colored so that the skin had the appearance of rose petals; in reality Anne’s skin was brownish and most disfiguringly pock-marked. She seemed quite ugly to Henry, and as it did not occur to him that his person might have produced a similar shock to her, he was speechless with anger.
His one idea was to remove himself from her presence as quickly as possible; his little scheme, to “nourish love” as he had described it to Cromwell, had failed. He was too upset to give her the sables. She should have no such gift from his hands! He was mad with rage. His wise marriage had brought him a woman who delighted him not. Because her name was Anne, he had thought of another Anne, and his vision of his bride had been a blurred Anne Boleyn, as meek as Jane Seymour. And here he was, confronted by a creature whose accents jarred on him, whose face and figure repelled him. He had been misled. Holbein had misled him! Cromwell had misled him. Cromwell! He gnashed his teeth over that name. Yes, Cromwell had brought about this unhappy state of affairs. Cromwell had brought him Anne of Cleves.
“Alas!” he cried. “Whom shall men trust! I see no such thing as hath been shown me of her pictures and report. I am ashamed that men have praised her as they have done, and I love her not!”
But he was polite enough to Anne in public, so that the crowds of his subjects to whom pageantry was the flavoring in their dull dish of life, did not guess that the King was anything but satisfied. Anne in her cloth of gold and rich jewelry seemed beautiful enough to them; they did not know that in private the King was berating Cromwell, likening his new bride to a great Flanders mare, that his conscience was asking him if the lady’s contract with the Duke of Lorraine did not make a marriage between herself and the King illegal.
Poor Anne was deliberately delayed at Dartford whilst Henry tried to find some excuse for not continuing with the marriage. She was melancholy. The King had shown his dislike quite clearly; she had seen the great red face grow redder; she had seen the small eyes almost disappear into the puffy flesh; she had seen the quick distaste. She herself was disappointed, such accounts had she had of the once handsomest prince in Christendom; and in reality he was a puffed-out, unwieldy, fleshy man with great white hands overloaded with jewels, into whose dazzling garments two men could be wrapped with room to spare; on his face was the mark of internal disease; and bandages bulged about his leg; he had the wickedest mouth and cruelest eyes she had ever seen. She could but, waiting at Dartford, remember stories she had heard of this man. How had Katharine met her death? What had she suffered before she died? All the world knew the fate of tragic Anne Boleyn. And poor Jane Seymour? Was it true that after having given the King a son she had been so neglected that she had died?
She thought of the long and tiring journey from Dusseldorf to Calais, and the Channel crossing to her new home; she thought of the journey to Rochester; until then she had been reasonably happy. Then she had seen him, and seeing him it was not difficult to believe there was a good deal of truth in the stories she had heard concerning his treatment of his wives. And now she was to be one of them, or perhaps she would not, for, having seen the distaste in his face, she could guess at the meaning of this delay. She did not know whether she hoped he would marry her or whether she would prefer to suffer the humiliation of being sent home because her person was displeasing to him.
Meanwhile Henry was flying into such rages that all who must come into contact with him went in fear for their lives. Was there a previous contract? He was sure there was! Should he endanger the safety of England by producing another bastard? His conscience, his most scrupulous conscience, would not allow him to put his head into a halter until he was sure.
It was Cromwell who must make him act reasonably, Cromwell who would get a cuff for his pains.
“Your Most Gracious Majesty, the Emperor is being feted in Paris. An you marry not this woman you throw the Duke of Cleves into an alliance with Charles and Francis. We should stand alone.”
Cromwell was eloquent and convincing; after all he was pleading for Cromwell. If this marriage failed, Cromwell failed, and he knew his head to be resting very lightly on his shoulders, and that the King would be delighted to find a reason for striking it off. But Henry knew that in this matter, Cromwell spoke wisely. If Henry feared civil war more than anything, then next he feared friendship between Charles and Francis, and this was what had been accomplished. He dared not refuse to marry Anne of Cleves.
“If I had known so much before, she should not have come hither!” he said, looking menacingly at Cromwell, as though the meetings between Charles and Francis had been arranged by him. Henry’s voice broke on a tearful note. “But what remedy now! What remedy but to put my head in the yoke and marry this...” His cheeks puffed with anger and his eyes were murderous. “What remedy but to marry this great Flanders mare!”
There followed the ceremony of marriage with its gorgeously appareled men and women, its gilded barges and banners and streamers. Henry in a gown of cloth of gold raised with great silver flowers, with his coat of crimson satin decorated with great flashing diamonds, was a sullen bridegroom. Cromwell was terrified, for he knew not how this would end, and he had in his mind such examples of men who had displeased the King as would make a braver man than he was tremble. The Henry of ten years ago would never have entered into this marriage; but this Henry was more careful of his throne. He spoke truthfully when he had said a few hours before the ceremony that if it were not for the sake of his realm he would never have done this thing.
Cromwell did not give up hope. He knew the King well; it might be that any wife was better than no wife at all; and there were less pleasant looking females than Anne of Cleves. She was docile enough and the King liked docility in women; the last Queen had been married for that very quality.
The morning after the wedding day he sought audience with the King; he looked in vain for that expression of satiety in the King’s coarse red face.
“Well?” roared Henry, and Cromwell noticed with fresh terror that his master liked him no better this day than he had done on the previous one.
“Your Most Gracious Majesty,” murmured the trembling Cromwell, “I would know if you are any more pleased with your Queen.”
“Nay, my lord!” said the King viciously, and glared at Cromwell, laying the blame for this catastrophe entirely upon him. “Much worse! For by her breasts and belly she should be no maid; which, when I felt them, strake me so to the heart that I had neither will nor courage to prove the rest.”
Cromwell left his master, trembling for his future.
Catherine Howard could not sleep for excitement. At last she had come to court. Her grandmother had provided her with garments she would need, and Catherine had never felt so affluent in the whole of her eighteen years. How exciting it was to peep through the windows at personages who had been mere names to her! She saw Thomas Cromwell walking through the courtyards, cap in hand, with the King himself. Catherine shuddered at the sight of that man. “Beware of the blacksmith’s son!” her grandmother had said. “He is no friend of the Howards.” Always before Catherine had seen the King from a great distance; closer he seemed larger, more sparkling than ever, and very terrifying, so that she felt a greater urge to run from him than she did even from Thomas Cromwell. The King was loud in conversation, laughter and wrath, and his red face in anger was an alarming sight. Sometimes he would hobble across the courtyards with a stick, and she had seen his face go dark with the pain he suffered in his leg, and he would shout and cuff anyone who annoyed him. His cheeks were so puffed out and swollen that his eyes
