It was clear that nothing more could be got from England for Spanish objects unless some special effort were made, and Philip was forced to undertake the journey himself to try the effect of personal pressure. Mary’s joy at the news of his coming was pathetic in its intensity, though Pole warned her that, as had happened on other occasions, Philip might not be able to come after all. The hope of seeing her husband again seemed to give her new life, and she hurried to London, visiting Pole at Lambeth on the way, and exerting herself to the utmost to win him to her side. Thenceforward for weeks, whilst the King’s voyage was pending, the English Council sat nearly night and day, and couriers incessantly hurried backwards and forwards to and from London, Brussels, and Paris.[159] The French reinforced their troops around Calais and Guisnes, and all the signs pointed to the approach of a war between England and France at the bidding of Philip.
The King landed at Dover on the 18th March 1557, and again all his haughty frigidity gave way to genial smiles for all that was English.[160] To the Queen’s delight he spent two quiet days with her alone at Greenwich, and then rode through London to Whitehall by her side as she sat in her litter. Their reception by the citizens was polite, but cold; for though Philip personally was not unpopular, the idea of going to war with France for another nation’s quarrel was distasteful in the extreme to Englishmen of all classes. What complicated the situation infinitely was that Philip was at war with the Pope—that violent, headstrong enemy of his house and nation, Cardinal Caraffa, Paul IV.—and Pole, as legate, could not even greet the King, much less acquiesce as a political minister in a war against the Papacy on the part of England. Mary, too, was torn between her devotion to the Church on the one hand and her love for her husband on the other. Her idea, and that of her Council, was to provide a subsidy and an English contingent to Philip, without entering into a national war; and this much, under the existing treaty between Charles v. and Henry VIII. in 1543, Philip had a right to claim if he was attacked by France.
But the King wanted more from his wife’s country than that which he could have claimed even if he had not married the Queen, and he ceaselessly urged upon Mary, and upon her Council, heavily bribed to a man, the granting of much greater aid than that offered. He was at last successful in this, though it was still arranged that there was to be no declaration of war by Mary against France, the English forces being used only for the defence of Flanders and the territory of Calais. There were to be 8000 infantry and 1000 horse, and an English fleet with 6000 fighting men was to be raised and maintained, half at the cost of England and half by Philip.