On February 10, 1582, Alençon’s fleet of fifteen ships anchored before Flushing, where the Princes of Orange and Epinay, with the members of the States, were already assembled to welcome the new sovereign of Brabant. He entered the town in great pomp with William the Silent on one side of him and Leicester on the other, and followed by Hunsdon, Willoughby, Philip Sidney, Sir John Norris who was in command of the English auxiliaries, and many other Englishmen. The bells rang, the guns thundered their welcome, and the crowds acclaimed their new ruler; but as Orange in his speech to the States clearly indicated, it was not the feeble Prince, a Frenchman, and a Catholic, they were greeting so much as the strong Protestant Queen of England, under whose auspices and protection he came. Wherever Frenchmen alone appeared they were looked at askance: at Middleburg the townspeople stoutly refused to admit even their new Duke’s French bodyguard until Leicester himself besought them to do so on his guarantee. All the citadels were open to Englishmen, but not a Frenchman, except Alençon, was allowed to enter them. Alençon wrote to Marchaumont almost as soon as he arrived that Orange and Leicester were arranging everything over his head, and he saw clearly that after all he was to play second fiddle. After some delay and misgiving, and a dispute for precedence between Brussels and Antwerp, the already disillusioned Prince made his state entry into the latter city, and received the oath of allegiance as Duke of Brabant. Everything that pomp could do was done to invest the ceremony with solemnity. When Orange clasped around the new Duke his ermine-bordered mantle he whispered to him, “I will fasten it firmly, Monseigneur, so that no one shall deprive you of it.” Garbed in his ducal panoply he passed through the city on horseback to the palace of St. Michael, sums of money in coins stamped with his effigy were flung to the crowd, and in appearance at least his longing for sovereignty was satisfied. But in appearance alone, for the States and Orange were urged by Leicester never to let the power out of their hands--and they never did.