rifice the
least congenial, perhaps, which ever policy of state extracted from a
prince.

The train could move but slowly. Two miles beyond the gates a drenched
rider, spattered with chalk mud, was seen galloping towards them; on
reaching the prince he presented him with a ring from the queen, and
begged his highness, in her majesty's name, to come no further. The
messenger could not explain the cause, being unable to speak any
language which {p.143} Philip could understand, and visions of
commotion instantly presented themselves, mixed, it may be, with a
hope that the bitter duty might yet be escaped. Alva was immediately
at his master's side; they reined up, and were asking each other
anxiously what should next be done, when an English lord exclaimed in
French, with courteous irony, "Our queen, sire, loves your highness so
tenderly that she would not have you come to her in such wretched
weather."[343] The hope, if hope there had been, died in its birth;
before sunset, with drenched garments and draggled plume, the object
of so many anxieties arrived within the walls of Winchester.

[Footnote 343: "Sire, la Nostra Reina ama tanto
l'Altezza vostra ch'ella non vorebbe che pigliasse
disagio di caminar per tempi cosi
tristi."--Baoardo.]

To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of
Spain was entering upon, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a
state intrigue or a midnight murder, his opening step was ever to seek
a blessing from the holy wafer. He entered, kissed the crucifix, and
knelt and prayed before the altar; then taking his seat in the choir,
he remained while the choristers sang a _Te Deum laudamus_, till the
long aisles grew dim in the summer twilight, and he was conducted by
torch-light to the Deanery.

The queen was at the bishop's palace, but a few hundred yards distant.
Philip, doubtless, could have endured the postponement of an interview
till morning; but Mary could not wait, and the same night he was
conducted into the presence of his haggard bride, who now, after a
life of misery, believed herself at the open gate of Paradise. Let the
curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding
solemnities which followed with due splendour two days later. There
are scenes in life which we regard with pity too deep for words. The
unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart
thir