The Widow of Milan had been courted by Kings and Princes, and hardly was Christina settled at Brussels before she was assailed by fresh offers of marriage. Henry, King of Navarre, whose accomplished wife had died soon after her daughter's marriage, asked the Emperor for his niece's hand, but his proposals met with small favour. Far more serious was the courtship of Albert of Brandenburg, who felt this to be a favourable moment for renewing his old suit. "No one," as Thomas Hoby wrote, "had done the Emperor worthier or more faithful service" in the siege of Metz, and was better entitled to reward. His claims were strongly supported by the Palatine, who invited the Marquis to Heidelberg to confer with the other German Princes on the best means of recovering Metz. Albert himself not only aspired to the Duchess's hand, but to the Duke of Alva's post of Commander-in-Chief, and boasted that once Christina was his bride he would easily recover her father's kingdoms. "It is supposed," wrote Morosyne from Brussels on the 20th of February, "that the Marquis will marry the Duchess of Lorraine and have Alva's place. The Palsgrave would fain it were so, in order that, if the Marquis married his wife's sister, he might help him to recover Denmark; for besides that a slender title is apt to set such a one to work, he should, by being married to the Emperor's niece, and afterwards coming, when his uncle died, to the duchy of Prussia, be able easily to trouble Denmark. The Marquis doth much desire it, for that the Duke of Holstein has been and is a great suitor to the Duchess, who was once so nigh marrying the Marquis Albert's sister that the contracts were drawn up and put into writing, but broke it off upon sight of the Duchess of Lorraine. The Palsgrave would rather any did marry with her than the Duke of Holstein, for that his brother, King Christian, keeps his wife's father in prison. And the Emperor, it is held certain, will help it, in order that he may by this means trouble Denmark, which he has never had leisure to trouble himself."[482] [Sidenote: JUNE, 1553] PHILIP HOBY'S AUDIENCE]