Philip at Guadalajara, the town of the Mendozas, waited impatiently the coming of his bride. With him from Toledo had come his sombre widowed sister Joan, and when they learned, at the end of January 1560, that the Queen’s cavalcade was approaching, it was made known that the King wished special efforts to be made by the city to welcome his bride. Through artificial flowering woods with tethered birds and animals, through lines of gaily decked booths amply supplied with good cheer for the free refreshment of her suite, by kneeling aldermen in crimson velvet and white satin, and through an admiring populace, Isabel of the Peace rode into the city between the Cardinal of Burgos and the Duke of Infantado. At the door of the famous palace of the Mendozas, where Philip lodged, stood Princess Joan, who half knelt and kissed the hem of the girl’s garment; then led her by the hand into the large hall, at the end of which a sumptuous altar was erected. Before it, in a gilded chair, sat Isabel’s husband, grave of aspect beyond his thirty-three years. He saluted his bride ceremoniously; and after mass at the altar the marriage was performed by Cardinal Mendoza. Philip’s impatience for his bride had been more political than personal, for he needed above all things to be sure of France, and there was at first little cordiality between the newly wedded pair. The first afternoon, as the sovereigns sat in their tribune witnessing the bull fight and cane tourneys held in the great square of Guadalajara to celebrate the wedding, the frightened girl gazed so fixedly in the face of her husband that Philip became annoyed, and turned to her curtly and said: ‘What are you looking at? To see whether I have grey hair.’[176] Through the tedious feasting that followed, the marriage still looked unpromising. The girl was unformed and inexperienced, and was overwhelmed with the importance of the task her mother had confided to her. Around her there raged incessant jealousy, both between the Countess of Ureña and her French ladies, and amongst the French ladies themselves, and it needed all the authority of Catharine de Medici, and the fear with which she inspired her daughter, to keep Isabel on the right path amidst the contending factions.