Chapuys, Charles, and Clement, offering his excuses for the past, and hinting at his services in days to come. Chapuys imagined he might rise again. If helped by Spain and Rome, his party would be strong; and Henry, who was treating the Queen with kingly courtesy, might be induced to drop his suit. Anne would be sacrificed a second time, and Norfolk might be lodged within the Tower. 6. One great and common effort, as it seemed, might turn the scale, and this one effort more was tried. Going to the King's apartments, Catharine besought her lord to cast away his doubts and suits, and live with her again, as he had done for twenty years, in all the happiness of man and wife. The Queen, in her worst days of anguish, had not stooped to lies and slander, but her friends had no such scruples as herself. Egged on by others, Suffolk waited on the King, and told him Lady Anne was false. The King flashed out. "Yea," said the Duke, “a gentleman of the court possesses her heart." He glanced at Wyat, whom he hated with a dull and burning hate. Wyat, he said, was boasting of some passages between himself and Lady Anne, and that, the Duke conceived, was evidence enough. The King was easily fired. Wyat was called to answer for his words, and rumours ran about the court that he had made some statement damaging to Anne. A brother bard, on hearing this report, burst into passionate rhyme against him, as a foul and wicked liar, whom the stars of heaven should blight and curse; a villain who had brought disgrace, not on the immaculate lady whom his words traduced, but on the noble brotherHistory of two Queens. VI. 2 hood of Song. Seldom has loathing found such sting as in the lines of this anonymous poet. Wyat replied to him: "If I said so, each star That's in the heaven above May frown on me to mar The hope I have in love." Anne rode from Durham House in maiden wrath, nor would she quit her garden in the weald till full inquiry had been made, and justice had been done. Wyat soon cleared his fame, and was restored to favour. Suffolk, the false accuser, was commanded to be gone; and covered with the shame of slander, he retired to Westhorpe Hall. 7. This effort to defame Anne Boleyn having failed, the Cardinal was lost. Among the victims of his rule, few men had suffered more than Percy. His domestic happiness was wrecked. The woman who was forced on him had been as wretched as himself. Percy could not forget his early love, nor Lady Northumberland that a rival had possessed her husband's soul. A sordid and vindictive spirit ruled the intercourse of man and wife. Shrewsbury had never paid his daughter's portion, and the angry husband had refused her the conditions of her birth and rank. No child was reared to bless their lot, and the great house of Percy was without direct and lineal heirs. Two persons who had virtues and accomplishments enough for happiness were driving each other mad by jealousy and spite. Percy ran away; and when the storm passed by, his wife decamped in turn. At length they Both wife and silently agreed to live apart. husband knew they had been sacrificed by Wolsey, and no sharper joy was ever stirred in Percy's desolate heart than when he got an order to arrest the Cardinal. 8. Clanking to the gates of Cawood Castle, where the Cardinal was at fruit and wine, Percy commanded the porter to yield his keys. The man obeyed; and, being sworn, he was allowed to keep his post, while Percy passed into the hall. Wolsey, cap in hand, received his visitor on the stairs: "My lord, ye be most welcome." Percy and his men strode up the stairs. The Cardinal was profuse in hospitality; lauding his guest, and shaking every one by the hand. "My lord," said Percy, "I arrest you of high treason." Each looked steadily at the other; looked for a long time, in the fulness of their hate. "What moveth you, or by what authority do you this?" at length the Cardinal gasped. "Forsooth, my lord, I have a commission to warrant me and my doing." "Let me see it." "Nay, Sir, that ye may not." "Then," said Wolsey, "I will not obey your arrest; for there hath been between some of your predecessors and mine great contentions and debates upon an ancient grudge, which may succeed in you." But Percy had the arm of flesh. Wolsey was a prisoner; and on the second day, the Cardinal's papers having been secured, Percy set forward on a ride, the end of which was known to be a dungeon for the Cardinal of York. 9. Wolsey perceived that he was lost. If Henry's favour were withdrawn, his path lay straight and open to the block, which he could see in the broad vista, just as Buckingham had seen it in the hour of his arrest. "It will help me nothing To plead mine innocence. The will of Heaven So the Cardinal might have said in turn. At Pontefract and Sheffield he remained a little while, dead in his hope, and dying at his heart. Kingston, Captain of the Guard and Constable of the Tower, a man of stony heart and rugged manner, met him on the road, and took him under charge. A sorcerer had told the Cardinal to beware of Kingston, and supposing it the town of Kingston, he had never ridden through that place; but when he saw the royal guard and heard the rugged Constable's name, a shadow fell upon his heart. A flux came Some persons fancied he had swallowed poison. Hour by hour his state grew worse, but Kingston had his orders to proceed. At Hardwick Lodge the Cardinal was worse; at Nottingham Castle, he was sick to death; yet still the iron Constable dragged him on. At Leicester Abbey, where the Abbot met him in the yard, the prisoner gasped, "Father Abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among you." Three days later he was dead. on. CHAPTER VII. Church of England. 1531. 1. To cool observers of events the world seemed turning upside down. A sight was seen in London streets; placards on every wall and gate, appealing to the peers, the magistrates, the citizens, against the course pursued in Rome. These placards gave the sentences of colleges and learned men in favour of the King's divorce. All honest men who loved their country were invited to consider the affair. A glance was thrown at Spain as well as Rome, and then the reasons which had led the King to separate himself from the Emperor's aunt were given. Italian eyes were shocked to see such matters laid before the common herd. 2. "These people," said the Milanese agent, "dream of settling this affair by civil process, and without the Pope, of whom they speak in anger, and with reason on their side, for he is certainly in the wrong." The author of this "civil policy" was Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell, born in Putney, son of a smith and ale-wife, had been much abroad in early life; at Antwerp in the days of Philip and Juana; at Rome in those days of Julius the Second, He had borne a pike in the Italian wars, and written letters in the rooms of a Venetian trader. |