Walpole, following Burnet, elaborates this: “Holbein was next despatched by Cromwell to draw the lady Anne of Cleve, and by practising the common flattery of his profession, was the immediate cause of the destruction of that great subject, and of the disgrace that fell on the princess herself. He drew so favourable a likeness, that Henry was content to wed her; but when he found her so inferior to the miniature, the storm which really should have been directed at the painter, burst on the minister; and Cromwell lost his head, because Anne was _a Flanders mare_, not a Venus, as Holbein had represented her.”[383] Footnote 383: Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 72. There is no truth at all in this story. The leading characteristic of Holbein’s portraiture is its complete truth; he was not in the habit of flattering his sitters, and the portrait of Anne affords one of the most striking testimonies of this. He certainly did not paint her as a Venus, nor was Cromwell’s fall owing to the picture. He was, indeed, made Earl of Essex after the lady’s marriage to the King. Letters in the State Papers show very clearly that Henry complained only of the spoken and written words of his ambassadors, and made no mention of portraits. Russell, the Lord High Admiral, in his deposition in connection with the divorce, quoted Henry as saying to him: “How like you this woman? do you think her so fair and of such beauty as report hath been made unto me of her? I pray you tell me the truth.” Whereupon the said Lord Admiral answered, that he took her not for fair, but to be of a brown complexion. And the king’s highness said, “Alas! whom should men trust? I promise you,” said he, “I see no such thing in her as hath been showed me of her, and am ashamed that men hath praised her as they have done, and I like her not.” Stow, in quoting this, adds without authority the words: “either by pictures or report,” after “I see no such thing in her as hath been showed me of her.” Stow, apparently drawing upon his own imagination, makes exaggerated references to the part portraits played in the negotiations for the marriage. “Some went over by the king, some by the Lord Cromwell, and some went voluntary, to view the Lady Anne of Cleave, and to negotiate her marriage with the king. All which, either by letters, speech, or both, made very large and liberal reports in praise of her singular feature, matchless beauty, and princely perfections, and for proof thereof presented the king with sundry of her pictures, which the bringers ever affirmed to have been truly made, without flattery.”[384] Footnote 384: Stow, _Annales_, ed. Howes, p. 576.