The Lutherans did not send another embassy to England for a long time. Negotiations were not resumed until more than four years later, when the situation had entirely changed, and even then they failed as signally as before. But though Henry had thus dealt the death blow to the hopes of the Schmalkaldner, he did not suffer the year 1539 to close without attempting to form an alliance of a very different sort with another prince of the Empire. As soon as he had heard of the failure of the plan for the marriage of the Princess Mary and the Duke of Cleves, Henry began to look about for another German husband for his daughter. It was doubtless with the royal authority that Christopher Mont had let fall a casual hint in conversation with a certain Nürnberg merchant named Gundelfynger, that Henry would gladly see Mary wedded to a prince of the Empire. The merchant responded by proposing Duke Philip of Bavaria as a suitable candidate for her hand. This prince was a member of the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach family, and a nephew of the Elector Louis. He had been a faithful servant of the Emperor and his brother Ferdinand in the first outbreaks of the religious strife after the formation of the Schmalkaldic League, and had been severely wounded in a brave attempt to oppose the Hessian lanzknechts at the battle of Laufen[663]. In spite of the fact that he belonged to a notoriously wavering family, he appears to have been a firm adherent of the Old Faith, at least at the time of which we are speaking. But on the other hand he was certainly loyal to every tradition of Wittelsbach impecuniosity. He had sacrificed all his property in the Emperor’s service, and Charles had characteristically refused to make good his losses, and had also insulted him by opposing his suit for the hand of the Duchess of Milan. A financially successful marriage seemed to offer Philip the only chance of recovering his lost fortunes, and it was at this juncture that the possibility of a match with the daughter of the rich King of England was opened to him. The proposal of Gundelfynger seems to have met with Henry’s approval, and he soon signified to Philip his desire that the latter should visit him in England. The Duke jumped at the chance to conclude a marriage which promised so many pecuniary advantages, and his anger at the ingratitude of Charles certainly did not make him any less anxious to listen to Henry’s proposals. He arrived in London on December 8[664], and at first the negotiations for the match proceeded with unexpected rapidity. Against two points on which Henry insisted, however, Philip raised strong objections[665]: the first was that he should take Mary as a bastard, ‘incapable by the laws and statutes of the realm of claiming any succession or title by right of inheritance,’ The second was the King’s refusal to except the name of the Pope from the list of those against whom the financial and political agreement which was to accompany the marriage was to be concluded: Philip, as a faithful Catholic, was apparently at first unwilling to enter a league which might bring him into conflict with the See of Rome. But the firmness of the King, coupled with the great financial profits which the match promised to Philip, finally triumphed over the religious scruples of the Wittelsbacher, and on January 24 he signed a treaty in which he accepted the marriage and the compact under the conditions on which Henry insisted: the agreement, however, was not to be considered binding unless Philip could get it ratified by his relatives in Germany before Whitsuntide, 1540. He left England, January 27, for this purpose, but his attempts were unsuccessful, and the proposal came to nothing. It was taken up a second time at a later date, and again abandoned. But though the scheme finally fell through there are a few interesting things to be noticed in connexion with the negotiations for it, which serve to make clear the trend things were taking at the time of Philip’s visit in London.