After a stormy passage that threatened on several occasions to end in shipwreck, it was a thankful fugitive party (despite their failure to reach Spain) that finally made landfall at Quilleboeuf in France, with just one barrel of water to spare. Prevented by bad weather from travelling to Spain the earls found themselves enveloped in a diplomatic storm following their arrival in France, without passports. Soon placed under temporary arrest, the earls were later permitted by the French king to undertake their journey to Spanish Flanders. A furious London government had sought their extradition in vain.