain knew that France was powerless against him. The slight swell that at first somewhat upset unaccustomed stomachs, was succeeded on the morning of Saturday by a dead calm and a motionless sea, which, whilst it comforted the landsmen, made the seamen look blank; for, as they said, it might delay the fleet for a month. But the next day, Sunday, a delightful fair wind sprang up, and the long trail of vessels stretched across the tranquil Bay until Ushant, the land of the enemy, loomed up to starboard on Monday afternoon. On Wednesday morning in the Channel a fleet of galleons was sighted, which it was feared might be Frenchmen, but which turned out to be the Flemish escort sent by the Emperor, with several ships of the English navy. Thus accompanied, the Spaniards sailed up to Southampton Water on Thursday, 19th July, and at four o’clock in the afternoon anchored amidst the royal salute from the thirty English and Flemish ships assembled to receive the Queen’s new Consort.[43]

Things had not been going very smoothly in England in the meanwhile. Mary’s Council was profoundly disunited, Paget and the Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner of Winchester, being at bitter feud with each other; and Mary herself was angry and distrustful with Gardiner and his adherents, who, she feared, quite without reason, were secretly favouring Elizabeth and the Wyatt prisoners. On one occasion, late in March, a number of members of the Council, even Paget being amongst them out of enmity to Gardiner, took the bold course of entering the Queen’s oratory after vespers, and told her that it was now time for clemency, and that if any more noble blood was shed it would no longer be justice but cruelty. The bloody-minded advice, they said, of others should not be followed—meaning by this Gardiner, who was absent, and Renard, who was never tired of urging severity upon Mary. The Queen, taken by surprise, at once pardoned six of the gentlemen of Kent implicated in Wyatt’s rising who had been condemned to death. Poor Mary was beset on every side by warring counsels, with Renard telling her that for her own and her husband’s safety she must strike hard, and her Council in revolt at what they considered the cruelty inculcated by Gardiner, and at one time she consented to Renard’s plan for a _coup d’état_ which should practically make her supreme. The Lord Admiral (Howard), Pembroke, Derby, Shrewsbury, and Sussex were to be employed in distant parts of the realm; a reconciliation was to be effected between Gardiner and Paget, and the whole business of State was to be managed by them, with the assistance of Petre, the Earl of Arundel, and two others. Renard thought that this solution was the only one which offered any security for Philip’s safety, and when the Queen was induced by some of her Councillors to pardon on Good Friday the Marquis of Northampton and eight more prisoners implicated in the Wyatt rising, the Imperial ambassador roundly scolded her for her ill-timed clemency. It was not by any means certain, he said, that Philip would consent to come to England at all. The dissensions of her Councillors were very dangerous, and it behoved her to consider very carefully, since the security must be furnished by her, and the Prince could not come armed, what a scandal and calamity it would be if anything happened to him.[44] Mary wept at this, and said that “she would rather never have been born than that any outrage should be committed on his Highness, but she trusted to God that no such thing would occur. All her Councillors would do their duty in receiving the Prince, and are in great hopes of him. She would reform her Council and reduce it to six members; she would do her best to incline her subjects to his Highness’s favour; and she would take good care that the cases of Courtenay and Elizabeth were finished before the Prince arrived.”[45]

FROM A PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY]

Noailles and the French sympathisers, too, were still at work stirring up alarm at the coming of the Spaniards. Here was a bridegroom, they sneered, who was coming to win a wife, with a great army intended to land on English soil and proclaim himself King in his own right, with all his swarm of priests, friars, and inquisitors to oppress the English people. Even the English sailors on Howard’s ships were so distrustful of the Spaniards that when the Flemish crews of the Emperor’s fleet set foot on shore during the time they awaited Philip’s arrival the visitors were hustled and insulted everywhere, whilst the Lord Admiral himself had openly mocked at their ships as mussel-shells.[46] Whether it be true, as was asserted, that Howard committed the grave discourtesy of throwing a shot across the bows of the Prince’s fleet to compel a salute to the English flag is doubtful, but it is certain that the feeling in the country amongst high and low as the time went on was as strongly against the Spanish bridegroom as ever.

During the months that passed between the formal betrothal in March and the coming of Philip, Mary grew more and more impatient, railing at her quarrelling Councillors, worried almost daily by Renard to hasten the execution of Elizabeth and Courtenay, and a prey to frequent hysterical attacks of wounded pride at what she considered the ungallant lack of eagerness on the part of her new husband to join her. She grew more faded and older with her anxiety, and this increased her distress,[47] for Elizabeth was young and beautiful, and the Queen knew that the love of the people for her was growing with the dread of Spanish Catholic intolerance. And yet the majority of the Council, not to mention the Parliament that was sitting, would never sanction the sacrifice of the Princess at the instance of the Imperial ambassador; and even the Lord Admiral and his fleet were suspected of a design to declare against the Queen unless his cousin, Princess Elizabeth, was well treated. Renard’s letters of the time reflect the distracted condition of affairs from day to day, no man knowing in which direction future safety or ruin to him might be encountered. “The Queen is reduced to such a state of perplexity that she is at a loss whose advice to adopt, knowing well that all is being done in favour of Lady Elizabeth.” Scurrilous ballads were flung about in public places, even in the Queen’s palace, bitterly lampooning the unhappy Mary and her lagging Spanish bridegroom. To make matters worse, when the French ambassador, Noailles, who was known to be the principal fomenter of all this trouble, went to take leave of Mary at Whitehall the day before she set out on her gradual approach to the coast to meet Philip at the end of May, an open wrangle took place between them, and the ambassador in a rage threatened to leave England immediately—a threat not at all distasteful to the Imperialists, because it brought nearer what they aimed at before all things—the breaking out of hostilities between England and France.

By slow stages Mary travelled through the latter half of June and early July from Richmond by Oatlands and Farnham to Winchester, where she arrived two days after Philip had landed at Southampton. As Philip had truly said, this was no romantic love voyage that he was making, but a deliberate sacrifice of all his personal tastes and wishes for the sake of overwhelming political expediency. No effort was to be spared to gain England to the side of Spain against France, and Philip deliberately laid himself out to please. On his famous voyage to stay with his father in Flanders some years before, his cold hauteur and lack of expansiveness had quite alienated the Germans and Flemings from him. His grave young face, his prim demeanour, his sober garments, his rigid abstemiousness in eating and drinking, and his distaste for the martial amusements of the time, were all foreign to the rough vitality of the Teutons; and Renard and the Emperor had warned the Prince that he must not repeat his mistake, but conform to English customs and learn at least some English words. The Spaniards of his train were enjoined also “to behave themselves according to English fashion, and to be modest in their bearing, trusting that your Highness, with your accustomed kindness, will make much of them.”[48] And the Emperor, desirous of avoiding all occasion for dissension, writes to his son (1st April, 1554): “They tell me that some married women are going with their husbands in your company. I think they will be more difficult to govern and keep friends with the English women than even soldiers would be. You had better see whether it would not be wiser to send them here [to Flanders] until affairs in England are more settled.”[49]

Even Philip’s enemies, the Venetians, testified to the change of his demeanour during his stay in England; and Soriano, the outgoing ambassador, said that from that time forward, even in Spain, his gentle courtesy and kindness were continued habitually, whilst Michaeli, the new Venetian ambassador, who was the staunch ally of Noailles, was emphatic in his testimony of Philip’s affability in England, and says that his conduct towards his wife was such as to make any woman love him: “for in truth no one in the world could have been a better or more affectionate husband.” Yet another Venetian envoy, Damula, accredited to the Emperor, wrote that on disembarking in England the Prince was “remarked by everybody for his graciousness, without any stiffness or assumption of royal ceremony, mixing with the courtiers rather as a comrade than as a king.” Certain it is, with public opinion in England strongly unfavourable and in a perfect panic of apprehension, Philip’s tact and graciousness to a great extent overcame the prejudice against him, and he became in a few months personally quite popular, whilst he contrived almost immediately to gain his wife’s devoted affection. The over-coloured picture of Philip as a trembling, seasick creature,[50] in daily fear of poison, which Froude drew from the letters of Noailles and the account of the Venetian, Baoardo, needs much modification to be near the impartial truth; for though, as we have seen, Philip looked upon the marriage as a sacrifice to reasons of State, as undoubtedly it was, he bore his cross gaily and like a well-bred gentleman. If he had done otherwise, indeed, as he was quite clever enough to recognise, the sacrifice itself would have been useless.

From the hour of his arrival in Southampton Water, two o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday, 19th July, until after breakfast the next day, Philip remained on board the _Espiritu Santo_ at anchor, whilst the salutes of the ships and forts thundered out their welcome; state barges brought the English and Flemish Lord Admirals to visit the Prince, and the Marquis of las Navas, Figueroa, the Emperor’s special ambassador, and several high English nobles, came to pay their respects to the new king. After breakfast on the 20th July, Howard’s state galley came alongside the _Espiritu Santo_, and from it climbed to the deck the Lord Admiral and a little group of English nobles—Arundel, Derby, and Shrewsbury—with Sir John Williams, to whom Philip at once handed the white wand of Chamberlain. The Prince stood upon the high deck, cap in hand and with smiling face, to receive them, and after they had been presented to the principal grandees the English nobles led the Prince to the barge, followed by the Duke of Alba, with his lean, dark face and long, grizzled beard; Count de Feria, with his raven hair and flashing eyes; Ruy Gomez, Philip’s dearest friend, suave and imperturbable; Pescara, Egmont, Horn, and a dozen other high courtiers, Spaniards and Flemings. No permission was given to the other courtiers to land until the Prince’s barge touched the shore, whilst no soldier or man-at-arms was allowed to land at all on pain of death, for Philip dared not offend English feeling in this matter, and he had learnt from his father that the fortune of war had been against him, and he needed every man-at-arms at once in Flanders.[51]

As the gaily dressed oarsmen rapidly forced the great gilded galley through the smooth water to the shore, a little ceremony was performed under the stern canopy. The Earl of Arundel and Sir John Williams as a commission from the Queen besought permission to invest the Prince with the Order of the Garter; and Williams fastened the gilt ligature around his leg, whilst Arundel placed upon his breast a glittering pendant rose and George. As Philip stepped upon English soil for the first time, thirty nobles and gentlemen of the Queen’s Court did him reverence, and Sir Anthony Browne, leading a beautiful white hackney caparisoned in crimson velvet and gold, announced himself in a Latin speech as the new Consort’s master of the horse. The Prince thanked the new grand equerry, but replied that, as the distance was short, he would walk on foot to the house prepared for him. But this he was told was not in accordance with English etiquette, and without more ado Browne, lifting him up in his arms, placed him in the saddle, and then, humbly kissing the golden stirrups, walked bare-headed by his master’s side. With crowds of gaily clad English and Spanish courtiers preceding him, Philip passed thus through the curious townsfolk to the Church of Holy Rood. He must have looked an impressive figure, with his dapper, erect bearing, his yellow, curly beard and close-cropped fair head, dressed, as he was, in black velvet and silver, hung all about with massive gold chains and with glittering precious stones in his velvet cap, upon breast, neck, and wrists. Browne himself was no unworthy company for his Prince, for he too was garbed in a rich suit of black velvet entirely covered with fine gold embroidery, with a surcoat of the same, of which the long, hanging false sleeves were lined with cloth of silver.

After a brief service of thanksgiving, Philip was taken to the house destined for his reception. The English guards and archers on duty and a crowd of English household servitors had been dressed by Mary’s directions in the red-and-yellow livery of Spain; and when Philip entered the rooms prepared for him, he found that here, too, his wife’s thoughtful prevision had been exercised; for the appointments and furniture were sumptuous, and upon the walls there hung royal draperies of gold-embroidered damask.[52] To the assembled English nobles Philip then delivered a dignified speech in Latin, saying that he had left his own land not to augment his possessions or his power, of which he had sufficient, but because God had called him to marry their Queen, with whom he intended to live here in harmony; and he promised his hearers that if they were faithful to her and to him, “he would be to them a right good and loving prince.” He was from the first all smiles and graciousness to the English, who were, indeed, agreeably surprised at his amiability when after his private supper he came out into the presence chamber and chatted unaffectedly and gaily with the gentlemen there. To bluff Lord Admiral Howard he said that he had come to England for his wedding unprovided with garb sufficiently sumptuous to do honour to their Queen, but he hoped that the velvet horse-cloth of the hackney the Queen had sent him might serve him to make a splendid vestment withal.

The pledging of the company after supper in a draught of English beer, which the partial view of Froude presented as a repellant and unwilling concession, was a perfectly natural part of the whole of Philip’s behaviour. He had come to win the English by affability, and he was determined as much as possible to conform to English prejudices and to impress upon his Spanish followers the need for their doing likewise. Even the enemy, who records the action, does not hint at any demonstration of dislike or reluctance on the part of Philip to the politic course he took. So thoroughly, indeed, did he act up to his policy, that before he left Southampton his Spanish attendants were all scowling and grumbling in spite and jealousy that their Prince was preferring Englishmen to them, and that his service and safety were placed in the hands of foreigners to the exclusion of his own people. Though Philip had great ends to serve in drinking beer and sitting out gargantuan English feasts, at which his proud frugal countrymen scoffed, to the courtiers who accompanied him from Spain, it was as gall and wormwood to see the greatest Prince in Christendom thus curry favour with these rough islanders, whom they regarded as inferiors; and when, on Saturday, the Spaniards were all ordered to leave the church at Southampton before the service was over, in order that the Prince might come out attended only by Englishmen, they broke out into almost open protest, particularly when, as the rain was coming down in torrents and the Prince was without cape or hat, he borrowed the garments from an Englishman near him rather than from a Spaniard, to go the few yards from the church to his lodging.

The three hundred houses of which Southampton consisted were already crammed to overflowing with Philip’s great train of courtiers and four hundred servants, but every hour the crowd in the little port grew as the neighbouring gentry, with their followers, rode in to honour their new King in accordance with Queen Mary’s orders. Nor was this all, for early on Saturday morning the Earl of Pembroke came with an escort for the Prince of two hundred English gentlemen in black velvet and gold chains, and three hundred more in scarlet, all splendidly mounted. In return for this, Philip sent Egmont to the Queen with thanks and loving messages. Half way to Winchester Egmont met a great train coming towards him, escorting the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, bearing from his Sovereign a valuable ring to her spouse. Gardiner had done his best to prevent the match, and when that had proved impossible, he had cleverly minimised its disadvantages from an English point of view, so that he was far from being _persona grata_ to Renard and the Spaniards. But for weeks past he had been in hourly danger of ruin from the cabals against him and the distrust of the Queen; and he now sought safety in an apparent cordiality towards the Spanish marriage, an attitude which Philip repaid by treating him with almost excessive deference. The next day (Sunday), in the torrential rain, the favourite Ruy Gomez rode to Winchester with another beautiful ring for Mary, and the Lords of the Council and a host of other nobles came in to salute Philip, who, after rising late, dined and supped in public for the first time in England. To the rage of the Spaniards, his English household served him; though the proudest of his grandees, the Duke of Alba, was allowed unofficially to hand him the napkin.[53] “We are of no more use here, and are simply vagabonds. We should be better employed in serving in the war, for they make us pay here twenty times what a thing is worth,” grumbled one of Philip’s gentlemen-in-waiting, who fairly represented the general feeling amongst them, even on the first days of their arrival in England.

Before Philip started on Monday afternoon for Winchester, better news came from the Emperor. The French had not followed up their victory at Marienburg, and the six hundred Spanish jennets which had come in the fleet, with Philip’s own horses, might now be landed.[54] The anxious Queen, nevertheless, continued to send fresh supplies of splendidly caparisoned horses for Philip’s use; and when, in a perfect deluge of rain, at two o’clock in the afternoon the Prince started out to join his bride in the ancient city seven miles away, a train of three thousand magnificently accoutred horsemen clattered in his train. With the exception of some fifteen of the highest Spanish nobles, who rode close around the Prince—Alba, Medina-Celi, Feria, and their like—Philip’s strong bodyguard was formed of English men-at-arms dressed in Spanish colours, much to the jealousy of the Spanish guard still cooped up in the pestilential ships. On the road six hundred more English gentlemen in black velvet and gold met the cavalcade and joined it. Then, nearer Winchester, six of the Queen’s pages, dressed in crimson brocade and cloth of gold, were encountered with a herald bringing for the Prince six more beautiful steeds as a present from their mistress. The malicious Venetian tells a story embellished by Froude of a breathless, galloping messenger from the Queen, whose haste threw Philip and his Spanish friends into a panic of fear; but everything that Baoardo wrote on the subject of the marriage is suspect and cannot be accepted without confirmation, of which in this case there is none.

When the Prince started from Southampton, he wore a surcoat of black velvet adorned with diamonds, and doublet and trunks of white satin embroidered with gold. But this delicate finery, though covered by a thick red felt cloak, was wet through before he arrived at Winchester; and a halt was made at the beautiful hospital of Saint Cross to enable a change of garments to be donned, the fresh suit consisting of a black velvet surcoat trimmed with gold bugles, and under-garments of white velvet and gold. Thus bedizened he entered the ancient gateway, past kneeling mayor and aldermen, and through silent, gaping crowds of townsfolk, direct to the splendid cathedral, the shrine of England’s ancient Kings. A little group of mitred bishops stood before the great west door, crosses raised and censers swinging; and in solemn procession to the high altar they led beneath a velvet canopy this slim, erect, little man with fair face and yellow hair, whom they and their like regarded as God’s chosen instrument to undo the impious work of Henry and of Somerset.