Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Mary, ignorant that she was in immediate danger, and only vaguely uneasy, looked to Philip's coming as the cure of her discomforts. "Let the prince come," she said to Renard, "and all will be well." She said she would raise eight thousand men and keep them in London as his guard and hers; she would send a fleet into the Channel and sweep the French into their harbours; only let him come before Lent, which was now but a fortnight distant: "give him my affectionate love," she added; "tell him that I will be all to him that a wife ought to be; and tell him, too [delightful message to an already hesitating bridegroom], tell him to bring his own cook with him" for fear he should be poisoned,[214] The ceremony, could it have been accomplished, would have been a support to her; but the forms from Rome were long in coming. On the 24th of January the emperor was at last able to send a brief, which, in the absence of the bulls, he trusted might be enough to satisfy the queen's scruples. Cuthbert Tunstal, who had been consecrated before the schism, might officiate, and the pope would remove all irregularities afterwards.[215] But when the letter and the brief arrived Mary was at no leisure to be married.