ings were carefully prolonged by repeated adjournments and other devices, until July 23d, when, instead of giving judgment, as the king and his courtiers expected, the court adjourned until October, that the whole proceedings might be laid before the pontiff. This greatly exasperated the king, and, though doubtless in entire accordance with the Roman legate's instructions, proved a fatal stroke to Wolsey, who soon began to experience the effects of the king's suspicions that he had been false to him. Campeggio left for Rome about the first of October; and before the close of that month, Wolsey was indicted for a violation of the statute of 16 Richard II., called the statute of Præmunire-for obtaining bulls from Rome and exercising legatine powers in England. To this indictment the cardinal pleaded ignorance of the statute, and submitted himself to the king's pleasure. The great seal was taken from him; he was put out of the king's protection; his goods and chattels, which were immense, were declared forfeited to the king, and his person liable to be seized. Henry had not yet, it would seem, fully resolved on the utter destruction of his old favorite. He intended to humble Wolsey, and to frighten the Roman court, if possible; but not to cut off all hope. Accordingly, on the 27th of

true. Henry was in a fever of anxiety to have this question of divorce adjusted; and as he had great confidence, at first, that it would be done to his mind by this court, why should he wish to delay the work?

November, the king granted Wolsey his protection, and then his pardon, restored his bishopric of Winchester and his archbishopric of York, and also gave him back more than six thousand pounds in money, goods, and plate. On this, the cardinal retired to Yorkshire, and there spent some of his most consistent and respectable days, in the duties and charities of a Christian bishop. After the expiration of about a year, the king, finding that the Roman court was not much troubled by Wolsey's fall, resolved to bring him yet lower; and on the 4th of November, 1530, he was suddenly arrested, at Cawood, in Yorkshire, on the charge of high treason, and committed to the lieutenant of the Tower, to be brought to London. On the way the poor man sickened, and finally died, November 28th, 1530, of disease and a broken heart.*

Wolsey seems to have anticipated most serious consequences to himself in the event of Henry's failure at Rome. The earnestness of his letters to Rome, and his appeals to the pope, show this, unless, perchance, he was a more consummate hypocrite than even Clement VII. himself. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that Henry suspected Wolsey. Lord Herbert tells us that "the king believed that, underhand, he had intelligence with the pope, to the prejudice of his affairs. * * This also, I believe, was confirmed in the king's mind, by some

*

* Burnet, vol. 1. pt. 1. bk. 11. p. 164; Lingard, vol. vI. ch. III. pp. 152-64; Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 363; Herbert's Life of Henry VIII., p. 284.

notice he might have of a joint despatch (a minute whereof is extant in our records) from Wolsey and Campegus, during their session, whereby they desired the pope to avoke the cause, in case it grew so doubtful that they could not determine it." And he quotes Polydore Virgil as saying that Wolsey "wrote privately to the pope, to suspend the cause until they could bring the king to some better mind." But Polydore Virgil, though contemporaneous with these times, is indifferent authority for any statement of fact; and Wolsey's dying words seem to contradict the presumption of treachery against the king:-" Then shall his conscience [the king's] declare whether I have offended him or no."

* Lord Herbert's Life and Reign of Henry VIII., p. 284.

The story of Wolsey's fall, and particularly of the fatal journey which he undertook by the king's order, is told quaintly, but most effectively, by the cardinal's faithful friend and servant, George Cavendish, his "gentleman usher," who attended him to the last, and records his dying language: "Well, well, master Kingston,' quoth he, [addressing the king's messenger, who had been sent to attend him to London,] 'I see the matter against me, how it is framed; but, if I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. Howbeit this is the just reward that I must receive for my worldly diligence and pains that I have had to do him service; only to satisfy his vain pleasure, not regarding my godly duty. Wherefore I pray you, with all my heart, to have me most humbly commended unto his royal majesty; beseeching him, in my behalf, to call to his most gracious remembrance all matters proceeding between him and me, from the beginning of the world unto this day, and the progress of the same; and most chiefly in the weighty matter now depending;' (meaning the matter newly begun between him and good Queen Katherine;) 'then shall his

The pope improved the time wasted by his legates in playing with Henry's case in London, by patching up a league of friendship, so called, with the faithless Charles V.; and was prepared, at the close of the legates' farce, to take the whole matter out of his agents' hands and forbid them from further hearing the cause. Herbert tells us, that when Campeggio, on his return to Rome, represented to the pope the great danger into which his course had drawn Cardinal Wolsey, he gave no special heed to the matter, seeming to care for nothing so much as the conserving of his late league with the emperor; and further, suggests that the pope secretly hated Wolsey, and was not particularly troubled to have him brought down.*

Soon after the dissolution of the legatine court, a new direction was given to the king's thoughts, and an essential modification to all his operations, by the casual suggestion of Dr. Cranmer, after

Cav

conscience declare whether I have offended him or no.' endish's Life of Cardinal Wolsey, pp. 387, 388. On another occasion, Wolsey said to the Earl of Shrewsbury: "My lord, there is no man alive or dead that looketh in this face of mine, is able to accuse me of any disloyalty towards the king." Cavendish, p. 363. The story of Wolsey's fall begins page 246.

Turner says: " It was discovered that he [Wolsey] was forming conspiracies against the government, both in England and with Rome."— Hist. Henry VIII., vol. 11. p. 297. Turner's authorities for this statement seem to me, however, to go no further than that the cardinal was accused of such conspiracies. But it is one thing to accuse a man of crimes, and quite another to prove those accusations.

* Life of Henry VIII., p. 289.

wards the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury. This learned and good man, happening to fall into conversation with two gentlemen, Gardiner and Fox, who were about the king's person, in answer to an inquiry respecting his notion of the divorce, declined giving an opinion on the question itself, but suggested that the shortest and best way to clear the matter would be to ascertain the opinions of learned men on the questions, whether, by the Word of God, the marriage was in itself lawful? and if unlawful, whether the pope could dispense with the law of God? He suggested, that, if the learned men and the universities of Christendom should decide as he evidently thought they would that it was contrary to the law of God for a man to marry his deceased brother's wife; and that no pope had power to sanction what the law of God forbade; then must the pope of necessity give judgment in favor of the king. The conversation being reported to the king, he was immediately struck with Cranmer's suggestions, and declaring that "he had the sow by the right ear at last, ordered him to court, adopted his proposal, and sent at once to the learned divines and canonists and universities of Europe for their opinions on the two questions:- 1. Whether it was agreeable to the law of God for a man to marry his brother's wife? and 2. Whether the pope could dispense with the law of God?

The year 1529, already made memorable by the explosion of the legates' mock court, the fall of