The next step was to send ambassadors to England to treat of the marriage. These were the Bishop of Tarbes, afterwards Cardinal Grammont, first president of the Parliament of Toulouse, the Vicomte de Turenne, and La Viste, president of the Parliament of Paris. They were instructed by Francis to go straight to the Princess Mary, visit and salute her in his name, and to express his “sore longing to have her portraiture”. Hereupon, Henry sent Francis his own and Mary’s picture,[54] assuring him that he was much obliged to him for condescending to take his little daughter, who did not deserve such honour.[55] The Venetians looked upon the marriage as certain, and thought that war would be waged in consequence, in every direction;[56] but the more general opinion in Europe was that Henry would not succeed in a matrimonial alliance with any foreign potentate, but that the English would insist on having a king of their own, and would not suffer a foreigner to sit upon the throne.[57] “In time of war,” said the Archbishop of Capua to Charles V., “the English made use of their Princess as they did of an owl, as a decoy for alluring the smaller birds.” The Emperor, not understanding the allusion, asked the Archbishop what he meant by “owl,” and when it was explained to him laughed heartily. Meanwhile, the French envoys saw the Princess, on St. George’s Day (1527). She spoke to them in French and Latin, and was made to display her achievements in writing and on the harpsichord. Spinelli wrote that a solemn betrothal had taken place at Greenwich, when the Bishop of Tarbes had delivered an oration, after which he and the Vicomte de Turenne had dined with the King, the others dining apart. At the end of dinner they went to the Queen’s apartments, where the Princess danced with de Turenne, who considered her very handsome, and admirable by reason of her great and uncommon mental endowments, but so thin, spare and small, as to render it impossible for her to be married for the next three years.[58] A succession of jousts and masks of the most dazzling description followed. Spinelli, in relating the brilliant course of entertainments, says of one in particular:—