d not be better fulfilled "than with the said lady, who is of
convenient age, healthy temperament, elegant stature, and endowed with
other graces."

The news of the engagement was ill received by Francis and Charles. They
became more ostentatiously friendly than ever; and their ambassadors in
London were inseparable. When Marillac and the Emperor's temporary envoy
went together to tell Cromwell that the Emperor was so confident of the
friendship of Francis that he was riding through France from Spain to
Flanders, the English minister quite lost his composure. He was informed,
he told the ambassadors, that this meeting of the monarchs was "merely
with the view to making war on this poor King (Henry), who aimed at
nothing but peace and friendship." Ominous mutterings came, too, from
Flanders at the scant courtesy Henry had shown in throwing over the match
with the Duchess of Milan in the midst of the negotiation. Cromwell was
therefore full of anxiety, whilst the elaborate preparations were being
made in Calais and in England for the new Queen's reception. Not only was
a fresh household to be appointed, the nobility and gentry and their
retinues summoned, fine clothes galore ordered or enjoined for others, the
towns on the way from Dover to be warned of the welcome expected from
them, and the hundred details dependent upon the arrival and installation
of the King's fourth wife, but Henry himself had to be carefully handled,
to prevent the fears engendered by the attitude of his rivals causing him
to turn to the party opposed to Cromwell before the Protestant marriage
was effected.

In the meanwhile, Anne with a great train of guards and courtiers, three
hundred horsemen strong, rode from Dusseldorf towards Calais through
Cleves, Antwerp, Bruges, and Dunkirk. It was ordered that Lord Lisle, Lord
Deputy of Calais, should meet the Queen on the English frontier, near
Gravelines, and that at St. Pierre, Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, who had a
fleet of fifty sail in the harbour, should greet her in the name of his
King, gorgeously dressed in blue velvet, smothered with gold embroidery,
and faced with crimson satin, royal blue and crimson, the King's colours,
in velvet, damask, and silk, being the universal wear, even of the sailors
and men-at-arms. The aged Duke of Suffolk and the Lord Warden were to
receive her on her landing at Dover; and at Canterbury she was to be
welcomed and entertained by Archbishop Cranmer. Norfolk and a gr