Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Paget, however, was detested as an upstart, and detested still more as a latitudinarian; he could form no party, and the queen made use of him only to support her in her choice of the Prince of Spain, as in turn she would use Gardiner to destroy the Protestants; and thus the two great factions in the state neutralised each other's action in a matter in which both were equally anxious; and Mary, although with no remarkable capacity, without friends and ruined, if at any moment she lost courage, was able to go her own way in spite of her subjects.

The emperor, therefore, in the beginning of December, sent over the draft of a marriage treaty; and if the security that the articles would be observed had equalled the form in which they were conceived, the English might have afforded to lay aside their alarms. Charles seemed to have anticipated almost every point on which the insular jealousy would be sensitive. The Prince of Spain should bear the title of King of England so long, but so long only as the queen should be alive; and the queen should retain the disposal of all affairs in the realm, and the administration of the revenues. The queen, in return, should share Philip's titles, present and prospective, with the large settlement of £60,000 a year upon her for her life. Don Carlos, the prince's child by his first wife, would, if he lived, inherit Spain, Sicily, the Italian provinces, and the Indies. But Burgundy and the Low Countries should be settled on the offspring of the English marriage, and be annexed to the English crown; and this prospect, splendid in itself, was made more magnificent by the possibility that Don Carlos might die. Under all contingencies, the laws and liberties of the several countries should be held inviolate and inviolable.

In such a treaty the emperor conferred everything, and in return received nothing; and yet, to gain the alliance, a negotiation already commenced for the hand of the Infanta of Portugal was relinquished. The liberality of the proposals was suspicious, but they were submitted to the council, who, unable to refuse to consider them, were obliged to admit that they were reasonable. Five additional clauses were added, however, to which it was insisted that Philip should swear before the contract should be completed—

1. That no foreigner, under any circumstances, should be admitted to any office in the royal household, in the army, the forts, or the fleet.

2. That the queen should not be taken abroad without her own consent; and that the children—should children be born—should not be carried out of England without consent of parliament, even though among them might be the heir of the Spanish empire.

3. Should the queen die childless, the prince's connection with the realm should be at an end.

4. The jewel-house and treasury should be wholly under English control, and the ships of war should not be removed into a foreign port.

These demands were transmitted to Brussels, where they were accepted without difficulty, and further objection could not be ventured unless constraint was laid upon the queen. The sketch of the treaty, with the conditions attached to it, was submitted to such of the Lords and Commons as remained in London after the dissolution of parliament, and the result was a sullen acquiescence.

The time to act had arrived. Rumours were industriously circulated that the Prince of Spain was already on the seas, bringing with him ten thousand Spaniards, who were to be landed at the Tower, and that eight thousand Germans were to follow from the Low Countries. Noailles and M. d'Oysel, then on his way through London to Scotland, had an interview with a number of lords and gentlemen, who undertook to place themselves at the head of an insurrection, and to depose the queen. The whole country was crying out against her, and the French ministers believed that the opposition had but to declare itself in arms to meet with universal sympathy. They regarded the persons with whom they were dealing as the representatives of the national discontent; but on this last point they were fatally mistaken.

The intention was to delay, if possible, an open declaration of rebellion a few weeks longer—till the Prince of Spain's arrival should raise the ferment to boiling point. Gardiner, who was determined, at all events, to prevent the Protestants from making head, informed the queen, without mentioning Courtenay's name, that he had cause to suspect Sir Peter Carew. A summons was despatched to Devonshire to require Sir Peter and his brother to return to London; and thus either to compel them to rise prematurely, without Courtenay's assistance, or, if they complied, to enable the court to secure their persons. The desired effect was produced; Carew had waded too deep in treason to trust himself in Gardiner's hands. He wrote an excuse, yet protesting his loyalty; and he invited the inhabitants of Exeter to join in a petition to the crown against the marriage, as a first step towards a rising.

Meantime the herald had not been admitted into Rochester. He had read the queen's message on the bridge (January 27), and, being answered by Wyatt's followers that they required no pardon, for they had done no wrong, he retired. Sir George Harper, who was joint commander with Wyatt, stole away the same evening to Gravesend, and presented himself to Norfolk. The rebels, he said, were discontented and irresolute; for himself he desired to accept the queen's pardon, which he was ready to earn by doing service against them; if the duke would advance without delay, he would find no resistance, and Wyatt would fall into his hands.

No sooner was the duke gone, than Wyatt in person came out over the bridge. "As many as will tarry with us," he cried, "shall be welcome; as many as will depart, let them go," Very few accepted the latter offer. Three parts, even of Norfolk's private attendants, took service with the rebel leader.

Mary's situation was now really alarming: she was without money, notwithstanding the Jews; she had no troops; of all her ministers Paget alone was sincerely anxious to do her service; for Gardiner, on the subject of the marriage, was as unwilling as ever. It was rumoured that the King of Denmark intended to unite with the French in support of the revolutionists, and Renard began calmly to calculate that, should this report prove true, the queen could not be saved. Pembroke and Clinton offered to raise another force in the city and fight Wyatt; but, so far as Mary could tell, they would be as likely to turn against her as to fight in her defence; and she declined their services. Renard offered Gardiner assistance from the Low Countries—Gardiner replied with extreme coldness that he had no desire to see Flemish soldiers in England—and the council generally were "so strange" in their manner, and so languid in their action, that the ambassador could not assure himself that they were not Wyatt's real instigators. Not a man had been raised to protect the queen, and part of her own guard had been among the deserters at Rochester. She appealed to the honour of the lords to take measure for her personal safety; but they did nothing, and, it seemed, would do nothing; if London rose, they said merely, she must retire to Windsor.

Had Wyatt, said Noailles, been able to reach London simultaneously with this answer, he would have found the gates open and the whole population eager to give him welcome. To his misfortune he lingered on the way, and the queen had time to use his words against him. The two gentlemen returned indignant at his insolence. The next morning (February 1), Count Egmont waited on Mary to say that he and his companions were at her service, and would stand by her to their death. Perplexed as she was, Egmont said he found her "marvellously firm." The marriage, she felt, must, at all events, be postponed for the present; the prince could not come till the insurrection was at an end; and, while she was grateful for the offer, she not only thought it best to decline the ambassadors' kindness, but she recommended them, if possible, to leave London and the country without delay. Their party was large enough to irritate the people, and too small to be of use. She bade Egmont, therefore, tell the emperor that from the first she had put her trust in God, and that she trusted in Him still; and for themselves, she told them to go at once, taking her best wishes with them. They obeyed. Six Antwerp merchant sloops were in the river below the bridge, waiting to sail. They stole on board, dropped down the tide, and were gone.

Her subjects had risen in rebellion against her, she said; she had been told that the cause was her intended marriage with the Prince of Spain; and, believing that it was the real cause, she had offered to hear and to respect their objections. Their leader had betrayed in his answer his true motives; he had demanded possession of the Tower of London and of her own person. She stood there, she said, as lawful Queen of England, and she appealed to the loyalty of her great city to save her from a presumptuous rebel, who, under specious pretences, intended to "subdue the laws to his will, and to give scope to rascals and forlorn persons to make general havoc and spoil." As to her marriage, she had supposed that so magnificent an alliance could not have failed to be agreeable to her people. To herself, and, she was not afraid to say, to her council, it seemed to promise high advantage to the commonwealth. Marriage, in itself, was indifferent to her; she had been invited to think of it by the desire of the country that she should have an heir; but she could continue happy in the virgin state in which she had hitherto passed her life. She would call a parliament and the subject should be considered in all its bearings; if, on mature consideration, the Lords and Commons of England should refuse to approve of the Prince of Spain as a fitting husband for her, she promised, on the word of a queen, that she would think of him no more.

The spectacle of her distress won the sympathy of her audience; the boldness of her bearing commanded their respect; the promise of a parliament satisfied, or seemed to satisfy, all reasonable demands: and among the wealthy citizens there was no desire to see London in possession of an armed mob, in whom the Anabaptist leaven was deeply interfused. The speech, therefore, had remarkable success. The queen returned to Westminster, leaving the corporation converted to the prudence of supporting her. Twenty-five thousand men were enrolled the next day for the protection of the crown and the capital; Lord William Howard was associated with the mayor in the command; and Wyatt, who had reached Greenwich on Thursday, and had wasted two days there, uncertain whether he should not cross the river in boats to Blackwall, arrived on Saturday morning at Southwark, to find the gates closed on London Bridge, and the drawbridge flung down into the water.

Noailles, for the first time, believed now that the insurrection would fail. Success or failure, in fact, would turn on the reception which the midland counties had given to the Duke of Suffolk; and of Suffolk authentic news had been brought to London that morning.

In consequence of these protestations, he was allowed to read his proclamation; the people were indifferent; but he called about him a few scores of his tenants and retainers from his own estates in the country; and, on Tuesday morning, while the insurgents in Kent were attacking Cowling Castle, Suffolk rode out of Leicester, in full armour, at the head of his troops, intending first to move on Coventry, then to take Kenilworth and Warwick, and so to advance on London. The garrison at Warwick had been tampered with, and was reported to be ready to rise. The gates of Coventry he expected to find open. He had sent his proclamation thither the day before, by a servant, and he had friends within the walls who had undertaken to place the town at his disposal.

The state of Coventry was probably the state of most other towns in England. The inhabitants were divided. The mayor and aldermen, the fathers of families, and the men of property, were conservatives, loyal to the queen, to the mass, and to "the cause of order." The young and enthusiastic, supported by others who had good reasons for being in opposition to established authorities, were those who had placed themselves in correspondence with the Duke of Suffolk.

It was now night; no time was to be lost, the townsmen said. They urged Rampton to return at once to Suffolk, and hasten his movements. They would themselves read the proclamation at the market-cross forthwith, and raise the people. Rampton, who had ridden far, and was weary, wished to wait till the morning; if they were so confident of success, a few hours could make no difference: but it appeared shortly that the "good fellows" in Coventry were not exclusively under the influence of piety and patriotism. If a rising commenced in the darkness, it was admitted that "undoubted spoil and peradventure destruction of many rich men would ensue," and with transactions of this kind the duke's servant was unwilling to connect himself.

Thus the hours wore away, and no resolution was arrived at; and, in the meantime, the town council had received a warning to be on their guard. Before daybreak the constables were on the alert, the decent citizens took possession of the gates, and the conspirators had lost their opportunity. In the afternoon Suffolk arrived with a hundred horse under the walls, but there was no admission for him. Whilst he was hesitating what course to pursue, a messenger came in to say that the Earl of Huntingdon was at Warwick. The plot for the revolt of the garrison had been detected, and the whole country was on the alert. The people had no desire to see the Spaniards in England; but sober, quiet farmers and burgesses would not rise at the call of the friend of Northumberland, and assist in bringing back the evil days of anarchy.

The Greys had now only to provide for their personal safety.

Suffolk had an estate a few miles distant, called Astley Park, to which the party retreated from Coventry. There the duke shared such money as he had with him among his men, and bade them shift for themselves. Lord Thomas Grey changed coats with a servant, and rode off to Wales to join Sir James Crofts. Suffolk himself, who was ill, took refuge with his brother, Lord John, in the cottage of one of his gamekeepers, where they hoped to remain hidden till the hue and cry should be over, and they could escape abroad.

The position, however, could not be of long continuance. Could Wyatt once enter London, he assured himself of success; but the gates on the bridge continued closed. Cheyne and Southwell had collected a body of men on whom they could rely, and were coming up behind from Rochester. Wyatt desired to return and fight them, and then cross the water at Greenwich, as had been before proposed; but his followers feared that he meant to escape; a backward movement would not be permitted, and his next effort was to ascertain whether the passage over the bridge could be forced.

London Bridge was then a long, narrow street. The gate was at the Southwark extremity; the drawbridge was near the middle. On Sunday or Monday night Wyatt scaled the leads of the gatehouse, climbed into a window, and descended the stairs into the lodge. The porter and his wife were nodding over the fire. The rebel leader bade them, on their lives, be still, and stole along in the darkness to the chasm from which the drawbridge had been cut away. There, looking across the black gulf where the river was rolling below, he saw the dusky mouths of four gaping cannon, and beyond them, in the torch-light, Lord Howard himself, keeping watch with the guard: neither force nor skill could make a way into the city by London Bridge.

The course which he should follow was determined for him. The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, a soldier and a Catholic, had looked over the water with angry eyes at the insurgents collected within reach of his guns, and had asked the queen for permission to fire upon them. The queen, afraid of provoking the people, had hitherto refused; on the Monday, however, a Tower boat, passing the Southwark side of the water, was hailed by Wyatt's sentries; the watermen refused to stop, the sentries fired, and one of the men in the boat was killed. The next morning (February 6) (whether permission had been given at last, or not, was never known), the guns on the White Tower, the Devil's Tower, and all the bastions, were loaded and aimed, and notice was sent over that the fire was about to open. The inhabitants addressed themselves, in agitation, to Wyatt; and Wyatt, with a sudden resolution, half felt to be desperate, resolved to march for Kingston Bridge, cross the Thames, and come back on London. His friends in the city promised to receive him, could he reach Ludgate by daybreak on Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, therefore, Shrove Tuesday, which the queen had hoped to spend more happily than in facing an army of insurgents, Wyatt, accompanied by not more than fifteen hundred men, pushed out of Southwark. He had cannon with him, which delayed his march, but at four in the afternoon he reached Kingston. Thirty feet of the bridge were broken away, and a guard of three hundred men were on the other side; but the guard fled after a few rounds from the guns, and Wyatt, leaving his men to refresh themselves in the town, went to work to repair the passage. A row of barges lay on the opposite bank; three sailors swam across, attached ropes to them, and towed them over; and, the barges being moored where the bridge was broken, beams and planks were laid across them, and a road was made of sufficient strength to bear the cannon and the waggons.

Without disturbing herself, the queen sent for Renard. Shall I go or stay? she asked.

Unless your majesty desire to throw away your crown, Renard answered, you will remain here till the last extremity; your flight will be known, the city will rise, seize the Tower, and release the prisoners; the heretics will massacre the priests, and Elizabeth will be proclaimed queen.

They were not present, and were sent for on the spot. Pembroke for weeks past had certainly wavered; Lord Thomas Grey believed at one time that he had gained him over, and to the last felt assured of his neutrality. Happily for Mary, happily, it must be said, for England—for the Reformation was not a cause to be won by such enterprises as that of Sir Thomas Wyatt—he decided on supporting the queen, and promised to defend her with his life. At four o'clock in the morning drums went round the city, calling the train-bands to an instant muster at Charing Cross. Pembroke's conduct determined the young lords and gentlemen about the court, who with their servants were swiftly mounted and under arms; and by eight, more than ten thousand men were stationed along the ground, then an open field, which slopes from Piccadilly to Pall Mall. The road or causeway on which Wyatt was expected to advance ran nearly on the site of Piccadilly itself. An old cross stood near the head of St. James's Street, where guns were placed; and that no awkward accident like that at Rochester might happen on the first collision, the gentlemen, who formed four squadrons of horse, were pushed forwards towards Hyde Park Corner.

Wyatt himself, meanwhile, followed by three hundred men, had hurried on through lines of men who still opened to give him passage. He passed Temple Bar, along Fleet Street, and reached Ludgate. The gate was open as he approached, when some one seeing a number of men coming up, exclaimed, "These be Wyatt's antients." Muttered curses were heard among the bystanders; but Lord Howard was on the spot; the gates, notwithstanding the murmurs, were instantly closed; and, when Wyatt knocked, Howard's voice answered, "Avaunt! traitor; thou shalt not come in here." "I have kept touch," Wyatt exclaimed; but his enterprise was hopeless now. He sat down upon a bench outside the Belle Sauvage Yard. His followers scattered from him among the by-lanes and streets; and, of the three hundred, twenty-four alone remained, among whom were now Knyvet and one of the young Cobhams. With these few he turned at last, in the forlorn hope that the train-bands would again open to let him pass. Some of Pembroke's horse were coming up. He fought his way through them to Temple Bar, where a herald cried, "Sir, ye were best to yield; the day is gone against you; perchance ye may find the queen merciful." Sir Maurice Berkeley was standing near him on horseback, to whom, feeling that further resistance was useless, he surrendered his sword; and Berkeley, to save him from being cut down in the tumult, took him up upon his horse. Others in the same way took up Knyvet and Cobham, Brett and two more. The six prisoners were carried through the Strand back to Westminster, the passage through the city being thought dangerous; and from Whitehall Stairs, Mary herself looking on from a window of the palace, they were borne off in a barge to the Tower.

The queen had triumphed, triumphed through her own resolution, and would now enjoy the fruits of victory.

The house of Suffolk would be extinct: that too, or almost that, had been decided on. Jane Grey was guiltless of this last commotion; her name had not been so much as mentioned among the insurgents; but she was guilty of having been once called queen, and Mary, who before had been generously deaf to the emperor's advice, and to Renard's arguments, yielded in her present humour. Philip was beckoning in the distance; and while Jane Grey lived, Philip, she was again and again assured, must remain for ever separated from her arms.

Jane Grey, therefore, was to die—her execution was resolved upon the day after the victory; and the first intention was to put her to death on the Friday immediately approaching. In killing her body, however, Mary desired to have mercy on her soul; and she sent the message of death (February 9) by the excellent Feckenham, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, who was to bring her, if possible, to obedience to the Catholic faith.

Feckenham, a man full of gentle and tender humanity, felt to the bottom of his soul the errand on which he was despatched. He felt as a Catholic priest—but he felt also as a man.

On admission to Lady Jane's room he told her that she was to die the next morning, and he told her, also, for what reason the queen had selected him to communicate the sentence.

She listened calmly. The time was short, she said; too short to be spent in theological discussion; which, if Feckenham would permit, she would decline.

The iron-hearted Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, had been softened by the charms of his prisoner, and begged for some memorial of her in writing. She wrote in a manual of English prayers the following words:—

Her husband was also to die, and to die before her. The morning on which they were to suffer he begged for a last interview and a last embrace. It was left to herself to consent or refuse. If, she replied, the meeting would benefit either of their souls, she would see him with pleasure; but, in her own opinion, it would only increase their trial. They would meet soon enough in the other world.

As opposition to extreme measures was anticipated in the House of Lords, as well as among the Commons, it was important to strengthen the bench of bishops. The pope had granted permission without difficulty to fill the vacant sees; and on the 1st of April six new prelates were consecrated at St. Mary Overies, while Sir John Brydges and Sir John Williams of Thame were raised to the peerage.

The Protestants, it must be admitted, had exerted themselves to make Gardiner's work easy to him. On the 14th of March the wall of a house in Aldgate became suddenly vocal, and seventeen thousand persons were collected to hear a message from Heaven pronounced by an angel. When the people said "God save Queen Mary," the wall was silent; when they said "God save Queen Elizabeth," the wall said "Amen!" When they asked, "What is the mass?" the wall said, "It is idolatry." As the nation was holding its peace, the stones, it seemed, were crying out against the reaction. But the angel, on examination, turned out to be a girl concealed behind the plaster. Shortly after, the inhabitants of Cheapside, on opening their shop windows in the morning, beheld on a gallows, among the bodies of the hanged insurgents, a cat in priestly robes, with crown shaven, the fore-paws tied over her head, and a piece of paper clipped round between them, representing the wafer.

The guardian of Elizabeth would be exposed to a hundred dangers and a thousand suspicions; the lords answered that Gardiner was conspiring their destruction. No one could be found courageous enough to undertake the charge, and they gave their reluctant consent to his demand. The same night Elizabeth's attendants were removed, a hundred soldiers were picketed in the garden below her window, and on Saturday morning (March 17) the Marquis of Winchester and Lord Sussex waited on her to communicate her destination, and to attend her to a barge.

The terrible name of the Tower was like a death-knell; the princess entreated a short delay till she could write a few words to the queen; the queen could not know the truth, she said, or else she was played upon by Gardiner. Alas! she did not know the queen: Winchester hesitated; Lord Sussex, more generous, accepted the risk, and promised, on his knees, to place her letter in the queen's hands.

"I humbly crave but one word of answer from yourself."

At nine o'clock the next morning—it was Palm Sunday (March 18)—the two lords returned to Elizabeth to tell her that her letter had failed. As she crossed the garden to the water she threw up her eyes to the queen's window, but there was no sign of recognition. What do the lords mean, she said, that they suffer me thus to be led into captivity? The barge was too deep to approach sufficiently near to the landing-place at the Tower to enable her to step upon the causeway without wetting her feet; it was raining too, and the petty inconveniences, fretting against the dreadful associations of the Traitors' Gate, shook her self-command. She refused to land; then sharply rejecting an offer of assistance, she sprang out upon the mud. "Are all those harnessed men there for me?" she said to Sir John Gage, who was waiting with the Tower guard. "No, madam," Gage answered. "Yes," she said, "I know it is so; it needed not for me, being but a weak woman. I never thought to have come in here a prisoner," she went on, turning to the soldiers; "I pray you all good fellows and friends, bear me witness that I come in no traitor, but as true a woman to the queen's majesty as any is now living, and thereon will I take my death." She threw herself down upon a wet stone; Lord Chandos begged her to come under shelter out of the rain: "better sitting here than in a worse place," she cried; "I know not whither you will bring me."

The chief danger was of murder—of some swift desperate act which could not be undone; the lords who had so reluctantly permitted Elizabeth to be imprisoned would not allow her to be openly sacrificed, or indeed permit the queen to continue in the career of vengeance on which she had entered. The executions on account of the rebellion had not ceased even yet. In Kent, London, and in the midland counties, day after day, one, two, or more persons had been put to death; six gentlemen were, at that very moment, on their way to Maidstone and Rochester to suffer. The lords, on the day of Elizabeth's committal, held a meeting while Gardiner was engaged elsewhere; they determined to remonstrate, and, if necessary, to insist on a change of course, and Paget undertook to be the bearer of the message. He found Mary in her oratory after vespers; he told her that the season might remind a sovereign of other duties besides revenge; already too much blood had been shed; the noble house of Suffolk was all but destroyed; and he said distinctly that if she attempted any more executions, he and his friends would interfere; the hideous scenes had lasted too long, and, as an earnest of a return to mercy, he demanded the pardon of the six gentlemen.

Since the last parliament, Gardiner said, the people of England had given proofs of unruly humour. The queen was their undoubted sovereign, and a measure would be submitted to the Lords and Commons to declare, in some emphatic manner, her claim to her subjects' obedience.

Her majesty desiring, further, in compliance with her subjects' wishes, to take a husband, she had fixed her choice on the Prince of Spain, as a person agreeable to herself and likely to be a valuable friend to the realm: the people, however, had insolently and ignorantly presumed to mutiny against her intentions, and, in her affection for the commonwealth, her majesty had consented to submit the articles of the marriage to the approval of parliament.

Finally, and at great length, the chancellor spoke of religion. The late rebellion, he said, was properly a religious rebellion: it was the work of men who despised the sacraments, and were the enemies of truth, order, and godliness. A measure would be laid before the legislature for the better restraint of irregular licence of opinion.

The words, or the substance of them, were heard by every one. Weston, who attended as confessor, shouted, "Believe him not, good people! he confessed otherwise before the council." "That which I said then I said," answered Wyatt, "but that which I say now is true." The executioner did his office, and Wyatt's work, for good or evil, was ended.

Gardiner, however, was probably not acting without Mary's secret approbation. Both the queen and the minister especially desired, at that moment, the passing of the Heresy Bill, and Renard was obliged to content himself with a promise that the dissolution should be as early as possible. Though parliament could not meet at Oxford, a committee of Convocation had been sitting there, with Dr. Weston, the adulterous Dean of Windsor, for a president. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer had been called upon to defend their opinions, which had been pronounced false and damnable. They had been required to recant, and, having refused, they were sentenced (April 20), so far as the power of the court extended, to the punishment of heretics.

Cranmer appealed from the judgment to God Almighty, in whose presence he would soon stand.

Ridley said the sentence would but send them the sooner to the place where else they hoped to go.

Latimer said, "I thank God that my life has been prolonged that I may glorify God by this kind of death."

Hooper, Ferrars, Coverdale, Taylor, Philpot, and Sandars, who were in the London prisons, were to have been simultaneously tried and sentenced at Cambridge. These six, however, drew and signed a joint refusal to discuss their faith in a court before which they were to be brought as prisoners; and for some reason the proceedings against them were suspended; but whether they refused or consented was of little moment to the Bishop of Winchester; they were in his hands—he could try them when he pleased. A holocaust of heresiarchs was waiting to be offered up, and before a faggot could be lighted, the necessary powers had to be obtained from parliament.

Philip, who was never remarkable for personal courage, may be pardoned for having come reluctantly to a country where he had to bring men-at-arms for servants, and his own cook for fear of being poisoned. The sea, too, was hateful to him, for he suffered miserably from sickness. Nevertheless, he was coming, and with him such a retinue of gallant gentlemen as the world has rarely seen together. The Marquis de los Valles, Gonzaga, d'Aguilar, Medina Celi, Antonio de Toledo, Diego de Mendoza, the Count de Feria, the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, and Count Horn—men whose stories are written in the annals of two worlds: some in letters of glorious light, some in letters of blood which shall never be washed out while the history of mankind survives. Whether for evil or good, they were not the meek innocents for whom Renard had at one time asked so anxiously.

The queen was on her way to Winchester, where she arrived the next morning, and either in attendance upon her, or waiting at Southampton, was almost the entire peerage of England. Having made up their minds to endure the marriage, the lords resolved to give Philip the welcome which was due to the husband of their sovereign, and in the uncertain temper of the people, their presence might be necessary to protect his person from insult or from injury.

Monday came at last; the rain fell again, and the wind howled. The baggage was sent forward in the morning in the midst of the tempest. Philip lingered in hopes of a change; but no change came, and after an early dinner the trumpet sounded to horse. Lords, knights, and gentlemen had thronged into the town, from curiosity or interest, out of all the counties round. Before the prince mounted it was reckoned, with uneasiness, that as many as four thousand cavaliers, under no command, were collected to join the procession.

A grey gelding was led up for Philip; he wrapped himself in a scarlet cloak, and started to meet his bride—to complete a sacrifice the least congenial, perhaps, which ever policy of state extracted from a prince.

To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of Spain was entering upon, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a state intrigue or a midnight murder, his opening step was ever to seek a blessing from the holy wafer. He entered, kissed the crucifix, and knelt and prayed before the altar; then taking his seat in the choir, he remained while the choristers sang a Te Deum laudamus, till the long aisles grew dim in the summer twilight, and he was conducted by torch-light to the Deanery.

The queen was at the bishop's palace, but a few hundred yards distant. Philip, doubtless, could have endured the postponement of an interview till morning; but Mary could not wait, and the same night he was conducted into the presence of his haggard bride, who now, after a life of misery, believed herself at the open gate of Paradise. Let the curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding solemnities which followed with due splendour two days later. There are scenes in life which we regard with pity too deep for words. The unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which an iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word, except as the most brutal of passions. For a few months she created for herself an atmosphere of unreality. She saw in Philip the ideal of her imagination, and in Philip's feelings the reflex of her own; but the dream passed away—her love for her husband remained; but remained only to be a torture to her. With a broken spirit and bewildered understanding, she turned to Heaven for comfort, and, instead of heaven, she saw only the false roof of her creed painted to imitate and shut out the sky.

The scene will change for a few pages to the Low Countries. Charles V. more than any other person was responsible for this marriage. He had desired it not for Mary's sake, not for Philip's sake, not for religion's sake; but that he might be able to assert a decisive preponderance over France; and, to gain his end, he had already led the queen into a course which had forfeited the regard of her subjects. She had murdered Lady Jane Grey at the instigation of his ambassador, and under the same influence she had done her best to destroy her sister. Yet Charles, notwithstanding, was one of nature's gentlemen. If he was unscrupulous in the sacrifice of others to his purposes, he never spared himself; and in the days of his successes he showed to less advantage than now, when, amidst failing fortunes and ruined health, his stormy career was closing.

In the spring he had been again supposed to be dying. His military reputation had come out tarnished from his failure at Metz, and while he was labouring with imperfect success to collect troops for a summer's campaign, Henry of France, unable to prevent the English marriage, was preparing to strike a blow so heavy, as should enable him to dictate peace on his own terms before England was drawn into the quarrel.

From Dinant the French advanced to Namur. When Namur should have fallen, Brussels was the next aim; and there was nothing, as it seemed, which could stop them. The imperial army under the Prince of Savoy could but hover, far outnumbered, on their skirts. The reinforcements from Spain had not arrived, and a battle lost was the loss of Belgium.