a lord of the Church should be so housed.'

Henry eyed him sardonically.

'Sir,' he said, 'I am being brought round to think that ye are only a
false lord of the Church. And I am minded to think that ye are being
brought round to trow even the like to mine own self.'

His eyes rested, little and twinkling like a pig's, upon the opening of
the Archbishop's cloak above his breastbone, and the Archbishop's right
hand nervously sought that spot.

'I was always of the thought,' he said, 'that the prohibition of the
wearing of crucifixes was against your Highness' will and the teachings
of the Church.'

A great crucifix of silver, the Man of Sorrows depending dolorously from
its arms and backed up by a plaque of silver so that it resembled a
porter's badge, depended over the black buttons of his undercoat. He had
put it on upon the day when secretly he had married Henry to the papist
Lady Katharine Howard. On the same day he had put on a hair shirt, and
he had never since removed either the one or the other. He had known
very well that this news would reach the Queen's ears, as also that he
had fasted thrice weekly and had taken a Benedictine sub-prior out of
chains in the tower to be his second chaplain.

'Holy Church! Holy Church!' the King muttered amusedly into the stiff
hair of his chin and lips. The Archbishop was driven into one of his
fits of panic-stricken boldness.

'Your Grace,' he said, 'if ye write a letter to Rome you will--for I see
not how ye may avoid it--reverse all your acts of this last twenty
years.'

'Your Grace,' the King mocked him, 'by your setting on of chains,
crucifixes, phylacteries, and by your aping of monkish ways, ye have
reversed--well ye know it--all my and thy acts of a long time gone.'

He cast himself back from the table into the leathern shoulder-straps of
the chair.

'And if,' he continued with sardonic good-humour, 'my fellow and servant
may reverse my acts--videlicet, the King's--wherefore shall not
I--videlicet, the King--reverse what acts I will? It is to set me below
my servants!'

'I am minded to redd up my house!' he repeated after a moment.

'Please it, your Grace----' the Archbishop muttered. His eyes were upon
the door.

The King said, 'Anan?' He could not turn his bulky head, he would not
move his bulky body.

'My gentleman!' the Archbishop whispered.

The King looked at the opposite wall and cried out--

'Come in, Lascelles. I am about cleaning out some