herself had pondered deeply upon the subject; and now, bearing in mind what she had been told of Philip’s good qualities, she prayed the Emperor to accept her as a daughter, to be indulgent with her, and to consent to the conditions which her Councillors declared would be necessary for the welfare of her realm. She hoped that henceforward the Emperor would be doubly a father to her, and Philip a good husband. Then with all solemnity she approached the altar and, with her hand upon the gospel before the Sacred Presence, swore to marry Philip of Spain and make him a good wife. God had now sent her light, she said, after she had wavered long. No man but Philip should be her husband.[24] Whilst Renard and the Council were fighting hard over every point of the marriage treaty, Noailles and the Venetian ambassadors were busy intriguing against it, entertaining Courtenay constantly, and doing their best to draw cautious Elizabeth into their plots. The muttering of coming trouble sounded on all sides—Mary, jealous and distrustful of Elizabeth, whose illegitimacy she was determined to assert; the Protestant elements in the Court and country already in a ferment, thanks largely to French incitement, and disaffection showing itself by partial disturbances in various parts of the country. Religious persecution, too, began to raise its head. Cranmer and Ridley were condemned to death, as were Lady Jane Grey and the three sons of Northumberland; whilst the Emperor, determined for his part to avoid exacerbating the evil, had, to the great indignation of the Pope and the Churchmen, almost violently forbidden Pole to go to England with his extreme Papal mission, at least until the ultimate control of it had passed into the Emperor’s own politic hands.