Elizabeth, who was now at Hatfield, and eager to prove the sincerity of her conversion, wrote to her sister for copes, chasubles and everything necessary for Catholic worship in her chapel; but it was remarked that she surrounded herself exclusively with those of the new doctrines, and that she was considerably hampered by the constant supervision under which she lived. “Toutefois, je vous laisse à penser Sire,” wrote de Noailles, “si ladite dame Elisabeth est en peyne d’estre si près éclairée (watched) ce qui n’est fait sans quelque raison, car je vous puis asseurer Sire, qu’elle désire fort de se mettre hors de tutelle, et à ce que j’entends, il ne tiendra qu’à lord Courtenay qu’il ne l’espouse, et qu’elle ne le suive jusques au pays de Dampschier (Devonshire) et de Cornouailles, où il se peult croire que s’ils y estoient assemblez, ils seroient pour avoir une bonne part a ceste couronne.... Mais le malheur est tel, que ledit de Courtenay est en si grande craincte, qu’il n’ose rien entreprendre. Je ne vois moyen qui soit pour l’empeschier sinon la faute de cueur.”[382] On the 2nd January 1554, the imperial envoys, Counts Egmont and Lalain, Jean de Montmorency, Lord of Corrières, and the Sieur de Nigry, Chancellor of the Order of the Golden Fleece, arrived in England, “for the knitting up of the marriage of the Queen to the King of Spain, before whose landing there was let off a great peal of guns in the Tower”. At the Tower wharf they were met by Sir Anthony Browne, “he being clothed in a very gorgeous apparel,” and on Tower Hill, the Earl of Devon, and others received them, “in most honourable and familiar wise”. Courtenay gave his right hand to Count Egmont, “and brought him throughout Cheapside, and so forth to Westminster; the people nothing rejoicing held down their heads sorrowfully. The day before his coming in, as his retinue and harbingers came riding through London, the boys pelted them with snowballs, so hateful was the sight of their coming in to them.”[383] The Council and the municipality of London did their best to counteract the impression conveyed by the attitude of the people, and the next day, the Lord Mayor and the Lord Chamberlain waited on the envoys, and presented them with various rich gifts. On the 9th, they were invited to a banquet given by the Lords of the Privy Council. On the 10th they went to Hampton Court.[384] In an audience, at which the whole court was present, they formally demanded Mary’s hand for the Prince of Spain. The Queen replied, that it became not a woman to speak in public, on so delicate a matter as her own marriage, but that they might confer with her ministers, who would make known to them her resolution; but, fixing her eyes on the ring that had been placed on her finger at her coronation, she told the envoys to bear in mind that her realm was her first husband, and that no consideration would induce her to violate the faith she had already pledged.[385]