CHAPTER II
FRÄULEIN ANNE
When the Elector returned to the palace occupied by the Saxon Court during this stay in Leipsic, he was still engaged in considering the wisdom of this marriage of his ward.
He had striven for it during three years, and he had accomplished it in spite of King Philip, in spite of the Landgrave of Hesse, but now, on the eve of success, his heart misgave him.
True, there was no possible objection to the marriage from any worldly point of view. Anne of Saxony could not hope for any better match, and so the Elector had always argued. There remained also his strong personal reasons for getting the girl—whose sex alone prevented her from filling his place—out of the country with a husband whose interests did not lie in Germany. But there was always the one fact that troubled the conscience and vexed the repose of Augustus—the fact that had caused the old Landgrave Philip to withhold his consent and only bestow a very chary blessing on his granddaughter—she was to marry a Roman Catholic Prince, a friend of Philip, a one-time favourite of Charles; and the bridegroom's assurances that she should be allowed to practise according to the Augsburg Confession were extremely vague and unsatisfactory—indeed, he had stated that the Lutheran Princess would be expected to 'live Catholicly' when she took up her residence in the dominions of Philip of Spain.
However, it was a fine marriage, a brilliant marriage, a marriage eminently convenient to the Elector, and he endeavoured to stifle these late doubts and scruples.
As soon as he reached the palace he went in search of his niece that he might at once present her with the protective amulet, which was to preserve her from the snares and lures of Popery.
The rooms were overcrowded with people; everywhere was confusion and excitement. No one, from the scullions to the Electress, talked of anything but the wedding; preparations for receiving the guests, the coming and going of armourers, tailors, cooks, confectioners, filled the air with noise and bustle; the stewards and heralds were overwhelmed with work; loud disputes as to the arrangements for the feasts and tourneys echoed in the corridors; the pages and valets were too excited to be useful; and the women did nothing but chatter about clothes.
As the Elector made his way through the confusion and thought of the cost of his share in all this elaborate merry-making, he, too, began to be sick of this wedding, to wish it well over and his niece safely in the Netherlands.
He found the Lady Anne in the dark, lofty, antechamber of her apartments. Here the confusion of the palace had culminated, the whole room was strewn with dresses, hats, cloaks, and bales of stuff; waiting-women, serving-women, and tailors were running here and there displaying, explaining, and arranging their wares.
Near the tall, pointed Gothic window stood a structure of polished wood the shape of a gallows, and on this elegant gibbet hung several brilliantly dressed dolls, swinging by their necks like so many gay little corpses.