In a secret conference that he held with Chapuys at the Austin Friars, which in future was to be his own mansion, Cromwell proposed a new alliance between England and the Emperor, which would necessarily have to be accompanied by some compromise with the Pope and the recognition of Mary's legitimacy.[141] He assured the imperial ambassador that Norfolk, Suffolk, and the rest of the nobles formerly attached to France were of the same opinion as himself, and tried earnestly to convince his interlocutor that he had no sympathy with Anne, whom he was ready to throw overboard to save himself. When Charles received this news from his ambassador, he took a somewhat tortuous but characteristic course. He was willing to a great extent to let bygones be bygones, and to forget the sufferings, and perhaps the murder, of his aunt Katharine, if Henry would come to terms with the Papacy and legitimise the Princess Mary; but, curiously enough, he preferred that Anne should remain at Henry's side, instead of being repudiated. Her marriage, he reasoned, was obviously invalid, and any children she might have by Henry would consequently be unable to interfere with Mary's rights to the succession: whereas if Henry were to divorce Anne and contract a legal marriage, any son born to him would disinherit Mary. To this extent was Charles ready to descend if he could obtain English help and money in the coming war; and Cromwell, at all events, was anxious to go quite as far to meet him. He now showed ostentatious respect to the Princess Mary, restoring to her the little gold cross that had been her mother's, and of which she had been cruelly deprived, condemned openly the continued execution of his own policy of spoliation of the monasteries, and quarrelled both with Anne and the only man now in the same boat with her, Archbishop Cranmer, who trembled in his shoes at the ruin he saw impending upon his patroness, ready at any moment to turn his coat, but ignorant of how to do it; for Cranmer, however able a casuist he might be, possessed little statesmanship and less courage. Lady Exeter was the go-between who brought the imperial ambassador into the conspiracy to oust Anne. The time was seen to be ripening. Henry was already talking in secret about "his having been seduced into the marriage with Anne by sorcery, and consequently that he considered it to be null, which was clearly seen by God's denying a son. He thought he should be quite justified in taking another wife,"[142] and Jane Seymour's company seemed daily more necessary to his comfort.