f this delicate nature, entirely concurred in opinion with
their master. In any event, they regarded it as impossible that he
should wed a Protestant.

What effect this frank remonstrance had on the queen we are not told.
Certain it is, Philip's suit no longer sped so favorably as before.
Elizabeth, throwing off all disguise, plainly told Feria, when pressed
on the matter, that she felt great scruples as to seeking a dispensation
from the pope;[260] and soon after she openly declared in parliament,
what she was in the habit of repeating so often, that she had no other
purpose but to live and die a maid.[261]--It can hardly be supposed that
Elizabeth entertained serious thoughts, at any time, of marrying Philip.
If she encouraged his addresses, it was only until she felt herself so
securely seated on the throne, that she was independent of the ill-will
she would incur by their rejection. It was a game in which the heart,
probably, formed no part of the stake on either side. In this game, it
must be confessed, the English queen showed herself the better player of
the two.

[Sidenote: TREATY OF CATEAU-CAMBRESIS.]

Philip bore his disappointment with great equanimity. He expressed his
regret to Elizabeth that she should have decided in a way so contrary to
what the public interests seemed to demand. But since it appeared to her
otherwise, he should acquiesce, and only hoped that the same end might
be attained by the continuance of their friendship.[262] With all this
philosophy, we may well believe that, with a character like that of
Philip, some bitterness must have remained in the heart; and that, very
probably, feelings of a personal nature mingled with those of a
political in the long hostilities which he afterwards carried on with
the English queen.

In the month of February, the conferences for the treaty of peace had
been resumed, and the place of meeting changed from the abbey of
Cercamps to Cateau-Cambresis. The negotiations were urged forward with
greater earnestness than before, as both the monarchs were more sorely
pressed by their necessities. Philip, in particular, was so largely in
arrears to his army, that he frankly told his ministers "he was on the
brink of ruin, from which nothing but a peace could save him."[263] It
might be supposed that, in this state of things, he would be placed in a
disadvantageous attitude for arranging terms with his adversary. But
Philip and his ministers put the best face po