Yay! A tiny bit of internet access! I'm out in the sticks for this update and it may have been a bit rushed but I hope it's ok. It ends with another grizzly series death if that helps :D
Cromwell's forcing of the marriage of the King's Majesty to the Lady Anne of Cleaves was becoming even more forceful. He was determined, just as Isabella knew he would be, that he was pushing the King into a marriage that would most benefit him rather than His Majesty. It was even rumoured that he commissioned Master Holbine to use his artistic licence to add favour to the young Lady. He even told the King that it would be financially and militarily benefiting, again for whom this was only speculated.
Henry was much taken by the portrait of Anne and asked the Duke of Cleaves to send ambassadors to England to sort out the preparations for the marriage and the price of a dowry for the Lady to bring with her into the marriage. The Duke of Cleaves, however, was not as compliant as Henry's ambassadors had hoped he would be. He stated that Henry would have to show his real affections for the Lady and what he would give to Cleaves in return. However when Henry's ambassadors said that the King of England would not require a dowry for her hand the Duke suddenly changed his mind and allowed Henry the permission to marry his sister.
Back in England the King's happiness (and Mr Cromwell's reputation) was hanging in the balance with the prospect of this new marriage. His Grace, the Duke of Suffolk, went to meet the Princess as she arrived in Calais to be introduced to the King. The Princess of Cleaves was introduced to Brandon, constantly keeping her face covered with a veil – the meaning of this was not known to Brandon, and nor was he told of the reason, but he did not question it. Instead he offered to teach the Lady some of His Majesty's favourite pass times, like cards.
Henry was not entirely pleased that Brandon had not been able to see the Lady's face during their entire time together but he was too excited to meet his new bride. The only one who was not happy about the King's marriage to Anne was the Lady Mary. She said that the Lady of Cleaves was a Lutheran heretic and should be burnt at the stake, as her father had insisted be done to others of her religion. Henry anticipated their meeting with great happiness; he wanted to possess her completely even though he had not lain eyes on her yet (save for Master Holbine's portrait of her) and without waiting rode at once to the place where she was staying.
Upon laying eyes on her Henry was rather shocked; she had been made out to be a great deal more attractive that he actually found her. Still he greeted her with a kiss and was very gracious in his manner towards her but he left to return to the Palace very swiftly and (to those who knew his mannerisms) angrily. Furious he called a meeting of the council saying that he liked the Lady not and was deeply unhappy that Mr Cromwell had solicited the marriage.
In an attempt to placate him Cromwell stated that the Emperor of Spain and the King of France had made an alliance and they, as a country, should not abandon their German allies. The Kingdom could not afford to be left alone in Europe with so many adversaries and that the marriage should continue. Henry spoke to Charles of relieving himself of the duty to marry the woman and that Cromwell did not have the authority to make him do so. Charles asked if Mr Cromwell had overstepped his mark this time. In Henry's opinion Cromwell had very much overstepped his mark the moment he sent Isabella away and began meddling in his love life.
"She looks like a horse!" Henry whispered to Isabella on the eve of his wedding to the Duchess of Cleaves (despite trying to find a legal remedy for him to get out of it). He had desperately not wanted to marry her but, as Cromwell had put it, it was for the good of his realm that he should go through with the marriage to her.
"Henry! That is a terrible thing to say about your wife." Isabella chided, although she couldn't help smiling slightly; he did have a point, Anne of Cleaves was nowhere near as beautiful as some of his previous wives.
"Look at her, Isabella!" Henry implored. "She has nothing of the beauty that I was promised or told she possessed."
"I trust you have sent Master Holbine away after he portrayed her as otherwise?" she asked although she already knew the answer.
"That bastard will never paint in my court again!" he told her.
"No I'm sure he won't." she replied. "But..." she commented after a moment's silence. "he must be a very skilled artist to make her look desirable to Your Majesty. She certainly is no great beauty, not like Jane or Anne Boleyn, and she has none of the presence of Catherine."
"And she has neither the beauty, the presence or the intellect of you, Lady Lockhart." he told her and gave her hand a swift and soft kiss. Isabella gave him a chiding, but at the same time, flattered and suggestive look.
"At least give this marriage to the Lady Anne a chance before you dismiss her completely. I'm sure she has other qualities that Your Majesty will find desirable." she told him. Henry sighed.
"Only if you promise to return to court and be a ladies maid to Her Majesty," Henry asked her. "at least that way I will have you for company if nothing else."
"If Your Majesty wills it, although I am very sorry to have allowed my Lord Cromwell to keep us apart this time." she told him. Henry opened his mouth to speak but the appearance of his new wife cut him off. He went over to great her but before he did so he whispered something in Isabella's ear, something she had been longing to hear for a very long time.
"It should have been you." he told her and with that he was gone. Isabella couldn't help but think this time that he was right.
It came to pass that, although the King and Queen had lain together for a number of nights since their marriage, Henry had been unable to consummate his marriage to Anne of Cleaves. He said that it was weighing on his conscience because the Lady had been promised to another before the Duke of Cleaves had dissolved that engagement in favour of His Majesty and he was worried that he had married another man's wife. However both Isabella and Charles Brandon knew Henry too well; they knew that it was because he did not find the woman attractive.
He was determined that he would find a way to end the marriage – state that it was null and void because it was never consummated. Henry petitioned Cromwell to find some way, anyway, that he could bring an end to his marriage to the Lady Anne and if he could do it in the swiftest way possible. During this time Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Charles Brandon were commissioning Sir Frances Bryan to find His Majesty a new wife and a new distraction.
Normally the Duke of Suffolk would have suggested Isabella to provide the King with this particular distraction but, despite Henry's wish that Isabella return to court to wait on Her Majesty, Cromwell kept finding a number of reasons to send her away again. Henry was furious with Cromwell but because Isabella had been sent to care and look after his two young children he was soothed slightly by her letters telling him of how wonderfully the Princess Elizabeth and the Prince Edward were doing.
The distraction that Suffolk, Seymour and Sir Francis finally found for His Majesty was the young and beautiful Miss Katherine Howard. Katherine had been brought up in a house for the bastard children of aristocratic families and she was a distant relative of the Duke of Norfolk. She was very young, only seventeen, but she seemed to have a worldly sexual knowledge about her that Henry found very appealing. Upon first setting eyes on her he knew that he had to possess her – he had not had this desire to possess someone so badly (that he could not immediately have) since he had seen the Lady Anne Boleyn all those years ago.
Miss Katherine Howard was exciting and Henry found her much more attractive than he did his current wife. He still showed Her Majesty Anne of Cleaves all the affection that was due for a husband to show his wife and she was content in that level of affection that she was receiving. She knew very little of the fact that Henry was trying to dissolve their marriage because it was not legally binding or that he was gallivanting off in the middle of the night with Sir Francis to visit the young Miss Howard. She was blissfully unaware of all of this and so was Mr Cromwell.
This, however – the King's new fancy, was the least of Mr Cromwell's worries as Suffolk, Seymour, Sir Francis and one Bishop Gardener had set in motion a plot to bring the Secretary down. This was a plan that Isabella was asked to help with. She did not know what she could possibly do but she hated Cromwell and wanted to see him brought down to his rightful station. After a great deal of planning and manipulation Cromwell was arrested and sent to the tower to stand trial as a traitor.
Cromwell was tried as a traitor and a heretic and was found guilty on both of the charges against him. He had finally fallen out of favour with His Majesty the King and with the whole country. On a more pleasant note, for him, Edward Seymour was appointed with giving His Majesty the greatest news he had received in a long while; that if he could prove that he had never been able to consummate the marriage to the Lady Anne of Cleave then it would be annulled after being proved null and void. Mr Cromwell was asked to write a letter to the King adding his voice to the subject of Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleave – to say how the King had not liked Her new Majesty.
Thomas Cromwell was finally condemned to be beheaded and on the very same day Edward Seymour told Anne that their marriage was to be declared null and void. Anne was told that it was the King's pleasure she be called his sister but that they were never legally married in the first place. She consented to this and took the King's divorce with all the grace and composure that she could muster. She only asked that she could have the pleasure of being in the King's presence every so often but the news still deeply upset her.
Cromwell was also having a bad time that day. To add insult to injury for his final death he was to be executed along with a mad man who had been accused of raping his own daughter and paying fortune tellers to predict the day of the King's death. If that was not enough Sir Francis Bryan and the young Thomas Seymour had planned a new sport for the poor and unfortunate man; the previous night the two had gotten his executioner very drunk and he was not looking particularly healthy that morning.
The executioner was very unstable on his feet (something that Mr Cromwell could see as soon as the man tried to take aim) and the first swing of his axe was particularly badly aimed. He had tried to take Cromwell's head off in one swift swing but only manage to mutilate the poor man's body with a number of swings before the guard finally cut in out of sympathy and put Mr Cromwell out of his misery and pain. It was a horrific sight to behold and even though Isabella had never particularly liked the man she would never for the world have wished for his death to be like that.