Sir Anthony, aware of the nature of Henry's expectations, entered the room where Anne was sitting. He described his sensations on the unlooked-for spectacle which awaited him in moderate language, when he said, "that he was never more dismayed in his life, lamenting in his heart to see the lady so unlike that she was reported."[540] The graces of Anne of Cleves were moral only, not intellectual, and not personal. She was simple, quiet, modest, sensible, and conscientious; but her beauty existed only in the imagination of the painter. Her presence was ladylike; but her complexion was thick and dark: her features were coarse; her figure large, loose, and corpulent. The required permission was given. The king entered. His heart sank; his presence of mind forsook him; he was "suddenly quite discouraged and amazed" at the prospect which was opened before him. He forgot his present; he almost forgot his courtesy. He did not stay in the room "to speak twenty words." He would not even stay in Rochester. "Very sad and pensive," says Brown, he entered his barge and hurried back to Greenwich, anxious only to escape, while escape was possible, from the unwelcome neighbourhood. Unwilling to marry at all, he had yielded only to the pressure of a general desire. He had been deceived by untrue representations, and had permitted a foreign princess to be brought into the realm; and now, as fastidious in his tastes as he was often little scrupulous in his expression of them, he found himself on the edge of a connexion the very thought of which was revolting.[541] It was a cruel fortune which imposed on Henry VIII., in addition to his other burdens, the labour of finding heirs to strengthen the succession. He "lamented the fate of princes to be in matters of marriage of far worse sort than the condition of poor men.' "Princes take," he said, "as is brought them by others, and poor men be commonly at their own choice."[542] [Sidenote: He complains of his disappointment to Cromwell.]