“The day before yesterday (6th inst.) the King and Queen left this, with a small and secret company to visit the Princess, three miles from here, where they remained till yesterday about vespers. The kindness shown by the King to the Princess was inconceivable, regretting that he had been so long separated from her. He made good amends for it in the little time he was with her, continually talking with her, with every sign of affection, and with ever so many fine promises. The Queen gave her a beautiful diamond, and the King about 1000 crowns in money for her little pleasures, telling her to have no anxiety about money, for she should have as much as she could wish. He promised her that when he returned from Dover, she should come to court. She will no doubt by her great prudence remedy many things.”[193] On the same day, however, he had cause to modify this account somewhat, in a subsequent letter to Granvelle, in which he says:— “What I have told his Majesty about this King’s singularly kind behaviour to his daughter the Princess, when he saw her the other day, I have on the authority of one of her own servants, the very same one who, for some time past, has been the bearer of her messages to me. Yesterday, as he was imparting the said news, and conveying his mistress’s commendations to me, I naturally concluded that he himself was speaking in the Princess’s name, but I am afraid such is not the case, and that the man only repeated what he had heard, for I have since been told, that mixed with the sweet food of paternal kindness, there were a few drachmas of gall and bitterness. But after all, we must set that down to paternal authority, and pray God to inspire the King to behave still better to the Princess, and work with more zest and sincerity than he has hitherto done, towards the establishment and extension of the confederacy with your Majesty, which, as may be gathered from my previous despatches, has hitherto been surrounded by much artifice and subterfuge.”[194]