'Fooled! Fooled! Fooled! You two and I. For who of your friends the
French shall ever believe again word that you utter. And all your goods
and lands this Queen will have for the Church, so that she may have
utter power with a parcel of new shavelings, that will not withstand
her. So all the land will come in to her leash.... We are fooled and
ruined, ye and I alike.'
'Well, we know this,' the Duke's voice said distastefully. 'You have no
need to rehearse griefs that too well we feel. There is no lord, either
of our part or of the other, that would not have her down.'
'But what will ye do?' Gardiner said.
'Nothing may we do!' the voice of Wriothesley with its dismal terror
came to their ears. 'The King is too firmly her Highness's man.'
'Her "Highness,"' the Bishop mocked him with a bitter scorn. 'I believe
you would yet curry favour with this Queen of straw.'
'It is a man's province to be favourable in the eyes of his Prince,' the
buried voice came again. 'If I could win her favour I would. But well ye
know there is no way.'
'Ye ha' mingled too much with Lutheran swine,' the Bishop said. 'Now it
is too late for you.'
'So it is,' Wriothesley said. 'I think you, Bishop, would have done it
too had you been able to make your account of it.'
The Bishop snarled invisibly.
But the voice of Norfolk came malignantly upon them.
'This is all of a piece with your silly schemings. Did I come here to
hear ye wrangle? It is peril enow to come here. What will ye do?'
'I will make a pact with him of the other side?' the Bishop said.
'Misery!' the Duke said; 'did I come here to hear this madness? You and
Cranmer have sought each other's heads this ten years. Will you seek his
aid now? What may he do? He is as rotten a reed as thou or Wriothesley.'