Chapter III (2)

On the 2nd December, in great state, Philip rode along Fleet Street and up Ludgate Hill to St. Paul’s, accompanied by the whole Court. From Lambeth Pole had gone by water to Paul’s Wharf, and thence in procession with crosses, banners, and censers to the Cathedral, where he awaited the King’s coming with the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London. Side by side the King and Cardinal, with a glittering train, passed up the nave and out at the east end to St. Paul’s Cross, where, we are told, “with all the Lords of the Council and with such an audience of people as was never seen in that place before,”[84] fiery Gardiner preached a sermon upon the words of St. Paul, “Brethren, know ye, that it is time we arose from slumber”; in which he exhorted his hearers to shake off the evil dream of the past and salute the new dawn. But not exhortation alone occupied Gardiner’s oration, for he hinted that all the ruin and misery that England had suffered, “all the abominable heresies, synistrate and erroneous opinions, tumults and insurrections,” were owing to the “lack of restraint” that had permitted such evils without due punishment. For, once more into the hands of the priests, the rod had been delivered, and Gardiner had no mind that it should lie idle. The famous sermon was a threat to England, and the people who had spoken lightly of the Pope for the last twenty years looked askance not only at the Churchman who threatened, but at King Philip, whose furthest thought it was for the moment to light the fires of religious persecution in the country, the enmity and suspicion of which he was striving to lull to rest.

We are told by Philip’s watchful gentleman-in-waiting that he enjoyed his dinner well after Gardiner’s sermon, but the gentleman-in-waiting saw the surface only. Philip was glad to have England back again within the fold, though that was not the end, but the means for him. Two days afterwards the long-delayed Spanish cane tourney, perhaps the only one ever held in England, was celebrated with great pomp in the tiltyard at Whitehall. For many weeks the bands of Spanish horsemen had been rehearsing the mimic battle, in which opposing forces dressed in splendid uniforms prance and caracol to within a few yards of each other at full speed, and then, launching cane javelins at their antagonists, wheel suddenly away. The Queen and her ladies were dressed in cloth of gold with solid sheet-gold coifs, all at the King’s expense, and the Queen must have been a blaze of magnificence in her rich brocade, her overgarment of crimson velvet lined with fur, and her dress covered entirely with precious stones and sheet gold spangles. Twelve thousand people, we are told, looked on, as band after band of Spaniards pranced into the arena, some in white velvet and gold, some in blue and silver, some in black and gold; and a great ball and supper wound up the entertainment.

Three weeks later, the visit of Philip’s heroic young cousin, Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, was an occasion for further festivities of the same sort, although the occasion of his coming was in itself far from a festive one. The Prince was in command of the Emperor’s army, but in the clash of great empires he feared that his own smaller interests were going to the wall, as indeed they were. The war had prevented him from accepting the invitation to Philip’s wedding; but in September, 1554, he had sent an embassy headed by Count Langosco to London to pray Philip to intercede with the Emperor for him. Much of his paternal territory was occupied by the French; he had no money even to pay the garrisons of Nice and the other fortresses that remained to him, and he foresaw the possibility that when France and the Emperor made peace Savoy might be left in the hands of the former. Philip was amiable but indefinite in his reception of Savoy’s embassy in London. A commission was sent to invest the Duke with the Order of the Garter, and kind assurances of regard were exchanged, but Savoy wanted more than that, and when his troops were in winter quarters he managed with difficulty to raise enough money to run over personally, in the last days of the year 1554, to see his cousin Philip and his English wife for the purpose of urging his own suit. It is usually assumed that the primary object of his visit was to offer his hand to Princess Elizabeth, but such was not the case.[85] His handsome presence and the fame of his military exploits made him an attractive guest at Mary’s Court, and both the King and Queen were very favourably impressed by him, Philip, indeed, to a great extent acceding to the demands that brought him to London.

The idea of his marriage with Elizabeth appears first to have come from some of his Piedmontese subjects, naturally anxious that the succession to his ancient throne should be secured. Writing from London in September, 1554, one of his ambassadors says that if he were authorised to do so, he would propose the match to King Philip. In any case, some communication seemed to have passed between Philip and the Savoy ambassadors on the subject, and when Emmanuel Philibert arrived in London early in January, the question was further discussed. It was a match that would have suited Philip admirably, and he was prompt to adopt the idea. Emmanuel Philibert himself was in no mood for wooing, for the French had just captured another of his fortresses, Ivrea, and it seemed to him politic to keep himself free to marry a French princess, if necessary, as the price of his restoration to his domains. Nor were the obstacles in England to his marriage with Elizabeth slight. To begin with, the Queen was opposed to her sister’s marriage at all without the consent of Parliament, which would certainly refuse to authorise a foreign match for the Princess, and especially to a dispossessed Prince under the influence of the Emperor. Nor did the Queen wish to give to Elizabeth the additional importance and power which would accrue to her from her marriage with a sovereign. Philip, if we are to believe Michaeli, was somewhat afraid of his wife, and did not dare to press her too far in the matter “as she had a terrible and obstinate temper.” To the King’s Confessor, therefore, was entrusted the task of winning over Mary. After much trouble he persuaded her so far as to get her to promise to speak to the King about it the next evening. This she did not do, and it was believed that Pole had in the interval dissuaded her. The opposition from Elizabeth was even more decided. She was quite resolved, she said, neither to marry nor to leave England. On the part of Savoy also the terms proposed by Philip were held to be quite out of the question, including as they did the cession to Spain of the fortresses of Nice and Villafranca, in case any children were born to Emmanuel Philibert and Elizabeth. It will be seen, therefore, that at this time the match was never probable, and though Savoy was lodged in Elizabeth’s palace, Somerset House in the Strand, the Princess herself was not even brought from her seclusion at Woodstock to see him.[86] Emmanuel Philibert, impatient to be gone, left England, though not empty-handed, to resume his turbulent career after a three weeks’ stay.

Philip had to a great extent overcome the personal unpopularity which at his first coming he had to face; but the fear of the people that, sooner or later, England would be dragged by the Imperialists into war with France was stronger than ever, and the Spanish followers of the King got on no better than before with the English. One of the gentlemen-in-waiting writes at this time, “We are in a pleasant land, but amongst the worst people in the world, at least of Christian nations, for these English people are terrible enemies of Spain. It is easy to see that by the many serious quarrels that take place between us and them. Hardly a day passes without a slashing match in the Palace between Englishmen and Spaniards, and many have been killed on both sides. Only last week, in consequence of a fight, they hanged three Englishmen and a Spaniard, and every day something of the sort happens.... We Spaniards go about amongst these English people like fools, for they are such barbarians that they do not understand what we say, nor we them. They will not crown our Prince, although he is a King now, nor will they acknowledge him as their superior. They say that he only came to help to rule the country and to beget a child, and that as soon as the Queen has children he can go back to Spain. God send that it may be soon, for he would be glad enough, and we infinitely more so, to get away from such barbarous folk.”[87] To add to the tribulation of these disappointed courtiers, they found prices in England ten times higher than those they were used to, and they were almost ruined by their necessary expenses, besides being robbed, even of their cloaks, if they ventured out after dark in London.

To their chagrin, too, they saw great sums of Spanish money, sorely needed, they knew, for the Emperor’s wars, being squandered upon English purposes. Gresham had been allowed by the Emperor to borrow for Mary and export from Spain £100,000, an enormous sum in those days, and one which, Gresham wrote, was terribly wanted in the country itself. “I am not abell,” he wrote, “with my pen to set forthe unto you the greate scarsity that is now through all Spayne....” And he adds later, “I fere that I shall be the occasione they shuld all play bankrupt,” since one great bank had already suspended payment in consequence of his operations.[88] Apart from this, Philip’s own guard carried through London to the Tower 97 chests of silver, estimated to contain £50,000 for his own expenditure,[89] whilst Eraso brought 250,000 crowns to England in January, 1555, and the gentleman-in-waiting says that not only had the King guaranteed a debt of the Queen’s of 250,000 ducats, but he had distributed in bribes and pensions to the Councillors and courtiers 30,000 ducats a year.

At length, with all these blandishments and preparations, the Emperor and Philip thought after the submission of Parliament to the Pope, that the time had come when they might endeavour to reap the harvest. Paget, in his interview with the Emperor in Brussels, had been urged to represent to his colleagues on the English Council that the co-operation of their country in his war against the French would be of immense benefit to Christendom, and in a long memorandum sent by Renard to Philip during the session of Parliament, he discussed the various pretexts upon which a war between England and France might be precipitated. But Bonner’s harsh and violent persecution disturbed men’s minds. A great conspiracy was discovered in the Eastern Counties in which some of the Councillors were suspected of being implicated, the main object being the marriage and elevation to the throne of Courtenay and Elizabeth; and although Parliament passed an Act recognising Philip as guardian of his expected heir in case of the Queen’s death, his own wish to be appointed Regent in the event of her death without children, and his present recognition and coronation as King, were seen to be unrealisable in the state of public feeling, and Parliament was dissolved on the 16th January Still less was it possible to urge seriously that England should declare war against France, and, thanks to the efforts of Mary and Pole, another attempt was made to bring about peace by means of a Congress meeting at Calais.

So far from going to war for the Spaniards, the people, indeed, were increasingly inclined to war against them. King Philip’s countrymen, moreover, were far from sharing or even understanding his tolerant affability in the face of the unjust suspicion and insults to which they were daily subjected. Affrays between them and the Londoners were more frequent than ever, and although the hanging and mutilation of offenders against the peace, English and Spanish, was frequent, and Philip himself threatened dire punishment to any of his suite who drew a knife or shared in a brawl, the national hatred was so strong that no penalties could stop the disorders. In February, 1555, Renard wrote to the Emperor in an alarming strain. He prayed most earnestly to be allowed to return home when King Philip went to Flanders, which he then intended to do in a few weeks. He was certain, he said, that he (Renard) would be murdered the moment the King’s back was turned. The heretics were cursing him for having been the cause of bringing the Papists back to England, the French party were vowing vengeance against him for introducing the hated Spaniards to domineer over free Englishmen, the Earl of Arundel had sworn to be avenged upon him for frustrating his plan to marry his son to Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke of Northumberland’s sons had already hired four assassins to kill him.[90]

In vain Philip urged moderation in the prosecution of heresy, and one of his chaplains, Alfonso de Castro, publicly in an outspoken sermon denounced the burning of heretics as opposed to the true spirit of Christ. But Bonner and Gardiner pursued their stern way, and most of the odium of their proceedings fell upon the King and his countrymen. The Queen, herself in a fool’s paradise of hope and joy, thought of nothing but the coming glory of maternity. The country itself was awaiting the event as one that was to decide, so far as could be seen, its future fate. Ominous mutterings of the fell bonfires that had already begun in Smithfield were common enough, and the factions in the Eastern Counties were as active as ever beneath the surface, notwithstanding their ruthless suppression. The English exiles in France were being made much of in the Court of Henry II., and loaded with favours, whilst Noailles in London kept in close touch with the elements of discontent at home. In the circumstances Philip’s intention to obey his father’s summons to Flanders soon after the dissolution of Parliament had to be postponed, at least until the expected confinement of the Queen in April had cleared the air and settled men’s minds.

In the meanwhile Philip continued to do his best to maintain his popularity, counselling prudence to the zealous bishops, lavishing money on courtiers, interceding gently for Elizabeth and Courtenay, and taking active part in the showy military exercises which the English loved, but which for him had no attraction.[91] In March, Courtenay from his prison at Fotheringham wrote to Philip, saying that, as by the King’s intercession with the Queen so many persons had been released, he prayed for his mediation in his favour, very submissively beseeching his protection and that he would deign to accept his service. This happened at the very time that the new conspiracy was discovered, but Courtenay was almost as dangerous in an English prison as free, and, thanks to Pole’s support of Philip’s efforts, and on the understanding that he would accompany the English embassy to Flanders and Rome, Courtenay was summoned to Court and graciously received by the Queen and her husband.

Much more important, and doubtless intended to be so by Philip, was his successful intercession for Elizabeth. The Princess, as we have seen, was not brought to London to receive the visit of her would-be suitor, the Duke of Savoy, in January; for her own resistance to the match, and Mary’s reluctance to restore her fully in blood, which would have been necessary if her marriage with Savoy was to serve Spanish ends, had nipped that plan in the bud. But now, in April, to the great delight and surprise of the people, the Queen’s sister was summoned with graciousness from her seclusion at Woodstock to the Palace of Whitehall. Michaeli, who was a keen observer, attributes her release and presence at Court before the expected confinement of the Queen to the fear of the Spanish party that in case of Mary’s death “the King’s safety would depend more upon her than upon any other person; not only from his hope of being able, with the help of the nobles here whom he has gained by rewards, to succeed to the Kingdom by marrying her, it being not improbable that she herself will incline that way, as she knows his behaviour and character; but even should she and the country refuse this, yet by her presence, she being in his power, he would be able to secure himself against any rising against him and his followers, and they might by her means get away safely.”[92]

Elizabeth came very quietly to Hampton Court late in April, and was lodged in the apartment which the Duke of Alba had recently vacated. It is evident that her presence was desired by Philip more for his own security than for the sake of the Princess, as she only saw her sister and Philip in strict privacy on two or three occasions. Whilst in this close seclusion Elizabeth had at least one long private interview with Philip alone at the Queen’s request, his object evidently being to induce the Princess to confess her fault and throw herself upon her sister’s clemency. But Elizabeth was wary and would not commit herself. When a few weeks afterwards Gardiner on his knees urged the same advice upon her, she replied that she had not offended and asked no mercy of any one. A week later the Queen herself tried her hand upon her recalcitrant sister. She had not seen her since she sent her to the Tower two years before, and when the unexpected summons to the presence came to Elizabeth late at night the young Princess gave herself up for lost. “Pray for me,” she said to her attendants as she left the apartment, “for I know not whether you will ever see me more.” Across the dark garden Elizabeth was led between Sir Henry Bedingfield and Mistress Clarencius to the foot of a small back staircase to the Queen’s rooms. Leaving her attendant outside, the Princess was conducted by Clarencius alone to the Queen’s presence in the bedchamber. Kneeling, Elizabeth besought her sister to believe in her loyalty in spite of calumnies. “You will not confess your offence, but stand stoutly in your truth?” asked Mary sternly. “I pray God it may so fall out.” “If it doth not,” replied the Princess, “I request neither favour nor pardon at your Majesty’s hand.” The Queen drily suggested that her sister would probably say that she had been unjustly punished, but Elizabeth deftly turned the point by a fervent reiteration of her dutifulness and loyalty, and Mary, apparently somewhat mollified, dismissed her sister not unamiably.

Foxe, who describes the scene,[93] says that it was believed that Philip listened behind the arras to what passed at the interview, and “that he showed himself a very friend in that matter.” Certain it is that on several occasions after Elizabeth had succeeded to the throne he claimed her gratitude or consideration for having on one occasion rescued her from grave peril, and it is probable that this may have been the occasion referred to. There were many reasons beyond the temporary one already mentioned that explain Philip’s solicitude for Elizabeth’s life. Failing Elizabeth, and any possible issue of the Queen, the next heir to the English throne by natural law was the young Queen of Scots, practically a French princess married to the heir of France. Better a thousand times for Philip and his House that England should be ruled even by a heretic friendly to him than by the staunchest Catholic under the control of the hereditary enemy of the House of Habsburg. It must have been clear to him, moreover, by this time that the Reformation in England had not been crushed by Mary’s advent, and that a large proportion of the people regarded France as a more desirable friend than Spain. Nor could he shut his eyes to Elizabeth’s popularity, and to the fact that the enemies of his faith and his House looked to the young Princess as their head. So sagacious a politician would naturally endeavour to gain the goodwill, even the disposal in marriage, of a person so potentially powerful as his young sister-in-law, who, in any case, was likely to outlive his wife, and might if well handled perpetuate the hold of Spain upon England, now depending upon so tenuous a thread.

On the 30th April there came flying to London from Hampton Court the news that the nation’s prayers had been heard, and that at midnight of the 29th a male child had been born to the Queen, happily and well. Proclamation was made, joy bells rang, all business was suspended, and processions from every church perambulated the parishes with psalms of thanksgiving for so signal a mercy. Public tables were spread that all might freely eat and drink their fill, whilst bonfires blazed in broad daylight, and the people forgot for a moment the grim spectre of persecution that might be perpetuated if the news was true. But it was not true, and the sad disillusionment came whilst yet the rejoicings were in full swing. It was, said the Catholics, an invention of the enemy in order to cause trouble; but though this was possible, for Noailles had never ceased to sneer at the assurance of the Queen’s condition, the open and ostentatious preparations for the event that had been made at Court were of themselves sufficient reason for the rumour of the birth. The occurrence naturally distressed Mary, who kept her room thereafter for a time, and at once a flood of scurrilous literature was surreptitiously circulated in London, calumniating the Queen, her husband, and all their friends.[94]

All through May the country stood on tiptoe of expectation for the birth of the prince whose coming meant so much apparently for the future of Christendom. Mary, still deceiving herself, was comforted by the sight of new-born babies brought to her whose mothers were, it was said, as old and as thin as she. Philip’s solicitude, too, knew no bounds. Every demonstration of affection was lavished upon his wife, and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of his anticipated joy. Although in deep mourning for his grandmother, Jane the Crazy, he ordered that the moment his expected son was born all signs of mourning were to be abandoned. His father was summoning him incessantly, and he was yearning furiously to get away, but he could not leave his wife whilst this event was still pending. At last, at the end of May, he gave permission for most of his Spanish suite and his guards to cross the Channel in advance of him. It was indeed time; for only a week before a regular pitched battle between five hundred armed Englishmen and a body of Spaniards took place at Hampton Court, many being killed and wounded on both sides;[95] and the fires of Smithfield were blazing freely now, to the almost open anger of the people, who unjustly cast all the blame upon the Spanish influence at Court.

There were other things, too, which made it expedient for Philip to hurry to his father’s side. The Venetian ambassador went to see him at Richmond at the beginning of June, and on their way to chapel together Philip told Michaeli that he had that moment received news from Brussels that Cardinal Caraffa had been elected Pope. The ambassador noticed that the King was disturbed and unquiet at the news, as well he might be, for the Neapolitan, Caraffa, was the bitterest foe of Spain alive; and this meant that the peace which was being so painfully negotiated at Calais would be frustrated, or in any case be of short duration; for in future the Spanish champion of orthodoxy would have not only to contend against the “eldest son of the Church,” but against the head of the Church himself,[96] making common cause, “not only with France, but with the Turk, and if need be with the devil himself,” to dwarf the Spanish power in Italy and the Mediterranean. But, urgent though Philip’s presence elsewhere might be, it was more urgent still in England until safety came with the birth of his hoped for child. Writing in June to the Emperor, Renard says that everything hangs upon the happy issue of that event. He continues: “The doctors and ladies were two months out of their reckoning, and there is now no appearance of the affair happening for another ten days. If, by God’s mercy, she does well, matters here will take a better turn; but if not, I foresee trouble, and a great disturbance, so great, indeed, that the pen cannot express it. For it is certain that they have managed so ill with regard to the succession, that if anything untoward happens Lady Elizabeth will have the preference, heresy will take a new life and religion be overturned. She being French in her leanings, the nation will decline, the ecclesiastics will be persecuted, and revenge will be more rife than ever. I am not at all sure that the King and Court will be safe from the people, and the final tragedy will be calamitous. It is incredible to what extent this delay in the birth affords to the partisans of Elizabeth ground for the spread of false rumours. Some say the Queen is not pregnant at all, and that if a fitting child had been found there would not have been so much delay.”[97]

In this critical condition affairs remained for many weeks longer, the Queen obstinately refusing to give up her hope, which her women and physicians had already pronounced delusive. Hampton Court was overcrowded by gossiping courtiers; but none were allowed to see the Queen except a few of her favourite ladies, and the whole of the routine work of the Sovereign was done by Philip. All this was, of course, known by the expectant people in London, who saw daily church processions for the Queen’s safe delivery month after month, until anxiety began to give place to ridicule. Sometimes rumours ran that the Queen was dead, and that the fact was being kept secret by Philip in order that he might work his will in England. Religious feeling grew more bitter than ever, with Bonner’s ruthless persecution on the one hand and fanatic sacrilege on the other. To make matters worse, the summer was the most inclement and the harvest the scantiest that had been seen in England for years, and discontent was everywhere. At length, after another disappointment in July, even poor, forlorn Mary herself was convinced that she had been mistaken, and early in August she dismissed the crowds of hangers-on from their attendance at Court and moved with a smaller following to Oatlands, where she gradually resumed her ordinary routine again.[98]

Orders were given for the processions and rogations of the Church to be discontinued, and Philip was now faced with the fact that the splendid plot of his father to capture the control of England by marriage had practically failed, for Mary’s health was evidently bad, and her life promised to be a short one. With it would end the hold of Philip over England unless the Queen’s successor could be lured into the Spanish net. Little knew the Spaniards yet what a wily bird it was that they hoped to snare. But in the meanwhile it behoved Philip to make the most of his opportunities whilst his wife lived. He could delay his departure no longer, for his father was peremptory now, and the urgent need for his presence in England had passed. He was as imperturbable as ever, still an attentive and apparently an affectionate husband to the Queen, though his gallantries to other ladies began to be talked about somewhat openly. If the Queen were of a jealous disposition, wrote the Venetian ambassador, she would indeed be unhappy; to which the reply may be made that she was jealous and she was unhappy. Even now, on the very eve of Philip’s departure, she strove ardently to keep him by her side, or at least to extract a pledge from him that he would return to her within a month, a promise which at last he gave, though to his own Spanish confidants he said that if once he set foot in Spain again, he would never leave it on so poor an occasion.[99]

By the 20th August it became impossible to hide any longer Philip’s approximate departure. Every day fresh parties of Spanish courtiers and attendants were starting on the road from Gravesend to Dover, and the rumour spread in London that, in order to get away quietly, and so escape the notice of the French, the King intended to go down the river in Lord Arundel’s barge and embark at Dover secretly. The news was untrue, for Philip and Mary went openly through London to Greenwich to make preparations for the voyage; though it was jealously noted by the people that, although Elizabeth was now at Court and on good terms with the Queen, she was sent to Greenwich by water, it was said in order that the people might not see and cheer her.[100] Mary was full of grief and inconsolable at losing her husband even for a month, and Philip, ostensibly full of solicitude, specially confided the care of her to Pole. Orders were given that the minutes of all the Privy Council meetings, translated into Latin, were to be sent to the King during his absence, and that no important resolution was to be adopted without his approval. Gardiner was already dying of jaundice and dropsy, and in no case would have been trusted by Philip; but Pole was wise and amiable, and it was hoped would prove a pliable instrument for Spanish ends, advocated as they would be by the Councillors already bribed in the Emperor’s interest.

On the 26th August Philip and his wife left Hampton Court by water for Westminster, where they dined; and in the afternoon, with great and unaccustomed state, rode through London to Greenwich Palace. It had been generally believed at one time, and the fear still lingered, that Mary was really dead, and it was thought necessary on this occasion that all London should have an opportunity of seeing her. At the head of the cavalcade rode Philip with the Cardinal on his left hand, followed closely by the Queen in an open litter. But the French ambassador, who saw the procession, sneered at the distrust shown by Philip of the Londoners, for around him there were a hundred of his archers of the guard, armed to the teeth, with their morrions on their heads and their lances raised.[101] The joy of the people at seeing the Queen again was great, for she was still popular personally, though murmurs there were for the absence of Elizabeth. Three days afterwards, on the 29th August, 1555, Philip tore himself away from his reluctant spouse. Mastering her grief in public by a great effort, but with tear-reddened eyes and drawn, pallid face, the Queen led her husband composedly through the long suites of rooms of the Palace of Greenwich; though when the members of Philip’s Spanish household who remained behind came one by one, and, kneeling, kissed his hand, Mary for a time failed to control her agitation: and she sobbed convulsively when the English ladies of the Court, copiously weeping, were kissed farewell in English fashion by the gallant young king. With a last embrace Mary’s husband left her to enter the barge, whilst she retired to her own apartment, where, leaning upon the sill of an open window, and thinking herself unobserved, she gave way to her sorrow unconstrained, whilst she watched the boat speed down the river, bearing away all she loved on earth.

Philip played his part admirably to the last. Standing on the most conspicuous spot of the barge, he continued to raise his hat and waft affectionate salutations to the royal watcher at the window, until a bend in the river shut from his sight the Palace of Greenwich and its mistress. The bitterest disappointment must have been his. France was as far from being subdued as ever, the Emperor was weary of the struggle, old and sick at heart, and yearning to cast his burden upon his son. Peace was absolutely necessary at almost any terms that the French would grant, for it was now clear that England would not, even if she were able, throw her resources into another’s war at the bidding of the King Consort. But Philip showed no sign of defeat. Like a courteous high-bred gentleman, smiling and debonair, he bade a fond farewell for a month to his faded wife, whom, if he could have his way, he wished never more to see.[102]