The very first letter written by the Emperor after he had news of Mary’s proclamation instructed Renard to tell the new Queen that it would be advisable for her to take a husband at once, and to say that the Emperor would support her in any choice she might make. There were really very few princes whom Mary could have chosen. If she married an Englishman, there was none of fitting rank and faith to be her husband but Courtenay, whom she had just released from his long durance in the Tower, and the elderly Churchman, Cardinal Pole, both of these being of the blood royal of England. Mary, in violet velvet, rode in triumph from New Hall in Essex to the Tower of London on the 3rd August. A thousand velvet-clad courtiers followed in her train and ten thousand armed men formed her bodyguard. As she passed through the leafy lanes and into the smiling villages, and so to the eastern gate of her capital, no discordant voice reached her. Close behind her in a litter rode her younger sister, Elizabeth, with her fair skin and yellow hair, composed and self-possessed; but, as Mary well knew, ready to make common cause with her enemies if it would serve her own ends. Before Mary had left New Hall the clever, courtly French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles, had ridden out from London to greet her. Noailles’s task was a difficult one. He had done his best, almost openly, to aid Northumberland and exclude half-Spanish Mary from the throne; indeed, the Londoners, who hated him and his country, were loudly proclaiming that six thousand armed Frenchmen had been ready to invade England in the interests of Queen Jane.[10] But Noailles was supple and insinuating, and the first speech he made to Mary when he greeted her was an assurance of the devotion of his master to her and an offer of armed assistance if she needed it. Mary was polite but cool, for she knew, notwithstanding Noailles’s charming, that she had nothing to hope for from France. As she entered London there rode also in her train the Imperial ambassadors, jealous and distrustful of the Frenchman, who they knew was trying to checkmate them. Beyond formal greetings in the presence of many watchful eyes Renard had not been able to obtain private conference of the Queen, who remained in the Tower of London awaiting her journey to Richmond. Mary herself, knowing who her friends were, was naturally anxious to have speech with the representatives of her Imperial cousin, to whom she looked for guidance, and she suggested that Renard should seek entrance to the Tower in disguise to see her.[11] The ambassador, however, appears to have thought it safer and more dignified to have patience for a few days until, in the comparative freedom of Richmond, he could see the Queen without attracting so much attention as in the Tower. In the meanwhile he had been able in private conversation with Paget, of the Council, to broach the subject of the Queen’s marriage. From him he had learnt positively