_From a portrait by a German artist in St. John's College, Oxford_] There was one heart, at all events, that did not rejoice, and that was Henry's. He went heavily through the ceremony of welcoming home his bride in the great hall at Greenwich, and then led her to her chamber; but no sooner had he got quit of her, than retiring to his own room he summoned Cromwell. "Well!" he said, "is it not as I told you? Say what they will, she is nothing like so fair as she was reported to be. She is well and seemly, but nothing else." Cromwell, confused, could only mumble something about her having a queenly manner. But Henry wanted a way out of his bargain rather than reconciliation to it; and he ordered Cromwell to summon the Council at once--Norfolk, Suffolk, Cromwell, Cranmer, Fitzwilliam, and Tunstal--to consider the prior engagement made between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine's son.[203] The question had already been discussed and disposed of, and the revival of it thus at the eleventh hour shows how desperate Henry was. The Council assembled immediately, and summoned the German envoys who had negotiated the marriage and were now in attendance on Anne. The poor men were thunderstruck at the point of an impediment to the marriage being raised then, and begged to be allowed to think the matter over till the next morning, Sunday. When they met the Council again in the morning, they could only protest that the prior covenant had only been a betrothal, which had never taken effect, and had been formally annulled. If there was any question about it, however, they offered to remain as prisoners in England until the original deed of revocation was sent from Cleves.