Charles had always hoped that his sister would remain at her post when he left the Netherlands, feeling how invaluable her help would prove to Philip. But Mary was inflexible on this point. In a noble letter which she wrote at the end of August, she reminded him that fifteen years before she had begged to be released from her arduous post in order to devote herself to the care of her unhappy mother, and that, now this privilege could no longer be hers, she wished to spend the rest of her life in Spain with her sister, Queen Eleanor. "And however great," she adds significantly, "my affection for the King my nephew may be," in Badoer's graphic phrase, "he hates and is hated by her"--"Your Majesty will understand that at my age it would be very hard to begin learning my ABC over again. A woman of fifty, who has held office twenty-four years, ought, it seems to me, to be content to serve one God and one Master for the rest of her life."[504] There was nothing more to be said, and Charles agreed to Philip's wish that for the present the Duke of Savoy should be appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Low Countries. At length Philip succeeded in tearing himself from the arms of his sorrowful Queen, promising to be back in a fortnight or three weeks. From her palace windows at Greenwich, Mary waved her last farewells to the King, as he sailed down the Thames. He for his part was nothing loth to leave his fretful and melancholy wife, and was satisfied that she would never bear him a child. On the 8th of September he reached Brussels, and went straight to see his father in the Casino, near the Louvain gate of the park, where he was spending the hot weather. Charles embraced his son tenderly, and after an hour's conversation Philip went on to sup with Queen Mary and Christina on their return from hunting. On the 17th and 18th he attended the Requiem Masses held in S. Gudule for the late Queen Joanna, and afterwards joined in a grand hunting-party given by the Regent in his honour. [Sidenote: OCT., 1555] THE EMPEROR'S ABDICATION]