The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-59 | Page 3

that the
conjunction of two such wonders of superstition in one sphere should

have seemed portentous in the eyes of the English nation. Philip's mock
efforts in favor of certain condemned reformers, and his pretended
intercessions in favor of the Princess Elizabeth, failed entirely of their
object. The parliament refused to confer upon him more than a nominal
authority in England. His children, should they be born, might be
sovereigns; he was but husband of the Queen; of a woman who could
not atone by her abject but peevish fondness for himself, and by her
congenial blood-thirstiness towards her subjects, for her eleven years
seniority, her deficiency in attractions, and her incapacity to make him
the father of a line of English monarchs. It almost excites compassion
even for Mary Tudor, when her passionate efforts to inspire him with
affection are contrasted with his impassiveness. Tyrant, bigot,
murderess though she was, she was still woman, and she lavished upon
her husband all that was not ferocious in her nature. Forbidding prayers
to be said for the soul of her father, hating her sister and her people,
burning bishops, bathing herself in the blood of heretics, to Philip she
was all submissiveness and feminine devotion. It was a most singular
contrast, Mary, the Queen of England and Mary the wife of Philip.
Small, lean and sickly, painfully near- sighted, yet with an eye of
fierceness and fire; her face wrinkled by the hands of care and evil
passions still more than by Time, with a big man's voice, whose
harshness made those in the next room tremble; yet feminine in her
tastes, skilful with her needle, fond of embroidery work, striking the
lute with a touch remarkable for its science and feeling, speaking many
languages, including Latin, with fluency and grace; most feminine, too,
in her constitutional sufferings, hysterical of habit, shedding floods of
tears daily at Philip's coldness, undisguised infidelity, and frequent
absences from England--she almost awakens compassion and causes a
momentary oblivion of her identity.
Her subjects, already half maddened by religious persecution, were
exasperated still further by the pecuniary burthens which she imposed
upon them to supply the King's exigencies, and she unhesitatingly
confronted their frenzy, in the hope of winning a smile from him. When
at last her chronic maladies had assumed the memorable form which
caused Philip and Mary to unite in a letter to Cardinal Pole, announcing
not the expected but the actual birth of a prince, but judiciously leaving
the date in blank, the momentary satisfaction and delusion of the Queen

was unbounded. The false intelligence was transmitted every where.
Great were the joy and the festivities in the Netherlands, where people
were so easily made to rejoice and keep holiday for any thing. "The
Regent, being in Antwerp," wrote Sir Thomas Gresham to the lords of
council, "did cause the great bell to rings to give all men to understand
that the news was trewe. The Queene's highness here merchants caused
all our Inglishe ships to shoote off with such joy and triumph, as by
men's arts and pollicey coulde be devised--and the Regent sent our
Inglishe maroners one hundred crownes to drynke." If bell-ringing and
cannon-firing could have given England a Spanish sovereign, the
devoutly-wished consummation would have been reached. When the
futility of the royal hopes could no longer be concealed, Philip left the
country, never to return till his war with France made him require
troops, subsidies, and a declaration of hostilities from England.
The personal appearance of the new sovereign has already been
described. His manner was far from conciliatory, and in this respect he
was the absolute reverse of his father. Upon his first journey out of
Spain, in 1548, into his various dominions, he had made a most painful
impression every where. "He was disagreeable," says Envoy Suriano,
"to the Italians, detestable to the Flemings, odious to the Germans."
The remonstrances of the Emperor, and of Queen Mary of Hungary, at
the impropriety of his manners, had produced, however, some effect, so
that on his wedding journey to England, he manifested much
"gentleness and humanity, mingled with royal gravity." Upon this
occasion, says another Venetian, accredited to him, "he had divested
himself of that Spanish haughtiness, which, when he first came from
Spain, had rendered him so odious. The famous ambassador, Badovaro
confirms the impression. "Upon his first journey," he says, "he was
esteemed proud, and too greedy for the imperial succession; but now
'tis the common opinion that his humanity and modesty are all which
could be desired. These humane qualities, however, it must be observed,
were exhibited only in the presence of ambassadors and grandees, the
only representatives of "humanity" with whom he came publicly and
avowedly in contact.
He was thought deficient in manly energy. He