staggered back and stared at the princess. Slowly retiring, he
silently thrust into my hand the rich present that he had brought,
while at the same time he threw a look of flaming wrath on Lord
Cromwell, who had brought him the portrait of the princess and won
him to this marriage. The romantic, ardent lover vanished with this
look at his beloved. He approached the princess again--this time not
as a cavalier, but, with harsh and hasty words, he told her he was
the king himself. He bade her welcome in a few words, and gave her a
cold, formal embrace. He then hastily took my hand and drew me out
of the room, beckoning the rest to follow him. And when at length we
were out of the atmosphere of this poor ugly princess, and far
enough away from her, the king, with angry countenance, said to
Cromwell: 'Call you that a beauty? She is a Flanders mare, but no
princess.' [Footnote: Burnet, p. 174. Tytler, p. 417.] Anne's
ugliness was surely given her of God, that by it, the Church, in
which alone is salvation, might be delivered from the great danger
which threatened it. For had Anne of Cleves, the sister, niece,
granddaughter and aunt of all the Protestant princes of Germany,
been beautiful, incalculable danger would have threatened our
church. The king could not overcome his repugnance, and again his
conscience, which always appeared to be most tender and scrupulous,
when it was farthest from it and most regardless, must come to his
aid.

"The king declared that he had been only in appearance, not in his
innermost conscience, disposed to this marriage, from which he now
shrank back, because it would be, properly speaking, nothing more
than perfidy, perjury, and bigamy. For Anne's father had once
betrothed her to the son of the Duke of Lorraine, and had solemnly
pledged him his word to give her as a wife to the young duke as soon