In January Cardinal Pole, the Papal Legate, came to the monastery of Diligam, near Brussels, with proposals of peace from the Pope, on his way to congratulate Queen Mary on her accession, and help to restore Catholic rites in the kingdom. Pole was known to be averse to the Spanish marriage, and Charles had put every obstacle in the way of his journey to England. On his arrival he gave him a very cold reception, and the Cardinal complained to the Pope that the Emperor and Arras could not have used greater violence, unless they had taken a stick to drive him back.[489] The Regent and the Duchess of Lorraine, however, were much more friendly when he dined with them the next day, after attending Mass in the royal chapel. Mary told him that no one wished for peace more earnestly than herself, seeing how terribly her poor people of the Netherlands had suffered from the war, and Christina spoke to him of her son with tears in her eyes. When the Cardinal went on to Fontainebleau, he saw the young Duke, and was able to give him his mother's messages. But he found Henry II. still less amenable than Charles, and returned to Brussels convinced that his mission was a failure as far as the hope of peace was concerned. Before the end of April the French King invaded Hainault, at the head of a large army, and took the strong citadel of Marienburg. Namur was only saved by the promptitude of Charles, who once more took the field, although he could no longer mount a horse, and showed all his old courage in this his last campaign. After an indecisive battle at Renty, the French retired with heavy loss, spreading famine and desolation in their track. One act of vandalism for which Henry was condemned, even by his own captains, was the destruction of Mary of Hungary's beautiful palace of Binche, with its famous gardens and treasures of art. The Queen received the news with equanimity, saying that she was proud of being the object of the French King's vindictiveness, and glad the world should know that she was the Emperor's devoted servant. "As for the damage which has been done," she wrote to Arras, "I do not care a straw. I am not the woman to grieve over the loss of things transitory, which we are meant to enjoy as long as we have them, and do without when they are gone. That, upon my word, is all the regret I feel."[490]