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.

[Sidenote: MARY'S BETROTHAL.]

After the marriage articles had been ratified, Philip sent a present of
a magnificent jewel to the English queen, by a Spanish noble of high
rank, the Marquis de las Nayas.[91] The marquis, who crossed from Biscay
with a squadron of four ships, landed at Plymouth, and, as he journeyed
towards London, was met by the young Lord Herbert, son of the earl of
Pembroke, who conducted him, with an escort of four hundred mounted
gentlemen, to his family seat in Wiltshire. "And as they rode together
to Wilton," says Lord Edmund Dudley, one of the party, "there were
certain courses at the hare, which was so pleasant that the marquis much
delighted in finding the course so readily appointed. As for the
marquis's great cheer, as well that night at supper as otherwise at his
breakfast the next day, surely it was so abundant, that it was not a
little marvel to consider that so great a preparation could be made in
so small a warning.... Surely it was not a little comfort to my heart
to see all things so honorably used for the honor and service of the
queen's majesty."[92]

Meanwhile, Philip was making his arrangements for leaving Spain, and
providing a government for the country during his absence. It was
decided by the emperor to intrust the regency to his daughter, the
Princess Joanna. She was eight years younger than Philip. About eighteen
months before, she had gone to Portugal as the bride of the heir of that
kingdom. Bu