Meanwhile, another project was filling Mary's brain. She was determined to marry, and to rear up a Catholic heir to the throne; for she hated her half-sister, the Princess Elizabeth--Anne Boleyn's child--and utterly refused to acknowledge her legitimacy, or to own her as her next of kin. Mary had conceived a romantic affection on hearsay evidence for her cousin, Philip of Spain, the son and heir of the Emperor Charles V., a young prince twelve years her junior, whose charms and merits had been grossly overpraised to her by interested persons. The prospect of winning England for his son allured the Emperor, and he warmly pressed the marriage, though Philip did not view with satisfaction the pursuit of such an elderly bride. [Sidenote: =Unpopularity of the Spanish match.=] When the queen's intention of wedding Philip of Spain began to be known, it led to great discontent, for such a match implied not only a close union with the papal party on the Continent, but the resumption of the war with France, which had brought so much loss and so little gain under Henry VIII. and Edward VI.; for Spain and France were still involved in their standing struggle for domination on the Continent, and alliance with the one meant war with the other. [Sidenote: =Wyatt's rebellion.=] When the queen's betrothal to Philip was announced, trouble at once followed. The Protestant party had viewed with dismay the restoration of the Mass, and foresaw persecution close at hand; many who were not Protestants were anxious to stop the Spanish marriage and the renewal of the foreign war. Hence came the breaking out of a dangerous rebellion, aiming at Mary's deposition, and the substitution for her of her sister Elizabeth, who was, however, kept in ignorance of the plot. The conspirators intended her to marry Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, son of the Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, whom Henry VIII. had beheaded in 1539, and last heir of the house of York. Courtenay himself, a vain and incapable young man, was not the real head of the conspiracy, which was mainly guided by the Duke of Suffolk--the father of Lady Jane Grey--and by Sir Thomas Wyatt, a young knight of Kent. Courtenay's babbling folly betrayed the plot too soon, and the conspirators had to rise before they were ready. Their armed bands were easily crushed in all parts of England save in Kent; Wyatt raised 10,000 men in that very Protestant county, and boldly marched on London. The Government had no sufficient force ready to hold him back, and he nearly succeeded in seizing the capital and the queen's person, for many of the Londoners were ready to throw open the gates to him. But the queen induced him to halt for a day by sending offers for an accommodation, and when he reached London Bridge he found it so strongly held that after some heavy fighting he gave up the passage as impossible, and started westward to cross the Thames at Kingston. This delay saved Mary. She