A few days later,
however, the envoy received letters from the Emperor, authorizing him to
offer to the bereaved Philip the hand of the Archduchess Anne.

[Herrera (lib. xv. 707) erroneously states that the Archduke was,
at the outset, charged with these two commissions by the Emperor;
namely, to negotiate the marriage of the Archduchess Anne with
Philip, and to arrange the affairs of the Netherlands. On the
contrary, he was empowered to offer Anne to the King of France,
and had already imparted his instructions to that effect to Philip,
before he received letters from Vienna, written after the death of
Isabella had become known. At another interview, he presented this
new matrimonial proposition to Philip. These facts are important,
for they indicate how completely the objects of the embassy, the
commencement of which was so pretentious, were cast aside, that a
more advantageous marriage for one of the seven Austrian
Archduchesses might be secured.--Compare Correspondance de Philippe]

The King replied to the Archduke, when this proposition was made, that if
he had regard only to his personal satisfaction, he should remain as he
was. As however he had now no son, he was glad that the proposition had
been made, and would see how the affair could be arranged with France.

Thus the ill success of Orange in Brabant, so disheartening to the German
princes most inclined to his cause, and still more the widowhood of
Philip, had brought a change over the views of Maximilian. On the 17th of
January, 1569, three days before his ambassador had entered upon his
negotiations, he had accordingly addressed an autograph letter to his
Catholic Majesty. In this epistle, by a few, cold lines, he entirely
annihilated any possible effect which might have been produced by the
apparent earnestness of his interposition in favor of the Netherlands. He
informed the King that the Archduke had been sent, not to vex him, but to
convince him of his friendship. He assured Philip that he should be
satisfied with his response, whatever it might be. He entreated only that
it might be drawn up in such terms that the princes and electors to whom
it must be shown, might not be inspired with suspicion.

The Archduke left Madrid on the 4th of March, 1569. He retired, well
pleased with the results of his mission, not because its ostensible
objects had been accomplished, for those had signally failed, but because
the