ministers.

[Footnote 165: Renard.]

Perhaps, too, it confirmed her in her obstinacy, and allowed her to
persuade herself that, in following her own inclination, she was
consulting the interests of her subjects. Obstinate, at any rate, she
was beyond all reach of persuasion. Once only she wavered, after her
resolution was first taken. Some one had told her that, if she married
Philip, she would find herself the step-mother of a large family of
children who had come into the world irregularly. A moral objection
she was always willing to recognise. She sent for Renard, and conjured
him to tell her whether the prince was really the good man which he
had described him; Renard assured her that he was the very paragon of
the world.

She caught the ambassador's hand.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "do you speak as a subject whose duty is to
praise his sovereign, or do you speak as a man?"

{p.072} "Your majesty may take my life," he answered, "if you find
him other than I have told you."

"Oh that I could but see him!" she said.

She dismissed Renard gratefully. A few days after she sent for him
again, when she was expecting the petition of the House of Commons.
"Lady Clarence," one of the queen's attendants, was the only other
person present. The holy wafer was in the room on an altar, which she
called her protector, her guide, her adviser.[166] Mary told them that
she spent her days and nights in tears and prayers before it,
imploring God to direct her; and as she was speaking her emotions
overcame her; she flung herself on her knees with Renard and Lady
Clarence at her side, and the three together before the altar sang the
_Veni Creator_. The invocation was heard in the breasts from which it
was uttered. As the chant died into silence, Mary rose from the ground
as if inspired, and announced the divine message. The Prince of Spain
was the chosen of Heaven for the virgin queen; if miracles were
required to give him to her, there was a stronger than man who would
work them; the malice of the world should not keep him from her; she
would cherish him and love him, and him alone; and never
thenceforward, by a wavering thought, would she give him cause for
jealousy.[167]

[Footnote 166: "Elle l'avoit toujours invoque comme
son protecteur, conducteur, et
conseilleur."--Renard to Charles V., October 31:
_Rolls House MSS._]