Watchful eyes followed Renard everywhere. The Queen’s Council, with the exception of Paget, Arundel, and Petre, looked askance at him; French and Venetian spies at Court reported his every movement; and his own colleagues were bitterly jealous of him, as the marriage negotiation had been kept exclusively in his hands. For many days he could obtain no private access to Mary for the purpose of giving her the Emperor’s message; but at last, by Paget’s management, on the 10th October, he was introduced secretly into the Queen’s presence at Westminster. The Emperor deplored, said Renard, that his age and infirmities prevented him from offering his own hand in marriage to his cousin, as he would have wished; but that being impossible, he begged her to accept his only and beloved son as her husband. To the chagrin of Renard, Mary was now full of hesitation. What would her people say, and how could her Council be persuaded? She feared that when Philip succeeded his father, his many other realms would occupy the whole of his time, and that he would never be able to stay in England. Was Renard, moreover, quite sure of his character? He could not be so wise as the Emperor, and he was very young for her. Of course she would obey her husband, but he must not think for a moment that she would allow him to rule her State, nor could she give any offices to foreigners; and she threw out a strong hint that perhaps Philip’s Austrian cousin, Maximilian, would be a better husband for her, as she was absolutely free, and she had heard the Archduke was considered wise. Besides, if Philip was voluptuous in his ideas, she had no desire for anything of the sort at her age. [Illustration: PHILIP II AT THE AGE OF 24 FROM THE PAINTING BY TITIAN IN THE PRADO MUSEUM] All these objections were, no doubt, only a display of becoming maiden modesty, but they somewhat disturbed Renard. He painted to her in lurid colours the enmities by which she was surrounded, and the dangers that threatened her—the intrigues of the French with Courtenay and Elizabeth, the menacing attitude of the Protestant party in the provinces—and Mary answered as best she might, asking Renard at last to put in writing the arguments he urged in favour of her marriage with Philip. Four days later he saw her again, and this time her hesitation took a more personal form. With tears in her eyes she seized the ambassador’s hands and conjured him to tell her truly whether Philip was so moderate, settled, and well-behaved as he said. On his life and honour the ambassador protested that he was, but still the perplexed Queen was unconvinced. If she could only have seen the Prince first, she said, she would be better able to judge. That, the ambassador gently told her, was not possible; but a good portrait of him could be sent to her, and with this she was obliged to be content.[23]