Shortly afterwards other diplomatists were sent abroad for the same purpose. Dr. Barnes went over to Frankfurt to attend the diet of the Evangelic League, while Dr. Edward Carne and Dr. Nicholas Wootton, together with Richard Byrd, Bird, or Beard, one of the gentlemen of the King’s Chamber, were despatched to Düren, to the court of the young Duke of Cleves, whose father had recently died. Their instructions were very similar to those given to Mont. They were to offer an offensive and defensive league and an English bride to the Duke, but were merely to throw out hints with regard to Anne. Here again they were to demand a picture of the lady before the match could be considered, for Henry was always most anxious to see what his proposed bride was like before committing himself too far.[370] If she were ill-favoured he would have none of her, however useful for political reasons such an alliance might prove to be. A portrait was always asked for, but was by no means always considered sufficient. The King feared that such pictures might flatter the subject, and so it became his habit, in order to avoid such possibilities, to send over one of his own painters to procure an independent likeness. Holbein, in particular, he knew to be capable of bringing back a true portrait, more valuable in all ways than the efforts of some unknown foreign painter, or the written opinions of his ambassadors, whose taste might not always agree with his own. Footnote 370: _C.L.P._, vol. xiv. pt. i. 489, 490.