Much of the glory must be given to the cool and timely support afforded at a critical moment by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, but Don Juan, exalted in fervour and enthusiasm, personified the victory; and to him the palms of conquest were awarded. The world rang with adulation of the young hero. The pope forgot his dignity, Titian forgot his ninety-five years, the Christian world forgot prudence and restraint, and talked of conquering anew the empire of Constantine, of which Don Juan was to be the ruler. There was one man, however, who did not move a muscle when he heard the stirring news, and that man was Philip II. He was at vespers when the courier came, but after he read the despatch he said no word until the sacred service was over, and then a solemn Te Deum was sung. But when he wrote to Don Juan it was in no uncertain words. With his views he was of course incapable of personal jealousy, though not of suspicion, and he wrote: “Your conduct undoubtedly was the principal cause of victory. To you, after God, I owe it, and I joyfully recognise this. I am rejoiced that He has deigned to reserve the boon for a man who is so dear to me, and so closely allied in blood, thus to terminate this work, glorious to God and men.” The next year Pius V. died and the league was loosened. Don Juan, full of vast projects of conquest in Tunis, Constantinople, and elsewhere, with encouragement of Rome and the churchmen, kept his fleet together for two years, always clamouring for money for his great projects. But Philip had his hands full now with Alba’s second struggle in the Netherlands, and had no wish or means for acquiring a great Eastern empire which he could not hold, and he was already looking askance at his brother’s ambitious dreams. The mercantile Venetians too, had justified Philip’s distrustful forebodings and had made a submissive peace with the Turk, who kept Cyprus, and Philip could not fight the Turks alone. But Don Juan was not to be entirely gainsaid. In October 1573 he sailed for Tunis, which he captured, almost without resistance, and then returned to the splendour of Naples, still full of projects for a vast North African Christian empire, of which he hoped to obtain the investiture from the new pope, Gregory XIII. Such ambitious dreams as these had floated through Don Juan’s mind after he had suppressed the Morisco rising in Andalucia; and even then prudent Ruy Gomez, whose pupil he had been, took fright, and warned the prince’s secretary, Juan de Soto, one of his own creatures, that these plans must be nipped in the bud. The prince was over headstrong then, but he had got quite out of leading strings now.