But Philip hated war, and had a supreme belief in his own diplomatic methods. He was face to face, moreover, with a new development. Always before France had been the insatiable rival of his house, and France had been a solid instrument in the hands of its King. But the Reformation was already confusing the traditional boundaries. Henry II. was growing apprehensive of the increasing spread of Calvinism in his own dominions, and a solution after Philip’s own heart was devised by the Churchmen that drew the Catholic rivals together to face the new danger of Protestantism throughout Europe. England was no longer to be the balancing power between them, but the enemy of both, so long as she remained Protestant. To cement this hopeful attempt to combine Europe politically on new lines Philip was to marry the eldest daughter of France, the Princess Elizabeth of Valois, who, so long as he had hopes of marrying Elizabeth, had been destined for his only son Don Carlos. The close union of France and Spain caused, as usual, a wave of alarm to pass over England. Paget and the Spanish party in Elizabeth’s Court were for continuing the war against France at any cost and clinging to Philip as the sole chance of safety[142]; and, although the Queen and Cecil would not go so far as that, they did their best to mollify Feria and his master. When the ambassador saw the Queen on the 7th April, 1559 (the day that the news of the signing of the peace of Cateau Cambresis came to London) she was pouting and coquettishly aggrieved that Philip should have engaged himself to be married to any one but her, as she had given him no answer yet. Feria retorted crossly that the King could not wait four months for her answer, and when Cecil told him that they were quite willing to continue the war against France if Philip liked, the ambassador answered him rudely, and “I left them that day as bitter as gall.” Again and again the angry ambassador complained and remonstrated with the Queen about the religious changes and the licence now taken by the people. But she outwitted him at every point, kept up an elaborate pretence of negotiations to marry one of the Austrian Archdukes, who would depend entirely on Philip, and personally assured Feria that she was as good a Catholic as her father, the only point upon which she differed from the Spaniards being the supremacy of the Pope.