“After the London bonfires,” adds Mr. Chamberlain, who tells in the same tone good and bad tidings, “Oxford lit fires and rung bells, and wrote verses in honour of the match.”[106] It appears, indeed, from a letter of Lord Treasurer Middlesex to Secretary Conway, that it was even in contemplation to decorate the chapel with jewels; "Sir Peter Lore’s jewels, and others of the Countess of Suffolk, now in pawn, should," wrote the Lord Treasurer, immediately after referring to his preparing the chapel, "be submitted to His Majesty’s inspection, though he hoped the King would not declare which he preferred, as advantage would be taken of his preference, but leave the Chancellor himself, and others, to bargain for them, as there was great necessity for frugality."[107] Footnote 106: State Papers, vol. cxliv., No. 13. Footnote 107: Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No. 20. The King, indeed, up to the very moment of his son’s return, had been sanguine of the marriage, and delighted to talk over the adventures of the journey, during which Buckingham had had seven falls, Sir Francis Cottington twelve, and the Prince not one; but his tone was now beginning to alter, which seemed strange to those who knew the King’s circumstances, and who considered how splendid a dower was expected with the Infanta. Lord Middlesex, who was afterwards discovered to have embezzled public money, had declared himself “sick at heart” with the idea of all these extraordinary charges, when the King was so ill able to meet even his ordinary expenses. Like all servants who rob their masters, his zeal was laudable; he could not, he wrote, “hold out, unless some extraordinary reply be thought of, or some large sums come in from Spain with the fleet; but would pawn his whole estate for the present.”[108] Footnote 108: Lord Middlesex to Secretary Conway.--State Papers, vol. cxliii., No. 60.