"She speaketh French," adds Hutton in reporting this interview to Cromwell, "and seemeth to be of few words. And in her speaking she lispeth, which doth nothing misbecome her. I cannot in anything perceive but she should be of much soberness, very wise, and no less gentle."[178] Among the ladies who came to Court for the Carnival fêtes, Hutton found a friend in the Duke of Aerschot's sister, Madame de Berghen, a lively lady whom he had known in the town of Berghen-op-Zoom, where he had spent much time as Governor of the Merchant Adventurers. The Dutch merchants in this city had presented him with a house, an honour which the Ambassador appreciated highly, although he complained that it led him into great extravagance, and that the furniture, tapestries, and pictures, necessary for its adornment, "plucked the lining out of his purse, and left him as rich as a newly-shorn sheep."[179] [Sidenote: MARCH, 1538] "MR. HAUNCE"] One day Madame de Berghen saw Hutton in the act of delivering a packet of letters which Wyatt had forwarded from Barcelona to the Queen, and her curiosity was excited by the warmth of Mary's thanks. That evening she invited the English Ambassador to dinner to meet her kinsman the Bishop of Liége, "a goodly personage," remarks Hutton, "but a man of little learning and less discretion, and, like most Bishops in these parts, very unfit for his office." When this secular ecclesiastic retired, the Lady Marchioness, "whose tongue always wagged freely," asked Hutton if the letters which he had delivered to the Queen came from England, and confessed that she hoped they contained good news regarding the Duchess of Milan, whose beauty, wisdom, and great gentleness, she could not praise too highly. She told him that he would have been amazed had he seen Christina gorgeously apparelled as she was the day before, and confided to him that the Duchess was having her portrait taken by the Court painter, Bernard van Orley, and had promised to give it to her. Hutton begged to be allowed to borrow the picture in order to show it to his wife, and told Cromwell that as soon as he could secure the portrait he would send it to England. Accordingly, on the 9th of March the Ambassador received the picture, which Madame de Berghen begged him to accept as her gift, and sent a servant to bear it without delay to the Lord Privy Seal's house in St. James's. Late on the following evening, much to the Ambassador's surprise, a young Shropshire gentleman, named Mr. Philip Hoby, who had lately entered Cromwell's service, appeared at his lodgings, accompanied by the King's painter, Master Hans Holbein. At this time the German master was at the height of his reputation. Since 1536, when he entered Henry's service as Court painter, he had executed some of his finest portraits, including the famous picture of the King in Whitehall Palace, the superb portrait of Queen Jane, and that of