"Your Majesty," wrote Wriothesley to the King that evening, "shall easily judge from this of what inclination the women be, and especially the Duchess, whose honest countenance, with the few words that she wisely spoke, make me to think there can be no doubt in her. A blind man should judge no colours, but surely, Sir, after my poor understanding and the little experience that I have, she is marvellous wise, very gentle, and as shamefaced as ever I saw so witty a woman. I think her wisdom is no less than the Queen's, which, in my poor opinion, is notable for a woman, and I am deceived if she prove not a good wife. And somewhat the better I like her for that I have been informed that, of all the whole stock of them, her mother was of the best opinion in religion, and showed it so far that both the Emperor and all the pack of them were sore grieved with her, and seemed in the end to hold her in contempt. I would hope no less of the daughter, if she might be so happy as to nestle in England. Very pure, fair of colour she is not, but a marvellous good brownish face she hath, with fair red lips and ruddy cheeks. And unless I be deceived in my judgment, she was never so well painted but her living visage doth much excel her picture."[228] [Sidenote: FEB., 1539] WORTHY TO BE A QUEEN] Two things, Wriothesley told Cromwell, in a letter which he wrote to him the next day, were plain: the Queen would be very loth to let them go with nothing settled, and the Duchess was well inclined, considering that nothing had as yet been said to her on the King's behalf. And he suggested that he might be allowed to show her a portrait of Henry, the sight of which, he felt sure, would make her die a maid rather than marry anyone else. "The woman is certainly worthy to be a Queen," he adds, "and in my judgment is worth more than all the friendship and alliances in the world."[229] Unfortunately, these letters, which the writer hoped would give the King so much pleasure, found Henry in a furious temper. In January, 1539, Pope Paul III. issued the long-delayed Bull of excommunication, and called on the Emperor and the French King to declare war on the heretic monarch, and forbid all intercourse between their subjects and the misguided English. Cardinal Pole, whose kinsmen Henry had beheaded, and whose own life had been attempted by his emissaries, was sent to Spain to induce Charles to take up arms against "this abominable tyrant and cruel persecutor of the Church of God."[230] At the same moment a treaty was signed between Charles and Francis at Toledo, by which the two monarchs pledged themselves to conclude no agreements with Henry excepting by mutual consent.[231]