nd Mrs. Ashley; the queen instantly committed Mrs. Ashley to
the Fleet, and sent three other officers of her sister's household to
the Tower; while a number of gentlemen suspected of being her
adherents, who had remained in London beyond their usual time of
leaving for the country, were ordered imperiously to their
estates.[483]

[Footnote 483: Le dict conseil voyant que plusieurs
gentilhommes s'assembloient a Londres, et
communicquoient par ensemble, qu'ils se tenoient a
Londres, contre ce qu'est accoustume en Angleterre,
qu'est que ceulx qu'ilz eu moien ne demeurent a
Londres en l'este, ains au pays pour la chaleur et
maladies ordinaires qu'ilz y reignent, et que
toutes les dicts gentilhommes sont heretiques, ains
este pour le plus part rebelles, les autres parens
et adherens de Elizabetz, leur a faict faire
commandement de se retirer chascun en sa maison et
se separer; qu'ilz ont prins mal et en out fait
grandes doleances, en pretendant qu'ilz estoient
gens de bien, qu'ilz n'estoient traistres.--Renard
to the Emperor: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

But neither impatience nor violence could conceal the fatal change
which had passed over Mary's prospects. Not till the end of July could
she part finally from her hopes. Then, at last, the glittering dream
was lost for the waking truth; then at once from the imagination of
herself as the virgin bride who was to bear a child for the recovery
of a lost world, she was precipitated into the poor certainty that she
was a blighted and {p.218} a dying woman. Sorrow was heaped on
sorrow; Philip would stay with her no longer. His presence was
required on the continent, where his father was about to anticipate
the death which he knew to be near, and, after forty years of battling
with the stormy waters, to collect himself for the last great change
in the calm of a monastery in Spain.

It was no new intention. For years the emperor had been in the habit
of snatching intervals of retreat; for years he had made up his mind
to relinquish at some time the labours of life before relinquishing
life itself. The vanities of sovereignty had never any particular
charm for Charles V.; he was not a man who cared