So, after a great deal of debate among the king's counselors and in Parliament, it was finally decided to send a grand embassage to Paris to propose to the King of France that he should give his little daughter Isabella in marriage to Richard, King of England.
A grand embassage sent to France.
This embassage consisted of an archbishop, two earls, and twenty knights, attended each by two squires, making forty squires in all, and five hundred horsemen. The party proceeded from London to Dover, then crossed to Calais, which was at this time an English possession, and thence proceeded to Paris.
Their reception.
When they arrived at Paris they entered the city with great pomp and parade, being received with great honor by the French king, and they were lodged sumptuously in quarters provided for them.
The embassadors were also very honorably received at court. The king invited them to dine with him, and entertained them handsomely, but many objections were made to the proposed marriage.
"How can we," said the French counselors, "give a Princess of France in marriage to our worst and bitterest enemy?"
To this the embassadors replied that the marriage would establish and confirm a permanent peace between the two countries.
Then there was another objection. Isabella was already engaged. She had been betrothed some time before to the son of a duke of one of the neighboring countries. But the embassadors said that they thought this could be arranged.
While these negotiations were going on, the embassadors asked permission to see the princess. This at first the king and queen, Isabella's father and mother, declined. They said that she was only eight or nine years old, and that such a child would not know at all how to conduct at such an interview.