Along the route the people had gathered. Philip was aware once more of thousands of eyes upon him. He felt smaller than he did in the privacy of his own apartments; he longed to be grown up, and as tall and strong as Ruy.

But Ruy was riding close to him. That gave him courage. He did not turn his head to look at his friend, but he was aware of him. He recalled his encouraging words: “Do not be afraid. There will be just several hundred pairs of eyes instead of one.”

The procession, this time led by the Queen, had reached the gates of the Cloister. There it halted, and one of the nuns, who had been waiting at the gate, said in a loud voice, which could be heard by the stragglers on the edge of the crowd: “Who would enter in?”

Leonor answered for the Queen. “It is Doña Isabella, Queen and Empress, with her offspring, Philip and Maria.”

The nun immediately made a deep obeisance and signed for the gates to be flung wide open.

How cold it was inside the Cloister! Philip dreaded the moment when he would be stripped of his clothes. If he felt cold he must not give the slightest sign. When he was stripped he must not shiver, for if he did, all would see, and what would they think of the one who was destined to rule them if they looked on a poor, shivering baby?

The Abbess had come forward to greet the Queen, and when the Prince was presented to her, she knelt before him so that her cold gray eyes beneath her hood were level with his.

They went along to the great hall where food was laid out for them, and the Queen sat at the head of the table with Philip on her right hand. Maria, who sat next to Leonor, did not realize the solemnity of the occasion.

“Philip!” she called. “Look at me!”

But he did not look at her. He gave no sign that he had heard her. How could he, heir to half the world, allow himself even to notice the frivolity of a careless child who, it seemed, would never understand Spanish dignity and Spanish solemnity. Leonor was smiling indulgently. They would all be saying: “Ah, but she is a Hapsburg. What can one expect?” Yet why should he not also be a Hapsburg? He had the same father and mother as Maria. But a prince who would one day be a king of Spain must be Spanish in every way. His father was a Hapsburg, but the people of Spain wanted a Spaniard to rule over them. Philip had no choice. He had to be a quiet, solemn little Spaniard. Philip of Spain must be what others wished him to be.

But in any case he would have been quiet on this day because he was frightened. This was his first big public ceremony, and it was devised for him. If there had been no Philip, there would have been no gathering of solemn people. He must not fail to play his part in the manner that was expected.

The meal was over and they left the table. His mother had taken him by the hand and was leading him through the cold corridors. He had become intensely aware of the cold; that was because he knew that soon they would take his clothes from him. He would shiver. He knew he would shiver; he would shiver with cold and fright. They would despise him and … his father would hear of it.

They had entered the chapel—surely the coldest in the world. Now he must stand on a dais. His mother had left him and he stood alone. The nuns came forward. He did not like their black, flowing garments; their cold, pale faces seemed to leer at him from their hideous cowls; they were like creatures from a nightmare.

His teeth began to chatter. He prayed to the Holy Virgin, to the saints, and to the Cid: “Help me to be like the Cid … like my father.”

The nuns laid their cold hands upon him; deftly they stripped him of his clothes; they took everything from him, even his shift. There he stood, with all those eyes upon him, a naked little boy, with the whitest of bodies, which in itself was somehow shameful among these brown-skinned people.

He knew that somewhere among the watching crowd was Leonor; and the impulse came to him to look for her, to run to her and to cry against her breast, begging her to take him away from all these people and give him back his clothes.

He lowered his pale eyes and looked at his toes. None would guess how hard he was fighting to hold back his tears, to prevent the frail body from showing, by its shivering, how frightened he was.

The moments of nakedness could not last forever, although it seemed to the little boy that they would never end. But at last the cold hands were laid upon him and clothes were being slipped over his head. He was turned this way and that. The tight hose were put on his legs and he was forced into the breeches—the kind worn by men. Now came the black velvet jacket and the feather-decorated biretta. He watched the nuns’ white fingers fix the jewel-encrusted dagger in his belt. He was tired with so much standing and he found it difficult to stand straight and still as he had been told he must.

And now that he was dressed the ceremony was not over. The noblemen and monks had come to the dais, and one of them began to enumerate his titles in a very loud voice. Philip had not known that there were so many. He tried to remember them, for he expected it was very wrong not to know them all. He discovered that not only was he heir to half the old world, but also to the new one. So many possessions and the tight new clothes were almost more than he could bear.

Then his eyes caught the face of his new friend, Ruy Gomez. Ruy smiled at him. Philip did not return the smile. He gave his friend a solemn stare, but he was happier suddenly.

He listened to the protestations of loyalty; he accepted the homage; he looked with indifference, as he had been taught to do, from the swathed figures of the Dominican monks to the helmeted soldiers of the guard. He might be Don Philip the Prince of Spain; but he was also the friend of Ruy Gomez da Silva; he was still Leonor’s little Philip.

Philip never forgot the day his father returned. That was the end of childhood.

He had changed considerably from that frightened little boy of four who had stood naked before the grandees and ladies of the court, the monks, the nuns, and the soldiers in the Cloister of St. Anne.

He was less delicate, though still small for his age; his hair was yellow now, but his eyes were still the same pale shade of blue. He was quiet, dignified, and if he was not brilliant, he was intelligent; the most unusual of his characteristics was his astonishing self-control.

Friendship with Ruy Gomez had continued. Philip liked to have the boy in attendance, and if at times he wondered whether Ruy’s affection for him was tempered by the knowledge that he would one day be the King, and a king’s friendship could be a profitable one, Philip did not hold that against him.

Each day the importance of his position was impressed on Philip anew. When his father’s letters arrived, they were read to him. Charles wished his son to follow the course of his campaigns in Europe; and Philip, always docile, always obedient had listened when he was expected to listen, and absorbed as much as he could. He could speak no other language than Castilian; he had not distinguished himself in any branch of learning; but he could discuss his father’s campaigns as intelligently as though he had taken part in them.

And it was at this stage that Charles found an opportunity to break away from his military life and visit his family.

Philip stood in the great hall waiting to receive his father. He was clad in black velvet according to the fashion, but he wore a blue feather in his biretta—chosen by Leonor because she said it made his eyes look more blue.

Philip was aware of the anxiety all about him. He knew that his mother wished he were a few inches taller, and that the blue feather was meant to add that extra blue to his eyes so that they did not seem weak. All those about him were apprehensive as to the effect of the Prince on his father, the Emperor.

Then came the sound of heralds, the clatter of horses’ hooves and the cries of welcome; and into the hall stepped the hero, the legend, Charles the Fifth of Germany, Charles the First of Spain.

Their eyes met—father’s and son’s.

Charles saw a little boy—a very little boy—and his heart leaped with compassion and tenderness. He whispered to himself: “So that’s my Philip. Holy Mother of God, give him a good life.”

Philip had looked at the god and taken in as much as he could before making his obeisance. He saw a heavy man who seemed large more on account of his girth than his height. There was yellow hair, not unlike Philip’s, a yellow beard, a broad forehead, and a large, aquiline nose. His eyes were bluer than Philip’s; his face was crisscrossed with many lines etched, not only by anxieties, but by wind and sun of Germany, Italy, and Flanders as well as Spain. His aspect would have been benign but for the heavy, jutting jaw, which implied that ruthlessness and cruelty would not be lacking if the occasion demanded it.

To Philip he seemed to fit the picture of his imagination. There was power in the man and it emanated from him.

Charles had eyes for no one but the boy.

“My son!” he cried. “My son Philip!”

Then he strode forward and, as the boy would have remained kneeling, he cried: “Come, let me look at you. So you are my son, eh? You are Philip?”

Then he laughed loudly—for he was after all a Hapsburg, and if he wished he would defy Spanish ceremony—and embraced the boy, and held him fast against him as though he would never let him go.

At length he released him, and the Queen came forward with Maria. Maria, who was six, was old enough for decorum, but she showed none. She threw her arms about her father’s neck and refused to let go when commanded by her mother. Over her fair curly head the Emperor’s eyes met the solemn ones of his son and he smiled with approval, for he saw in this boy one who would be loved by the people of this alien land.