all sent back to his Holiness, contemptuously, with the coarse jest for
answer, "We believe our mothers to have been honest women, and hope that
we had better fathers." The great council had not yet given its
decisions. Marriages were of continual occurrence, especially among
princes and potentates, between the adherents of Rome and of the new
religion. Even Philip had been most anxious to marry the Protestant
Elizabeth, whom, had she been a peasant, he would unquestionably have
burned, if in his power. Throughout Germany, also, especially in high
places, there was a disposition to cover up the religious controversy; to
abstain from disturbing the ashes where devastation still glowed, and was
one day to rekindle itself. It was exceedingly difficult for any man,
from the Archduke Maximilian down, to define his creed. A marriage,
therefore; between a man and woman of discordant views upon this topic
was not startling, although in general not considered desirable.

There were, however, especial reasons why this alliance should be
distasteful, both to Philip of Spain upon one side, and to the Landgrave
Philip of Hesse on the other. The bride was the daughter of the elector
Maurice. In that one name were concentrated nearly all the disasters,
disgrace, and disappointment of the Emperor's reign. It was Maurice who
had hunted the Emperor through the Tyrolean mountains; it was Maurice who
had compelled the peace of Passau; it was Maurice who had overthrown the
Catholic Church in Germany, it was Maurice who had frustrated Philip's
election as king of the Romans. If William of Orange must seek a wife
among the pagans, could no other bride be found for him than the daughter
of such a man?

Anna's grandfather, on the other hand, Landgrave Philip, was the
celebrated victim to the force and fraud of Charles the Fifth. He saw in
the proposed bridegroom, a youth who had been from childhood, the petted