We should tire the reader were we to repeat all the arguments employed by statesmen in defence of the English policy. Untenable as most of them were, they sufficed to dispel such slight qualms of conscience as had arisen in Charles's mind. England's powerful fleet and beef-fed troops were then far more important to Charles than the empty thanks of a thriftless princeling. While the father was thus being made the centre of political intrigues, the lives of his wife and daughter, on whose account the courts of Europe had been thrown into a state of commotion, flowed on in the same dull routine which had marked them from the very beginning. Four long months were thus spent, and the rigorous winter of Tyrol was at its height, when the guardians of the princesses, the worthy privy councillors, were suddenly startled from their lethargic repose by the news that the friends of their noble prisoners in the North and the South were on the move. On the 11th of February, 1719, it became known in Vienna that Prince Sobiesky had mysteriously left Ohlau, and that it was supposed he had repaired to Augsburg. Ten days later the governor of Mantua (then part of the empire) reported that the Pretender had turned his back on Rome on the 8th of February, and had posted to Florence. These two highly suspicious movements convinced the emperor that the Sobiesky party was bent upon rescuing Princess Clementina. Strict injunctions were therefore despatched to Innsbruck, enforcing redoubled precautions against a surprise, while the governors of Mantua and Trent were at the same time commanded to keep a watchful eye on all travellers that passed through those towns, and were supplied with minute instructions for their conduct should the Pretender visit either of them. Force was not to be used in ejecting the person of the Pretender, but he was to be told quite politely "that the emperor had given strict orders not to allow him to proceed on his journey toward Innsbruck, and that hence his further stay in the town was useless."