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law, the Duke; but in the Cardinal they had a common enemy to foil. Rochford appealed to Anne, who saved these plotters from their foe. The course they ought to take was clear. Wolsey must see the King no more. But how were they to cross a meeting which the King had fixed? Anne undertook that charge. Had she no injuries to redress? Had she not Percy's blighted love and miserable marriage to avenge? Anne was imparking the estate now known as Hartwell Park. It was a royal manor, which the King had recently obtained from Dorset in exchange, and granted in his bounty to the Queen-elect. She offered to invite the King to go and see the grounds. Anne was a splendid rider; light and lithe, yet strong and hardy; so that he delighted in being out with her afield. He would be sure to cry, 'Ha, ha!' Campeggio had already taken leave, and was to start betimes. Wolsey was to see him safe, and they could hardly stay at Grafton Lodge beyond the hour of noon. riding far, and dining in the park, she might detain the King until the Cardinals were gone. The peers approved her innocent device. Henry was eager for his morning ride; and horses were commanded for an early hour.

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7. Wolsey, awake betimes, rode back to Grafton, where he found the royal party moving off. Henry was riding by the side of Anne, and Norreys, turning to the Cardinal, bade him see Campeggio to Bath Place, and wait in London till his Highness

came to town.

Wolsey was dismayed. A nightcrow, he remarked, had been at work. Hoping that Henry might return, he hung about the lodge; but after dinner, seeing no sign of Henry's coming, he at last set out, dragging his weary way to St. Alban's Abbey, where he spent a restless night. His enemies were too many and too strong for him to fight alone, and he had always chosen in his pride to stand alone. Next day the legates jogged to London, where Campeggio, after receiving presents worth two thousand marks, took his leave. At Dover all his chests were opened by a royal order, on the chance of finding Henry's love-letters and other papers; but as the Italian had already sent his stolen property away, nothing more curious was discovered in his trunks than heaps of rags and dirty clothes.

8. Campeggio stayed some weeks in Dover, waiting, he pretended, for a fairer passage; but, in truth, appalled and fascinated by the violence of that revolution which the Cardinal of York had warned him would commence the moment England was assured that justice was denied her by the Papal Court.

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CHAPTER III.

A NEW COURT.

1529-30.

1. THE King and Queen being parted, and the King appearing in his legal character of bachelor, Anne shrank from staying, even in her father's rooms, beneath the royal roof. She wished to be at home. Though legally a bachelor, the King had long been called a married man. The Church had not yet granted him a full release, and while she held with all her teachers, from the Great Duke, her grandfather, down to the learned priest, her father's chaplain, that no marriage had ever taken place between the King and Queen, she wanted, as a daughter of the Church, to see this doctrine of her lawyers sanctioned by a sentence of her Pope. On coming back from Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford went to live with her at Durham House.

2. This splendid pile, already noted as the residence of Catharine in her widowed days, had been conveyed by Wolsey to Rochford in the hour of his disgrace about the Wilton business. Durham house belonged to him as Bishop of Durham,

and he occupied it during his repairs at York Place. As he had yielded Hampton Court to stay one storm, he gave up Durham House to stay another storm. As touching a lodging for you, Henry wrote to Anne, we have gotten one by my lord Cardinal's means: the like whereof could not have been found hereabouts.' At Durham House, Lord and Lady Rochford and their daughter found a pleasant home, with gardens in their rear, a bishop's palace on each side, and the broad river in their front. By Rochford's care, the library was stored with books and manuscripts. Here Cranmer toiled with ink and pen. Hither came all the wits and sonneteers, each with his posy and his compliment to the Queen-elect. Hither came also poor artificers and labourers who heard of the good lady and appealed to her for help. Anne was not rich, but what she owned was given with liberal hand. More court was paid to her than to the Queen, whose proud reserve kept every one apart. Anne held her maiden state amidst a crowd of poets who adored her wit, and scholars who delighted in her learning. From her old friend Wyat to her new friend Cranmer, every man of genius found a welcome, and the gallery of Durham House became a paradise of artists and of learned men.

3. Wolsey had given so much offence to both the old court and the new, that friends of Catharine joined with friends of Anne in hurling him from place. When Henry came to London, Hales,

his Attorney-general, was instructed to prepare two bills against the Cardinal, which were drawn so secretly that Wolsey was but dimly conscious of a change. He sat in Council, and he occupied the marble chair. But on the opening day of Michaelmas term, two bills were suddenly filed against him in the court of Queen's Bench, charging him with having exercised legatine authority in England contrary to law. A charge so scandalous had rarely been made in a court of justice, even by Wolsey himself in his worst days of power. What he had done as legate he had done by Henry's wish. The King had asked the Pope to name him legate, and had shared with him the profit of that post. But Wolsey knew that neither innocence nor service was of any weight against the royal will. On reaching York Place, he learned that Norfolk was resolved to have his place, if not his head. He sank into the earth. What could he do? A man, a cardinal, a papal legate, armed with genius, wealth, and knowledge of the world, he felt no stronger in the monarch's clutches than a little child. The King who raised him up, could just as easily cast him down.

4. He pleaded guilty to the charge, and threw himself for mercy at the royal feet. When Norfolk and Suffolk, who succeeded him in power as president and vice-president of the Council, went to York Place to fetch away the seals, he asked to see the royal order, and on reading it next day he

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