bine's" chagrin; but the Princess Mary and her friends in the
conspiracy were suspicious and jealous even of the bow that had been
exchanged under such adverse circumstances in the chapel. Anne at dinner
coarsely abused the King of France, and strove her utmost to lead people
to think that she, too, was hand in glove with the imperialists, as her
enemies were, whilst Henry was graciousness itself to Chapuys, until he
came to close quarters and heard that the Emperor was determined to drive
a hard bargain, and force his English uncle to eat a large piece of humble
pie before he could be taken to his bosom again. Then Henry hectored and
vaunted like the bully that he was, and upon Cromwell fell his ill humour,
for having, as Henry thought, been too pliant with the imperialists; and
for the next week Cromwell was ill and in disgrace.

Submission to the Pope to the extent that Charles demanded was almost
impossible now, both in consequence of Henry's own vanity, and because the
vast revenues and estates of the monasteries had in many cases replenished
the King's exchequer, or had endowed his nobles and favourites, Catholics
though many of them were. A surrender of these estates and revenues would
have been resisted, even if such had been possible, to the death, by those
who had profited by the spoliation; and unless the Pope and the Emperor
were willing to forget much, the hope of reconciling England with the
Church was an impossible dream.[146] The great nobles who had battened
upon the spoils, especially Norfolk, themselves took fright at the
Emperor's uncompromising demands, and tried to play off France against
Charles, during Cromwell's short disgrace. The Secretary saw that if the
friends of France once more obtained the control over Henry's fickle mind,
the revolutionary section of the Catholic party in favour of Mary and the
imperial connection would carry all before them, and that in the flood of
change Cromwell and all his works would certainly be swept away. If Anne
could be got rid of, and the King married to Mistress Seymour, jointly
with the adoption of a moderate policy of compromise with Rome and the
Emperor, all might be well, and Cromwell might retain the helm, but either
an uncompromising persistence in the open Protestant defiance with
probably a French alliance against the Emperor, or, on the other hand, an
armed Catholic revolution in England, subsidised from Flanders, would have
been inevitable ruin to C