Page:The Queens of England.djvu/442

 398 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. lean, pale, worn and splenetic, sitting on the ground for hours ; inconsolable at the thought of her husband's departure, and weeping continually:" August having arrived, and there be- ing now no prospect of the accouchement anticipated in the previous June, Philip determined on joining his father in Flan- ders. He left Whitehall Palace on the 26th of August, at four in the afternoon, passed through London on his way to Green- wich, the pope's legate on his left hand, and the queen follow- ing in an open litter, escorted by a hundred archers of the guard. The Princess Elizabeth, who had been some time at court, and who had been compelled to attend the queen at mass, was sent to Greenwich by water, to avoid, as it was said, exciting those demonstrations of popularity which her pres- ence had latterly been wont to call forth, and which were so mortifying to her sister. On the 29th Philip took leave of the queen, promising a speedy return, a promise which he neither desired nor intended to fulfill, and proceeded to Canterbury, where he waited a week for the completion of his equipage — ■ a mortifying proof that he wished not to spend that time with Mary, who so passionately longed for his company. He did not sail from Dover until the 4th of September, and landed at Calais that night. From Calais he wrote to the queen, recom- mending Elizabeth to her especial care, and addressed a simi- lar recommendation to the Spaniards, a proof that he already entertained projects relative to her, which, after the death of Mary, were further developed. The prolonged absence of Philip, so painfully borne by Mary as to increase her ill health and exasperate her temper, was marked by a renewal of the persecutions which have rendered her name odious to pos- trity. The terrible death of Cranmer, and the spirit with which he met it, had made a deep impression on the minds of the people, but Mary, thinking only of the protracted stay of her husband in Flanders, which wrung her soul with the pangs of jealousy and grief, and for which she wholly blamed her subjects, attributing it to their withholding from him the privi- leges he sought, wished to wreak on them the vengeance kin- dled in her heart. To induce Philip to return she would have sacrificed the best interests of her kingdom, and strenuously set to work to acquire for him the power he so long sought. Rumors of conspiracies, in which the name of the Princess Elizabeth was mixed, were continually circulated by those who wished ill to the princess. Elizabeth's own conduct in listen-