Next came Anne of Cleves, the famous “great Flanders mare” of legendary reputation, of whom we have all learned at school. Again, according to Major Hume, Henry was so worked upon by his political advisers that he for once made an utter fool of himself, and married a picture by Holbein procured by Thomas Cromwell. In recommending this marriage Cromwell took a great risk, for, as is well known, no man can select either wife, pipe or hat for another. It is said that Henry had proposed to the French ambassador that he should hold a sort of Babylonian marriage-market among the damsels of France, whence he should select the prettiest; but it is also said, by Professor Pollard this time, that the Frenchman made such an answer that for the only recorded time in his life, Henry was seen to blush. It is difficult to imagine such a jape—even if French—as would make Henry Tudor blush. The important thing to tell about Anne of Cleves is that Henry, having passed several nights in her room, proclaimed that he had discovered that she was not _virgo intacta_. There are also several indecent stories that he was said to have related of her, but as they are not entirely germane to my present object, and as I do not wish this to be a mere _chronique scandaleuse_ I omit them. While he was thus uncertain, being almost in the position of Hajji Baba when he discovered that he had married a veiled woman who turned out to be excessively plain, Henry again strove for freedom. He secured it by simply repudiating his bride on the Euripidean method of “it was my tongue that swore,” not my soul. Anne seems to have been a good-natured sort of German frau who accepted the inevitable with a good grace, and doubtless she was not sorry to be left alone with her knitting. Henry gave her £4,000 a year and two country houses, and called her his sister. She was not above cracking a risky joke with her temporary husband when he became still more prodigious as to his size and gluttony. It was while he was worried about Anne that Luther announced that Squire Harry thought himself to be God.