To this frank, and not very flattering statement, so far as the young lady was concerned, the Landgrave answered stoutly and characteristically.  The Prince was a Spanish subject, he said, and would not be able to protect Anna in her belief, who would sooner or later become a fugitive:  he was but a Count in Germany, and no fitting match for an Elector’s daughter; moreover, the lady herself ought to be consulted, who had not even seen the Prince.  If she were crooked in body, as the Elector stated, it was a shame to expose her; to conceal it, however, was questionable, as the Prince might complain afterwards that a straight princess had been promised, and a crooked one fraudulently substituted,—­and so on, though a good deal more of such quaint casuistry, in which the Landgrave was accomplished.  The amount of his answer, however, to the marriage proposal was an unequivocal negative, from which he never wavered.

In consequence of this opposition, the negotiations were for a time suspended.  Augustus implored the Prince not to abandon the project, promising that every effort should be made to gain over the Landgrave, hinting that the old man might “go to his long rest soon,” and even suggesting that if the worst came to the worst, he had bound himself to do nothing without the knowledge of the Landgrave, but was not obliged to wait for his consent.

On the other hand, the Prince had communicated to the King of Spain the fact of the proposed marriage.  He had also held many long conversations with the Regent and with Granvelle.  In all these interviews he had uniformly used one language:  his future wife was to “live as a Catholic,” and if that point were not conceded, he would break off the negotiations.  He did not pretend that she was to abjure her Protestant faith.  The Duchess, in describing to Philip the conditions, as sketched to her by the Prince, stated expressly that Augustus of Saxony was to consent that his niece “should live Catholically after the marriage,” but that it was quite improbable that “before the nuptials she would be permitted to abjure her errors, and receive necessary absolution, according to the rules of the Church.”  The Duchess, while stating her full confidence in the orthodoxy of the Prince, expressed at the same time her fears that attempts might be made in the future by his new connexions “to pervert him to their depraved opinions.”

A silence of many months ensued on the part of the sovereign, during which he was going through the laborious process of making up his mind, or rather of having it made up for him by people a thousand miles off.  In the autumn Granvelle wrote to say that the Prince was very much surprised to have been kept so long waiting for a definite reply to his communications, made at the beginning of the year concerning his intended marriage, and to learn at last that his Majesty had sent no answer, upon the ground that the match had been broken off; the fact being, that the negotiations were proceeding more earnestly than ever.