England gave way to his usual dry _hauteur_ towards Englishmen whom he met in Brussels. He had found his father in the last stage of mental and bodily depression. All had gone ill with him; and the burden of his task, as far from fulfilment as ever, was greater than he could any longer bear. ‘Fortune,’ he said, ‘is a strumpet, and reserves her favours for the young;’ and so to the young Philip he had determined to transmit his mighty mission of Christian unification as a means of Spanish predominance. In October 1555, in perhaps the most dramatic scene in history, the Emperor solemnly handed to Philip the sovereignty of Flanders; and on the 16th January 1556, the assembly of Spanish grandees, in the great hall of the palace of Brussels, witnessed the surrender of the historic crowns of Castile and Aragon by Charles V. to his beloved only son. Heart-broken Mary Tudor from that day was Queen of Spain, as well as Queen of England. The title was a hollow one for her, though, for her mother’s sake and her own, she loved the country which alone had succoured them in their trouble; for Philip’s accession made the return of her husband to her side more than ever remote. Philip had promised faithfully to come back, and in his letters to her he repeated his promise again and again. On one occasion when he was indisposed, Mary sent a special envoy with anxious inquiries after his health. There was nothing more the matter than the result of some little extra gaiety on Philip’s part; and he reassured his wife and announced his immediate visit to England. The English messenger, overjoyed at the good news, said to some of Philip’s gentlemen, that, though he was delighted to be able to bear the glad tidings to the Queen, he would take care not to tell her that his Majesty had exposed himself twice to the dreadful weather then prevailing, and of his dancing at weddings, as the Queen was so easily upset and was so anxious about him that she might be too much afflicted.[158]