rt, and left him gloomy at the prospect of going through the
ceremony on the morrow. On Tuesday morning, when he was apparelled for the
wedding, as usual in a blaze of magnificence of crimson satin and cloth of
gold, Cromwell entered his chamber on business. "My lord," said Henry, "if
it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do what I must
do this day for any earthly thing." But withal he went through it as best
he might, though with heavy heart and gloomy countenance, and the
unfortunate bride, we are told, was remarked to be "demure and sad," as
well she might be, when her husband and Cranmer placed upon her finger the
wedding-ring with the ominous inscription, "God send me well to keep."

Early the next morning Cromwell entered the King's chamber between hope
and fear, and found Henry frowning and sulky. "How does your Grace like
the Queen?" he asked. Henry grumblingly, and not quite relevantly, replied
that he, Cromwell, was not everybody; and then he broke out, "Surely, my
lord, as you know, I liked her not well before, but now I like her much
worse." With an incredible grossness, and want of common decency, he then
went into certain details of his wife's physical qualities that had
disgusted him and turned him against her. He did not believe, from certain
peculiarities that he described, that she was a maid, he said; but so far
as he was concerned, he was so "struck to the heart" that he had left her
as good a maid as he had found her.[204] Nor was the King more reticent
with others. He was free with his details to the gentlemen of his chamber,
Denny, Heneage, and others, as to the signs which it pleased him to
consider suspicious as touching his wife's previous virtue, and protested
that he never could, or would, consummate the marriage; though he
professed later that for months after the wedding he did his best to
overcome his repugnance, and lived constantly in contact with his wife.
But he never lost sight of the hope of getting free. If he did not find
means soon to do so, he said, he should have no more issue. His conscience
told him--that tender conscience of his--that Anne was not his legal wife;
and he turned to Cromwell for a remedy, and found none: for Cromwell knew
that the breaking up of the Protestant union, upon which he had staked his
future, would inevitably mean now the rise of his rivals and his own ruin.

He fought stoutly for his position, though Norfolk and Gardiner were often