It was Monday, and the eyes of London and the court were turned towards Greenwich Park, where the Queen was to give entertainment to the French envoy who had come once more to urge upon the Queen marriage with a son of the Medici, and to obtain an assurance that she would return to France the widow of the great Montgomery and his valiant lieutenant, Michel de la Forêt. The river was covered with boats and barges, festooned, canopied, and hung with banners and devices; and from sunrise music and singing conducted down the stream the gayly dressed populace--for those were the days when a man spent on his ruff and his hose and his russet coat as much as would feed and house a family for a year; when the fine-figured ruffler with sables about his neck, corked slipper, trimmed buskin, and cloak of silk or damask furred, carried his all upon his back. Loud-voiced gallants came floating by; men of a hundred guilds bearing devices pompously held on their way to the great pageant; country bumpkins up from Surrey roistered and swore that there was but one land that God had blessed, and challenged the grinning watermen from Gravesend and Hampton Court to deny it; and the sun with ardor drove from the sky every invading cloud, leaving Essex and Kent, as far as eye could see, perfect green gardens of opulence. Before Elizabeth had left her bed, London had emptied itself in Greenwich Park. Thither the London companies had come in their varied dazzling accoutrements--hundreds armed in fine corselets bearing the long Moorish pike; tall halberdiers in the unique armor called Almain-rivets, and gunners or muleteers equipped in shirts of mail, with morions or steel caps. Here, too, were to come the Gentlemen Pensioners, resplendent in scarlet, to “run with the spear”; and hundreds of men-at-arms were set at every point to give garish bravery to all. Thousands of citizens, open-mouthed, gazed down the long arenas of green festooned with every sort of decoration and picturesque invention. Cages of large birds from the Indies, fruits, corn, fishes, grapes hung in the trees, players perched in the branches discoursed sweet music, and poets recited their verses from rustic bridges or on platforms with weapons and armor hung trophywise on ragged staves. Upon a small lake a dolphin, four-and-twenty feet in length, came swimming, within its belly a lively orchestra; Italian tumblers swung from rope to bar; and crowds gathered at the places where bear and bull baiting were to excite the none too fastidious tastes of the time. All morning the gay delights went on, and at high noon the cry was carried from mouth to mouth, “The Queen! The Queen!”