Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/444

 and the reverence shown him by the lords and knights about him convinced her that he was her destined husband.

To outward appearance the interview passed off well. The king spent the evening in her company, and was with her again next morning till past midday, when he took his leave and returned to Greenwich. It is perhaps an exaggeration that he was disgusted with her at the first glance. But he confessed to Cromwell next day that though she was ‘well and seemly,’ he considered her ‘nothing so fair as had been reported.’ The tedious effort to converse with her could not have helped to alleviate any disappointment which he felt at her personal appearance, and he asked in dismay if there was no means by which he could avoid fulfilling the engagement. Had she not made a contract once with the Marquis of Lorraine? This impediment was discussed by the council, but the precontract had been annulled. ‘Is there no remedy, then,’ said the king, ‘but that I must needs put my neck in the yoke?’ There appeared to be none, and the victim resigned himself to his fate, giving no external evidence of his extreme mortification. Anne meanwhile completed her journey up to London. A rich tent of cloth of gold had been set up for her on Blackheath, where the city companies and a great array of knights and gentlemen came to meet her, and there Henry himself again met her and gave her a public greeting, riding with her by his side in procession to Greenwich. The following Tuesday, being Twelfth day, was appointed for the marriage. That morning the king said to Cromwell, ‘My lord, if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that which I must do this day for none earthly thing.’ The rite, however, was duly performed by Cranmer at Greenwich, and the pair showed themselves in procession that same day afterwards. Chroniclers report, with their usual delight in pageants, the jousts which took place on the following Sunday, and a procession up the river to Westminster on 4 Feb. Parliament met on 12 April, and among other matters settled the dower of the new queen; and nothing occurred for some time to show the world at large that there was the least disposition to call in question the validity of the marriage.

But a great change took place during the next three months. On 17 April Cromwell was created earl of Essex, as if his services in the matter of the king's marriage had marked him for peculiar honour. In June he was arrested and sent to the Tower. His fall was connected with a great political change and a reaction in favour of catholic doctrines. At the time of the marriage Henry stood in no small fear of the emperor, and indeed of a European combination against him, owing to the policy of which Cromwell had been the instrument. The marriage was calculated to give the emperor some trouble at home by the encouragement it gave to the German protestants. But now Henry was rather inclined to seek reconciliation with the emperor, and to drop the alliance with the German princes. He accordingly had the less difficulty in seeking to release himself from a distasteful union. An act of attainder was passed against Cromwell in parliament, and while he lay in prison expecting his inevitable fate, the king compelled him to reveal a number of shameful conversations with himself, tending to show that he had so disliked the lady all along that he had never consummated the marriage, and that if she was a maid when she came to him (which his majesty was pleased to doubt) he had left her just as good a one as before. On this, both houses of parliament having requested that the validity of the marriage should be inquired into, the question was laid before convocation, which, on 9 July, unanimously declared it to be null and void. An act of parliament was immediately passed in accordance with this determination, and very soon afterwards—though on what precise day is uncertain—Henry married Katharine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece, in whom he had evidently for some time taken a very strong interest.

It must be owned that Anne herself consented to the dissolution of her marriage with the king. On 25 June the king had formally notified his intentions to her by a deputation whom he sent to her at Richmond. At first she fainted at the intimation, but she agreed to refer the matter to the clergy, and seemed satisfied with an arrangement by which lands to the value of 3,000l. a year were settled upon her on her renouncing the name of queen for that of the king's ‘sister.’ A further condition was attached to the grant, that she should not cross the sea again but remain the rest of her days in England.

There is not much to record of her afterlife. There was a scandalous report at one time, which proved to be unfounded, that she had given birth to a child. After the fall of Katharine Howard her brother, the Duke of Cleves, vainly hoped that the king would take her back again as his wife. Under Edward VI she was put to some inconvenience by the pensions which ought to have been paid by the crown to some of her servants falling into arrear, and also by some exchange of land with the king which