Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

Here the prince was to remain till Monday to recover from his voyage; perhaps to ascertain, before he left the neighbourhood of his own fleet, the humour of the barbarians among whom he had arrived. In Latin (he was unable to speak French) he addressed the lords on the causes which had brought him to England, the chief among those causes being the manifest will of God, to which he felt himself bound to submit. It was noticed that he never lifted his cap in speaking to any one,[339] but he evidently endeavoured to be courteous. With a stomach unrecovered from the sea, and disdaining precautions, he sate down on the night of his arrival to a public English supper; he even drained a tankard of ale, as an example, he said, to his Spanish companions.[340] The first evening passed off well, and he retired to seek such rest as the strange land and strange people, the altered diet, and the firing of guns, which never ceased through the summer night, would allow him.