It was against his very nature, but he had schooled himself to self-control and sacrifice, and his most intimate friends were astonished at the change in his manner from the day he set foot on English soil at Southampton on July 20, 1554. He was no longer the grave and moody prince they had known, but smiling, courteous, and frank. Gifts and favours were lavished on all sides, and although he came heavily handicapped by the prejudice against him, and London especially bitterly hated the Spaniards, and did not hesitate to show it, Philip himself became personally not unpopular during his stay in England. He brought with him in his fine fleet of 100 sail 6000 or 8000 soldiers to reinforce the emperor in his war with the French, and not a man of them was allowed to land in England; they and many of Philip’s courtiers proceeding to Flanders as soon as might be. The nobles and gentlemen who accompanied the prince were warned that they must in all respects make way for the English and take a secondary place. This was gall and wormwood to them, and their scorn and hatred grew as they became convinced of the fruitlessness of their sacrifice and that of their master. The queen’s first interview with her husband was at night on July 23 in the bishop’s palace at Winchester. He was dressed in a suit of white kid covered with gold embroidery, and wore a French grey satin surcoat, “and very gallant he looked.” He was surrounded by ten of the highest nobles in Spain, and from the first moment the queen saw him she seems to have fallen in love with him. She had fervently invoked divine guidance in her choice, and had managed to work herself into a condition of religious exaltation, which rendered her peculiarly open to hysterical influences--for she too was a granddaughter of Isabel the Catholic. All that pomp and expenditure could do to render the marriage ceremony at Winchester for ever memorable was done. Philip himself and his friends had no illusions about the matter. They all confess with depressing unanimity that the bride was a faded little woman with red hair, and no eyebrows, and that the Spanish objects in the marriage were purely political. But Mary looked upon it in quite a different light. She was taking part in a holy sacrament which was to bring salvation to thousands of souls, and make her for ever memorable as the saviour of her country and her race. Philip acted like a gentleman, under very difficult circumstances. He treated his wife with gentle courtesy, returning her somewhat embarrassingly frequent endearments with apparent alacrity, and never by word or deed hinting that her charms were on the wane. On the day of the marriage Charles had equalised his son’s rank with that of Mary by making him King of Naples, but still English suspicion and jealousy resented the idea of his coronation, or even his aspiring to equal place with the queen. “He had only come,” said the Londoners, “to beget an heir to the crown, and then he might go--the