Already Elizabeth’s sun was seen to be in the ascendant, and, regardless of the feelings of her sister the Queen, it suited Spanish policy to ensure her marriage, if possible, with a nominee dependent upon Philip. How anxious Philip personally was not to lose touch of Elizabeth at this juncture is seen in his reply at the end of May to a suggestion of Feria that the latter should go to Hatfield and pay his respects to her before he left England: “What you say about visiting Madam Elizabeth before you depart appears to me to be very wise, for the reasons you point out, and I am writing to the Queen, saying that I have ordered you to go. You will act accordingly; and I have no doubt that when the Queen sees the firmness with which I write on the subject she will consent.”[129] Philip’s fiery and impetuous ambassador Feria went considerably beyond his master in his high-handed dealing with the English Government; for Philip’s methods were diplomatic and far-seeing, and his object was not to ride roughshod over his wife’s country, as Feria would have done, but to use its resources for his ends, as if without design, and to perpetrate his hold upon it after his wife’s death. Mary, still suffering from her usual indispositions, persuaded herself in May that Philip was coming over to see her again. It was, as Feria said, unreasonable; for Philip was overweighted with business, arranging the summer campaigns and a thousand other things: but Mary, full of hope again, caused herself to be carried to St. James’s to be ready to receive her husband, and had horses and lodgings prepared for him from Dover to Gravesend and an escort of ships at Dover to convey him across. Feria told her blankly that the King was too busy to come, and again pressed her about raising the land army to reinforce Philip in Flanders. He found her less ready in the matter than he had hoped—“for the Cardinal and Council persuade her as they like”—and she wearily suggested that Clinton should go to Brussels to discuss the matter with the King. “This,” said Feria, “was only because they think that I push them too hard; and they believe they can deal more easily with your Majesty, their real object being to upset the scheme altogether;” and the ambassador continues by recommending the King when Clinton arrived in Brussels to deal with him high-handedly, blaming the Council angrily for their slackness in the past. Clinton was evidently the most pliant tool of all; and yet, even of him, Feria writes: “Nothing that he says will be true, unless he thinks it will be investigated. I have had no end of trouble about this, for they do nothing but lie and prevaricate.”