To retrieve his honor, he made an attack on France; and laying siege to Metz with an army of a hundred thousand men, he conducted the enterprise in person, and seemed determined, at all hazards, to succeed in an undertaking which had fixed the attention of Europe.

But the duke of Guise, who defended Metz with a garrison composed of the bravest nobility of France, exerted such vigilance, conduct, and valor, that the siege was protracted to the depth of winter; and the emperor found it dangerous to persevere any longer.

He retired with the remains of his army into the Low Countries, much dejected with that reverse of fortune which in his declining years, had so fatally overtaken him.
No sooner did Charles hear of the death of Edward, and the accession of his kinswoman Mary to the crown of England, than he formed the scheme of acquiring that kingdom to his family; and he hoped by this incident to balance all the losses which he had sustained in Germany.

His son Philip was a widower; and though he was only twenty-seven years of age, eleven years younger than the queen, this objection, it was thought, would be overlooked, and there was no reason to despair of her still having a numerous issue.

The emperor, therefore, immediately sent over an agent to signify his intentions to Mary; who, pleased with the support of so powerful an alliance, and glad to unite herself more closely with her mother's family, to which she was ever strongly attached, readily embraced the proposal.