On the vigil of St. John, 23rd June, Philip was received at the gates of Santiago by kneeling citizens with golden keys as usual; and as he and his train, all flashing in the southern sun, pranced through the streets of the apostolic capital, two English lords, Bedford and Fitzwalter, sat at a window with their mantles before their faces, watching the progress of their future King. The next morning the English special envoys were publicly led into Philip’s presence. He met them at the door of the chamber leading into the great hall, and as the Englishmen bent the knee and doffed their bonnets the Prince uncovered and bowed low. Bedford, ‘a grandee and a good Christian,’ we are told by an eyewitness, then handed the marriage contract to him, and kissed hand, as did his colleagues. On leaving the room one Englishman said to another, apparently delighted at Philip’s demeanour, ‘O! God be praised for sending us so good a King as this’; and the Spaniard who heard the remark and understood English was only too glad of an opportunity of repeating it to his gratified compatriots. The envoys had good reason to be pleased with Philip, for though he was usually a bad paymaster to those who served him, he could be very liberal when it suited him; and on the day after the state interview a splendid piece of gold plate, magnificently worked, and standing nearly five feet high, was presented to Bedford, all the rest of the Englishmen being dealt with in similar generous fashion.
In the harbour a fine fleet of vessels rode at anchor with several English royal vessels; and Bedford prayed that Philip would make the voyage in one of the latter. This, however, was not considered prudent or dignified; but the English envoys were given the privilege of choosing amongst the Spanish vessels that which should carry the King. It was a fine ship they selected, belonging to Martin de Bertondona, one of the first sailors in Spain; and when Philip went to inspect it the next day it must have presented a splendid sight, with its towering gilded poop and forecastle, its thousand fluttering pennons; and over all the proud royal standard of crimson damask thirty yards long.[[149]] At length, after much ceremonious junketing, the heralds announced that the King would embark the next day, 12th July. There were over a hundred sail, fully armed and carrying a body of over six thousand men to reinforce the Emperor, besides six thousand sailors; and when the King stepped upon his beautiful twenty-four-oared galley, all decked with silk and cloth of gold, with minstrels and rowers clad in damask doublets and plumed bonnets to go on board the ship that was to bear him to England, the ‘Espiritu Santo,’ the great crowd on shore cried aloud to God and Santiago to send the royal traveller a safe and happy voyage, and confusion to the French. On the fifth day out a Flemish fleet of eighteen sail hove in sight off the Land’s End, and convoyed the Prince past the Needles with some ships of the English navy; and on Thursday, 19th July 1554, the combined fleets anchored in Southampton Water amidst the thunderous salutes of the English and Flemish ships at anchor there to greet them.
The English and Flemish sailors had not got on well together during the stay of the Flemish fleet at Southampton. The officers suspected the Lord Admiral of England (Lord William Howard) of intriguing with the French to capture Philip on his way; and reported that he made little account of the Flemish Admiral, de la Chapelle, and called his ships mussel shells. When some of the Flemings had landed the English soldiers had hustled and insulted them in the streets; and by the time Philip arrived in Southampton water the two naval forces were not on speaking terms.[[150]] On shore things were no better. The nobility of England, usually so lavish, except those around the Queen, were for the most part sulking as much as they dared. They were too poor, they declared, to make great and costly preparations to receive the King, and even a majority of the Queen’s Council were suspected of plotting in favour of Elizabeth; whilst Noailles was tireless in his efforts to spread alarm and disaffection.
Bedford had reported that Philip was a bad sailor, but fortunately the voyage had been a calm one, and he remained at anchor for twenty hours before he landed for the first time in England; so that he was quite able to carry out the instructions of his father, and the recommendations of Renard, to conciliate the English in every possible way. During his visit years before to Germany and Flanders he had offended the subjects there by his cold precision of manner and his Spanish abstemiousness; but from the first hour of his stay in England, his whole behaviour underwent a change, for at the call of duty he was even willing to sacrifice all his usual tastes and habits. A crowd of English nobles and courtiers who were to be Philip’s household came off at once to salute him on board the ‘Espiritu Santo’; and when the next day he stepped into the magnificent royal barge that was to bear him to land, the Earl of Arundel invested him with the badge of the Garter in the name of the Queen. With him, besides the English lords, there went in the barge a stately crowd of Spanish grandees, Alba, Feria, Ruy Gomez, his only friend, Olivares, with Egmont, Horn, and Bergues; but no soldier or man-at-arms was allowed on shore on pain of death. Philip had learnt from Renard the agony of distrust felt in England of Spanish arms, and at the same time came the even less welcome news that the Emperor had suffered a defeat in Flanders, and needed urgently every soldier that could be sent to him. So the Spanish fleet was not even allowed to enter the port of Southampton, but after some delay and much grumbling on the part of the Spaniards at what they considered churlish treatment, was sent to Portsmouth to revictual for their voyage to Flanders.
As Philip stepped ashore, Sir Anthony Browne in a Latin speech announced that the Queen had appointed him her consort’s master of the horse, and had sent him the beautiful white charger, housed in crimson velvet and gold, that was champing its bit hard by. The King would have preferred to walk the short distance to the house prepared for him; but Browne and the lords in waiting told him that this was not usual, and the former ‘took him up in his arms and placed him in the saddle, then kissing the stirrup, marched bareheaded by the side of his new master to the Church of Holy Rood.’ The King must have looked a gracious figure as he passed through the curious crowd smiling and bowing, dapper and erect on his steed, with his short yellow beard and close-cropped yellow head; dressed as he was in black velvet and silver, with massive gold chains and glittering gems on his breast, around his velvet bonnet, and at his neck and wrists; and every one around him, so far as fine clothes went, was a fit pendant to him. All the English guards, archers, and porters wore the red and yellow of Aragon; and the nobles in attendance, both English and Spanish, were splendid in the extreme; but beneath the silk and jewels beat hearts full of hate. The Spanish servants, 400 of them, who landed, were not allowed by the jealous English to act for their master in any way; and at Philip’s public dinner the day before he left Southampton, Alba forcibly asserted his right to hand the napkin to his master; whilst all the lowlier courtiers stood by, idly scoffing and sneering at the clumsy service of their English supplanters.
During the four days of Philip’s stay at Southampton, whilst his belongings were being landed, splendid presents and loving messages passed almost hourly to and fro between Mary and her betrothed. Hundreds of gaily clad servitors, with finely houselled horses, diamond rings and gold chains galore, came from the Queen at Winchester, though a continuous pelting rain was falling; and on Monday, 23rd July, the great cavalcade set out from Southampton 3000 strong. To the disgust of the Spaniards the King was surrounded by Englishmen alone; and on the way 600 more English gentlemen in black velvet and gold chains met him, sent by the Queen as an additional bodyguard; followed a few miles further on by another embassy from her of six pages clad in crimson brocade and gold sashes, with six more beautiful horses.[[151]] The rain never ceased, and soon Philip’s felt cloak failed to keep dry his black velvet surcoat and his trunks and doublet of white satin embroidered with gold. So wet was he, indeed, that he had to stay at St. Cross to don another suit just as splendid, consisting of a black velvet surcoat covered with gold bugles, and white velvet doublet and trunks. And so clad he and his train rode to the stately cathedral of Winchester to hear mass; and then to the Dean’s house close by, where he was to lodge.
That night at ten o’clock, after he had supped, the Earl of Arundel came and told him that the Queen awaited him at the Bishop’s palace on the other side of the Cathedral. Once more he donned a change of garments: this time of white kid covered with gold embroidery; and with a little crowd of English and Spanish nobles, he crossed the narrow lane between the two gardens, and entered that of the Bishop by a door in the wall.[[152]] A private staircase gave access to the Queen’s apartment, and there Philip saw his bride for the first time. The apartment was a long narrow gallery, where Gardiner and several other elderly councillors were assembled; and as Philip entered the Queen was pacing up and down impatiently. She was, as usual, magnificently dressed, with many jewels over her black velvet gown, cut high, with a petticoat of frosted silver. When her eyes lighted on him who was to be her husband, she came rapidly forward, kissing her hand before taking his, whilst he gallantly kissed her upon the mouth, in English fashion.
In her case, at all events, it was love at first sight. The poor woman, starved and hungry for love all her life, betrayed and ill-treated by those who should have shielded her, with a soul driven back upon itself, at last had found in this fair, trim built, young man, ten years her junior, a being whom she could love without reproach and without distrust. He confronted the match in a pure spirit of sacrifice; for to him it meant the victory of the cause for which he and his great father lived. It meant, sooner or later, the crushing of France, the extirpation of heresy, and the hegemony of Spain over Europe; and though Mary was no beauty, Philip was a chivalrous gentleman, and, having decided to offer himself as a sacrifice for the cause, he did so with a good grace. Sitting under the canopy side by side, the lovers chatted amicably; he speaking in Spanish and she in French, though she made some coquettish attempts to teach him English words.
The next day brought fresh changes of gorgeous raiment, this time of purple velvet and gold, and the public reception of Philip by his bride in the great hall. There, under the canopy of state, the betrothed pledged each other in a cup of wine, whilst the Spanish courtiers sneered at everything English, and the Englishmen frowned at the Spaniards. On the day of St. James, the patron saint of Spain (25th July), the ancient cathedral was aglow with brilliant colour. All the pomp that expenditure could command, or fancy devise, was there to honour a wedding which apparently was to decide the fate of the world for centuries. The Queen, we are told, blazed with jewels to an extent that dazzled those who gazed upon her, as she swept up to her seat before the altar, with her long train of cloth of gold over her black velvet gown sparkling with precious stones. Philip wore a similar mantle, covered with gems, over a dress of white satin almost hidden by chains and jewels. Upon a platform erected in the midst of the nave, Philip and Mary were made man and wife by Bishop Gardiner, who afterwards proclaimed to the assembly that the Emperor had transferred to his son the title of King of Naples.
At the wedding banquet in the bishop’s palace that afternoon Mary took precedence of her husband. She sat on the higher throne, and ate off gold plate, whilst Philip was served on silver; and Spaniards scowled at the idea that their prince should be second to any. The solid sumptuousness and abundance of everything struck the Spaniards with amazement, both at the banquet and at the ball and supper which followed. But the richer the country the greater their disappointment. Already they were grumbling that the sacrifice the King had made was vain. Philip, after all, was not to be master in England, and must go to a council to ask permission to do anything with English resources. Nay, said the courtiers, so far from being master, it is he who has to dance as these Englishmen play: he must bend to their prejudices and caprices, not they to his, as was fitting for vassals. The English, on their side, were just as dour under the terrifying predictions of French agents; and as the royal lovers travelled to Basing, and so to Windsor, Richmond and London, matters grew worse and worse.