"As to that," said Hans wisely, "all is confusion. A king will burn at the stake a subject who is of the true faith, yet take a Protestant to wife if it suits him. Who shall explain these great ones? But it is an ill thing," added the young man earnestly, "to ask a man to die for what he believes and then to wed his Princess to one of those who are his executioners. King Philip burns the Protestants whenever the Holy Inquisition can seize them, yet our Protestant Princess is to be wed to the friend of King Philip!"
"A question of policy," said the young Burgundian vaguely. "They always say that—State reasons—policy."
"I say it is a cursed marriage and one which God will not bless," returned the Lutheran with some heat.
"So declares the old Landgrave Philip," remarked Walter, "but what is the use? And we may as well see the festivities, I hear they are to cost a hundred thousand thalers—and a three days' tourney——"
"For the great ones—where will there be a place for you or I?"
"Oh, like enough we shall get on behind the rope as well as another. It would be a gracious thing to see the Elector tilt, and the Princess will be there in her grand dress—we must go——"
"The furnace!" cried the other with a start. "If we let that out we are not like to see much of the Lady Anne's wedding."
They withdrew their heads hastily from the window and applied themselves to the furnace, which was already beginning to turn a dead colour at the outside.
While these two young men bent their perspiring faces over the fire that was to be the womb (they hoped) of the philosopher's stone, and discussed the marriage of the Elector's ward, Philip of Spain in the Escorial, Margaret of Parma and the Bishop of Arras in Brussels, the old Landgrave of Hesse in Cassel, the Emperor in Vienna, and the King of France at the Louvre were all occupied, more or less completely, with this same marriage, for the groom was one of King Philip's most important subjects—his father's most intimate page and confidant, and also, in his own right, a person of unusual riches, power, and position, one of the first cavaliers of his age, an extremely popular noble, and a man already, in his first youth, distinguished as soldier and governor; therefore all these rulers and statesmen were so keenly considering his marriage.
The name of the bridegroom—a name obnoxious to the Lutherans of Germany as belonging to a great Papist noble—was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange.