He wrote, moreover, both to Charles and to Philip, recommending that the prince should not bring over with him a larger retinue of Spaniards than was necessary, and that the wives of his nobles—for he seems to have regarded the sex as the source of evil—should not accompany them.[85] Above all, he urged Philip and his followers to lay aside the Castilian hauteur, and to substitute the conciliatory manners which might disarm the jealousy of the English.[86]
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
Mary's Betrothal.—Joanna Regent of Castile.—Philip embarks for England.—His splendid Reception.—Marriage of Philip and Mary.—Royal Entertainments.—Philip's Influence.—The Catholic Church restored.—Philip's Departure.
1554, 1555.
In the month of March, 1554, Count Egmont arrived in England, on a second embassy, for the purpose of exchanging the ratifications of the marriage treaty. He came in the same state as before, and was received by the queen in the presence of her council. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity. Mary, kneeling down, called God to witness, that, in contracting this marriage, she had been influenced by no motive of a carnal or worldly nature, but by the desire of securing the welfare and tranquillity of the kingdom. To her kingdom her faith had first been plighted; and she hoped that Heaven would give her strength to maintain inviolate the oath she had taken at her coronation.
This she said with so much grace, that the bystanders, says Renard,—who was one of them,—were all moved to tears. The ratifications were then exchanged, and the oaths taken, in presence of the host, by the representatives of Spain and England; when Mary, again kneeling, called on those present to unite with her in prayer to the Almighty, that he would enable her faithfully to keep the articles of the treaty, and would make her marriage a happy one.
Count Egmont then presented to the queen a diamond ring which the emperor had sent her. Mary, putting it on her finger, showed it to the company; "and assuredly," exclaims the Spanish minister, "the jewel was a precious one, and well worthy of admiration." Egmont, before departing for Spain, inquired of Mary whether she would intrust him with any message to Prince Philip. The queen replied, that "he might tender to the prince her most affectionate regards, and assure him that she should be always ready to vie with him in such offices of kindness as became a loving and obedient wife." When asked if she would write to him, she answered, "Not till he had begun the correspondence."[87][{44}]
This lets us into the knowledge of a little fact, very significant. Up to this time Philip had neither written, nor so much as sent a single token of regard to his mistress. All this had been left to his father. Charles had arranged the marriage, had wooed the bride, had won over her principal advisers,—in short, had done all the courtship. Indeed, the inclinations of Philip, it is said, had taken another direction, and he would have preferred the hand of his royal kinswoman, Mary of Portugal.[88] However this may be, it is not probable that he felt any great satisfaction in the prospect of being united to a woman who was eleven years older than himself, and whose personal charms, whatever they might once have been, had long since faded, under the effects of disease and a constitutional melancholy. But he loved power; and whatever scruples he might have entertained on his own account were silenced before the wishes of his father.[89] "Like another Isaac," exclaims Sandoval, in admiration of his conduct, "he sacrificed himself on the altar of filial duty."[90] The same implicit deference which Philip showed his father in this delicate matter, he afterwards, under similar circumstances, received from his own son.