John the Vth, in the same year, united himself by still closer ties to the house of Austria; and on the 8th of October formed an alliance with the second daughter of the emperor Leopold. The joy occasioned by this marriage was greatly augmented by the arrival of a fleet of merchantmen, consisting of a hundred sail, from Brazil, having on board to the amount of six millions sterling in gold, diamonds and tobacco. Nothing could be more timely than this supply; the subsidies promised to the Portugueze being very ill paid, and their army having suffered considerably, on the 7th of May, 1709, when the Portugueze were defeated on the banks of the _Caya_, by the marquis de Bay, in the campaign of Gudina.[33] The king was also obliged to withstand the instances of his allies, in an affair which he was decided not to give up; and the ambassadors from the Empire and England, together with the States-General, having remonstrated in the strongest manner about the franchises of foreign ministers, which his father had abolished twenty years before, he resisted all their arguments with a firmness they little expected, and, forced them to lay aside their claims. The year 1709, which began so prosperously for the archduke Charles, ended in the most disastrous manner for him and for Portugal. General Stanhope on the 27th of July, defeated the French and Spanish armies at Almenara, and afterwards greatly contributed to gaining the great victory of Saragossa; on this occasion the marquis de Bay was so completely beaten by the count de Staremberg, that Philip the Vth was obliged to quit Madrid, and the archduke entered the capital without striking a blow. No monarch, however, ever met with a worse reception from his subjects; they treated him with every possible mark of aversion, avoiding his sight, shutting themselves up in their own apartments, and even disdaining to pick up the money he threw into the streets. All his endeavours were fruitless to extort the oath of allegiance from several of the nobility, and having commanded the marquis de Mancera,[34] president of the council of Castille, an old man turned of a hundred years of age, to come and kiss his hand, he received the following reply: "I have but one faith and one king, which is Philip the Vth to whom I have sworn allegiance. I acknowledge the archduke as a great prince, but not as my sovereign, and having lived a hundred years without failing in any of my duties; I will not, for the short space of time I have yet to pass in this world, blast my spotless reputation by a dishonourable action."