The Court spent the next three weeks at Bruges, the beautiful old city which was always a favourite with Charles and his sisters, in the ancient Prinzenhof where their mother had died. During these summer days many important events took place, and startling news came from England. On the 10th of June Cromwell was suddenly arrested and sent to the Tower on a charge of high-treason. A fortnight later the new Queen, Anne of Cleves, left Whitehall for Richmond, and on the 9th of July her marriage was pronounced null and void by a decree of Convocation. The ostensible reason for the divorce was a precontract between Anne and Francis of Lorraine. It was true that as children they had been affianced by their respective parents, but, as was common in such cases, all idea of the marriage had been afterwards abandoned, and Henry had professed himself entirely satisfied with the explanations given by Anne's relatives on the subject. But from the first moment that he met his bride at Rochester, on New Year's Day, 1540, he was profoundly disappointed. When Cromwell asked him how he liked her, he replied, "Nothing so well as she was spoken of," adding that, had he known as much of her before as he did now, she should never have set foot in his realm. However, he felt constrained to marry her, for fear of "making a ruffle in the world," and driving her brother into the Emperor's arms. At Whitsuntide he told Cromwell that from the day of his marriage he had become weary of life, and took a solemn oath that before God Anne had never been his lawful wife. From that moment Cromwell knew that his own fate was sealed. "The King loves not the Queen," he said to Wriothesley. "What a triumph for the Emperor and the Pope!" A week afterwards he was committed to the Tower, and on the 28th of July he was beheaded.[289]