However, here we are arrived at the Woolwich yard, where the great _Prince Royal_ is seen towering high above other craft, and the last touches are being given alike to the ship and to the arrangements, for Royalty are coming to grace the launching ceremony. There was a great “standing sett up,” Pett informs us, “in the most convenient place in the yard for his Majesty, the Queen and the Royal Children, and places fitted for the Ladies and Council all railed in and boarded.” All the rooms in Pett’s own lodgings had been “very handsomely hanged and furnished.” “Nothing was omitted that could be imagined anyways necessary both for ease and entertainment.” Pett had been round the dockyard on Sunday, September 23, and then in the evening came a messenger to him with a letter ordering him to be very careful and have the hold of the _Prince Royal_ searched lest “some persons disaffected might have board some holes privilly an’ the ship to sink her after she should be launched.” Pett, however, was far too wide-awake not to have foreseen any such possibility. On Monday morning, then, he and his brother and some of his assistants had the dock-gates opened. Everything was got ready for the approach of high tide and the time when the _Prince Royal_ was to be floated. But matters were not going to be quite satisfactory. It was, of course, a spring tide, but unfortunately it was blowing very hard from the south-west, and this kept back the Thames flood so that the water failed to come up to its expected mark, and the tide was no better than at neaps. This was a great disappointment, for presently arrived the King and his retinue. Pett and the Lord Admiral and the chief naval officers received James as His Majesty landed from his barge, but it was with a heavy heart. The King was conducted to Mr. Lydiard’s house, where he dined. The drums and trumpets were placed on the poop and forecastle of the _Prince Royal_, and the wind instruments assigned their proper place beside them. But still the tide was behind-hand.