ld have mingled with his regret, as he thought of the
hard fate which had placed a barrier between them. It is impossible,
too, when we consider the prince's impetuous temper, that the French
historian, De Thou, may have had good authority for asserting that
Carlos, "after long conversation in the queen's apartment, was often
heard, as he came out, to complain loudly of his father's having robbed
him of her."[1547] But it could have been no vulgar passion that he felt
for Isabella, and certainly it received no encouragement from her, if,
as Brantome tells us, "insolent and audacious as he was in his
intercourse with all other women, he never came into the presence of his
step-mother without such a feeling of reverence as seemed to change his
very nature."

Nor is there the least evidence that the admiration excited by the
queen, whether in Carlos or in the courtiers, gave any uneasiness to
Philip, who seems to have reposed entire confidence in her discretion.
And while we find Isabella speaking of Philip to her mother as "so good
a husband, and rendering her so happy by his attentions, that it made
the dullest spot in the world agreeable to her,"[1548] we meet with a
letter from the French minister, Guibert, saying that "the king goes on
loving the queen more and more, and that her influence has increased
threefold within the last few months."[1549] A few years later, in 1565,
St. Sulpice, then ambassador in Madrid, writes to the queen-mother in
emphatic terms of the affectionate intercourse that subsisted between
Philip and his consort. "I can assure you, madam," he says, "that the
queen, your daughter, lives in the greatest content in the world, by
reason of the perfect friendship which ever draws her more closely to
her husband. He shows her the most unreserved confidence, and is so
cordial in his treatment of her as to leave nothing to be
desired."[1550] The writer quotes a declaration made to him by Philip,
that "the loss of his consort would be a heavier misfortune than had
ever yet befallen him."[1551]

Nor was this an empty profession in the king, as he evinced by his
indulgence of Isabella's tastes,--even those national tastes which were
not always in accordance with the more rigid rules of Castilian
etiquette. To show the freedom with which she lived, I may perhaps be
excused for touching on a few particulars, already noticed in a previous
chapter. On her coming into the country, she was greeted with balls an