This proceeding took place on the thirtieth of October. On the seventeenth of the month following, the commons waited on the queen at her palace of Whitehall, to which she was confined by indisposition, and presented their address. Mary, instead of replying by her chancellor, as was usual, answered them in person. She told them, that from God she held her crown, and that to him alone should she turn for counsel in a matter so important;[77] she had not yet made up her mind to marry; but since they considered it so necessary for the weal of the kingdom, she would take it into consideration. It was a matter in which no one was so much interested as herself. But they might be assured that, in her choice, she would have regard to the happiness of her people, full as much as to her own. The commons, who had rarely the courage to withstand the frown of their Tudor princes, professed themselves contented with this assurance; and, from this moment, opposition ceased from that quarter. Mary's arguments were reinforced by more conciliatory, but not less efficacious persuasives, in the form of gold crowns, gold chains, and other compliments of the like nature, which were distributed pretty liberally by the Spanish ambassador among the members of her council.[78] In the following December, a solemn embassy left Brussels, to wait on Mary and tender her the hand of Philip. It was headed by Lamoral, Count Egmont, the Flemish noble so distinguished in later years by his military achievements, and still more by his misfortunes. He was attended by a number of Flemish lords and a splendid body of retainers. He landed in Kent, where the rumor went abroad that it was Philip himself; and so general was the detestation of the Spanish match among the people, that it might have gone hard with the envoy, had the mistake not been discovered. Egmont sailed up the Thames, and went ashore at Tower Wharf, on the second of January, 1554. He was received with all honor by Lord William Howard and several of the great English nobles, and escorted in much state to Westminster, where his table was supplied at the charge of the city. Gardiner entertained the embassy at a sumptuous banquet; and the next day Egmont and his retinue proceeded to Hampton Court, "where they had great cheer," says an old chronicler, "and hunted the deer, and were so greedy of their destruction, that they gave them not fair play for their lives; for," as he peevishly complains, "they killed rag and tag, with hands and swords."[79]