auze and jewelled cloth-of-gold. Her inert hands
(Holbein's hands belong to his truth-telling revelations), jewelled
even on the thumb, are listlessly clasped upon each other; her
crimson-velvet dress is heavily banded with gold and pearl embroidery.

No Venus certainly, and perhaps somewhat heavily handicapped by the
maternal "elbowe." But still perfectly in keeping with her descriptions
and making no denial to the French Ambassador's statement that she was
"the gentlest and kindest" of queens; or to an English eye-witness who
writes that at her coronation the people all applauded her for being "so
fayre a Ladye, of so goodly a stature and so womanly a countenance, and
in especial of so good qualities."

The fact is that the King's very cruelty to this poor girl--torn from
her mother's side and her Protestant home in Duerren to be the pawn of an
unscrupulous diplomacy--was based on grounds, at least, less infamous
than that of a slave-buyer. After both Cromwell and Holbein had been
well rewarded for their services, the former lost his head and the Queen
her crown on considerations that took no more account of her looks than
her feelings. The Catholic glass had risen; the King himself was not
ashamed to avow it; and the Protestant alliance was therefore an
incubus. After some two months of a queen's and wife's estate, poor
Anne of Cleves was bid to pack her belongings and take up a separate
establishment as an unmarried woman. No wonder she fainted when first
informed of such an infamy.

But there was no law in England save the _fiat_ of Henry VIII. The
marriage was pronounced "null and void," and Anne retired into private
life, on the rigid condition that she would make no attempt to ever quit
England, with an allowance of L3,000 a year, and the formal title of the
King's "sister." There was no help for her. Never again for her would
there be the austere joys of Duerren--her mother's side, her own timid
dreams of other companionship, and never the price at which she had lost
them.

At the head of the triumphant anti-Protestant, anti-Cromwell party stood
Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, whose portrait, in the Royal
Collection at Windsor, Holbein painted about this time (Plate 36). The
lean face and the figure clothed in red stand out strikingly from the
plain green background, although the painting has suffered not a little
injury. The robe is lined and trimmed with ermine, and over it is the
collar and badge o