Such was, in reality, the result of his failure to act on the principle laid down by himself to the French ambassador two years before. He had then declared that the choice of a wife was too delicate a matter to be left to a deputy, and that he must see and know a lady some time before he made up his mind to marry her. Anne of Cleves had been selected by Cromwell, and the lady, whose beauty was, according to Cromwell, in every one's mouth, seemed to Henry no better than "a Flanders mare".[1075] The day after the interview at Rochester he told Cromwell that Anne was "nothing so well as she was spoken of," and that, "if he had known before as much as he knew then, she should not have come within his realm". He demanded of his Vicegerent what remedy he had to suggest, and Cromwell had none. Next day Cranmer, Norfolk, Suffolk, Southampton and Tunstall were called in with (p. 386) no better result. "Is there none other remedy," repeated Henry, "but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck in the yoke?"[1076] Apparently there was none. The Emperor was being feted in Paris; to repudiate the marriage would throw the Duke of Cleves into the arms of the allied sovereigns, alienate the German princes, and leave Henry without a friend among the powers of Christendom. So he made up his mind to put his neck in the yoke and to marry "the Flanders mare". [Footnote 1075: Burnet, i., 434. The phrase appears to have no extant contemporary authority, but Burnet is not, as a rule, imaginative, and many records have been destroyed since he wrote.] [Footnote 1076: Cromwell to Henry VIII., in Merriman, ii., 268-72.] * * * * *