UNWELCOME PREFERMENT
“I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now
To be thy lord and master. Seek the king!
That sun I pray may never set.”
Shakespeare.
Matters flowed on peaceably with Stephen and Dennet. The alderman saw
no reason to repent his decision, hastily as it had been made. Stephen
gave himself no unseemly airs of presumption, but worked on as one
whose heart was in the business, and Dennet rewarded her father’s trust
by her discretion.
They were happily married in the summer of 1522, as soon as Stephen’s
apprenticeship was over; and from that time, he was in the position of
the master’s son, with more and more devolving on him as Tibble became
increasingly rheumatic every winter, and the alderman himself grew in
flesh and in distaste to exertion.
Ambrose meanwhile prospered with his master, and could easily have
obtained some office in the law courts that would have enabled him to
make a home of his own; but if he had the least inclination to the love
of women, it was all merged in a silent distant worship of “sweet pale
Margaret, rare pale Margaret,” the like-minded daughter of Sir Thomas
More—an affection which was so entirely devotion at a shrine, that it
suffered no shock when Sir Thomas at length consented to his daughter’s
marriage with William Roper.
Ambrose was the only person who ever received any communication from
Giles Headley. They were few and far between, but when Stephen Gardiner
returned from his embassy to Pope Clement VII., who was then at
Orvieto, one of the suite reported to Ambrose how astonished he had
been by being accosted in good English by one of the imperial
men-at-arms, who were guarding his Holiness in actual though
unconfessed captivity. This person had sent his commendations to
Ambrose, and likewise a laborious bit of writing, which looked as if he
were fast forgetting the art. It bade Ambrose inform his mother and all
his friends and kin that he was well and coming to preferment, and
inclosed for Aldonza a small mother-of-pearl cross blessed by the Pope.
Giles added that he should bring her finer gifts by and by.
Seven years’ constancy! It gave quite a respectability to Giles’s love,
and Aldonza was still ready and patient while waiting in attendance on
her beloved mistress.
Ambrose lived on in the colony at Chelsea, sometimes attending his
master, especially on diplomatic missions, and generally acting as
librarian and foreign secretary, and obtaining some notice from Erasmus
on the great scholar’s visit to Chelsea. Under such guidance, Ambrose’s
opinions had settled down a good deal; and he was a disappointment to
Tibble, whose views advanced proportionably as he worked less, and read
and thought more. He so bitterly resented and deplored the burning of
Tindal’s Bible that there was constant fear that he might bring on
himself the same fate, especially as he treasured his own copy and
studied it constantly. The reform that Wolsey had intended to effect
when he obtained the legatine authority seemed to fall into the
background among political interests, and his efforts had as yet no
result save the suppression of some useless and ill-managed small
religious houses to endow his magnificent project of York College at
Oxford, with a feeder at Ipswich, his native town.
He was waiting to obtain the papacy, when he would deal better with the
abuses. Randall once asked him if he were not waiting to be King of
Heaven, when he could make root and branch work at once. Hal had never
so nearly incurred a flogging!
And in the meantime another influence was at work, an influence only
heard of at first in whispered jests, which made loyal-hearted Dennet
blush and look indignant, but which soon grew to sad earnest, as she
could not but avow, when she beheld the stately pomp of the two
Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio, sweep up to the Blackfriars Convent to
sit in judgment on the marriage of poor Queen Katharine.
“Out on them!” she said. “So many learned men to set their wits against
one poor woman!” And she heartily rejoiced when they came to no
decision, and the Pope was appealed to. As to understanding all the
explanations that Ambrose brought from time to time, she called them
quirks and quiddities, and left them to her father and Tibble to
discuss in their chimney corners.
They had seen nothing of the jester for a good while, for he was with
Wolsey, who was attending the King on a progress through the midland
shires. When the Cardinal returned to open the law courts as Chancellor
at the beginning of the autumn term, still Randall kept away from home,
perhaps because he had forebodings that he could not bear to mention.
On the evening of that very day, London rang with the tidings that the
Great Seal had been taken from the Cardinal, and that he was under
orders to yield up his noble mansion of York House and to retire to
Esher; nay, it was reported that he was to be imprisoned in the Tower,
and the next day the Thames was crowded with more than a thousand boats
filled with people, expecting to see him landed at the Traitors’ Gate,
and much disappointed when his barge turned towards Putney.
In the afternoon, Ambrose came to the Dragon court. Even as Stephen
figured now as a handsome prosperous young freeman of the City, Ambrose
looked well in the sober black apparel and neat ruff of a lawyer’s
clerk—clerk indeed to the first lawyer in the kingdom, for the news had
spread before him that Sir Thomas More had become Lord Chancellor.
“Thou art come to bear us word of thy promotion—for thy master’s is
thine own,” said the alderman heartily as he entered, shaking hands
with him. “Never was the Great Seal in better hands.”
“’Tis true indeed, your worship,” said Ambrose, “though it will lay a
heavy charge on him, and divert him from much that he loveth better
still. I came to ask of my sister Dennet a supper and a bed for the
night, as I have been on business for him, and can scarce get back to
Chelsea.”
“And welcome,” said Dennet. “Little Giles and Bess have been wearying
for their uncle.”
“I must not toy with them yet,” said Ambrose, “I have a message for my
aunt. Brother, wilt thou walk down to the Temple with me before
supper?”
“Yea, and how is it with Master Randall?” asked Dennet. “Be he gone
with my Lord Cardinal?”
“He is made over to the King,” said Ambrose briefly. “’Tis that which I
must tell his wife.”
“Have with thee, then,” said Stephen, linking his arm into that of his
brother, for to be together was still as great an enjoyment to them as
in Forest days. And on the way, Ambrose told what he had not been
willing to utter in full assembly in the hall. He had been sent by his
master with a letter of condolence to the fallen Cardinal, and likewise
of inquiry into some necessary business connected with the
chancellorship. Wolsey had not time to answer before embarking, but as
Sir Thomas had vouched for the messenger’s ability and trustiness, he
had bidden Ambrose come into his barge, and receive his instructions.
Thus Ambrose had landed with him, just as a messenger came riding in
haste from the King, with a kind greeting, assuring his old friend that
his seeming disgrace was only for a time, and for political reasons,
and sending him a ring in token thereof. The Cardinal had fallen on his
knees to receive the message, had snatched a gold chain and precious
relic from his own neck to reward the messenger, and then, casting
about for some gift for the King, “by ill luck,” said Ambrose, “his eye
lit upon our uncle, and he instantly declared that he would bestow
Patch, as the Court chooses to call him, on the King. Well, as thou
canst guess, Hal is hotly wroth at the treatment of his lord, whom he
truly loveth; and he flung himself before the Cardinal, and besought
that he might not be sent from his good lord. But the Cardinal was only
chafed at aught that gainsaid him; and all he did was to say he would
have no more ado, he had made his gift. ‘Get thee gone,’ he said, as if
he had been ordering off a horse or dog. Well-a-day! it was hard to
brook the sight, and Hal’s blood was up. He flatly refused to go,
saying he was the Cardinal’s servant, but no villain nor serf to be
thus made over without his own will.”
“He was in the right there,” returned Stephen, hotly.
“Yea, save that by playing the fool, poor fellow, he hath yielded up
the rights of a wise man. Any way, all he gat by it was that the
Cardinal bade two of the yeomen lay hands on him and bear him off. Then
there came on him that reckless mood, which, I trow, banished him long
ago from the Forest, and brought him to the motley. He fought with them
with all his force, and broke away once—as if that were of any use for
a man in motley!—but he was bound at last, and borne off by six of them
to Windsor!”
“And thou stoodst by, and beheld it!” cried Stephen.
“Nay, what could I have done, save to make his plight worse, and
forfeit all chance of yet speaking to him?”
“Thou wert ever cool! I wot that I could not have borne it,” said
Stephen.
They told the story to Perronel, who was on the whole elated by her
husband’s promotion, declaring that the King loved him well, and that
he would soon come to his senses, though for a wise man, he certainly
had too much of the fool, even as he had too much of the wise man for
the fool.
She became anxious, however, as the weeks passed by without hearing of
or from him, and at length Ambrose confessed his uneasiness to his kind
master, and obtained leave to attend him on the next summons to
Windsor.
Ambrose could not find his uncle at first. Randall, who used to pervade
York House, and turn up everywhere when least expected, did not appear
among the superior serving-men and secretaries with whom his nephew
ranked, and of course there was no access to the state apartments. Sir
Thomas, however, told Ambrose that he had seen Quipsome Hal among the
other jesters, but that he seemed dull and dejected. Then Ambrose
beheld from a window a cruel sight, for the other fools, three in
number, were surrounding Hal, baiting and teasing him, triumphing over
him in fact, for having formerly outshone them, while he stood among
them like a big dog worried by little curs, against whom he disdained
to use his strength. Ambrose, unable to bear this, ran down stairs to
endeavour to interfere; but before he could find his way to the spot,
an arrival at the gate had attracted the tormentors, and Ambrose found
his uncle leaning against the wall alone. He looked thin and wan, the
light was gone out of his black eyes, and his countenance was in sad
contrast to his gay and absurd attire. He scarcely cheered up when his
nephew spoke to him, though he was glad to hear of Perronel. He said he
knew not when he should see her again, for he had been unable to secure
his suit of ordinary garments, so that even if the King came to London,
or if he could elude the other fools, he could not get out to visit
her. He was no better than a prisoner here, he only marvelled that the
King retained so wretched a jester, with so heavy a heart.
“Once thou wast in favour,” said Ambrose. “Methought thou couldst have
availed thyself of it to speak for the Lord Cardinal.”
“What? A senseless cur whom he kicked from him,” said Randall. “’Twas
that took all spirit from me, boy. I, who thought he loved me, as I
love him to this day. To send me to be sport for his foes! I think of
it day and night, and I’ve not a gibe left under my belt!”
“Nay,” said Ambrose, “it may have been that the Cardinal hoped to
secure a true friend at the King’s ear, as well as to provide for
thee.”
“Had he but said so—”
“Nay, perchance he trusted to thy sharp wit.”
A gleam came into Hal’s eyes. “It might be so. Thou always wast a
toward lad, Ambrose, and if so, I was cur and fool indeed to baulk
him.”
Therewith one of the other fools danced back exhibiting a silver crown
that had just been flung to him, mopping and mowing, and demanding when
Patch would have wit to gain the like. Whereto Hal replied by pointing
to Ambrose and declaring that that gentleman had given him better than
fifty crowns. And that night, Sir Thomas told Ambrose that the Quipsome
one had recovered himself, had been more brilliant than ever and had
quite eclipsed the other fools.
On the next opportunity, Ambrose contrived to pack in his cloak-bag,
the cap and loose garment in which his uncle was wont to cover his
motley. The Court was still at Windsor; but nearly the whole of Sir
Thomas’s stay elapsed without Ambrose being able to find his uncle.
Wolsey had been very ill, and the King had relented enough to send his
own physician to attend him. Ambrose began to wonder if Hal could have
found any plea for rejoining his old master; but in the last hour of
his stay, he found Hal curled up listlessly on a window seat of a
gallery, his head resting on his hand.
“Uncle, good uncle! At last! Thou art sick?”
“Sick at heart, lad,” said Hal, looking up. “Yea, I took thy counsel. I
plucked up a spirit, I made Harry laugh as of old, though my heart
smote me, as I thought how he was wont to be answered by my master. I
even brooked to jest with the night-crow, as my own poor lord called
this Nan Boleyn. And lo you now, when his Grace was touched at my
lord’s sickness, I durst say there was one sure elixir for such as he,
to wit a gold Harry; and that a King’s touch was a sovereign cure for
other disorders than the King’s evil. Harry smiled, and in ten minutes
more would have taken horse for Esher, had not Madam Nan claimed his
word to ride out hawking with her. And next, she sendeth me a warning
by one of her pert maids, that I should be whipped, if I spoke to his
Grace of unfitting matters. My flesh could brook no more, and like a
born natural, I made answer that Nan Boleyn was no mistress of mine to
bid me hold a tongue that had spoken sooth to her betters. Thereupon,
what think you, boy? The grooms came and soundly flogged me for
uncomely speech of my Lady Anne! I that was eighteen years with my Lord
Cardinal, and none laid hand on me! Yea, I was beaten; and then shut up
in a dog-hole for three days on bread and water, with none to speak to,
but the other fools jeering at me like a rogue in a pillory.”
Ambrose could hardly speak for hot grief and indignation, but he wrung
his uncle’s hand, and whispered that he had hid the loose gown behind
the arras of his chamber, but he could do no more, for he was summoned
to attend his master, and a servant further thrust in to say, “Concern
yourself not for that rogue, sir, he hath been saucy, and must mend his
manners, or he will have worse.”
“Away, kind sir,” said Hal, “you can do the poor fool no further good!
but only bring the pack about the ears of the mangy hound.” And he sang
a stave appropriated by a greater man than he—
“Then let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play.”
The only hope that Ambrose or his good master could devise for poor
Randall was that Sir Thomas should watch his opportunity and beg the
fool from the King, who might part with him as a child gives away the
once coveted toy that has failed in its hands; but the request would
need circumspection, for all had already felt the change that had taken
place in the temper of the King since Henry had resolutely undertaken
that the wrong should be the right; and Ambrose could not but dread the
effect of desperation on a man whose nature had in it a vein of
impatient recklessness.
It was after dinner, and Dennet, with her little boy and girl, was on
the steps dispensing the salt fish, broken bread, and pottage of the
Lenten meal to the daily troop who came for her alms, when, among them,
she saw, somewhat to her alarm, a gipsy man, who was talking to little
Giles. The boy, a stout fellow of six, was astride on the balustrade,
looking up eagerly into the face of the man, who began imitating the
note of a blackbird. Dennet, remembering the evil propensities of the
gipsy race, called hastily to her little son to come down and return to
her side; but little Giles was unwilling to move, and called to her, “O
mother, come! He hath a bird-call!” In some perturbation lest the man
might be calling her bird away, Dennet descended the steps. She was
about to utter a sharp rebuke, but Giles held out his hand imploringly,
and she paused a moment to hear the sweet full note of the “ouzel cock,
with orange tawny bill” closely imitated on a tiny bone whistle. “He
will sell it to me for two farthings,” cried the boy, “and teach me to
sing on it like all the birds—”
“Yea, good mistress,” said the gipsy, “I can whistle a tune that the
little master, ay, and others, might be fain to hear.”
Therewith, spite of the wild dress, Dennet knew the eyes and the voice.
And perhaps the blackbird’s note had awakened echoes in another mind,
for she saw Stephen, in his working dress, come out to the door of the
shop where he continued to do all the finer work which had formerly
fallen to Tibble’s share.
She lifted her boy from his perch, and bade him take the stranger to
his father, who would no doubt give him the whistle. And thus, having
without exciting attention, separated the fugitive from the rest of her
pensioners, she made haste to dismiss them.
She was not surprised that little Giles came running back to her,
producing unearthly notes on the instrument, and telling her that
father had taken the gipsy into his workshop, and said they would teach
him bird’s songs by and by.
“Steve, Steve,” had been the first words uttered when the boy was out
of hearing, “hast thou a smith’s apron and plenty of smut to bestow on
me? None can tell what Harry’s mood may be, when he finds I’ve given
him the slip. That is the reason I durst not go to my poor dame.”
“We will send to let her know. I thought I guessed what black ouzel
’twas! I mind how thou didst make the like notes for us when we were no
bigger than my Giles!”
“Thou hast a kind heart, Stephen. Here! Is thy furnace hot enough to
make a speedy end of this same greasy gipsy doublet? I trust not the
varlet with whom I bartered it for my motley. And a fine bargain he had
of what I trust never to wear again to the end of my days. Make me a
smith complete, Stephen, and then will I tell thee my story.”
“We must call Kit into counsel, ere we can do that fully,” said
Stephen.
In a few minutes Hal Randall was, to all appearance, a very shabby and
grimy smith, and then he took breath to explain his anxiety and alarm.
Once again, hearing that the Cardinal was to be exiled to York, he had
ventured on a sorry jest about old friends and old wine being better
than new; but the King, who had once been open to plain speaking, was
now incensed, threatened and swore at him! Moreover, one of the other
fools had told him, in the way of boasting, that he had heard Master
Cromwell, formerly the Cardinal’s secretary, informing the King that
this rogue was no true “natural” at all, but was blessed (or cursed)
with as good an understanding as other folks, as was well known in the
Cardinal’s household, and that he had no doubt been sent to serve as a
spy, so that he was to be esteemed a dangerous person, and had best be
put under ward.
Hal had not been able to discover whether Cromwell had communicated his
name, but he suspected that it might be known to that acute person, and
he could not tell whether his compeer spoke out of a sort of
good-natured desire to warn him, or simply to triumph in his disgrace,
and leer at him for being an impostor. At any rate, being now
desperate, he covered his parti-coloured raiment with the gown Ambrose
had brought, made a perilous descent from a window in the twilight,
scaled a wall with the agility that seemed to have returned to him, and
reached Windsor Forest.
There, falling on a camp of gipsies, he had availed himself of old
experiences in his wild Shirley days, and had obtained an exchange of
garb, his handsome motley being really a prize to the wanderers. Thus
he had been able to reach London; but he did not feel any confidence
that if he were pursued to the gipsy tent he would not be betrayed.
In this, his sagacity was not at fault, for he had scarcely made his
explanation, when there was a knocking at the outer gate, and a demand
to enter in the name of the King, and to see Alderman Sir Giles
Headley. Several of the stout figures of the yeomen of the King’s guard
were seen crossing the court, and Stephen, committing the charge of his
uncle to Kit, threw off his apron, washed his face and went up to the
hall, not very rapidly, for he suspected that since his father-in-law
knew nothing of the arrival, he would best baffle the inquiries by
sincere denials.
And Dennet, with her sharp woman’s wit, scenting danger, had whisked
herself and her children out of the hall at the first moment, and taken
them down to the kitchen, where modelling with a batch of dough
occupied both of them.
Meantime the alderman flatly denied the presence of the jester, or the
harbouring of the gipsy. He allowed that the jester was of kin to his
son-in-law, but the good man averred in all honesty that he knew nought
of any escape, and was absolutely certain that no such person was in
the court. Then, as Stephen entered, doffing his cap to the King’s
officer, the alderman continued, “There, fair son, this is what these
gentlemen have come about. Thy kinsman, it seemeth, hath fled from
Windsor, and his Grace is mightily incensed. They say he changed
clothes with a gipsy, and was traced hither this morn, but I have told
them the thing is impossible.”
“Will the gentlemen search?” asked Stephen. The gentlemen did search,
but they only saw the smiths in full work; and in Smallbones’ forge,
there was a roaring glowing furnace, with a bare-armed fellow feeding
it with coals, so that it fairly scorched them, and gave them double
relish for the good wine and beer that was put out on the table to do
honour to them.
Stephen had just with all civility seen them off the premises when
Perronel came sobbing into the court. They had visited her first, for
Cromwell had evidently known of Randall’s haunts; they had turned her
little house upside down, and had threatened her hotly in case she
harboured a disloyal spy, who deserved hanging. She came to consult
Stephen, for the notion of her husband wandering about, as a sort of
outlaw, was almost as terrible as the threat of his being hanged.
Stephen beckoned her to a store-room full of gaunt figures of armour
upon blocks, and there brought up to her his extremely grimy new hand!
There was much gladness between them, but the future had to be
considered. Perronel had a little hoard, the amount of which she was
too shrewd to name to any one, even her husband, but she considered it
sufficient to enable him to fulfil the cherished scheme of his life, of
retiring to some small farm near his old home, and she was for setting
off at once. But Harry Randall declared that he could not go without
having offered his services to his old master. He had heard of his
“good lord” as sick, sad, and deserted by those whom he had cherished,
and the faithful heart was so true in its loyalty that no persuasion
could prevail in making it turn south.
“Nay,” said the wife, “did he not cast thee off himself, and serve thee
like one of his dogs? How canst thou be bound to him?”
“There’s the rub!” sighed Hal. “He sent me to the King deeming that he
should have one full of faithful love to speak a word on his behalf,
and I, brutish oaf as I was, must needs take it amiss, and sulk and
mope till the occasion was past, and that viper Cromwell was there to
back up the woman Boleyn and poison his Grace’s ear.”
“As if a man must not have a spirit to be angered by such treatment.”
“Thou forgettest, good wife. No man, but a fool, and to be entreated as
such! Be that as it may, to York I must. I have eaten of my lord’s
bread too many years, and had too much kindness from him in the days of
his glory, to seek mine own ease now in his adversity. Thou wouldst
have a poor bargain of me when my heart is away.”
Perronel saw that thus it would be, and that this was one of the points
on which, to her mind, her husband was more than half a veritable fool
after all.
There had long been a promise that Stephen should, in some time of
slack employment, make a visit to his old comrade, Edmund Burgess, at
York; and as some new tools and patterns had to be conveyed thither, a
sudden resolution was come to, in family conclave, that Stephen himself
should convey them, taking his uncle with him as a serving-man, to
attend to the horses. The alderman gave full consent, he had always
wished Stephen to see York, while he himself, with Tibble Steelman, was
able to attend to the business; and while he pronounced Randall to have
a heart of gold, well worth guarding, he still was glad when the risk
was over of the King’s hearing that the runaway jester was harboured at
the Dragon. Dennet did not like the journey for her husband, for to her
mind it was perilous, but she had had a warm affection for his uncle
ever since their expedition to Richmond together, and she did her best
to reconcile the murmuring and wounded Perronel by praises of Randall,
a true and noble heart; and that as to setting her aside for the
Cardinal, who had heeded him so little, such faithfulness only made her
more secure of his true-heartedness towards her. Perronel was moreover
to break up her business, dispose of her house, and await her husband’s
return at the Dragon.
Stephen came back after a happy month with his friend, stored with
wondrous tales and descriptions which would last the children for a
month. He had seen his uncle present himself to the Cardinal at Cawood
Castle. It had been a touching meeting. Hal could hardly restrain his
tears when he saw how Wolsey’s sturdy form had wasted, and his round
ruddy cheeks had fallen away, while the attitude in which he sat in his
chair was listless and weary, though he fitfully exerted himself with
his old vigour.
Hal on his side, in the dark plain dress of a citizen, was hardly
recognisable, for not only had he likewise grown thinner, and his brown
cheeks more hollow, but his hair had become almost white during his
miserable weeks at Windsor, though he was not much over forty years
old.
He came up the last of a number who presented themselves for the
Archiepiscopal blessing, as Wolsey sat under a large tree in Cawood
Park. Wolsey gave it with his raised fingers, without special heed, but
therewith Hal threw himself on the ground, kissed his feet, and cried,
“My lord, my dear lord, your pardon.”
“What hast done, fellow? Speak!” said the Cardinal. “Grovel not thus.
We will be merciful.”
“Ah! my lord,” said Randall, lifting himself up, but with clasped hands
and tearful eyes, “I did not serve you as I ought with the King, but if
you will forgive me and take me back—”
“How now? How couldst thou serve me? What!”—as Hal made a familiar
gesture—“thou art not the poor fool; Quipsome Patch? How comest thou
here? Methought I had provided well for thee in making thee over to the
King.”
“Ah! my lord, I was fool, fool indeed, but all my jests failed me. How
could I make sport for your enemies?”
“And thou hast come, thou hast left the King to follow my fallen
fortunes?” said Wolsey. “My poor boy, he who is sitting in sackcloth
and ashes needs no jester.”
“Nay, my lord, nor can I find one jest to break! Would you but let me
be your meanest horse-boy, your scullion!” Hal’s voice was cut short by
tears as the Cardinal abandoned to him one hand. The other was drying
eyes that seldom wept.
“My faithful Hal!” he said, “this is love indeed!”
And Stephen ere he came away had seen his uncle fully established, as a
rational creature, and by his true name, as one of the personal
attendants on the Cardinal’s bed-chamber, and treated with the
affection he well deserved. Wolsey had really seemed cheered by his
affection, and was devoting himself to the care of his hitherto
neglected and even unvisited diocese, in a way that delighted the
hearts of the Yorkshiremen.
The first idea was that Perronel should join her husband at York, but
safe modes of travelling were not easy to be found, and before any
satisfactory escort offered, there were rumours that made it prudent to
delay. As autumn advanced, it was known that the Earl of Northumberland
had been sent to attach the Cardinal of High Treason. Then ensued other
reports that the great Cardinal had sunk and died on his way to London
for trial; and at last, one dark winter evening, a sorrowful man
stumbled up the steps of the Dragon, and as he came into the bright
light of the fire, and Perronel sprang to meet him, he sank into a
chair and wept aloud.
He had been one of those who had lifted the broken-hearted Wolsey from
his mule in the cloister of Leicester Abbey, he had carried him to his
bed, watched over him, and supported him, as the Abbot of Leicester
gave him the last Sacraments. He had heard and treasured up those
mournful words which are Wolsey’s chief legacy to the world, “Had I but
served my God, as I have served my king, He would not have forsaken me
in my old age.” For himself, he had the dying man’s blessing, and
assurance that nothing had so much availed to cheer in these sad hours
as his faithful love.
Now, Perronel might do what she would with him—he cared not.
And what she did was to set forth with him for Hampshire, on a pair of
stout mules with a strong serving-man behind them.