iments of the like nature, which were distributed pretty
liberally by the Spanish ambassador among the members of her
council.[78]

In the following December, a solemn embassy left Brussels, to wait on
Mary and tender her the hand of Philip. It was headed by Lamoral, Count
Egmont, the Flemish noble so distinguished in later years by his
military achievements, and still more by his misfortunes. He was
attended by a number of Flemish lords and a splendid body of retainers.
He landed in Kent, where the rumor went abroad that it was Philip
himself; and so general was the detestation of the Spanish match among
the people, that it might have gone hard with the envoy, had the mistake
not been discovered. Egmont sailed up the Thames, and went ashore at
Tower Wharf, on the second of January, 1554. He was received with all
honor by Lord William Howard and several of the great English nobles,
and escorted in much state to Westminster, where his table was supplied
at the charge of the city. Gardiner entertained the embassy at a
sumptuous banquet; and the next day Egmont and his retinue proceeded to
Hampton Court, "where they had great cheer," says an old chronicler,
"and hunted the deer, and were so greedy of their destruction, that they
gave them not fair play for their lives; for," as he peevishly
complains, "they killed rag and tag, with hands and swords."[79]

On the twelfth, the Flemish count was presented to the queen, and
tendered her proposals of marriage in behalf of Prince Philip. Mary, who
probably thought she had made advances enough, now assumed a more
reserved air. "It was not for a maiden queen," she said, "thus publicly
to enter on so delicate a subject as her own marriage. This would be
better done by her ministers, to whom she would refer him. But this she
would have him understand," she added, as she cast her eyes on the ring
on her finger, "her realm was her first husband, and none other should
induce her to violate the oath which she had pledged at her coronation."

[Sidenote: MARRIAGE ARTICLES.]

Notwithstanding this prudery of Mary, she had already manifested such a
prepossession for her intended lord as to attract the notice of her
courtiers, one of whom refers it to the influence of a portrait of
Philip, of which she had become "greatly enamored."[80] That such a
picture was sent to her appears from a letter of Philip's aunt, the
regent of the Netherlands, in which she tells the English queen that she
h