The Queen lay apparently at the point of death for some days after her delivery, but as soon as her life was safe, the great project, so long discussed, of a voyage of the royal family to insurgent Flanders, was again taken in hand. Philip was for going alone, leaving, it was hoped by Catharine, his wife Regent, though Isabel herself begged hard that she might be allowed to accompany her husband: ‘Car vraiment, je serois trop marrie de demeurer par deçà après lui; je ferai ce qui sera en moi qu’il ne m’y laisse point.’ There was another who desired as ardently as she to go to Flanders with the King. This was his only son Don Carlos. The young man’s frantic excesses had grown more scandalous than ever as he became older. The struggle to obtain his hand in marriage was still going on between the Austrian and French interests; but Philip continued to put the matter gently aside on the ground of his son’s ill-health. The afflicted father had done his best to wean the Prince from his violence and dissoluteness. He himself had been a dutiful son, ready to sacrifice everything for the task confided to him, and his grief was profound that this son of his youth should openly scandalise his court by his disobedience and insolence to his father and sovereign. Like his great-grandmother, Joan the Mad, the Prince lived in constant revolt against authority, sacred and mundane. His conduct in the Council of State, where his father had placed him to accustom him to business, had shocked every one. Apparently out of sheer wrong-headedness he had openly expressed his sympathy with the Netherlanders, who were defying the will of his father, and he had extorted a semi-promise that he should accompany the King to Flanders. Whether the Prince had entered into any communication with the agents of the Flemings is doubtful; but even if such were the case, and the ambition of Carlos to obtain an early regency of Flanders was the end he had in view, it is a mere travesty of history to represent that he seriously held reformed opinions, any more than did Joan the Mad, when she reviled the mass and the sacred symbols. In any case, Philip abandoned his intention, if he ever really held it, of going in person to the Low Countries; and decided to send the ruthless Alba with a great army to scourge the stubborn ‘beggars’ into humble submission to his will. When Carlos heard this, and that he, too, was to remain in Spain, his fury passed all bounds. He attempted to stab Alba himself when he went to take leave; and when the Cortes of Castile petitioned the King that the heir to the throne should be kept in Spain, Carlos made an open scandal, and threatened the deputies with death.