Page 18 of Love, Remember Me

"Then what will happen to her?" Hans said, lowering his voice.

"He is the king, so I do not know; but a simple man would try to find a way to void the betrothal. I suppose it will be the same for the king. He will want Cromwell and his council to give him a means of escape; but he will not want to appear at fault, you understand. Henry Tudor is not a man to easily admit a fault. My mother warned me of that lest I inadvertently offend him. Is there anything that could be used against the princess, Hans?"

"There was talk of a betrothal with the son of the Duke of Lorraine when the princess was a child, but it came to nothing. No contracts were drawn, or signed. She was completely free to contract this marriage."

"What are you saying?" the princess asked Hans.

He quickly told her, saying, "Lady Nyssa is sympathetic to your cause, my princess. She would help if she could, but has no power to do so."

"You must tell the princess to behave with dignity and composure," Nyssa interrupted him. "She must behave as if everything is perfectly all right and she has not the least suspicion that the king is disappointed in her. She must go out of her way to please him both publicly and privately. The king is not a man to hide his feelings, and once the different factions that people the court learn of his dissatisfaction, your mistress will become a hunted animal. She must pretend she is unaware of her position, Hans. That will be the key to her survival."

The page translated her words to the princess, who nodded most vigorously. "Ya! Ya! She is right, my liebling. She may be unfamiliar with the court, but she is a clever little girl. Do you think the king will keep his pledge, and marry me?"

Hans asked the questions of Nyssa, who said, "Unless the council can find a legitimate reason to void the marriage contract, the king will have no other choice than to marry the princess. I do not think they will find such a reason, and that is why I advise her to do everything in her power to please the king. She must begin music lessons immediately. Mistress Howard is a very fine musician. Have the princess ask her to teach her to play the lute, and the virginals. And she must learn to dance, Hans. We can all teach her to dance. The king loves to dance."

Hans relayed Nyssa's advice to his mistress.

"That great hulk of a man dances?" Anne of Cleves said, astounded. "I cannot imagine it. Why, the very floor must shake when he prances about in his elegant finery." She chuckled at the thought.

"He is a fine dancer, and very graceful despite his size," Nyssa said when Hans had told her the princess's words.

"Ya? So, I must learn to be as facile and as graceful, then. Ya! I shall be the very model of a wife for King Henry."

Nyssa giggled when Hans told her what the princess had said. Then she grew serious again. "The princess must defer to the king at all times, and in all things, but she must not be so weak-kneed as to be thought spineless, or taken advantage of by others. He is not afraid of women with intellect. He just prefers to be superior to them."

Anne of Cleves burst out laughing as Hans translated the girl's words. "Ya! 'Tis true of all men. My brother and King Henry would get on most famously, I think. Still, cannot one consider that the Lord God, having created man first, possibly acknowledged an error, and created woman? It is something to ponder, eh, my friends?"

The princess and her retinue moved on to Dartford while the court departed for Greenwich on the second day of January.I like her not!became a catch phrase among witty courtiers who quickly learned of the king's unhappiness with the Princess of Cleves. As expected, however, the painter, Holbein, escaped the royal wrath. His New Year's gift to his outraged master, a portrait of the two-year-old heir apparent in a red satin gown and bonnet, gained him instant pardon, particularly as the little boy's resemblance to his father was most pronounced.

To almost everyone's delight, the king was furious with his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Back in London's Whitehall Palace, before the council, the king roared, "You deceived me, you wily devil, and I would know why! I might have had a French or Danish wife, but no! Only the match with Cleves would suit you.Why? Her skin is sallow, and her features are sharp. She is tall, and though not fat, she is big. A Flanders mare! Well, 'tis one mare this royal stallion will not mount, sir!"

The council snickered as Thomas Cromwell paled. Still, he was not yet beaten. He turned to the Lord Admiral and demanded angrily, "You saw her, my lord, and yet you did not warn the king of her unsuitability. I could but rely on the reports of her. You were the first Englishman to see her, and you did not tell us that she would not do."

"It was not my place to do so, my lord," the admiral said indignantly. "The match was made. I assumed this woman was to be my queen. It was not my place to criticize her. Perhaps she is not quite the lady Master Holbein portrayed her as, but she is pleasant and good-hearted. It was not my place to find fault in her."

The king rounded on Cromwell. "He is correct, Crum! You did not investigate this woman thoroughly enough, and now I am left to be wed and bedded with her.I like her not! I like her not!"

"It is an advantageous match for Your Grace," Cromwell took another tack. "This marriage you have so wisely contracted to balances the alliance between France and The Holy Roman Empire."

"Surely there must be another remedy for Your Grace," the Duke of Norfolk said softly.

"There is no remedy," Cromwell said bluntly. "There is absolutely no excuse the king can offer for crying off of this match. There is no precontract with any other. There is no consanguinity. She is not a Lutheran, but rather like Your Grace follows the doctrine whereby the Church yields its authority to the state."

"I have not been well-handled," muttered the king dourly. "She is nothing as was reported to me; and had I known it, she would not have come to England, my lords. Now I must needs put my neck in this noose you have fashioned for me. Nay, I have not been well-handled!" He glared around the table at them, but his hardest look was reserved for Thomas Cromwell, and the Lord Chancellor's enemies knew then and there that his days were numbered. The butcher's son had finally made a mistake.

Cromwell arose and said, "On what day will you be pleased to have the queen crowned, Your Grace? Will it still be Candlemas as we discussed?"

The king glowered at him. "We will talk on it when I have made her my queen," he said grimly.

Cromwell winced, but continued. "We will have to leave soon to welcome the princess to London, Your Grace."

Without another word Henry Tudor arose and departed the room.

"Your time grows short, Crum," the Duke of Norfolk said boldly.

"I am a more loyal servant of the king's majesty than you are, Duke Thomas," Cromwell replied. "I am not gone yet."

The king left London for Greenwich with a great party of nobles in his retinue. They would meet Anne of Cleves and her escort at Shooter's Hill near Blackheath, and the king would accompany his bride into London. Henry Tudor came down the Thames from London by barge. All the vessels accompanying him were decorated gaily with bright silk streamers that fluttered in the cold light breeze. The Lord Mayor of London and his aldermen had their own barge, and they traveled behind the king's royal barge.

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