Holbein was not usually a flattering painter to his sitters, and the portrait he sent of Anne was that of a somewhat masculine and large-featured, but handsome and intellectual young woman, with fine, soft, contemplative brown eyes, thick lashes, and strong eyebrows. The general appearance is dignified, though handicapped by the very unbecoming Dutch dress of the period; and though there is nothing of the _petite_ sprightliness and soft rotundity that would be likely to attract a man of Henry's characteristics, the Princess cannot have been ill-favoured. Cromwell some months earlier had reported to Henry that Mont informed him that "everybody praises the lady's beauty, both of face and body. One said she excelled the Duchess (of Milan ?) as the golden sun did the silver moon."[191] If the latter statement be near the truth, Anne, in her own way, must have been quite good-looking. There was no delay or difficulty in carrying through the arrangements for the marriage. The envoys from Cleves and Saxony arrived in London in September, and saw Henry at Windsor. They could offer no great dowry, for Cleves was poor; but they would not be exacting about the appanage to be settled upon the Queen by her husband, to whom they left the decision of the sum; and the other covenants as to the eventual succession to her brother's duchy, in case of his death without heirs, were to be the same as those under which her elder sister married Hans Frederick. This was the sort of spirit that pleased Henry in negotiators, and with such he was always disposed to be liberal. He practically waived the dowry, and only urged that the lady should come at once, before the winter was too far advanced. When he suggested that she should come from her home down the Rhine through Holland, and thence by sea to England, the envoys prayed that she might go through Germany and Flanders by land to Calais, and so across. For, said they, by sea there will be great peril of capture and insult by some too zealous subjects of the Emperor. "Besides, they fear lest, the time of year being now cold and tempestuous, she might there, though she never were so well ordered, take such cold or other disease, considering she never was before upon the seas, as should be to her great peril.... She is, moreover, young and beautiful; and if she should be transported by sea they fear much how it might alter her complexion."[192] No sooner was the marriage treaty signed than splendid preparations were made for the reception of the King's coming bride. The Lord Admiral (Fitzwilliam) was ordered to prepare a fleet of ten vessels to escort her from Calais; repairs and redecorations of the royal residences went on apace; and especially in the Queen's apartments, where again the initials of poor Jane had to be altered to those of her successor, and the "principal lords have bought much cloth of gold and silk, a thing unusual for them except for some great solemnity."[193]