deprivation, and were a constant source of irritation and danger to Spain on the Pyrenean frontier. The design of the emperor was nothing less than to put an end to the feud, by marrying Philip to the heiress of Navarre, Jeanne d’Albret. It is idle to speculate upon the far-reaching results which might have ensued from such a match, but in all probability it would have changed the whole course of modern history. At the time this design was in view (1539) “to extinguish the quarrel of Navarre and tranquillise both our conscience and that of our son,” Philip and Jeanne were twelve years old, and the marriage would doubtless have taken place but for the vigilance of Francis I. To have brought the King of Spain over the Pyrenees as Prince of Béarn, and the semi-independent sovereign of a large part of the south of France, would have ruined the French monarchy, so poor little Jeanne was married by force to a man she detested, and Philip had to look elsewhere for a bride. On the occasion of Charles’s own marriage, the dowry from the wealthy royal family of Portugal had provided him at a critical juncture with money to carry on the war with France; and now again, with his exchequer chronically empty, and the demands upon it for warlike purposes more pressing than ever, the emperor sought to tap the rich stream of the Portuguese Indies by wedding his son to Princess Maria, daughter of John III. and of Charles’s sister Catharine, another consanguineous marriage of which we shall see the result later. Before the affair could be concluded the emperor was obliged to leave Spain (May 1543). In July of the previous year Francis I. had fulminated against his old enemy his famous proclamation of war, and to Charles’s troubles with the Protestants of Germany was now added the renewed struggle with France, in which he was to have the assistance of the English king. The emperor’s intercourse with his son during his stay in Spain had convinced him of Philip’s precocity in statesmanship, and so he determined to leave in his hands the regency of Spain in his absence.