was fully prepared to promulgate it. These
rumors produced great excitement, and awakened strong opposition. The
people knew Philip's ambitious and overbearing character, and they
believed that if he were to come to England as the husband of the queen,
the whole government would pass into his hands, and, as he would
naturally be very much under the influence of his father, the connection
was likely to result in making England a mere appendage to the already
vast dominions of the emperor. The House of Commons appointed a
committee of twenty members, and sent them to the queen, with a humble
petition that she would not marry a foreigner. The queen was much
displeased at receiving such a petition, and she dissolved the
Parliament. The members dispersed, carrying with them every where
expressions of their dissatisfaction and fear. England, they said, was
about to become a province of Spain, and the prospect of such a
consummation, wherever the tidings went, filled the people of the
country with great alarm.

Queen Mary's principal minister of state at this time was a crafty
politician, whose name was Gardiner. Gardiner sent word to the emperor
that there was great opposition to his son's marriage in England, and
that he feared that he should not be able to accomplish it, unless the
terms of the contract of marriage were made very favorable to the queen
and to England, and unless the emperor could furnish him with a large
sum of money to use as a means of bringing influential persons of the
realm to favor it. Charles decided to send the money. He borrowed it of
some of the rich cities of Germany, making his son Philip give his bond
to repay it as soon as he should get possession of his bride, and of the
rich and powerful country over which she reigned. The amount thus
remitted to England is said by the historians of those days to have
been a sum equal to two millions of dollars. The bribery was certainly
on a very respectable scale.

The emperor also sent a very magnificent embassy to London, with a
distinguished nobleman at its head, to arrange the terms and contracts
of the marriage. This embassy came in great state, and, during their
residence in London, were the objects of great attention and parade. The
eclat of their reception, and the influence of the bribes, seemed to
silence opposition to the scheme. Open opposition ceased to be
expressed, though a strong and inveterate determination against the
measure was secret