By this time, the autumn of 1567, Isabel was again pregnant, and Philip’s hopes ran high that another son would be born to him. It is clear that the great mission to which he and his father had devoted strenuous lives could not safely be passed on to Carlos; and in September, Ruy Gomez, Philip’s only friend, told the French ambassador that if the Queen gave birth to a son, the future of Carlos as heir would have to be reconsidered. The Prince was insatiable for money, which he scattered broadcast on evil doings, he was openly insolent to his father, and the latter suspected a design to escape clandestinely to join the enemies of his State: and there is no doubt that if Isabel’s second child had been a son, he would have been placed in the succession before Don Carlos. Philip exceeded himself in tender solicitude for his wife, but at last, on the 17th October 1567, the child that all Europe was breathlessly expecting, was born—another daughter. Thereafter the romance of Don Carlos unfolded rapidly. Philip had been patient and longsuffering under the affliction of such a son, but he at length despaired, and his attachment to his heir gave place to antipathy and disgust: especially when his physicians had definitely assured him that his line could never be continued by Carlos.[194] The Prince, on the other hand, hated his father bitterly, and was morose with his aunt Joan, whom he formerly loved, and with the young Austrian Princes, though he had now been formally betrothed to their sister Anna. The only person who influenced him was Isabel: ‘Il fait semblant de trouver bon tout ce que la reyne votre fille fait et dit, et n’y a personne qui dispose de lui comme elle, et c’est sans artifice ni feinte, car il ne sçait feindre ni dissimuler.’[195]