the French ambassador, was not to be banned entirely, though that idea was to be gently discouraged; “for if her fancy tends that way she will not fail, if she be like other women, to go on with it, and would never forgive you if you had said anything against it.”[14] When, after all, Renard was received privately by the Queen in the Tower on the 6th August, he slily introduced the idea of marriage, after all the more prosaic points of his instructions had been disposed of. At the suggestion of a foreign match, but with no mention of Philip, Renard says: “She laughed, not once only but several times, whilst she regarded me in a way that proved the idea to be very agreeable to her. She clearly made me understand that she would not attempt or accept an English marriage, but preferred a foreign one, ... by which I recognised that she had her usual pride and inclination to speak of her rank and grandeur. From what I can understand, her idea is that the Emperor should propose some one to her, ... and I am in good hope that if his Majesty inclines to our Prince [Philip], it would be the most welcome piece of news that could be taken to her.”[15] But whilst this was the case, the observant ambassador also recognised that the English Council would not be so easily pleased as the middle-aged Princess, who for her thirty-nine years of life had been starved of love—she, a Tudor, true daughter of her father, whose passions and affections were strong; she, a Queen, who had been outraged and insulted for years and now hungered for the vengeance upon her foes that was only possible with the possession of power such as the Imperial connection could give her. The French, said Renard with perfect truth, were leaving no stone unturned, by intrigues, bribes, and promises, to make the idea of a Spanish alliance hateful to the English people; and if Mary’s councillors were to be gained to the Spanish side, it could only be done by lavish expenditure both in ready money and in future pledges. Gardiner, the most powerful of Mary’s Ministers, was strongly in favour of his late pupil Courtenay as a Consort for the Queen, and even Paget and Petre, both pro-Spaniards and former pensioners of the Emperor, looked askance at a match which it was seen would be hateful to the great majority of the English people.