There were still many formalities to be gone through, many farewells to be said, before Charles could lay down the sovereign power. On the day after his abdication, the Archduke Ferdinand, his favourite nephew, arrived with affectionate messages from his father, who found it impossible to leave Vienna as long as the war with the Turks lasted. The next day he went hunting with the King, Mary, and Christina, and dined with them and Eleanor. On the 3rd of November he left Brussels again after all too short a visit, as Charles wrote to his brother. Another guest who took leave of the Emperor in the same week was Edward Courtenay, Lord Devonshire. This young nobleman of the blood royal had been exiled from England lest he should marry Elizabeth, and had been so often seen in the palace during the last few months that rumour said he was going to wed Madame of Lorraine. Now he came to thank her for the "gentle entertainment" which she had shown him, and bid her a reluctant farewell before he left for Italy. In the following spring another old friend, Adolf of Holstein, came to Brussels and took leave of the Emperor. The Danish Prince, hearing that all idea of the Savoy marriage was abandoned, took this opportunity to make a last attempt to win Christina's hand. But not even the Duke's constancy could induce her to change her mind, and he went away disconsolate.[505] [Sidenote: FEB., 1556] DEATH OF THE PALATINE] A fresh sorrow awaited her in the death of her brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine, who breathed his last at Alzei, in the Lower Palatinate, on the 26th of February, 1556. The fine old man was in his seventy-third year, and had been tenderly nursed all through a long illness by his wife. Three weeks before his death Dorothea sent for his nephew and successor, Otto Heinrich, who remained with him to the end, and brought his body to Heidelberg. Here he lay in state for three days in the Court chapel, after which his remains were borne down the castle slopes by eight noblemen, and laid with his forefathers in the church of the Holy Ghost. By order of the new Elector, he was buried with Lutheran rites. Dorothea and Countess Helene followed on foot with a long train of nobles and students of the University, bearing lighted tapers, and German hymns were sung by the Canons and school-children.[506]