Elizabeth of Valois, or Isabel of the Peace, as the Spaniards called her, was the flower of an evil flock. Tall, graceful, and well formed, even in her precocious youth, she had been destined from her birth for splendid marriage. ‘My daughter, Elizabeth, is such that she must not be married to a duchy. She must have a kingdom, and a great one,’ said her proud father once, when his younger daughter Claude was married to the Duke of Lorraine; and the Spanish ambassador, describing her magnificent christening feast at Fontainebleau, in July 1546, says that: ‘Isabel was chosen for her name, because of the hope they have at a future time of a marriage between her and the Infant (_i.e._ Don Carlos), and Isabel is a name beloved in Spain.’[166] We may doubt the correctness of this; for the Princess’s sponsor was Henry VIII. of England, and probably he chose the name after his own mother, Elizabeth of York. Isabel grew up by the side of her sister-in-law, the young Queen of Scots; and although the latter was four years the senior of her companion, they were close rivals in the learning then becoming fashionable for young ladies of rank. The curious Latin and French didactic letters written by Mary Stuart, aged ten or eleven, to her little sister-in-law, although prim and priggish according to our present ideas, throw a flood of light upon the severe and systematic training for their future position that the young princesses underwent. After making all allowances for inevitable flattery on the part of such a courtier as Brantome, it is evident that Isabel was a beauty of the very first rank. ‘Her visage was lovely and her eyes and hair black, which contrasted with her complexion, and made her so attractive, that I have heard say in Spain that the gentlemen did not dare to look at her, for fear of falling in love with her, and to their own peril making the King jealous. The churchmen also avoided looking at her for fear of temptation; as they did not possess sufficient strength to dominate the flesh on regarding her.’ In 1552 she was betrothed to Edward VI. of England, and this danger to Spain, averted by Edward’s death, made Philip and his father all the more eager to keep a firm hold upon England as soon as Mary’s accession made an alliance possible.