Leicester had done his best to stop the embassy, but without effect, and wrote to Lord Shrewsbury that he “was greatly troubled at these great lords coming.”[447] He tried to work upon the Queen’s weak side, by assuring her that the one object of the Frenchmen was to lead her into heavy expenditure, and so to enfeeble her, that she might the more easily be conquered.[448] This, at all events, caused some restriction in the expenditure; for the Queen suddenly discovered that it would not be dignified for her to entertain the Ambassadors or pay for horses until they actually arrived in London. Burghley may be presumed to have been delighted at their coming, for he made no effort to limit the cost of his banquet to them at Cecil House, in the Strand, which was one of the most splendid entertainments offered to them. There is in the Lansdowne MSS. a full relation of this splendid feast of the 30th April, with the bills of fare, accounts of expenses, &c., which gives some notion of the splendour and extent of Burghley’s household. There were consumed two stags, 40s.; two bucks, 20s.; six kids, 24s.; six pigs, 10s.; six shins of beef, 24s.; four gammons of bacon, 16s.; one swan, 10s.; three cranes, 20s.; twenty-four curlews, 24s.; fifteen pheasants, 30s.; fifty-four herons, £8, 15s.; eight partridges, 8s., and vast quantities of meat of all sorts; and sturgeon, conger, salmon, trout, lampreys, lobsters, prawns, gurnards, oysters, and many sorts of fresh-water fish. Herbs and salads cost no less than 36s., and cream, 27s. There were consumed 3300 eggs, 360 lbs. of butter, 42 lbs. of spices, and three gallons of rose-water. £11, 7s. 3d. was paid for the hire of extra vessels and glass; flowers and rushes cost £5, 7s. 10d., and Turkey carpets, £11. This Gargantuan feast was served by forty-nine gentlemen and thirty-four servants, and was washed down with £75 worth of beer as well as Gascon, sack, hippocras, and other wine costing £21; the entire expenditure on the afternoon’s feeding being £649, 1s. 5d. Though Burghley and Sussex had brought over the embassy in hopes of a marriage, or at least an alliance, the Queen changed from hour to hour. When Leicester complained to her, she silenced him by saying that she could avoid a marriage whenever she liked by bringing Alençon over whilst the embassy was in England, and then setting the Frenchmen at loggerheads, and by subsidising the Prince’s attempts in Flanders. At the same time she certainly led Sussex, and probably Burghley, to believe that she might be in earnest at last.