Queen Mary's principal minister of state at this
time was a crafty politician, whose name was Gar-
din^. Gardiner sent word to the emperor that there



1554] THE SPANISH MATCH 71

was great opposition to his son's marriage in England,
and that he feared that he should not be able to ac-
complish it, unless the terms of the contract of mar-
riage were made very favorable to the queen and to
England, and unless the emperor could furnish him
with a large sum of money to use as a means of
bringing influential persons of the realm to favor it
Charles decided to send the money. He borrowed it
of some of the rich cities of Germany, making his son
Philip give his bond to repay it as soon as he should
get possession of his bride, and of the rich and pow-
erful country over which she reigned. The amount
thus remitted to England is said by the historians of
those days to have been a sum equal to two millions
of dollars. The bribery was certainly on a very re-
spectable scale.
