and he entered the barge accompanied by the Duke of Alva. A crowd of gentlemen was waiting to receive him at the landing-place. As he stepped out—not perhaps without some natural nervousness and sharp glances round him—the whole assemblage knelt. A salute was fired from the batteries, and Lord Shrewsbury presented him with the order of the Garter.[1] An enthusiastic eye-witness thus describes Philip's appearance:—
'Of visage he is well favoured, with a broad forehead and grey eyes, straight-nosed and of manly countenance. From the forehead to the point of his chin his face groweth small. His pace is princely, and gait so straight and upright as he loseth no inch of his height; with a yellow head and a yellow beard; and thus to conclude, he is so well proportioned of body, arm, leg, and every other limb to the same, as nature cannot work a more perfect pattern, and, as I have learned, of the age of 28 years. His Majesty I judge to be of a stout stomach, pregnant-witted, and of most gentle nature.'[2]
Sir Anthony Brown approached, leading a horse with a saddle-cloth of crimson velvet, embroidered with
- ↑ Antiquaries dispute whether Philip received the Garter on board his own vessel or after he came on shore. Lord Shrewsbury himself settles the important point. 'I, the Lord Steward,' Shrewsbury wrote to Wotton, 'at his coming to land, presented the Garter to him.'—French MSS. Mary, State Paper Office.
- ↑ John Elder to the Bishop of Caithness: Queen Jane and Queen Mary, appendix 10. Elder adds that his stature was about that of a certain 'John Hume, my Lord of Jedward's kinsman,' which does not help our information. Philip, however, was short.
