When the service was over Philip d’Aubigné caught up the tired child in his arms, carried him back to his apartments, and caused him to be relieved of his heavy robes before proceeding to the hall where the coronation banquet was spread.[15] The company at the high table must have been a small one; besides the Legate, the Queen-mother,[16] and six bishops,[17] there seem to have been present at the coronation only six persons of sufficiently high rank to be mentioned by name in the chronicles of the time; the Earls of Pembroke and Ferrers, Philip d’Aubigné, John Marshal,[18] William Brewer, and Savaric de Mauléon.[19] There was however a considerable gathering of abbots and priors, and “a very great crowd” of lesser folk.[20] In the midst of the banquet a messenger made his way into the hall and delivered to the Earl Marshal aloud, in the hearing of all, an urgent appeal for succour from the constable of Goodrich castle, besieged on the preceding afternoon by some partisans of Louis. Goodrich was only twelve miles distant, and the incident was naturally felt to be a bad omen.[21] Guided by a common instinct, all the little company around the King turned, as John had turned many a time, to William the Marshal as their one hope, and before they separated for the night they went to him with the same request which had already been made to him by John and by little Henry himself: “You have made our young lord a knight; he owes his crown to you; we all of us together pray you to take him into your keeping.” “I cannot,” answered William, “I am old; the task is too heavy for me. Leave the matter till the Earl of Chester comes.” With this answer he dismissed them for the night.[22]