it. The chronicler excels himself in the
description of the lavish magnificence of the welcome of Francis at
Calais,[88] and tells us that, after a bounteous supper on the night of
Sunday 27th October, at which the two kings and their retinues sat down,
"The Marchioness of Pembroke with seven other ladies in masking apparel of
strange fashion, made of cloth of gold compassed with crimson tinsel
satin, covered with cloth of silver, lying loose and knit with gold
laces," tripped in, and each masked lady chose a partner, Anne, of course,
taking the French king. In the course of the dance Henry plucked the masks
from the ladies' faces, and debonair Francis, in courtly fashion,
conversed with his fair partner. One of the worst storms in the memory of
man delayed the English king's return from Calais till the 13th November;
but when at length the _Te Deum_ for his safe home-coming was sung at St.
Paul's, Anne knew that the King of France had undertaken to frighten the
Pope into inactivity by talk of the danger of schism in England, and that
Cranmer was hurrying across Europe on his way from Italy to London, to
become Primate of the Church of England.

The plot projected was a clever one, but it was still needful to handle it
very delicately. Cranmer during his residence in Germany and Italy had
been zealous in winning favourable opinions for Henry's contention, and
his foregathering with Lutheran divines had strengthened his reforming
opinions. He had, indeed, proceeded to the dangerous length of going
through a form of marriage secretly with a young lady belonging to a
Lutheran family. His leanings cannot have been quite unknown to the
ever-watchful spies of the Pope and the Emperor, though Cranmer had done
his best to hoodwink them, and to some extent had succeeded. But to ask
the Pope to issue the Bulls confirming such a man in the Primacy of
England was at least a risky proceeding, and Henry had to dissemble. In
January, Katharine fondly thought that her husband was softening towards
her, for he released her chaplain Abell, who had been imprisoned for
publicly speaking in her favour. She fancied, poor soul, that "perhaps God
had touched his heart, and that he was about to acknowledge his error."
Chapuys attributed Henry's new gentleness to his begrudging the cost of
two queenly establishments. But seen from this distance of time, it was
clearly caused by a desire to disarm the suspicion of the Pope and the
Emperor, who wer