The church bells all over Brussels began to chime, and the President of the Council rose and announced to the gathering that their great Emperor Charles the Fifth had decided, because of his age and infirmity, to pass over to his son his possessions in the Netherlands.
There was a deep silence while the Emperor rose slowly to his feet. He explained to them that he was a tired old man. They would love his son even as they had loved him, for they would find Philip the best of rulers.
Charles was overcome with emotion; tears came to his eyes. They would be loyal to his son, he knew. They would show him that devotion, that friendship which they had always given to himself.
Philip, from the dais, looked down on these foreigners, these Flemings; he stood on one side of his father, and it seemed a pity that William of Nassau, the Prince of Orange, should be standing on the other. The people were accepting Philip now; but their eyes were turned—was it with hope?—toward William of Orange.
Philip felt the full weight of his responsibilities. He was King of Spain—Castile, Aragon, and Granada; he was King of Naples and Sicily; he was the Duke of Milan; he was Lord of the French Compté and of the Low Countries. He was the titular King of England. Unfortunately, the crude islanders had made this seem but an empty title so far. The Cape Verde Islands of Africa and the Canaries belonged to him. Tunis and Oran were his, as were the Philippines and the Spice Islands of Asia. He had possessions in the West Indies; Mexico and Peru were part of his Empire. He was the most important and powerful monarch in the world—a young man under thirty, morose by nature, although he had recently shown that he could enjoy isolated adventures in sensuality; he was conscientious, determined to do his duty, eager to serve God first, then his immense Imperial responsibilities. His great wish was to bring the whole world together under Spanish domination and to set up the Inquisition in every country. All this he would do, not for the glory of Philip, but for the glory of God.
In the meantime he wished to keep away from his wife for as long as possible. He could do this now with an easy conscience because he was certain that she could never bear a child.
So Charles made his slow journey to the monastery of Yuste, and Philip became titular ruler of half the world.
He had excuses to spare for not returning to Mary, since war had broken out. This was war against the Pope himself. Spain was devoutly Catholic, but Spaniards believed that the heart of Catholicism was in Spain, not in Rome; and Charles had, over the years, gradually taken many of the rights so dearly cherished by pontiffs of the past and kept them to himself. This meant that Charles had been using some of the Church revenue to serve his political ends. Spaniards had encroached on Italian territory, which disturbing fact many of the Popes had accepted with as good a grace as possible; but the present Pope was a fiery Neapolitan, and the French King had persuaded him to join France against Spain.
So, on his accession to power, Philip, who hated war, found himself in the midst of it.
Though it might be difficult to get English troops to fight the Pope, they would not be reluctant to attack the French, who were their perennial enemies; therefore, it was decided that the English must be persuaded to take up arms against the French; and who could better persuade the Queen to this than her beloved husband?
The unpleasant duty faced Philip again. He must return to England; he must once more endure the devotion of his wife, for Spain must have the help of England.
Mary could neither sleep nor eat. He was coming again. Many times during the last year he had promised to return, but he had not kept his promises. He had said he would be away for a month. It was August of the year 1555 when he had gone away; it was now March 1557. And he had said one month!
But no matter; the waiting was unimportant now since he was to come at last. She had aged during his absence. She had spent many nights in weeping. That did not improve a woman’s appearance. She had a return of her ailments and her skin was more sallow than ever; she was very thin, apart from her dropsical swellings.
Last autumn had brought much rain and the Thames had overflowed. Westminster Hall had been flooded, so that wherries had been able to pass through it. The resultant damp had brought epidemics with it. Mary herself had developed a fever at that time and there seemed to be nothing to cure it.
So lonely, so dreary her life had become. Gardiner had died, and on him she had relied more than on any, with the exception of Philip and Cardinal Pole.
Her sister Elizabeth, she believed, was plotting against her once more. She had entertained soothsayers at Woodstock and it was said that she had wished to be told how much longer the Queen would live. Some gentlemen of her household had plotted to put her on the throne, and they confessed on the rack to her complicity in their schemes. Why should Elizabeth be allowed to live? When she went into the streets the people applauded her more loudly than they had ever done. She was young and pleasing to look at. She did not suffer from complaints which made her a grotesque object of pity.
Philip had written urgently from Europe that she must be lenient with Elizabeth. He said he was convinced of her innocence. He pointed out that if Mary harmed the Princess the whole of England would be against her.
Why was he so concerned for Elizabeth? Sometimes Mary would be amazed at her own passion. She would stand before his picture and demand to know of that concern.
“Do you hope that I shall die and you may begin to woo another Queen of England?”
If he had been there to answer, he would have reminded her coldly: “I wish to preserve her that the throne of England may not go to Mary Queen of Scots.”
That might be true, but did it not mean that he had her death in mind?
“I have never really lived,” she murmured. “That’s the pity of it.”
But now he was coming to her again. As she stitched at the tapestry which her mother had started and which when finished would hang in the state apartments of the Tower, she thought that waiting for him was like waiting for the child. The child had not come. Would he?
Then her hopes would rise again. Was she so old that she could not have a child? She did not believe she was.
And at length on a sparkling March day when the sun was shining on the river and the marsh marigolds made a golden pattern on the banks, Philip came.
He took horse at Gravesend, and she was almost fainting with joy when he arrived at Greenwich. She could not tolerate ceremony at such a time. Surely now and then in the lifetime of a Queen she could dispense with it?
“Philip!” she cried, as she threw herself at him. He was smiling as all would expect a husband to smile who was returning to his wife after so long an absence.
He returned her embrace. She noticed that in appearance he had changed little; she was sadly aware that she was a little more lined, a little less attractive than when he went away. But she would not face the truth. Her loved one was back, and she must believe that he had come back for love of her, and not to win her assistance in his war with France.
How she schemed to keep him at her side! As for Philip, he had returned to the old relationship and he was once more sacrificing himself on the altar of Spain’s needs. He schooled himself to be the pleasant and charming husband, and that in itself seemed a folly because the better he played the part, the more enamoured she became.
From Mary came occasional outbursts of jealousy, and these often concerned the Princess Elizabeth. Philip was once more urging the marriage of the Princess with Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy.