er hand to an English lord, whom England might obey
more easily than a stranger: but, when she showed such an aversion to
it, he did not hesitate for a moment as to what advice to give her.
One of his brother's sons was taken into consideration, but rejected
by him on the ground that there was already much ill-will against
Spain stirring in the Netherlands, and a union of the German line with
England might some day make it difficult for his own son to maintain
those provinces: he therefore proposed him to the Queen. Don Philip,
not yet thirty but already a widower for the second time, was just
then negociating for a marriage with a Portuguese princess. These
negociations were broken off and counter ones opened with England.
Mary showed a joyful inclination to it at the first word: it was to
this that her secret thoughts had turned.

It looked as if the dynastic union of the Burgundian-Spanish house
with the English, which was also a political alliance and had been
violently broken off at the same time with that alliance, would now be
restored more closely than before, and this time for ever. Men took up
the idea that Philip's eldest son was to continue the Spanish line, as
Ferdinand and his sons the German, but that from the new marriage, if
it should be blest with offspring, an English line of the house of
Burgundy was to proceed: a prospect of the extension of the power of
England and of her influence on the continent, which it was expected
would set aside all opposition.

In England however every voice was against it, among nobles and
commons, people and Parliament, high and low. The imperial court fully
believed that it was Gardiner who brought the matter forward in
Parliament. The House resolved to send a deputation to the Queen with
the request that she would marry an Englishman. Mary, who had as high
an idea of her prerogative as any of her predecessors or successors,
felt herself almost insulted; she interrupted the speech as soon as
she understood its purport, and declared that Parliament was taking
too much on itself in wishing to give her advice in this matter: only
with God, from whom she derived her crown, would she take counsel
thereon.[161] When the Parliament, not satisfied with this, prepared a
fresh application to her, it was dissolved.

But if this happened among men who adhered to her views in other
points, what would those say who saw themselves, contrary to their
expectation, oppressed and endan