The next day, at the Tower Stairs, a gallant company of courtiers, headed by Sir Anthony Browne, in the gorgeous garb he loved so well, awaited the coming of the Emperor’s representatives, whilst the guns on the Tower overhead boomed out their salutation. Egmont, the first of the Flemish nobles, was accompanied by Montmorenci, Sieur de Courrières, who had formerly come with Renard to England, as well as by several other high Imperial functionaries; and they were escorted by Lord William Howard, from Calais, and by Lord Cobham, from Dover, as Lieutenant of Kent. As the gallant embassy of eighty finely clad gentlemen pranced out of the Tower Gate, they were affectionately greeted by Courtenay, Hastings, and Strange on Tower Hill, and led through the City in state, though “the people,” we are told, “nothing rejoysing, helde downe their heddes sorrowfully.”[27] Nothing was left undone by Mary and her Court to show honour to the guests; and banquet followed banquet, whilst Egmont unsuccessfully strove to modify the terms of the treaty. Renard tells in a letter to the Emperor of a banquet given to the ambassadors by the Queen on the 6th January,[28] after which a little scene took place which well illustrates the free manners of the time. “And towards the end of the dinner the Lord Admiral [Howard], who had dined in an adjoining chamber, came in and stood before her [the Queen], who seemed pensive. He said something to her in English, and then turning to us, asked us whether we would like to know what he had said. Although her Majesty did her best to prevent him from translating it to us, he went on and said that he had wished that his Highness [Philip] had been seated there by her side, pointing to her right, in order to banish her melancholy. She blushed at this and asked why he said it, to which he replied that he was sure she was not cross and liked to hear it; whereupon the Queen and every one else laughed, and it all went off in good part.”