No time appears to have been wasted. Henry not only demanded but obtained speed from his servants on their numerous journeys. Travelling post, the journey to and from Düren, which was usually made via Antwerp, took about eleven days. Holbein was in England again before the end of August, as we learn from Marillac, the new French ambassador, who, on September 1, writing from Grafton, where he had followed the King fifty miles from London, informed Francis I that he “has learnt that an excellent painter whom this King sent to Germany to bring the portrait of the sister of the Duke of Cleves, recently arrived in Court, and, immediately afterwards, a courier, bringing, among other news which is still kept secret, news that the said Duke’s ambassadors have started to come hither to treat and conclude the marriage of this King and the said lady.”[378] Footnote 378: _C.L.P._, vol. xiv. pt. ii. 117. Kaulek, 124. The proposed marriage afforded opportunity for much speculation on the part of the King’s subjects, as more than one of his earlier matrimonial projects had done. An excellent idea of the kind of gossip which prevailed can be gathered from the evidence taken in the case of a certain George Constantyne, who talked so much that he got himself charged with treason. It occurs in the report of a conversation between Constantyne and the Dean of Westbury during a journey they made together to South Wales, and in the course of it Holbein’s visit to Cleves is mentioned. “The Dean asked also if Constantyne had any news of the King’s marriage. Replied, he could not tell; he was sorry to see the King so long without a queen, when he might yet have many fair children: his own father was ninety-two years old, and yet, last summer, rode thirty-two miles one day before two o’clock, and said he was not weary; the duchess of Milan and that of Cleif were both spoken of, as the Dean knew. Asked, ‘How call ye the little doctor that is gone to Cleif?’ The Dean said, it was Dr. Woten, and that he that was with him of the Privy Chamber, whom Woten sent home lately, was Berde; adding that this Berde was sent thither again with the King’s painter, and that there was good hope of the marriage, for the duke of Cleif favoured God’s word and was a mighty prince now, having possession of Gelderland against the Emperor’s will.... Said also that the matter of the duchess of Milan was really broken off, for she would have the King accept the bishop of Rome’s dispensation and give pledges. ‘Why pledges?’ asked the Dean. ‘Marry,’ said Constantyne, ‘she sayeth that the King’s Majesty was in so little space rid of the Queens, that she dare not trust his Council, though she durst trust his Majesty; for her Council suspecteth that her great aunt was poisoned, that the second was innocently put to death, and the third lost for lack of keeping her in childbed.’ Added, that he was not sure whether this was her answer or that of Cleif, but that he