t possible to determine. It is clear that he was
careful not to arouse the jealousy of the English by any parade of
it.[124] One obvious channel of it lay in the queen, who seems to have
doated on him with a fondness that one would hardly have thought a
temper cold and repulsive, like that of Philip, capable of exciting. But
he was young and good-looking. His manners had always been found to
please the sex, even where he had not been so solicitous to please as he
was in England. He was Mary's first and only love; for the emperor was
too old to have touched aught but her vanity, and Courtenay was too
frivolous to have excited any other than a temporary feeling. This
devotion to Philip, according to some accounts, was ill requited by his
gallantries. The Venetian ambassador says of him, that "he well deserved
the tenderness of his wife, for he was the most loving and the best of
husbands." But it seems probable that the Italian, in his estimate of
the best of husbands, adopted the liberal standard of his own
country.[125]

[Sidenote: PHILIP'S INFLUENCE.]

About the middle of November, parliament was advised that the queen was
in a state of pregnancy. The intelligence was received with the joy
usually manifested by loyal subjects on like occasions. The emperor
seems to have been particularly pleased with this prospect of an heir,
who, by the terms of the marriage treaty, would make a division of that
great empire which it had been the object of its master's life to build
up and consolidate under one sceptre. The commons, soon after, passed an
act empowering Philip, in case it should go otherwise than well with the
queen at the time of her confinement, to assume the regency, and take
charge of the education of her child during its minority. The regency
was to be limited by the provisions of the marriage treaty. But the act
may be deemed evidence that Philip had gained on the confidence of his
new subjects.

The symptoms continued to be favorable; and, as the time approached for
Mary's confinement, messengers were held in readiness to bear the
tidings to the different courts. The loyal wishes of the people ran so
far ahead of reality, that the rumor went abroad of the actual birth of
a prince. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted; _Te Deum_ was sung in some
of the churches; and one of the preachers "took upon him to describe the
proportions of the child, how fair, how beautiful and great a prince it
was, as the like had not